How beautiful
are the feet
of those who bring good news

So I’m rueful
as I greet
those to whom I’m of no use

So I look down
and regret
the fact that I’m useless

For now the town
doesn’t get
any fun like some cruises

Wait a second
I’ve no blues
here’s a boon for the street

For I reckon
it’s good news
that I have beautiful feet

Book to my Kids: Chapter Two

Well kids, I’ve got some bad news.  You’ll probably never exist.  I know, I know, I’m a terrible father.  I can hear you all going, “Dad, pleeeeease can we exist now? Pleeeeeeease?”  No. Quit asking!  We’ll never be there yet, okay!

“Then why are you still writing?”

Hmmm . . . you ask very wise questions for non-existent children, you know that?

I suppose it is true that writing books to children that will probably never exist does indeed make very little sense.  But if you do end up existing, one of the first things you’ll find out about this world, either on your own or because I taught you, is that it makes absolutely no sense.  It is the first duty of every stranger visiting earth to recognize this, and if you don’t you’ll end up pretending a lot of things make sense which in fact do not. 

If you buy into lots and lots of things that don’t make sense, and you believe all of them, you are what is called a culturebot: someone who imbibes every message and fact thrown at them as though it made perfect sense.  Culturebots listen to whatever most people seem to be saying, and that is what they believe.  They take democracy to its limits; the truth of everything and anything can be secured merely by voting on it.  This is why no one seems to think being alive is an amazing thing—because no one else seems to think that it is.  Noting that your existence hangs in the balance as we speak, I trust you to not make the same mistake.

Culturebots believe whatever the culture says; that is what makes them a culturebot.  And if you tell them that the truth is more than fashion, that listening to the culture is not how to form our beliefs, they will not believe you, because you are not the culture. 

Like I said, the world makes absolutely no sense.

However, we have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves; if we are going to discuss how the world makes no sense, we ought to start at the beginning.  And the first concept that everyone ought to recognize makes no sense in the world is this: kings in the middle ages.

Imagine the following picture.  A castle sits in the middle of a small country of farmlands, all of which are run by the king’s many surfs.  In the castle the king’s master bedroom opens out onto a balcony, onto which he struts wearing his finest robe, many rings on his fingers, his sceptre in hand, and a resplendent crown on his head.  All of his power, wealth, and honor converge on this moment as with a high brow he looks down on his lowly workers, a man truly at the pinnacle of pomp and vainglory. 

Now open up the grand curtain of existence to the rest of the universe, and see the wider setting the king and his castle occupy.  Think of all the pictures of stars, nebulae, supernovae, and galaxies that I have shown you as you’ve grown up, and everything I’ve told you about them.  There are not merely thousands of stars, but millions of them, lining the galaxy from edge to edge.  Beyond that, many lifetimes away, more galaxies spin in all their majesty, containing untold mysteries of their own.  And across the spectrum of the universe, not millions but billions of galaxies freckle the sky’s deep and echoing canvas, a blackboard so wide that each entity embedded on it truly sleeps each night as an orphan. 

The more you keep in mind the enormity of the universe, the more the pompous king down in his castle seems just plain silly.  He takes pride in his power, when he has power to do virtually nothing.  He is satisfied while considering what he owns, when what he owns vanishes in the picture of everything.  He assumes his dignity and value surpasses that of his surfs, yet he and all his fellow mortals stand condemned as beggars for significance amidst the humbling glory of the world surrounding them. 

When considered in its proper place, the picture of the little king walking out upon his balcony in fact seems one of the silliest things possible.  Why does he think he’s so important?

The point once again is that other people having an assumption is not a reason for you to accept that assumption.  Never work off the assumptions of the crowd.  If you ever become utterly confused by where you end up in life, trace back your thinking to when you accepted someone else’s assumption, and you will often find the assumption was in fact quite a silly one.

Often times, however, it is we who have the unreasonable assumption.  I say this because the king in the picture is actually us: we are the nonsensical picture that lies at the heart of reality, our lives the little kingdoms we oversee.  We assume our powers are noteworthy and considerable, and our possessions quite the pile of delightful trinkets.  But there is one key assumption I share with the king more than any other: I am the most important person in the entire world.

To be a king is to assume centrality; it is in relation to my life that other people stand.  Other people’s lives come and go; mine remains fixed and immovable at the center of everything.  From our balcony we oversee the small existence of our surfs. On a bar graph of importance, we are the tallest bar, everyone else vastly minimized.  And thus it turns out to be we who are the heart of the world of nonsense.

We minimize other people mostly by sticking them in groups we don’t like.  If someone is a part of a race, school, political party, or social group that you don’t like, it’s easy to shut them away with that entire group.  Our head is a dump of different piles of trash, and we bulldoze people we don’t like into their respective piles. 

However, what if a person is in multiple groups?  What is someone is in my grade, but they are part of a different political party?  Do we like them or not?  The key is that depends on which group you are thinking about at the time.  If you are thinking about grades, then you like people who are in your grade, and you like them.  If you are thinking about political parties, then you do not like them.  The world, as I have said, makes no sense.

It only gets worse when you consider why we as kings assume we are important in the first place: because we exist.  If that’s the reason we think we’re important, why the double standard?  Why can’t other people be important for the exact same reason?

And so in a world that makes no sense, it is up to us to respond in a way that let’s everyone know they’re important, and that the world can’t do without them.  It is really having good relationships that life is all about.  Friendships are constant lighthouses, always letting us know where we are in life, and that someone is looking out for us.  Marriage is the grand lifelong project to let someone know, as deeply as is possible within their soul, just how beautiful and wonderful their existence truly is.  And ultimately that someone is a human is the only thing you need to know when deciding whether to love them or not. 

But that isn’t quite the whole story.  Because sometimes you’ll find there are people you don’t like, or that humans can sometimes be quite boring.  Off into the pile of boring people they go.  It can be very hard to pretend you think other people are important and likable.

But here is a general truth about relationships.  Suppose there is someone in particular you don’t like at all.  For months you have to be around them, hiding the fact that you dislike them.  But then one day a person whom you greatly respect acts with great love toward the person you dislike.  What will tend to happen in a case like this is that you will start to respect the person you had disliked.  In fact, you might even start to like them.  When they are loved by a big and important person, your view of them changes completely.

This is where the atonement begins to make a big difference in the way you see humans.  The atonement is the idea that God thought that every human was worth dying for.  This is the above scenario on a grotesque scale.  More than a person you respect, this is God; more than an act of love, this is literally dying for them.  It was even more than death; ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  A person of infinite value thought your friends at school were worth dying for; shouldn’t that change the way you look at them?

That God died for everyone should make us ashamed of the dump we have in our minds.  We constantly treat humans like carcasses in our thoughts, so much so we don’t even notice it.  But with the atonement in mind, every single human being lights up, as there’s a whole new way to look at them.  Their whole thought life is a glorified affair, one you should take serious pains to listen to and understand, and celebrate as much as possible.  Now the entire picture has been reversed: we stand as servants in a world full of people that God has made to be kings. 

For that is what Jesus did: he came as the only sane person in insane world, and loved everyone, despite the fact that people were working with the system of piles and dumps that we still use today.  All of the greatest literature is based on that very premise: what does a sane person do in an insane world?  That is the question I pose to you, kids, for I expect you to not imbibe the assumptions that people have that make no sense.  You are strangers here on earth and I expect for you to act accordingly.  How will you live?  How much will you love?  How does an alien act in a world that makes no sense?  How does a sane person respond to an insane world? 

Well children, I suppose that’s all for now.  It’s my bedtime.  Don’t ask me when I wrote this; part of the world’s insanity does not have to be your sleep schedule.  The world is insane enough as it is.  Until next time.

(Some fun from facebook.)

We sure do need more chivalry on facebook, what with all the trolls and pirates running around, ready at a moment’s notice to prey on any girl. (I would include vampires, but I think girls like that one.) And why stop there! Guys should be opening doors for girls on facebook, they should be allowing them to step ahead in line, they should stay up at night to guard them as they walk the ominous halls and walls of facebook.

Man, I’m ready to joust with someone right now. Unless of course they are too chicken for it. In that case, we can just play chicken.

For that I would gladly gallavant all over these galling lands to find someone gallant enough to not gawk at an offer so germane as one to joust over a gorgeous girl. But where on earth will I be able to find a man of such girth so as to challenge me when I’m not at my worst? That would be a first. Nevertheless, my thirst for such sirs lures me onwards on words and offers of many furs to tempt any man who infers he can shirk the curse of his birth to always be worsted whenever it is my wrath he incurs. To be terse, whichever man of many tempers this tempter stirs and spurs onto battle must be one who burns and never learns, for I’ma kick his fanny, for sure.

Have a silly afternoon everyone!

Life is a bunch-of-things-in-a-row.  Fiction is a-bunch-of-things-in-a-row.  That’s why we need to fiction to express life.

Where do you want to live? I want to be right here, dancing softly in an empty room, but there are stars on the ceiling, and you’re all I need.  I wish I knew who I was, that would make it much easier to be that person.  As it is, I’m living a million people, each of them upset they don’t have a bigger part.

Oh flesh and movements, oh life and stillness, you compete for my attention in a subtle war of motions and images and feelings.  I want to stay right here, and when I say that it makes it not true.

How many times do we have to go over what life we want to be living before we actually live it.  In this moment right now you are here typing and doubting instead of reading and living.  To read is to learn and have data for thought, and when things happen in the mind, life is happening.  It’s hard to group it all together; and do we really want to become someone with a system?  Where is the heartbeat in that?  Heartbeats are spontaneous, they aren’t planned ahead of time.

I want to always be able to do the next thing I think of, and who knows if the people you chain yourself to will let you.  That’s why a true friend is so wonderful, and rarely exist; they allow a whole other person in their life.  You can’t do that with too many people, it barely ever happens.  There’s not too much room in a person’s head, I’m already in it, I can hardly fit someone else too.  So at most it’s one true friend who will let you be whoever.

But oh dancing so softly, sometimes that moment is worth it. At least that’s what all those stories you hear would have you believe. What if there was another story that was worth it? Isn’t there another story? “Today I met someone who thought love does not exist.”  “I thought I saw you.”  Fall to your knees, and see that the heavens wait for you.  You cast a shadow on the stars with the life you live. What will it be?

You don’t have to look far to see it’s fair to say I’m a pharisee.

A life full of empty things is still an empty life.

Sometimes in a relationship it is the meaningless things that are the most meaningful.

The best days are about the feeling you get as it fades away.

When a story is told but it’s meaning isn’t conveyed: It’s all there but it leaves everything out.

Whenever a girl likes me, to fix it all she has to do is get to know me.

There is no luxury, only added responsibility.

I mean everything I say in the exact way that I intend it.

I have come to this infinite expanse to explore, to look for answers. You are welcome to join me in my search.

I love my roommate.

On Tuesday night I got home at about 1am, and upon entering the front door into silence and darkness, I wondered if Dave, my roommate, was upstairs sleeping.  For some reason I decided to make myself believe he was upstairs sleeping, and left it at that.

About an hour later Dave walks in the room after arriving at the house.  Okay, so not sleeping.  We talked for a few minutes before I explained,

“Man, when I came home I thought ‘Is Dave upstairs? I’m not sure’ but then I just decided to believe, on no real evidence whatsoever, that you were sleeping.  So it kind of feels like I’m talking to a hallucination right now, and then later on I’ll tell you I had a conversation with a hallucination of you.  Though I’m not really sure why I’m telling you this since you are the hallucination . . .”

“Oh yeah, I’m a hallucination.  In fact, as a hallucinaton I’m not even a ‘me’ to be telling you that I’m a hallucination.  It’s all your hallucination man.”

“This is going to be so weird to tell you later.”

“Yeah, I’ll have no idea what you’re talking about.  Even though I’m really the hallucination and not Dave, and am really you and not the hallucination.”

“Woah, my mind is doing crazy things right now.”

“Anyways,” Dave closed, “I’m gonna go get some sleep. I’ll catch you later.”

“Alright, night dude.”

With that, Dave headed up the stairs wearing his jeans and crazy flannel shirt (he’s a crazy dresser – a style unto himself).  About twenty seconds later he comes down wearing only his boxer briefs and a white t-shirt, and with squinty eyes and a weak voice asks from the stairs,

“Dude, were you having a conversation with someone . . .?” 

I love my roommate.

The advantage of brevity is knowing that people will read what you write.  The advantage of a longer piece of writing is that it acknowledges that the truth isn’t always simple.

It is a weakness of the intellectual to not be a joker, and a weakness of the joker to not be an intellectual.

A true friend is someone who provides room for whatever the next thing is you want to say.

Truth should be the main focus of our attention, and beauty will fill in the cracks.

Other people wonder what you are thinking, and you know the exact right answer.

There would be no artists if we weren’t stuck in our heads.

I need other people to be weak so that I can know I am not alone, but I need other people to be strong so that I can know that weakness will not be forever.

Find your ways to sleep, my friends, I’ll join you in the morning. A fine night of rest to you.

Maybe solar flares are a cry for help shot off by people on the sun who are waiting for us to save them.

The captain was furious to find a concert happening right there on the deck of his boat. But he was even more furious when all his men jumped off the boat after he yelled in his anger, “A BAND ON SHIP!” 

On vacation,
“Why are there toll booths?” Paul protested, ”The road is already built.”
“It’s so they can pay the people who work in the toll booth,” my dad responded. ”Without them, how would the workers get paid?”

In related news, I am thinking of getting a tattoo to remind me of the time I got that tattoo.  After all, how else would I remember it?

I am pretty vain when it comes to casting characters in books. I put the most gorgeous celebrities in as main characters everytime. Really kills the novels that are meant to drive home the plight of the lower class.

Dying young—like at age twenty—would not only suck because of the short life, but also because it means you’d have to go through your midlife crisis at age ten.

I want my funeral procession to be a parade with huge blowup balloons of all the people that I loved—Jimmy Stewart, Mr. Rogers, Soren Kierkegaard. And there will be a big balloon of my face that they will pop at the end to symbolize the end of my life. 

Then someone watching from nearby will scrunch their eyebrows and remark, “That is so macabre.” 

I do believe it’s time to go visit a little place called Winesburg, Ohio.  Farewell to you my friends.