A very merry Christmas to you all!

Today our Justifier is born!

"Mr. Johnson, won't you sign?" the agent said in an energetic voice.
"Um, I'm sorry, but what, uh . . . what exactly does this policy do?" Mr. Johnson, a small pudgy man, slowly wondered aloud.
"Why it's insurance!" the agent beamed. 
"But I already have insurance," Mr. Johnson said with a confused look.
"Well yes, but you keep your insurance policy in your house, correct?"
"That's right," Mr. Johnson followed.
"And what if your house burns down?  Then you have insurance for the fire . . . but the fire destroyed your insurance!" 
Mr. Johnson considered this tragic conundrum for some time before responding.  "I think the insurance company has a copy of it, too," he timidly speculated, adding another "I think" a moment later. 
"Ah, but then what if your insurance company burns down?" the agent reasoned forcefully.
"Hmmm . . ." Mr. Johnson thought with his chin buried in his chest, "That's a good point."
"So in essence what our policy does is form one big safety net so that you and your family are protected in every possible way."
Mr. Johnson looked ambivalently at the piece of paper on the desk before him.  Biting his lip, he glanced back and forth between the shiny pen and the signature line.
"Mr. Johnson, do you really want your entire future to be hanging on the freak chance that both your house and your insurance company won't burn down at the exact same time?"
"I-I, uh—," Mr. Johnson gulped noticeably, "—I suppose not." 
"Well then do sign," the agent said in a slender voice.
"But where will you keep this policy?" Mr. Johnson wondered.
"Oh Mr. Johnson," the agent sighed, pinching in-between his eyes, "Look, in essence we're robbing you, but that doesn't really matter.  Just think of all the convincing rhetoric that I have used on you today.  Given that you are a human, that should be enough for you to give us your money.  After all, humans live in a wonderful little place between the psycho and the logical: namely, the psychological."
"Some people are logical." 
"Yes, but those people are psycho."
"Hmm. Hmm," Mr. Johnson nodded in agreement with the agent's great points. 
The agent leaned over where Mr. Johnson sat nervously rubbing his hands together.
"Think of your children," he added poignantly. 
Mr. Johnson started biting his nails.
"Do you want your house to burn down?" the agent asked forcefully.
"Yeah, ok," Mr. Johnson blubbered frenetically, "You're right, you're right.  That's a really good point." 
He reached quickly for the pen, knocking it about at first, but finally gripping it.  "Right here," the agent pointed.  "That's my man, knew you'd do the right thing!"
Mr. Johnson then heaved a sigh of relief, and smiled in congratulations to himself as the agent quickly snatched up the policy from the table.

Some people think that all of human behavior is driven by a desire for sex.  I have similar views, but I think our behavior is in fact driven by a desire for frosting.  That's right.  All of our relationships, social interactions, life plans . . . revolve around an inexorable subconscious desire to get as much frosting as possible.  Even marrying someone is just because we know eventually there will be a cake in it for us.  Friendships?  Those are for birthday parties.  Where there will be frosting.  Ultimately, every conversation we've ever had is part of our scheme to get more and more frosting.  In fact, if you listen closely enough during conversations at parties you can hear a faint whisper inside of you after every question you ask say, ". . . and where is your frosting?"  

I think people like to feel like they are on the inside of a big secret.  Thus, if I ever have a store this is how my commercials will go.  A camera will be moving down a dark alley until suddenly a man in a trench coat steps in front of it.  Then in a deep, throaty voice he'll explain, "Listen, don't talk.  Here's what you need to do.  Go to the corner of Main and 14th and go down the street two blocks.  There you'll see a large sign that says 'Trader Phil's'.  Walk to the front of the store and stop, look both ways, then enter the building.  Inside you'll find products.  Find one of them that you like and take it to the front; there you'll find a man at a cash register.  Pay him for it and then leave.  Make sure you're not followed.  This conversation never happened."  And then he'll vanish into the fog.

In fact, I think if drugs were replaced with illegal trading cards, things would go on just the same.  Because people like being secretive and awesome.  Instead of actual cocaine, they can have trading cards for cocaine which has a shiny picture of it, and its attacks are "Elevated mood" and "Feelings of supremacy".  The dealers will still meet in back alleys with vans, and suitcases full of the cards which they'll show to their clients.  The client will check to make sure they are not fake shiny cards.  Then the deal will be complete.

I wonder if facebook statuses can be used as alibis.  "Mr. Smith, where were you at the time of the crime?" Mr. Smith responds, "Well I think my facebook is pretty clear on that. I was, and I quote, 'watching the history channel. woah. i'm pretty sure UFOs are real.  waffle house tonight anyone??'"

On that note, if I was Osama Bin Laden I would get a facebook and update my statuses with cryptic messages like, "Up the hill and around the bend, a cat like snow is a pleasant friend, but clouds on high disguise our cache, as though it weren't enough it looks like trash," just so I could giggle as I thought about how long intelligence officials from around the world would spend trying to figure out what it means. 

I have now installed a lever in my car so that when I am getting onto the highway I can say to my passenger "Chewy, get ready to make the jump to lightspeed" and then moments later I'll pull the lever.

Everyone have a beautiful day, and make it beautiful for someone else along the way too!   

It could have been the case for no serious sense of love to be possible for humans.  The world could have been bland, stale, and uninteresting.  But this is not the case, and yet it is so easy to miss it.

Why is it that love is possible?  It is because people get hungry, and cold, and lonely.  Thus we can love people because they need food, shelter, and company.

But even those things could end up being trivial if it wasn't difficult to do those things.  And sometimes it isn't difficult to provide food, shelter, and company for someone.  Maybe it was easy to get a job, and eventually we have an ample supply of food and shelter.  Furthermore, we could have lived on earth forever, in which case we would have as much company to give others as they wanted.  And it is not a serious sense of love to give someone what you have a lot of. 

Our natural condition is one of narcissism.  We wake up in the morning thinking about our own needs, and it is sometimes quite surprising to us that the other humans are around, and that they get in our way.  We fight it a little bit, but really we are all hopelessly and helplessly in love with ourselves, at least judging from how much time and care we spend on trying to make ourselves happy.

That is why it is such a serious thing to say "Love your neighbor as yourself."  If we weren't narcissists, this admonition would be completely unimpressive.  But as narcissists, it ought to strike us as profound and impossible.

Furthermore, life is short.  We will die someday, and we all live our lives under this assumption.  Every moment of every day is spent under watch of the great eye of death, that one thought which seems the fulcrum of all the mind's considerations.  Our bodies grow, they are expended, and then they fail. 

It is all this that makes love possible.  To have a short life in which we by default care so much for ourselves provides the medium for us to choose to care about other people; or perhaps one person in particular.

This is the context in which we can give our life to someone, and it actually means something.  For how much we naturally care about ourselves, and how short a life ours is bound to be, what a marvelous thing it is to say, 'My life for your joy.'  

And to just think of the infinite might that made the universe, and that he is the only one really capable of giving all, while getting nothing in return.  But he made the universe so that there could be a place to love.