Conk

One of my favorites, Mr. Hanson, has been at it again in a curiously conventional manner.

In his When Cynicism Meets Fanaticism, he chooses to frame the question confronting us in the following terms:

Can Western enlightenment and power, embedded in deep cynicism, still prevail over ignorance and self-inflicted pathology energized by fanaticism?

This, of course, is the continuation of the gentleman’s more recent dalliance with what he so inappropriately—or fittingly, take your pick—calls Hard Pounding in an earlier piece:

Whose vision of the future wins depends on who keeps his nerve — or to paraphrase the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, “Hard pounding, gentlemen; but we will see who can pound the longest.”

We are, as humans, all (hopefully) thinking embodied beings. Our body situates us in the world we inhabit. “It” has certain visceral reactions that are hard to comprehend and yet unavoidable. Like allergies, for instance, that in extreme cases kills when kissing someone who has had peanuts long before that regrettable moment.

Now as living organisms we all have certain “energy” that keeps us going in life. But the way we think or perceive of the world will affect that energy. Human mind is a bit of a marvel when you think about it. We daily hear of those dying as a result of over taxing some body part or other. But do any of us ever end up dead “overworking” our brains?