The Challenge of Three Wishes

George Miller’s 2022 film Three Thousand Years of Longing revisits the tale of the genie granting any three wishes, which apparently can only lead to ruin and was food for thought on my recent hikes.

I started with the obvious…1. Wealthiest person in the world 2. Power of Invisibility 3. Crazy fun sex with a multitude of gorgeous women. (Which would be good for at least 10 years. Maybe even more?)

I reconsidered and focused on more of who I am. 1. Publish several novels to critical acclaim 2. Produce several films to popular acclaim 3. Lots of crazy fun sex, etc.

And then I realized that maybe I had fallen into the trap of this game and tried to dig deeper…1. Rediscover the wide-eyed rapture of life 2. Not feel like I always need something else to be happy 3. Help society in a more fulfilling and less self-destructive direction.

The satisfaction with the last set lasted all of a minute and I returned to my first try. Being invisible with lots of cash, and, yeah, you know the rest, that sounded good to me.

Finding My Sex

I made the commitment. It seemed the right thing to do. He loved me and I knew he was a decent person. The fact that he had been married for thirty years and was leaving her, coming out now, demonstrated all that I needed to know. I had taught his daughter in high school. That was how we met. But then I realized that I wasn’t a woman – after assuming I was – and was still pining for the idea of my college sweetheart’s breasts.

I told him I couldn’t go through with it. It’s true that I had waited until after the ceremony was over, which both his daughter and wife had attended. They were devastated. They had accepted his decision to be with me and now I had humiliated him. I apologized profusely. I had made a terrible mistake and couldn’t go through with it now. The daughter would not see me and I left the wife in tears

Kinetic Thinking: It’s Physical!

One of the greatest challenges during this pandemic, which I compounded by getting both knees replaced, has been the lack of movement. Being stuck in my apartment for such an interminably long period made me a dullard who spent too much time either staring out the window or at a screen of some kind.

Matthew McConaughey in Fool’s Gold (2008)

As I noted in previous posts, I need to move. If I don’t move, I don’t think. It’s that simple. Without motion, my brain barely moves. It’s like mush. It just doesn’t do much. According to Brian Greene (who despite my many references to his words of late is not my guru), thinking is an actual physical event. He uses Boltzmann Brains as well as an entity of his own called The Thinker to demonstrate that thinking demands the physical movement. Particles must dance about in our heads for our brains to function. And that makes it a physical act. There’s a lot more to it, but I don’t understand much – quantum tunneling you say?? – except what I wrote: thinking requires energy.

I know this because, four months after getting my knees replaced, I am back on the bike and my brain is back at it. I figured out a number of blog topics – sacred sex and more! – and narrative fixes in Anori as well as deciding to end a meaningless feud and that I hold no animosity toward the people who fired me (almost) as well as a bunch of other nonsense you don’t want to hear about – all in less than an hour.

I move therefore I think. That’s the thing. Which begs the question: Was Walter Payton the smartest of all?

Walter Payton, Chicago Bears running back