Ransen's Blog

 Some wise men say "If you run after happiness you will not find it." So to be happy you must not seek it. But "not seeking" is already a method for getting to happiness. So you are seeking it. Oh fuck it all.

 If I can't get to sleep I have two methods I try Reciting poetry (in my mind) Going on a drive into the night (in my mind)  The rainbows which appear in front of me as I take my imaginary drive have now started to get up off the road and turn into flickering multi colored creatures who stay in front of the car as I drive forward. They are not menacing but are disturbing. I now have a third cure, it involves getting out of bed at some awful time like 2:30 am, but sometimes works: This is an "own brand" herbal tea which is supposed to help you sleep. I don't believe it, but I also know that a placebo can work even when the patient knows it is a placebo. And I wonder if this warning not to exceed the daily does of 2 cups a day...  ...is really just there to make the tea seem more effective than it actually is?  

 I heard those %&$king plucked strings again. So many "light" TV programs or Netflix series use plucked stings music to indicate "this is a funny/quirky scene". Every time I hear it I imagine a director or a music director getting the sound engineer to insert that crap. I also imagine that they are not doing the work they really want to do, but have to create this second rate drama to earn a living. But that is just what I imagine... (And while we are on the subject why do news programs try to influence the audience by putting on sad music when reporting deaths of innocent children. Do they think we are so stupid and/or heartless as not to know that the deaths of innocent children is a bad thing?)

 From Wikipedia: Martin Amis and Agnosticism In 2006, Amis said that "agnostic is the only respectable position, simply because our ignorance of the universe is so vast" that atheism is "premature". Clearly "there's not going to be any kind of anthropomorphic entity at all", but the universe is "so incredibly complicated", "so over our heads", that we cannot exclude the existence of "an intelligence" behind it. [134] In 2010, he said: "I'm an agnostic, which is the only rational position. It's not because I feel a God or think that anything resembling the banal God of religion will turn up. But I think that atheism sounds like a proof of something, and it's incredibly evident that we are nowhere near intelligent enough to understand the universe ... Writers are above all individualists, and above all writing is freedom, so they will go off in all sorts of directions. I think it does apply to

 Most religions have a way of saying that death is just a passage to another world, another way of being. There's " go beyond the veil" , " pass over" (or the more ridiculous abbreviation " pass "), and " go to a better place " etc. etc. Even some Buddhist meditations on death talk about " not being able to take it with you " (body, possessions etc.), which implies that the dead person is going somewhere. The Japanese have two ways of expressing death. shinimasu ( 死 ( ) に ま す ) and nakunarimasu ( 亡 ( ) く な り ま す ). This latter seems more real, though it is politer than shinimasu. Nakunarimasu can be interpreted as "to become nothing". Which is a more honest expression of the reality. I had a shock after reading Bad Blood by Lorna Sage... ...she had become nothing. The book was so good I looked for more writings by her, but discovered she had died in January 2001 and did not leave any similar works to Bad Blood. I am not

 Too many books, not enough space. And, in the end, how many of the books you own will you ever read again? I've decided to start a cull, the latest victims... Those that have so far survived the cull have done so because they have pictures in them:          Though there are  some fiction books I'll never get rid of, multiple reads always give pleasure...