Day 174
Very rarely do I take time here to mourn a death. Honestly, I'm terribly scared of dying, and the more I really think about it the more things in the world seem to fall away before my eyes. I do believe that death is the end, that - the conscious being - the thing that thinks - the point of view - is simply and utterly extinguished along with its decaying vessel; while by very definition I cannot understand or conceptualize such a notion, every so often in moments of silence and focused contemplation I get what one might call a very small and sudden sense of it.
There are exceptions: A shoutout to the late George Carlin, who passed away today (rather, yesterday, as it is just past midnight). He was one of my favorite comedians and critics, and one of the very, very few honest people to find such a famous voice. To get up on that grand stage and speak of the human condition in its matter-of-fact, biological and moral truth, is a feat of confidence that few have ever acheived. There is so typically a sense of self-protection in the famous talkers of our time, a dishonest effort to remain above, or separate from that which is being commented upon. With Carlin this was never the case. He told people who he really was in ways that most people, myself included, rarely or never do. I always found very subtle notes of compassion, of love and deep spirituality, hidden below the layers of his scathing and inhospitable cynicism and disloyalty toward the mechanisms of culture, politics, religion, and what he felt was our corrupt and controlled modern morality.
So here's to George Carlin. He will be missed.
"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."
There are exceptions: A shoutout to the late George Carlin, who passed away today (rather, yesterday, as it is just past midnight). He was one of my favorite comedians and critics, and one of the very, very few honest people to find such a famous voice. To get up on that grand stage and speak of the human condition in its matter-of-fact, biological and moral truth, is a feat of confidence that few have ever acheived. There is so typically a sense of self-protection in the famous talkers of our time, a dishonest effort to remain above, or separate from that which is being commented upon. With Carlin this was never the case. He told people who he really was in ways that most people, myself included, rarely or never do. I always found very subtle notes of compassion, of love and deep spirituality, hidden below the layers of his scathing and inhospitable cynicism and disloyalty toward the mechanisms of culture, politics, religion, and what he felt was our corrupt and controlled modern morality.
So here's to George Carlin. He will be missed.
"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."
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