June 5, 2015

Presented for your approval: Lileks, James

"The new bed was perfect. But it meant the old bed had to go. With no small amount of huffing / puffing my wife and I dragged off the mattress and put it in the sun porch, but how to get it downstairs and out on the boulevard for the trash persons?

Answer: close the door to the sun porch and forget about it. Eventually one’s wife will ask “is that going to stay there forever?” and you can say, if you are so bold, of course not; in the short term the house will fall down. In the long term the sun will expand in a fiery ball of all-consuming destruction before it collapsing into a dense brooding cinder. Not sure I get your point. Nothing lasts forever. I used to think the universe would eventually contract back into a single point then begin again in an inconceivable explosion, an idea that made the birth and death and rebirth of the firmaments something akin to the rise and fall of breath, but I’m starting to think that universes pop out of black holes in an endlessly renewing sequence of creation, with the old universes eventually fading away through heat death like an expired gust of life that takes a billion billion years to exhale and fade away. I’d like it to be so, because it’s intellectually and emotionally satisfying, and that’s should make one suspect of the theory. The laws of the universe are not written with our own happiness in mind. The universe is pitiless; the only act of grace it contains is the creation of circumstances in which intelligent life can arise, behold it, and seek out its mysteries. Which is a bit self-centered, really. It’s like having kids just so they can write your biography.
You look irritated, dear.

LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2015

Posted by gerardvanderleun at June 5, 2015 1:20 PM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

When a guy says he'll do something, he'll do it. No need to remind him every six months or so.

JWM

Posted by: jwm at June 6, 2015 10:19 AM

If the mattress is not moldy or bed bugged, many volunteer organization will haul it away to give to someone in need.

Posted by: Fat Man at June 6, 2015 11:27 AM

So it's OK to make promises you can't keep, fail at doing what should be done, and obfuscate the whole thing
with some metaphysical blather about universes colliding and suns winking out? Did I get that right?
He must think Mrs. Lilecks is a fool.

Posted by: chasmatic at June 6, 2015 10:41 PM

Wow, chasmatic, you must be a lot of fun at parties. For the record, Lileks goes on to humorously describe how he got the mattress to the curb for pick-up.

Posted by: markus at June 7, 2015 9:11 AM

Aw markus, I was just being grouchy. I went on to read the rest of the story and yeah, it was funny.

Sometimes I eat the bear and once and a while the bear eats me.

Posted by: chasmatic at June 7, 2015 7:31 PM