Without Jesus, I'm Fucked

Do you figure He'll damn me for saying that?

I've never been to a church where the church-going folks didn't use a hilarious list of childish euphemisms for every bad word. I mean, I know that at some point, certain words in the English language were defined as "good", and "good" words are appropriate for a certain class of society, and certain other words are "bad", and "bad" words are never appropriate for that class. Church-going folk like to think they're high class, so we're taught not to use the "bad" words.

I believe, contrary to our postmodern culture, that words have specific meanings. A word has a list of meanings, these can be found in a dictionary. These meanings are well-defined, but do not in and of themselves carry a moral value. We string words together into sentences, these sentences combine the meanings of the individual words to form a statement. This statement contains the message of the speaker, and that message may contain a moral value.

So, for example, if I tell someone to "fuck off", it's not that the word "fuck" is bad, nor that the sentence "Fuck off." is inherently evil, but that my desire for them to "fuck off" is. Angrily telling them to jump off a cliff or into a lake would have very similar meaning, but to the high society folks, wouldn't carry the "bad" moral value attached to the word "fuck."

Now, back in a Bible college I got thrown out of, I heard a lot of kids talk about things that were "frikkin' cool!" or "jacked up", and sometimes I heard them say something was "bullcrap." I even once heard a kid say, in shock, to "Shut the front door" in response to whatever he'd heard.

I've read the Bible, I don't remember it saying that God doesn't see right through euphemisms. In fact, I remember it saying that God not only knows what's in our hearts, He judges us based on them.

At what point do we think avoiding the Seven Words We Can't Say On TV will trick God?

Back to the title of this post, it's how I talk sometimes. Without Jesus, I'm fucked. My life has been, and may yet be, a world of shit, and the only thing that gets me through is my faith in the Almighty God. Who, by the way, knows exactly what I'm thinking, at all times.

He knows what I really mean to say when I drop coy little euphemisms. I know what I really wanted to say, I ain't even close to fooling Him.

Now, amusingly, I don't cuss nearly as much as I used to. I've calmed down, and with that calm comes fewer situations where I use anything close to "bad" words. It's not that I mind them, it's just that I don't feel that the sentence I'm about to speak requires a word like that as often.

When I talk to people, I try, to the best of my ability, to give them the absolute, unvarnished, no-frills truth. If you ask me for my opinion on something, you'll get it. I'm sure that I could develop the ability to lie my way through life and give everything a nice sheen of euphemisms, but I'm not in the business of making people feel good, I'm in the business of speaking the truth.

The truth doesn't often make anyone feel warm and fuzzy, but it's not meant to. The truth is what we measure ourselves against, to see if we're full of shit or not. If we are, it becomes obvious once actual Truth shows up.

Funny thing is, the more practice I have with simply speaking the truth, the harder it is to get confused about what I'm supposed to say in a certain situation. There's no concerns about who'll get offended, or whether or not it's appropriate, it's the truth, and it'sa ALWAYS appropriate to speak the Truth. 

The truth is that without Jesus, I'm fucked.

I think He understands what I mean.

An Ode to a Broken Nose

I had my nose broken in a mosh pit on Saturday. It's Monday night now, and it's still sore, so naturally, I've been thinking about it a fair amount. It's an interesting topic to think about, what a broken nose means, and I figured it's worth writing about.

First off, I discovered something about myself that I'm very proud of: I got headbutted in the nose by a guy in a mosh pit, and didn't get angry at him, or the accident itself. Considering my legendary temper, I'm very pleased that I appear to have grown up, and in no small measure. That's new.

Second, I don't intend to get it "fixed" unless it causes actual health problems. I mean, it's my nose. It's basically there to hold my sunglasses up and allow me to smell stuff. Half of what it smells for me, I don't like, but at least it's functional. As long as it's functional, I don't really care what shape it is.

I mean, I could worry that my nose being misshapen would have an effect on my good looks, but I don't consider myself particularly good-looking anyways. Perhaps I am, but the important thing is that nothing in my life depends on my good looks. I'm an aircraft mechanic, a good one for how long I've been at it, and my nose has nothing to do with it. Half the time, it's giving me info on what MEK and acetone smell like, and I'm not a fan.

I could go to a doctor to get it fixed, I suppose. Of course, when I walked into the doctor's office (probably the ER, because they've always got a bonesetter on duty), I'd have to drop a c-note on the counter. Then it's another to see the doctor for 15 minutes, another for the anesthetic they'd have to shoot me up with, and probably another just to mess with me. I highly, highly doubt I could get out of there without spending $400.

For a nose. A part of my face that's only there for aerodynamics. Seems, you know, kinda vain. I'm not a big fan of vanity, or doing things for aesthetic reasons. My face is lopsided to begin with, I took a terrific knock to the head when I was five when a car I was riding in got broadsided, and I was sitting in the seat that got hit most directly. My right eye is slightly lower than my left because of that accident.

So, to hell with getting it fixed for reasons of vanity. I'm not going to get prettier as time goes by anyways, to start spending money on it now would simply be, as Solomon put it, "chasing after the wind." It'd be a waste of cash.

Third, a broken nose feels a lot like having a head cold, and makes cleaning boogers out of it a lot harder. The right nasal passage got slimmed down a bit, I'm dreading my next actual head cold.

Fourth, I'm disappointed that I didn't get to have a fountain of blood when it got broken. For all the trouble of having a broken nose, it didn't bleed, which means I didn't get to use it to score sympathy points with anyone. Lame. There was a very pretty girl who performed at that show, I would have happily sat next to her and talked with her while waiting for the bleeding to stop.

Then again, blood doesn't come out of carpets, and everyone would have been all "Ermagawd, are you OK?" all night long. I'm a low-key guy, I'd have hated all the attention that didn't, you know, come from a beautiful slam poet.

Libertarianism Will Always Lose.

Libertarianism will always lose in the political arena.

Always.

Inevitably.

Every single time the Libertarian Ideal goes up against people who think the ideal way to run things is to have the power to run everyone's lives, it will lose.

As a man who does his best to avoid trying to exercise influence or control over anyone, I'll explain why: 

I do my best to avoid exercising influence or control over anyone.

Most libertarians are a lot like me. We keep to ourselves, we mind our own business, we take care of our own problems, and we don't ask for help because we don't want it. We're social loners, or outright loners, but we're definitely not groupies. 

So, when it comes to conflicting ideologies in the political arena, and convincing other folks to see things our way, we're not the type to try to force anyone to do anything. We'd rather not use the federal gov't to make anyone do anything, something our ideological opponents see no problem with.

Actually, that's the problem, isn't it?

The folks who just want to be left alone to look after themselves will always end up in small, disjointed groups. The folks who think the answer is using one massive group that has all the power to make things happen their way will do just that. Davids want to be David, Goliaths want to be Goliath.

We don't have the power they do, we don't even want it. We'll never be able to match them, and if somehow we managed to accrue that much political pull, we'd never use it. It's anathema to what we believe in. We simply want to be left alone, while the other side wants the exact opposite.

Looking at it another way, libertarians are naturally rather ascetic folks. We're the modern, political version of monks. We want to live our isolated lives in our mountain monasteries (cityfolk would call them log cabins), pursuing our spiritual lifestyle of hiking, camping, and shooting things that are made of meat. We like hardship, and we like the product of what we put blood, sweat, and tears into.

Our opponents are the opposite. They're hedonists that want everything to be handed to them. They don't want to work, they want a big guy who will give everything to them, who will protect them from everything, and they absolutely don't want to deal with anyone who isn't willing to play along. When folks don't play along with them, they view it as theft, the way we'd view someone who breaks into our house and steals our stuff. If we're not giving our "fair share", then we're stealing from the "less-advantaged."

I'd love to be optomistic about it, but the simple fact is that our ideology is not given to aggression. Hell, that's one of the selling points of the minarchist movements. No big gov'ts or big corps or big groups of any kind to step on the little guy.

Problem is, that's our downfall. We're the little guy, by choice, and we're just not big enough to resist getting stepped on.

I liked her better with clothes on.

If I was going to write something to impress a hot chick, this wouldn't be it. But then, I never write to impress anyone, I write for me. And sometimes, I just feel like telling hot girls to wear more clothing. Not because of some high-sounding morality, but because it's actually more attractive.

Hear me out. Here are two pictures of the same actress: (For the record, this has very little to do with Ms. Lawrence, I've never met her, and haven't heard anything bad about her character.)

I find the actress as pictured in the first picture vastly more attractive than I find her in the second picture. There's a single-word explanation, too:

"Drama"

The second picture shows the actress wearing clothes that scream "Drama", while the first shows her wearing clothes that scream "she can handle her own life".

Ladies, guys don't want high-maintenance girlfriends, and we for damn sure don't want a lot of drama in our lives. It's something we'll put up with, if the relationship is worth it, but it's ALWAYS a down-side. Even guys who really enjoy doing lots of nice things for their girlfriends don't want a girlfriend who demands it. That sort of thing sucks all the fun right of the relationship, and pretty soon, we're trying to find a way to break it off, and find a lower-maintenance girl.

The more girls I meet, the more true it seems that the women who spend a lot of time on their image, who wear fashionably sparse clothing, etc, etc, etc, are always the ones who demand a lot from everyone around them, and aren't capable of being there for anyone else.

If you don't believe me, turn on the television, and watch the celebrity news for an hour. You're not going to see people who wear T-shirts and jeans on a daily basis having breakdowns, cheating on each other, and making headlines, it's the folks who wear clothes that scream "look at me! I'm beautiful!"

Girls who wear functional clothing seem to be able to handle their own lives, and that's extremely attractive to guys who have matured past age 14. Functional clothes tend to be worn by people who know that how they look is secondary to what they're doing that day, and that sort of knowledge bodes well for a relationship. It's attractive not because of the raw sexuality of the clothing, but because it speaks of a maturity that would make for a decent relationship.

Just a thought.

(laughter) Then again, nobody in their right mind would try running in the forest in boots that aren't tied, so maybe she's just doing it for the image. Definitely not something people who spend a lot of time in the woods do.

The Philosophical Requirements of an Extant Deity

(For the duration of this post, I consider it irrelevant what specific deities one believes in. God, Allah, Brahma, Shiva, Odin, Quetzalcoatl, whatever, it's not really pertinent.)

I hear a lot of folks talking about whether or not they believe in God. Now, don't get me wrong, that's an extremely important question to ask, but it seems that a lot of people answer that question, then stop there. While the people who decide that no, they don't believe in the existence of God, or a god, or gods, can certainly cease their line of questioning, those folks who decide that yes, God exists can't stop there.

Well, I suppose they could, but that would be a shame, because the real question isn't "Does God exist?", it's "What does it actually mean for God to exist?"

Now, I suppose I ought to define God in a general sense, not a Protestant-Theology sense. God, according to dictionary.com, is: "the sole Supreme Being, eternal, spiritual, and transcendent, who is the Creator and ruler of all and is infinite in all attributes; the object of worship in monotheistic religions."

Heavy stuff. So, if God exists, He is an absolutely powerful being, who has total control over Reality. An absolute ruler, above reproach by the virtue of being all-powerful, regardless of the morality of the situation, or the moral values espoused by God. I'm human. I barely have control over what I do tomorrow, and I can lift about 100 pounds off the floor.

So, what does it really mean that God exists? Well, first and foremost, if God exists, I must know what God is like. If I were to interact with the mayor, the governor, or the president, I would certainly want to know what sort of person I was dealing with. If the president is capricious, I must tread carefully. If the president rewards certain behaviors, or punishes others, I should know this as well. Thus, if God exists, I need to know what sort of Being I am dealing with.

Second, I should do all that I can to conform to the virtues espoused by God. If God rewards loving behavior, I should love everyone. If God rewards trickery, I should be as duplicitous as possible. If God rewards bravery in battle, I should be brave, and seek out battle. If God rewards justice, I should treat everyone fairly, and so on and so forth. This isn't high theology, this is self-preservation. I would certainly want to not only minimize the possibility of my angering God, I would want to be as pleasing as possible.

Third, my devotion would need to be absolute. If God is the all-powerful ruler of all that is, then not being a faithful servant would be an act of rebellion. There's no room for fence-sitting, it's either for or against. The simple fact that God is in total and complete control of everything, regardless of the level of free will involved, would mean that any decision to disobey would be an act of rebellion.

Fourth, if God enacts a system of rewards and punishments, then it would mean that I should attempt to persuade everyone to believe in God as well, so they could reap as many rewards as possible. Likewise, and even more important, I need to try to convince everyone to believe in God so as to avoid the punishments. If the system includes a heaven and/or a hell, defined as an eternal reward or eternal punishment, then this would be of paramount importance.

Five, any message from God, written or spoken, should be studied, analyzed, and obeyed to the last letter. These five things, I believe, are a requirement if God exists. They wouldn't really change from one god to the next. It's not a matter of what the holy book of choice would say, but rather a simple requirement of existing in a universe made by a Creator. If God exists, what does that mean for you?

A One-Way Ticket To Mars

You. Will. Die.

This isn't a bad thing, or a good thing. It's a simple fact of life that life ends. Given a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. It's math. It's basic. It's simple, inevitable, and universal. 

At some point, we should stop trying to stay alive forever, because it's simply not going to work. No matter how much raisin bran we eat, no matter how much we exercise, or how safe of a car we drive, or if we don't drive at all, at some point we'll die. A man in perfect physical health, great genetics, and excellent safety habits can still get hit by a crashing plane.

On the other hand,  we shouldn't be idiots. We should make sure we have good engineers to design our buildings, we should wear seatbelts, and we should most definitely wear helmets when we ride bikes. After all, even though death is inevitable, we shouldn't go about hastening it. We should be smart.

Somewhere in the middle is a balance, and we as a society need to find it. Whenever I turn on the TV, I see a society that's absolutely paranoid about getting old and dying, but at the same time, we're taking self-destructive behavior to an entirely new level. Gotta eat right, gotta work out, gotta have that drink and take that drug. It's so unbalanced it's almost indicative of mental illness on a national level.

It's considered socially unacceptable to plan a lunar or martian space mission that doesn't involve the astronauts landing without a return vehicle already built for them. (There are, of course, other examples of this, but this is the one I'm writing about.)

I consider that unacceptable. Send me. I'm not doing much with my life, and I'm an A&P student.

Are we really so afraid to lose anyone that we are unwilling to risk losing people who would volunteer? People who we could tell, honestly, that we'll be sending them out with the very best technology the world has to offer? That we'll be supporting to the best of our abilities? That we'll be training to the very highest standards?

Every frontier has danger, outer space is certianly not an exception to that. We're not going to get back into space if we're unwilling to take a few risks, and those risks by definition involve death. But then, a lot of folks died during the exploration of the Western US, and nobody will look back and say "Man, exploring Colorado was totally not worth those five guys who drowned in a river."

I am going to die. I could do that on Earth, or someone could send an A&P to Mars to help build a permanent Martian base, and I could die there. Heh, I could die halfway there, when the spaceship gets smashed by a meteorite. It really doesn't matter to me, I won't be able to stop any of it.

Safety isn't unimportant, but it's often overrated. In the end, we're all dead. Let's do something with our lives that benefits future generations, shall we? It might not be safe, but nothing is, so let's do the best we can, with what we have, and make the rest up as we go along.

Hookers, Blow, And Christianity

So, it bears mentioning that the only thing I hate worse than being depressed is making the mistake of telling someone why I'm depressed. If I ever make that mistake, one of two things will happen 95% of the time. The first outcome is if I told a non-Christian that I'm depressed, to which the near-inevitable reply is that I ought to take up a vice, such as smoking or drinking, to take the edge off of life.

I don't actually have a moral problem with smoking or drinking, they're just not for me, because of a family history. So it's pretty good advice, I just can't follow it.

If I tell a Christian, though, then I'm nearly guaranteed to get a checklist of reasons that I shouldn't be depressed, which always culminates in "God has a plan, and you should be at peace with it" or something very similar.

I hate dealing with Christians when I'm depressed. Everything problem that happens in life is apparently supposed to be greeted with a smile, every hardship with light-hearted jokes, and failure to do this is the direct result of not being content with God's Plan. Apparently, if I'm Christian enough, then I won't follow Jesus' example and ask God to change The Plan.

Let me explain a few things: Depression is like having 150 pounds of sand draped over your shoulders. It's not pain, precisely, it's just a feeling of heaviness about life, and it's hard to keep going. To borrow an old phrase, "Life is heavy, man." It's like I'm struggling not to break under the heaviness of life, and I'm weary, and the journey isn't over yet.

Nine days out of ten, I'm also pretty lonely. I always figured that I'd end up married, and maybe I will, but for now, I'm still alone in life. I have lived in three states in the last 26 months, every time I move, I have to make an entirely new list of friends, because I can't hang out with any of the old ones again. It is depressing, I wish I had just one person that would always be with me, just for consistency.

I keep meeting nice girls, and I'm pretty sure that I would make a half-decent husband, but it never seems to work out, and that's kinda depressing as well. I've wanted to be a family man for as long as I can remember, otherwise I've have probably given up.

OK, so there it is, depression and loneliness. Simple enough, I'm hardly the only man in history to feel this way. But can anyone explain why this is such a bad situation that it automatically means I'm not trusting God's plan? That depression is somehow sinful? Can anyone even pull up some Bible verses to defend that position?

I have this opinion that if I've struggled with depression for the last quarter of a century, but have never once tried to self-medicate with alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, than I'm doing just fine. Nor have I ever tried to commit suicide, written a suicide note, or even planned out a suicide.

And yeah, while I'm lonely, and pray daily that God will provide a wife, neither am I drowning my sorrows in a different girl every Saturday night at a dance club. I'm not out cruising Tulsa's hooker district, paying for sex, and I'm not spending my days or nights looking up porn.

So, I'm still curious, why is such a bad thing to be lonely and/or depressed? Is it causing me to wallow in sin and depravity? To blow my money on chemicals? To chase temporary highs and disposable thrills?

I've struggled with depression for twenty-five years now, and have been hospitalized once. At some point I realized that as long as I'm functional (and I think my 3.9-something GPA proves that I am), then it's simply an inconvenience. At no point has "happiness" ever been a requirement for proper conduct, and being depressed is not a predication towards being evil. Jesus wept, Paul said that he'd rather die than keep on living, and David was a fountain of depressed poetry, so why is my being depressed bad?

Likewise with my loneliness. Am I such a bad person for wanting to not be alone in life, when the Bible itself says that man wasn't meant to live alone? Am I a bad person for saying "Hmm, I want to be a husband, and a good one at that, so now, before I'm even dating anyone, I'm doing my best to have my life squared-away by the time it happens?"

I have no illusions that my depression will ever cease to bother me, but I simply do not care. I will not allow Life to keep me from doing what I feel I should do, and if I'm not grinning ear-to-ear while I'm alive, that's just too bad. Happiness was never promised to anyone in the Bible, nor in the American Dream, so I'm pretty sure it's not a requirement for this life.

What Must Be Done

I, like many other (probably most or all) philosophers, have coined short phrases that have vast amounts of thought put into them, and have a great deal of meaning, but lose most or all of that meaning when translated. Yet these short phrases are how we express our philosophies, because to us they serve as a way of expressing a philosophical point in a sentence, and to fully explain them would require a book.

The Greeks, for example, would say that "All Is Fire", and there was a lot more to that phrase than a simple statement that everything was made of fire. One of these phrases, for me, is "What must be done, can be done, because it must be done."

On the face of it, it sounds either absurd or like a sport-clothing marketing gig. Oh, sure, because something needs to be done, that makes it possible. It sounds like I'm saying that anything is possible, and that anything can be done by anyone.

Yet, that is rather far from the truth, and thus I need to unpack the phrase.

The first step is to examine the word "must" in the first section. "What must be done..." is a very specific clarifying statement. "Must" is an imperative word, and it is important to understand what the word really means, and also what it doesn't mean. That something "must" be done implies that there is a philosophical imperative that it be done, not simply a causal imperative.

An example of this distinction: For an airplane to fly, there "must" be gas in the fuel tanks. This is a scientifically-proveable statement, and cannot be argued with. However, simply because there "must" be gas in the tanks for the airplane to fly, there may be other reasons for the fuel tanks to be empty, and thus the the causal imperative does not become a philosophical imperative.

A philosophical imperative only comes into being when there is something that transcends simple causality and becomes a philosophical matter. When the explosion aboard Apollo 13 destroyed the oxygen tanks, it became a philosophical imperative that the men on the ground solve the matter of providing a solution to the problem of asphyxiation. The "must" of the situation wasn't simply causal, but philosophical ("We are not going to let them die. We are going to bring them back alive."), and the philosophical nature of the situation demanded a solution be found.

Which brings us to the second part of the sentence. "Can be done" should not be taken to imply that the solution is simply possible. If it became a philosophical necessity that I climb Mt. Everest, or get hired as a doctor at Johns Hopkins, that it must be done does not simply make it possible for that to be done tomorrow.

It "can be done" might mean that I spend the next five years training to climb mountains, working out six days a week, and taking every possible measure to ensure a successful outcome. If something becomes a philosophical necessity, then anything that can be done to make it happen should be done. There isn't even a real question of doing otherwise, because of the philosophical imperative nature of doing it demands an extreme level of commitment.

That level of commitment makes things possible that would not be otherwise. People who are totally committed to doing something will find it far easier, in many cases making the impossible possible, than people who are only casual about it. If I casually approach training to climb Mt. Everest, I will find it to be an excruciatingly hard endeavour, and will probably die in a failed attempt. If I am totally committed, then after several years of training, I will be in excellent shape, and will be able to handle the trip.

Which brings us to the final portion of the phrase. "Because it must be done."

Although it is ultimately up to the individual to know why they must do this or that, and I suspect that many people have never bothered to wonder why they do anything, it is the "Why?" that creates a philosophical imperative out of a causal imperative. "Why?" questions are the ones that create the high levels of commitment that make the impossible possible.

Returning to the Apollo 13 example, the "why" the oxygen system needed to be jury-rigged was obvious, and the philosophical necessity of fixing it created an extreme commitment in all of the engineers that approached the problem. Instead of wondering if it could be done, they started with the presupposition that it could be done, and from there worked to find the solution.

Now, it bears mentioning that the "Why?" of a situation is not always known to the individual, and doesn't truly need to be. There have been a great many people who have done great things without knowing why they were so driven to do them. However, the fact remains that because they believed that it must be done, they went out and did it.

To put it all together, what must be done (because there is a philosophical imperative to do it) can be done (because the high level of commitment and effort put towards doing it will make it possible), because it must be done (the philosophical imperative that it must be done requires that high level of commitment).

Freedom

"If you really want to understand freedom, spend a week without wearing a coat in the dead of winter. By the end of the week, you'll understand freedom a lot better."

Of course, that sounds insane. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to not wear a coat when there's snow on the ground?

Well, because they have the freedom to, and they're exercising their freedom. Obviously, there are uncomfortable side effects to exercising one's freedom, and that's the point. They're free to do something, and they did it, accepting the cost of their freedom.

Everyone, everywhere, is free. You *are* free, totally free, to do anything you want, at any point, as long as you have the logistical and physical capabilities to pull it off. Want to climb Mt. Everest? Just do it. Want to rob a bank? Feel free to try. Want to resist a tyrannical government? I wish you the best.

But, you say, "I can't do that! Someone will stop me!"

No, someone will try to stop you. Someone will pressure you, someone may threaten you, but like a man without a coat, you're only capable of being threatened if you care what sorts of discomforts you'll have to deal with. If you don't care if you're cold, does the lack of a coat threaten you?

Being free is simply a matter of not caring what you lose. As the singer said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." If you're not concerned with creature comforts, you'll never be subservient to the people who control them. The people who are worried about losing their electricity, and their plentiful supply of new clothes, and their bargain-bin junk foods at the local grocery store, those are the people who are slaves.

If you're willing to pay the price for it, you can do anything, absolutely anything, that's within your power to do. Freedom should never have been defined as the level of control someone else has over you, because you're only as controlled as you let yourself be. The men with guns, who "control" other people through the threat of violence only have control because people are afraid of them. If someone stands up to them, and says "Hell, go ahead and kill me, but I'm not going to move unless you do", strange things may happen.

Like a column of tanks stopping for one unarmed man.

He was free. 

The rest of his country isn't.

Freedom is a state of mind, not a political situation.

A few (ANGRY) thoughts on the Eucharist

I was once refused the Eucharist at an Orthodox service I attended with a friend. He's Orthodox, I'm Methodist (mostly), and because I'm not Orthodox, I wasn't allowed to partake of the Eucharist. I've been refused the Eucharist at Catholic services, too, for the record. I don't know the exact reasons they have for excluding me, and personally, I couldn't be made to care.

The reason I don't care is that if we really get down to what Jesus was saying, and who He was saying, there isn't a single person who has the moral authority to refuse to serve the Eucharist to anyone. This is Biblical. Disagree with me? Please refer to Matthew 26:25-29, Mark 14:22-25, and Luke 22:14-23.

Let's take a real close look at who was at that table, shall we? Eleven trusted disciples, and one guy that Jesus knew in advance would betray him. Eleven believers, one traitor. Judas. Neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke depict Judas leaving before the Eucharist was given. So we can say, for certain, that nothing says Jesus refused to serve Judas the Eucharist.

So where, exactly, does anyone in the church get the balls to refuse a believer from a different denomination the Eucharist? Jesus served someone who sold him out for a bunch of coins, but the man with the funny clothes won't serve someone who goes to a church in a converted ice skating rink building?

For that matter, where does anyone even get the balls to refuse to serve a non-believer? Tell me, learned one, if Jesus served Judas, what right do you have to refuse to serve the guy that just walked in off the street? Do you know something Jesus didn't? Do you have more authority than Jesus to choose who can partake of what Jesus called HIS body and HIS blood?

Alright, so they don't have the authority, after all, but a better might be, why do they even want to exclude anyone in the first place?

I mean, if we really think about it, what possible reasons could we have for not wanting a sinner or *GASP* one of those heretical (other denomination inserted here)-types taking communion?

"...this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

Just think of all the people we could exclude from being forgiven for their sins! We don't want God saving any of those dirty hippies, and certainly none of those commies, either. That guy with long hair definitely shouldn't be forgiven. That girl wearing clothes that are too revealing obviously needs to be excluded. If we start extending Christ's forgiveness to just anyone, what will happen to our church?

(Father in Heaven, please forgive the previous paragraph. I don't mean it.)

One of my best friends is a stripper. We've been friends for years, and yeah, I've told her on more than one occasion about what I believe, and what Jesus can do for her. Trust me, there is no one in the entire world I want to come to a knowledge of Christ more than her.

I desperately want her at that table. 

Or would they exclude her, because it's wrong to want her seated at Christ's table if she hasn't already been saved?

Do I think that just because she might take the Eucharist, she'd automatically be forgiven? No, of course not. It's not a magic ritual, nor a metaphysical equation. On the other hand, she might just spend the next hour pondering what exactly Jesus meant when He said that it was his blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins, and what that meant for her. 

God has worked in stranger ways.

Then again, maybe the long-haired guy and the stripper may just be waiting for a chance to be disrespectful. They'll eat too many cross-stamped communion wafers, they'll take TWO of those single-ounce clear plastic cups we serve the non-alcoholic grape juice in, and then they'll go back home and fornicate without being married in a church, by a preacher. They'd offend God! They'd disrespect our precious traditions!

Which, of course, everyone reading this has done. We've all offended God.

Or maybe they forgot what the Eucharist was really about? It was Jesus explaining to his disciples what He was about to do on the cross. He was pouring His blood out to make a new covenant for us, and He wants us ALL to be a part of it. (1 Tim 2:3-6)

All of us. Not just people in my denomination, but everyone.

Orthodox. Catholics. Calvinists. Methodists. Jews. Gentiles. Pharisees. Pagans. Atheists. Drug users. Homosexuals. Porn addicts. Alcoholics. Strippers. Metalheads. Assholes. Bitches. Jerks. Retards. You. Me.

Everyone. 

My church calls it Communion. Come on in. Grab a cup, and let's partake of the meal Christ has offered us. No matter what you've done, He's willing to forgive you of all of it. It's not really complicated, you just need to humbly ask for forgiveness. It's not easy, I know, but I've been there, and trust me, I'll be there again. I'm not better than you, and if I look down on you, please remind me of what Christ did for me.

None of us are perfect here, but you're more than willing to join us. We'll eat tasteless wafers that we've stamped a cross on, and we'll drink grape juice out of comically small cups. We'll remember that it's got nothing to do with bread or wine, and that it's got a whole lot more to do with us being sinners, and Jesus dying for us.

And when we see someone walk in the door that doesn't look like they belong in a church, we'll know that they're definitely right where they belong, and we'll make sure to offer to share our feast with them.

After all, it happened to us once.

AAR: Buffalo River camping trip.

Situation:

A single-night, 15-mile backpacking trip. CRT taken from Kyle's Landing to Steel Creek Campground first day, returned via ORT second day. Pack weight was about 30 pounds, including water. Temperature was moderate, highs in upper seventies, lows in lower sixties. Slept directly on the ground. Food cooked over a small camp stove.

Notes:

Waist belt on pack too high to provide much support. Majority of weight carried on shoulders, leading to pretty serious fatigue. Pack then suffered a structural failure, and a frame rod started protruding into back of left arm. Replacement mandatory.

Boots/socks combination worked beautifully. The socks stayed fairly dry, and kept my feet dry enough that I had no blisters. Additional pairs of socks recommended for longer operations.

Toenails need to be trimmed more completely before the trip. Attention needs to be paid to the little toes. There was some pain by the end of the trip, but nothing debilitating.

Sleeping provisions adequate, but misused. I should have slept on the rain poncho, which would have kept the moisture from leeching heat out of me. It was a cold night, staying dry would have prevented that. I slept well, given the circumstances, but it would have been a problem on a multi-day operation.

Handgun regarded as sufficient for all non-bear problems. However, it was stowed in the pack, since OC not legal in state of trip. Workaround necessary.

Ticks found in unpleasant areas after trip. Research required, and some method of prevention needs to be found. Long pants tucked into boots regarded as sufficient for most hikes, perhaps they crawled in at night.

Meal arrangement satisfactory. More protein recommended, but hot meals for breakfast and dinner, with protein or granola bars for lunch more than sufficient. Double calories when estimating requirements.

Pack loadout was minimal, but still tiring. Sadly, sole conclusion to be drawn from this is a lack of fitness. Recommend strength-training exercises, additional cardio, and weekly or bi-weekly hikes to force body to remember how to hike. Hills required, we really slowed down on those.

100-oz Camelback more than sufficient. AO had sufficient water that resupply was possible multiple times per day. Rate-of-consumption drained bladder in about six miles or so of walking.

Additional t-shirts required. To be changed at each long break in hiking. Possible alternate to this is a tshirt of different construction that wicks away moisture.

Recommendations and changes:
Replace pack. This is an absolute necessity.

Strength training of legs required. Short hikes with intentionally high weight loadings recommended to keep operational weight loadings relatively low recommended.

Reorganization of loadout recommended to keep handgun within two movements of reach. Stuffed into a pocket on the back of the pack doesn't work if there's an angry animal around.

Neither Would I

As the movie opens, a grim man looks at the barbarian chieftan, and scoffs. "People should know when they are conquered." The grizzled veteran next to him looks at him and says "Would you, Quintus? Would I?"

If some country, one full of Red Star-wearing commies, invaded us, kicked the crap out the US military (stay with me, here, I know it's an absurd example) and then told us that they'd stay in our country until we forgot about our heroes like George Washington, George Patton, and John McClane, about what time do you think we'd be cool with it?

If you're unsure of the answer, let me explain it for you:

I'd be cool with it at some point after my body had assumed room temperature. There is literally no point at which I'd give up, no point at which I'd back down, no point at which I'd forgive the offense given when people tried to bury my way of life, my history, and my heroes.

There's about a million other people like me.

Now, think about trying to pacify, with bombs, tanks, and infantry, a million people who absolutely refuse to back down, because there's no point at which they'll accept the terms of surrender. They'll never accept not being Americans, they'll never accept being commie scum, or whatever, because to do so would force them to betray everything they've ever believed in. Every last one of them would have to be killed, and fast enough that they couldn't inspire others to fight off the invaders.

You all know the type of people I'm talking about. If you're not one of them, you know one of them. Course, you might not know that you know one of them, but I digress.

Now, I'm sure you can understand that the sort of people who created the Gadsden flag are not unique to America. They've been part of every country, at every point in history. They're the patriots who've kept every country free from foreign control every time any pissed-off neighbor invaded them. They're the people who crawled out of the hills and said "No, fuck you, Russia, we're not going to lay down and die just because you've got Hind helicopters and we've got cast-off Kalashnikovs."

Afghanistan is the single most-invaded place on earth. I know that America likes to forget that the world existed long before the Declaration of Independence was signed, but honestly, we need some perspective here.

The Afghan people will never stop fighting us because they never stopped fighting anyone else. The United States (Oh, sorry, NATO) is simply the latest invader in a long list of invaders that goes back to before Alexander of Macedonia.

Is there any reason, any reason at all, that anyone can think of that will simply convince the Afghan people to give up, when they've never given up before?

So, now, let's get to the applicable portion of this:

We need to convince the Afghans that they should stop fighting us, and start telling the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, and all the rest of the militant durkadurkas to fuck off all the way out of their country.

On Sept 12, 2001, a pundit named Ann Coulter said that in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." It was not exactly well-received at the time, since the idea that Christianity will ever stop war and violence is a politically incorrect thing to say, both now and then.

But, after nearly eleven years of warfare, I wonder if perhaps it's not time to move to step three of Coulter's plan. For eleven years, we've dropped bombs, killed leaders and driven around in armored vehicles. A scientist would say that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing twice, expecting different results.

Is it time to try something else?

Perhaps, in a way, maybe spreading Christianity can be viewed as an extended PSYOPS campaign. We want these people to stop fighting us, to throw off the shackles of radical Islam, and to stop living in a feudal society. We're not going to pull that off just by dropping another round of JDAMs on their houses, I think it's clear that Plan A isn't working anymore.

The nice part of creating religious converts, stepping outside my usual True Believer viewpoint, is that they're absolutely fanatical. They're more apt than anyone else to tell their friends and family what they just became. If we really want to tear down a Muslim country, is there a better plan than to simply start converting Muslims into Christians?

Of course, I am very much a True Believer, and I am at war. Let me assure you that, just like if my country was to be invaded, I will not stop fighting against my enemy, and I am extremely well-armed.

Somewhere, A Child...

On Sept 11, 2001, 19 Al Qaeda terrorists trained in Afghanistan hijacked four commercial airlines, and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvannia. It was the worst terrorist attack in US history, and provoked a US-led invasion of Afghanistan, which toppled the Taliban from their position as a religious dictatorship in Afghanistan.

For the past eleven years, the US has continued to pursue remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in an attempt to pacify Afghanistan so that the people who were oppressed by the Taliban can have a chance to decide their own fate as a country. Most of the country is populated by tribes, the vast majority of whom have no interest in world politics, or even national politics. They care about their families, their cousins, and survival.

The majority of them are unable to read. Even if they had access to it, they couldn't read a newspaper, a local political blog, an internet news website, or even Hamid Karzai's twitter feed. They have no functional contact with the outside world. It is not unheard of for them to be unaware of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, or the precise reasons for the US invasion.

Somewhere, a child in Afghanistan is nearing his eleventh birthday. He has no idea why the US military occasionally drives through his village. He has no idea why a bomb was dropped on his neighbor's house, only that a different group of foreigners had asked for hospitality for the night, or had pointed guns at the family that owned the house, or had given a great speech about fighting off the infidel hordes. He doesn't care about any of the reasons the foreigners give, all he cares about is making sure it doesn't happen again.

Slowly, or perhaps no so slowly, he is beginning to hate foreigners, and the West in particular. He lives in a country that has been invaded more times than any other place on the map, and his tribe has been fighting invaders from one place or another for most of history. By the time he becomes an adult, he will still not be able to read, but he will be well-versed in the usage of a Kalashnikov, and may have even had training with other heavy weapons.

There will come a time when he has seen enough bombs dropped on his country, has seen enough foreigners marauding through his village, has seen enough war, that he will be pushed across the line and will never stop fighting. Eventually he will be killed in the same war that he hated as a child, for he will become the very thing that the war was started to stop.

I have an idea that perhaps, somewhere, a child in Afghanistan needs to be introduced to people who believe in Jesus. People who forgive violence, not seek revenge. People who know what it's like to live in peace with their neighbors. People who know what Mercy is, and Grace, because they've experienced it.

For eleven years, that child has known only war.

It's time to teach him the Peace that comes from knowing Christ.

What else would I do?

So, I've recently discovered that there's a humanitarian agency that flies Quest Kodiaks and Beechcraft King Airs in Afghanistan that needs mechanics. For some reason, and I can't really explain it, the idea of doing unpaid aircraft repair work in a war zone appeals to me, so I'm trying to get an internship there, in preparation for a career there.


Because, you know, I'm an utterly expendable 28-year-old asshole, with no wife, no kids, no job, no house, no career plans or long-term goals, not even a girlfriend. If anyone's going to get his head chopped off for mentioning Jesus, or get blown up because he's taller and has better hair than anyone else, it might as well be me.


What bothers me, though, is that people act like I'm some sort of saint, who's somehow unlocked a higher level of Christianity just because I want an adrenaline fix. I'm not, I'm just doing this thing because it comes naturally to me.


I am, I think, the logical result of a bipolar boy raised in a fatherless home, who read way, way too many books on World War II, stumbled his way through philosophy until he became a nihilist of sorts, and generally fails at everything he's ever tried. I look at my life and see such a massive train wreck of suck that at this point, I think I'm simply trying to find something even more epic to fail spectacularly at.


What else would I do?


Learn to sit behind a desk and count up other people's money, then drive home in a beige Volvo at the end of the day? Nothing in my life has ever lent itself to me being a settled-down guy, who can sit still, keep calm, and carry on. There are millions and millions of people in this world who would love to live safe, quiet, easy-mode lives, and spend all their time trying to do just that, but I've never been one of them. I tried it, but it just didn't take.


Sociologists would probably argue with me about the definitions, but there are definitely different types of people in this world. Some of us are thrill-seekers, some of us like safety. Some folks like stability, some of us like adventures and danger. Throughout history, there have always been people who sign up to do crazy things for negligible pay.


There is a type of person who signs up to explore the Louisiana Purchase, without having a single clue what exactly is hiding in that wilderness.

There is a type of person who reads a short ad in Soldier of Fortune and runs off to join the Rhodesian Light Infantry.

There is a type of person who spends decades exploring the Rocky Mountains, trying to find El Dorado.


There is a type of person who joins the French Foreign Legion just to start a new life.

There is a type of person who walks into a war zone, armed only with a camera, and takes pictures of the war.


There is a type of person who climbs mountains just to see the view from the top.

There is a type of person who asks for a dangerous job just so that the guy with the family doesn't have to do it.

There is a type of person who views their own life as so worthless that they would give it up for any good cause that comes along.


I'm one of those people.

So tell me, when it really comes down to it, why wouldn't I be off gallivanting around the world, having adventures and writing about them in some neo-Hemingway fashion? Why wouldn't I be exactly the sort of person that my life has made me? Why wouldn't I do the exact sort of thing people like me have done throughout history?

Your life, dear reader, has made you into exactly the sort of person you are, and people like you, throughout history, have done things very similar to what you do now. People who have a great concern for the sick become doctors of various sorts. People who have a great concern for social order become cops and lawyers. People who have a great concern for the well-being of the populace become political leaders. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and so on, and so forth.


Take a look at my life and tell me: What else would I do?

Christianity is an Extreme Sport

There's this theory I have, inspired by Soren Kierkegaard's book The Sickness Unto Death, that Christianity should be fatal. It should be the thing that, just like Christ and all but one of His disciples, takes us to the grave.

Or, more accurately, gets us killed.

Now, let's get something straight: None of us are going to live forever anyways. We will all of us die from something. Those people who try to convince you that if you eat right, exercise right, live in the right city, and drive the right kind of car, you'll live longer are missing the entire point: Longer isn't long enough, we all still die.

If life cannot be survived, then we ought to try to do something radically different than trying to delay the inevitable. Maybe we should change the way we look at life, and instead of measuring one's success by how long we live, we should try to live richer lives. I don't know about you, but if the story of my life was being told to my great-grandchildren over a campfire, I wouldn't want them to be bored with a tale of how for thirty years, I made wise business decisions and got rich.

That'd be boring as hell. I'd rather live a life that is so interesting, so adventurous, so far-beyond-the-ordinary, that tales of the misery, pain, and absurdities I struggle with and get through are passed around for generations. Or at least make a posthumous biography that's  worth reading once.

This train wreck of a life I've led so far has taught me a lot of things, one of them is that people who lead interesting lives also get more people to listen to them when they've got something to say. The innate curiousity of humanity makes most of us want to know what it's really like to skydive from the lower limits of space, to climb Mt. Everest, or to explore the Challenger Deep.

That guy who has a 20-year chip from AA has something to say to a drunk that a Straight Edge man can't. A guy who's been behind bars can say things to a budding criminal that a cop can't. In my case, I've got some things to say about what it's like to burn out, crack up, and end up in a psych ward that other people simply can't.

So I've got this theory that since I'm going to die anyways, I may as well see how much I can survive first, and what better challenge to undertake then to go to spread the Gospel in a place where that sort of thing can get me shot? To go some place that's considered "too dangerous" by almost everyone, and to go there intentionally to do something that will earn me the death penalty?

Because honestly, since I'm going to die anyways, I want the cause of death to be something cool like "was killed for preaching Christ", not something lame like "Heart attack." Anybody can have a heart attack. Hell, those are actually pretty easy to die from. It takes work to avoid those, I want to die from something that it took work to get killed by.

Something that makes people go "Whoa, he really went all the way, didn't he? I'm impressed!"

See, what I've come to realize is that winning the game of life isn't about surviving, it's about being so awesome at live that your life serves as a fantastic example for other people. Think about all the people who are mentioned in the Bible. Folks like Peter, Paul, Joshua, Moses, and Abraham. None of those guys survived, but all of them are held up as examples for us to learn from and follow, and Christ more than anyone else.

I guess my point, if I really have a coherent point, is that instead of playing it safe, I figure we ought to go out and live the most extreme life possible. What if Christianity stopped concerning itself with arguing objective truths, and we all became some weird form of adrenaline junkies, trying to live lives that were so extreme, so dangerous, so past the red line that the only possible way to survive was for God Himself to step in and break jails open with earthquakes?

What if, instead of hoping that terrorists would get tired of getting bombed, and make baskets instead, I went out and told them about the REAL religion of peace? What if, instead of them wishing peace upon a prophet of hate, they were shown a real-world, in-country example of what it's like to serve the Prince of Peace?

What if, instead of pissing and moaning about countries where it's illegal to talk about Jesus, I ignored those laws with the same level of contempt I treat speed limits, and did it anyways?

What if, instead of waiting around, ticking time off my fingers until I die, I go out, find the biggest lion in the darkest den, yank on his beard, and scream "JESUS LOVES YOU!" to the whole pride?

Laws and Law Enforcement

The thought has occurred to me recently, and I know I'm not the first person to think this, that in America, we no longer have policemen who protect and serve the citizens, but instead we have law enforcement officers, who ensure that the civilians obey the law.

Now, the difference between those two statements may seem like a semantic debate, but I'm a philosopher, you're reading my blog, and most good philosophers understand that semantics matter. So indulge me, this is going to get nitpicky.

To start off with, if one wanted to create a society that was free, stable, peaceful, and safe, the obvious option would be to enact laws that would ensure this, then to appoint well-trusted individuals to enforce the laws if need be. The laws would impinge upon the freedom of the individual as little as possible, to ensure maximum freedom, and would generally encompass things that were inherently destructive.

For example, to keep people safe, we make a law against initiating violence against others, with exceptions for self-defense against aggressors. That's a very simple law, enforcing it is easy. If two folks get into a fight, the guy who started it goes to jail. If there is an attacker, and a victim, and the victim is injured, the attacker goes to jail for a long time, and if the victim dies, the attacker goes to jail for life.

I'll save a discussion of the death penalty for another post.

So, that simple law should cover any imaginable form of violence. We'll add another law against acquiring goods without paying for them, and that would actually pretty much cover the list. OK, so we've got the laws, we've got a peaceful society because almost everyone follows the laws, and things work out pretty well. \

But at some point, we'll need some clarifications, and some passed-as-law definitions. Because we'll need an exception for "The guy broke into my house, and was trying to get into my daughter's room with a knife, so I shot him in the back", and other things like that. New definitions for "acquiring goods without paying for them" that covers copying music discs, etc.

OK, that's fine and dandy, and as our society grows, we'll need more cops, and that's fine too. More people means more crimes, and more criminals, because 1% of 300,000,000 is a lot more than 1% of 300, even if the per capita rates don't change.

Now, this is where our theoretical exercise takes a shift. At some point in this country, it seems that the term "law enforcement" became a priority, not "maintaining civil order".

The problem here is that protecting the average Joe from criminals is no longer required. The cops, legally, have no obligation to protect anyone from anything, and cannot be held responsible for not doing so. (See note 1) Now, if cops aren't here to protect us, what are they here for? Law enforcement, easily answered.

That easy answer is a huge problem, though. See, if we look at our theoretical society, the laws were first put into place with the sole intent of keeping folks safe. If from that we shift to "the laws must be enforced more than people must be kept safe", then we're inviting both absurd exercises in petty tyranny, and grand failures in the intent of the laws themselves.

For example, there's the case of Kelly Thomas, who was beaten to death by the cops. Here's the video, because if this doesn't make my case, nothing on earth will:

Now, let's examine what that video shows in the context of our theoretical society:

Was Mr. Thomas a danger to other citizens?

Well, by that video, he wasn't even a danger to the cops, since he can't be seen to even throw a punch at the folks who are hitting him. He apologized, and started pleading for help. If he wasn't a danger to them, then why was violence required, instead of a short, polite conversation?

Well, simply, the Law has become the sacred object, not the person the law is meant to protect.

There are two things that I believe inevitably result from that:

First, the people who are supposed to keep the peace and ultimately serve the people become the center of their own worlds. The law is sacred, the ones who enforce it become superior to those who break it because of this. It takes on an almost-religious aspect, and it's not hard to find an interview in which cops talk about themselves as being superior to the people they are supposed to protect.

Second, the person the law is supposed to protect becomes a dehumanized object. They stop being citizens, and become "sheep", "civilians", and other semi-pejorative terms. They, like Mr. Thomas, are mocked and beaten, because instead of being people that must be protected, they are viewed as people that blasphemed against the object that must be protected.

And once those two things have happened, people like Kelly Thomas, who are no danger to anyone, but break the law on a regular basis, can be beaten to death without any of the officers present saying "Wait, hold up. We're supposed to keep this man safe!"

None of the officers in that video were there to protect or serve Mr. Thomas. They were there to enforce the law, which Mr. Thomas was breaking. When he refused to comply with their demands, apparently because he wasn't capable of understanding them, they beat him to death, then laughed about it.

And people wonder why I have no respect for cops outside that which I'd give to a lion if I saw one while on a safari in Africa. Cops have become, because of this "We enforce the law" mentality, the newest iteration of street thugs, and maintain their position through brutality and fear.

If you don't doubt me, go down to the police station and ask what you should do if a cop is performing an unlawful arrest on you. If the answer is ANYTHING other than "You have the legal authority to resist unlawful arrest, and you may do so", then they're not cops, but tyrants.

When faced with tyranny, conduct yourself as you see fit. That's a choice I won't try to make for anyone.

Note 1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County

You Vs. Reality, a five-round bout.

Let's be honest for a second: None of us especially like reality. We've all got our own versions of what we think reality should be, and every last one of us at times wishes it would come true. It's a pretty basic part of being a thinking being, if we're capable of human thought, it's occurred to us that things could be better than they are.

For example, my life does not consist of days spent blowing things up with an Incom T-65J X-wing, then coming home just as Kahlan Amnell is done cooking me a steak dinner. That bums me out, because if reality was what I wanted it to be, Luke Skywalker and Richard Rahl would both be jealous of my awesomeness at the same time.

But reality is. It simply, fundamentally, IS. It is what it is, and our wishes, fantasies, and daydreams simply do not factor into what it is.

A year and change ago, I spent 50-something hours in a psychiatric ward, and I didn't go there by choice. I met a few people there, some of us were simply depressed, and needed to get healthy, but some of the others were trying to fight reality. My roommate was convinced that he could convince the doctors that he was fine if he could just get outside and prove it.

That's called being delusional. He refused to accept the reality of his situation, and instead of playing the game so that he could get out, he tried to resist. Dude wouldn't take his meds, and he probably stayed inside for a while after I left.

On the other hand, while I will forever try to avoid playing by the rules that human society sets, knew better than to try to resist playing by the hospital's rules. The reality was that resisting would only have made things worse, and escape would have become impossible. When the cops woke me up to take me to the hospital, the reality is that I was going. The only way to escape was to get better, and to do so in a way that minimized the damage done to my life.

Resisting the cops would have resulted in handcuffs, charges, and a permanent loss of my firearms. Not taking my meds, or aruguing with the doctors in the ward would have resulted in me staying there longer. Staying there any longer than I did would have resulted in me going before a mental-health judge.

I accepted reality, and my place in it, then played the game and got better, so I could get out.

Fast-forward a year, and I find out that I'm ineligible to get an FAA pilot's license because I'm diagnosed bipolar. Now, bipolar's not the worst thing in the world to live with, it's far better than having AIDS or cancer, and it's better than being stupid, but the FAA still thinks it's not worth the risk to let me fly a plane.

Here's reality:
1. I have bipolar.

2. I take meds.
3. The FAA does not like bipolar.

4. The FAA does not like meds.

Now, naturally, I don't like that reality. However, none of that can be fought. I could go-off meds, and try to fight points 1 and 2, or I could try to cheat the system, to lie on my physical, and try to fight points 3 and 4. Either of those, if reality shows up, mean that I lose the ability to fly anyways, and face a judge for falsifying data on a federal form.

I can't fight reality.

So tell me, again, what the point of being bummed out about this is? I mean, it's a pretty natural occurrence to be bummed out because reality isn't what I want it to be, but to sit around and mope seems pretty useless. It's not productive, because the only thing that sitting around and moping will do is pile up reasons why reality sucks.

Instead, I'm going to look at what else reality is:
5. I'll graduate Tech without paying a penny for tuition.

6. I'll finish up my final Bible credits debt-free.

7. Not everyone in NASA is an astronaut, nor is everyone in the MAF a pilot.

8. God keeps providing.

I think it just comes down to a matter of perspective. Yeah, reality sucks, but it could be a lot worse. I don't get to be a MAF pilot, but I'll be more deployable, and will have to work less to arrive at MAF HQ without any debt. I may never get my T-65, but that's not what life is about anyways. Life is about doing the job, not reaping the rewards. 

Puppetz turns 26!

Listening to a good heavy metal album is like getting your ass kicked by a really big man. It's going to hit hard, and it's not going to stop until the job is done and your head has no idea what just happened to it.



And it's not going to let up after it starts. Master of Puppets is an 8:32 second ode to drug addiction, played at 220 beats per minute. It only slows down long enough for a haunting dual solo to remind you that regardless of their egos, Metallica can *play*.



While most metal bands would go for the obvious choice and reference Tolkien all day (I'm looking at you, Led Zeppelin), Metallica has a thing for H. P. Lovecraft. Makes for a far heavier record if one doesn't have to explain how prancing elves with flutes are metal.



Subtly, Master of Puppets is also a concept album. Every song references power and control, and the misuse thereof. Imagine being a prisoner simply because other people say you're sick, with no hope for escape, no way out. Welcome Home (Sanitarium) is cold and haunting song, and it powerfully conveys the situation of the inmates.



Although any respectable thrash band has a song about war, Metallica somehow managed to avoid both glorifying war *and* focusing simply on the brutality. Once again proving their songwriting skill, Metallica emphasized not the actions, but the men involved, bringing what could have been a lyrical gorefest back down to a level that few can argue with.



Leper Messiah displays Metallica's continual taste for social commentary. Sounds odd today, but back in the 1980's, televangelism was huge. And, unfortunately, not only were the tv preachers hugely popular, but it seems many of them had a scandal of some kind, often involving the money that people had sent them.

And lots and lots of hookers.



Many thrash bands depend on their lyrics. Sure, they've got great riffs, and they've got the skill, but the songs themselves depend on the lyrics to make up for a lack of musical art. Metallica decided that instead of letting anyone say that about them, they'll simply write an 8:25 lyricless metal piece, proving rather elegantly that their lyrics are not the only thing they've got mastered.



One of the other wonders of Master of Puppets turning 26 is that Metallica can still physically play these songs 26 years later. These guys are pushing 50, and they can still thrash harder and faster than bands half their age. Crap, look at the Rolling Stones when they were 50! Metallica has aged *very* well, and their music is standing the test of time.

I'm OK.

I'm OK.

No, really, I'm OK.

I'm more melancholy than most people, but that's OK, too. I've been melancholy for as long as I can remember, I've never been the happiest baby on the planet. There are worse things.

One of things I've finally put words to is how content I am to be discontent, uncomfortable, lonely, and melancholy. At least, I define it as "contentment", but it could also be defined as "my career is worth the suck." It's my cross to bear. It's also a finite amount of minor suck, in the face of an infinite reward.

Seriously, I may not enjoy life, but I wasn't born under a contract that Life owed me 100 years of relaxation and pleasure. At least I have a cause, I meet people all the time that don't even have that. They're working a job because everyone needs a job, so why not take over their father's business, and they just drift around, taking the path of least resistance until they die.

Disliking my existence is hardly the same thing as having a Bad Day. A year ago, a combination of an existential meltdown, a severe lack of Faith, and being used by two friends resulted in a very bad day. In the past year, I've sorted through the first two, and realized that the third is their fault, not mine.

So now I'm OK. If you want someone to love life, and thorough enjoy everything, never hand them a Bible and tell them it's the Word of God. Jesus was not on this planet to make us happy and fill our lives with puppies, flowers, and Grandma's cookies. The Book says that if we love this life, we'll die, but if we hate this life, we'll live eternally. (John 12:25) Paul echoed that and said that given the choice, he'd rather be dead and in Heaven, but that he has work to do, so he'll put off dying until he gets the job done. (Phil 1:21)

So, I'm OK, but I forget that we've added to the list of sins in 2012. Being unhappy is now a sign of being sinful and not trusting God. For that matter so is being lonely. Because God totally said it was good for Adam to be alone in the Garden, right? Or that having brothers was good enough, so God created Jim, Bob, and Steve, and they got together once a week for pizza and a Bible study, right?

Nope. God created a WIFE for Adam.

I'm melancholy because I'm lonely. It's been the single constant thread throughout the past two years of being melancholy. I left Idaho, and while I kept in touch with folks, but nobody came with me to share life. Then I left Spokane, and kept in touch with people, but I was still alone. When I leave Tulsa, I'll keep in touch with people, but I will still be alone. Everywhere I go, I make good friends, people I want to keep in touch with, but I leave them all behind when I leave.

I do not like that. I want to have someone in my life that doesn't leave. Someone I don't have to leave.

Tolkien said that "not all who wander are lost." I'm not lost, God knows exactly where He's sending me. And if Home is where the Heart is, than I can't go there yet anyways. I'm OK with all of this, it's a good life, but I would rather not live it alone.

I'm OK with it, if I have to be, I have Faith enough to cover my discontent, but the best and most beautiful things in life should be shared, not seen alone.