Quote of the Day: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Oh, tell me, who was it first announced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else, and we all know that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests, consequently, so to say, through necessity, he would begin doing good? Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child! Why, in the first place, when in all these thousands of years has there been a time when man has acted only from his own interest? What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, CONSCIOUSLY, that is fully understanding their real interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness."





Today, I had one of those moments where I acted against my own self-interest for no real rational reason. On my daily walk this morning, I was strolling past Pike's Place Market when I saw two people running across the road heading straight for me. It was a man and a woman who did not look homeless which made them quite an anomaly in that part of the world at that time of day. He was wearing a ratty old t-shirt letting the whole world know he was a "Party Animal." She was wearing too much make-up and a skirt that was way too tight and short. They were both drinking beer out of bottles and obviously quite drunk. All I remember of their faces was that he reminded me of a surfer and she reminded me of a Hooter's waitress.



When I deviated from my course to get out of his path, he quickly re-oriented his own direction so that he was still coming straight at me like an angry bull. He made a flapping motion with his arms while he pointed at his ears which I assumed was the international sign for "Take Out Your Earphones" so I took them out but he didn't say anything. All he did was wave his hands so close to my face that I had to back up and swerve out of the way to avoid being slapped in the face by them. Then he turned to his girlfriend and chuckled as life messing with a middle-class square like me was the funniest thing in the world.


Now we come to the part of the tory where I get to act poorly and irrationally. I should preface this by saying that I have never ever been in an actual physical fight. Now a debate, yes. A fight where there was the slightest possibilty of physical pain, no. Yeah, I know, pretty nerdy, huh? So anyway, I had two choices here. I could either move on with my life like a normal person or turn around, puff up my chest like a rooster, and express the fact that I don't appreciate my space being violated. I chose option number two and I am not really sure why either. Maybe it has something to do with the ancient reptile part of the human brain. I won't repeat verbatim what I said, but suffice it to say that the gist of it went a little something like this, "Hello, good sir. Have I offended thee in any way? Wouldst thou like to sit down to a nice cup of tea and discuss the matter?"


So what happened? Absolutely Nothing. Talk about anti-climatic. So I guess everything worked out all right in the end by some miraculous twist of fate. I did look over my shoulder the whole way back to the office, fully expecting to be punched in the back of the head but no such luck. I felt so bad about my macho posturing that I gave five bucks to the first homeless guy who asked for it in an attempt to expiate my sin.


Man, my iPhone and the G3 network have been estranged from each other for most of the past forty-eight hours. All I can really do with phone is receive and make phone calls. And, seriously, what's the point of that? That's so 2007.