A Panda and a Flea

A few days ago I passed the cubbyholes at school where some of the students store their belongings, and saw this little panda peeking out at me. It's wearing a little sash with words on it but I didn't stop to read them. Something about being cared for? A hospital gift, maybe.

I hate to say I had a busy day yesterday, because I say that all the time and it's not very inspired blogging. But holy cow, this whole week has been busy. For one thing, I've been helping to process probably a hundred new books, which means adding stickers, stamps, covers and labels to each and every one. (Well, some come pre-covered, which always makes my heart sing.) Covering books is kind of an enjoyable task, like vacuuming -- I can mostly turn off my brain and I'm left with a satisfyingly improved product at the end. It does take time, and I'm not sure it's my life's purpose, exactly, but I don't mind it.

Besides, who says life has a purpose? As I've always said, I'm not a deeply philosophical person -- I don't spend a lot of time pondering the mysteries of the universe. To the extent that I do, I believe we're all basically happy accidents. Nature is chaos, a primordial stew of chemicals and DNA, and from that emerge all the ever-evolving life forms that surround us, including us. And I could just as easily have been an entirely different person, if a different sperm had connected with my mother's egg, or if the same gametes came together in a slightly different way. There is no grand or divine plan.

I was listening to my QAA podcast last night and they were talking about the Religious Right, and how evangelical Christians really do believe that this world is merely a veil overhanging the real, spiritual world beyond. That we're all in a sort of Holy Holding Pattern, waiting to begin our real existences in the Great Beyond. I just do not understand this kind of thinking. I see how it can foster a conspiracy mindset, because then you don't need evidence to believe anything -- people who are heavily spiritual can take information on faith and stand by it as their reality. I'm not saying all Christians are conspiracists, and in fact I grew up in a liberal Protestant church and absorbed none of those tendencies. But there's definitely a link between evangelical, faith-based thinking and Q-Anon and other forms of political mysticism.

So, yeah, that is not me. I am an evidence-based person, and I suppose I'm a bit nihilistic. I don't think we have a purpose at all as individuals, beyond the biological imperative of perpetuating the species. (And I've even failed at that!) I do believe we have a moral responsibility to be kind to each other and to the creatures with which we share the planet. That's not a divine imposition, though -- that's just our human responsibility as self-aware beings who have evolved beyond beetles and fleas.

Does that make any sense? Maybe not. That podcast got my mind spinning and this is where it took me.

Speaking of fleas, I passed this disgusting, wadded-up bag on the sidewalk on my walk home, and it immediately reminded me of one of those electron-microscope images of a flea. Can you see it?

Right?!

Olga was a complete pill last night. She decided at 3:30 a.m. that night was over and it was time to get up. After lots of whining and licking and carrying on I got up and let her out into the back garden, and when she came back in I went back to bed. She eventually joined us for another hour or so, but at 5 a.m. she was raring to go again. I think she'd completely forgotten that she'd already been out just a short time earlier. She's a very sweet dog but her brain is not very big.

Dave's been saying for years that we need a new light fixture for the dining room. Last night I passed this one sitting on someone's wall next to the rubbish bins. I texted him: "Do we want this light fixture?" I'm thinking with some black paint it could be pretty cool, maybe a bit like the one that cast shadowy lines on the walls of our cabin in Whitstable.

But Dave texted back an understated "no," which probably actually meant "NO!" So I left it.

And now the dog is being a pill again, wanting her walk. We shall philosophize again another day.