Florida Lotus

I wish people were still awesome. If you want a change in the world, you have to go make it. But if I want to change others, shouldn’t I change myself first? Confusion.

An affirmation of life: If you don’t die, kill yourself. If you almost get hit by a car, walk calmly inside and consume all the sugar in the household.

I remember Thoreau saying something about pyramids and skyscrapers; people constantly want to one-up each other, building higher and higher. When does it end? When there is no stone left to make the monuments of tomorrow, are we going to fly to Mars?

Thoreau said he didn’t want to know who the builders of whatever monument were, he wanted to know who didn’t build the monument and saw it as a waste of time. Funny.

There are two kinds of people: those who wake up at six in the morning, and those who go to bed at six.

How can you expect to succeed if you never give yourself a chance to fail? We’re so scared of failure we never give ourselves a chance to succeed.

Everybody fails at first. Just keep going. If you love it, there should be no problem in perfecting (and failing) in your passion.

[Rant Begin]

Since when did we decide that holidays are things to attack? I mean, honestly, are there no better ways to spend our time than to attack time-honored traditions, some of which centuries old, which encourage us to gather round and enjoy each other’s company (and maybe realize that we’re all human beings)? Is the gathering and eating of food offensive to some random few, that must garner our attention so that we cease to celebrate something, anything at all?

It reminds me of Communism. I smell Commies… Rather than destroy all Holidays in favor of the New World Order, we’ll simply replace them so that your celebrations are organized by us, created by us, and designed to encourage our ideas. One Nation under Communism.

Do not wish me a Happy Thanksgiving, or a Happy Hanukkah, or a Merry Christmas! I do not want your happiness and cheer! What’s that, buying presents for people you like on a specific day? Capitalist Heresy! You and your Holidays! Did you know that the etymology of Holidays stems from Holy Days? I reject your happiness AND your religious affiliations! And don’t use the generic term “happy,” because it might offend people with depression, so you may ONLY call these strange periods of time “Neutral Days Off.” At least, until we get rid of all days off, and you may only greet a person with “Neutral Day” as you labor ceaselessly in the union factories for our great country! Don’t even THINK of saying Good Morning or Good Night, because Good assumes an objective idea, and all Good is subjective, subjective to the will of the Party! NEUTRAL DAY TO YOU AS WELL!

Political correctness is the end of anything good in the world. It’s a land of bullshit, filled with delusions and crazy people who must force their ideas onto everyone else. That’s why we lose; because we don’t try to make everyone else agree with us, or suffer the consequences. How ironic is that?

But Holidays? What next, are you gonna attack the White House and move the capital?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Years, and good will and cheer to anyone else who celebrates whatever they celebrate. Just… have a good time.

[Rant Over]

It seems (to me) like there are two kinds of people: those who want more laws and those who want less. And then there are those who don’t care.

The strongest plants don’t grow on their own: they grow in diversity. If you try to protect yourself from diversity, you become weak and dependent on your protection.

Humans = Bacteria.

What good is logic without the freedom to use it?

What good is a life if it can never be lived?

You may be comfortable in the company of enemies, but I say there is no value in a belief if you are not willing to die for it. You may as well have none, because when it comes to, they are worth just that.

I am surrounded by noise, and I scream into the nothingness. No reply. I guess I’ll be here awhile, then. Waiting. Waiting, for my day. It may never come. Still, I wait.

Working on a short RPG called Soul Reaper. Purgatory RPG about getting out of the Otherworld before your killing drives you mad. Free until finished, and in a pretty format.

https://lotus-rpgs.itch.io/soul-reaper

Once awoken, can never sleep

Lies within the breast.

Company must always keep,

This thing, it cannot rest.

.

Asked for, but unwanted,

The fear can drive you mad.

Maketh man undaunted,

And doubtful yet glad.

.

The questions fester unanswered,

Leading you through mires,

Self-inflicted delusion in mere banter,

The Awakening of Desire.

The Vicious Circle is this: the more work there is to be done, the less I want to do it. Which, therefore, leads to more work needing to be done. When I have no “open loops” as the Getting Things Done protocol names it, I can do whatever I want. But when I have all kinds of open loops, closing them is harder because I have all these other loops that I also have to close. It’s the equivalent of collecting mental clutter when I need to focus, or trying to move around baggage when you already have a hundred pounds on your back, and every extra loop is another 10 pounds.

The way to break through it is to ignore the other loops. Just get whatever you need to get done finished, and then you can move on to the next thing. But for now, everything else does not exist. Forget it. Just do what you can, and you’ll know you’ve already tried your hardest, and you can try again tomorrow. And then once you’ve finished something, it gathers like steam in a locomotive, and your momentum can push you through all your tasks, until you sit at the end thinking, “Huh. That wasn’t THAT hard.”

TLDR, half the battle’s in your head, dear procrastinator and corner cutter. Get back to work!

I seem to currently have a fascination with the early 1900s. Cafe Society is about a young man who enters the high-society world of Hollywood and then New York, but runs into the love of his life only to be separated for the rest of their lives by the society they made fun of. However, their dreams, and love, never die. “Live each day like it’s you last, and someday you may be right.” Furthermore, when we don’t have the courage to live our lives, we spend the rest of our lives regretting it.

Dodging my RPG writing responsibility for now. Criticism took me in a whole new direction, and sometimes I don’t want to think about it. Coward’s way out, and into a fresh grave.

I don’t understand genre labels: they don’t help me find anything. For example, the Man from U.N.C.L.E is marked as a Drama. ???

And then pretty much every book at the library is some kind of thriller series or murder novel or such mystery. They kind of bore me, as do the science fiction and the urban fantasy, so filled with meaningless new jargon and overused tropes. And those “classics” you speak of can bore me to death.

I got lucky with that last book, and it makes me hunger for more. Argh. It just makes me want to go back to the days of reading kids fiction. I could be a snob, but they had to be really bad to make a kid go, “Huh. That was really unremarkable and empty,” or, “Yeah, it’s a good novel, but why do there have to be fourteen more sequels?”

I should stick with awards lists and the good classics. Maybe I’ll get some Dostoevsky. Or Moby Dick. They can both put me to sleep. Nah, I have the Hobbit. Maybe a translated version of Canterbury tales would be nice. Or some Shakespeare. Ah, decisions. I just picked the Last Don. Good enough.

Maybe I’ll put out a Godfather review.

The charming and witty gentleman Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is established as nobility by the Soviet Union and sentenced to a life in the Hotel Metropol. There, he makes many acquaintances and friendships as the world outside changes from the Russia of antiquity to the Russia of communism. As the clocks tick by, he busies himself with his livelihood inside, whether working at the Boyarsky or spying on assemblies, to raising a daughter or gaining a love interest, and finishing as a wonderful remark about the people we meet in our lives and how we move on through the world, or how that world moves around us.

The dialogue is clever. The characters are many and interesting. The world progresses and evolves. Perhaps the only thing I could want from this book is that it moved slower, but that only proves its very point. I also appreciated much of the lengthy and philosophical speeches shared by the narrator, but how they were also argued between multiple characters, and the sharing of important ideas throughout the book. I also greatly appreciated the gradual reveal of the the Count, no ordinary two-dimensional vaudevillian. Throughout the early parts of the story, we not only come to know the Count, but how and why he became the Count.

There’s so much I love about this book, but the fact that all these parts were woven together in one narrative makes me love it more. Honestly, it was hard for me to put this book away. I’d put this one with The Book Thief on my shelf of favorites.

The rare valid day to stay inside and enjoy pie with tea and books. But, the rain is moving away. Woke up to a power outage. Baking.

My Halloween project. My other one’s coming out soon. Made with Plaster of Paris and some spraypaint.

My first good pie! Made with real pumpkin, homemade crust, and some chopped raisins, nuts, and toasted oats with honey on top. Needs a little more spice.

Spoopy season is over. Writing season is in. The cold wind blows.

I wonder what it would be like to grow up in a foreign country with entirely different taste buds, then come to the U.S. and try a burger. It’s probably like us going to eat the spongy Ethiopean bread. (I’ve had it, just don’t remember its name.)

How to make witty comebacks in ten seconds: When someone gives you shit, you give them shit, or make fun of them giving you shit. Don’t hold back: If you wait, the moment is gone.

Example: “Dangit Django, why’re you leaving your garbage in the way?” Correct answer: “I left them just for you! Do you like it?”

And remember, be sure to let them know it’s a joke. Unless it’s not, and you hate their guts.

The cold weather is finally here.

It always makes me laugh, how people tell me that a bunch of evolved apes are going to destroy the world. IF what you’re saying is true, it’s not the planet that’s going to perish, it’s us. We’ll be dinosaurs for some other species. Life evolves, grows, adapts. Some of us won’t.

And, by the way, if they can falsify COVID and elections, what makes you think they can’t do the same for Climate Change?