somewhere outside of San Francisco. The sky shaded from steel to a light woolly gray. The rain is sewn with fragments of chill, a wind creating a veil on the side of the window. Inside, the air conditioning and jazz tempt me to run screaming from the Starbucks. For all the great Internet access, it bothers me that I have to sit in prefab “comfort.”

At least the books are good. People watching is better. I attempt to ignore the conversations surrounding me, to no avail. Sometimes people’s knowledge, or lack of, impresses upon me the need for books. Speaking of which, I did pick up two more to scan through work tonight. Choices and Illusions. It’s a very interesting book written by an interesting guy. I, always the skeptic and bah-humbugger, always look at self-help and psychobabble books with a light eye. True or not true? I check in with myself for the answer. In scanning the Barnes and Noble self-help section today, I was more disinterested than ever. I immediately discard anything that uses the word God in the masculine. It’s not that I don’t believe in God; I simply can’t wrap my head around a divinity that has gender. True we must leave things in context for the society in which we live. However, I don’t by that we have to maintain it, either. I also disregard books on Atlantis, Lemuria, and aliens building the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Need you ask why? I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that things exist simply because we have a word for them. Have you ever seen a harpie? A Medusa? Our language is filled with metaphor that we take for truth.

Hence, this book on Choices and Illusions. I am fascinated with his approach. Is choice an illusion? I know one person who believes this. The more you know, the more educated you become, you realize that freewill is for the ignorant. Once you know, you cannot make another choice and be true to yourself. You can, but then it’s a lie. That’s the basic premise of this book – well, so far. He’s gone through a lot of background on what is illusion and we’re smack dab in the middle of language right now. Is language an illusion? Absolutely! I agree with this statement. There is much, however, that I have yet to agree with.

Does that make it right or wrong? Nope. It just is. Let’s take the concept of forgiveness. I have the very unpopular notion that there is no such thing as forgiveness. It’s a nicety that we’ve created for ourselves to make ourselves feel better. What we really should be doing is accepting and celebrating the truth in people. This is a complicated and very unpopular notion and I supposed I could be persuaded, given different views, to think differently. So far, it’s not fallen short of my philosophy. Who knows? Maybe ten years from now I will think differently.

Anyway, there it is. Enjoy the people. Enjoy the books. For a dreary day in SF, at 48 degrees F (7 degrees C) it’s all good! Peace!

–TDD