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Tuesday, February 19, 2019

If you meet the Buddha by the side of the Information Highway....


I am still listening to Alan Watts' lectures on YouTube every morning while I wait for the train. And while I still have very little clue as to what he is talking about, I sense that it is very profound.

I do like that Watts seems to constantly remind us that the truth is that there is no truth. He repeats things like, "trying to bite our own teeth" or "using a flame to set fire to itself." He also pretty much takes a dump on religion.

But I could just be reading things into what he is saying. We all hear what we want to hear even if we don't know what we want to hear.

Watts does talk a great deal about our desire to hold onto our sense of self and how futile that is. He does allude to the fact that death is simply a respite from living (or something like that). And he implies that everything is an illusion. He also points out that everything exists because it's opposite exists (i.e. you can't have good without evil because you wouldn't know what it was without its opposite).

So Watts does keep you chasing your own tail a great deal. But I like that. It somehow helps me to know that there is no concrete truth and that we are better off just living than worrying about dying.


Friday, February 15, 2019

Snow way


The Puget Sound region is slowly recovering from a series of snow storms that dumped close to a foot of snow in an area that rarely gets any. And these storms hit in February with spring visible on the horizon.

I don't like snow. I don't like being cold. I don't like not being able to leave my house. I don't like having to shovel snow and clear patches of my lawn so the dog can poop. I don't like having to walk through snow drifts to get to the train station to get to work and then wonder if I'm going to get home again. I don't like getting two phone calls, a text and an e-mail from my kid's school district telling me school has been cancelled.

I live in the Puget Sound region partially because it rarely snows. So having to endure almost a week of this crap has made me think that moving to Costa Rica may not be a bad idea.


Tuesday, February 05, 2019

The Last Laugh


I watched a bad movie (The Last Laugh) the other night on Netflix starring a 75-year old Chevy Chase playing an even older ex-manager of comedians including one played by 71-year old Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss looks like he is 85. It was your typical coming of old-age film that tries to instill faith that we still have it in us as we age. Chevy Chase hooks up with Andie MacDowell playing a swinging artist who had attended Woodstock. Thing is, actress MacDowell is the same age as me.

The film was pretty depressing. For one, it's audience demographic are people my age who know who the hell Chevy Chase, Richard Dreyfus and Andie MacDowell are and remembers what they looked like in their younger days.

I suppose I could start posting positive posts about how aging isn't really so bad. The thing is, there isn't a lot positive to say about aging except that you aren't led around by raging hormones anymore. I suppose that is something.