Against bad things

Excerpt of an email to one Richard Portland:

That you say “while [my] comment may have been in jest, [you] cannot be sure of that” makes me a little proud of my form, to be honest.

As a general rule, I am never just kidding. And, it is always far more likely that I’m portraying my rhetoric as jest while meaning it frankly than the other way around.

I speak of fun and good things in just the same way you do, referring specifically to its most commonly observed occurrences: the conscious ones, superficlal ones.

I dislike it when people show a prejudice against bad things, which I believe is what leads people to superficially overvalue things like fun and things that are generally regarded as good or happy, to be more precise, itself a weak interpretation of the human experience, seeking to, in the low-level domain that is our own, somehow have a grasp on self-worth.

In the words of my GP, we have moments of what we cherish as happiness, but overall, the nature of the human experience is one of suffering. And we are putting a heavy burden on ourselves by measuring life on this scale of the ineffable.

What I’m saying is, as you list things that you can appreciate in other human beings, I think there is one prize that today rises above everything else, to me, and that’s the ability to see beyond the scope of what is good and what is bad, what is happy and what is sad, and to arrive at a condition of pure love for the human being, in all its misery and insufficiency.

And finally, you know, and we all know, that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.