I have exactly nothing to say tonight, dear reader.  Not there there isn’t a lot on my mind…I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t…and not that I don’t have a lot to say.  But there’s nothing I can really say if I plan on getting any sleep.

Anyway, I just thought I’d pop in and say hey.  So, hey.

N.P.: “The Shame of Life” – Butthole Surfers

Happy Diwali, dear reader.

It is not unusual for me to read multiple published, allegedly edited, and definitely paid-for articles every day with basic grammatical and usage errors so egregious as to keep them from passing my most basic ESL composition class.  Which is depressing, but not quite as depressing as the fact that no one apparently notices.  Editorial in-boxes are not being flooded with vociferous complaints demanding better.  Nobody gives a shit.  The errors that I read are the same I hear made constantly by the herd who have no natural ear for the music of the language and learned their bastardized verbal perversions from inordinately-assed Armenians on reality TV.  Reading the same errors in news articles confirms their erroneous notions of grammatical competence (of course I am giving the herd rather a lot of credit here, assuming they spend any part of their vapid days actually reading anything).  It’s enough to drive a linguistically sensitive guy like me to drink.  Incidentally, it’s about time for a new desk whiskey.  Jack Fire can be quite nice this time of year, with its icy nights.

N.P.: “Empty Room” – Prince

It warms my heart to hear of the violent death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  Fuck that guy.  May he burn eternally.

N.P.: “Get Your Body Beat” – Combichrist

What a ludicrously long day.  Started before 0500 and is still going strong.  Well, I don’t know how strong it is, but it’s certainly still going.

N.P.: “Strangletage” – Umphrey’s McGee

Interesting times, dear reader.  And busy…my god.  I suspect there are world leaders who are less pressed for time than I am these days.

Gotta write.  Gotta sleep.

N.P.: “Rowboat” – Johnny Cash

Travel day.

N.P.: “Älä pelkää (Atomirottaa) – Atomirotta

Well, shit, dear reader…took another big ass nap today.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  It might be late-onset narcolepsy.  The inappropriately high temperatures may have something to do with it.  Just disgusting.

I didn’t get a damn thing done today.  I guess I needed to rest, but it seems wasteful.  I’ve still got a little time to write.

N.P.: “Ashes to Ashes” – Faith No More

I took a big-ass nap and now I’m fussy.  Oddly and inappropriately awake for this hour of the night.  Probably pissing the neighbors with my music, but fuck them.  I dislike the neighbors.  I wish them ill.  I’m considering dynamiting their obsessively manicured lawn.

Well, since I’m so awake, I going to write.

N.P.: “Absolution” – Ghost

I got a lot of words down today, dear reader.  You would have been proud.
I wish it was snowing.  Or at least raining.  Or at least cold.  It’s time, dammit.

N.P.: “Many Thanks” – Dope Stars Inc.

You can’t talk about stoicism without talking about Amor Fati.  This is a classic Latin phrase meaning “the love of one’s fate.”  This means, basically, accepting and even embracing whatever outcomes life gives you.  Most of us desire or expect a certain outcome from the choices we make and the actions we take in pursuit of our goals.  This is perfectly normal.  Who isn’t disappointed and discouraged when things don’t turn out the way you wanted, the way you intended, the way you worked hard to achieve?  But the wisdom of Amor Fati tells us that this is wrong.  Things quite often don’t go our way.  Things simply don’t work out.  Robert Burns (may God bless his sweet, sweet soul) reminds us that, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”  We have free will, and there are something things that we control (at least to a degree), but the vast majority of factors and variables are well out of our control, and even our mildest influence.  So knowing that, why give a universe we know is prone to chaos such power over our emotions, over our happiness and contentment?

The Buddha tells us that such expectations of outcome not only consistently lead to disappointment, but are actually the main cause of all human suffering.  He calls it craving or desire.  We feel we deserve a happy life.  We make plans.  We plan to be happy.  But when things don’t turn out the way we wanted, we become unhappy.  We become resentful.  We feel we are somehow owed happiness or contentment from life.  And the fact that we are not getting it causes us to be discontent, to suffer.  As soon as we accept the tenet that “life is suffering,” we will accept our fate and be content with it.  Our eternal disappointment will end.

Nietzsche’s said, “My formula for greatness in a human being is Amor Fati.  That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.  Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it…but love it.”  He endorsed a belief called “eternal recurrence.” which is similar to the Buddhist concept of reincarnation.  Eternal recurrence was the belief that one should live one’s life in such a way that one could live the exact same life, down to the smallest details, repeatedly for all eternity.  When this concept was first explained to me in college in an evening undergrad class, I immediately gathered my things, stood up, and left.  I was told later that the professor just smiled and said, “He gets it.”  (This was the same professor who had a rather strict and vigorous policy on tardiness.  When I was 15 minutes late to one of his morning classes, he demanded an explanation.  I told him that when I’d gotten out of the shower, I’d turned the radio on, which was on the classical station, and as I was getting dressed, the 9th Symphony came on.  “I had to hear it through,” I said.  “You can’t possibly start the thing and not hear it through to the end.  What kind of person would I be if I could turn off the 9th in the middle of things, just walk out on Uncle Ludwig in his finest moment?”  My tardiness was excused.)

Some practitioners of Amor Fati ask of every major event in their lives, even the tragic ones (especially the tragic ones), “How can this be the best possible thing that could have happened to me?”  Most events you can’t control, but you can control how you react to events, and how you feel about them.  The point of Amor Fati and stoicism in general is that any event can be the best or worst thing that has ever happened to you, the disposition of the event is determined totally by your perception, reaction, and feeling about the event.

N.P.: “Sing Along” – Sturgill Simpson