While we should aspire for the ideal of perfection, we must also be prepared for the reality of fault and failure. When we make mistakes, it is important to not be beaten down, which will encourage us to give up our aspirations for betterment. It is crucial that we look at ourselves in the generational perspective. Yes, we live in an age succumb to greed, but we don't let people own other people, and hitting women with sticks is no longer encouraged or excused. On a generational scale we have shown marked improvement. We have to understand, that in Biblical times, the moral scholars of the day had to pick their battles. It was hard enough trying to get people to not kill one another.
Now that you feel better having not murdered anyone, we can shorten the time scale to within our own lifetime. We all probably have some half-represses memory of being an absolute horror of a child. Everyone has ruined a waitresses day by pouring all the salt and pepper into their water in the name of science.
And here we must confront an unpleasant side-effect of striving for betterment: The more improvement we experience, the more we reflect upon our past with a greater relative sense of dissatisfaction with our choices, actions and motivations. Not only do we see our past selves in a more negative light, but we perceive the actions of those around us as more negative as well.
The farther along the road we traverse, the greater the effect, and it is this line of self-reflection and re-observation of the world as it is and has been, we are brought back to the question of absurdity, anxiety, isolation and ultimately the issue of suicide. But we are getting too far ahead for the moment.
There is an inherent amount of madness in wanting to become a better person beyond the caliber of what is expected by law and social dictum. As stated before, there was a point in American history, when the abolition movement was a minority opinion, thought to be carried only by the soft-hearted idealists. How alienating it must have been, to be a progressive minded youth in the deep south, perhaps even the child of a plantation owner; knowing from the heart and from examples of places abroad, that there was an alternative way of life.
Given the context of time, belief in some greater potential good is indeed madness in the respect that it requires belief in an non-actualized reality. However, this is a type of madness that is logically achievable. It would be one thing to believe in a reality in which people never aged or died, but in choosing to believe that mankind can be better, we have historical evidence that it is not only possible, but that it has been done repeatedly and constantly in the past. By allocating this belief within the realms of human society, we put it in the realm of possibility. We have complete control over our own societies. There is no outside agent. We and our government representatives are not being controlled by corporate overlords. We are just very susceptible to bribery.
It's insane, but it isn't. As noted before, as we make progress in self-improvement, a natural side-effect of that betterment, is that previous states of our being are made to seem worse. Furthermore, actions of our closest friends are re-examined from our new found soap box, and the world at large is revealed to be a much worse, corrupt place than we could have ever hoped to imagine.
This brings us to the primary anxiety of this journey. It is assumed that for most individuals who seek out a higher moral livelihood, it was done in some sense out of a desire to make the world a better place for those around us. It is not done for self-gratification or to nurture a "mightier than thou" complex, but because an individual wishes to bring goodness into the world around them. However, as they improve morally, they are confronted with the relativity issue, of perceiving not only mankind as a whole, but their friends and family as being more morally corrupt than they had at the outset of their journey. The question then runs through our mind: Was humanity worth the trouble?
It is so easy to question whether or not those around us are "deserving" of the kind acts of others, especially when they don't seem to want help, or are completely oblivious to the fact that they are indeed doing wrong. For, on a moral level, is it not essentially wrong to aid or be charitable and kind to a "wrong-doer?" The number of people who have no moral stances can seem overwhelming, and it may seem like that number is growing as well. It may seem like the great nation of America has become nothing more than a large number of large people, enthralled in petty, superficial standards of overconsumption. It may seem as though people have deeply invested themselves in the notion that they should just look out for themselves, and that people are mere stepping stones on the path to the top. It may seem as though any try to cultivate goodness and charity will be swept up by the eternally selfish, who will just demand more until there is nothing left to give.
Farther down the road the question then becomes: If this is the state of the world, and it seems improbable if not impossible for one individual or even a group of individuals to make a positive change, is this a world worth living in?
This kind of thinking is a trap. It is an unnecessary division of mankind into right and wrong, good and evil. We set out on a mission to save the environment, create a higher moral standard, or whatever the altruistic cause may be because we realize that there is only a "we." There is one planet, shared by one people. "All men were created equal." Remember? It is a trap to think of this nation in terms of reds and blues. This is 'Merica. We are 'Mericans. And we are all 'Rthlings.
One way we can resolve our issues with our brethren is recalling those moments in our hellish childhood when we thought it would be a good idea to open the car door on the freeway. We are all the same. One way we can resolve our issues with our lesser past, is to look at our generational moral gains. We are all improving. The way out of the suicide issue, at least for a twenty-something year old moralist, is that humanity needs your genes in the pool. You must survive, and procreate such that the next generation will have the genetic tendency towards altruistic endeavors. You must realize that you are already highly outnumbered by a sea of mindless, nihilistic breeders who will spawn unit after unit of Doritos munching, Miller High Life chugging, reality tv watching, Fuck-Monkeys. They are already going to outbreed you, but that is no excuse to give up on natural selection. Good people everywhere need you. They need a parent that won't debate between school supplies and a fifth of vodka. They need a grandparent that won't yell racist remarks at the neighbors, and throw rocks at dogs. You need to stay alive because as hard of an existence as it may be, you must prove to the world that people like you still exist.
But at the same time keep in mind, we are all one people. We are all flawed on some level. We are all Doritos munching Fuck-Monkeys.
God Bless 'Merica.
***
And now, hidden amongst the rabble, a personal story from events in my life. There may be a few repeated points, but only because they seem important to me. There is also a lot of optometry mumbo-jumbo. Why is it in the third-person for parts of it? No idea. I do genuinely fear for my sanity at times, especially when placed in a business environment. Here's why...
-E.I
***
Eric has been unemployed for two months now, but has consciously been avoiding the unemployment office, because he has a good amount of savings, and he feels that due to his privileged upbringing, there are probably some low income families who could use tax money more. Good for you, Eric. Your mom must be proud.
Eric quit his last job after becoming downtrodden, depressed and beaten down over the overwhelming sense that his employer was taking advantage of his patients/customers. This is indicative of the problem. At a certain point in these pseudo-medical fields - optometry, dentistry, orthodontics and chiropractics - the patient became referred to more and more as a customer. While this isn't quite as offensive as it is in actual medical practice, although probably just as common according to the latest Time magazine, it still seems as though the general public hasn't quite caught onto the fact that when they walk into a medical office where they call the person across the counter "doctor," that they are being treated much in the same way as if they had just walked onto a used car lot.
There is an implicit amount of trust we place in people in white coats with fancy placards strewn across their walls. This is a trust that my previous employer and the one I just came from, seem to abuse. A lot of optometrists do this (although not all. My dad doesn't. My dad is the best): they will give you an exam, and make superficial changes to your prescription. They might shift the cylinder axis by a few degrees, they might add one quarter of a diopter to the sphere power, while deducting one or two from the cylinder. In simple terms, they make minute changes that are more apparent on a paper prescription as opposed to what the visible difference is when you put the glasses on. Then with your "brand new prescription," they take you out into the frame room, and sell you a two thousand dollar pair of glasses. No one needs a two thousand dollar pair of glasses.
I understand that these kinds of practices are common in the business world. No one ever heard a person say, "Thank God we got the undercoat, honey." My issue comes with the fact that these people are called "doctor," when they are acting like sales associates.
The gross part comes when realizing that these people are also guilty of abusing Medicare to a certain extent. Medicare will pay an optometrist or an ophthalmologist for one pair of glasses after a cataract surgery to the order of about 90-100 dollars total. (76 for a frame and another 20 or so for plastic lenses) In their guidelines they say that this is for a basic frame and a cr-39 basic plastic pair of lenses. I'm not entirely sure they understand that the cost of a true basic frame is about four dollars, and that basic lenses usually cost about two-fifty. Those are the wholesale costs. That doesn't factor in whatever markup is applied to the materials to get it up to six-fifty. The amount of metal or plastic material is takes to make that one pair of glasses is probably around one dollar for the lot, yet the government ends up paying nearly one hundred dollars for a pair of reading glasses. If you go to Walgreens and look at the readers there, that is the kind of quality you can expect to get and what the government to pay for.
I could go on about my last boss for ages; how he semi-illegally wrote prescriptions for one year instead of two; how he would literally salivate when he was close to making a sale; how he made me send out collection bills for ten dollars to about twenty people over the summer. The list goes on and on.
But Eric was getting antsy. Eric wanted to get a job. So, he hesitantly took another job at an optometry office, under the pretense of a trial week to see how things would fit. They did not fit well.
What irked me about this most recent venture involved their "warranty policy." There is a moderately useless product called anti-reflective coating that will give lenses a scratch warranty. If you scratch a lens, you get a new one. Good deal. The older generations gave a one year scratch warranty, the newer ones give a two year. One particular brand offers unlimited scratch re-do's in a two year period, which is a pretty good offer. However, this office I just came from decided that the warranty was too good, and perceiving the threat of time wasted doing re-do's, created an "office warranty policy" of giving all lenses a one year, one time only re-do. This seemed massively dishonest to me, and I was made quite distraught in learning of this to the point where my manager asked why I looked so sad, distant and torn. My thinking was this: It was not their product. They are just licensed distributors. If they don't want to use that product because of the inconvenient warranty, then they shouldn't use it, instead of perverting the terms of the manufacturer's promise to the consumer. Simply put: If you buy an iPod at Best Buy, you still go by Apple's warranty. There may be an additional warranty available through Best Buy, but that should serve as an added convenience, if anything.
It just seemed like a strange justification: If a bunch of people kept coming in for scratch warranties, it would waste staff time that could be used making sales. Firstly, if the people do their jobs right, and talk to the patients and deduce that they are tough on their glasses by asking, I don't know... "are you tough on your glasses?" then they can give them a stronger material and skirt the issue altogether. The second, less common scenario, is that a person finds out they can have an unlimited number of re-do's, and then psychotically takes a screwdriver to their lenses every few months. In having spent my whole life in optometry offices, I've seen maybe one instance in which a person deliberately scratched their lenses. And it was only once. And her warranty had actually expired, so she didn't get them anyway. Point being: Even if this office had three or four of these individuals in their midst, it seems like a radical and unnecessary precaution to lie to every single person who walks through the door and tell them the warranty isn't as good as it actually is.
Furthermore, the manager tried to justify the warranty lie by saying that if a person came back with a scratch after the one year had passed, but they actually had the two year warranty, the office would "see what they could do," and replace the lenses like they were supposed to in the first place. This created the deception that the office was doing a favor in a predicament that not only shouldn't have existed, but that they manufactured completely.
And now I am left wondering if I am going crazy for not wanting to subject myself to this kind of perceived greed. Whenever I hear people say, "it's just business," it feels like a by-way of saying, "yeah this shit is evil and wrong, but I am getting lots of money for gas, food, plastic bullshit, sex, rent for an apartment that's nicer than my [least favorite family member's] and the admiration of my peers." When I hear people say, "competitive pricing"or "competitive salary," I hear, "I'm gonna fuck your asshole a little more gently than the guy down the block."
I feel crazy because the more I interact with the world, the more I'm realizing that there are fewer and fewer people out there who feel that there is a better way. There is my grandfather and my dad of course, who do things in a fair and honest way because they enjoy sleeping at night, and there are some truly wonderful friends of mine who share the same thoughts, but on a greater scale, when I try to make a list of people I know who believe that we are one people, struggling through life together; that we should be kind, generous and altruistic towards everyone we meet, and that as the dominate species on this, we have a responsibility to take care of it, it's inhabitants, and each other; that list is comprised of mostly murder victims.
***
These two writings were put together because they seemed to be speaking to one another.
The beliefs purported in this blog are difficult to believe in. Let it be known that the author frequently struggles with this faith in moral betterment.
If you made it all the way down here, thanks. I love you too.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
To Describe Blow-Jobs Artistically
"The master of ceremonies asked people to say what they thought the function of the novel might be in modern society, and one critic said, 'To provide touches of color in rooms with all-white walls.' Another one said, 'To describe blow-jobs artistically.'" -Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five.
Few individuals share the experience of enlightenment exactly as Oscar's. Drunk, in the back seat of a 1989 Honda Civic, being blown ever so graciously by God-knows-what-her-dad-named-her, Oscar peered into the rearview mirror only to see Tiny Jesus smiling and waving from the driver's seat headrest. Thinking this was some strange, unknown hallucinatory side-effect of drinking tequila with raspberry vodka, Oscar tried to refocus on the petite, curly haired red-head slobbering all over his dick. Yet he found himself closing his eyes. He found himself thinking about doing history homework in-between laundry cycles, his childhood go-to for boner killing. God-knows-what-her-dad-named-her looked up and asked if everything was okay: the mast was drooping. Oscar reassured her that everything was wonderful. Everything was dandy. Tiny Jesus definitely wasn't playing a harmonica on the dashboard.
In just a moment Oscar will have his mind divided from his body. He will be gone long enough such that when he returns the only thing he will see are the curly maroon pubic regions of a faceless, nameless, inhabitant of the planet he will love and understand deeper than the man who named her. She will be completely unaware that the mind, formally attached to the body, attached to the member in her mouth has been shown the shadow of the nature of existence. As Oscar's mind leaves for a watercolored sense of time, the beast of soulless man will occupy her with pulsating gyration of up, down and up, and she will sync up with him, her fishy lipstick going down, up and down.
Tiny Jesus moves from the dashboard towards Oscar in a four-dimensional trajectory. How best to describe this? At rest he is one, making a singular decision. In motion, he is many and all possibilities. Oscar can only perceive a kaleidoscopic view of a thousand Tiny Jesuses teleporting towards him, until one appears atop the ginger girl's head going down, up and down, her hot breath moistening Oscar's thigh. Tiny Jesus's little feet deform her hair,but she doesn't seem to notice. Tiny Jesus takes out his harmonica again and blows a harsh sweep from low to high, and as the top note stabilizes, everything glows whiter, and whiter, and up, down and up again.
And this is what Heaven is like: Tiny Jesus is normal Jesus again, and you enter mid-stride with your eyes on Jesus's open palm. He is offering you a handful of sunflower seeds. You walk along a river, on a soft dirt path, barefoot and surrounded by miles of plush, twigless grass. As you know from Tiny Jesus in the car, there is no talking here; just a knowing gleam of eye light. There is never any confusion, so there is no need to say anything. No decisions have to be made because everything will be just fine. If you don't like sunflower seeds, you don't have to take them, but Jesus being Jesus, he will always offer. When Jesus eats sunflower seeds, he doesn't eat them one at a time. He doesn't even bother to de-shell them. He throws them into his mouth a handful at a time and chews the wad like gum. From time to time, between wads, he wades into the water and takes a long drink. He doesn't mind getting wet from the belly down. Sometimes there is a warm breeze and sometimes there isn't. Sometimes it is a cooling wind and sometimes not. No one really notices because either is just fine. People are the same as they were on Earth, and everyone is here.
You walk on with Jesus, in the ever pleasant day. He spits wads of sunflower shells into the grass, and always offers you a handful. All the while, you pass by pairs of true lovers, silently engaged with an art or craft in the warmth of each other's company. Once dead, everyone becomes a master of their art, and no one remembers why there were art critics to begin with, until they really think about it. They then understand, smile, or laugh to themselves and forget all over again. A book is no better than a painting, nor worse, and a painting is no better or worse than any other painting. They are simply different, and everything is just fine. When pairs pass by other pairs, they look over each other's work and smile with warmth and knowing. There is no need to praise, because the artist knows the work is a masterpiece, so the subject just enjoys the art for what it is, and everything is just fine.
You walk by Hell every now and again, and everyone in there is the same as they were on Earth. Looking from the outside in, Hell is a massive, light grey, concrete pyramid full of windows and balconies for people to smoke on, because you aren't allowed to smoke indoors, even in Hell. There was never any torture, or fire. They just prefer to be indoors, despite the ceilings being a little low, and the lighting poor. That was the only difference. Low lighting and low ceilings. People in Hell, which isn't that bad of a place at all, would simply rather stay indoors on a perpetually sunny day, or a surprisingly warm evening. The inhabitants of Hell have the Internet, television, and bars. They will sometimes come out to an overhang, or a patio to smoke cigarettes, because even in Hell, you can't smoke indoors. You work the same job you had on Earth in Hell, and everyone makes as much as they need to. The people of Hell pay taxes, although the tax money doesn't really go anywhere. There is no governing body, because no one is worried about theft or murder, because everyone has all the material items they could want, but are silently uncomfortable with admitting that empty feeling associated with having too many luxuries. Not too many people know how the monetary system in Hell works, but there are lots of television shows that talk about it, and everyone understands that it is meant to be confusing. There are lots of hand sanitizer stations and pay-phones that no one uses. They all have their own private space, and there is plenty of it, although the ceilings are a little low, and the lighting poor. In Hell, they provide you with just enough room to be lonely in, and a cavalcade of luxuries that don't really matter. You have the best hot tub that gets almost too hot, and the most powerful air conditioner so it's almost too cold, and most people spend their days getting in and out of really nice hot tubs and re-watching their same favorite television programs. You have an endless supply of TV channels, but you probably only watch programs on about four or five of them. You have a computer with Internet to watch the shows you watch on TV, or read the ideas of other people watching TV on a computer. People in Hell still spend a lot of time on cell phones, because they aren't comfortable with accepting the silent knowing that the folks in Heaven have. They know the same things that the Heaven folk know. They just still need someone to validate them. People in Hell aren't unhappy at all. They just aren't sure if they're happy. They aren't sure of a lot of things, like if they know the same things that the folks in Heaven know. They do. It's just not enough.
There are still bar fights. There is still work drama. They still shit in Hell because they still eat, and they eat well. But toilets still get clogged, and people still gripe as they either call a plumber or search for a plunger. They know they've died, and there is no real need to eat beyond pleasing the sensation of hunger. Besides, Jesus eats too. Jesus poops also. He likes to visit Hell sometimes with a smattering of Heaven folk who could be bothered, and they will go find a place to eat a slice of pizza, or a roll of sushi. No one is quite sure how it all started, but for whatever reason Jesus loves tuna salad mixed with macaroni and cheese, topped with capers, jalapeños and chunks of thickly sliced turkey bacon. No one is quite sure where he gets it either, but everyone is comfortable not knowing certain things.
Asking how often Jesus gets tuna salad mixed with mac and cheese with capers, peppers and bacon is a silly question for the dead because there is no time. There is day, which is always pleasant, and night, which is always surprisingly warm, but no one in Heaven pays any attention to the change for being too deep in the enjoyment of the moment, and everyone in Hell is in a perpetual state of coming out of a movie theater and being shocked by the state of the day, so they are no help at all. What can be said about Jesus's visits to Hell is that when he walks around, everyone knows him, but they often call him by different names - again, it is mostly out of this strange need for Hellian validation despite knowing exactly who he is. They call him Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, Vishnu, Holiness, Steve and all sorts of names, and he responds to them all with a wide smile and a handful of sunflower seeds. People in Hell rarely eat sunflower seeds. They have no proper place to spit.
People in Heaven are allowed to stay in Hell, and people in Hell are allowed to go to Heaven, but people rarely stay in both places equally. Part of that unspoken understanding is knowing where you prefer to be, and everyone is just fine with it. No one tells people they don't belong anywhere, they just give knowing smiles signifying an acknowledgment of a stranger or a neighbor, and there is very little difference between the two. Sometimes you see a pale pudgy Hell girl going for a run along the river, and everyone from Heaven chuckles because they forgot what being in a rush was like. Sometimes you see a person from Heaven walking dazed around a mall in Hell, sipping a Slurpee and staring at mannequins and pondering what possible good a fine Italian suit would do on a beautiful day like this. It would only get ruined in the river, so they never go inside.
The most overlap you see between inhabitants of Heaven and Hell is the library. Everyone likes the library. People from Heaven love fiction from Hell. They love the adventure, the noir, the mystery and excitement of murder stories, but they love it in the library, knowing that it will all go back on the shelf shortly. People from Hell love the poetry from Heaven. It helps them appreciate natural beauty in that slightly removed medium they are so used to. It is a nice break from watching nature shows on HD TV; they still don't have leave the comforts of their home; they can still drink premium coffee that is almost too strong, and smoke cigarettes that are almost too heavy, knowing peacefully enough, that it will all go back on a shelf.
You wonder the same thing everyone wonders when they take their walk with Jesus eating sunflower seeds. Did Jesus ever get blown? And knowing the "did-Jesus-ever-get-blown" look like his own reflection in the river, he smiles at you, and you realize that knowing either way would have been disappointing. For those of you who have died, everything becomes clear at this point, but for folks like Oscar, he chuckles - the only real verbalization in Heaven - and you continue on, leaving a trail of sunflower shell wads behind.
Few individuals share the experience of enlightenment exactly as Oscar's. Drunk, in the back seat of a 1989 Honda Civic, being blown ever so graciously by God-knows-what-her-dad-named-her, Oscar peered into the rearview mirror only to see Tiny Jesus smiling and waving from the driver's seat headrest. Thinking this was some strange, unknown hallucinatory side-effect of drinking tequila with raspberry vodka, Oscar tried to refocus on the petite, curly haired red-head slobbering all over his dick. Yet he found himself closing his eyes. He found himself thinking about doing history homework in-between laundry cycles, his childhood go-to for boner killing. God-knows-what-her-dad-named-her looked up and asked if everything was okay: the mast was drooping. Oscar reassured her that everything was wonderful. Everything was dandy. Tiny Jesus definitely wasn't playing a harmonica on the dashboard.
In just a moment Oscar will have his mind divided from his body. He will be gone long enough such that when he returns the only thing he will see are the curly maroon pubic regions of a faceless, nameless, inhabitant of the planet he will love and understand deeper than the man who named her. She will be completely unaware that the mind, formally attached to the body, attached to the member in her mouth has been shown the shadow of the nature of existence. As Oscar's mind leaves for a watercolored sense of time, the beast of soulless man will occupy her with pulsating gyration of up, down and up, and she will sync up with him, her fishy lipstick going down, up and down.
Tiny Jesus moves from the dashboard towards Oscar in a four-dimensional trajectory. How best to describe this? At rest he is one, making a singular decision. In motion, he is many and all possibilities. Oscar can only perceive a kaleidoscopic view of a thousand Tiny Jesuses teleporting towards him, until one appears atop the ginger girl's head going down, up and down, her hot breath moistening Oscar's thigh. Tiny Jesus's little feet deform her hair,but she doesn't seem to notice. Tiny Jesus takes out his harmonica again and blows a harsh sweep from low to high, and as the top note stabilizes, everything glows whiter, and whiter, and up, down and up again.
And this is what Heaven is like: Tiny Jesus is normal Jesus again, and you enter mid-stride with your eyes on Jesus's open palm. He is offering you a handful of sunflower seeds. You walk along a river, on a soft dirt path, barefoot and surrounded by miles of plush, twigless grass. As you know from Tiny Jesus in the car, there is no talking here; just a knowing gleam of eye light. There is never any confusion, so there is no need to say anything. No decisions have to be made because everything will be just fine. If you don't like sunflower seeds, you don't have to take them, but Jesus being Jesus, he will always offer. When Jesus eats sunflower seeds, he doesn't eat them one at a time. He doesn't even bother to de-shell them. He throws them into his mouth a handful at a time and chews the wad like gum. From time to time, between wads, he wades into the water and takes a long drink. He doesn't mind getting wet from the belly down. Sometimes there is a warm breeze and sometimes there isn't. Sometimes it is a cooling wind and sometimes not. No one really notices because either is just fine. People are the same as they were on Earth, and everyone is here.
You walk on with Jesus, in the ever pleasant day. He spits wads of sunflower shells into the grass, and always offers you a handful. All the while, you pass by pairs of true lovers, silently engaged with an art or craft in the warmth of each other's company. Once dead, everyone becomes a master of their art, and no one remembers why there were art critics to begin with, until they really think about it. They then understand, smile, or laugh to themselves and forget all over again. A book is no better than a painting, nor worse, and a painting is no better or worse than any other painting. They are simply different, and everything is just fine. When pairs pass by other pairs, they look over each other's work and smile with warmth and knowing. There is no need to praise, because the artist knows the work is a masterpiece, so the subject just enjoys the art for what it is, and everything is just fine.
You walk by Hell every now and again, and everyone in there is the same as they were on Earth. Looking from the outside in, Hell is a massive, light grey, concrete pyramid full of windows and balconies for people to smoke on, because you aren't allowed to smoke indoors, even in Hell. There was never any torture, or fire. They just prefer to be indoors, despite the ceilings being a little low, and the lighting poor. That was the only difference. Low lighting and low ceilings. People in Hell, which isn't that bad of a place at all, would simply rather stay indoors on a perpetually sunny day, or a surprisingly warm evening. The inhabitants of Hell have the Internet, television, and bars. They will sometimes come out to an overhang, or a patio to smoke cigarettes, because even in Hell, you can't smoke indoors. You work the same job you had on Earth in Hell, and everyone makes as much as they need to. The people of Hell pay taxes, although the tax money doesn't really go anywhere. There is no governing body, because no one is worried about theft or murder, because everyone has all the material items they could want, but are silently uncomfortable with admitting that empty feeling associated with having too many luxuries. Not too many people know how the monetary system in Hell works, but there are lots of television shows that talk about it, and everyone understands that it is meant to be confusing. There are lots of hand sanitizer stations and pay-phones that no one uses. They all have their own private space, and there is plenty of it, although the ceilings are a little low, and the lighting poor. In Hell, they provide you with just enough room to be lonely in, and a cavalcade of luxuries that don't really matter. You have the best hot tub that gets almost too hot, and the most powerful air conditioner so it's almost too cold, and most people spend their days getting in and out of really nice hot tubs and re-watching their same favorite television programs. You have an endless supply of TV channels, but you probably only watch programs on about four or five of them. You have a computer with Internet to watch the shows you watch on TV, or read the ideas of other people watching TV on a computer. People in Hell still spend a lot of time on cell phones, because they aren't comfortable with accepting the silent knowing that the folks in Heaven have. They know the same things that the Heaven folk know. They just still need someone to validate them. People in Hell aren't unhappy at all. They just aren't sure if they're happy. They aren't sure of a lot of things, like if they know the same things that the folks in Heaven know. They do. It's just not enough.
There are still bar fights. There is still work drama. They still shit in Hell because they still eat, and they eat well. But toilets still get clogged, and people still gripe as they either call a plumber or search for a plunger. They know they've died, and there is no real need to eat beyond pleasing the sensation of hunger. Besides, Jesus eats too. Jesus poops also. He likes to visit Hell sometimes with a smattering of Heaven folk who could be bothered, and they will go find a place to eat a slice of pizza, or a roll of sushi. No one is quite sure how it all started, but for whatever reason Jesus loves tuna salad mixed with macaroni and cheese, topped with capers, jalapeños and chunks of thickly sliced turkey bacon. No one is quite sure where he gets it either, but everyone is comfortable not knowing certain things.
Asking how often Jesus gets tuna salad mixed with mac and cheese with capers, peppers and bacon is a silly question for the dead because there is no time. There is day, which is always pleasant, and night, which is always surprisingly warm, but no one in Heaven pays any attention to the change for being too deep in the enjoyment of the moment, and everyone in Hell is in a perpetual state of coming out of a movie theater and being shocked by the state of the day, so they are no help at all. What can be said about Jesus's visits to Hell is that when he walks around, everyone knows him, but they often call him by different names - again, it is mostly out of this strange need for Hellian validation despite knowing exactly who he is. They call him Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, Vishnu, Holiness, Steve and all sorts of names, and he responds to them all with a wide smile and a handful of sunflower seeds. People in Hell rarely eat sunflower seeds. They have no proper place to spit.
People in Heaven are allowed to stay in Hell, and people in Hell are allowed to go to Heaven, but people rarely stay in both places equally. Part of that unspoken understanding is knowing where you prefer to be, and everyone is just fine with it. No one tells people they don't belong anywhere, they just give knowing smiles signifying an acknowledgment of a stranger or a neighbor, and there is very little difference between the two. Sometimes you see a pale pudgy Hell girl going for a run along the river, and everyone from Heaven chuckles because they forgot what being in a rush was like. Sometimes you see a person from Heaven walking dazed around a mall in Hell, sipping a Slurpee and staring at mannequins and pondering what possible good a fine Italian suit would do on a beautiful day like this. It would only get ruined in the river, so they never go inside.
The most overlap you see between inhabitants of Heaven and Hell is the library. Everyone likes the library. People from Heaven love fiction from Hell. They love the adventure, the noir, the mystery and excitement of murder stories, but they love it in the library, knowing that it will all go back on the shelf shortly. People from Hell love the poetry from Heaven. It helps them appreciate natural beauty in that slightly removed medium they are so used to. It is a nice break from watching nature shows on HD TV; they still don't have leave the comforts of their home; they can still drink premium coffee that is almost too strong, and smoke cigarettes that are almost too heavy, knowing peacefully enough, that it will all go back on a shelf.
You wonder the same thing everyone wonders when they take their walk with Jesus eating sunflower seeds. Did Jesus ever get blown? And knowing the "did-Jesus-ever-get-blown" look like his own reflection in the river, he smiles at you, and you realize that knowing either way would have been disappointing. For those of you who have died, everything becomes clear at this point, but for folks like Oscar, he chuckles - the only real verbalization in Heaven - and you continue on, leaving a trail of sunflower shell wads behind.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Magic Gerbils, Crayons, and Cancer
A story from my youth: Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Abby. She was dirt poor. Her family was on welfare and food stamps. All of her clothes were handed down from her brother. To save money, haircuts were administered by her mother, Halloween was more of a mission than a holiday, and it wasn't unusual for Abby to go to school with a packet of dry ramen noodles for breakfast and lunch. Abby was in class one day, and her teacher was hung-over. The class was instructed to draw a picture with their crayons. As the class began, Abby remembered that her parents had bought an eighth of weed instead of colored pencils, markers and crayons under the justification that, "Between momma's mascara pencil, blue pens, and your imagination, you'll do just fine. Can you get me more milk for my Lucky Charms?"
Abby raised her hand to inform her teacher that she didn't own any crayons and couldn't complete the assignment, but it was too late. Ms. Haverdash had already put on her aviators and was fast asleep.
Tony was the son of a very wealthy Italian watch model. He had a box of sixty-five crayons, so he let Abby use the colors he didn't care for, such as brown, orange, pink, purple and gray. Jenny was blonde, and would grow up to be a trophy wife, which is irrelevant, but you can never start planning your careers too early, girls. Jenny had a standard box of sixteen crayons. Her black one had snapped in half, so she gave the nub end to Abby, who sharpened it in Tony's crayon sharpener, again irrelevant to the story, but girls, don't think you have to sharpen boys' crayons to make it in this world.
Then there was Mikey. Mikey was the only kid in class whose family was probably in worse shape than Abby's. Mikey's mom lived off of disability following a tragic porn filming accident on the set of Trannies, Panties, and Automatons, a science-fiction parody of the John Candy classic. While filming on location at a train station, Mikey's mom squirted on the third rail. Terrible things happened to Mikey's mom's lower half. In any event, Mikey only received the crayon's he had through an unspoken deal he made with the man who delivers bags of mashed potato mix to the school. We won't go into detail, but Mikey got fucked in the butt - metaphorically speaking - as in he made a poor trade for three measly little, used, old crayons that originated from an Applebee's.
If you really want to know, he traded home videos of his mom. There are you happy? Can't you leave poor Mikey alone?
Mikey went up to Abby and said, "Abby, you may sha-wuh awhl mah cway-awhns wif me-uh."
Oh yeah, Mikey has mouth cancer. Do you feel bad now? You should. His mom went into porn to pay for cancer treatments. You people disgust me.
Moving on: The class gerbil happened to be a magic wizard in disguise. Walter the Werbil (Wizard-gerbil) revealed his giant werbil form to the class. So inspired was he by the generosity of Mikey that he granted him any three wishes. Mikey, being a modest and humble boy of few desires, said, "I wish for my mouth cancer to be cured, and for everyone to be happy forever. Unfortunately, Walter the Werbil heard, "Aw, whiff four mammoth canisters of bean curd, and fluff anyone! Toe bleed Abby for rent."
Confused, but determined, Walter the Werbil proceeded to snort cans of tofu, give blow-jobs, and finish by biting poor Abby's toes until she gave up her milk money. The End.
***
The moral of the less demented version of this story is, that it is not the small donations made by those blessed with many things, but the (relatively speaking) large donations made by those who already have little, that makes a deed truly good. I may donate my pocket-change to the homeless and round up my Safeway bills for cancer research, but my deeds are no where near as admirable as those college graduates, who in light of having just acquired eighty-thousand dollars in debt from student loans, chose to fly off to war-torn Africa to build wells and huts for those in need. I'm just more vocal and need validation.
What I am trying to say is: I am not that great of a person. I don't even consider myself to be a good person. I am comparable to Tony in the story listed above. I do good works on a small scale relative to my potential. I want to shoot down the notion, before it arises, that the author thinks himself morally superior, and so finds it necessary to prescribe ethical guidelines. This is not the case. I have no idea what I'm doing.
For now, I want to catalogue the actions and habits that have worked for me in my quest to become a better human being, so that if there are people out there who wish to begin a period of self-improvement, they can know what a formerly terrible person did to begin the process of turning it around.
For those of us in our twenties and full of ideals, now is the time that we can make the greatest physical impacts on the world. Decades from now, when we are in our fifties, we will use the tools of influence and affluence to achieve our goals, but now is the time in which we must throw our bodies and minds into the fray to get what we truly want in life. Personally, I have invested my education in writing. Whereas this was not my passion, when I chose to major in English (a choice made out of sheer laziness) the ability to document thoughts and argue semantics were the tools given to me. I want people to believe in the goodness they are capable of, and it is the author's intention, and passion, to try to inspire this belief - by any means necessary - using the tools available.
To those of you who went and taught in Thailand, did environmental work abroad, participated in a program like Teach for America, or mentored an at-risk youth - you are good people, who have taken meaningful steps, and put forth great efforts into doing things that you saw as being right, good and beneficial for yourself and the world. So frequently have thousands of people said the words, "thank you for your service," to some scary, muscly military guy who has probably participated in killing people. For some reason, I have a sneaking suspicion that the people I just mentioned have probably been thanked far less upon their return.
Thanks guys. You have made a positive impact in the world.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Lesson Five: Tolerate Logical Irrationality
***
A Note: While I do believe in Something, this entry will attempt to maintain an agnostic discourse for the sake of inclusion.
Something be with you,
-E.I
***
Talking about God is difficult. Until now, the author has tried to avoid the subject as much as possible. When asked point blank, "Do you believe in God?" I panic worse than Peter. It is a polarizing term. It is alienating. The term means something different to everyone. When speaking to twenty-something, middle-class, liberally-raised people these days, they don't like to say "God." It is muttered in hushed tones, and associated with the disgusting and vile actions of murderers, crusaders and kid-diddlers. However, at the same time, so many of us resort to a form of prayer without calling it prayer. We talk to God, without calling it God. Instead, we ask "The Universe," for strength. We thank "That-From-Which-We-Came" for giving us the courage to be a better person. When we make mistakes, we not only ask forgiveness of the ones we've wronged, but of that little nagging voice inside ourselves that let's us know when we're on the right track or not.
That little voice has been made into a Disney cartoon cricket. It has been called the superego by Freud, and the noble horse by the Greeks. Our parents told us the word for it is our conscience, and for those of us raised under the teachings of the Trinity, it has also been named The Holy Spirit.
There are many experiences that we all share as humans, that cannot be photographed or quantified in an objective manner; these invisible qualities that we create analogies for in an attempt to point at the shadows of a reality we know to be true. Love is my favorite example. Poets use words, three-dimensional descriptors, and attempt to recreate a four-dimensional experience. Musicians attempt to incorporate the medium of sound to evoke that indescribable feeling. Visual arts attempt to imbue their persona, or exaggerate those facets of physical forms in reality which indicate the greater truths they seek to point out. Love is something so beyond our minds, and so overwhelming, that most of us resort to cries of joy and squeezing one another with our appendages. If the positive aspect of that feeling of love has not graced your life, then perhaps the negative - the tragedy of grief, equal in its gravity - may be more relatable. (The negative is also most commonly expressed by wailing and squeezing one another with our appendages.) We carry other ideals that hold no physical, definite form: truth, justice, grace and mercy.
It is saddening to realize that many of us have yet to experience a great love, a moral awakening, or a visceral encounter with [The Universe] (Input whatever makes you comfortable). As there are no words to describe many of those experiences, it is often a lonely period of failed explanations, and feeling as though no one understands what you've been through. There are those people who know, but they are equally incapable of satisfactory expression. Think of an ant who has just walked across your iPhone, and must now, through pheromone excretions, describe their impressions from a limited perspective of Gangnam Style to the Queen.
And so we come up with our analogies. Those analogies that are so easy to pick apart, because they are hashed together, futile, shadows of the thing we are actually trying to talk about. For people who have yet to experience those things which we can only feel, they only have a poorly constructed analogy to operate and engage with. They shine their light on the shadow, and reveal that there is nothing there. To borrow from the great philosopher Bruce Lee, they focus on the finger, pointing away to the moon, missing all the heavenly glory.
***
It is becoming increasingly difficult in a capitalistic society in which we must nurture greed and selfish competition, to find any rational, objective justification for altruistic behavior. We, as Americans, live in a system that does not tend to reward charitable behavior. It is you against every other person who is passionate enough about a trade/practice to start a business around it. It is your business against every other business who wants that kid's allowance, that family's Christmas bonus, and that corporate sponsor.
It is also becoming increasingly difficult to adhere to moral systems that are becoming more and more antiquated and ridiculous in light of today's scientific findings. It is incredibly hard for today's twenty-something year olds to take life advice from someone who believes the Earth is four thousand years old, that Jews and Satan collectively buried dinosaur bones to fool humanity, and that natural selection is either a theory, or another brain child of Satan and the Jews. (Dibs on the sweetest Polka band name ever)
That being said, we are also entering a time in human history where we cannot afford to abandon a strong moral stance. When we look inside of ourselves, and acknowledge that irrational beast that wishes to hoard and consume every luxury and pleasure for ourselves at the expense of others - that entirely base and ridiculous idea that the individual from which our experience takes place is for some reason different, or better than any one else - and acknowledge that this conditioning has been set into us on a level, a nearly global scale, that will require a momentous amount of energy to reverse, then we must realize that it will require the aid of a force greater than ourselves, greater than that beast within us, and greater than the collective system which has created and coddled this behavior on a global scale, to undo these lesser desires.
There may be no physical evidence of a great altrustic force, beyond a subjective perception, but mankind has proved time and time again, that when it needs something, it will be realized. This great entity has been perceived, loosely defined, and imagined many times by many peoples. This is a force which we cannot paint an exact picture of, or measure in grams, but every culture from every corner of the Earth has come away with a vague impression of the shadow it casts, and gifts us with a metaphoric finger, pointing to the sky. There is the Tree of Life, from which all things came, the Tao which allowed for everything, the ebb and flow of Yin and Yang, the cycles of creation and destruction from Vishna and Shiva, and of course Unkulunkulu, the Zulu creation deity.
These are all crude metaphors, that try to simplify things for our human minds. It may be multiple components, a myriad of things, combined and funneled towards a common goal. It could all be one thing, ever changing. It could be a Legends-of-Zelda-like Tri-Force, if you will. A great entity that created us, a children - a we - to act on its behalf, and an unseen ghost to Jiminy our Crickets' back on the right track.
Yet while we may create prettier analogies to match the times, there is still the inherent irrationality in believing that a higher order being of pure altruistic intent could allow the great quantities and densities of tragedy that befall us on a daily basis. There is still the inherent irrationality that must accompany faith, as defined as belief accompanied by a lack of hard, physical evidence. There is an inherent irrationality in making decisions based on an intuition for goodness, which lacks objective definition in living action, and that no one else can perceive.
However, if we do not aspire to some irrational, presently unachievable ideal of altruistic goodness, how can we ever improve? How would the townsfolk react, if we went back in time one hundred years and said, "One day, we will all carry tiny rectangles that can allow us to talk and send messages to any individual on the planet in an instant. We can use them to take and send photographs and movies. They can be used as musical instruments. They can give you directions to any location you want. They can tell you how much every gas station in your area is charging for a gallon. They can provide you with lifetimes of porn. You can send money to your family. You can trade stocks. You can receive alerts from the White House, and check the latest news at any time. It is an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a botany reference book, a medical guide, and there's also this thing called Chat Roulette, which I have a hard time explaining." We would be burned at the stake, or sent to the mad house. However, because enough people saw the need for a device like this, it evolved out of the realms of imagination and science-fiction and into reality. We once thought of holograms as being impossible. Hologram Tupac begs to differ.
But it is understandable, in light of the evidence, that many feel so cynically towards humankind. I spoke to a man about the homeless population in Berkeley, California who said, "I noticed they are all younger these days, and they all have dogs. If I went into a Walgreens and bought them a bag of dog food, would that make me a bad person?" We don't have to scan the news for too long before we find a tale of corruption, or indecency, and all the feel-good pieces seem to be about goats saving baby pigs, or cheetahs looking after antelope; charitable actions don't make great news. (That's not to say it doesn't happen. One news story spoke of a Canadian coffee shop in which people bought the coffee of the person behind them for a full three hours before the chain of charity stopped. Similar events have occurred in America in regards to the purchasing of gasoline.)
If enough people can collectively believe in some radical notion of altruism, then not only can a community be built upon that belief, but that community will act in accordance with that belief. The dangers lie in diverting from the original message of goodness, and adhering to a communal accordance with the bizarre rituals that become associated with the community, not the idea. The tragedies lie in petty disagreements between communities saying the same thing, slightly differently. But, flawed as the metaphors and analogies may be, if they produce the desired effect of the initial concepts - being good, kind, charitable and forgiving to our fellow human beings - then the logical inconsistencies created by those metaphors should be, not excused completely, but tolerated in light of the end produced.
If, in order for a base and selfish individual to believe in a greater tomorrow, and a perfect future for the next generations, he or she must take an irrational leap and believe in a magic old man in the sky that controls everything, then by all means, let that individual believe in the magic old man in the sky. If, to keep from stealing a gun, shooting his neighbor, and raping his neighbor's wife, he must believe that when he dies, a winged, androgynous being will count up all his bad deeds on some sort of point system, and sentence him to a pit of fire where a demon will sodomize his mouth for all eternity - let him believe it. Conversely, if you have to believe that there is nothing but chaos, randomness, tragedy and death, but that while we are here we should regard our fellow human beings as fellow sufferers of this awful fate of age and death, and that in light of this bleak upcoming nothingness we should love, cherish and look after one another - believe it.
We have all been fed, and on one level or another accepted, the lie that having an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod, and an iMac will make us cooler, more fashionable and happier. What that proves is that we are capable of believing in truly amazing, outlandish things. Let's try believing in the innate goodness of ourselves, by any means necessary.
A Note: While I do believe in Something, this entry will attempt to maintain an agnostic discourse for the sake of inclusion.
Something be with you,
-E.I
***
Talking about God is difficult. Until now, the author has tried to avoid the subject as much as possible. When asked point blank, "Do you believe in God?" I panic worse than Peter. It is a polarizing term. It is alienating. The term means something different to everyone. When speaking to twenty-something, middle-class, liberally-raised people these days, they don't like to say "God." It is muttered in hushed tones, and associated with the disgusting and vile actions of murderers, crusaders and kid-diddlers. However, at the same time, so many of us resort to a form of prayer without calling it prayer. We talk to God, without calling it God. Instead, we ask "The Universe," for strength. We thank "That-From-Which-We-Came" for giving us the courage to be a better person. When we make mistakes, we not only ask forgiveness of the ones we've wronged, but of that little nagging voice inside ourselves that let's us know when we're on the right track or not.
That little voice has been made into a Disney cartoon cricket. It has been called the superego by Freud, and the noble horse by the Greeks. Our parents told us the word for it is our conscience, and for those of us raised under the teachings of the Trinity, it has also been named The Holy Spirit.
There are many experiences that we all share as humans, that cannot be photographed or quantified in an objective manner; these invisible qualities that we create analogies for in an attempt to point at the shadows of a reality we know to be true. Love is my favorite example. Poets use words, three-dimensional descriptors, and attempt to recreate a four-dimensional experience. Musicians attempt to incorporate the medium of sound to evoke that indescribable feeling. Visual arts attempt to imbue their persona, or exaggerate those facets of physical forms in reality which indicate the greater truths they seek to point out. Love is something so beyond our minds, and so overwhelming, that most of us resort to cries of joy and squeezing one another with our appendages. If the positive aspect of that feeling of love has not graced your life, then perhaps the negative - the tragedy of grief, equal in its gravity - may be more relatable. (The negative is also most commonly expressed by wailing and squeezing one another with our appendages.) We carry other ideals that hold no physical, definite form: truth, justice, grace and mercy.
It is saddening to realize that many of us have yet to experience a great love, a moral awakening, or a visceral encounter with [The Universe] (Input whatever makes you comfortable). As there are no words to describe many of those experiences, it is often a lonely period of failed explanations, and feeling as though no one understands what you've been through. There are those people who know, but they are equally incapable of satisfactory expression. Think of an ant who has just walked across your iPhone, and must now, through pheromone excretions, describe their impressions from a limited perspective of Gangnam Style to the Queen.
And so we come up with our analogies. Those analogies that are so easy to pick apart, because they are hashed together, futile, shadows of the thing we are actually trying to talk about. For people who have yet to experience those things which we can only feel, they only have a poorly constructed analogy to operate and engage with. They shine their light on the shadow, and reveal that there is nothing there. To borrow from the great philosopher Bruce Lee, they focus on the finger, pointing away to the moon, missing all the heavenly glory.
***
It is becoming increasingly difficult in a capitalistic society in which we must nurture greed and selfish competition, to find any rational, objective justification for altruistic behavior. We, as Americans, live in a system that does not tend to reward charitable behavior. It is you against every other person who is passionate enough about a trade/practice to start a business around it. It is your business against every other business who wants that kid's allowance, that family's Christmas bonus, and that corporate sponsor.
It is also becoming increasingly difficult to adhere to moral systems that are becoming more and more antiquated and ridiculous in light of today's scientific findings. It is incredibly hard for today's twenty-something year olds to take life advice from someone who believes the Earth is four thousand years old, that Jews and Satan collectively buried dinosaur bones to fool humanity, and that natural selection is either a theory, or another brain child of Satan and the Jews. (Dibs on the sweetest Polka band name ever)
That being said, we are also entering a time in human history where we cannot afford to abandon a strong moral stance. When we look inside of ourselves, and acknowledge that irrational beast that wishes to hoard and consume every luxury and pleasure for ourselves at the expense of others - that entirely base and ridiculous idea that the individual from which our experience takes place is for some reason different, or better than any one else - and acknowledge that this conditioning has been set into us on a level, a nearly global scale, that will require a momentous amount of energy to reverse, then we must realize that it will require the aid of a force greater than ourselves, greater than that beast within us, and greater than the collective system which has created and coddled this behavior on a global scale, to undo these lesser desires.
There may be no physical evidence of a great altrustic force, beyond a subjective perception, but mankind has proved time and time again, that when it needs something, it will be realized. This great entity has been perceived, loosely defined, and imagined many times by many peoples. This is a force which we cannot paint an exact picture of, or measure in grams, but every culture from every corner of the Earth has come away with a vague impression of the shadow it casts, and gifts us with a metaphoric finger, pointing to the sky. There is the Tree of Life, from which all things came, the Tao which allowed for everything, the ebb and flow of Yin and Yang, the cycles of creation and destruction from Vishna and Shiva, and of course Unkulunkulu, the Zulu creation deity.
These are all crude metaphors, that try to simplify things for our human minds. It may be multiple components, a myriad of things, combined and funneled towards a common goal. It could all be one thing, ever changing. It could be a Legends-of-Zelda-like Tri-Force, if you will. A great entity that created us, a children - a we - to act on its behalf, and an unseen ghost to Jiminy our Crickets' back on the right track.
Yet while we may create prettier analogies to match the times, there is still the inherent irrationality in believing that a higher order being of pure altruistic intent could allow the great quantities and densities of tragedy that befall us on a daily basis. There is still the inherent irrationality that must accompany faith, as defined as belief accompanied by a lack of hard, physical evidence. There is an inherent irrationality in making decisions based on an intuition for goodness, which lacks objective definition in living action, and that no one else can perceive.
However, if we do not aspire to some irrational, presently unachievable ideal of altruistic goodness, how can we ever improve? How would the townsfolk react, if we went back in time one hundred years and said, "One day, we will all carry tiny rectangles that can allow us to talk and send messages to any individual on the planet in an instant. We can use them to take and send photographs and movies. They can be used as musical instruments. They can give you directions to any location you want. They can tell you how much every gas station in your area is charging for a gallon. They can provide you with lifetimes of porn. You can send money to your family. You can trade stocks. You can receive alerts from the White House, and check the latest news at any time. It is an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a botany reference book, a medical guide, and there's also this thing called Chat Roulette, which I have a hard time explaining." We would be burned at the stake, or sent to the mad house. However, because enough people saw the need for a device like this, it evolved out of the realms of imagination and science-fiction and into reality. We once thought of holograms as being impossible. Hologram Tupac begs to differ.
But it is understandable, in light of the evidence, that many feel so cynically towards humankind. I spoke to a man about the homeless population in Berkeley, California who said, "I noticed they are all younger these days, and they all have dogs. If I went into a Walgreens and bought them a bag of dog food, would that make me a bad person?" We don't have to scan the news for too long before we find a tale of corruption, or indecency, and all the feel-good pieces seem to be about goats saving baby pigs, or cheetahs looking after antelope; charitable actions don't make great news. (That's not to say it doesn't happen. One news story spoke of a Canadian coffee shop in which people bought the coffee of the person behind them for a full three hours before the chain of charity stopped. Similar events have occurred in America in regards to the purchasing of gasoline.)
If enough people can collectively believe in some radical notion of altruism, then not only can a community be built upon that belief, but that community will act in accordance with that belief. The dangers lie in diverting from the original message of goodness, and adhering to a communal accordance with the bizarre rituals that become associated with the community, not the idea. The tragedies lie in petty disagreements between communities saying the same thing, slightly differently. But, flawed as the metaphors and analogies may be, if they produce the desired effect of the initial concepts - being good, kind, charitable and forgiving to our fellow human beings - then the logical inconsistencies created by those metaphors should be, not excused completely, but tolerated in light of the end produced.
If, in order for a base and selfish individual to believe in a greater tomorrow, and a perfect future for the next generations, he or she must take an irrational leap and believe in a magic old man in the sky that controls everything, then by all means, let that individual believe in the magic old man in the sky. If, to keep from stealing a gun, shooting his neighbor, and raping his neighbor's wife, he must believe that when he dies, a winged, androgynous being will count up all his bad deeds on some sort of point system, and sentence him to a pit of fire where a demon will sodomize his mouth for all eternity - let him believe it. Conversely, if you have to believe that there is nothing but chaos, randomness, tragedy and death, but that while we are here we should regard our fellow human beings as fellow sufferers of this awful fate of age and death, and that in light of this bleak upcoming nothingness we should love, cherish and look after one another - believe it.
We have all been fed, and on one level or another accepted, the lie that having an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod, and an iMac will make us cooler, more fashionable and happier. What that proves is that we are capable of believing in truly amazing, outlandish things. Let's try believing in the innate goodness of ourselves, by any means necessary.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Lesson Four: Have Faith. Talk to Strangers
This is not a plea to find faith in God, but in mankind. This lesson should also not be heeded by small children, the elderly, or the extremely gullible.
Let's start on a very basic level. We seem to fear each other these days. We carry and project dozens of assumptions and judgments on one another everyday on an unconscious level. Why is it so outlandish, so strange, and so unorthodox to talk to people these days?
This article is being written on a smartphone, the poster-child, and scapegoat for the consequences of today's technologically driven youth. On many levels, it is understandable why a young woman today would want to power-walk to work with headphones and sunglasses. Getting hit on at seven in the morning is unpleasant. However, the disconnect seems rash, if not excessive. God forbid this has actually happened, but in "worst-case-scenario-world", those headphones may have prevented little miss pretty from hearing someone call out, "LOOK OUT FOR THAT HALF-MONGOLIAN, HALF-ROMULAN RAPIST RIGHT BEHIND YOU!"
On another level, technology helps us deal with the stresses of modern life. There exists today, a small demographic of individuals who, had it not been for the revolutionary smart-phone game "Angry Birds," would have slipped into a deep depression and killed themselves. Humanity is inspiring in that way: a small flick of a finger across a digital matrix can simulate bird-flying freedom and destructive power over a pig-run, power-structure; creating the illusion that one is in control over the corporate (piggy) institutions they subject themselves to.
That being said, those individuals may have also found similar comfort in other human beings, perhaps their human resources agent, a therapist, or a friend.
The point being (and a commonly expressed point it is): We are disconnected from one another. This is unfortunate, and there is another way. A way that came so naturally and necessarily to our grandparents who didn't have Amazon and Google Maps.
When we go out for walks, even in urban areas, how often are we confronted with a bloody street-fight, or a mugging? Yes, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the friendliest places in the world, so there may be some operational bias, but we are not a far removed utopia by any merit. In the first post, a figure was quoted in regards to assaults taking place in the United States: 1.8 million in 2012. That may seem like a lot, and we could probably do better, but keep in mind that this is a nation of about three hundred million people. In fact, the portion of the population who actually committed an assault (assuming that each assault was carried out by a separate individual) comes to about half of one percentage point. While this is a crude and unrefined means of calculating human decency, what this indicates is that, for the most part, humanity is comprised of decent people.
Yes, we should be weary of that slim minority of harmers, but do not let that one rotten apple in two hundred be reason for you to never say, "Hi, I like your tie," or "You made me one helluva sandwich! Thank you!"
Even if you do draw the short straw when dishing out compliments to strangers, even if it is the deranged, angry person with a long history of violence; odds are, they are not going to make you their next victim because you complimented them on their attire, or pointed out how nice of a day it was. What will provoke them is if we treat them like dirty, disgusting, inhuman criminals. They will fill the role society prescribes them. When was the last time you read in the news, "Woman killed by homeless man after giving change?" It doesn't happen.
We should talk to one another more. The great thing about talking to strangers is that because you are never going to see them again, you can tell them the God's honest truth, without worrying about, "Well what if she tells Tammy, who's roommates with Alex, who has tea every week with Alan who might tell Phil?"
Strangers, being objective observers into our lives, can offer the best advice. They have no motives, unless they are that one percent of creeps, but in all honesty, it's fairly easy to read when that is the case. You will know if someone is trying to take a run at you. You just have to have faith in your own instincts.
When we speak to each other, as passing travelers on the same bizarre ride of life, focus on the things in life that move us forward. Ask about passions. Try to discern what things or ideas the stranger on the train believes can make the world better. Talk about the problems presented in the day's paper, and the little things we can do to ease the pain and promote progress.
If you have that discussion with that person, they will go home to their loved ones and in talking about the nuances of their day, you, and the discussion you had will naturally arise and the notions of goodness and passion relapses and propagates.
And tell jokes.
Two snowman are standing in a field. After a long silence, one snowman says, "Yeah, no, I smell carrots too..."
Monday, February 11, 2013
Lesson Three: Forgive Me Wartortle, For Pidgey has Sandstorm
I'll say it. God is a Negative Nancy. See ya religious demographic, it's been fun.
If you take a look at the Ten Commandments, a book of moral standards sent down from God to Moses, you will find that outside of having one God, and honoring your mom and pop, they are all phrased in the negative. Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't fuck the neighbor lady. This is a basic standard of morality that most of us can live up to easily. The result: Certain folks find it perfectly acceptable to give a crappy loan when they are aware of the likelihood of foreclosure and are counting on it. It isn't really stealing. It isn't really fucking your neighbor. It's an in-between that God didn't feel inclined to include for a bunch of Jews roaming the desert.
It is of the Educationally Independent's opinion, that we should no longer hold the standard of goodness to a list of atrocities a person hasn't committed, but to advance a list of principles and guidelines that an everyday morally-driven person should commit.
It is no longer adequate to simply say, "don't litter, litterbug." We should teach our citizens to proactively clean up their neighborhoods.
"Hey there handsome. Good job picking up those cigarette butts. Thanks for making this a nicer place to be. Have a churro."
Be positive about the active, instead of diminishing the negative.
The most important act we can do for one another is forgive. It is also the hardest thing. Personally, the author of this article is terrible at it. Holding grudges is a completely logical and reasonable thing to do. A grudge is a visceral bodily reminder that an individual or individuals either mean you harm, or do not care about your well being. Evolutionarily, they make perfect sense. It's a part of conditioning.
But being able to move yourself beyond that primal instinct for vengeance is one of the greatest and most important things the people of my generation can do. There will come a day when the bankers and financial institutions on wall street will be brought to justice for what they've done. I have faith that as corruption flourishes it will naturally expose itself, and the masses will have their say. There will come a day when the coin flips and many business ventures in America will lean towards unionized work, and working co-ops. When that day comes, and the corporate institutions start stripping themselves down until it really is the last man standing, there will be that moment when an out of work financial advisor, or stock trader will walk into a cab driver co-op looking for work to feed his family. I have faith that we as a people would be okay with putting those Americans to work. I have faith that we can look past what they've done out of a deluded desire to appease their fathers, and look towards what honest, hard work they are capable of.
Holding a grudge is like making Squirtle withdraw, Pidgey use sandstorm, or Metapod harden over and over again. It is at its core, a self-serving and unproductive action. It will not stop another assault from happening, but perhaps raise your awareness or deaden the impact slightly. Eventually, one must evolve or prepare the hydro pump to proactively deal with the issue at hand. Please do not misinterpret this analogy and think I am encouraging you to solve your problems with water cannons. They tried that during the civil rights movement to no avail.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Penetrating A Virgin's Mind
I'm not a virgin. I won't go into the gory details, but I felt as though that my word wouldn't be as valid as a genuine abstinent individual's. In my desire to talk about this, I felt as though I should use the opinions and words of an individual who chose a chaste lifestyle based on a personal choice, as opposed to a religious obligation; in the same way that I feel as though biblical codes of morality give people an excuse to judge the ethics based on the institution promoting it. There are of course, people out there who are waiting until marriage, who happen to be out of their goddamn minds on their own merit; people who say they are holding off for the sake of their religion, but are probably just trying to make themselves more sexually appealing through a shroud of mystery or purity in light of their very real, definite, and obvious insanity.
This is not to say that the religious are insane, but speaking as a believer in God, I will make not only the admission that there are a lot of mentally unstable, gun toting, religious freaks from New Fanning, Dakota, and other corners of the globe, who pick the most bizarre things to protest, (funerals of fallen soldiers, victims of hate crimes) who kill in the name of pacifists, and self-destruct like a tackled and tail-wagged Voltorb, but also the admission that in light of today's scientific data, and the wide eye of media detailing the actions of the aforementioned freaks, it does take a splash of insanity to address oneself as a good honest God fearing individual.
The Educationally Independent would like to introduce you to the Anonymous Abstinent. She is a normal American. She likes working on old cars, and fixes bicycles. With a B.A in political science, Anonymous Abstinent is now heading back to community college for an A.S after working for non-profit organizations here in the Bay Area. We've known each other since we were high school freshmen, sharing a history class with a horrible woman who tried to join military, but was denied entry due to, in her words, "a chemical imbalance in her brain." I chose to speak with her for this article, not because of her California-based, middle-class, liberal, non-religious upbringing, but because she is literally the only virgin I know. We chose the vowel based alias Anonymous Abstinent, not out of shame for chastity, but because I had fully intended on asking some rather graphic, offensive questions for the sake of humor. As the discussion progressed however, I did actually back out of saying one. Because I wrote the questions before the talk occurred, the first question that appears in the interview was actually asked towards the end. We met in her home town, originally going to her house in the hills, but then opting for a coffee shop once I revealed the nature of some of the questions I was going to ask. Her parents were at home. Her mother offered me a bag of dried lemons.
Over coffee and Sour Patch Watermelons, we spoke for over an hour. Much of the meaningful discussion wasn't recorded as I am not that quick of a typist, and only tried to keep up on questions that I had prepared. We spoke about morality, why I was doing the blog, and the general state of ethics in our community and generation. Eventually, we were joined by another good friend, went bowling and got good and drunk. Hopefully, I will become a faster typist as time passes and I can record the spoken word more accurately, but here is my discussion with The Anonymous Abstinent regarding virginity in the twenty-first century.
***
EI: How's your hymen? Intact?
AA: You know thats a funny one. I fainted when I put my first tampon in at age 12 and a half. I'm wondering if thats when it broke. I'm pretty sure its gone, but I think it went with the feinting tampon, or from all the biking I've done. I've had some painful biking bumps, so you can't send me off to a prince of some Arab country (not offensive, she is of this ethnic background) where they check my hymen. No dowry. Shit won't bleed. I wonder if they still do that anywhere...
EI: You're 24. You're not an unattractive individual. You were not raised in a radically religious household, yet you have managed to not cash in your V card while still engaging in serious relationships What has stopped you from having sex all these years?
AA: I think it's my own morals that my parents instilled in me. Sometimes, I have this dichotomy where I regret it a lot but at the same time I'm glad I haven't given it away. Obviously it's something that everyone wants to do, but everyone wants to save it for a reason. I just hadn't found someone I trusted. That's the biggest thing I'm waiting for, because I was definitely pressured.
EI: When you say you were pressured, how did you deflect the onslaught of spermatozoa?
AA: Doing other things in that nature, and being lucky enough to have boyfriends who would date me and be so sexually frustrated the whole time. They were understanding; we would talk about it. I would say I wasn't ready, which I wasn't. There was only one when it was a problem, which was in high school. Otherwise it's never been a problem. Other than the sexual frustration that I can only imagine.
EI: You don't feel sexually frustrated then?
AA: Oh big time are you kidding me? I'm a woman with hormones.
EI: What overrides the hormones?
AA: I'm just waiting for the right guy. I don't want to get an STD. I have too many friends with those. I'm looking for someone that I can grow sexually with. I'm not waiting until marriage. I haven't found anyone. I value my virginity a lot.
EI: What kept you from having sex in high school with your serious boyfriend?
AA: That relationship... it wasn't meant to happen. It was just a feeling. We weren't mature as a couple. When you're not seeing each-other very much, dinners involve parents most of the time. I'm not quite sure I've ever been in love. I'm not sure that matters, but in all my relationships that have involved sexual acts, it has always been a factor. That has had a factor in my choice. My partners have had more feelings, so if I engaged in a sexual relations it would have made things too emotional. I feel like a man when I say that. It usually seems like its the other way around. I think its important that girls don't sleep around. I'm glad I waited because hopefully when I do have sex, it'll be really good. Hopefully.
EI: How do people react when they find out you're still a virgin?
AA: Terrified. They're shocked. They don't believe me. Men think it's weird. Some think it's inspiring, but that's mainly when they're religious. It makes me wonder if I'll ever get fucked. It definitely sets another standard by which they can judge me. When you say virgin, a lot of other adjectives and assumptions come to mind. "What's wrong with her? Why hasn't it happened yet?" Especially with a girl who isn't overweight, or terribly demented, there's an assumption that theres something wrong.
EI: Is it something you are proud of, or embarrassed by?
AA: As stated before, there's a dichotomy. Now that I've become older it's going to be hard to get over it. I just want to make sure I don't regret it.
EI: Can I give you a Blue Strawberry Callisto in the bathroom? (This is the question I couldn't bring myself to ask. If you're confused, see "Simple Start" for context)
AA: (no response)
EI: What advice would you give for current high school girls, or college students who are hesitant about having sex?
AA: Just make sure it's meaningful. I'm not saying to wait until you're married, but don't do anything too fast. If the guy likes you that much, he can wait. I made a guy wait two and a half years, and I dumped him.
EI: You are literally the only lady virgin I know. How does that make you feel?
AA: other than... I don't know. Nothing? No different than the rest... I'm definitely an outlier, especially in a big city. Will this article get me laid?
EI: No. You're anonymous. When the time comes what position would you start with?
AA: Start: missionary. Finish: I'm not sure. Hopefully it's rough and up against the wall at first.
EI: Do you feel as though more girls should hold off?
AA: I don't think it's a fact of holding off, it's a matter of when you're ready; to know it's what you want to do, and know its the person you want to do it with. As long as you don't regret doing it, there's not a problem doing it. I also never got drunk in high school. That may be why I never had sex.
I will definitely update you when it happens. You can have a follow-up.
***
So there you have it. Not as punchy and full of one-liners as I had originally intended, but an honest discussion. I actually couldn't have imagined it going any better. I get discouraged quite often, when I think about the future of my generation, so it was nice hearing from other people who believe in things, anything really; not the affirmation of chaos and nothingness, but of substance, and order. For Anonymous Abstinent, it was the value system of her parents. For myself, it is the conviction that every individual has a room in their hearts for infinite self-improvement.
I recently watched President Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence speech," (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/) in which he made a plea with the people to have confidence in America once more; how the American people had become so disconnected with their government. It seems as though that disconnect has travelled deeper into the hearts and minds of today's generation, in which they have not only disconnected from their nation, and their brethren, but that they have begun to disconnect from themselves.
We can all find discouragement in how easily today's young minds can deconstruct a belief system. Empowering up to a point, many have still yet to realize the dire bleakness that lies behind those veils and stories of arks, voids, and angels, still too intoxicated by their own intellectual prowess. It occurs in more practical matters as well. If you will for a moment, stretch back your memories a few years to the time when the YouTube documentary about an African dictator/war general who utilized child soldiers came out. They played it all over college campuses and a real movement was in the making. For the life of me I cannot remember the name. Zulu? (After sleeping, drinking five cups of coffee and consulting the internet: Kony 2012)
It wasn't long until the filmmaker (Jason Russell) was accused of over-simplification, and sensationalism for using his own child as a ploy within the film for aesthetic purposes, painting himself as a hero. We focused on the organization head (Russell) eventually going mad and masturbating whilst nude in the street. (Interfering with traffic, and screaming incoherently. Hurrah fact checking, hurrah!) I hate how that's actually all I really remember.
There are more potent examples as well. Manbearpig springs to mind. This was a creation of Matt Stone and Trey Parker in light of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." To be fair, the episode does end with the revelation that like climate change, Manbearpig is a reality, but what stays in most people's minds is how "thuper cereal" Al Gore was.
Deconstruction, like a jackhammer, is a powerful tool, but be mindful how you use it. (The Educationally Independent assails your postmodern beliefs, only because it cares) I have yet to see someone take an ironic shit on Ghandi or Dr. King, and if they have please refrain from enlightening me, but I'm fairly positive that the Buddha, Jesus, Moses and Mohammad didn't fully anticipate or prepare for the might of hipsters and the meme.
Anonymous Abstinent and I finished our discussion on whether or not we each had faith for humanity. It's so easy to have none. It's probably a more logical choice. But what good does it do you to have no faith that the state of the union, the world, your countrymen, and that you, cannot be any better? What good does it do a person to believe that we are what we are, and we will be as we will be; that some people are and forever will be wretched and without hope; that we are more or less, a civilised beast in differentiated states of control over our inate and animalistic nature? The answer: It is an easier way to live. You are right and smug in tragedy, instead of disappointed or heartbroken. It helps the morally opaque sleep at night. It fixates an individual into differnt shades of gray, clinging to an ever darkening sense of relativity. It's playing solitaire on one-draw and no timer. It's up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. It can be a lot of fun when you figure it out, but it ruins the reward at game's end.
There has been too much heart-felt appeals, semantics and rhetoric in this post for it to appeal to anyone in their twenties...
A family walks into a talent agency and says, "Boy, do we have an act for you!" The talent agent replies, "Well what sort of act do you have?"
The husband steps forward, snaps his suspenders and says, "It's a family act featuring myself, my wife Ann, my folks Granny Jen and Papa Dave, the unisex triplets, Avery, Taylor, and Alex, and of course our dog, Bones. Sit back, and enjoy."
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Lesson Two: Donate Change
Times are tough, but this is something we can all do. (All being those with means to pay for internet access)
Personally, I find carrying change to be annoying. It's always jangling around in your pocket like a Pitbull song, getting in the way of your keys, and scratching your phone cover. Rule of thumb: If you own a car, you should not be carrying nickels, pennies and dimes. There is someone out on the street who needs it way more than you. Even if he/she smokes crack and tells you he/she is going to buy crack with your change, even if they are really rude about it, you should still give it to them because their life is and will most likely forever will be much, much worse than yours.
My mother and father don't give change to the homeless on the basis of, "it doesn't really solve the problem." (My dad does have a soft spot for women and the blind, but my mom, despite being a doctor who swore to do no harm as a medical professional, can be kind of a callous woman and prefers to also do no good while she's off-duty) They're right in some sense. That guy will probably buy a little bag of Cheeto's or maybe a lighter to burn crack instead of using it as a downpayment towards a house, or finally starting that Roth IRA, but perhaps if we were more inclined to donate more than sixteen cents at a time, three times around the holidays, the homeless would have more optimism towards their life prospects.
I don't read The Street Spirit, but I do take it sometimes when I stop and talk to Jasper (or maybe it's Lester, I can't really remember). He is the kind old man with foil teeth outside the Walgreens on Polk St. right by Nick's Crispy Taco's. Sure, I usually buy him an orange soda, but what always gets me is that this guy is constantly smiling, and giving away the paper. Yes, a homeless person... giving things away. Got that? Let's go over it one more time. He has foil teeth. He is full of smiles. He has no home. He gives shit away.
I'm not all that good at reading people, but I'm not autistic. This guy has a good heart, and is not trying to scheme a fortune out of this newspaper charity act.
Maybe you're like me though, and you hate carrying cash around. That is completely understandable. I don't like using ATMs, knowing how many nose-picking, pee-dabbing, ass-wiping fingers have pushed those buttons. I find the convenience of the VISA card irresistible. So if you never carry change here is an amended lesson two: When you buy something from Safeway or Walgreens and it asks you to round up to the nearest dollar for cancer research, or for hurricane victims, round up. It will make your bank statements so much easier to look at, and you Californians can pretend like you live in a great state like Oregon who won't sell you something on the dollar menu for $1.09. And if you find Oregon unacceptable, buy the cheeseburger donate sixteen cents to a homeless man, and dry your socks for twenty-one minutes. That's two dollars well spent.
Another way around the "I don't want them to use it towards drugs argument" is that you can offer to buy them a taco, a small order of fries, or some sort of confection outside of the fast food joint they have stationed themselves outside of. But I understand, you're very busy. You have places to go, and you don't want to feed the fast food industry because you just watched Food Inc, Fast Food Nation, or Super Size Me. You'll have to learn to pick your battles, sure. But you should at least pick one. Personally, I'm a people person. If Dr. McDonald can stuff 500 calories in a $1 burger that you can keep unrefrigerated in your pocket for two weeks, then God bless Dr. McDonald.
Personally, I find carrying change to be annoying. It's always jangling around in your pocket like a Pitbull song, getting in the way of your keys, and scratching your phone cover. Rule of thumb: If you own a car, you should not be carrying nickels, pennies and dimes. There is someone out on the street who needs it way more than you. Even if he/she smokes crack and tells you he/she is going to buy crack with your change, even if they are really rude about it, you should still give it to them because their life is and will most likely forever will be much, much worse than yours.
My mother and father don't give change to the homeless on the basis of, "it doesn't really solve the problem." (My dad does have a soft spot for women and the blind, but my mom, despite being a doctor who swore to do no harm as a medical professional, can be kind of a callous woman and prefers to also do no good while she's off-duty) They're right in some sense. That guy will probably buy a little bag of Cheeto's or maybe a lighter to burn crack instead of using it as a downpayment towards a house, or finally starting that Roth IRA, but perhaps if we were more inclined to donate more than sixteen cents at a time, three times around the holidays, the homeless would have more optimism towards their life prospects.
I don't read The Street Spirit, but I do take it sometimes when I stop and talk to Jasper (or maybe it's Lester, I can't really remember). He is the kind old man with foil teeth outside the Walgreens on Polk St. right by Nick's Crispy Taco's. Sure, I usually buy him an orange soda, but what always gets me is that this guy is constantly smiling, and giving away the paper. Yes, a homeless person... giving things away. Got that? Let's go over it one more time. He has foil teeth. He is full of smiles. He has no home. He gives shit away.
I'm not all that good at reading people, but I'm not autistic. This guy has a good heart, and is not trying to scheme a fortune out of this newspaper charity act.
Maybe you're like me though, and you hate carrying cash around. That is completely understandable. I don't like using ATMs, knowing how many nose-picking, pee-dabbing, ass-wiping fingers have pushed those buttons. I find the convenience of the VISA card irresistible. So if you never carry change here is an amended lesson two: When you buy something from Safeway or Walgreens and it asks you to round up to the nearest dollar for cancer research, or for hurricane victims, round up. It will make your bank statements so much easier to look at, and you Californians can pretend like you live in a great state like Oregon who won't sell you something on the dollar menu for $1.09. And if you find Oregon unacceptable, buy the cheeseburger donate sixteen cents to a homeless man, and dry your socks for twenty-one minutes. That's two dollars well spent.
Another way around the "I don't want them to use it towards drugs argument" is that you can offer to buy them a taco, a small order of fries, or some sort of confection outside of the fast food joint they have stationed themselves outside of. But I understand, you're very busy. You have places to go, and you don't want to feed the fast food industry because you just watched Food Inc, Fast Food Nation, or Super Size Me. You'll have to learn to pick your battles, sure. But you should at least pick one. Personally, I'm a people person. If Dr. McDonald can stuff 500 calories in a $1 burger that you can keep unrefrigerated in your pocket for two weeks, then God bless Dr. McDonald.
Friday, February 8, 2013
American Honesty
American Honesty
The other day, as I walked home from a discouraging Superbowl party, I came across a true San Francisco treat. (See posted photos. This establishment is on Geary St.) At first I was mortified, then curious, followed by brief ecstasy and relief, and then re-mortified.
Here's how badly they've won: go to a party, open a can of seltzer water and count all the disappointed faces. Then mentally prepare yourself for the sugar you are totally expecting at this point, and try your best to pretend like you enjoy seltzer water.
Problem one is in the title. Turn on your DVR, look through the Tv guide channel, go to the A sections of the library, and you will find that many authors have learned that if you slap "American" before whatever noun your subject matter is, it immediately becomes more marketable to the marketing folks at the marketing firm. American Sex? Of course people would watch that. American Depraved Sex Acts Performed On or Around American Farm Animals? Twice as marketable. You get that farming market. That's a strong market. American Alien! Immigrant or UFO show? Doesn't matter. Great name. Put it on Fox, or Discovery.
There are lazy ones as well. The other day, I saw a documentary at the library entitled, "American Pickles." I watched Men In Black 3 instead. I don't really know who won that round.
But at least I have your attention.
America is synonymous with business. We let the free market choose the age our daughters break their hyman. The free market, in conjunction with people in their twenties, decided recently that Thursday was the new Friday, and the beer and morning after pill industries have never been happier.
The other day, as I walked home from a discouraging Superbowl party, I came across a true San Francisco treat. (See posted photos. This establishment is on Geary St.) At first I was mortified, then curious, followed by brief ecstasy and relief, and then re-mortified.
How oddly refreshing it was, to find a business establishment with enough gusto to pay rent in the bay area, and yet at the same time, display such an incredible amount of actual honesty. It is the YouTube sensation business model in action; the so-fake-it's-genuine advertising campaign of the twenty-first century; I think it has something to do with enlightenment.
Could it be possible that these Thai immigrants are so in tune with the American youth's sense of irony? Could they have quartered and established a niche market of young, postmodern thinking kids, who are actually okay with the possibility of being slapped upon entry?
I will be straight with you. I wanted to go in. I wanted to see what it was all about, and I wanted to talk to the brains behind the operation. I wanted to be told, "Yes, this was a marketing ploy, buy a t-shirt."
I would have bought the shirt.
But the possibility of becoming involved in some sort of Thai offshoot BDSM cult, or even getting naturally slapped was enough to deter my entrance.
I wish our businesses could operate like Face Slapping Natural. Wouldn't it be nice if Coke came out with an add that said, "Hi, this is coke. It's bad for your teeth, it can remove rust from a car bumper, and it will make you fatter than all Hell, but good luck getting rid of us. I'm sure Pepsi tastes great. See you everywhere you fucking go."
Here's how badly they've won: go to a party, open a can of seltzer water and count all the disappointed faces. Then mentally prepare yourself for the sugar you are totally expecting at this point, and try your best to pretend like you enjoy seltzer water.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Simple Start
Let's face it. We could all be better people. You could have told that guy that wasn't your real number. You could have told that girl you weren't actually going to call her. Thanks to certain modern existentialists (I'm looking at you Camus) there are an increasing number of individuals who find any and all systems of ethics as arbitrary chains brought on by the dead, designed to control the unwitting masses. The only problem is this: The masses are no longer unwitting. We argue dynamically now. Opinions are changeable so long as it opposes your opposition. A person rarely sticks to their guns the way they used to. We hold nothing to be absolutely true. Deontology is dead.
Before I grow old, and turn into one of those angry sandwich board wearing street-screamers, I thought I would give an honest American try at compiling a list of morals, ethics, and basic codes of conduct for the 21st century gentleman. Chivalry is not dead, it just needs redefinition. In all likelihood, getting people back to the days of June Cleaver, separate beds, and family dinner every night is going to be a tough task for a mostly unnoticed blog about morality. The goal of this is not to get people to stop masturbating, or watching porn, or screening phonecalls from grandma. The bar is going to be set quite low; low so that it begins with mass appeal and general like-ability. We don't want to alienate our audience, now do we?
philosophically speaking, the writers of this blog will not jump into the debate of utilitarianism (greatest good, for the greatest number of people) vs. deontology (some things are just fucking good because they fucking are). Instead, the collective of the Educationally Independent will prescribe to Virtue Ethics, (Practice of good works) and build a better tomorrow, full of people who don't Eiffel Tower each other's little sisters.
But today, we begin with something that will seem quite easy to any California-born, middle-class, liberal.
Lesson One:
Tomorrow morning, wake up as you would any other morning, and carry on with your day as though it was any other day. The only thing you are not allowed to do, is kill someone. Shouldn't be to hard right? No matter what happens, don't murder anything. This probably seems really easy to most of you, but on a global scale, we as humanity seem to find this task quite difficult. Last year, there were 1.8 million emergency room visits in the USA resulting from assault. That's almost 5000 failed murders. The actual number of confirmed homicides was 16,259; nearly 45 a day; almost two an hour. Ever watch a typical episode of CSI? The time it takes for a show about murdering to finish (roughly 42 minutes) is more time than America needs to actually murder someone.
Why not declare a national "Don't Murder Anyone" holiday? Yes, Congress has been a floppy dick these past few years, but do you really think they are capable of taking a political dump on a day of no killing?
Don't answer that.
But in preparation for the future No-Murder Day, (America desperately needs a holiday in Spring that isn't about nailing pacifists to trees) I'm going to give you some scenarios in which you may be tempted to break out your murder sticks. When presented with each scenario, please read aloud the statement and finish with, "I will not murder them."
1. If I went into work tomorrow, and found that my boss had an affair with [your significant other/pet], and then fired me the same day while wearing the [article of clothing] your [significant other] had left in their [german sedan]...
2. If I found out my child was not only [consuming your personal favorite form of inebriation], but that he/she was [consuming your personal supply of previously mentioned substance]...
3. If I came home to find my spouse's [appendage] lodged deep inside my neighbor's [orifice]...
4. If I came home to find my neighbor's [appendage] stuffed up my spouse's fat [orifice]...
5. If my neighbor gave my spouse a [your favorite color][your favorite ice cream flavor][moon of Jupiter] in their [orifice]..."
6. If you are from Baltimore, and the 49ers won, and then Beyonce came back out, sat on Kaepernick's face and sang "We Are The Champion's"...
7. If I have had children in general, I promise...
8. (this is a tough one) If my child was killed and consumed by the Raven's kick returner...
9. If I met Taylor Swift's family...
10. If Godzilla rose from the Pacific, went to your house and said, "Hey, let's be best friends. Get on my back, I'm going to get you a pizza, a six pack of Stout, and we're going bowling." Godzilla reveals his life story to you, how after generations of destruction and madness, he just wants to settle down, live on the beach and try to make his seashell necklace business work. In the sunset, he confides that his whole life has been about trying to get the rage out of his system, and only now (through tears and whispers) does he realize that life is about cultivating kindness and joy from within, and only then will the anger leave, replaced by warm forgiveness and understanding. Then the army appears over the horizon, and shoots him in the head. In his dying breath, Godzilla tells you to tell his story, and as he dies the army soldiers begin to sodomize his corpse, leaving their rifles right by you...
You seem well prepared. As an arbitrary date, let's choose March 12th, 2013 as the first national No-Murder day, so if you are set on killing someone, do it now.
Before I grow old, and turn into one of those angry sandwich board wearing street-screamers, I thought I would give an honest American try at compiling a list of morals, ethics, and basic codes of conduct for the 21st century gentleman. Chivalry is not dead, it just needs redefinition. In all likelihood, getting people back to the days of June Cleaver, separate beds, and family dinner every night is going to be a tough task for a mostly unnoticed blog about morality. The goal of this is not to get people to stop masturbating, or watching porn, or screening phonecalls from grandma. The bar is going to be set quite low; low so that it begins with mass appeal and general like-ability. We don't want to alienate our audience, now do we?
philosophically speaking, the writers of this blog will not jump into the debate of utilitarianism (greatest good, for the greatest number of people) vs. deontology (some things are just fucking good because they fucking are). Instead, the collective of the Educationally Independent will prescribe to Virtue Ethics, (Practice of good works) and build a better tomorrow, full of people who don't Eiffel Tower each other's little sisters.
But today, we begin with something that will seem quite easy to any California-born, middle-class, liberal.
Lesson One:
Tomorrow morning, wake up as you would any other morning, and carry on with your day as though it was any other day. The only thing you are not allowed to do, is kill someone. Shouldn't be to hard right? No matter what happens, don't murder anything. This probably seems really easy to most of you, but on a global scale, we as humanity seem to find this task quite difficult. Last year, there were 1.8 million emergency room visits in the USA resulting from assault. That's almost 5000 failed murders. The actual number of confirmed homicides was 16,259; nearly 45 a day; almost two an hour. Ever watch a typical episode of CSI? The time it takes for a show about murdering to finish (roughly 42 minutes) is more time than America needs to actually murder someone.
Why not declare a national "Don't Murder Anyone" holiday? Yes, Congress has been a floppy dick these past few years, but do you really think they are capable of taking a political dump on a day of no killing?
Don't answer that.
But in preparation for the future No-Murder Day, (America desperately needs a holiday in Spring that isn't about nailing pacifists to trees) I'm going to give you some scenarios in which you may be tempted to break out your murder sticks. When presented with each scenario, please read aloud the statement and finish with, "I will not murder them."
1. If I went into work tomorrow, and found that my boss had an affair with [your significant other/pet], and then fired me the same day while wearing the [article of clothing] your [significant other] had left in their [german sedan]...
2. If I found out my child was not only [consuming your personal favorite form of inebriation], but that he/she was [consuming your personal supply of previously mentioned substance]...
3. If I came home to find my spouse's [appendage] lodged deep inside my neighbor's [orifice]...
4. If I came home to find my neighbor's [appendage] stuffed up my spouse's fat [orifice]...
5. If my neighbor gave my spouse a [your favorite color][your favorite ice cream flavor][moon of Jupiter] in their [orifice]..."
6. If you are from Baltimore, and the 49ers won, and then Beyonce came back out, sat on Kaepernick's face and sang "We Are The Champion's"...
7. If I have had children in general, I promise...
8. (this is a tough one) If my child was killed and consumed by the Raven's kick returner...
9. If I met Taylor Swift's family...
10. If Godzilla rose from the Pacific, went to your house and said, "Hey, let's be best friends. Get on my back, I'm going to get you a pizza, a six pack of Stout, and we're going bowling." Godzilla reveals his life story to you, how after generations of destruction and madness, he just wants to settle down, live on the beach and try to make his seashell necklace business work. In the sunset, he confides that his whole life has been about trying to get the rage out of his system, and only now (through tears and whispers) does he realize that life is about cultivating kindness and joy from within, and only then will the anger leave, replaced by warm forgiveness and understanding. Then the army appears over the horizon, and shoots him in the head. In his dying breath, Godzilla tells you to tell his story, and as he dies the army soldiers begin to sodomize his corpse, leaving their rifles right by you...
You seem well prepared. As an arbitrary date, let's choose March 12th, 2013 as the first national No-Murder day, so if you are set on killing someone, do it now.
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