A cartoon about a boy who breathes underwater with the help of “oxy-gum” and fights crime with an electric boomerang and has a dolphin and psychic mermaid as friends is already starting to push the bounds of believability. Making the mermaid glue seashells to her tits would blow the last of its credibility.Thank you, Ron. I'd woken up all woebegone from a nostalgic dream. That statement rather took a bazooka to the melancholy.
Ron's also created an alternative to the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I."
Obviously, I could never use this phrase, because I don’t believe that there is a God out there looking after people. Nevertheless, the principle behind that phrase is still quite instructive. Many years ago, I felt it would be a shame to let such a useful lesson go unlearnt just because it’s framed in mythology. I needed to rephrase it in a way that was consistent with a non-theistic view of the universe. When I see some random (or not) tragedy befalling somebody, I sometimes remind myself:
There but for the random distribution of matter and energy go I.
I'm not sure which quote I want to use in public first...
No comments:
Post a Comment