{"id":72,"date":"2004-09-01T09:42:31","date_gmt":"2004-09-01T16:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/blog\/?p=70"},"modified":"2004-09-01T09:42:31","modified_gmt":"2004-09-01T16:42:31","slug":"is-that-all-there-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/2004\/09\/01\/is-that-all-there-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Is that all there is?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"storycontent\">\n<p><em>If that&rsquo;s all there is, my friend,<br \/> then let&rsquo;s keep dancing&hellip;.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Optimism and hope; my mind can&rsquo;t complete the thought.<br \/> Is there such a thing as an optimism that is not naive?<\/p>\n<p>Last night, Theo and I went down to <em>Le Voyeur<\/em> for<br \/> two-dollar beers and conversation.  We talked about<br \/> existentialism (of course), Sisyphus, art, and relationships.<br \/> We talked about optimism too; that it is naive, but necessary.<br \/> For an existentialist, optimism is simply finding the way<br \/> to enjoy the experience; and a projection of the enjoyment<br \/> of future experiences (which is where it gets a bit absurd).<br \/> Really, I can only subscribe to optimism by analyzing<br \/> the flipside.  Despair is cold, heartless, and dead.<br \/> Optimism may be silly, but at least it lives.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I&rsquo;ve worn myself out on the topic.<br \/> Not that I got anywhere with it.<\/p>\n<p>&ndash;<\/p>\n<p>If my sources are correct, tonight there will be<br \/> both swing-dancing and poetry-reading.<br \/> No one should have to suffer through such choices.<br \/> And they are, essentially, at the same time.<br \/> Still, they aren&rsquo;t far apart, geographically,<br \/> so perhaps I&rsquo;ll try and at least stop in at both.<br \/> Switch between cutting a rug and cutting a rhyme,<br \/> without batting an eyelash.<\/p>\n<p><em>Swing word-schemes like a jitterbug;<br \/> if that&rsquo;s all there is, my friend,<br \/> then let&rsquo;s cut a rug.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If that&rsquo;s all there is, my friend, then let&rsquo;s keep dancing&hellip;. Optimism and hope; my mind can&rsquo;t complete the thought. Is there such a thing as an optimism that is not naive? Last night, Theo and I went down to Le Voyeur for two-dollar beers and conversation. We talked about existentialism (of course), Sisyphus, art, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}