A Ramble on Things of Uncommon Significance.

It seems to me that if you have a physical condition which is causing you pain, and you’ve had it for several weeks, and you dislike visiting doctors for reasons already given, the way to handle it is to cultivate the Buddhist assertion that:

Desire is the root of all suffering.

So stop wanting the pain to go away and then you won’t suffer any more. Simple.

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I came across an odd and perverse little fact yesterday. My esteemed correspondent The Venerable Borg, who lives in Upstate New York, has visited Stonehenge but has never been up the Empire State Building. I, on the other hand, having lived all my life (to date) in England, have never visited Stonehenge but have been up the Empire State Building. This is a fact into which I read more than ordinary significance.

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Another of life’s little curiosities is that while we can define humour, and even explain the neurological processes by which it functions, nobody can say what it actually is. This is further evidence of my suspicion that everything of consequence in life ultimately comes down to the abstract, and is another fact into which it is worth reading more than ordinary significance.

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I’ve often wondered why just about everybody loves butterflies, but many people are cautious of moths. Yesterday I got what is probably the answer. Moths beat their wings much more rapidly than butterflies and are capable of flying faster, a fact which renders them more difficult to dodge and lends them an air of unpredictability. The assertion that the problem is caused by butterflies having bobbles on their antennae while moths don’t is almost certainly fallacious.

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I don’t know why I bother. I really don’t.