John Myles White: Die Sudelbücher

Freedom begins with the faith that our lives do not have to be the way they are now. Perhaps that is even the entirety of freedom — a state of mind, rather than a state of being.

I just received an e-mail from the Personal Genome Project. They are finally ready to expand to a larger number of volunteers. I hope I’ll be among the next set of volunteers accepted into the program. Anyone interested in volunteering themselves should go to the Personal Genome Project website and register.

We are much better off if the proverb, “to understand all is to forgive all,” is not true for us. Insofar as it is true, we are likely to try to insure that we do not understand — because we know full well that we do not want to forgive.

Once again, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the generations of mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away.¹

1. Homer : The Iliad : Book VI : Samuel Butler Translation↩

People often act as if disgust and surprise were intrinsically linked, but there is no reason why familiar vices should trouble us less than unfamiliar ones. At least the unfamiliar have the charm of novelty in their favor.

Since I posted a little while ago about the recent PLoS One article on chimpanzee prostitution, I thought that I should show that I am no speciesist by reminding us all that human prostitution is alive in just those forms we see among the chimpanzees. These two articles I read today should serve as case studies in the inability of humans to love sanely.

• Keeping Up with Being Kept
• A Foreign Affair: On the Great Ukrainian Bride Hunt

Riding the PATH this morning on my early morning commute back to Princeton, I saw this sign from a new Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey campaign to maintain our current drinking age. While I am as drug-free as they come and no fan of alcohol, the sign struck me as classic, meaningless political rhetoric.

What I found remarkable about this sign was that all of the reasons put forth for maintaining our current age limit on drinking are plainly reasons for the total prohibition of alcohol — not reasons for the selective prohibition of alcohol based on age discrimination. To make their case, the PDNJ would need to demonstrate that the reduction in car accidents attributable to prohibiting the sale of alcohol to those under twenty-one is not in any way comparable to the reduction we would see after prohibiting the sale of alcohol to all Americans irrespective of age.

That said, clearly prohibition was more trouble than it was worth, so I think we need to ask: is prohibiting minors from drinking more trouble than its worth? Perhaps lowering the drinking limit is a good idea.

After all, there were certainly girls drinking at last night’s Dredg show that could not have been even eighteen, let alone twenty-one. Here, as in so many other places, needlessly restrictive laws lead to a society with no respect for laws.

Every time I open Gómez Dávila’s books, I fall in love with them just like I did the first time:

El católico debe simplificar su vida y complicar su pensamiento.¹

I’d apply this to everyone, not just Catholics.

Siempre es más fácil tener opiniones atrevidas que ser inteligente.²

1. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios sobre un texto implíciti : Tomo I↩
2. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios sobre un texto implíciti : Tomo I↩

Ambition and ruthlessness are so often found in the same persons that they are frequently confused, but, in truth, ruthlessness is generally a sign of personal weaknesses that impose natural limits on the fruition of one’s ambitions.

The man willing to do anything to get ahead generally can do nothing very well — and thus finds himself increasingly forced into pursuing criminality and vice as the means for fulfilling his ambitions. Yet plainly the Sergey Brin’s and Warren Buffett’s of American society confirm that it possible for talented people with scruples to be enormously successful.

I finally watched the video of Susan Boyle’s success on “Britain’s Got Talent” this morning. It is, indeed, an amazing performance. Plainly, this is as close as we get in real life to the fairy tale story of an overlooked woman with amazing skills finally being given the honors she deserves. I am quite excited to see how it all turns out for Boyle.

But, I must admit, equally fascinating to me during the video were the facial expressions and body language of the one female judge, Amanda Holden. I can’t help but think that the relationship between Simon Cowell and Amanda Holden reminds me of the conventional movie villain and his submissive lover — say, for instance, the relationship between Camille Montes and Dominic Greene in the most recent Bond film, “Quantum of Solace,” though the overlap is not perfect there.

I highly recommend watching the video: both to see Boyle’s performance — which is truly remarkable — and to wonder at the thoughts going through Holden’s head.