Do These Pixels Make Me Look Fat?

The camera may add ten pounds, but Photoshop can remove hundreds.

Perfection

I was lying in bed, thinking about what a bad IV start I am and I wondered, what if I were perfect? Then I thought, how horrible would that be? What a freak of nature would a perfectly perfect person be?

What if there were a perfect doctor? What if every decision he made were right? Then I right away thought, well, that presumes some kind of cosmic "rightness." What if there is none?

What is this perfection we presume? This perfection we imagine? It is not reality. It is not the universe we actually live in. Why is it that we imagine some other universe?

The concept of some kind of cosmic rightness is a very Christian one. The idea of a God who knows exactly what the "right" thing to do is and it is our job to try to act and think and make decisions in as close concordance as possible with the will of this God. That God is our cosmic measuring stick against which we always fall short.

But what if there is no cosmic measuring stick? Instead of saying, "We are not perfect," we should be saying, "This is perfection." However it is that we are is perfection because it is existence. It is extant and it is real.

Why then the ubiquitous dissatisfaction? From whence the sense that we ought to be other than we are? C.S. Lewis used this sense of moral rectitude, the lurking sense of cosmic rightness which we are not, to infer the existence of a God. He thought the difference between what we are and what we thought we ought to be reflected a subconscious knowledge of the existence of God, of moral perfection, of pure Good, of a way before the Fall, as they say. That this sense of lack was placed in us by God.

Why? What the discrepancy? To give us something to ever strive for? To give us a way to develop our consciousnesses? Or, as he posited, to give us a method for developing separate identities, individual consciousnesses.

Let's theorize otherwise. Hypothesize that it is not the Cosmos that want us to be perfect, not God that wants us to be perfect, but we ourselves who want this. It's a sort of selfishness, a sort of solipsism, a sort of projection of our own desires onto the Cosmos. I.e., I want to be pain-free and well-fed, therefore everyone on Earth should be pain-free and well-fed and the fact that they are not means there's something wrong with the world. I want to be healthy and beautiful, therefore everyone should be healthy and beautiful and the fact that they are not means there's something wrong with the world. I think polar bears and rainforests are cool, therefore polar bears and rainforests should exist forever and the fact that they are disappearing means there's something horribly wrong with the world and we have to change it absolutely. I want to live forever and never change form and never not exist, therefore everyone should live as long as possible and we should do everything in our power to keep people living and not ever make death come sooner or surrender in any way to the impending inevitability of death. We must struggle against it always.

Don't Call the SPCA on Me

I have this theory that I can wash dishes in the washing machine. I mean, maybe not the stemware or the fine china, but the tupperware at least should be fine.

Really, you should be able to wash anything in the washing machine. That's why it's called a "washing machine." Not a "clothes-washing machine," or a "textile-washing machine." Just a washing machine. If it needs washed, put it in the machine.

90% of getting things clean is hot water, anyway. Let the Brownian motion do the work. How's that for better living through physics?

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

In the vitamin aisle of our local co-op is a supplement made from blue-green algae called BrainON, which purports to enhance one's mental acuity and function.

A few aisles over is a much more popular supplement made from plant matter and fungi which ought to be called BrainOFF, and which is scientifically proven to do just the opposite.

Child Labor Laws Have Ruined this Country

I let the neighbor girls wash my car today. They came to my door with their little business proposal, and I said yes.

They didn't do a very good job, but it was only 5 bucks* and it's rare that one gets to enjoy both supporting child labor and paying someone less than minimum wage.


*I gave them $6, actually, so they could easily split it evenly between the three of them. So perhaps I did pay them minimum wage after all, if they worked for 15 minutes or less. I wasn't really keeping track.

Not Just Moving the Stickers Around

My husband, who can solve the Rubik's Cube, noted that you can tell by the Cube sitting on the shelf whether there's someone in the house who can solve it or not. If there isn't, the Cube will sit in perpetual chaos. In contrast, if there is someone in the household who can solve the Cube, they invariably find that disarray unbearable and thus the Cube in such a house will always be found with its sides six uninterrupted solids.

The results of my repeated experiments, albeit on a very small sample of solvers, have shown this to be true; the unsolved Cube is something the solver can tolerate for no more than a few hours.

Gifted Actors

We are, most of us, acting all the time. Socially, so much of what we say and do and how we say and do it is false and contrived. This is by no means a bad thing. This is what allows most social transactions to go smoothly and uneventfully.

Some are better at this acting than others.

What does it mean to be a good actor?

It means that one's will dictates the emotions one shows. Feelings do not have to actually be felt to be expressed; they can be chosen. Actions, expressions, inflections that are considered to be unintentional are, for the natural actor, all quite intentional. And the actor can be left wondering what of what they say and do is genuine and what isn't.