Name: Anonymous 2005-08-14 5:38
The following is a piece I hope to be able to write in
earnest one day.
On the occasion of my one hundreth birthday, I would like
to take this opportunity to directly attribute my longevity
to all of the following factors:
For most of my adult life, I have frequently consumed soda,
regularly consumed liquor, occasionally smoked marijuana,
occasionally smoked cigarettes, and not unduly worried myself
about the effects of any of the above.
I never troubled myself to enter into a serious relationship,
or to procreate, or even to raise children, for that matter.
This is not to deny that I have a sex drive, or to pretend to
misanthropy; I'm not "special". Indeed, I do have a sex
drive, and I have several friends. However, I am undersexed,
and am the kind of person who is content to live with oneself,
to avoid the more annoying, conventional headaches that
go along with certain intimate human contact. In other words,
I only deal with people when I'm good and ready. I also quite
charitably saved a potential partner the trouble of constantly
dealing with an anal-retentive narcissist.
After acheiving financial independence, The only projects of
my life have been to read, experiment privately, and to keep
my house in order. I have had very little to do in the way
of maintenence over the years. This, not because I hired
help, but because my house is orderly, and has been that way
for all the time that I live in it, alone. A stitch in time
saves nine.
The above point leads nicely into the next: Sloth. Sloth is
very, very easily my favorite deadly sin, and has also played
an integral role in my long, happy life. Sloth is superior
to pride, avarice, wrath and so forth, because all the others
imply that most hateful nuisance: effort. For most of my
adult life, I have had the pleasure of sleeping 8 to 11 hours
in a day, usually rising in late morning, or mid-afternoon.
This is not to say that I don't DO anything with myself; I
read, write, and pursue other hobbies to a greater or lesser
extent. Like my social life, I do things only when it is my
pleasure; in most cases, I have a sincere interest in what
I study. If I feel like going on a week-long, low key weed
and booze bender instead, however, nothing stops me. I almost
never do a thing that I do not really want to; however, it is
my good fortune that what I want to do leads to healthy habits
which mitigate the bad ones. The extra can be credited to
good genes.
In particular, I would like to associate my long life with
the fact that I do not believe in God. Contrary to the
conventional view that a worldview without God should cause
one to despair, and deprive life of its perceived value, I
maintain the conventional atheist view: the serious
expectation that there is no afterlife or apperception
after death naturally compels one to hold onto life for as
long as is humanly possible. Life is intrinsically valuable
under EITHER a Christian or an atheist scheme, albeit for
radically different reasons. The latter has the added
benefit of being rather more accurate.
earnest one day.
On the occasion of my one hundreth birthday, I would like
to take this opportunity to directly attribute my longevity
to all of the following factors:
For most of my adult life, I have frequently consumed soda,
regularly consumed liquor, occasionally smoked marijuana,
occasionally smoked cigarettes, and not unduly worried myself
about the effects of any of the above.
I never troubled myself to enter into a serious relationship,
or to procreate, or even to raise children, for that matter.
This is not to deny that I have a sex drive, or to pretend to
misanthropy; I'm not "special". Indeed, I do have a sex
drive, and I have several friends. However, I am undersexed,
and am the kind of person who is content to live with oneself,
to avoid the more annoying, conventional headaches that
go along with certain intimate human contact. In other words,
I only deal with people when I'm good and ready. I also quite
charitably saved a potential partner the trouble of constantly
dealing with an anal-retentive narcissist.
After acheiving financial independence, The only projects of
my life have been to read, experiment privately, and to keep
my house in order. I have had very little to do in the way
of maintenence over the years. This, not because I hired
help, but because my house is orderly, and has been that way
for all the time that I live in it, alone. A stitch in time
saves nine.
The above point leads nicely into the next: Sloth. Sloth is
very, very easily my favorite deadly sin, and has also played
an integral role in my long, happy life. Sloth is superior
to pride, avarice, wrath and so forth, because all the others
imply that most hateful nuisance: effort. For most of my
adult life, I have had the pleasure of sleeping 8 to 11 hours
in a day, usually rising in late morning, or mid-afternoon.
This is not to say that I don't DO anything with myself; I
read, write, and pursue other hobbies to a greater or lesser
extent. Like my social life, I do things only when it is my
pleasure; in most cases, I have a sincere interest in what
I study. If I feel like going on a week-long, low key weed
and booze bender instead, however, nothing stops me. I almost
never do a thing that I do not really want to; however, it is
my good fortune that what I want to do leads to healthy habits
which mitigate the bad ones. The extra can be credited to
good genes.
In particular, I would like to associate my long life with
the fact that I do not believe in God. Contrary to the
conventional view that a worldview without God should cause
one to despair, and deprive life of its perceived value, I
maintain the conventional atheist view: the serious
expectation that there is no afterlife or apperception
after death naturally compels one to hold onto life for as
long as is humanly possible. Life is intrinsically valuable
under EITHER a Christian or an atheist scheme, albeit for
radically different reasons. The latter has the added
benefit of being rather more accurate.