(I Can't Get No)...

Stephen Hawking, "Paterson," and striving to be satisfied with what I've got.

Dancing at the wedding of friends, probably singing the Spanish parts to “I Like It Like That.” August 2018.

Words from the Wise

Are you always this cheerful?

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

Seriously, how do you keep your spirits up?

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.

Stephen Hawking, “The Science of Second Guessing: An Interview with Deborah Soloman,” The New York Times (December 2004)

Useful Trivia

Gratitude is a predictor for longer and greater quality sleep, according to research by psychologists in the United Kingdom. Similarly, researchers at the University of Michigan and UC San Francisco found that gratitude can lead to lower blood pressure and heart rate.

Genetic factors determine between 30% and 40% of people’s general level of “life satisfaction.” About 40% is up to us. With that, we should probably meditate, write personal gratitude lists, and send thank-you notes, all effective ways to treat phobias like death anxiety, PTSD, and nihilism.

For Your Ears and Eyes

Mull it Over

When I was single and went to Regal Downtown West at least once a week to watch movies alone, I saw an excellent film called Paterson, directed by Jim Jarmusch (the guy from the “french-fried potaters” scene in Slingblade). It’s a simple film about the life of a bus driver-poet played by Adam Driver and probably similar to Perfect Days, a more recent movie about a public toilet cleaner in Japan that’s been lauded but which I still haven’t seen because I have three kids now.

Besides the fact that it’s excellent, I liked Paterson because the setting of the film is a city I know well. For four years, I drove through it on my way to the neighboring suburb of Wayne, New Jersey, where the campus of William Paterson University is located. Occasionally, I’d stop to get Peruvian chicken and look out at the Great Falls, probably wondering similar things as Driver’s character about life and writing, how to balance the two and find contentment even when they’re out of sync with each other. I’m no closer to an answer 13 years after graduating from school and seven since being one of only four people to see Paterson when it was playing in Knoxville (or so I was told by the ticket-taker when I went back the next week and saw they’d already pulled it from screens).