You know, I’ve always thought that Warhol’s observation about death — that it’s the ultimate indignity — cuts both ways. Instead of being anxious about your own demise, you can just be snotty about everyone that you’ve outlived.

I remember walking around in a thrift store years ago with a friend of mine; we were being really snarky about all the tacky old cast-offs when it suddenly occurred to me that at least some of the stuff there probably used to belong to people who recently died, whose families had donated it because they couldn’t bear to throw it all out.

“Everything’s full of meaning when you don’t understand it” pretty much sums up post-modernism for me.

Although I doubt it’s what Dorothy intended, the strip is actually quite meaningful if you assume they are talking about Christianity.

Afterwards, I often think about the comments just as much as the comic.
So thanks guys, christmas spirit and all that. :D

I guess I’m trying to sort out the authenticity comment, but the rest of it really does resonate with things I’ve been pondering, regarding what used to be known as ‘worldly possessions.’
I do rather wonder what Girl would make of NT Wright’s trilogy.

As I understand decision in what I fancy are neuroscientific terms, it appears to be impossible for a typical human (with no significant cognitive or neurological defects or abnormalities) to make a decision that is not rooted in self-interest. The very evolution of biological information processing systems (brains) has been governed by the ability of such systems to maximize the survival probability of their hosts. In other words, we are hardwired to be selfish. Personal advantage is the very soil from which our thoughts spring and the place to which they return.

In this context, difficulties can arise for persons who believe it an advantage to attain moral superiority (the nice-guy paradox), particularly as certain cultures hold generosity and selflessness as virtues (oh, the irony).

First thing I read this morning, OH MAN OH MAN.

I wonder what that picture Cat is hugging portrays.

“Everything’s full of meaning when you don’t understand it!”

This is something I would be excited to have on a bumper sticker.

I used to wonder what the self interest was in, for example, putting your hand into a fire to prove not everything you do is motivated by self-interest… then I realised that for some people, proving ‘conclusively’ that not everything you do is motivated by self interest is rewarding enough.

Most of my motivation at the moment is to prove that a lot of my decisions were in my self-interest after all.

Ah ah ah, authenticity jar.

I understand nothing, and everything fills me with meaning.

Just because you can’t not do something out of self-interest doesn’t mean you can’t do something out of the goodness of your heart. Sometimes feeling that you’ve done a good thing is all you want, and if indeed that is your motivation, then you can say that you are an unselfish person. Satisfaction is not a finite resource.

“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.” – D. S. Wilson and E. O. Wilson

“garbage is for the living” may be the wisest thing I have ever read…. mind blown.

garbage is made by the living as a function of entropy. information, being ordered, degrades over time.

“Everything’s full of meaning when you don’t understand it” may be the best thing I’ve read in a long time. My fiance and I were just talking about this in regards to art–all art, not just pretty pictures–and art theory. It seems every artist these days has some sort of hairbrained theory about art or why they create, when it used to be that the artist just did what they did. Byron wrote poetry because he liked to write poetry. When he was critized, he didn’t explain the hidden meanings or his theories about his art. He just got drunk and wrote more poetry.

I don’t think that’s true, Joshua. In the specific: Byron answered his critics within future volumes of poetry. But in the abstract: an artist who refuses to discuss their theory is not necessarily without a theory. I think it’s more-or-less impossible to devote one’s life to art for an extended period of time without coming to some theories about why one does what one does. One can choose to respect those artists who refuse to share their theories, but it seems to me that’s just another way to judge them on something other than their art.

Nevertheless, writing poetry because it’s fun is a kind of Cat-like wisdom we might all benefit from.

The depressed are those who try to analyze it.