April 22nd, 2010
No one achieves frivolity straight off. It is a privilege and an art; it is the pursuit of the superficial by those who, having discerned the impossibility fo certitude, have conceived a disgust for such things.
E.M.Cioran
Classifieds
For sale: turtle/dove cross. very affectionate. answers to the name Shelldon [sic]. comes with own terrarium/cote. $100. Box 90.
Sublet: scientist's laboratory. I am forced to spend the summer away at an institute and so my lab is open for three (or so) months. Located in an isolated castle near Treherne. Some difficulties with the neighbours. $500/month negotiable. Box 3398.
The Mystery of the Lost Lenore
Listen to Part Fify-Three
Click on the picture. (3:19)
Archives
Links
persiflagemag@hotmail.com
The Happiness Question
I recently (within the last hour) had occasion to look back on my life and consider the question of my personal happiness, current, past and future, and let me tell you, it was not a fun little exercise!
I believe it was George Orwell who once said that any life viewed from the inside was nothing but a series of failures. In psychological circles this is known as "projection" and it is roundly considered to be a bad thing but I don't think he was necessarily mistaken. Perhaps the word "honestly" needs to be injected between "life" and "viewed" just to eliminate all those sunny folks who seem to think everything they do is wonderful but there can't be any real denying that a lot of us have fallen pretty short of the marks we once set for ourselves.
A lot of us can probably trace the source our personal unhappiness to the discrepancy between what we thought was going to be the deal and what the deal actually ended up being. Anticipation is greater than realisation as my grandfather used to say. Think back to when you were a kid. Didn't you think you were going to be a gold medal winning space cowboy or a scientific genius basketball star or an antelope-ranching world-class chef or a super-model UN ambassador? Did you manage it? No huh?
Now if your ambition had been to be the third best clerk in the stationery department (that's the one that never moves - ha!) in Walmart then no doubt you would be a lot happier right now.
It has been printed here before that the key to happiness is inextricably bound up with the question of lowered expectations and it now appears that we are about to print that again. I guess it bears repeating: happiness is a result of successfully meeting your own expectations and this is a hell of a lot easier if they aren't too high.
Might be a good idea to ingrain this in the kiddies. Getting them thinking in more mundane terms about their future lives and then if they actually do end up becoming gold medal winning space cowboys (or girls) then they'll be over the moon! Literally and metaphorically.
Hugh Briss
Mister Backyard
Looks At Life and Death
This week Persiflage's own amateur naturalist, Mister Backyard, takes a good long look at some dead things and reports back.
If you were to go outside right now, once you have finished reading this of course, and wander out into some grassy area, like a field or a park or even a boulevard or traffic meridian, and you were to get down on all fours and look, really look, at the earth beneath you, you would notice, almost immediately, a very significant and wondrous thing.
Jumbled together with no distinction whatsoever are many, many dead things and living material. That's right, out in Mother Nature Death is not separated out into graveyards, mausoleums and such like.
Dead matter, whether it be leaves, or grass or twigs or insects or birds or marmosets, remains wherever it fell or wherever the wind blew it after it fell (with the possible exception of the previously mentioned marmosets unless the winds are very strong in your area).
In the Natural World, Death and Life are roommates. Share and share alike is their motto and they co-exist in perfect harmony. You see all that dead stuff is what makes the live stuff possible!
Yes, the brown curled leaves, the dried out twigs, the beige, almost white coarse grass, the little bits of Mister Squirrel left over from his unsuccessful dispute with Mister Dog, they all combine together, over time, to feed and nourish the fresh green shoots of grass, the soft little buds on the young evergreens, they comprise the bulk of the vomited Happy meals of tiny fledglings and the mighty repasts for Mister Maggot and Mrs Worm.
Out and about in the great lush Natural World, Death provides unlimited nutritious and delicious banquets for the Living. And they could hardly be handier!
So next time you are out on one of your Nature strolls and you espy something putrid and rotting just remember - that is someone's picnic!