Addendum to World Not Ending

Here we go again. Low Budget Good Angels. Roaring business at the Straw Man Factory. Shock Workers and sardines by candlelight.

[Humor/Whimsy]

“Oh noooo,” you cry in exasperation, “not another Addendum!”

I…I'm sorry. I didn't want to write one- I really didn't but my good Angel tartly reminded me I had conveniently omitted some inconvenient truths in the main Post. And just when I thought no one would notice! But good Angels- you know, the little figures all dressed in white who perch on your right shoulder, who you can't shake off unless you’re concussed or eaten some 'shroom or somethin' -they have eyes sharper than an eagle using Nikon 10x50 binoculars; they don't miss anything. And they're quick to remind you if you've lapsed! Most everyone have them and don't even know they're present, but with my Lux-Vision™ I can actually see mine! Contrast him with my Bad Angel (we all have them too) loafing on a Barcalounger on my left shoulder-both angel and chair in the traditional red- he misses everything except when I seem to be denying myself some temptation, like jelly donuts or pecan pie-then he bestirs himself, whispers a soft word or two. Then it's down the hatch with the treats; he nods approvingly, settles back in his chair and reads that goofy newspaper of his with all the pictures of dog races, doxies, and doper paraphernalia. Life of Riley for him. Not much effort required to keep me on his preferred path!

My good Angel has a much more exhausting job and there’s been a high burnout rate as they just regularly quit after a few weeks and apply for an easier posting! Maybe the word is out on me or maybe the Good Angel Bureau (a hive of bureaucrats if there ever was one) is scraping the bottom of the angel barrel but the newest one is quite a character. He must have been in some kind of cryostasis or psychologically stuck in his glory years. He looks and talks like a Party commissar from 1930s Russia! He doesn't even have a white robe! He prefaces every reminder with a 'Greetings, comrade!” My bad Angel on the other shoulder, though red is not a Red. More like an oppressor class banker! He dresses in bespoke three piece suits complete with Brunello Cucinelli shirts, Rep ties (dark red on scarlet of course), and Louis Vuitton dress oxfords. He normally sports a bowler hat like all his buddies in the City (a financial district in London for all you non-Brits out there.) Recently he’s taken to wearing spatz for fashion-forward reasons known only to himself..perhaps the dash of white amuses him. But then that little star on the Commissar’s hat is red. Some deep truth there? Bad Angel's speech is somewhat gravelly and coarse which is odd since he dresses like a toff. On the other hand, the Commissar tends to speak in abrupt short barks. “Think of the workers!” is typical. I don't know which I dislike the most! A saving grace is that I've caught both surreptitiously taking swigs from bottles, cheap gin and double malt respectively. Kind of humanizes them.

Anyway, Ivan, (for such I'll call him) my new Good Angel was tartly reminding me of the inconvenient truth I 'forgot” to mention in the main Post.

What it was is that there are no pure Pessimists nor any pure Optimists- everybody's a mix and topic-dependent as well as time-dependent. Which means that at any one time, if you met them on any one occasion, you would see one state or the other. and you could not generalize to a time invariant descriptor. If that is not invalidating enough, the individual might be in a state of uncertainty, indifference or outright ignorance. The same applies to snapshots of populations. The whole idea of a Zeitgeist must be reconsidered!

By saying that Pessimists had a moral obligation to be optimists - I was conveniently ignoring the fact that no one is completely either. It is a moving target. Since no one is rigidly one or the other, moral imperatives don't rigidly hold either. Assuming sans quibbles, the basic argument was valid and the perhaps dubious many-worlds theory is valid, then maybe the best we can say is that we should always strive to maximize happiness. But that's a no-brainer that doesn’t need propping up by a rickety cosmology! I guess it's all smoke and fury signifying nothing and I hang my head in shame for wasting everyone's time with such drivel! There I've admitted all, and in this very public Addendum!! My conscience is now clear as a cloudless blue sky!

The Commissar: “Very good comrade! You will be forgiven a struggle session with your fellow comrades of the 153rd Shock Worker Brigade at the Krasny Tractor Factory. Your vodka allowance is hereby increased by 0.12 liters!”

Lux: “Oh thank you! My wife Stalina and I will celebrate with a candlelight dinner of vodka and sardines in our Shock Worker Barracks. Tomorrow we vow to double our production quotas in mud flaps!!”

That will quiet the good Angel down for a couple of days. He's new to my tricks! I estimate he bails in two weeks, tops!

Lux: “Hey Toff! Any good temptations in that newspaper you're reading?”

And so it goes… 🙂