I saw the Incredibles last night with some friends. The movie was amazing. It’s definitely my new favorite Pixar movie, and probably one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. It helped a lot that Sarah Vowell lent her voice to the movie (as the daughter, Violet); I’ve had something of a celebrity crush on her ever since I started listening to This American Life a few years ago and saw her on Conan. Then we ended up at the Mudlounge and had fondue. Can’t beat that. Even with a stick.
I slept in late this morning (late for me, anyway). I had a chilled morning going on my weekly errand for dried fruit (I’m known as “The Pineapple Guy” at Spring Valley).
The other day I had also bought a pack of cigarettes from the International Wine Center (which, though I’ve never mentioned it here, is one of my favorite places in the world, and which I’ve nicknamed “Hedonism Emporium”). Then today I browsed pipes at Just For Him, but ended up not buying anything… just yet.
To my recollection, this is the first time I’ve smoked in almost two years. I’ve never been a heavy smoker; in fact, I’ve scarcely ever inhaled the smoke into my lungs (which isn’t a good idea with either pipe smoke or clove smoke, anyway). For me smoking is about the oral/manual fixation and the sensuous hobby of it. In other words, it’s just a really nice, tasty, warm, comforting thing to do, especially while sitting out on the balcony and just looking at the leaves of the trees. It’s a hedonistic experience, but not in a greedy way. It’s just a matter of enjoying the pleasures of the senses in a very chilled-out way.
Which is quite like Taoism. (Heh.) One of the reasons Buddhism would never work for me is because it rejects the physical world, the flesh. That’s also one of the reasons Christianity doesn’t really stick with me — it also tends to preach living not for what you can see and touch in the here and now, but living for the abstract perfection beyond the veil of death. Taoism, according to my understanding, doesn’t bother discriminating between spiritual and physical realms; they’re both part of the One Tao. And Taoism responds to questions of the afterlife with, “well, whatever,” and instead places emphasis on the heaven that any of us can tap from thin air, like condensing water vapor in the desert. That’s the kind of heaven that works in a practical, real, attainable sense. Like Philip Pullman’s Republic of Heaven.
