"Spider Robinson - And Subsequent Construction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

' -- and Subsequent Construction' (v1.1)

Spider Robinson




God gets away with things no one else could.
Want proof?
The greatest comedians of the last century, the ones who lasted longest
commercially and physically, were named hope (who always looked young), burns
(who always looked old), and miltin' b[oy/g]irl (remembered for his drag routines).
Then there were skel[e]ton, who slumped when he got tired; 'kay, who was absurdly
agreeable; and Cid Caesar, who returned from the dead when he slowed down,
slimmed down, and got control of his ego. The only woman one can call to mind from
that generation was named ball, whom they loved loose, see?; enough said there.
Not many would accept irony that heavy-handed from an author ... yet the twentieth
century swallowed it from God without comment, laughing their heads off. Today, in
2010, I'm the only one who seems to have noticed.
Remember that: it may help you with what follows.
I'm a mathematician by training, and I've been a relativist. I've logged trips to six
different star systems. I pray not to a god, but to the Nameless; and I don't try to
send my prayers anywhere -- I just try to be them. I remember well the prayer I
was being that night as I drove from home to my lab ...
Thank you, Nameless!
For all my life, the statement [(good luck) > (bad luck)] has tended to obtain --
consistently enough to compensate for my basic tragedy: having been born a
supergenius. Want proof? The foster parents who have always sworn they picked
their little Iris on the basis of my toothless smile happened to be a NASA image
specialist and a chaoticist: experts in, respectively, the universe's surface
appearance and its underlying causes. They tutored me at home until I passed their
competence at age ten and was admitted to UCLA. Mom was a Buddhist and Dad a
Taoist. No other sort of background could have prepared me so well to be a relativist
-- that's why there are so few of us, which is why we're so absurdly well paid -- and
if I hadn't been a relativist I would not have met my beloved husband Teodor (whose
name means "gift of God").
In case you missed it, I've just defined an ascending curve from First Luck to Best
Luck ... because a good marriage is one of the most worthwhile things a human can
make.
The proof of that statement lurks within the proximate cause of the prayer I was
being as I hurtled down the highway that night. Just before I'd left our home to drive
to work, Ted had given me a series of orgasms so exquisite and intense that it was a
good thing the act of driving is these days essentially finished once you've defined
your destination to the car ... and furthermore, he had declined my offer to return
the favor. ("Sometimes I just like to make my Iris dilate," he'd said.)
 Do you see why that was so special? One of the hardest things a person can learn
is to forgive herself for the massive extent of her own selfishness -- and such
selfishness is necessary, because you can't love anyone else until you love yourself
utterly. I'd always had trouble in that area until I met Ted; thank the Nameless, he
was able to persuade me that he enjoyed my sexual greediness as much as I did ...