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Wish it could be New Year's Day everyday

     Today feels like a Tuesday, doesn't it?
     It's like yesterday was a freebie, you know? The whole world took yesterday off, and now it's picking right back up where it left off.
      As a commuter, it was great to be able to zip right into work without running into any morons. I was able to wake up and leave home 20 til 7 a.m., and still be able to make it to work with a minute to spare. Usually such a drive takes about 30 minutes, but there was almost nobody on the roads, so ... Zip! right to work!
      I had to go to the hardware store around 10 a.m., and there still wasn't hardly any traffic on the road, or in the store itself. You may find this hard to believe, but there are actually salespeople still working in stores! Isn't that amazing? If you had told me last year that you could still find salespeople in a major chain department store, I would have looked at you with a disbelieving stare.
      (I kid.)
      As a store manager, of course, New Year's Day is always a day to be dreaded. Yesterday, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., there probably wasn't more than 50 customers (and that's being very generous with that number), where we normally have 100 to 150. I really don't think we had more than 30 customers that whole shift. Mighty slow day.
      So, anyway, I've been able to get back to reading Seneca. (It's about time! Loser.) Yeah, I found a quote for that:

We Stoics are no monarch's subjects; each asserts his own freedom. Among Epicureans whatever Hermarchus or Metrodorus says is credited to one man alone; everything ever said by any member of that fraternity was uttered under the authority and auspices of one person. I say again, then, that for us, try as we may, it is impossible to pick out individual items from so vast a stock in which each thing is as good as the next.

The poor man 'tis that counts his flock.

Wherever you look your eye will light on things that might stand out if everything around them were not of equal standard.

... ... ...

I have no doubt, too, they may be very helpful to the uninitiated and those who are still novices, for individual aphorisms in a small compass, rounded off in units rather like lines of verse, become fixed more readily in the mind. It is for this reason that we give children proverbs and what the Greeks call chriae* to learn by heart, a child's mind being able to take these in at a stage when anything more would be beyond its capacity. But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well' it is time he was standing on his own feet. He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them. It is disgraceful that a man who is old or in sight of old age should have a wisdom deriving solely from his notebook. 'Zeno said this.' And what have you said? 'Cleanthes said that.' What have you said? How much longer are you going to serve under others' orders? Assume authority yourself and utter something that may be handed down to posterity. Produce something from your own resources.

*Apophthegms (ap·o·thegm /ˈæpəˌθɛm/ [ap-uh-them]) –noun
a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism.

     From Letter XXXIII. There's some more, mainly Seneca exhorting you to not just repeat what others say, but make the material your own. I was going to post it, but I thought the irony would be too much for just one post.
     And here's a great quote that will come in handy during the political season. You're going to love this.

Language, moreover, which devotes its attention to truth ought to be plain and unadorned. This popular style has nothing to do with truth. Its object is to sway a mass audience, to carry away unpractised ears by the force of its onslaught. It never submits itself to detailed discussion, is just wafted away. Besides, how can a thing possibly govern others when it cannot be governed itself?

     From Letter XL. Whenever you get tired of the politics machinations of certain presidential candidates, just keep that little quote in mind.

... ... ... And even if it does transpire that the words come readily to the tongue and are capable of reeling off it without any effort on your part, they will still need to be regulated. A way of speaking which is restrained, not bold, suits a wise man in the same way as an unassuming sort of walk does.

     Gosh, that's awfully pointed, isn't it? I wonder what he means by that.

The upshot, then, of what I have to say is this; I am telling you to be a slow-speaking person.

     Oh. Never mind.
     Anyway, found this at The_Keeper's Web site. Check it out, especially The Babe Of The Day.

Today is International Disturbed People's Day!

Please send an encouraging message to a disturbed friend...
just as I've done.

I don't care if you lick windows,
take the special bus,
or occasionally pee on yourself...
You hang in there sunshine,
you're fucking special.