Saturday 24 March 2018

THIS WORLD IS THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS - LEIBNIZ ON OPTIMISM

I'm off to Auckland this afternoon.
The Old Girl has booked us to see Candide this evening, Leonard Bernstein's operetta as done by Opera New Zealand, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the Freemasons New Zealand Opera Chorus. Should be great fun.



The story of Candide (from Voltaire's novel of the same name is of 'mindless optimism' in a greedy and unforgiving world. Sounds like the premise of a John Oliver Last Week Tonight show in Trumpland.



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Coincidentally I'm also going to Auckland to sign sale documents for our Auckland apartment.
We got news yesterday afternoon that an offer is in which we've accepted so if all goes well the apartment is sold and will change hands at the end of April.



Of course that means that The Old Girl will be homeless in Auckland. We'll miss the apartment, particularly the view but we need to downsize to clear the mortgage. We'll be on the hunt immediately to buy a 1 bedroom apartment for her to use during the week. I discovered an outstanding one in the central city that we can afford. It's an old heritage building with apartments of character with high ceilings. Yesterday I contacted the agents to discover that it's 'under contract'. Bummer!

We'll be like Candide and Cunegonde, naive optimists exploring Auckland's greedy and unforgiving property world.

2 comments:

Richard (of RBB) said...

Well done with the sale!

Robert and the Catholics said...

"Voltaire was acting as an ecliptic who had synthesized the ideas of the stoics, the epicureans, the skeptics. Oh the hell with it let's play the overture..." L Berstein.
PS I'm watching it on Youtube!