The difference

 "Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy.  Their continual attention to others' behavior shows how they are boring." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

OMG Omicron is making employees quit!

 "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.  Skillful captains gain their reputation from storms and tempests." - Epictetus

Intermittent posting for a while

 "Ambition means tying your well-being to what others say or do.  Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.  Sanity mans tying it to your own actions." - Marcus Aurelius

Criminality and Informed Consent

 "As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations to be induced to rise, but immediately shines and is saluted by all, so do you also not wait for clappings of hands and shouts of praise to be induced to do good, but be a doer of good voluntarily and you will be beloved as much as the sun." - Epictetus

Covid - Media still ignoring the lab leak hypothesis

"Since every man dies, it is better to die with distinction than to live long." - Gaius Musonius Rufus

"To vax, or not to vax, that is the question:"

 "The essence of philosophy (of stoicism) is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things." - Epictetus

Darwin Award nomination for 2021

 But first a quote from a noted Stoic!

It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself." - Epictetus

Some thoughts on the Covid vaccine - Updated

 "Know you not, that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of doing it right?" - Epictetus

Random thoughts and doings between Thanksgiving and Christmas

 "Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than his own soul." - Marcus Aurelius

Happy Thanksgiving

"Caretake this moment.  Immerse yourself in its particulars.  Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.  Quit evasions.  Stop giving yourself to needless trouble.  It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now." - Epictetus

(Warning: Philosophical and Grumpy Post)

Below: "Freedom from Want" by Norman Rockwell

Strange Times, Mental Challenges, and Staying Fit

 Another uncharacteristic philosophical post...

I don't really know how to go about writing this.  It's a little awkward blogging about current events and my own feelings about them, but here goes anyway.  

We are living through some strange and discomforting times - certainly like nothing I've ever experienced.  A new virus that apparently escaped from a laboratory is stalking and killing the elderly and immune-compromised, and randomly killing even healthy people.  Other people have decided that somehow it's now OK to throw Molotov cocktails at police.  An acrimonious presidential election is about to take place, with no way to ensure that ballots are honestly counted.  Whomever is declared the winner, the outcome will no doubt be bitterly contested - legally and in the streets.  It's entirely possible that armed skirmishes will take place either before or following the election. 

Navigating through a dark time

James Stockdale, on his 7 years as a POW of North Vietnam, in the "Hanoi Hilton".

Q: "Who didn't make it out?"

A: "Oh, that's easy.  The optimists"

Q: "The optimists?  I don't understand."

 A: "The optimists.  Oh, they were the ones who said, "We're going to be out by Christmas."  And Christmas would come and Christmas would go.  Then they'd say "We're going to be out by Easter." And Easter would come and Easter would go.  And then Thanksgiving and then it would be Christmas again.  And they died of a broken heart"

Long Philosophical Post

This is not my normal type of post.  I try to avoid social or political commentary, but I think unusual times deserve unusual responses.  As I write this post, we are at the beginning of a global pandemic that's keeping most of the world under a no-travel advisory, or "lock-down".

Below:  Playing chess with Death during the Black Plague - a scene from "The Seventh Seal"

Corona Virus - A Public Service Announcement

Apparently we have passed a time in this country where the US government is willing to give its citizens some straight talk about a public health issue.

For those who haven't seen what straight talk from the government looks like, or no longer remember, watch the video below.  Back then they understood that propaganda/spin wasn't going to fix an infectious outbreak.  In the video below, the US Surgeon General , C. Everett Koop, explains HIV/AIDS to the US on national TV.

Modern Infotainment provides either scaremongering, or viewing this viral pandemic through the lens of politics or economics.  This is not useful framing for Covid-19, which is a public health issue.  Infectious diseases don't care about politics or economies, nor about your wealth or your place in the hierarchy of human civilization.  So give that crap up for now, and try to make yourself safe.

I'd like to share a quick 15 minute video, where an expert in contagious diseases shares his thoughts with a guy who asks (mostly) decent questions.  Please watch and learn.  I guess this is the modern equivalent of the US Surgeon General going on TV. 

 

It's pathetic that Americans should have to scour the internet to locate a video on their own to gather decent information on what might prove to be a world-altering event.  It's more pathetic that it's a private citizen that has to provide the forum for this information.