Category Archives: death

On ice cream

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Speaking of foods that no one needs, this must be the most delicious example of one. Creamy, sweet, cold, ice cream is pretty much universally liked by everyone who has ever eaten any. Even bad ice cream is still pretty good. I suppose fish-flavored ice cream might be a little creepy and weird, but I’ll bet it’s been tried–anchovy, anyone? My personal favorite, besides chocolate, is anything with lots of butter and pecans in it. Most people, especially when they need to punish themselves, can eat an entire vat of ice cream, regardless of what the consequences might be–obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lactose intolerance, and death, of course. Common sense just seems to go straight out the window when ice cream comes into picture, including metaphors that make sense. Ice cream is food exaggeration taken to the nth degree. Filled with copious amounts of pure animal fat and dangerous amounts of sugar, this frozen concoction is a slippery slope toward decadence and corruption. Only Dorian Gray could ever eat all the ice cream he ever wanted and, at the same time, ignore the consequences. We kid ourselves and lie to ourselves, willing to justify more ice cream with any excuse no matter how lame and stupid our reasons might be. You know, you think it’s worth it, those few minutes of pleasure while you eat that huge cone of yoghurt and lemon ice cream, but later you feel guilty and hateful because you know you did a bad thing to your body. This is, of course, the great paradox of eating ice cream, that you love the ephemeral moment as the ice cream passes over your tongue, but you despise yourself for ingesting another 800 calories that you never needed in the first place.

On ice cream

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Speaking of foods that no one needs, this must be the most delicious example of one. Creamy, sweet, cold, ice cream is pretty much universally liked by everyone who has ever eaten any. Even bad ice cream is still pretty good. I suppose fish-flavored ice cream might be a little creepy and weird, but I’ll bet it’s been tried–anchovy, anyone? My personal favorite, besides chocolate, is anything with lots of butter and pecans in it. Most people, especially when they need to punish themselves, can eat an entire vat of ice cream, regardless of what the consequences might be–obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lactose intolerance, and death, of course. Common sense just seems to go straight out the window when ice cream comes into picture, including metaphors that make sense. Ice cream is food exaggeration taken to the nth degree. Filled with copious amounts of pure animal fat and dangerous amounts of sugar, this frozen concoction is a slippery slope toward decadence and corruption. Only Dorian Gray could ever eat all the ice cream he ever wanted and, at the same time, ignore the consequences. We kid ourselves and lie to ourselves, willing to justify more ice cream with any excuse no matter how lame and stupid our reasons might be. You know, you think it’s worth it, those few minutes of pleasure while you eat that huge cone of yoghurt and lemon ice cream, but later you feel guilty and hateful because you know you did a bad thing to your body. This is, of course, the great paradox of eating ice cream, that you love the ephemeral moment as the ice cream passes over your tongue, but you despise yourself for ingesting another 800 calories that you never needed in the first place.

On endings

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Unlike beginnings, which are plenty scary by themselves, endings are often poignant and solitary. You drive off, you walk away from an airport, you get on a train or bus, you stroll down a street never to come back. A car door slams, you lock the door and turn away. It’s over. We have all been through our share of endings–a job, a school, a friendship, a life–so we all have our anecdotes about moving on, saying goodbye, and picking up the broken pieces so that we can start again. Endings make us wistful and nostalgic because we are not always sure that the new thing ahead of us is better than what is being left behind. We are plagued by our memories which torture us into remembering all of those great moments in the past when we were, at least for a moment, happy. The constant truth is that all things end, no matter how we feel about them. Change is, perhaps, the only constant in most of our lives. As a teacher, students come and students go, and that’s the way it’s always been. As an ex-pat in another country, my friends have come and gone many times, and now are scattered to the four corners of the world. It is hard to stay in touch, and even with different digital media sites, it is still difficult to maintain a real friendship from seven thousand miles away. And when old friends finally make their last trip, it is equally difficult to say goodbye, especially when you have known them for more than fifty years. Yet those fifty years are also a monument to that friendship which has had to endure a lot of stuff, not all good, much of it very good. Mortality is, in the end, about endings, and that is the way it must be–one of those rules nobody breaks.

On endings

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Unlike beginnings, which are plenty scary by themselves, endings are often poignant and solitary. You drive off, you walk away from an airport, you get on a train or bus, you stroll down a street never to come back. A car door slams, you lock the door and turn away. It’s over. We have all been through our share of endings–a job, a school, a friendship, a life–so we all have our anecdotes about moving on, saying goodbye, and picking up the broken pieces so that we can start again. Endings make us wistful and nostalgic because we are not always sure that the new thing ahead of us is better than what is being left behind. We are plagued by our memories which torture us into remembering all of those great moments in the past when we were, at least for a moment, happy. The constant truth is that all things end, no matter how we feel about them. Change is, perhaps, the only constant in most of our lives. As a teacher, students come and students go, and that’s the way it’s always been. As an ex-pat in another country, my friends have come and gone many times, and now are scattered to the four corners of the world. It is hard to stay in touch, and even with different digital media sites, it is still difficult to maintain a real friendship from seven thousand miles away. And when old friends finally make their last trip, it is equally difficult to say goodbye, especially when you have known them for more than fifty years. Yet those fifty years are also a monument to that friendship which has had to endure a lot of stuff, not all good, much of it very good. Mortality is, in the end, about endings, and that is the way it must be–one of those rules nobody breaks.

On panic

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Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On panic

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Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On Sleeper

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You know, Woody Allen’s movie, Sleeper (1973), would be funny if it weren’t so profectic. Today we are obsessed with our smart phones, tablets, and laptops to the extent that we would be helpless to do anything if the power went out. Woody awakes in a future world to find giant cooperations taking over the world, technology has disconnected people from nature, and robots have a human form, but they all have the same face. The heart of his satire lies with the juxtaposition of his skinny anti-hero, who takes silly to greater heights, and an advanced civilization whose technology has long since outstripped its feeble ethics and morals. Governments have turned into mechanized oligarchies, and primitive revolutionary groups roam the countryside, spouting anarchy and non-conformity. Technology has triumphed over the human form, and physical love can only be done in a machine. Yet, his satire seems almost innocent. He riffs on the dangers of too much technology, the alienating nature of technology, and the absurd inventions that are supposed to make life better. He also riffs on government, control, oppression, revolution, science, religion, sex, and institutional corruption. The visuals, the dialogues, the jokes play on a well-established cinematic traditions, satirizing a series of films from the late sixties and early seventies that deal with apocalyptic end-of-civilization scenarios. The film only takes itself (half) seriously when the main characters plot to steal the “great” leader’s nose–all that is left of him. “We’re here to see the nose. We hear it’s running.” Sleeper also riffs on Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey, and Woody gives viewers a strange cautionary satire on the dangers of computers and how their interests are completely disconnected from humanity at all. The movie, in all its absurd silliness, seriously discusses the dehumanization of people as technology creeps in on all sides. This seems to be a common motif in the 21st century.

On Sleeper

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You know, Woody Allen’s movie, Sleeper (1973), would be funny if it weren’t so profectic. Today we are obsessed with our smart phones, tablets, and laptops to the extent that we would be helpless to do anything if the power went out. Woody awakes in a future world to find giant cooperations taking over the world, technology has disconnected people from nature, and robots have a human form, but they all have the same face. The heart of his satire lies with the juxtaposition of his skinny anti-hero, who takes silly to greater heights, and an advanced civilization whose technology has long since outstripped its feeble ethics and morals. Governments have turned into mechanized oligarchies, and primitive revolutionary groups roam the countryside, spouting anarchy and non-conformity. Technology has triumphed over the human form, and physical love can only be done in a machine. Yet, his satire seems almost innocent. He riffs on the dangers of too much technology, the alienating nature of technology, and the absurd inventions that are supposed to make life better. He also riffs on government, control, oppression, revolution, science, religion, sex, and institutional corruption. The visuals, the dialogues, the jokes play on a well-established cinematic traditions, satirizing a series of films from the late sixties and early seventies that deal with apocalyptic end-of-civilization scenarios. The film only takes itself (half) seriously when the main characters plot to steal the “great” leader’s nose–all that is left of him. “We’re here to see the nose. We hear it’s running.” Sleeper also riffs on Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey, and Woody gives viewers a strange cautionary satire on the dangers of computers and how their interests are completely disconnected from humanity at all. The movie, in all its absurd silliness, seriously discusses the dehumanization of people as technology creeps in on all sides. This seems to be a common motif in the 21st century.

On Columbo

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Like most people, I was always sucked in by Columbo. His sense of justice was fairly absolute, and he would stick to the killer until he had it figured out. The show was not a whodunnit, but it did show how Columbo would put the pieces of the puzzle together. The killers were always so mundane, killing for all of the most superficial of reasons–money, love, jealousy, fame–so predictable. His secret weapon is not that he feigns stupidity, but that he lets his personal humility run his investigations, letting his egotistical suspects hang themselves by lying when he asked them questions. He solved most of the crimes by simply letting his suspects talk. In Spain we say that it is easier to catch a liar than a one-legged man. Perhaps Columbo was successful because he was tenacious, hard-working, thoughtful, and creative–he had to be able to think like a murderer. I often wondered that if he were real, how would all of that violence and murders affect his personal life. He didn’t have time for big shots or people who thought they were better than others. He rejected the lives of the rich and famous while taking great pleasure in a simple bowl of chili. He loved his wife, took care of his dog, and drove an old Peugeot. He never dabbled in the materialistic world of his suspects, perhaps because he understood the trap of uncontrolled materialism so well. By not desiring more than he ever had and taking pleasure in life’s simple things, he had enough perspective to understand why people fail so miserably at life and kill others. That he smoked those miserable cigars and annoyed people with his incessant questions is irrelevant, part of the “smoke” screen that would put his prey at ease, allowing him to work out the complex solutions for which he was so well-known.

On Columbo

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Like most people, I was always sucked in by Columbo. His sense of justice was fairly absolute, and he would stick to the killer until he had it figured out. The show was not a whodunnit, but it did show how Columbo would put the pieces of the puzzle together. The killers were always so mundane, killing for all of the most superficial of reasons–money, love, jealousy, fame–so predictable. His secret weapon is not that he feigns stupidity, but that he lets his personal humility run his investigations, letting his egotistical suspects hang themselves by lying when he asked them questions. He solved most of the crimes by simply letting his suspects talk. In Spain we say that it is easier to catch a liar than a one-legged man. Perhaps Columbo was successful because he was tenacious, hard-working, thoughtful, and creative–he had to be able to think like a murderer. I often wondered that if he were real, how would all of that violence and murders affect his personal life. He didn’t have time for big shots or people who thought they were better than others. He rejected the lives of the rich and famous while taking great pleasure in a simple bowl of chili. He loved his wife, took care of his dog, and drove an old Peugeot. He never dabbled in the materialistic world of his suspects, perhaps because he understood the trap of uncontrolled materialism so well. By not desiring more than he ever had and taking pleasure in life’s simple things, he had enough perspective to understand why people fail so miserably at life and kill others. That he smoked those miserable cigars and annoyed people with his incessant questions is irrelevant, part of the “smoke” screen that would put his prey at ease, allowing him to work out the complex solutions for which he was so well-known.