youth

the devils dictionary
The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.[hr
Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on ea]th again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and, howling, is cast into Baltimost!
—Polydore Smith
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

weather

trustycoffeemug
the momentary condition of the planet's atmosphere, particularly with regards to heat, cold, precipitation intensity,, earth, wind, fire, torrents of falling fish... that sort of stuff.

rimer

the devils dictionary
A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.

The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,
The sound surceases and the sense expires.
Then the domestic dog, to east and west,
Expounds the passions burning in his breast.
The rising moon o'er that enchanted land
Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.
—Mowbray Myles
(also: rime)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

astronaut

trustycoffeemug
(n.) someone trained to operate aboard a spacecraft, braving such dangers as the pitiless vacuum of space, the burning agony of unshielded radiation, the wasting-away of their bone and muscle mass, and the existential agony that accompanies total realization of one's insignificance in the grand scheme of things, all in the hopes of exploring totally uninhabitable places with generally little in the way of mineral wealth.

astronauts may be said to blur the line between courageous heroism and flagrant stupidity

tenacity

the devils dictionary
A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics. The following illustrative lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who has passed to his accounting:

Of such tenacity his grip
That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
In vain — from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

real life

douglas adams
It is often said that a disproportionate obsession with purely academic or abstract matters indicates a retreat from the problems of real life.(also: life)

However, most of the people engaged in such matters say that this attitude is based on three things: ignorance, stupidity and nothing else.(also: stupid)

Philosophers for example argue that they are very much concerned with the problems posed by "real life": like for instance "What do we mean by real?" and "How can we reach an empirical definition of life?" and so on.

One definition of life, albeit not a particularly useful one, might run something like this:

Life is like a grapefruit: It's sort of orangy-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half of one for breakfast. (also: breakfast)

One of the extraordinary things about life is the sort of places it's prepared to put up with living. Anywhere it can get some sort of grip, whether it's the intoxicating seas of Santraginus V where the fish never seem to care whatever the heck kind of direction they swim in, the fire storms of Frastra, where, they say, life begins at 40,000 degrees, or just burrowing around in the lower intestine of a rat for the sheer unadulterated hell of it, life will always find a way of hanging on in somewhere.

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