PANDEMIC DIARY

“DID WE ALREADY HAVE IT?”
November 26, 2020

I have previously written about my favorite comic strip, “Peanuts” by Charles Schultz. Schultz did not simply write comic strips that made you laugh, they also made you think, reflect, and even cry…or at the very least SIGH! He was an existential philosopher. His characters ran the metaphysical and mental health gamut - rational, profound and neurotic. His crew of children all had out-sized brains given the size of their heads and overgrown hearts given their small chest cavities. They were bulging with adult thoughts and feelings. We were able to laugh at the lingering hurts of our own childhoods as Charlie Brown and friends accepted our burden and dealt with the weight of the world bringing child-like innocence that concluded in hefty dialogues and debates and sometimes disturbing developments.

My all-time favorite Peanuts cartoon is an interaction between Schroeder, the deeply prudent piano player, and the smugly superior Lucy.

— Lucy: “Do you think that there are good days and bad days?”
Schroeder: (preoccupied with his piano tinkling) “Yeah”

— Lucy: “Do you think that there are better days and worse days?”
Schroeder: “Mmm”

— Lucy: “Do you think that there is one day that’s better than all the rest?”
Schroeder: “I guess”.

— Lucy: “What if we already had it?”

What follows are particularly relevant meditations containing themes you most likely have pondered at one time or another during 2020:

— “I gave up trying to understand people long ago. Now I let them try to understand me!” Snoopy

— “I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.” Charlie Brown

— “Just remember, when you're over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.” Charles M. Schultz

— Linus: "What's wrong, Charlie Brown?"
Charlie Brown: "I just got terrible news. The teacher says we're going on a field trip to an art museum; and I have to get an A on my report or I'll fail the whole course. Why do we have to have all this pressure about grades, Linus?"
Linus: “Well, I think that the purpose of going to school is to get good grades so then you can go on to high school; and the purpose is to study hard so you can get good grades so you can go to college; and the purpose of going to college is so you can get good grades so you can go on to graduate school; and the purpose of that is to work hard and get good grades so we can get a job and be successful so that we can get married and have kids so we can send them to grammar school to get good grades so they can go to high school to get good grades so they can go to college and work hard . . ."
Charlie Brown: "Good grief!"

— Linus: "Look out!! Ha! Now you've done it! Now you've broken a lamp, and you've got no one to blame it on but yourself!"
Charlie Brown: "Maybe I could blame it on society!"

— Linus: "Nothing goes on forever. All good things must come to an end . . ."
Charlie: “When do the good things start?"

— “No problem is so big or so complicated that it can't be run away from!”

— “Never lie in bed at night asking yourself questions you can't answer.” - Charlie Brown

— “Sometimes you lie in bed at night, and you don't have a single thing to worry about . . . That always worries me!” - Charlie Brown

— "The worst part of it is you don't know if he's barking at an owl, the moon or a burglar!"
"That's one of the drawbacks of a limited vocabulary!" Charlie Brown about Snoopy

— “It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black.”

— “Never worry about tomorrow, Charlie Brown. Tomorrow will soon be today, and . . . today will be yesterday! I always worry about the day after tomorrow!" - Charles M. Schulz