Must Record Deep Thoughts

One of the good things about having a computer in the basement is that, on those rare occasions it seems like a good idea to get vaped at 2:00 in the afternoon on a summer Thursday, I can quickly type down the revelations that occur to me for further review in the cold cruel light of the morrow dawn. Not surprisingly, none of these seem as interesting as they did when I wrote them.

• In the new book, maybe we should tell old people to be as randy as they want. After all, if one agrees not to procreate—well, if two—then what’s the basis for moral admonition? (Plenty of ideas spring to mind: trust, responsibility, care, but if all those are dealt with…)

• I would love to be able to say truthfully, “I’m sitting here having lunch with my dad.” Why can’t I? Shouldn’t I be allowed to pretend?

• When it seems like the song on the record is narrating your own experience, is it? By some secret unexplained mechanism? Or is your own experience spreading itself over the music?

• My subjective conception of myself is endlessly fascinating. I can look at my fingernails and seek to discover meaning forever.

• I’m sure I don’t believe everything I say, so why should anyone else?

• But if I have a nagging suspicion that I should be doing something else, then how reliable is that?

• When the choice that shows the most humanity is beaten by the expedient choice, what are we to think of the chooser’s humanity? (But how can you know what counts as more humane? By a reasonable measure, right? A measure we can agree on.)

• Most conflicts arise when someone’s pride is hurt; and lots of times it is, the person doing the hurting never even meant to—at least at first.

• You don’t really put thought into words; the two sort of meet in the middle.