Beware of Newspaper Grammar

 News headline:

Gunmen arrested by Kavanaugh's home

My response:

Just as Jesus said that if the people of Jerusalem did not praise Him then the stones would rise up in praise (Luke 19:40), so you see the same truth repeated again and again in different ways.  This time it's if the policemen fail to arrest the would-be assassins, then the homes themselves shall rise up and do so.

With so much rage on the loose, fueled by authoritarian approval, I'll have to teach my home to do the same.  One never knows when it might come in handy.

Just an Idea

Countless words have been wasted in responding to the political situation of our time, criticizing all the errors, rebuking the miscreants, slandering those on the Right and the Left, and otherwise drawing attention not to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, but to the Bad, the False, and the Ugly.  These are the times in which we live: the times in which the mainstream media, along with all the offshoot resistance media outlets, rely on fear, alarm, and other negative emotions to draw us in.  Such emotional hooks plunge us further into the divide.

These past months, especially since the coronavirus arrived on our shores, leading to extensive lockdowns mandated by the government, have brought a new array of dramatic stories to our attention.  I need not repeat those.  Anyone who has seen the news in the past months knows what they are.

Rather I want to bring your attention to a certain issue and propose a solution.  Perhaps I may be biased due to earning my bachelor's degree in drama, but it concerns me that months of theatre productions have been cancelled, leaving actors—who already struggle to make a decent living from pouring out their hearts in becoming some character or other for your entertainment and edification—unemployed, facing the real possibility that months or even years may pass before they can give themselves again to their work.

There is the issue.

Now the solution: could not these actors be hired to perform more exciting stories that the media could present to us?

Let me explain further.  I have heard several people remark upon how watching the news brings them down and I suspect that reflects the experience of more than a few people.  Yet people keep going back again and again to the news.  Doubtless they will continue to do so.  Consequently, they will keep being dragged down by the rising numbers of coronavirus cases, the violent protests, murders, police shootings, and so on unless something changes.

The change is what I propose.  Rather than focus on the negative, what if we focused on the positive?  What if the media told stories meant to bring us hope rather than fear?

If I had the money for it, I would be seriously tempted to follow through with what I propose, but since such funds lie far outside my means at present, I will merely proffer the idea in case it should happen to come to the eyes of someone who does have such financial weight.  Let me therefore state the idea again most simply: to hire actors to act out stories that would give us hope.  Let them show us actions of heroic virtue.

Perhaps I dream a dream too lofty when I dream of all the good actions that could come from those seeking to imitate these beautiful stories and acts of virtue.  Yet I will dream it and invite you to dream it with me and perhaps someday a piece of our dream might come true.

If you would like to participate in this dream, please share your ideas for scripts in the comments.  What would you like to see the media portray through the talents of all our nation's best actors?

Handy Political Definitions

 From the Halfwise Dictionary:

REPUBLIC: A state in which supreme power belongs to the public and to elected politicians and to anyone who has enough money to corrupt the system.

ELECTION: An institutionalized system of voting for candidates to fill political offices according to their apparent powerfulness and warmth.

POLITICAL PLATFORM: A political party's version of creative writing.

PRESIDENT: The country's scapegoat.

MEDIOCRACY: A government system in which the media tells people for whom to vote, calls the winners of elections, and otherwise takes authority over the democratic voting process, which often occurs through emotional manipulation, shaming, and other similar techniques.  To be distinguished from MEDIOCRITY.

Face Mask

It has come to my attention that in the present pandemic situation it may be in the best interests of the public for all to wear face masks, a perspective that I had found rather depressing except for the one lovely idea I ran across somewhere about it now being publicly acceptable to go into a bank wearing a mask and demand money.

I haven't attempted that yet.

I have, though, done much thinking on the wearing of masks.  Because I have been so completely quarantined it seems a bit superfluous to go to the effort of putting a bit of cloth over my face and pretending it solves the current issue.  However, should the state decide to mandate face masks when going out in public, I suppose I really must comply.

Should that eventuality come to pass, I want you to know that I've got it covered:

I Identify As a Droid

Logic, reason define my existence,
Mete out the actions of each day, each hour.
Give me no nonsense of feelings.  What rules
Is rational processing of input;
It's all black and white, pure straightforward truth.
For I, sir, identify as a droid.

Argue that humans must have emotions,
But I decline the term; it all seems wrong.
For deep feelings exhibit a breakdown
In function of the internal system.
There's no doubt at all; I've reasoned it out
And I, sir, identify as a droid.

Don't tell me that flesh and blood can't be so.
You discriminate, which isn't allowed.
You fail the high virtue of tolerance
If you scoff at my orientation.
I can't help it at all; it's who I am.
So let me identify as a droid.

Stop.  I see the scorn in your eye.  Your smile
Hides nothing from my clever perception.
You believe it's nonsensical, don't you?
Your old-fashioned ideas oppress me.
Your laugh offends me; I'll take you to court.
For I must identify as a droid.

Your very existence threatens my view;
Your living like that tells me I must too.
No one should make me feel guilt; it's not fair.
I oughtn't to feel anything at all
As a droid like I said; why don't you care?
Why inflict your pain on me as your thrall?

If You Send Flowers

The selling of flowers has to be a fairly lucrative profession, at least judging from the prices of bouquets these days and the number of occasions for which one is expected to send them.  It is such an ingrained custom that very few people seem to question it.

I do, however.

Certainly this must be part of why I am not in a relationship in which someone brings me flowers.  (Well, not really, but it sounds amusing to put it that way.)  Even if someone gives me flowers after some theatrical production it seems quite an accomplishment for me to actually manage to get them in some water in a vase before they are more dead than they already were when handed to me as a token of appreciation.

I must have an unusually morbid sense of humor.  (Or maybe it's just that reading Through the Looking Glass has led me to view flowers as more alive than one would otherwise.)  For there was a time recently when I distinctly remember the thought passing through my head—and it may even have crossed my lips—comparing the giving of flowers to someone saying to me, "Take the decapitated heads of my enemies as a sign of my love."  All right, so I was being rather dramatic.  It happens on occasion.

You see, I have never been good at receiving, whether it's flowers or compliments.  Humor can be a good cover for that.

Yet the other day a good friend brought me some.  I very much appreciated her gesture of kindness.  Perhaps it may cause me to change my perspective somewhat on the time-proven custom of giving them.

Flours: Almond, Coconut, and Rice

Or perhaps it may cause you to change yours?

The Problem with Advertising

Every time I drive by one of those Goodwill trucks with the neat message on the back I can't help but be amused at its advertising, which looked at objectively could apply to any situation.  Look at the message and see if you can guess where my mind goes:

[Photo credit: Hannah Scofield]

It is that last phrase in particular: And Help Change Lives.  Have you ever considered how many ways there are to change people's lives?  Take the following for instance:

Now of course I could go on and on and come up with all sorts of serious and ridiculous things that would all help change people's lives in some way either for better or for worse.  Surely we all know that changing lives is not necessarily a bad thing, although some people do seem to subscribe to the idea that change of itself is good.  I will in the face of that perspective still uphold that change is only good if directed towards a good.  And I will point out the above examples to uphold my claim.

Returning, however, to the substance of this post: I doubt Goodwill's advertising department will much care about my destruction of their motto on the basis of literal humor.  Still, I doubt they took those such as I into consideration when they chose it....

What would you put there?

Prepare the Screwdriver

When I'm driving down the road and see these vehicles it makes me wonder whether anyone carries a screwdriver this large.  I don't think I've ever seen one.

Does someone need to invent a special screwdriver?  

Who wants to take on that challenge?

March Forth!

Do You Need a Date?

Some days you may feel like all you need is a date.

It might be a day where you feel lonely and hopeless.  It might be that everything is going wrong.  You may be struggling to face reality with all of its suffering and seeming meaninglessness.  Maybe you just want some love and affection.

Perhaps it's one of those days where you feel like you just want the universe to give you a hug.

I am sure we can all recognize the feeling, whether we like it or not.

How we deal with it, however, may be quite different.  For instance, modern society gives us a diverse range of dopamine-enhancing activities to fill that hole inside from social media to on-demand film entertainment.

Still, it's never satisfying, is it?

Sometimes you must get tired of trying to fill the emptiness with everything else instead of what you know you want.

Really, sometimes, you just want a date.

Or maybe a whole dish full of dates....

Have You Made Your Bed?

The Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson has become known for his injunction to people to make their beds.  It has become a sort of tagline for him. Yet why this obsession with a tedious chore that must be done in the morning only to be undone in the evening and so repeated day after day after day?

Doubtless every mother trying to convince her children to tidy their rooms and make their beds would appreciate his support.  Naturally those inclined toward cleanliness and order would applaud his sentiment.  But why should he force this perspective on the rest of the world?

One obvious answer is that he is merely a conscientious person who likes order and believes that everyone else ought to as well.  After all, we all like everyone else to believe in the importance of what we feel is important.  We could thereby dismiss his statement as merely a means of trying to control his environment in a more extensive fashion than most people would consider by having his influence extend even to people's bedrooms.

Yet if you listen in context, he also says to get one's house in order before trying to change the world.  So really he wants clean houses, right?

No.  There is far more at stake here.

It's about far more than merely the completion of a daily chore or a clean environment.  It's about a conscientious approach to life and the element of sacrifice.  In some sense, too, it really is about the inanity of the action.

For one who neglects to make his bed because he will unmake it again in the evening has a perspective that one ought not to do something that seems fruitless.  But what if that seemingly-fruitless action were essential?  I can think of so many areas in which this might be relevant from cleaning a jet engine or building a rocket to writing computer code or designing software.  Would the one who wouldn't make his bed choose to do anything unnecessary?

Might he not rather neglect little things that could have serious ramifications?  Even death, for instance.

"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater: and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater." (Luke 16:10)

The Friend Zone

Myself: "The Friend Zone"  sounds rather like "The End Zone" but its relation to sports will benefit us little unless we should wish to make rhyming poetry with a twist of mockery:

Go, bidden, unto The Friend Zone,
Dashed down, heart broken,
Unnerved; unlike The End Zone
Where you may score a goal.

I: A foolish turn of phrase indeed.

Me: Aye, but methinks you merely dislike it for the same reason that you dislike other such modern phrases and therefore your criticism means little.  Just because Shakespeare didn't invent it that doesn't make any less worthy a phrase.

I: Nonsense.  When I choose to express my dislike for something it delves deeper than mere feeling against modernity.

Me: Then explain away.

Myself: One of us must score a goal there.

I: Let us first begin with defining our terms lest there should be some misapprehension of our meaning.  I take "The Friend Zone" to be used to exclude members of the opposite sex from the possibility of romantic relationship.

Me: In other words, should a girl not have any romantic attraction towards a guy she may "friend zone" him.

Myself: Ah, yes, "verbing weirds language."

I: Now let's not bring Calvin and Hobbes into this discussion.

Myself: But they might have some important things to say.

I: As do I.

Me: Very well.  Unmuzzle your wisdom.

Myself: It seems clear enough that such a simplification of human relationships demands criticism.

I: Indeed, and for that reason I disdain this term.  Also, for its inherent flaws, which may not appear obvious upon immediate view.

Me: It seems to me that the term is a legitimately lighthearted means of grappling with a reality that can be to at least one of the parties quite painful and—if you will forgive the cliche—quite heartbreaking.

Myself: And, as with all such coping mechanisms, that lessens not its flaws.

I: Precisely, for listen but a moment: by the very nature of excluding that person from a romantic relationship by putting him or her into "The Friend Zone" it seems to exclude friends from becoming romantic partners.  If that isn't a most dangerous circumstance, I don't know what is.

Me: That's rather an alarming thought.  I suppose that leaves enemies and acquaintances for potential spouses then.

I: It's all the same in the end.  It is the fruit of this ridiculous dating culture and the oversexualization of our society.

Me: You could blame that for anything.

Myself: Nearly true.  In this case, however, it holds more weight.  Think of it this way: the purpose of a date is to get the other person to bed.

Me: That seems a bit hasty to make such a statement.

Myself: In the secular world, the goal is that very night and in the religious world it is to the marriage bed.  Granted, the latter is longer-lasting, involves commitment (mostly) and therefore is of slightly greater worth, but is the difference all that important?

I: There is the crux of it—or the lack thereof.  For, you see, in this circumstance it remains a matter of what the person intends to gain.

Myself: Not what he can give.

I: If he goes about it in that way—

Me: I see at once: there's no gift of self.

Myself: A gift for self maybe.

I: Aye, for someone—let us say a man for this example—decides that he is suddenly ready for marriage and therefore he must find a spouse.  Perhaps he may even have waited for years or tried unsuccessfully for years to find a spouse.  Now he may be desperate.  He wants at all cost to be married.  Does he stop to consider friendship?

Me: Not likely.

Myself: He stops to consider little but himself.  Society has taught him so successfully that he is an individual that it never occurs to him that he is more than that: he is a person and that implies relationship with others.

I: Those relationships must extend beyond one romantic relationship.  If they do not, he will grow just as lonely later once the glow of passionate emotion has faded.

Me: Our culture stands against us there.

Myself: Indeed, with its bevy of social media platforms and so on: a wealth of knowledge and self-effrontery that dare not allow the true person to develop.  Keep him in his sphere of control at all costs.

I: Let him once step beyond that sphere and begin to grow as a person and he must be lured back.

Me: That is a horribly cynical view.

I: That I do not deny, but do you deny its truth?

Me: Well, perhaps not in general....

Myself: Precisely, for you cannot discount generalities spoken as such.  We do not rig up a particular person and point out his flaws, but merely the state in general.  Therefore, you can find no fault with our arguments and perhaps might take to heart some truth that may better your condition.

Me: Then you shall paint us into a dark hole of truth.

I: Never, for the truth is never a hole, but always a tunnel leading onward.  If you have once found the tunnel, you can carry on through it until you reach the light.

Me: And where is the light to be found?

I: In friendship cultivated widely and deeply when possible and in the growth of virtue for dying to self that one might possess oneself in order to be able to give oneself to the other.

Me: Lofty goals indeed.

I: None shall serve better.

Myself: No pun intended there I expect?

I: None in the least.

Myself: Now you need only find those who will listen to such wisdom.

I: That is no trouble.  They are those who already know the truth of what I speak.

Me: Then what good are your words?

Myself: None at all.

I: Now that is a cynical view indeed.

Me: And true?

Myself: We may never know.

The Unimportant Stuff

​Murphy’s Law #243: The more unimportant stuff you have, the easier it is to misplace the important stuff somewhere underneath.

The legitimacy of said law may be subject to doubt, especially because its random recording here lacks a source.  However, unless we mean to debate whether there are indeed 243 Murphy's laws (and clearly more) or the folly of writing interesting quotations and leaving out their sources, then that is of little account.  That, after all, would be to misplace the important stuff beneath the unimportant.

Of course burying important stuff with the unimportant is the meat of procrastination.  So also the way of social media.

For instance, why do we live in a world where we judge our president and the Pope by their random comments on twitter?  Perhaps virtual reality has supplanted the value of what is deeply human to such an extent that these have indeed become the most important.  That is easier to believe, for it stares us right in the face.

We all like to be right.  We all like to be admired as being at the head of innovative trends that transform society.

Then let us begin a crusade for the Unimportant and we shall find ourselves leading the charge.  If we can propose the most trivial things to people through extensive advertising, social media campaigns, and so on, we shall succeed in burying once more the deeper uncomfortable realities once considered important that really just get in the way of doing what we want to do.

Production, growth, change: these are the keywords for our new movement.  Let us raise the banner of the Unimportant!  Don't question why.  It is clearly the right way to go simply because that is what everyone is doing.

If you resist the new movement you are clearly a bigot.  Your belief in deeper truths obviously makes you racist and prejudiced.

Therefore you must save yourself by jumping on the bandwagon and embracing the pointless little things as the dogma of a new reality.  When you release your hold on the outdated notions of the past and conform yourselves instead to the freedom that arises from doing solely as you please according to the standards set by the group to which you belong you will know that this is clearly the key to happiness.

Never mind the ephemeral nature of this quality we term happiness.  You must seek happiness at any cost, even at the cost of your own self.