Un Poco Loco

(Which is the name of a Bud Powell song that is just the greatest song in the universe, but here describing my own state of being a little bit nutzo on the whole wrath of god type deal there, which I swear I'm done with for at least, like, a few months)

I don't know what it is about economics that brings out the revivalist preacher in me, but it does, and especially Milton Friedman. The arrogance just oozes out of the work. It makes me so mad. Which is so totally not the graceful response. Yes, thank you Martin Luther. I am aware. Joyful attitude. Got it.

And really all the talk in the world about spirituality is pretty much worthless. Theosophy and theology, all that stuff, none of it means anything that doesn't inspire the soul. It's supposed to be about spiritual practices or the inspiration of spiritual practices. Not just spouting off at loud mouth jerkheads.

As I was saying. Grace, faith, turning toward god, a joyful heart. All that stuff, it's about the basic fact that the only potentially real freedom we have is in our own attitude. We don't control life, but we can control our own response. Maybe. Or something.

So, anyway. Most of all that stuff in the last post was cribbed off of Paul Tillich's A History of Christian Thought, which is just an outstanding work, and will be the last bit of religion and myth for me for a while even though Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life is just sitting on my bookshelf taunting me. Right on top of Randall Collin's The Sociology of Philosophies, which I'm planning on trying for again over the Christmas holiday. It is literally the Infinite Jest of the Social Sciences (probably about four hundred pages longer with about 30-40 more pages of end notes [no end notes within end notes, but all kinds of crazy end note charts and graphs, so...{my bookmark is still there where I abandoned ship the first time, probably about page 185}]).

These days it's macro, philosophy of econ, and game theory. With Weber's sociology of bureaucracy and soc. of power just to keep things live. The game theory and macro is kicking my arse what with all the math. My math is so very rusty it's not even funny. It's really isn't. I know I'm not laughing. Anyway,