As Steinbeck Said...

...in the Grapes of Wrath:


For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man--when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live--for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live--for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know--fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.


This is also why humans do processing. And sometimes we achieve our goals in processing, and things are good. :)

What, me, melodramatic?

Little More, and Moving

'The people in flight from the terror behind--strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever' -John Steinbeck

I need to re-read the Grapes of Wrath very soon.

When we're done moving.

Truck's reserved for the 4th, that's Saturday. People are being contacted for help. It's good to have that firm finally, with a date that I can trust. Tomorrow we should start switching phone and internet and stuff over, I guess.

Didn't get much sleep last night. Am looking forward to this one.

Now... food.

Sleep

Sleep, like food, is one of the essentials of life.

Like food, one needs to indulge in sleep every day, or every night as the case may be. Unlike food, sleep can sometimes be elusive, and can't be forced into an odd fifteen minute corner of the day by most people.

Like food, sleep can be a sheer sensory joy and can bring with it a feeling of luxurious indulgence. There are, of course, many mindsets to approach sleep with -- I have gone, myself, through both apprehension and fear when I slept poorly and needed to be awake the next day, through annoyance at the use of time, to anticipation of the soft, heavy suction that pulls me down into the bed and out of consciousness.

I would do well to anticipate more often. Not only do I get to sleep faster when I let myself linger over how pleasant it will be to go to bed, but I enjoy the whole thing more. And what's to lose in enjoying something I need to do anyhow?