The world is full of Fridays. I hope you know this. They have one every week, and if you intend to be productive on a Friday then you need to shield yourself against the temptation of that wonderful Internet.
The rest of us can spend the day clicking on links.
I’ve always depended upon the kindness of others. Altruism is something to strive for. I’m grateful for it when I’m on the receiving end. I’ve also tried to give that kindness back. To pass it on.
There are other philosophies, though.
- You can learn a great lesson by reading Ayn Rand’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Why are we feeding mice, anyway? Ungrateful rodents. Most of them probably don’t even know what altruism is.
- Well, if you’re going to depend upon the kindness of others, you might want to be careful. Especially if you’re a robot hitchhiking across the country. The good news is that Philadelphians are vowing to rebuild Hitchbot bigger, stronger, more able to complete its journey. Now that I think about it, this sounds a little ominous.
- There’s been a lot of talk about starving artists lately. Yes, starving is something artists often do. No, it doesn’t actually improve their art. Pay your artists well, okay? Be that authors or musicians or painters. Yes, they want your respect, but money is easier to exchange for food and shelter. Paying an artist for work isn’t altruism. It’s just paying someone the wages due for their work. I’m pretty sure Ayn Rand would approve of that.
- Heh. Art. Happy little trees.
- Speaking of art, this week I ran into some afrofuturism. This is an incredibly cool cultural twist on sci-fi. In my opinion science fiction is all about culture, so afrofuturism is just one beautiful branch with so much more to add to the genre.
Let’s feed our artists, okay? Otherwise they’re going to have to start catching their own food like this guy: