Getting older

I can't believe how bad I felt exercising today. I felt like I had no power. The worst part is that I was overweight by at 148. That's not any worse than usual, but I've been cutting back somewhat, and I just felt so bad today... Now I'm faced with a serious choice. What do I give up? 1)Birthday Cake 2)My goal weight at 145. There really is no other choice. I worked out every day last week. The next sacrifice is changing my diet. Doing what I am now is not getting me where I need to be... And thus the real sick part of getting older begins.

The Happy Husband

The whole home filleth up with cheer
When my wife has bought me beer

In my ears I hear carillons
When I hear she bought me Killian's.

Dentures

Today on the news there was a discussion of a woman who couldn't afford dentures and so had resorted to wearing the ill-fitting dentures of her late sister. While the intended reaction was disgust, the right-winger in our cafeteria stated rather that that was an excuse since dentures can be quite cheaply purchased. I on the other hand saw the problem not so much as an excuse, but a non-issue. Of course you wore your late sister's dentures... What's wrong with that? She doesn't need them anymore. Of course I followed up with "Nothing wrong with looking for a gift mouth in the hearse."

There was no laughter. No comment. Come on... That had to be the best line of the day...

Try Poison

On 2/24/10 at the zerohedge blog there was an article, titled If I were Federal Reserve Chairman... which continues: "I think I’d shoot myself. [Laughing] I don’t think I’d go to work in the morning."

His point was that every action the Fed chairman is taking and could take to try to solve the problem is helpless against the natural outcome of prior events.

What was interesting about the article was it seemed a direct reference to the dialogue between the Cloud General and the Big Goose Dummy from Chuang Tzu:

Big Goose Dummy: "What throws the warp of heaven into chaos, what rebels against the fact of things? What can keep mysterious heaven from accomplishing its ends? What scatters herds of beasts, makes birds cry in the night, and brings bad luck to bugs? I have the idea that it's excess ruling humankind"

Cloud General: "What can I do about that?"

Big Goose Dummy: "I have an idea: poison. Or take off and fly home."

In both cases the point was that events will follow their course, and attempting to impose our will and judgements upon them will only lead to disorder. The obvious question then, is what would a philosophy of economics based on this system be like?

That is the problem. Chuang Tzu frequently speaks of aspiring to the natural condition of mankind, but the values thereof don't seem economic at all. In another chapter he describes safeguarding one's wealth as making it easier for a big thief to carry it all off at once. It hardly seems to offer sound specific advice for non-allegorical situations.

In short while the Chuang Tzu is challenging and inspiring, it doesn't offer much advice to a fed chairman (except quit and go home). Applying the lessons to my own life is another matter entirely.