Every day there are multiple outrages from the Left as my country turns into a police state. Why should I be happy?
Well, I live in Arizona, a destination state if ever there was one, and I have lived here for going on 22 years. Today is another one of those exquisitely beautiful, halcyon, February days in the Sonoran desert. I am sitting here, windows open, shirt off. My work is going well. My health is good. I enjoy the bliss and security of obscurity while garnering all the recognition I need. I take delight in my wife, and she in me. I have everything I could possibly want materially speaking. I am reaping the benefits of a lifetime of Italian frugality. Each day is my own. The consolations of philosophy are mine. The owl of Minerva is my friend. As dusk descends, he spreads his wings, sheltering me. More than a consolation, philosophy and the life of the mind remain a reliable source of joy. Boethius wrote philosophy in prison, but I have reason to believe that I won't be tested in that way. Old age is on my side. The clock is running, the format is sudden death, and though the time control is unknown, I have reason to believe that the flag will fall before a Boethian fate befalls me.
Most importantly, I believe that, after our brief sublunary tenure, we continue on as individuals in some way that, from this side, must remain mainly a matter of faith and speculation. What we do now is meaningful because there is something like a future for us. To live well we must not only hope within this life but also hope beyond it. If you believe that death spells the utter end of the individual, then I will ask you: whence the meaning of your life? Are you really fulfilled by the little meanings of the quotidian round? Are you satisfied by yet another repetition of a paltry pleasure, a further concupiscent twitch, another unneeded material possession, one more uptick in your net worth? Is hitting a little white ball into a hole enough to make you happy?
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