Smut

Rowan Atkinson is probably best known for being Mr. Bean, but his other stuff is so much funnier! No matter how mature you are, I dare you not a snicker just a bit.

Eureka!

With a persuasive speech due in class on Friday, much of this week has been devoted to finalizing a topic and starting research. I had chosen a topic a week ago, but as much as I tried to research it I just wasn't finding enough for a whole speech. Unfortunately I stuck with the topic for way too long; it was just tonight that I decided to ditch it and start all over.

So I spent a good 40 minutes pacing the living room, trying to find a new topic- one that was do-able and quick. (giggle if you must) Nothing. I tried bouncing a ball off the wall, Gregory House-style, but still nothing. Maybe I need a cane. It didn't matter anyway because my time was up- I had to go pick my roommate up from work.

In the car on the way home I ranted a bit about my dilemma. He tried to think of a couple of things too but in the end agreed that the whole deal sucked. He started talking about work a bit, and right before I turned onto my street, it hit me. I had chosen my topic.

Here's my question: what is that??? What is it about our brains that lets us organize and even analyze information when we're not really focusing on it? It's amazing and it's a great feeling, but I'm always mystified by it.

Have you had any of these "Eureka!" moments? How did it happen?

A Third Question

Today's Question: Would you like to know the precise date of your death?

My first thought would be, "Why not?" It's not as if there's some possibility that I won't die, so there's no surprise there. And I don't think I'll be living for two hundred years or anything, so I already have my death narrowed down to a window of a few decades. The exact date is just narrower still.

But then I think, "Would it matter?" I suppose if I knew that I a lot less time than I thought I did I would have to make a few changes. There'd be a lot more flights to Vegas, certainly. But in the end it just might take the fun out of the whole thing.

So would I like to know the exact date of my death? Nah.

You?

Yeah, But There's Never Anything GOOD On ...

I was at the grocery store the other day. Standing in line to check out (I refuse to use the self-check-out, but that's a rant for another day) I was greeted- as every customer in every check-out lane was greeted- with images of Jay Leno delivering the previous night's monologue, interspersed with commercials for products I've already had the option of purchasing (I'm in the bloody store, aren't I?) and even recipes, so that I know what to do with the products I've chosen.

At the bank I am once again in line, and once again there is a wall of televisions. CNN and Fox News speak and scroll and ALERT! By time I deposit my meager weekend earnings I am at least partially briefed on fluctuations in the Asian stock market, fluctuations in North Atlantic currents (our globe is apparently getting warm), and fluctuations in starlets' skirts. The starlets seem ahead of the game on the warming crisis, though, so I think we can call that a wash.

In the restaurant where I work there are eleven televisions throughout the building- all of them constantly on mute, providing that comforting, ever-present glow. People will bundle their families into the car, come out to a restaurant with other people, and request that the silent television's channel be changed because Survivor is on.

Even at school not an entryway or hallway or communal gathering area of that institution of higher learning goes unadorned with flat-paneled screens. There is, in fact, an over-sized (42"?) television placed on one wall of a long hallway from the entrance- where there's already a TV. This hallway TV, however, is positioned in such a way that it cannot be comfortably viewed in such a small space; it's just too big. Even if it could be comfortably viewed, it's in the middle of the [expletive deleted] hallway! Certainly not the best place for people to stop and watch bit of TV! I can only conclude that the television was placed there "just because." It's not meant to be watched, but we've gone nearly forty feet without a television, so let's just throw one up in the middle of the hallway.

Why do we need all of these TV's? I'm not on a crusade and I'm not pushing for people to start talking to each other when they're in line on some principle of human connectivity. Generally I don't want to talk to people, either, but I don't need a screen to distract me from it. At home I avoid TV with a few exceptions. If someone told me I wasn't allowed to watch TV ever again I'm pretty sure I'd make it. Imagine...

Let's imagine that for a moment: you're not allowed to watch so much as a second of television. Where could you go? Forget everything listed above: major grocery stores, most restaurants/bars, banks, school. And what would your house look like? How in blazes would you know how to arrange the furniture???

As I said, I'm not really on a crusade, just a rant. It's something I've noticed and I wonder, "Why?" We don't need TV's everywhere, so we've probably chosen to put them everywhere. Why did we choose this? Is it the same as popping in my iPod headphones out in public every once in a while?

Question the Second

If you knew you could devote yourself to any single occupation- music, writing, acting, business, politics, medicine, etc.- and be among the best and most successful in the world at it, what would you choose? If you knew you only had a 10 percent chance of being so successful, would you still put in the effort?

Of the options listed, I'd want to be the best at writing. I like writing, and there's a lot about it that appeals to me- not the least of which is the fact that writing lasts, in one way or another. It's a record that says, "I've been here," or, "I thought this." And when people read it, they carry that little bit around with them. That's right: by reading this, you are making me immortal. Good job. As for what I would do if there were only a 10 percent chance of acheiving worldwide fame- of course I'd put in the effort. Those are better odds than I'd get anywhere else!

Question the First

I was taking a look at some other blogs today and saw one in which the writer (blogger? Surely not author ...) posted answers to random questions as either a complete post or part of the post. Seeing this I suddenly remembered that I had a book of questions (indeed, if you believe the title it is, "The Book of Questions") that would be perfect for a small installment in my blog, and maybe it would help jumpstart more activity on my part.

I'm taking it easy on the first question: If you could have free, unlimited service for five years from an extremely good cook, chaffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would it be?

Right away I can knock out housekeeper (who cares?) and personal secretary (not really that busy). Chaffeur is tempting because I hate driving and cars and just about everything that goes along with that. My own personal chaffeur would be pretty sweet. Masseuse is attractive, too, but how many massages can a guy get in five years and still really get into it, you know? I'm going to have to go with good chef, final answer. Extremely good food every night for five years? Sign me up!

What about you? Cook, chaffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or secretary?

Pyle, England

I am an admitted and unapologetic Anglophile. I'm a complete sucker for a British accent. I watch British comedy, and I even understand and get the jokes sometimes. I've fully incorporated the phrase, "Bloody hell," into my vocabulary and I use is whenever I can. I'm even finding that I'm partial to British authors. Maybe it's the extra "u" they put in their words from time to time. I don't know. But there's definitely a connection.

Perhaps I've found that connection, here. It's a town in what I think is Wales called Pyle. Ah, the fertile green fields that gave birth to my ancestors are calling me home, and the place has got my name written all over it in more ways than one. It might not look like much to some, but those rocky shores, emerald fields, and granite skies draw me in. Maybe one day I'll settle down in that lush countryside, tend to a flock of sheep. Or something.

Whatever the connection, I definitely want to visit this place and check out the area, which I really do think is idyllic. I don't know what it is about England in general, but I must go there one day and see what my minor obsession is really all about.

Coverage of ...

Inter Arma Enim Silent Legis

Caught this on the Yahoo! News Feed:

Crime-ridden Arkansas town expands 24-hour curfew By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 13, 6:41 AM ET

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. - Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.

On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.

Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.

"Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."

The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.

White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council's vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.

Among the curfew operation's arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.

"We've had people call us, expressing concern for their children," Fielder said. "They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets."

Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.

However, such stops likely violate residents' constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.

"The residents of these high-crime areas are already victims," she said. "They're victims of what are happening in the neighborhoods, they're victims of fear. But for them to be subject to unlawful stops and questioning ... that is not going to ultimately going to help this situation."

The council rejected Dickson's claims, at one point questioning the Little Rock-based attorney if she'd live in a neighborhood they described as under siege by wild gunfire and gangs.

"As far as I'm concerned, at 3 o'clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law," Councilman Eugene "Red" Johnson said. "Anyone out at 3 o'clock shouldn't be out on the street, unless you're going to the hospital."

The curfew is the second under the mayor's watch since the rival cities of Helena and West Helena merged in 2006. That year, Valley set a nightly citywide curfew after a rash of burglaries and other thefts.

Police in Hartford, Conn., began enforcing a nightly curfew for youths after recent violence, including a weekend shooting that killed a man and wounded six young people.

Helena-West Helena, with 15,000 residents at the edge of Arkansas' eastern rice fields and farmland, is in one of the nation's poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living.

In the curfew area, those inside the homes in the watch area peered out of door cracks Tuesday as police cruisers passed. They closed the doors afterward.


The question that comes to my mind, that I'm sure this article is intended to arouse, is this: Should people be allowed to forego their rights in favor of peace and security? It seems that in West-Helena measures like this may very well be improving the quality of life for the town's citizens. How does one balance that against the "slippery slope" of rights infringement/violation? The whole thing reminds me of V for Vendetta, in which the government uses and foments fear in order to gain more power and broader abilities.

Should a free society be allowed to choose not to be free?

'Llectuals on the Peeb

"Summer reading you can watch!"

"Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" by Anthony Bourdain

I first heard- and continue to hear- Anthony Bourdain's voice as it narrated his adventures on the Travel Channel's No Reservations. On the show Bourdain travels around the world, providing his take on local food, drink, culture, and drink. (Yes, I know I mentioned drink twice. So would Tony.) What struck me most about the show was Bourdain's honesty. When he was amazed or impressed by something or someone, he gave them due respect and was genuinely interested. When he found something disgusting or- even worse- boring, he let us know by smoking in the background and poking fun.

That raw honesty is the ugly/beautiful part of the book that made Bourdain famous, Kitchen Confidential. In the book he describes his career from making a few dollars at a seafood place to running the kitchen in New York's Les Halles, and all of the painful, sometimes psychotic, sometimes rewarding steps in between. The book is not really biography, but working in a restaurant is more than a job: it's a subculture, it's a duty, it's a life. So when Bourdain describes his work, he is describing the greater part of his life. And while doing so, his voice comes through crystal clear. Bourdain has an attitude and a way with words that are real and translate well off the page.

I personally identified with much of the book, even if I am not leading exactly the same life as the pirate-crew of cooks Bourdain often describes. Even before reading the book, I described my job/life to others as abnormal and necessarily separate from the people we were serving. When normal people eat dinner, we're working. When normal people go to bed, we're getting off work and having a drink. When normal people get up for work, we're often on somebody's floor. It's as base and strange as Bourdain describes, but it's ours, and in a sick way we're proud of it.

But, as usual, greater notions came to me through the book. As I said, I identify with parts of the book but I am not as dedicated to "The Life" as Tony and his crew are. They work longer hours, doing much harder work, for less pay. There's an entire culture of people who do their work every day with no immediate satisfaction other than a well-cooked plate of food that will be gone in twenty minutes. They don't have nice houses or their names in lights. They have their jobs and a place where they can say, "I do this well." And that's enough. There's more to the job than that, of course, some good and some bad, but that part of it, at least, has nobility to it.

As for Bourdain himself, he has long been a hero of mine. Reading about his drug-ridden past, great failures, and lessons hard-learned has not diminished this in the least. If anything it has only boosted my esteem. Someone who's gone through all of that and come out standing on the other side probably knows a thing or two.

Play's The Thing

A friend of mine posted the following selection on his blog the other day. It's from a book called "The Conservative Soul" by Andrew Sullivan. (I hope Paul doesn't mind my reposting all of this!)

The freest society is the one in which the quintessential, ultimate activity is play. Security is guaranteed; Work is done; the wealth that freedom creates enables leisure; and leisure begets play. When we play games we suspend for a time the burdens of practical life- of earning a living, feeding our bodies, getting enough sleep, saving our souls. We engage in activity that has no point; and those who play games merely to win them miss the point of playing. Games help us restraint, prudence, and cooperation that are central to democratic life. They teach us activities that lead nowhere but where they are.

My response to this came quickly, surprising even me. This is the comment I left:

I’m afraid I must disagree. I do believe that games and fun have value, at least on a personal level, but describing gameplay as ‘quintessential’ and ‘ultimate’ in society seems to defeat the point a little bit.

People banding together for survival and success- forming cities and countries and what have you- is one thing, but for the goal of a free society to be play removes them from earnest, hard, and important work of survival- the very reason they came together in the first place.

Which brings me to another thought- who is he talking about? I know America is a great industrial country that has given its citizens every opportunity to live a comfortable, healthy life, but are we to take that for granted while much of the world is still working- not playing- very hard for food and shelter? It seems shallow and careless to place ‘play’ on such a pedestal. And some may say that countries like America have earned their leisure, but we all know we’re not in our own little bubbles. We are connected to our factories and businesses abroad; if we insist that we are playing on the merit of our own work, we must admit that we’re doing so on their work as well.

Though I’d like to avoid hyperbole (as well as an over-used comparison), I would like to point out that this was very much the attitude of the Romans before the Empire fell. Days-long parties, feasts of bacchanalian proportions, and of course the infamous vomitorium were all play and fun, and they were all symptoms of atrophy in a breaking society.

I agree that games have their place, and that we need to have fun. Of course I do. But for that to be our goal, our quintessence, our height of living … doesn’t sit well with me.

What was surprising about this was that I didn't even know I felt this way! I just started typing and it snowballed out of me. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that much of what I've been reading and thinking about lately has given me glimpses into lives very different from my own. Perhaps there will be more on this later. I just wanted to share this and see what other people's reactions were.

One final note, however: Paul has an excellent blog, a fave that I check daily. You should check it out, too: http://paulalanrichardson.wordpress.com/

My Only Friend, The End

From a news report at KLTV News ABC:

"An elusive group just outside of Abilene, Texas is claiming the end of the world is coming in less than a week.

The House of Yahweh recently gave ABC reporter Brian Ross access to their west Texas compound. Yahweh leader Yisrayl Hawkins says a nuclear holocaust will come June 12th and only members of his group will be saved.

All group members change their last names to Hawkins and live in the compound.
Local authorities claim the group is dangerous and practices polygamy. Shane Dee, the local district attorney, says there's no way to describe the group except as a religious cult. Yisrael Hawkins disagrees. "I don't control their mind in a witch-like fashion that the world is speaking of, to where I have some sort of power over them. I merely teach the laws to them."

Hawkins has predicted a doomsday twice before. He's also accused of having two dozen wives, and is facing bigamy charges.

You can see more of the Brian Ross interview tonight (Friday) on 20/20, airing tonight on KLTV 7 at 9:00 pm.
Cathryn Khalil / ckhalil@kltv.com

All content © Copyright 2001 - 2008 WorldNow and KLTV, a Raycom Media Station.All Rights Reserved. For more information on this site, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service."

So that's it guys. Nuclear holocaust today. Quit your job and don't bother with that 10-day forecast.

My favorite part would have to be, "Hawkins has predicted a doomsday twice before." Once you miss that first one your credibility really begins to wane on those others. I wish him luck, though- third time's a charm, Hawky!

"The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett

Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth" is an epic historical novel that spans a generation in mid to late 12th century. The novel chronicles the lives of several 'ordinary' people- not kings or popes or crusaders, but monks, stonemasons, and local landowners- as they all take part in the construction of a grand cathedral, one of the most monumental undertakings of the medieval world. In the end, the lives involved are as grand and sweeping as the spires of the cathedral around which they are centered.

This book sparked my imagination in many ways. The subject of cathedral-building has always fascinated me, but somehow I never knew it. When I toured the cathedrals of Spain I was always mystified by their enormity. Great trees of stone would rise out of the floor and extend into the distant ceiling. And into this surface, this infinite canvas of masonry, would be carved the most intricate works of art. My mind could not grasp how men with simple machines and no modern technology could erect such a structure.

Unfortunately, I never pursued the question. I appreciated the beauty of it all, but once I left the building it didn't occur to do some research or figure any of it out. But the novel goes into depth on the subjects of masonry and stonecarving. What the builders of the day lacked in technology they more than made up for in knowledge and passion. They knew stone- how to carve it, how to use it, how it behaved under pressure and weather and time. This combined with the passion to do something superhuman drove them literally to greater and greater heights. I am anxious for my next visit to a cathedral, for I will now see it in a new and even more wondrous light.

I was also taken in very much the description of life in the Middle Ages. Even now, several days after I have turned the last page, I am still enchanted by the world of Kingsbridge and the way of life there. I had read about the harsh and violent reality of life in the Middle Ages in history textbooks, and I usually dismissed life in that era as terrible and virtually unlivable by today's standards.

But it wasn't unlivable. This is a fact because- get this- people lived those lives! What I took away from "The Pillars of the Earth", among many other things, was the fact that during some of the most violent, corrupt, and unfair times in Western history, people were living, loving, having children, and sharing their joys and pains with one another. It was a time when survival was never a certainty from day to day, yes, but for some that meant that every day alive was a joyful event. Every meal was a blessing because starvation was much closer than we know it to be today.

In this old world might made right, as the saying goes. Those who were the better swordsmen could look forward to rich lives, for they could kill and take whatever they wanted. Sometimes good men held a sword and checked the power of others, but even in these cases there were surely self-serving motives involved. Fairness was an idea for philosophers and holy men; it had no place in daily life. Those who decried the unfairness soon died, and those who lived in spite of it were tougher for having done so.

There is a lesson there, at least for me. We condemn any unfairness now with an air of enlightenment (although for many 'enlightenment' merely means killing and taking in a more covert and acceptable manner). Every once in a while I see or hear of people who demand that nothing bad happen to them on the basis that it would be unfair, and nobody should be treated unfairly. They take this view as a sort of cover-all. The truth is it takes courage to live in a world that is inherently unfair, and it takes character to treat other people fairly in spite of it. Those two characteristics will probably take you the farthest, because, now as in the Middle Ages, there is little or nothing protecting you from the cruelties of the world except for yourself.

As usual, however, I digress. The fact that the story arouses all of these thoughts and feelings in me goes to show the remarkable job Ken Follett does crafting his characters and telling their stories. For a short time (or perhaps not so short, depending on how long it takes you to read a thousand-page novel) you live with them, fall in love with them, share their pain with them, and die with them. The book takes you away; can you ask for anything more?

To Keri- great Christmas gift! Thank you!

Where my servers at?

Preach on, man, preach on.
Music Video: “Tip Yo Waiter”

"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Not since Slaughterhouse-Three has master of horror Kurt Vonnegut come out with something so diabolical.

Kidding.

I had been curious about "Slaughterhouse-Five" long before I read it, flipping through a few pages while browsing at Barnes & Noble or even watching about ten minutes of the 1972 movie- only ten minutes because it's a very confusing plot if you don't know what's going on from the beginning. I'd read reviews or descriptions saying that it was, in a nutshell, a humorous anti-war book with touches of science fiction and philosophy. But what finally prompted me to pick it up and read it was a recent episode of LOST in which one of the characters becomes "unstuck in time", an idea borrowed directly from Vonnegut's book.

Becoming unstuck in time is exactly what happens to Billy Pilgrim. The idea behind it is that while we imagine time to be a linear sequence of events, we are actually just living out moments in a cycle to be repeated over and over again. Billy Pilgrim, instead of living his moments consecutively, jumps from one to another at random- at one point he is a young man in World War II, and the next he is an married and attending his daughter's wedding.

While Pilgrim is jumping about in time I thought a lot about how fate and free will would be affected by time being a cycle, going in a loop. If everything returns from whence it came, do we have any choice about where we're going? Can we affect it? Billy Pilgrim can't, and he seems to accept it pretty easily. As he goes from watching the horrors of the Dresden fire-bombing of WWII to more relaxed years of old age and family life and even his death, he seems to just be along for the ride.

Death, in fact, is probably the most interestingly handled idea in the book. After every mention of death- from the death of a dog, to genocide and mass murder, to individual deaths of soldiers, to even the main character's own death- is the phrase, "So it goes." Every death in the book seems even and inevitable, and with that simple phrase, okay.

The book's strong anti-war message is probably best described in a part of the story when, due to his unfixed position in time, Billy Pilgrim watches a war movie in reverse. It is the most direct imagery in the book, and it was also beautiful, in a way. If you only read a small part of this already short novel, I'd recommend that one.

Good Men

Lt. Weinberg: Why do you like them so much?

Galloway: Because they stand up on a wall and say, "Nothing's going to hurt you tonight, not on my watch."

- A Few Good Men

My thoughts are with my brother, and with everyone standing on that wall.

"The New Theology"

I read an article in today’s Chicago Tribune magazine called, “The New Theology”. The article’s topic was a class of scientist-theologians, people who have studied the intricacies and science of the natural world and saw overwhelming evidence that their religious beliefs were, at best, incorrect. They looked at evolution and didn’t see the careful, guiding hand of a god but saw instead the erratic, random influence of genetics, mutation, and adaptation. They saw that these views could not both be true. Evolution and science withstood tests of logic, reasoning, and physical evidence, but long-held religious beliefs no longer did. An example of one of the major discrepancies noted in the article is that, “if God designed every last element of life, that makes him minutely responsible for nature’s cruelty and failures as well as its beauty.” This sits well neither as theology nor science. As Jerry Coyne of the U. of C. is quoted in the article as saying, “… the only God worth believing in is one whom modern science has deemed implausible.” However, instead of abandoning their religion entirely (as many scientists have done) these “new theologians” changed the one thing that was in their power to change: their view of “God”.

The idea of changing a deity’s role in nature and creation is a fascinating one, with some pretty far-reaching implications for the religious. The article’s author, Jeremy Manier, did a great job of balancing the article between the religious and the secular, exploring both viewpoints thoroughly and, as far as I could tell, without bias. This is no easy task, considering the polar nature of the controversy. Several worthy points were brought up and they’ve been simmering in my brain all day.

A very interesting notion came up in this article, one that I’ve seen in many other writings discussing the gap between believers and atheists. It is the idea that both believers and atheists agree on what a god should be. From the article:
“For both camps, the only God who makes sense is one who designed all life with exquisite attention to detail.”
It is this fact that makes it difficult to label the debate a theological one. The major debate of what God should be like is moot. It almost seems as if some people believe in a god for the very same reasons that others do not, if that makes any sense.

More interesting still is the idea of changing one’s conception of a deity so that it can be reconciled with one’s point of view- whether that view be scientific or emotional or what have you. The idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing god is being viewed through every believer’s personal prism, and is apparently open to interpretation by that person. Some sources put the number of Christians in the world at around 2 billion. They may think that they are all believing the same god, but are they? There could be 2 billion versions of god in hearts and minds all over the world. Is everybody’s interpretation correct? Is nobody’s interpretation correct? I bring this up in order to say that if belief in god can be changed to fit the facts, than maybe we’re closer than we think to doing away with him altogether.

As I said, the article was well-balanced and as a source of information and public opinion it had a responsibility to be so. On a personal note, however, I find I have much more respect for someone who questions his faith, finds the answers in conflict with that faith, and is able to make the often difficult change within himself- not a change designed to indulge the things that he hopes are real, but to embrace and carry with him those things which are real, that which is evident to him. A person, in other words, who is able to set aside his hopes and fears in favor of the truth.