Lesson Lasso

Today I've been indulging in my worst unproductive habits at work; taking an interesting-looking book into a back room and reading a few chapters. Already, I've learned about the nuances of the scientific community that studies grizzly bears at Yellowstone National Park, found out that porcupine quills are actually really wicked defense (some poor schmuck actually died from eating a porcupine sandwich; though you have to question whether, given the inherent unwiseness of eating such a thing in the first place, this was Darwinism in action), read up on the social behavior and natural history of mice, and followed the Ethicist for the New York Times on a slightly wandering stroll through the role of ethics in societal and personal life, and in the meantime found out why people lose their nuts over Samuel Johnson: he was a pretty neat dude.

The best days are days like today, where I find answers to questions I hadn't even asked, because they get me *asking* questions. Now I want to look up articles on the married zoologist unit The Frenches, who've vowed to change the plight of the Yellowstone grizzly through nothing more than a modest (but thorough) education plan; or read more about how mice and rats relate with each other, rather hand humans; or pick up a book by Johnson or his biographer and best friend, James Boswell; or a book on Philosophy 101 (Ashentaine recommended a good list that I never got around to); or read Montaigne's Essays; or anything by Gary Snyder; or...you get the idea.

With so much out there waiting to be...picked up, it almost seems like a crime to just go home and watch wrestling, or be on-line with the nagging feeling that I *should* be doing something else. Really, intent is only half of the equation; it's time for action, and all that.

Of course, this declaration of intent is totally meaningless if there isn't action to back it up, too.