The Invisible Counterpoint

@cd4928 That was me! No "guy" here--I'm Patrick. Hello there. About your argument that you can wear the same sweater for ten years and undergo many internal changes. You know, if I twist your true intent some, I kind of believe you. Sometimes we might need for something to be sort of unchanging, stable, dependable, before we make the leap to some other more appropriate "place." Saying this, I know you're saying that internal changes can readily occur, independent of our external surroundings. But yes, I do think we identify ourselves through our objects. Objects are powerful stuff, they can move us closer to where we need to go -- they can co-operate, synergize, with the kind of internal growth you rightly flag as important. Of particular objects, I am now thinking of pcs and of how I truly hope Apple's efforts to switch PC users aren't thwarted by the recession's efforts to switch us all off. People come to associate with smiley apples a...

James, While it is true that I do one day hope to find myself sucking on Lloyd's titties in an effort to secure for myself some delicious DeMausian milk, I know for certain that I cannot have, as you suggest, a cult-like interest in DeMause and his work. It's impossible. I
know because I've been a life-long user of apple products, and no one who uses macs regularly can be anything but a buoyantly happy and healthy human being.

Let me relate a story. A couple months ago I had a party where a whole bunch of us were sitting in a circle talking this and that. Someone asked me about my interest in psychohistory, and, after
explaining why I don't actually like the term, and after emphatically DIScouraging them from studying history and emphatically ENcouraging them to read books by people who are alive now, I explained the idea of psychoclasses and suggested that one would probably find that those people who are of the helping (advanced) psychoclass used macintosh computer...

I hope Dolphin is right that there exists an omni-present left wing media that complains loudly when anyone dares identify unemployment insurance recipients as lazy. It would be nice, though, if the left (and this article) argued that the way we became modern and advanced and all, is from being a nation that, however inadequately, appreciates and supports free play and whimsical invention. It's a pity when even the left -- the wing responsible for societal innovation, true progress -- has to make itself seem as bourgeois boring as possible ("We're a nation that appreciates the virtues of 9 to 5") in order to be taken seriously. (Cause seriously, the "California" culture that produced Apple and Pixar, which just never seems to stop innovating and being relevant, is one which values free play -- recess and fun -- as much as it does back to the books, life is a box -- naught but a plain, boring, cardboard box -- rectumtude.) (Actually, it probably doesn...