Another 85 name and address labels arrived today, all adorned with cute and pathetic cartoons about kids and puppies and spring flowers. They were from a charity for children with cancer. Nothing like spring flowers and puppies to make me think about dying of cancer. The world is full of things like this. There ought to be a word for it: something sweet and innocent which nevertheless is associated with sadness, misery, pain, and slow death. If you are in the right (wrong) mood, even the sound of crickets, birdsong, or surf can make you melancholy. I recently acquired a new sound-effects CD to add to my collection of them. While listening, I imagine that I am on a space voyage far from earth, never to return, and these few minutes of electronically altered natural sounds, along with some photographs, are all that I will ever have left of the natural world of my home planet.

At this point in my physics studies, I cannot stand to look at another sliding block. Nor at another work/energy, potential/kinetic calculation. I've spent far too long on this section and I have to move on. I will be changing to a related and very important subject soon, but will not announce it on this Electron until I have actually done it. Same with upcoming art projects. I am bound by a certain kind of honor not to announce anything for the future which I am not completely certain I can or will do. Thou shalt not boast before thou hast anything to boast about. Perhaps thou shalt not boast at all, as it is most unseemly.

I always find myself circled round by fence after fence of "shalt nots" and "shalts," whether in behavior or artistic choices. Thou shalt not make anything ugly, anything too loud, anything too violent or disturbing. The Client might not like it, or the buyer not buy it, or it simply is in bad taste. Thou shalt not be too aggressive. Thou shalt speak softly. Thou shalt eat vegetables rather than meats or sweets. Thou shalt not speak too much about thyself. Thou shalt not dress in stupid fashions. Thou shalt not be stupid at all. If you are thinking about it, you probably shouldn't do it, unless it involves academic study. Thou shalt not be self-absorbed or self-promoting, but this last bit is ironically recursive, because just the idea of trying not to be self-absorbed is an act of self-absorption. The Eleventh Commandment, right after all those other "shalts" and "shall nots," is: Thou shalt not be boring. And the worst, which I am breaking right now, is, "Thou shalt not whine."

Posted at 2:46 am | link