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

Perhaps we are all unvaxxed now

 "'It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.'  No, you should rather say: 'It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present, nor fearful of the future.'  Because such a thing could have happened to any man, but not every man could have borne it." - Marcus Aurelius

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

Random thoughts and doings between Thanksgiving and Christmas

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

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"