2025.11.04
A judge is a law student who grades his own examination papers. A historian is an unsuccessful novelist. A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it. A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. An author is a man who, in the absence of toilet tissue, is forced to use his own manuscript and regrets that he wrote on such stiff paper.
Dairy Queen was a reminder of the goodness of life. I don't need gourmet ice cream. A DQ Butterfinger Blizzard tells me that God loves us.
And if our country goes to the dogs, there's always Canada. The national anthem is impossible and the bacon is round, not in strips, and you have five political parties, but Canada is fairly sane because there is no Florida, no Texas, no South.
Make it clear to your likely survivors that you do not require a big funeral service. You will be elsewhere, not hovering overhead. Tell them you do not want it to be called "A Celebration of Life" because you have already celebrated your own life as best you could and now there should be a few moments of grief and reflection on the precariousness of our situation, and then go have a wonderful evening and be glad it was you in the urn and not them.
Buddhism is the easiest religion in the world. Hindus have a thousand rules and I never understood Christianity but Buddhism is easy. You just don't hate anybody. Don't be a jerk.
Inscribe this in your heart, reader: whenever you feel sad, get out and take a hike.
"This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it."