On Artistically Liberating History

I'll admit to being an overachiever. I'm about to embark in some heavy duty class work in order to get a master's and another bachelor's degree within the next few years. Crazy, yes, but it'll be worth it.

So before I hit the books again in the fall, I'm... hitting the books. I've gone ahead and requested the book list for my classes from the bookstore and have borrowed most of them from the library to read over the summer. The plan is to have them all read so all I have to do during the semester is review. Considering I have some twelve books for two classes alone, this isn't a bad idea as far as I can tell.

Right now I'm reading Livy's "Rome and Italy", and is he ever the comedian. Alright, so Livy isn't actually funny intentionally, but some of his stories are downright hilarious. Of course, most people probably wouldn't see the humor for what it was, considering the fact that history is all boring windbag chum stuff. This isn't true of course, and I think what I most want out of teaching history is the chance to get a smile out of the boring same old same old.

Take for instance this story that got me in a fit on the bus. While you have to take Livy with a grain of salt for his tendencies for make believe, his artistic liberties are still too dry for today's standard, so this is my own telling.

The year was 311 BCE, or BC if you like. Rome was facing war. Woo. Who cares about stupid old wars, aye? And trust me, there were a few to read about. Now see, I personally like war stories, but it seems that war is the number one complaint I hear from people. It's not interesting. It's just a bunch of battles. They're all the same. These are the common excuses. How many war stories have you read though where they include all the minor details? I once read a fictionalized account of the siege of Malta where the author included the instances of defecation in the middle of battle.

Example (my own): Cesar felled the Turk in one blow across the face. His bowels moved in response to the burst of energy, and he squat down to relieve himself. As he sat vulnerable another heathen raised his sword to strike, and Cesar reacted by scooping up his waste and flung it in his enemy's eyes. This bought Cesar the time he needed to release the remainder of his rations and thrust his sword up under the bearded fiend's armor.

Yes, I'm serious. That was how every battle was played out in this book, which gave me a whole new appreciation for war and how funny it might actually be. So the next time you have to read yet another account of Gettysburg, just think of all the awkward farts you could insert with the screaming and cannon fire.

Anyway, back to Livy. As I said, it was 311 BCE and Rome was at war. For some reason the censors thought that the most pressing matter to deal with was the fact that those pesky pipe-players were eating in the temple of Jupiter like they always had. Instead of counting things like people because, you know, people get lost all the time and need to be counted, some stupid musicians were doing what Romans do best which is doing what they'd been doing for years and had to be stopped. The nerve!

So the pipe-players (whom I imagine sound much like Noel Fielding does as Richmond in The IT Crowd) say, "Well that's right uncouth of you. We'll just leave then, shall we? Rome is cramping our style anyway, we need to find a new muse. Cheers." They turn tail and walk out the city, leaving the Romans behind to feel the breeze blow through their skulls. After talking to Darkness once again and again and not quite being inspired like Simon and Garfunkel, the Romans started wailing and gnashing their teeth.

"Where are our musicians?" they cried, their fingers tugging at their horribly bleached hair that no doubt was full of fecal shampoo matter (see my blog on cosmetics), "How can we have music without players? I've had 'Friday' stuck in my head since last Thursday, the day before last Friday, and if only someone would play it I might be free of it!" Alas, there was no one left in the city to play the tune, and the citizens were left frantically trying to pick a seat to sit in at the Circus Maximus. Women were suddenly sitting with their husbands, and slaves were sitting in the front seats... it was a mess.

Meanwhile, in the town of Tibur, the pipe-players were finding the inspiration to write new music. Suddenly free of censorship (haha), they were indulging in new harmonies and writing racy lyrics. Too racy even for their Roman patrons who were notorious for their erotic cakes and... other things of that nature. Oh yes, those pipe-players were having a grant old time until news came to the Tiburtines that Rome wanted their pipers to come back. The Tiburtines, not wanting to anger the Romans who were... well... THE FREAKING ROMANS, promised that they'd do their best.

Flavus Venterus, the chief of the Tiburtines, dared to approach the pipe-players who had been so long removed from Rome that they had abandoned Roman modes of grooming and were now braiding each other's hair as though they were barbarians.

"Um, hello, lovely hair you have there. The flowers are a nice touch," he said, shaking in his sandals appropriately. These were still Romans, and his name was Flavus Venterus, "We, um, just wanted to know how long you'd be staying? In Tibur?"

Spurius Leninus, an ancestor of the number one D-bag of music John Lennon, was the leader of these first hippies. He showed no sign of having heard Flavus for a few moments before he finally responded, "When winter comes in summer, when there's no love forever, when lies become the truth..." His eyes focused now on Flavus. "Oh no, those are crap lyrics, aren't they? Yeah. Well... we don't plan on leaving. You've got some nice grass here. Smooth doobie."

"So no chance of leaving then?" Flavus Venterus felt a warm liquid running down his shins as his muscles relaxed in disappointment (hey, this is a battle of a kind, and every detail counts).

"Yeah, sorry, mate," Spurius strummed defiantly at the strings of his instrument, and added a new retort, "Peace out." With that the conversation was over, and Flavus Venterus had a growing pest control problem on his hands.

Now the best way to make friends, they say, is to have booze. Lots and lots of it, because people like to be inebriated and vulnerable for the selection of nature to come around and deny them another day. Why more drunks don't die off because of the mere stupidity of their actions under the influence of alcohol is beyond me, but it's a tried and tested fact that people with booze have friends. As it turns out, it's also a great way to use and abuse people. Which is what Flavus planned to do.

So of course the Tiburtines have a lot of wine, just in case they need to make nice with the Romans, aye? Why not throw a bash for the pipe-players as though to make nice, but actually make prank instead? Musicians love getting pissed, and didn't these guys know it. They were smoking the park lawn like there was something to be had in burning plant matter next to your face. So they threw a big party, just for Spurius and Co, and had all the wine these guys could drink. Drink they did, and drunk they got. Perfect. For good measure the Tiburtines kicked the pipers in their heads to make sure they were really good and pissed.

The next step was to get these drunks out, but how? Well, all that healthy vegan diet crap had made the pipers little more that skin and bones, so they were easy to lift. Flavus had his men carry the sleeping musicians to carts, where they were flung into piles like dead bodies. The carts were driven directly to Rome, which couldn't have been all that far away then, considering that the next morning in the middle of the Forum Spurius and his buddies woke feeling groggy and in want of some Advil. Taking a look around them, the musicians noted that in the crowd surrounding the carts, creepily watching the snoozers, several of the best hair dressers in all of Rome were grinning with shiny shears in their hands.

The censor who had banished them, Appius Claudius (who happens to be the only person not made up in this story), raised his hand in accusation, and spoke in proper ye olde fashion, "These men do wreak of filth and are thus to be cleansed and reinstated as the official flutists of Rome and are never to leave here again. So let it be written... by Livy... in three hundred years time, so let it be done." Everybody was in a Cecil B DeMille picture in those days.

The Romans were so happy to have music again, that they revoked the ban on picnicking in the temple of Jupiter, and allowed the pipers to play whatever they wanted. Suddenly cakes were more erotic and teenagers more foul mouthed. Parents blamed it on the music, but secretly liked it themselves. The pipers were allowed to wear whatever they wanted and promptly experimented with sequins and platform sandals. The censors, though, thought that the leather body suits were a bit too much and reduced their dress privileges to fancy togas three days out of the year. The crisis was over.

Then suddenly Rome was at war again. Men from all over lined up and took turns poking at each other with pointy bits of metal, as they often do in war. Nobody pooped or peed or flung poo, as you wouldn't expect in any old boring war, and things ended rather uneventfully. Soldiers told their stories and improved their wounds and bored children to death talking about how they'd lost their heads but were miraculously able to recount the tale today because they didn't really. Yep. That's war for you; boring old war.

Spurius, by the way, inspired anew by these sluggish endeavors, wrote several anti-war ballads and won an Orpheus for best performing artist. This got to his head, and he started to preach his word, demanding praise and tribute. His life ended quickly when he was stabbed to death by an adoring fan who took the whole idol worship thing too seriously and went crazy. They say his killer had a copy of "The Dogs Say Goodnight" by Judius Salinjius, and the publication was banned forever. The End.

On Cosmetics: Then and Now

I went to a salon yesterday. Now for me this was somewhat of a momentous occasion because I don't really like salons. There's just something unnerving about a complete stranger getting their fingers on my hair for an hour. It's not that I don't trust them, I just don't like the proximity. I mean, this is going to last an hour at least, and this is someone I don't know. It's not as though I'm going into a store where all I have to say to the cashier is 'hi' and 'thank you'. No, my issue with salons is the magnified social implications thereof. I have to talk to this person.

Okay, so it's not hard to talk to them. The hard part is the conversing. I just don't converse. I don't care to. I don't care who you are or where you're from, and if I talk about myself you'll only think I'm weird anyway. Just... cut my hair and be done, okay? Cheers.

Socializing in a salon is not what this post is about though, so before I set off on a tirade of how much I hate socialization (because it's been a thorn in my side all week), let me get back to the topic at hand.

As I'm wont to do with a lot of silences, awkward and otherwise, my mind wanders. I've just mentioned this a couple of days ago actually. I keep myself pretty well entertained, and it didn't take long at the salon to find myself at another silence, watching the stylist in the mirror. He colored my hair first, of course. I only mention this for any males reading who wouldn't know this. Always dye your hair first, lads!

I was sort of entranced. I haven't had a professional color since the fiasco with blue hair sometime between middle school and high school. I didn't go all out blue, just some streaks, but they faded pretty instantaneously leaving me with chunks of blonde instead. It was this instance that I was thinking about as he applied the gunk to my scalp. From here I made a giant mental leap to bleaching hair which took me to the Romans. This never seems to fail, does it?

See, as agonizing as burning chemicals in your mane is today, I'd hate to have been a patrician lady doing the same to her hair in days of yore. For example, there is one recipe that calls for leeches and vinegar. Let it sit, put it in, let it sit a bit longer and... enjoy your darkened leech gut look! Prostitutes were required to bleach their hair, and this practice is probably the reason why blondes today get so much slack for promiscuity. Still, some things weren't so bad. If you were wealthy enough you could sprinkle gold flakes into your locks for an added shine. This is perhaps the most inspired use of gold that I've ever heard of. Makes a nice little souvenir of your memories of assassinating the emperor, just don't forget your haircutting shears, okay?

Cosmetics across the board were fantastically disgusting, and are one of the few reasons why I'm glad I live now rather than then. I suppose the only difference today may be the use of long (Latin) words to signify the ingredients that are sometimes no different to what the ancients used. What we don't know can't hurt us, right?

Actually no. Take, for instance, the desire to have fair skin. For some reason, light people want to be dark, and dark people want to be light. Personally I like my pasty white complexion. I'm looking forward to good skin into my old age, unlike compulsive tanners who turn to leather like a dead cow. Oooh. Burn..... literally. So the Greeks and Romans liked to plaster themselves white using lead. Given that lead, as we've learned in recent centuries, is bad and poisonous, it is of my opinion that this practice of smearing one's face with lead is how women became Bedlam crazy in the first place. Eventually it seeped into genes, and every last female on this planet is now a walking explosive.

Lastly, skin care was just as hokey and lucrative as any major enterprise. I remember being in Bath, England taking a tour of the ruins. On my handy tour headset, the pleasant voice of a British woman detailed to me the horrors of hair removal. Up until this past century women have endured hours of plucking. Yes, every last hair was ripped from under your arms, your legs, and other places by a slave. I've tried plucking hair off my ankles. I couldn't endure one single follicle freeing. I don't think I could do it for a thousand dollars.

Let's not forget to mention lotions and skin care products. Where we like to use extracts from plants, Romans were fond of animal excrement. No, that is not an auto-correct failure of 'extract'. Dung, urine, among other things that come out of an animal, were all used to cake your face in hopes of preserving youth. Unfortunately I don't think any word can cover up that 'placenta' in the list of ingredients on your bottle of Roman formula body butter because that's already Latin. So yeah, that is really what you think it is.

In context, I'm sure none of this bothered women of the day. Things have changed, and we've managed to get through the years of fashionably blackened teeth to wind up here in a safer time and place. Still, given these practices, it's a wonder cosmetics have survived and thrive as they do. We still spend hundreds of dollars a year to look like somebody else, and we pay for this without skipping a beat. After two hours of awkward silence, I walked out feeling different and a little better, but also with a renewed determination to not spend a week's worth of wages on my hair (and a bottle of the greatest shampoo on the market!) like that again.

On Imagination

Imagination. I don't know that I have it. At least sometimes I'm not sure if I do, and I go into a crises and wonder what went wrong in my life to make me such a monotony. Perhaps the mere fact that I worry about this means that I'm just fine with an overly healthy imagination, and here is some evidence of that.

I'm the eldest child, and there is a good gap of time before I ever had someone to play with. My brother wasn't interesting until I was about seven, and so I spent most of my afternoons alone. I didn't live in a neighborhood with kids my own age. I remember complaining to my parents about how we always moved somewhere where the only other kids were toddlers and not my own age. We'd go to company Christmas parties, and I was the only six year old in the room. No five year olds, four year olds, seven, eight, or nine. I was a lone ranger in a baby corral watching stupid movies like Space Jam and wondering why I couldn't be at home reading.  It didn't help that my earliest years worthy of mention were spent in Germany where cable was really expensive and I missed out on television.

Actually Germany was awesome, but I was a lonely kid. As soon as I knew how to read, I was reading everything. I stopped to read signs that my small mind couldn't comprehend, but my brain could nevertheless compute. My mom had to have me on a leash. Not because I ran away, but because I got distracted by words. Otherwise I was a very mindful child. You can easily get lost in castles and forests, and I wasn't in the habit of carrying pebbles or breadcrumbs with me on Volksmarsches or palace tours.

In my loneliness, I reached out to myself. I remember sitting for hours as a kid, staring at myself in the mirror of my bureau and talking about heaven knows what. I can't recall anything of what I talked about, but I'm pretty sure this is how I developed my talent for accents. My favorite films always had accented characters, and since that made up the majority of my socialization at such a impressionable age, it's no wonder I talk in accents easily. I remember having trouble saying certain words with an American accent and my parents would correct me. "It's 'baaaaahld' not 'bulld'," they would would say. So while most kids have to go to speech classes to get rid of a lisp, I was being conditioned to not use an English accent. Anyway, so I would talk to myself in the mirror. My mom would come in and scowl, warning me that if I continued talking to myself she would take me to an asylum for the mentally deranged because only crazy people talk to themselves. I wouldn't stop, and she threw a sheet over the mirror. That was okay. I had a brass lamp that my dad brought me from Saudi Arabia, and I just talked to the genie inside instead.

I didn't have many toys either. I remember my favorite toys were Lincoln Logs, but they only had those at school, and all I got were Barbies. Not just any Barbies either. I had to play with my mom's old Barbies, and they didn't come with a Barbie Dream House with elevator and swimming pool. I had a camper and some camp furniture and the midsection of an airplane. Whatever. I made furniture out of paper, and Barbie lived in a post-apocalyptic era where abandoned airplanes made perfect houses. This period of turmoil was completed by frequent earthquakes in which everything had to be upside down, and depending on how my tossing of furniture around the room went, Barbie sustained injuries based on how the furniture landed on her. Of course she never died.

Barbie was boring though. What's the fun in making a little person live a regular person sort of life, when I'm the one who wants the adventure? When my brother got old enough, my dad built him a big wooden bunk bed. Thinking back, I have no idea why he did that because it was just the two of us for a long time, and I had my own room. By the time my youngest brother came along, the bunk bed was gone. It was a fantastic ship though. I would pack my brass tea set in my favorite little red suitcase with my baby blanket, and together my brother and I would sneak up onto the top bunk, 'stowing away' for adventure on a ship. We sat. And sat. Sometimes I would have cigars for us to smoke because that's what ragamuffin orphans do on long voyages, and then I would prepare dinner out of the sorriest scraps of nothing you'd never seen. Then we sat some more and I would relate what was happening to my habitually quiet brother until I got the idea that we should play with his car carpet instead.

Car carpets were the best. Every car had a 'house' or a parking spot, and they would zoom around the twisted roads until one day the semi truck elders (elders because they were big and therefore were the most grown up) said that the time had come to leave because the world was ending or something. What a harrowing journey! Our apartment in Kaiserslautern was based off a central hallway, and it was down this hallway that our pilgrimage took place. Inch by inch, we would push our little cars along. Some wouldn't make it. These were more often than not our least favorite cars, and they would flip over dead, abandoned by the others. We each had about fifty cars to line up single file and it took hours to get from my room to the living room. I remember the cars with doors that opened had the ability to fly, and with this super power they would scout the area. Yes, this somehow kept me entertained, and my quiet brother went along with it. I can't imagine now, having had the experience of driving, that anyone would actually be able to survive a traffic jam of that magnitude if it were scaled up. It would most definitely result in countless suicides.

When we moved from Washington state to California, I fell asleep somewhere between Medford Oregon and Mt. Shasta. I was probably eleven, and the first thing I remember when I woke up was a cartoon. I was literally in a cartoon. The cows were a stark black and white, grazing on neon green hills under a cloudless electric blue sky. I was freaking out, rubbing my eyes in disbelief. Little did I know that I would be venturing out through those hills quite a bit over the next few years, and whenever we did cross over Vasco Road between home and civilization, I would get excited at the prospects of certain death. "LOOK!" I'd shriek at my brother, "DINOSAURS! We're going to be eaten! DRIVE FASTER, DAD!" I was like this into my teens. Only by the time I actually was a teenager, I had a better mind to keep my mouth shut, and I would rather imagine roaming those hills with a pack and a trusty sword. I wasn't ever in the car. I was walking out in that wind blowing ferociously through the grass, a most important quest at hand. Secrecy was of the utmost importance, and I had to fight off many foes.

To be perfectly honest? I'm in my mid twenties, and that's still what I'm doing. I try to hide it, I guess, when I'm trying to be an adult. I'm never actually here though. If you ever catch my eyes glazing over as I talk and should my sentences start slowing down and make no sense, I'm gone. I feel bad for the customers who catch me in these moments. I'm not slow or stupid, I'm just living a parallel life on another plane of existence.

On Playing Hooky

I walked out the door this morning with the intent of doing whatever I wanted. I'm done with the semester and I happened to have the day off, so why not? I put the phone on silent and ignored all texts, including the ones about my grandmother being in the hospital because I don't exactly know how to handle that anyway.

I was greeted by a message on the sidewalk. As it turns out, sidewalks talked to me all day to the point that I was talking back. "This could be a black hole," it said, pointing out the fact that there was a hole in the cement. I didn't respond. I was slightly taken aback by this statement. This COULD be a black hole, and what then? What should I do? This said black maybe hole was in front of my house and might suck me inside out during the night. I walked on. It wasn't until later when I was walking from school to Temple Square along the Avenues that the conversation really took off. More on that in just a second.

As it turns out, my school is really far away from downtown, and it was an awesome walk. There's a lot to see on South Temple and I definitely want to spend a day touring things like the Governor's Mansion and the Masonic Temple. I found an apartment called 'The Franciscan' and grinned upon observing that it was a rather brown building. I wonder if anyone else sees that as appropriate? I found steps leading up to a patch of grass where I assume a house once stood. I also noted that one house was advertising for 'tentnants', and I laughed in spite of myself.

But as I was saying, the sidewalk and I had a conversation. It started when I crossed South Temple and skipped over to the west side of Q Street. "QueST," the sidewalk said, "an epic journey; a plot device." I ignored this as well, but the sidewalk persisted. "PeST, an undesired presence. OuST, a river in Brittany..." It was here that the messages stopped and I was forced to finish them myself:

NeST: the residence of a bird or perhaps a gorilla.

MyST: a horribly confusing game from the 90s that distracted my dad for hours.

LoST: where I may end up today.

KoST: a more Greek way of saying 'cost'.

JeST: kidding!

IST: cheating in German because I'd otherwise be stumped.

HaSTy: hobbits are too...

GiST: more or less the bulk of everything I'm telling you.

FiST: in your face.

EuSTon: Tube station in London.

DuST: the tiny particles in His Dark Materials that are really angels... or something. I should reread those books.

CuSTard: my grandpa once made a custard and brought it for dessert and I didn't like it because it was too eggy. I feel really bad for not liking it because I really miss my grandpas.

BuST: I've finally got one for my front room. In fact I have two, and they happen to be Apollo and Diana. This must be fate.

AuguSTus: let's be honest, of course I'm going to see "A ST" and associate it with the Caesar of caesars because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, relates back to the Graeco-Romans.

By the end of the Avenues, I was done with my game and cheerfully strolling towards Temple Square. The flowers are gorgeous this time of year, and I was not disappointed. I chose a spot on the wall where my feet wouldn't touch the ground. What I don't like about being tall is having my feet always touching the ground whenever I sit on a bench. More than many things I just want to be able to swing my legs back and forth childishly. I sat and pondered the meaning of family in the Church and how it relates to my life. I noticed two families taking pictures on the grounds after their weddings, and my heart sunk a bit. I probably won't ever marry, but if I did I would have no family there. I have family. It's not as though they aren't there, but relations aren't ideal, and the last thing I would want at an occasion like my own wedding would be contention. My mother has already expressed that she would not be caught dead at an event at which my grandmother was present, and that includes my wedding. At this point in time anyway I feel so unattached from my kin that I don't think I plan on telling anyone whether or not I do marry.

It didn't take long for a pair of sister missionaries to approach me. We talked for awhile about this and that. It was a nice conversation. I brought up mythology and how it relates to Mormon doctrine and I probably sounded crazy. Okay. Then I was reminded that I needed to buy a May Ensign for the conference talks, but they didn't have any at Deseret Book. Drat. So off I jolly went to take the train to Ogden.

I really like trains. No kidding. I LOVE trains. I don't know that I'll ever take a plane again unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't get to go north all that often, but today felt like a good day to do so, and I've always wanted to take Front Runner, though I can't imagine any reason to ever go north of Salt Lake. All it is is more shopping and residences, right? I mean... Lagoon? Really?

Right now they're still snow capped, and they even more impressive in Ogden. They seem to bolt up from the valley; their walls reminded me of a recurring dream I have of travelling up a glacier encrusted mountain pass to a hidden valley high above the atmosphere. There's a river and a village with elves living there. I'll find it one day.

I got to Ogden and walked around a bit before my legs gave out and demanded an extended rest or they would kill me. I can't really imagine how, but that's what they threatened. I turned around and walked back to the train station. It took me passed backyards full of junk. We have too much stuff. We let it pile up and then dump it, and guess what? It still sits there. I can't believe it. But what was even more astounding than the junk in people's yards were the number of houses. I mean, we have billions of people on this planet, and we keep building houses for them. Entire neighborhoods pop up from nowhere, and we can build cities in decades rather than centuries. The Romans had quality, but they have nothing on our efficiency. We are bloody brilliant at industry, and while I might prefer quality I can't help but admire the genius behind efficiency. Humans are amazing.

Days off are the best.

Tom Bombadil, The Odyssey, and Immortality

I have quite the pile of to-do blogs growing. This is one of four that I've reserved titles for but have yet to begin writing. It's the end of the semester, and I've been very busy writing papers and studying. Or at least calling whatever it is I do 'studying'. I can start off just fine with reading relevant information, but then I wind up either reading Wikipedia entries on the monarchs of any given country or an article on Cracked about the '6 Most Unlikely Victories in History' or something.

Anyway, I'm going out of the order that I should be in, and for that I apologize. I have an idea for a essay pertaining to 'The Hobbit', but this will be written first as it requires less research.

One day last week (or rather many weeks ago, as it's taken me this long to getting around to this entry again) my professor concluded a lecture on The Odyssey with a question to ponder. As we all know (Save for one of my coworkers who has managed to go his entire life without being exposed to classic mythology. I don't care if he's Pakistani, everyone in the westernized world knows The Odyssey.), Odysseus find himself living with a beautiful goddess on her island for seven years. Calypso falls in love with Odysseus and asks him to stay with her, but he vows to leave one day and return to his wife in Ithaca. Calypso tries to counter him, offering immortality and agelessness. Agelessness is important, as the Greeks were very well aware that immortality did make one young eternally. So the question we had to ponder was whether or not we would take the offer.

Of course, my answer was that I wouldn't. Who could live an endless life doing nothing but laze around basking in one's immortality? It would get boring. Having decided that it was the wisest choice, I left it at that and carried on. I'm rather fond of the idea of mortality and a silly question like that is easy, right?

Wrong. Two days later, as I sat comfortably on my regular everyday route that I would likely have to ride everyday for the rest of time were I immortal and living the same old hohum life, I found myself reading the account in The Fellowship of the Ring where the quartet meet Tom Bombadil. I've met Tom before. Even before I'd ever read 'The Hobbit' or 'The Lord of the Rings', I'd always pretended to see such a man as he from the corner of my eye. A bearded little nuisance just waiting to influence me to distraction. And did I ever get distracted. That's beside the point.

What I noticed about Tom this go around is that he's immortal. Alright, so this was a given and not so much a revelation, but I couldn't help but think back to the lecture and the question. Is immortality all that it's cracked up to be? In a reality where maturity is key to survival, I've long since abandoned the passing fancy of magical beings tickling my imagination. Nope, this kid is a grown up, and unfortunately I have been one for a very long time. I'm ready to work myself to death, producing money to pay for my living until I keel over. So what's the point? Immortality is impossible and silly and a waste of time.

Time. That's it. It was in reading through the chapter, watching Tom's character that I realized that the answer is not that immortality is NOT desirable. On the contrary, it's absolutely everything we should be working toward. The problem we have with immortality is this misconception that immortality is just as stuck in time as mortality is. If we live forever, day in and day out with an awareness that we are subject to time, then of course immortality is undesirable!

Take a look at the way Tom lives. He goes about his days doing whatever the Duck he pleases. He sings to trees and talks in rhyme and juggles magic rings made of evil as though they aren't capable of destroying the world. Why? Time is fleeting. Time is not forever. Immortality is. As the minutes die, your life doesn't have to end. Wasting time is a perception placed upon us by the Council of Lame Old People Who Regret Life.

Okay, so that might come across as being very immature to say, and believe me, I'm not one to waste time. I have goals to meet and things to do, but you know what? I have to spend time and waste time to get there. As long as you're putting yourself to good use, what's the issue? How are you bored? When I find myself stuck on a bus getting from point A to point B, I'm not wasting time. I take in the scenery, ponder existence, take a short trip to a far off place. I don't consider that a waste of time at all.

In organizing my overwhelmingly still unorganized thoughts on this, I imagined a day in the life of Tom Bombadil, as an immortal who doesn't care to think about time. He wakes up (assuming that one not bound by time actually sleeps) in the morning, blinks once or twice and thinks "Wow, I'm aware of myself. I'm alive! What is this flat surface above my head? I'll call it a foor (It was a roof yesterday and probably will be tomorrow, so why not?)! Good smells!" At which he promptly jigs his way downstairs to the kitchen where Goldberry has a fantastic feast prepared for his morning consumption. Following breakfast, Tom spends the day observing and relearning the nature about him. Perhaps he remembers them, perhaps he doesn't. The point is that he maintains the perspective that everything is new and can be appreciated accordingly.

So while it might have sucked to live forever on an island with Calypso, and though I agree with Odysseus' decision to leave, I don't agree at all that immortality is going to be an eternal snooze fest. To think that way is to think with your feet on the ground. If immortality is impossible, then stop thinking about it like it is probability.

Which brings me to my last point, and I mentioned it earlier, immortality is what we should be aiming for. It's been a topic of philosophy since, oh, forever. What do we do with it? Is there an afterlife? My question in response is whether it matters? I've stated I believe in an afterlife. I'd like to imagine that this afterlife will be spent doing whatever I like and emulating a life like Tom Bombadil's. Odysseus' immortality would have been spent in a mortal state of mind, and I don't want to do that. But even if they're no afterlife, what is immortality? Memory. Memory transcends time and space and goes forever. Even if forgotten, the mere fact that memory was ever remembered is a testament to its endurance. So what if there's nothing? If I end up as nothing but memory, I will have succeeded in living a life worth the remembrance. Win for me. Take that, Cronus!

So... that was a dump of thought. Sorry if it made no sense. I'm having a pretty excitable day today.