Paddy O’Wisdom
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Best life advice from a trustable monk follows:
The more intense the work, the happier that I am.
This locution contains two vectors, and also contains the “essential identity of religion”—and this is friend and mentor Bob Kane’s decisive definition of ⟨religion⟩. One vector is a description—here is a fact. There is work, and it has an objective magnitude. He means effort, which is generic. There are many kinds of recalcitrance, including cognitive-load and schematic knack. This intensity, or semantic-directional vector, Paddy says, correlates positively with another—happiness. That’s the descriptive “is” component
But since happiness is the topic, it is also prescriptive. The locution contains an “ought” component! Paddy’s little proverb identifies being and normativity. And just this is the distinct essence of the religious. Religion brings the ought into the will of being. This is what grabs us and makes the gravity of religion. We see these oughts as important and maybe the only worthy motivators. Also, we are slaves of passion. Desires have their ends.
I mean this: we want to know that our desiring is the best it can be.
I always had this fascination with the man in isolation, against the bureaucracy, against society, and also I’ve always had the constant fear that we’re becoming a numeralised society more and more, and that for the individual, the rebel, shall we say the ‘arrogant individual’ to survive and keep his self respect, there has to be a certain amount of fighting against the system.
The real Glenn Danzig, meaning what orthodox Monster Kid skate-punks would say if thy articulated it in a Bible- or SubGenius-type format.
No one is a free man, unfortunately. No man is an island. But you’ve jolly well got to try, though. (laughs)
Look! It’s the Buddha’s last words.
For me there must be an edge, a tension about life. Otherwise I don’t get the best out of things. I can never be content to remain still—and I am not just talking about acting. Once you say to yourself everything is very nice—that’s death. I like working at high pitch. Frustration and slowness are what I loathe. They give me a real physical pain in the stomach.
Harlan Ellison made fun of Number 6 a little, and that made us all very sad. Number 6 was sacred to me. I received him from Vince, who was my spiritual role model when I was 13.
I enjoy working. I like being totally absorbed. I am scared of drifting, of having nothing to do.