No, that title is not my own material. It’s a quote taken from a bit by Louis CK Live At The Comedy Store 2015 (YouTube).
In this bit, Louis describes his thoughts on bats. Louis hates bats, saying they’re like mice with little leathery wings and a face and a personality. They can look at you and everything.
Then he goes off the rails for a few moments, saying that there are a lot of people who have told him that bats are the greatest things ever.
I thought he was going to say something like “they say bats are great because of their intelligence and their ability to echolocate.” But no, he says this:
They say bats are great because they, like, make all the French toast in the world or something.
He goes on to describe an experience during which a bat scared him so badly that he was hiding in the hall closet, calling 9-1-1.
I just loved the French toast line so much that I made it the title of this blog entry.
~~~
On Imitation
So, like, I IMITATED the title of this blog. As in not my own material.
The following video clip is also not my own material:
I’d say I’ve found my signature. It took me a while, but here it is:
Thoughts on Imitation
So imitation is suicide? What a stupid line. I mean, seriously. Did Emerson really say that? Still shaking my head, I checked it out for myself.
Apparently, the quote is taken from a book entitled Self-Reliance by Emerson. And although I’ve only read a few quotes and passages from this book, I now totally want to read it!
This is saying a LOT about the book because I LOATHE reading. Not because books and their contents are bad. It is because I’m sick as fuck and I fall asleep while reading. And also while driving, walking, purchasing things at stores, pet-sitting, looking at things, and during telephone conversations.
Reading PTSD (NOT in the DSM-V)
I also suffer from Reading PTSD. I acquired this debilitating and shame-inducing disease after being force-fed a steady and high-caloric diet of medical, surgical, anatomical, and physiological subject matter spanning many, many years. From textbooks that cost a fortune. I was also force-fed material from other expensive textbooks, the contents of which had nothing whatsoever to do with my major field of study.
This created chaos and confusion in my own mind. I grimaced at what seemed to be mind-numbing stupidity within a curriculum design. Then as I got older I realized that evidently, the only reason anyone does anything is to make more money. Things do not have to make sense. You buy more textbooks, you pay for extra classes, and the educational institution makes more money. Thus, having to take an extra class such as English or Philosophy would be logical, right? I mean, consider the following regarding Schrödinger’s Cat:
The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics essentially states that an object in a physical system can simultaneously exist in all possible configurations, but observing the system forces the system to collapse and forces the object into just one of those possible states.
Schrödinger disagreed with this interpretation.
So what does this have to do with cats? Schrödinger wanted people to imagine that a cat, poison, a Geiger counter, radioactive material, and a hammer were inside of a sealed container.
The amount of radioactive material was minuscule enough that it only had a 50/50 shot of being detected over the course of an hour. If the Geiger counter detected radiation, the hammer would smash the poison, killing the cat.
Until someone opened the container and observed the system, it was impossible to predict the cat’s outcome. Thus, until the system collapsed into one configuration, the cat would exist in some superposition zombie state of being both alive and dead.
Source: http://www.iflscience.com/physics/schrodingers-cat-explained/
This is a tiny portion of what I studied in one class shoved into the requirements for a medical degree.
When offering analgesia and comfort to a post-operative patient, nothing is more therapeutic than to excitedly explain to the patient the flawed interpretation of quantum superposition.
The logic here is staggering!
Witches float. So do ducks. So logically, if she (assuming all witches are “shes”, I mean let’s get our pronouns correct), weighs the same as a duck, she is a witch and we should burn her.
What Was I Talking About Again?
Oh yes. Reading Emerson’s Self-Reliance. And whether I should imitate or not. And whether imitation is, in fact, suicide, and if that is indeed a logical statement. I shall go across the street to my local library and try to re-enter my lost world of “reading.” I really like this quote from the book:
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
The only small plot of ground that I own was given to me in a plant jar:
Like seriously, who in the hell is going to give me a plot of ground to till? Nobody, that’s who. I have to BUY it. Like I have an extra $250,000 lying around.*
None but me knows what that is which I can do. None but me knows until I have tried.
So then I will never sit in the shade of this magnificent spruce by doing nothing. I must bestow my toil upon it. And water it and make sure it sits in light and shit. I mean, this thing was on my hallway floor. After deciding it didn’t look good in my hair, I pushed it into this pot of soil. And it started to grow.
*On Flattery and Support
They also say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I think that a lot of great writers and artists that have had their work stolen would take issue with this statement.
But that is a subject for another blog.
So in order to achieve my goal of $250,000 which will be used to purchase my “plot of ground,” I have an idea. Click on my “Buy Me a Coffee” button on the right-hand side portion of this blog. It will take you to a magical place where you can give me money.
I have lost my mind. If you navigate to the “Buy Me a Coffee” site, you will see why.
After all, you are in the White Padded Room.
White Padded Room 