Stuck

Man, you are such a difficult problem to yourself.

Alexander Pope
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One day I saw a clown perform a funny act. He had his finger stuck in a bottle. He tugged, he pulled, he twisted, he shook, he held the bottle between his legs and tried to pry his finger out with the other hand, he even tried swinging the bottle back and forth trying to dislodge his finger. Finally, exhausted, he removed his hand from the bottle, reached into his back pocket, took out his handkerchief to mop his brow, put the handkerchief back in his pocket and then stuck his finger back in the bottle and started tugging again. It was very funny, but it was telling us a serious story. How many problems do we create for ourselves that we could have avoided or solved if we only applied some reason, and aforethought?

On a more serious note, one night I was driving back to New York City from New England. I had heard on the news that there was a major protest by the gas stations in New York State against the oil companies I think, and that all the gas stations in the state had closed. So I stopped in Connecticut and filled up the tank. After I crossed the state line into Westchester County on the highway I saw that, indeed the gas stations were closed and dark. After several miles I saw a guy at a gas station desperately trying to open a closed and locked gas pump. It was a futile effort. He didn't have enough gas to get where he was going and he knew it. If he didn't get some he would probably be stranded on the highway. He wasn't going to get any out of that pump. It was too late on a 65 mile an hour highway to turn back and give him some of mine, so I just kept going.

I don't know what happened to that poor fellow. Maybe he had enough to take the next exit and turn around back to Connecticut. That would have gotten his finger out of the bottle.

New York City has several daily newspapers. I would sometimes see someone walking down the street with all of them tucked under his arm.
Evidently he was concerned about being out of touch with the world's events, so he hoarded newspapers. I wonder how much of them he read or if it was just the security of knowing that he had the news with him. I wonder what his apartment looked like.

I knew a man who hoarded the Sunday New York Times. He had stacks of them in his apartment, unread. Some people hoard food because they fear not having enough to eat. Very rich people hoard money because they can. Those who have more than they need fear not having enough so they stash it away where it's safe. In a bottle.

I hoard books. I fear ignorance, inanity and stupidity. It's a form of my germane claustrophobia. So I hoard books. I always have a book in my pocket or my back pack just so that no matter where I am I will have something interesting to read, a catalogue of ideas and creative expressions. I don't know how many books I have but they control my apartment. They let me live here. Do I have my finger stuck in a bottle?

We can all be free of the traps we set for ourselves, just as the clown showed us, if we can admit two things. One, there are habits and behaviors that do us no good, muddle up our lives and tie us down. And two, there are difficulties we have made for ourselves, we invented them, gave them justification and now they control us.

Moral: Take you finger out of the bottle and get on with life.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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SUMMER QUESTION

Summer is moving along, people.

It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you.

Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

16 answers so far.

You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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The Big Machine

Even civilization is impermanent.

Erik Hansen
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Hello Bridgeport, Connecticut
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I remember one day, when I was a child, reading in the New York Times, an obituary of a woman who, when she was a child, played in the garden on which the Empire State Building now stands. I remember thinking that was a remarkable thing. It was the first indication I had that many things around me I took for granted hadn't always been there. I got interested in history.

With the rise and glut of new electronic gadgets available to us, we tend to just accept what's there and ask no questions. In almost every country there are scientists, engineers and technicians working out even more advanced methods of communication and transportation. Robots are taking over our menial tasks and leaving us time to do what? Waste time? Get lazy? Forget where we came from?

Hundreds of years ago people from Europe crossed the great ocean to set up a new world. They killed as many of the natives as they thought they needed to, uprooted the fields and planted crops, cut down the trees and put up houses, made gardens and then destroyed one of those to build the Empire State Building and kept building.

There have been many great civilizations of the past. Most of them seemed to have disappeared by being overrun by a stronger one. What makes us think we are exempt?

I read somewhere about a robot that has another robot attached to it that can make repairs on the first bot. How soon will it be before someone makes a machine that can't be destroyed, even by another robot or a cave man with a club? And what if it is designed to be or accidentally becomes aggressive.

Robots don't have to be the size of little tables that roll around on wheels or humanoid looking machines that stagger along, Star Wars robots. They can be as large as a drone aircraft, or a space station or the Empire State Building.

So our civilization is not permanent. I'm not a Luddite. I just think we have the freedom, the right and the obligation to decide what's going to become of us before some big, omnipotent machine decides for us.

DB - Vagabond
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Never Give Up.
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.

Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 6 answers so far

I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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