Hmm… A bit of fanciful meandering, as it were, through the back corridors of a dark mind, still sleepy after a half-cup of the blood of life, yet determined to complete a fresh Pearl, come what may…. even if I have to…. well, I won’t go there just now, to save us all losing our breakfasts…. Instead, I believe I see an opportunity to set out for the oyster beds right over there, so, we’ll snatch it up, and use it…. Some days, ya just gotta take what presents itself, ya know?….

Shall we Pearl?

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” — Plato, The Republic. Book VII. 536

Now, I could spend a long time sharing the incontrovertible evidence I’ve accumulated to support such an assumption; in fact, I’ve done so. For the past 3.8 years I’ve posted here on a daily basis, with about 60% of those posts including some sort of rant against the machine, whether of a political, religious, or philosophical nature. I’ve done my best to share what I know to be true, to give those who come to read a chance to compare what I present against their own thoughts and experience…. In all that time, nobody, and that means nobody, has ever presented any arguments suggesting any of the evidence is wrong. None.

This could mean I’m right; it could also mean nobody who disagrees ever comes to read…. My own guess is the truth lies between those two points; mostly I preach to the choir, and those who aren’t convinced to sing aren’t brave enough to argue the point…. or, some combination of factors…. It remains true, however, that what I’ve said is all true, to the best of my knowledge, so, there’s something in that, for what it’s worth….

All that being said, I’m not going to rant today, merely to give us all a break from all the bad/evil shit with which we are surrounded every day on the news…. Instead, I’ll just throw together an old-school pearl, with some random thoughts about those members of the species upon whom I heap all of my disdain and vitriol, our Beloved Ruling Class and Friends…. those silly, yet dangerous humans who prey upon their own kind…. Yes, it’s the Asininnies, all of them…. The Bankers (aka Corporate Snakeheads), Pimps (aka Human Traffickers, aka Scumbags), Politicians (aka Congenital Liars…), Preachers (aka shamans, priests, imams, etc….), Faceless Myrmidons (Police, military, spies, and wannabes…), and, of course, Mrs. Grundy ( aka Everybody’s Nosy, Bigoted, Racist, Fat-headed neighbor….).

Enjoy…. I intend to enjoy putting it together, so, y’all may as well join in the fun….

“Who is ever secure? Every one of us searches for security. We seek it from our family, from our friends, from our pets, from strangers and from “God.” Once in a while we experience it, only to discover that it was merely an illusion. And yet we never learn that security is an impossibility. For we are only human beings.” — Chen-It Ong

“It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.” — Aristotle

“You have to realize that the government, any government, is insane.  You have to treat it the way pagans treated their gods: As an irrational, capricious,
and powerful entity which will mete out total destruction if not sacrificed to or otherwise placated.” — Mike Long (future Libertarian revolutionary)

“Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.” — Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”

“Of a rich man who was niggardly he said, “That man does not own his estate, but his estate owns him.” — Diogenes Laertius — Bion, iii

“Our own age is not likely to be distinguished in history for the large numbers of people who insisted on finding the time to think. Plainly, this is not the Age of Meditative Man… Substitutes for repose are a billion dollar business. Almost daily, new antidotes for contemplation spring into being and leap out from store counters. Silence, already the world’s most critical shortage, is in danger of becoming a nasty word. Modern man may or may not be obsolete, but he is certainly wired for sound and he twitches as naturally as he breathes.” — Norman Cousins

To conclude, let us turn to one of the masters of metaphor, The Kwisatz Haderach (aka, Frank Herbert, author of “Dune”):

“Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife – chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: “Now it’s complete because it’s ended here.” — Muad’dib

“No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.” — Colton (1780-1832)

“Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.” — Epicurus

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” — H. G. Wells

“Excess on occasion is exhilarating.  It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.” — W. Somerset Maugham

“Sigh… Every day I thank my statuette of Wilma Flintstone that I was born normal.” — Zippy the pinhead

See what I mean? No word, or words, I could come up with would suffice to explain such an event. But, I digress…. I hope nobody got seriously injured on that last turn; more than three would get my insurance canceled…. Oh well, it’s fresh, and it’s all in the “for sure & for certain” category, so….

So be it.

gigoid has spoken.