Schopenhauer on Self-Image

I intend to spend the bulk of the day packing as much as possible of my apartment for Saturday's move. I was unaware how much stuff I had accumulated over two years until now that I am laying it in front of me. I never liked my boss at the Census, but he often remarked - and was correct - that "moving is hard because 'stuff' just accumulates". All my 'stuff' is at this point more an asset than a liability. I wondered yesterday if my renter's insurance was still valid, if I could burn everything. I wouldn't even have to be compensated; I'd benefit in not having to move it.

Speaking with Anthony, who's renting out the room that I'm moving into, I told him that I didn't have much stuff, that I liked to minimize my life. Actually getting my stuff into boxes, that statement is going to require a revision. He's a foreigner (Ireland), and I worry he's going to think I'm a typical American, naive in what I consider a frugal lifestyle having claimed such. Moreover, will he be a hard-drinking Irishman who thinks I'm an effeminate dandy when I show up with my numerous boxes? I found comfort in Arthur Schopenhaur, who wrote that in regarding others' thoughts towards us:

...[W]e shall gradually become indifferent when we acquire an adequate knowledge of the superficial and futile nature of the thoughts in the heads of most people, of the narrowness of their views, of the paltriness of their sentiments, of the perversity of their opinions, and of the number of their errors. We shall also become indifferent to the opinions of others when from our own experience we learn with what disrespect one man occasionally speaks of another as soon as he no longer has to fear him or thinks that what he says will not come to the ears of the other man; but we shall become indifference especially after we have once heard how half a dozen blockheads speak with disdain about the greatest man. We shall then see that whoever attaches much value to the opinions of others pays them too much honour.

The solution is to repeat this countless times as I pull up the Budget Truck on Saturday, like a Zen mantra.

Where do (Cartoon) Babies come from?

Cartoons' family trees must be diagonal, not vertical. Everyone had nieces or nephews, never daughters or sons.

Inspector Gadget had Penny, Scooby-Doo had Scrappy Doo (da da da da daaaa...Pupppy Powwwer!!!). Huey, Dewey, Louie were Donald's nephews, who in turn was Uncle Scrooge's nephew. Et cetera.

It's too much of a pattern to be a coincidence. Was the idea to avoid the suggestion that cartoons have sex? It couldn't be to avoid to burden of having in addition to invent a mate. Donald and Daisy were eternally courting, for example, she was already available to become a wife. But maybe that change had to be avoided. Cartoons are sort of stuck in time - dating when first drawn, dating forever. Statuses can't change. Bringing a nephew out from somewhere is a convenient want to introduce a character.

Also, maybe there's something about a parent-less child that has a Dickens-like appeal. Yet, the uncle still provides a loving and comforting home life, the happy ending of every orphan story.

The movies got a late start: Snow White didn't have a parent, and Geppetto wasn't exactly Pinnochio's dad. Finally came Dumbo's mom (very touching) and then Bambi's mom (I think I'm going to cry). Curiously, these predate the nieces and nephews era, so cartoon baby-making had already been established. Perhaps America went through some sort of moral reform?

Later on, Goofy got a son, Max...geez, the one person least capable of child-rearing. Currently, there's a reversal of trends. Homer Simpson has three children, but (yikes!) no nephews...and no uncles!

Edmund/Shakespeare & Watterson on Astrology

From King Lear, Act 1, Scene II:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune, - often the surfeit
of our own behaviour, - we make guilty of
our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star!

Yesterday I listened to a conversation from the BBC's In Our Time regarding astrology. It was never definitely resolved between the moderator and discussants to what degree astrology still commands influence today. I agree that doctors no longer consult the positions of the planets prior to making prescriptions, but I would what the economic value of horoscopes on a daily basis merely in terms of daily paper space forgone.

My all-time favorite line about such matters is from Calvin and Hobbes, where Bill Watterson sarcastically speaks through Calvin:

"I decided I believe in astrology and horoscopes...It only makes sense that every facet of our daily lives should depend upon the position of celestial bodies hundreds of millions of miles away."