Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.”
– H.L.Mencken
When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.
-Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
I’m so tired right now, and I can hardly type because I’ve been using that damn-fool broken keyboard for so long. My hands want to press all sorts of extra keys just to make the letters from the bottom row appear. My website isn’t working at full capability right now, for no reason the programmers of MT seem to be aware of. I went over to join Becky & Gary, Holly & Mix & their daughter, Kat and her man, plus their neighbors for a nice barbecue tonight, and then on over to Mix & Holly’s place where we hung out and watched Dead Alive (which I had never seen before) and then some overly dramatic medical documentaries while we chatted… I just got home around 2:30, and now I’m trying to get the website properly updated… I’m just re-upping some of the files to see if it makes a difference.
I’m hungry, too. I know I ate plenty of supper tonight, but since that was seven or eight hours ago, my body is sure I should have eaten something else by now. Except I’m hoping this website updating stuff doesn’t take too long and I’ll be in bed sleeping. And then sleeping in. Last night I ended up staying up late because of this same problem with the upgrade, then this morning I got up early to irrigate… I was planning on taking a nap at some point this morning, but ended up opening the store instead, since there were plenty of people walking around looking in the other shops. Except that at the end of the day when everyone closed, five shops had been open all day and made $0 between us. Zero dollars. Anyway, I got some work done on some … something I’ll be posting about and trying to drum up some publicity for within the next few days… I got from about 1/4 done to about 1/2 done today, and since I’m not going to bother opening the store tomorrow, I expect to get to be 100% done by the time my grandparents get home tomorrow afternoon.
My head hurts. I’m probably just thirsty, but I didn’t remember to bring anything to drink to my room and … well, I’m basically undressed for bed already. Erg. I may run down and get a pint or two of water into my system before going to bed. I am painfully aware of the dangers of dehydration and the fact that the body continues to use water during sleep. Sigh. Not looking forward to the inevitably cold, sweaty feeling of just-removed shoes.
Okay, in another window I am now testing to see if the re-upping worked… … … waiting…
…anyway, while that rebuilds (which may take several minutes more at this rate)… I don’t know what. I’m getting so tired I’m not sure I’m awake enough to form coherent thoughts. How about incoherent ones? I don’t know.
Oh yeah. So, Sara got back from her European vacation and seems to be doing well. She’s found a guy that she really wants things to work out with and he seems to want the same, and they seem happy together. That’s good. More than wanting to be with her, I’ve always wanted Sara to be happy. More than happiness, I value her health and safety, so as long as the other people she’s with make her happy without endangering her health and safety, my love for her is more content than if she were unhappy or unhealthy or unsafe, but mine (all mine, mwahahaha!!!) (where did that come from?). So, yeah.
Oh, and … I am tempted to try to exert myself in the direction of a certain someone I have been interested in since years before she realised it, who may have realised it two years ago (look it up – two years and a week ago), but then missed the point and ended up with someone else for a long time. Circumstances are not the most conducive to the sort of relationship she deserves, the sort of relationship I’ve wanted to give her for quite some time, but perhaps something… There are some complicated details, but when aren’t there? I’m going to do my best to just let go, stop trying so hard to make it work and try to just let it work if it wants to.
…oh, hey, it looks like a combination of fixes worked. Just a smidge more work and I’ll be set. by which I mean Modern Evil will be back up and running properly again. Just a little ‘glitch in the Matrix’, I suppose, in the vicinity of my FTP program. Am I asleep yet? I better run and get that water now. Fuck.
Starting soon, I will be adding a section to Modern Evil under ‘Prose’ for content like what you would find in the ‘Editorial’ or ‘Opinion’ or ‘Letters to the Editor’ section of your local newspaper. Any Email sent to editor@modernevil.com, editorial@modernevil.com, opinion@modernevil.com, or opinions@modernevil.com will be considered for this section. Since I do not actually read the equivalent section of any newspaper and never have, I am simply making this up the way I think it should be done – if it ends up having no resemblence to its traditional equivalent, that’s okay.
Submissions can be on any subject you have an opinion on, and can be posted anonymously, but I will not accept submissions without a verifiable email address. If you already have a login for Modern Evil, use it. This new section is for everyone who doesn’t have a login but does have at least one thing to say. If you make a couple of intelligent submissions, I’ll probably offer you a login that you can use to post at your leisure. If you truly want to remain anonymous AND unreachable, you may send a physical letter with no return address to me at the following:
Modern Evil Opinions
c/o Teel McClanahan III
PO Box 2303
Pine, AZ 85544-2303
I will either re-type your message or scan it in (depending on its length and whether I get this keyboard fixed/replaced), but if you go to the time and trouble and expence to snail mail it to me I’ll get it posted even if I’m inundated with other submissions. (iggle.)
I think that’s that, then. Email me if you have questions.