(no subject)
People become what they focus on.
I need to stop thinking so much about human stupidity, then. (No, not talking about anything LJ-related; just bureaucrap and other General Life Stuff.) I need to deal with it as best as possible, yes; but I need very much not to let it eat my brain. My poor brain has been abused enough lately, thank you very much.
Hmm... this may not be the best mood in which to read Mark Twain.
Speaking of good ol' Sam Clemens, though, here's something I meant to mention a while back: While I remembered that the fine sport of Babelfishing was prefigured by the classic "The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back Into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil", I had completely forgotten that Twain also wrote a prophetic homage to MegaHAL. Mark Twain and Markov models really do belong together, and the proof is found in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,
But that the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep,
Great nature's second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There's the respect must give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The law's delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take,
In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn black,
But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,
Breathes forth contagion on the world,
And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i' the adage,
Is sicklied o'er with care,
And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery--go!
--From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapter 21 "An Arkansaw Difficulty"
I need to stop thinking so much about human stupidity, then. (No, not talking about anything LJ-related; just bureaucrap and other General Life Stuff.) I need to deal with it as best as possible, yes; but I need very much not to let it eat my brain. My poor brain has been abused enough lately, thank you very much.
Hmm... this may not be the best mood in which to read Mark Twain.
Speaking of good ol' Sam Clemens, though, here's something I meant to mention a while back: While I remembered that the fine sport of Babelfishing was prefigured by the classic "The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back Into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil", I had completely forgotten that Twain also wrote a prophetic homage to MegaHAL. Mark Twain and Markov models really do belong together, and the proof is found in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,
But that the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep,
Great nature's second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There's the respect must give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The law's delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take,
In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn black,
But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,
Breathes forth contagion on the world,
And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i' the adage,
Is sicklied o'er with care,
And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery--go!
--From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapter 21 "An Arkansaw Difficulty"