St. Patrick's Day

The day when we wear green, drink green beer, and dye the river green. As if we needed an excuse to over induldge, we have St. Patrick's day. We seem to disregard all logic when it comes to drinking. St. Patrick himself must be looking down from heaven thinking, "What's going on? I never had a drink in my entire life." It's all in good fun until the next morning. This year I woke up drunk.. well as an Irishman on St. Patrick's day. Then I had to deal with the not-so-fun process of consciously sobering up. Just now have I regained the mental capacity to string enough words together to write a somewhat coherent blog on how stupid I am.

What to Say

One of my coworkers recently lost a family member and in a feeble attempt to help we sent her a sympathy card. Upon opening the card and staring into the blankness within, we realized that we had no idea how to write a sympathy card. So I did what I always do when I don't know something, I Googled it. Although the ideas presented in the search results were vague at best, they did offer much advice as what not to say. For example, 'it was all for the best' and 'you'll get over it' made the what-not-to-say list. Although these may seem like no brainers to omit from a sympathy card, I would imagine that more people say this kind of thing than you'd think. But our search still left us with the problem of what to write. Obviously whatever you say will not make everything better, but rather serve as a piece of emotional support of all friends and family that we all need in such a time of sadness.

Thoughts on Thinking

I recently read an article in 'Time' magazine that really got me thinking about thinking. The article was considering the possibility that some day neuroscience will be able to prove that consciousness is a function of the brain instead of the traditional belief that it is a funciton of the soul, thereby 'killing the soul' and disproving the idea of our soul passing into an afterlife. And some argue that by killing the soul we are killing morality. I found the article's counterarguments to this quite fascinating. The basis was the fact that we can never be sure that other people are conscious. If we are unsure that other feel pain as we do we create a moral out for doing things that hurt others. But if science can prove that consciousness is a function of the brain, then we can say that everyone who has a brain has consciousness making more difficult to do harm to others.

As far as the 'life-to-come' is concerned, perhaps we are better off if we think in terms of there being no afterlife. This may sound dreary, but actually this idea could serve as a platform to making our current life better. As Morrie said, 'When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.' If we really believe in an afterlife that will be far greater than what we have now, then what we have now is greatly degraded and who wants to live their life waiting to finish? But if all we have is the moment, then we should work to make the moment as enjoyable as possible. Perhaps consciousness is a gift from impending darkness and by wasting it we waste the joys that we think we will get when it is over. This may be cruely ironic enough to fit in the paradigm of life as it seems.

Miss Sunshine

Walking back from the train after work I was struck with a feeling of happiness that I almost forgot existed. My happiness, I realized, was not from anything that happened or that I did but rather from the simple fact the sun's warmth was pressing down on my skin. I have been in a bad (dare I say cold) state for at least a month, a bitter wintery month. It is quite amazing how the weather can affect your general mood. I'm hoping that as we turn the corner of winter that my attitude towards everything will also grow warmer.

Sold Out

Last night my girlfriend and I attended two sold out events. First the Night of the Living Ales at Goose Island and Jim Gaffigan at the Chicago Theater. It always seems special to attend a sold out event. All you have to do is plan far enough in advance but holding tickets that other people want to get their hands on makes you feel somewhat special. The theater helps create this feeling by the huge letters on the marquee with the event and 'SOLD OUT' underneath. The venue does not have to advertise of the event at all because it is already full but they like to point out: 'hey we have a great event here but you can't come unless you planned ahead.' I imagine that 'sold out' marquees also helps the headliner. It must be really fulfilling to have your name as the headliner of a 'sold out' marquee. But I think I would be just as happy to participate in a beer festivial and walk around with no one knowing who I am while they enjoy a beer I made.

Fear and Loathing in the Worplace

Anticipation is one of the truely unique aspects of human thought. Say for instance I was anticipating a very unpleasent day of work tomorrow with my boss returning from his own unpleasentness to find what transpired today. By anticipating this unpleasentness, am I creating a self fulfilling prophecy? or envisioning it worse than it really will be? People generally seem to anticipate the worst, perhaps becasue of all the times you remember the worst happening. Or perhaps by assuming the worst, we set ourselves up to be pleasently surprised when things turn out better than we were thinking. But knowing how things work in my work environment, I think that my anticipation of unpleasentness is realistic and well founded. Only time will tell.

In Like a Lion...

This March did not start out too well when I heard lightning and freezing rain outside at 3 in the morning. I always get excited for March and am seemingly always dissapointed. When I think about March I think about emerging from the winter freeze but this thought is quite immature. I was quickly reminded of that during my bone chilling walk to the train this morning over the slushy leftovers of freezing rain. And since I have to get up in the wee hours of the morning, I make my walk in the dark. But as March roles on, my morning commute becomes brighter and brighter (only literally of course). That is until daylight savings. I get dissappointed when I wake up one morning and it is light when I get on the train and then the next when I board with only the frosty yellow glow of platform lights overhead. Despite the dissapointment, nothing beats the slow striping of clothes that occurs as spring progresses until I only have to wear a T-shirt and shorts outside and be warm ... a thought that seems almost impossible right now.