[Seth Says] Create Yourself By Your Own Bootstraps

An interesting thing about the phrase "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is that it is mostly used today to mean "Put in the hard work and effort and do it yourself", although in the original usage it actually meant "LOL try doing this impossible thing LOL" (LOL of course, being the archaic abbreviation for "Levity Overcoming Laudanum", when something was so funny that salon denizens would even laugh through their opium haze)(I probably shouldn't put completely fabricated phrase origins in the same paragraph as an actual phrase origin, but oops, too late)(I mean, technically there's a backspace key here, but I'd much rather just keep typing and refer to things parenthetically)(things).
 

The point of this brief etymological excursion is that the actions oft suggested and sometimes demanded of the poor and downtrodden, the thing everyone tells them they ought to do, are morally obligated to do, are literally impossible.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been following the non-stop cavalcade of awful news from the Middle East and saw that Israeli president Isaac Herzog justified their bombing of Gaza by saying that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza because they could have risen up and fought against Hamas. Never mind that a very large portion of Israeli Jews do not support the Israeli government's current horrific campaign against Gaza and have been unable to stop it, apparently even children aren't innocent because they should have overthrown a terrorist organization.

I know, not exactly the best topic for a humorous newsletter, but it's not like we're not all following the news and thinking about this anyway, and it feels weird saying nothing, especially when a lot of world leaders seem to be all in for mass genocide, even as I've seen numerous interviews with Israeli Jews who lost family members and are still calling for a stop to the killing. I'm certainly no geopolitical expert, but I feel like being against mass killing of civilians isn't too nuanced of a position; one can certainly recognize Hamas as an evil terrorist organization that committed war crimes by attacking Israeli civilians, while simultaneously condemning a plan for Israel to commit war crimes by attacking every Palestinian civilian in Gaza. In one of the interviews I saw, someone whose brother was killed said something like, "the cure for dead babies is not killing more babies," and that seems true to me (although I am not a medical professional).
 

So, uh, nice weather we've been having, huh? Sure is weathery!

I am not great at small talk. This I'm sure is a subset of the fact that I am not generally socially ept, which may or may not be related to the whole neurodivergency thing. I have, of late, been thinking a bit about neurodivergency, as I have had multiple friends who in the last year have received an adult diagnosis of autism. I also have a friend who is a psychiatrist who does formal assessments of such things, and generally encourages her clients to accept who they are and live authentically, rather than trying to continually compress themselves into an ill-fitting societal mold. ("What did you pick up at the convention?" "Societal mold.")(I didn't even intend the double meaning of convention when I started writing that, but look, there it is.)

I have long been a fan of living how best suits you (as long as it doesn't harm others), and indeed this is far from a new idea. It turns out to be a key part of existentialist philosophy, a topic into which I delve (well, insofar as a few light paragraphs with ridiculous jokes can be considered a delve) in my latest column:
 

As the subtle headline may clue you in, the other part of existentialist philosophy is that there's no inherent meaning to life, but hey, you gotta do something to pass the time.
 

This past week for me has been the rare week where I didn't have much in the way of free time, thanks to a flurry of writing work. In the past week I wrote nonsense for knickknacks, edited a speech about Shakespeare, punched up a sitcom script, wrote a best man speech, wrote an advertisement script, and most excitingly, wrote a script for a short YouTube video. (You might be wondering why writing a YouTube script would be more exciting than working on a sitcom or a speech, and the answer is that unlike the vast majority of my writing work, once the YouTube script gets produced, it will actually have my name on it as a contributing author and I will be able to share it.)

Still, the whole point of being a freelancer is having free time (or a lance, I guess, but that's pretty rare these days)(of course back in medieval times, they would lancealot), and so it was with great pleasure that in spite of a work-filled week I actually got out for a couple nice walks with friends, and am getting together with family soon. The past year has been decidedly sub-par, but I guess the silver lining of a ceaseless mememto mori is that it is a real push to carpe diem, and I think res ipsa loquitor. (Sorry, I got run over by all that silliness; I was fLatined!)

Porcus! (That's pig Latin.)

Thanks for reading, and back in two weeks with another column.



Ubi Ubi Ubi Est Meus SubUbi,
Seth