Salvete, qui hoc in loco advenietis.
My son texted me a question - only rhetorical, really; but I thought I'd post my reply. We were discussing Frank Miller, celebrated hard-ass of comicsdom. My son texted:
"Why are people like Frank Miller so cranky?"
And I replied:
"They have a superiority complex, you might say; they despise the quiescent, the average, the sinful, the foolish. Their condition and outlook is biological; it's winnerism; it's Nature. As inevitable as Al-Qaeda or viruses...."
The un-said part was this: "And, as it is with viruses or Al-Qaeda, or with people like Frank Miller or Friedrich Nietzche or David Duke, it's the simple duty of decent people to resist them, see past them, and to say yes to life, instead of hatred."
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A Ghostly World in Collision with Yours
- Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaos
- City: Let's call it "Fingiswold"...., California Franciscensis, United States
I only wish I could, like Beowulf, say:
"Hwæt! þu worn fela, | wine min Unferð,
beore druncen | ymb Brecan spræce,
sægdest from his siðe. | Soð ic talige,
þæt ic merestrengo | maran ahte,
earfeþo on yþum, | ðonne ænig oþer man."
"Ah, you've said quite a bit, my dear Unferth,
drunken with your beer, about Breca,
and laid out his triumph! But I say sooth,
that I owned much more sea-strength,
suffering the waves, than any other man!"
Yet I cannot!
Perhaps, like Epictetus, I may say, of the world and its evils,
"What is that to me? Is it within my control or a matter outside of it? If it is not within my control - and the only thing that is within my control IS my Will - then I shall not fret over it at all, but accept it and apply myself to it as best I may."
For the truth is - these evils are normal, they are natural, they are not (in the end) evil at all, just - consequent; and matters of indifference.
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