Addendum: In my diary I wrote a several page reflection on what would have otherwise been blank pages. It is dated December 13, 1952, i.e. mid-way during my senior year in high school. However, since these are, perhaps, more philosophical rather than chronological recollections, they are presented here, at the end of my senior year at Niles McKinley. They were composed when I was seventeen, they represent a limited background!
Origin: Instead of drawing a lot of odd lines and characters across the pages of days upon which nothing happens, I intend to write reflections, retrospectives, predictions, philosophic wonders and any other miscellanea that occur to me. However by miscellanea I do not mean the kind of hash fed to gladiators which was termed miscellanea. Or on second thought, perhaps this will become a hash of juvenile adolescentian (sic) origin.
A true philosophic work should start at the origin. According to the ancients, the origin came out of Chaos by Nyx, or Night. But in Christianity the origin is termed God.
Thus God is the Origin. There must be an Origin, ergo there must be a God. There must be a first cause to produce anything and everything. When we trace resulting causes and effects backward, we come to the first cause.
One might say that the earth was the effect of the sun, Sol, in juxtaposition with another star. But where did sol come from? A cloud of condensing gases? And whence comes the cloud? From X? And whence comes X? From the origin and the Origin is God.
Who or What is God? – is to ask for the origin of the Origin. But an origin has no beginning for it is the beginning and the beginning is it. Where is the origin of a circle, where is the origin of a Moibus strip, where is the origin of infinity? Erat. Est. Erit. It was. It is. It will be. So it is with any origin. So it is with the prime origin – Deus.
But by what attributes do we know this divine personification of the Origin? Look but to your own soul, mind, and body for the answer, for there are the greatest attributes of the Divine Origin.
Now you have the anticlimax of the origin – Erit, Est, Erat. The soul will be, the mind is, the body was. The soul is the origin-eternal; the body the origin-temporal; and the mind but the synapse between the temporal and the eternal. The pons-temporis is chained by the body, yet has the wings of the soul. It may attempt flights of fancy, flights of peace and tranquility but it must always return to the body.
The three must exist together for man to be the complete attribute of God. But sometimes Erat departs and man dies in body; sometimes Est departs and man dies in mind; sometimes Erit departs and man dies in soul. The first is proclaimed dead, the second is proclaimed insane, and the third is proclaimed a sinner. Yet in some, the three attributes are stronger than in the ordinary mortal. Then the first is proclaimed ambitious, the second a genius, the third a saint. But woe to him who is lacking or in excess on these three attributes, for mortal man is a jealous creature.
Mortal man is not a perfect creation of the Origin, for numerous times the mind joins forces with the body for mutual pleasure at the expense of the soul. Yesterday and today care but naught for tomorrow. The union of the body and mind goes by the name of evil. The body alone is pleasure; the mind alone is jealousy. Together they double their power and become evil.
If the attributes of the Origin may be Good and/or Evil, may the Origin be Good and/or Evil? By adding or subtracting may the Origin be God and/or Devil?
The ancient Romans had many divinities, many manifestations of the Origin. Some were virginal, Diana; some were rapers, Apollo; some were good, Vesta; some were bad, Dis.
But today we consider the Origin good. Yet can an Origin be truly good if it permits war, poverty, and suffering? A point, but one easily refuted, or is it? While it is true that man produces these three scourges, still the Origin produced man. And still it permits these crimes. Or is the Origin no more than just the origin? Did the Origin produce the beginning and then lose power?
I think not, for while the origin of a circle always was, always is, and always will be, so the Origin of the Universe always was, always is, and always will be, to look after its creations and to hope that they will all carry its three attributes neither in less or greater quantity – for only then will the soul, mind, and body of each individual exist in the perfect harmony of the Origin.
Man and Woman: What is the origin of man and woman? The Hebrews say that God created Adam from the dust and Eve from his rib. The Greeks and Romans adhere to the story of Deucalion and Phyrra who created mankind from thrown rocks. Science claims that algae were the parents of homo sapiens. Depending upon your own beliefs in the matter, choose your own theory of it.
What is man physically? Physically he is a composite of seven tubes of varying size, namely the head, two arms, trunk, penis, and two legs. There are other appendages but these are the main ones. These tubes are packed in wrappings of various types of muscles. The more densely packed and proportionately distributed the better is the individual. Above this there is a scattering of hair upon the arms, legs, chest, etcetera. Supposedly it is most densely allocated on the top of the head. And so except for a few minor embellishment we have the male of the species.
The female is structurally similar except she has nine tubes: eight exterior and one interior. The exterior ones are the head, two arms, trunk, two breasts, and two legs. The interior one provides an accommodation for the corresponding male tube, not to be confused with mail tube. The female has more padding than has the male and the final wrapping is not coarse but very soft. She has an excess of hair only on her head and very sparse on other parts. Of the two, she is physically the more tender, for the male must forage for her. But if the stronger male displeases her, she is in spirit and frenzy twice his match.
A young, handsome male will try many things to win the admiration of a member of the opposite sex. While he might climb the highest mountain, swim the deepest sea, brave the hottest desert sands, or coldest arctic snows for her, he will not venture out of the house for her when it’s raining. But usually the young male will either put on heavy clothing and flex his muscles in a football game or strip down to shorts to thrill her at basketball.
The female in turn, if she is young and well formed, must do little to impress the male. While she might wear a lot of fancy clothes to attract his attention, just the opposite will attract more than just his attention.
During the early years they are quite compatible. They will hold hands, sit in the dark, kiss, and indulge in other forms of companionship – such as going to the movies, dancing, etcetera. In the first years of the period of their life called teenage – they usually go with numerous representatives of the opposing sex. But later a mild but common disease (parvus canis amor) sets in to produce a temporary insanity, termed “going steady.” The symptoms of this are well known – they include: a loss of appetite, increased day dreaming, a lowering of grades (where possible) and more day dreaming.
However the disease is neither serious or permanent for the “going steady” slowly dissolves after a period of time. However in rare cases complications and/or true love sets in and this disease becomes a malady termed marriage. But due to the progress of mankind in the field of medicine, a pill of divorce will usually cure this and get rid of marriage. Occasionally an after-effect of alimony occurs.
Yet in the early stages, and in the later ones too, triangles must be avoided at all costs, especially the P-M-D type. It may be aggravated considerably by the presence of a doctor’s son. The fidelity of M also makes the case stronger to the exclusion of P. Conditions may be alleviated somewhat by the applications of locomotion in the form of a motor vehicle of recent vintage. Otherwise rigor mortis will set in.
[The following is dated 12/31/52. The opening paragraph is a pre-amble.]
V-E Day in Okinawa: I am studying history for a scholarship test I have to take. I am using Miss Campana’s modern history syllabus when I run across a clipping from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I read it and am moved almost to tears. And so I am recording it here – what is a fine bit of prose by Gordon Cobbledick. The date line is Okinawa, May 8 (1945). The topic “V-E Day?”