I have been reading some George Orwell, and a few passages seem appropriate to write down:

"Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that it is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird's song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left wing newspapers call a class angle?'

Thanks, George, for that.

I was sitting in front of my moldy and brown home yesterday, feeling the warmth of the sun and drinking a High Life from the bar down the street and enjoying all of it. Then, I felt guilty. Then, I felt confused. Today, I read that and felt better and also read this and felt better still:

"I think that by retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies, and — to return to my first instance — toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable."

And then I read this and will quote it for years:

"...but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrat, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it."

Thanks again George.