My friend told me the other day about someone who spent ten years devoting all his time and energy to becoming a millionaire. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived at the magic number, he had become so impoverished in creativity and imagination that he didn’t know how to enjoy his money. To reference Jesus of Nazareth, he had gained the whole world but lost his own soul.
I often think about pleasure as a ratio: amount of money paid to enjoyment. Often I try to make a game of it. How low can I keep the money side and how high can I make the pleasure side? If the ratio is 1:10, for instance, it would mean that I spent 1 unit of money and derived 10 units of pleasure. Or better yet, the ratio would be 0:10.
The kids are on midterm break, so today we took them on an outing. We had a picnic in the park. They played on the monkey bars while Esther and I played Scrabble and sipped coffee from a flask. Later we spent a leisurely hour at the library, stocking up on books for our week off. We didn’t spend any money. I think everyone enjoyed it just fine.
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Even in Ireland, one feels the drama of the US presidential election. A few days ago Esther and I cast our ballot–registered in Kansas, since that was our last state of residence. Kansas has been a GOP stronghold–not a swing state, in other words–so there wasn’t much point in our going to the bother of voting. Even so we did it, if for no other reason than to feel the urbaneness of voting from abroad. (Full disclosure, that feeling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.)
My sense is that the Democratic party has become more elitist and authoritarian, and it feels like most legacy media outlets champion the causes of the Democratic party pretty overtly. I also think Kamala Harris’s view of abortion is too simplistic and, taken together, these issues give me serious pause in supporting the Democratic party.
That said, Donald Trump is a convicted rapist and we have a recording of him bragging and laughing about rape. Some Trump supporters respond that you don’t get Trump’s policies without his personality, that penetrating the elitist culture of politics could only be accomplished by someone as shocking, and yes vulgar, as Trump. They also feel that a vote for Trump is a form of protest because it feels like they are thinking for themselves rather than allowing “the mainstream media” to infantilize them and tell them exactly what to believe about every political issue.
I remain unconvinced that we can separate character and policy indefinitely. At some point, the character of the candidate will influence his policies. Regarding the bias from certain media sources, is it possible that they give such unfailingly negative press to Trump because he really is an unusually depraved person? Furthermore, if you go by number of consumers, the mainstream media today also includes folks like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, and I certainly have not noticed any bias against Trump from their quarters.
To little old me, it is so obvious that America needs to mature beyond its Republican-Democrat binary. Why can’t interesting parties like the American Solidarity Party gain any traction?
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One of the exquisite joys of reading is to work your way through two books alternatingly, preferably from different genres, and allow your mind to make connections between the two.
I just finished The Girl on the Train, my biennial foray into psychological thrillers, while also reading How to Know a Person, by David Brooks. In the first book, the author uses a literary technique known as unreliable narrator. We know the character’s thoughts, many of which turn out to be disconnected from reality, but we don’t know much about the bigger picture.
In David Brooks’ book, which is nonfiction, he talks about the opposite; in real life we might have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on around us, yet know little of the inner monologue of characters around us. Brooks says that we misread people as often as 80% of the time, including our spouses, and that sometimes the longer we are married to someone the more likely it is that we misread them.
Both books are exceptional and I recommend them highly.
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Earlier this month, I took part in the all-Ireland Scrabble tournament, which is held in a hotel in Waterford every fall. I placed 12 out of a field of 32 players. My highlight was winning against the player who went on to win the tournament. Almost certainly, had I played 10 more matches against him, he would have won all 10 of them. As in any sport, flukes happen.
Several Scrabble fundamentals were solidified in my mind over that weekend:
- Build your rack for a bingo, but not at the expense of making 20- to 30-point plays in between with your bread-and-butter tiles (e.g., the W, F, and H).
- Get ahead early and block.
- Record words you are afraid to play and look them up later.
- Memorise the 3-letter words. (And of course the 2-letter words, but that’s relatively easy.)
Here is a photo of my win against the champion. We both bingoed early, his was TOWERING and mine was DEFRAUDS.
