At 15 Craigside, a seniors community, where I live, we were told that if we went out with family and friends to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we would be placed on a five-day quarantine and antigen tested (for which we would pay for each at $50/test) on days 5 and 10. If we refused, then we would be automatically quarantined for 14 days. The pandemic rightfully doesn't allow us to live life our own way.
However, we are allowed to visit a doctor's office and go out to play golf. There would have been the temptation to use some such excuse to have your cherished Thanksgiving meal. After all, what is more important than family? The administration here just trusts you. Are the residents equally principled? For those who were tempted to obfuscate the truth, read
THIS!
...But what else could it come down to? As an atheist, I have chosen to believe that all things bright and beautiful are nothing more than a complicated, ongoing chemical reaction that began billions of years ago and has been taking place "all by itself" ever since. The earth was barren and lifeless. Now it is not. If no god put life here and if nature (that is, the universe), then this all--literally--just one huge, built-up chemical reaction. There is no other rationalist answer.
So about the ultimate denouement, I've had this lifetime fear of death being in eternal blackness...or nothing. I can't convince myself that there is any kind of afterlife, Heaven or Hell. I joke that I'm now in Purgatory, for my euphoric mental state provides this sense.
Last night a thought occurred to me that I needed to adjust my attitude. Say there is no Supreme Being and therefore all that religion promises. Faith seems to be too much of a gamble without any kind of definite proof. That's the Catch-22 about this option.
Why continue to be in fear of death? It's coming and there will be no way out for me. Eternal blackness is frightful. The other option, nothingness, just cannot be imagined. Think about anything called nothing, and you'll get nowhere. And anyway, nothing is equally terrifying.
While I'm willing to accept the concept of total peace, this is hardly comforting in combination with blackness or nothingness. So what about continued euphoria bathed in rainbow colors?
But where would the energy come from to provide this eternal illusion? Thermodynamics and entropy only apply to real life. In the hereafter, these laws don't track. No reason why I can't after death forever luxuriate in a kaleidoscope of what my mind creates. Then, too, some might call this Heaven, and, if so, maybe I have indeed arrived.
Song #29 is Sir Edward Elgar's
Pomp and Circumstance. I did not realize that there were six
Pomp and Circumstance Marches, the first published in 1901 and the sixth posthumously around 2005. Each takes about five minutes to play.
The only one you know is
March #1. For example, the second-most well-known is
March #2. If you clicked on that, had you heard it before?
There are further complications, for a portion of these lyrics was melded into King Edward VII Coronation Ode, with words by A.C. Benson, becoming Land of Hope and Glory.
- Land of Hope and Glory, linked to Pomp and Circumstance, is now considered to be too much a glorification of colonialism and slavery. The British are caught in a bind about honoring this song, thus insulting racial equality and Black Lives Matter. A historical adjustment was made and LoHaG was not played in their annual Prom concert this year. Here is the Last Night finale from two months ago.
Pomp and Circumstance is still used on U.S. campuses (
if you're wondering why they are not wearing masks and keeping safe distances, this one came from Stanford last year--they don't take graduation too seriously there--see how they're dressed).
I end with something unusual, a dual blooming of my water lilies.
I've had this plant in my aquarium for three years, and this is the first time two have appeared at the same time. There are other flowers, too, such as:
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