There’s this book club phenomenon — my mother-in-law is in a book club and now my wife is in a book club — and so I’ve heard any number of people say they get the “gist” of books. They haven’t read the book. They say, “I read enough to get the gist.” Just, no. Don’t. I can’t engage in that conversation. You don’t get the gist of Jane Austen. You either read Jane Austen or you don’t.
What appears at first to be an absence of emotion then appears to be a need to control overwhelming emotion that is apt to surface without warning.
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
Thursday Links
- Man binge-watches The Simpsons for over two days while taking LSD
- Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective
- The Raven writing gloves
- Zap your bad habits with Pavlok
- The Works of William Hazlitt
- “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in three paintings
- Stevereads on his favorite SF mass-market paperback covers from the early ’80s
‘Don’t Be a Moron’
I was having lunch with a friend who’d survived a heart attack a couple of years ago. When I asked him if he had any dietary restrictions, he shared the story of going to his doctor post-coronary with a written list of questions about what he should or shouldn’t eat going forward.
The doctor took a look at the list, then ripped up the paper and threw it in the bin.
“Here’s my dietary advice,” said the doctor. “Don’t be a moron.”
“What do you mean?” asked my friend.
“I mean,” replied the doctor, “use your common sense. Eat heart-healthy food most of the time, and if you really fancy the odd bowl of macaroni and cheese, enjoy it.”
While I was a little taken aback at the bluntness of the advice when I first heard the story, I’ve come to realize that it’s a fantastic response for pretty much any kind of question people have about how to live their lives.
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