"utter lack of hope and creativity" AND the availability of guns - and a pervasive gun culture?

I think you just did. Thanks for the explanation.

What do you mean Q?

Do you think some people will see this news story as glorifying shooters?

Actually I get your comment although it wasn't my first reaction to the event. We remember the names of killers more than the names of their victims. This could be encouraging to people with guns and no other ideas for an identity-defining experience.

Every year that we commemmorate the shooting of 14 women in Montreal, we say their names and keep the shooter nameless.

Is there another way to report on mass murder that doesn't seem like glorifying to you?

I'm interested in your thoughts.

It's amazing how culturally rich one's life can be without super hero movies or other expressions of pop culture. And if you hear a reference that you want to understand, Google can usually explain it.

several telescopes

Nerd or geek are words used by people whose imagination is so limited that they think humans can be understandable by reducing them to a classification.

Meanwhile, they make a big deal about the Big Bang -- as if that were the beginning.

Thanks... it's family.

Hard to shake the voice in my head saying leave.

Reminds me of a line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (Act 2, Scene 1, 65-67)

Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.

The hard part of the conversation is that the problem isn't really her, it's that I don't know if I want a serious long-term relationship right now

Oh?

Subheadings

Hubski

It's been great hanging around here the last day or two. Definitely a consequence of having time, not travelling, and spring. By "great," I mean challenging, stretching myself to be responsive, compassionate, and creative.

Changes 1

. . .are afoot. Last night, with some anxiety, I gave my four tenants six-months notice. (My ex let me keep our previous domicile - a big house in another city away from him. (flagamuffin has visited). I moved here when ex told me he "needed space" in 2015. The tenants, four working women, age 24-29, have been okay and the $$ has helped me keep the house going for sure. My grievances are relatively minor -- but it's time to leap into an unknown future.

Changes 2

West coast bf is moving in with me. I will fly out west in August and we will drive across the country together.

Spring

Planted annuals all around the house. Here's Hydrangea, Stump, and Squirrel.

but the shit he was saying bordered on a total personality change.

The best way to overcome it [the fear of death]—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.

Let's take it apart. He's talking about overcoming the fear of a personal death -- the death of your own ego, being, memory, identity. If one is afraid of death, one is afraid of ceasing to be. One asks, "How can the world exist without me?" It's kind of unimaginable. So, it seems Russell is talking about losing your personal identity and having the Zen hotdog: One with Everything. How can you fear death if you experience yourself as part of everything?

He says as much in the last sentence. It sounds possible in theory. On the other hand, one could "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."

The more polarized an issue gets, the more its consequences become secondary to the desire to have your camp win. - Lilliana Mason

eeep!