Public Journal Entry: Felix (11/18/2012)

[om_ghost]

Just realized I don't have to get up and go to school tomorrow cause we have the whole week off. I mean, I knew it, but I just really KNEW it. You know?

I feel like I oughtto stay up real late and really enjoy it. But not in the library. Cause it's Sunday night and I'm in the library and I feel kinda stupid even though this is where the computers are. Anybody else wanna stay up stupidly late?

(Philip it's OK you don't have to come look for me.)

Edited November 19, 2012 11:15
BY THE WAY if you let Jean-Paul pick whatever he does for fun then get ready for a crazy night of TV cooking battles. On the up side now I know what a scallop is and how to super freeze strawberries.

Comments

[om_northstar]

I probably won't be sleeping tonight. Meet you in the common room?

[om_ghost]

Serious?? OK be out in a few! If anybody come looking for me I'll be there doing whatever it is Jean-Paul does for fun!

[om_sage]

On the up side now I know what a scallop is and how to super freeze strawberries.

Though I cannot grasp its immediate utility, I find there is no such thing as useless information. And there are many circles in which knowledge of exotic food preparations is considered highly desirable.

[om_ghost]

Freezing the strawberries makes them last, because they can go off so quickly. The guy on the show used dry ice, because that makes the berries freeze really fast, so there's no time for ice crystals to form. The reason you do that is so when you defrost them later, the juices don't melt out and you end up with flaccid berries.

I did not know you could use science with food! Plus, after he froze the strawberries, they were like little berry-rocks. Totally frozen solid. It was so cool.

[om_sage]

In my experience, science is endlessly useful for augmenting all areas of endeavor. But the majority seem to favor a more intuitive approach.

And elaborate though the method seems, living in the desert has apparently invested me with a greater-than-typical appreciation for fresh fruit. Small, dense objects which could conceivably serve as ammunition in a crisis would certainly be useful, as well.

... "so cool"? Was that an intentional pun, Felix?

[om_ghost]

It wasn't actually intentional, but now I feel like I should say it was! That would have been clever of me if I'd meant to do it.

I was just thinking that hyper-frozen strawberries are already kind of bullet-shaped. You'd have to launch them at really high speeds though, right? Unless you just go with the element of surprise, like, "What the fuck I'm being assaulted by frozen fruit."

[om_sage]

If asked my opinion on the relative desirability of honesty and cleverness, I would say that the former quality is far more difficult to acquire, where it is lacking. One is free to develop the latter in his own time.

Depending on the density of the frozen berries, one might conceivably used them as improvised ammunition for a sling or similar weapon. And the shock a barrage of deadly strawberries might inspire would doubtless prove advantageous.

[om_ghost]

Do you really think it's harder to be honest than clever? I mean, I think people can be both, but honesty is just saying things that are true. Cleverness takes thought and work.

[om_sage]

A cursory evaluation would tend to support the accuracy of your statement. However, I have found that once an individual realizes the usefulness of deception as a tactic for avoiding personal discomfort, it becomes exceedingly difficult for that individual to terminate such behaviors. Cleverness may be accreted over time, though not without effort, but compared to deceit seems far easier to set aside or apply as one's better judgment dictates.

To attempt to clarify: lying, I think, tends to be a controlling response, even a compulsion. Wit remains more firmly under the control of the one who possesses it.

[om_ghost]

They're not total opposites so that makes the question tougher, I think. Nobody has to choose one side or the other. I think you can even be clever and dishonest at the same time, or truthful and dull, or any combination.

There are reasons that people lie. I can't think of any reasons for people to be clever, except that they just are or they want to be. You're not likely to save someone's feelings or keep an awful secret because you can make cute puns, right?

[om_sage]

They are not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination. I did not mean to imply that such was the case; I only attempted to illustrate my opinion that one more desirable, and more difficult, than the other.

I also think that there is only one reason to lie: to save oneself pain. Whether it is the pain of acknowledging one's own shortcomings or the pain of damaging another's feelings, it's an intrinsically selfish act.

But yes. The two qualities are completely discrete, I agree.

[om_ghost]

This is really more interesting than the reading for the Philosophy class! Maybe because it actually seems like something real, and not something that an old man wrote about a hundred or a thousand years ago.

You really don't think there are any good reasons to lie? Does it count as a lie if you just don't say the entire truth?

[om_sage]

It seems to me that philosophy tends to be more engaging when treated as a conversation and not a lecture. Still, the foundational texts have much to recommend them, despite their sometimes-advanced age.

I make no assertions as to the morality or immorality of lying. I only suggest that it is useful, and that its usefulness makes it difficult to give up. Ideally, perhaps we should desire a world in which deception is unnecessary and honesty is universal, but the realities of day-to-day existence make the realization of such a world unlikely. Whether employed as an essential survival strategy or mere social lubricant, deceit penetrates all levels of human interaction too pervasively to be dismissed as an evil. I would offer that the more interesting question is whether one remains in control of one's lies, or if they instead control the liar.

And yes. From my persepctive, a lie of omission is still a deliberate attempt at misdirection, and so falls under the same rubric.

[om_ntw]

Was it enjoyable?

[om_ghost]

Actually yes! There is a lot more on TV than I ever realized.

[om_ntw]

yes

including food?