From the computer of Peter Clark

Pascal contends that a rational person should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God and should strive to believe in God. The reasoning for this stance involves the potential outcomes: if God does not exist, the believer incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries; if God does exist, the believer stands to gain immeasurably, as represented for example by an eternity in Heaven in Abrahamic tradition, while simultaneously avoiding boundless losses associated with an eternity in Hell.

I’ve always wondered about this, how funny that this wasn’t a unique thought of mine or anything but something thought about since ~1650s

Sometimes I open my copy of Richard Scarry’s classic children’s book Busy, Busy Town just to remind myself how the world ought to function. One of over 300 books Scarry published, Busy, Busy Town is about the world of work, depicting all of the animals going about their jobs. Everything is refreshingly straightforward. At the garage, “when something is wrong with the motor, the mechanic fixes it.” The painter paints the walls. “On Main Street you can buy medicine, tools, apples, and oranges.” When there is a pothole, workers from the city come and fill it.

Brodsky advised his listeners to give up trying to evade the feeling, and start respecting it. Boredom exists “to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life,” he said, “the lesson of your utter insignificance.” Boredom puts us in our tiny, fragile, finite place—and thank goodness for that, for “the more finite a thing is, the more it is charged with life,” with love, pain, excitement, and fear.