Still thinking

These last few days I have been getting strange notices from someone named Andrew giving me all sorts of technical information about this blog that I really didn’t ask for, which leads me to suspect that our congenial host is getting tired of my ongoing battles with writer’s block and is letting me know that I either get snapping and cracking with my next bit of worldly wisdom or they are going to take The Passing Parade away from me. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? No, we wouldn’t. On the other hand, dispensing worldly wisdom requires that you have worldly wisdom to dispense, and since I don’t have any, I am more or less up the metaphorical creek without an outboard engine (I’m sorry, but I don’t paddle. I just don’t).  So what to do?  Well, I could comment on the world situation, but there are many people who can do that much better than I can and, let’s face it, the world situation is crappy, largely because the world situation is always crappy.  That’s just the way things are. A century ago, World War I was in its third year, the century before that Europe was putting itself back together after twenty-five years of war with France, and a century before that Europe was putting itself back together after fourteen years of the War of the Spanish Succession, which was a big hit with the ruling classes who cared about who got to be the King of Spain; the people who had to fight the war really didn’t care one way or the other, which is the way most wars are, you know. Does anyone, other than the Spanish, really care who the King of Spain is? No, I don’t think so, and my guess is that most Spanish people do not care either, except to check out what his wife (who is really good-looking) is wearing that week. Anyway, given how things have gone for the past three hundred years, it is a good bet that a hundred years from now that the world situation will still be crappy. So why bother talking about it?

I suppose I could talk about politics or about social mores, but I am not a politically inclined person; one of my deepest held beliefs is that wanting to run for political office should disqualify the candidate from having that office; and I am, as a person, horribly unsocial to the point of being asocial.  I am not antisocial—I understand that humans, being primates of the biological and not the religious type (unless, of course, you happen to be an actual primate of the religious type, in which case both categories apply to you. And while I have your attention, Primate, could you please explain to me why Ireland, which is not the biggest place in the world, gets two Roman Catholic primates while the United States, which is a fairly large place, doesn’t have one at all. Hardly seems fair, if you ask me), need the society of other humans or we risk madness or worse, enjoying peanut butter and liverwurst sandwiches.  I also see no reason why I should take advantage of the Vampire State’s retirement system for the perennially antisocial, which involves three bland meals a day, sharing one’s room with the not terribly nice, and unfashionable bracelets. No, I am asocial, which means that no matter how much you would like to share my company, I’d prefer that you go somewhere else. I’m just like that, I fear.  Having said that, please rest assured that I am trying to think of subjects you would find interesting to write about and that at some point I will have something worth looking at here. And I would like to thank you again for your continued support.