Laughing for Pure Joy

I was thinking, on the way home tonight. One of those things I tend to do. But being as it was dark and late and I'd just gotten off work, my thoughts were less than excited. And one that bubbled to mind was "I don't know the last time I laughed from pure joy." Not laughing at a funny movie, or a joke, or a mime being chased by a rabid street cleaner, just laughing out of the happiness of being alive.

Which was a kind of depressing thought, especially one to be sparked by the opening of a cheerful song, but there it was. But, as I was driving along, and brooding, I realized yes, I could remember the last time. I probably even wrote about it on LJ, but I'm too lazy to search for it.

I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was last year. It started raining, the kind of rain with the big heavy fat drops that splatter well. Heavily, but not blinding sheets of rain, just lots of big fat drops. It was warm, and the rain was warm, it was just one of those days. And for some reason, I got up and ran around barefoot in the rain, laughing. I still don't know why I did, or why it was so cool, but it was And I remembered, and still do, in a faded ghostly way, how that felt, and that made my evening just a little better.

How about you?

A Book I can't Recommend

When I'm in my more responsible moods, I try to read things that disagree with me every so often. It's occasionally possible I can be wrong, and we've been told since we were kids that other points of view can be important and educational. And, I figure if nothing else, I'll at least find the reasons for believing what I do, and find ways to counter the counter-arguments.

Sometimes, it's interesting and rewarding. Sometimes it's physically painful. Sometimes I just sit there boggled. Sometimes it's like my own private re-enactions of MST3K. Sometimes, it's like debating which restaurant is better without ever agreeing.

Unfortunately, this time, it's not one of the better ones. I'm reading Darwinian Fairytales, despite my own better judgment. The premise of the book is evolution doesn't apply to human beings. I saw it on the shelf at work, read the back and the blurbs on the book cover, and kinda shook my head. Then I was thinking about it, and figured I should go ahead and read it, despite the blurbs that seemed to be missing a big part of how evolution actually works. They're just blurbs, after all.

( Bad feelings and faulty assumptions and scientific theories, oh my. )

I may stop every couple of chapters and point out the flaws I've found, rather like Slacktivist has been doing with the Left Behind novels. And as much as it's been paining me to read the inaccurate and completely off science through parts of this, it's given me a few good ideas (which I'll try and make into a sensible post later) while I've been finding the places where he's wrong. So I'm not getting absolutely nothing out of the book, but I'm getting it from the negative space of the book.

And I'd be inclined to agree with the unnamed "eminent biologist" mentioned in the Introduction. The science in this book is pretty terrible and awful.