When You Notice the Stripes

Today's lyrics are from "When you notice the stripes", by The Shins:
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall...

Enough said, really.

Bertrand Russell was a very wise man. I find it hard to disagree with anything he says, and he says it all so poetically...a great mathematician and a great philosopher. In 1951 he wrote a book entitled "New Hopes for a Changing World", which should be read by everybody with any influence or power over the future of the world (that is, everyone).

A small sample, from the chapter entitled "The Happy Man", on the fear of death:

"...in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river -- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. The wise man should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what he can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done."

I'd like that on my wall.

On a more down to earth note, I had the sinking realisation earlier that I have four problem sheets due in Wednesday, and philosophy reading and an essay due in for Tuesday. I have done nothing yet. I will spend the rest of the day planning how I will do the work, and reading bits in my maths book entirely irrelevant to the actual problem sheets.

Tonight, however, is a night for celebration: our beloved S will be 19 years old. Apparently, also on this day, Daniel Craig is turning 39, Jon Bon Jovi is 45, and Gorbachev is 76.

S was born on Daniel Craig's 20th birthday. Weird.

I will also have to buy S's present in town today. Let's just say I have some big ideas, ho ho ho.