I Have Faith In Franklin

We got a puppy about 3 weeks ago. His name is Franklin. That’s him up there. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last 3 weeks it’s this: people love puppies! Naturally, this got me thinking.

Most of this is just my cynicism about the human race, but I'm pretty sure other people share that cynicism so I'm not all that worried. Nonetheless, it seems to me that people like (love?) puppies more than they like babies. There's that old joke about how the best thing about other people's babies is being able to give them back. I've never heard this statement made about puppies. People love puppies, people want puppies and I think that if science ever found a way to time-loop a dog so it remained a puppy forever, we'd never see a fully grown canine again. This isn't to say I don't like babies, or don't want children, far from it. I love the idea of being a father one day, despite the fact that deep down the idea may terrify me a little it's a small price to pay for leaving a small piece of me on the godforsaken Earth after I'm gone.

Back to puppies!

People love them. And I can't help but think that reason for this love is the undying, ever-lasting optimism that encapsulates a dog's life. You have a child and you know one day they're going to be in school, maybe be bullied (or worse become a bully themselves); they're going to be in high school, hate themselves, hate you, fall in love, have their heart broken etc etc praise The Fonz, amen; they're going to get out of school into the real world and meet insurance, bills, taxes, the harsh reality of democracy, and the list goes on. With puppies, there's none of that. There's food, sleeping and playing. People can see that optimism. Even in the most melancholy of dogs, god bless the poor whippet. For a dog there is nothing but good times ahead, no existential doubt, no crisis (crises?) of mortality, just "Where is my dinner?" and "Ooh look, there's that person who smells good and plays with me". When I look at Franklin, all I see is positivity. I guess that's what God (capital "G") is like for some people. But I don't believe in god, so I have faith in Franklin. Stay tuned.

Why I named my blog what I did...

Amongst my friends, family etc. I'm fairly well understood to be a pretty intelligent guy, lazy yes, but intelligent nonetheless. I realise this might sound a little like me blowing my own horn, but really, it's bullshit that in this day and age of rampant individualism and personal philosophies and subscription to bizarre quasi-religions that have been dead for centuries, it's ridiculous that people can't say something positive about themselves without the world branding them as full of themselves. So there you have it, yes, I'm pretty smart. It's been said, I believe it, if you don't agree, whatever. Which brings me to the point of this post.

"The Little That I Know": it's one of those little Socratic pieces of wisdom, the more you know, the more you realise you don't know shit. Given the truth of this ancient Greek nugget of thought, this is what leads intelligent people to spend more time on questions that don't really have easily identifiable answers: the meaning of life; the origin of the universe; Murphy's Law; and life's other cruel ironies. One such irony is intelligent people spending their brainpower on answer-less questions when they could be using it to fix up the mess that Earth and its inhabitants have become.

So here I am, to blog to nobody in particular about things that don't really have any consequence while I could be devoting my brainpower to something useful like a working model of perpetual motion. As the world rots, here I am. Stay tuned. 

Hello Internets

So this is my first post. I've never blogged before. I imagine it feels something like talking to a very large lecture theatre full of little ones and zeros, all not paying attention to what I'm saying. I'm ok with that, I'm really just here to vent and maybe stumble upon some inspiration along the way. I've already got some little sermons built up in my head from weeks of procrastination so a blog with actual content can't be far off. Stay tuned.