Sundays and Getaways

The sun is trying to break through the clouds. Oops. What did I just say? The sun is trying to break through the clouds. That first sentence implies that the sun has intentions. I'm almost done reading a book that claims that not only do objects like the sun have no intentions, but neither do we. No intentions, no purpose . . . no purpose-driven life! We could say, "well, I give my own life purpose." The problem there is the "I" part. There is no "I." No self watching from behind our eyes, keeping us morally straight and morally bound. At least that's the stuff I've been getting out of this book, The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions by Alex Rosenberg. I haven't gotten to the part yet where he informs me how to enjoy life when I don't even think about stuff, or have freewill (think about that one for a few minutes.) I keep thinking back to the first Matrix film — practically a primer in basic philosophy — when the Cypher character says, while holding up a juicy piece of steak on his fork: "I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After 9 years, you know what I have learned? [Eats the piece of steak and sighs contently] Ignorance is bliss."

Beside twisting my mind into philosophical knots, I've been trying not to spend too much time thinking about my upcoming trip. My Significant Other and I are heading out to the Olympic Peninsula for five entire nights (and the days too!) on November 18th. It's one of those well-deserved respites that will be over much too quickly. Why is it that the miserable moments in our life seem to stretch on forever and moments of ecstasy are over in a orgasmic flash? Sounds like another unanswerable philosophical conundrum to me.

Whenever the skies cloud over and there is the smell of wood smoke in the air, my mind drifts off to the romantic paradise we call Kalaloch. It's about a half hour drive south of the entrance to the Hoh Rain Forest. There is a lodge building, and a number of cabins spread along the bluff. It is contained within the Olympic State Park, so that makes it slightly less commercial than it would otherwise be allowed to be. I've been going out there for about fifteen years and it hasn't changed too much in that time, which is a good thing.

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So, I've been very neglectful of my blog these recent months. Life does tend to get in the way of things like blogging. I'm also not very good about setting aside time for important things like writing. This particular Sunday morning my S.O. is at a meeting until after noon, and her 18-year-old son is sleeping in. It's a good time for me to groove on some tunes and let the words slip from my fingers, as I write yet more banal entries and send them into the ether.

I only have about twenty pages left to the book I'm reading, but reading is something I enjoy doing with my S.O.. Sitting in my office by myself with the music cranked is better done while she is off doing her thing. Maybe the sun will grace us with its presence this afternoon . . . even though it has no will to enable it to grace us, and it's all just fermions and bosons underneath it all, it would still be nice to be warmed by that big yellow orb today just the same.