The Enemy is Us

Here’s a thought:

Any view is defined from the opposing end of that view’s spectrum. The idea came to me, while I was entertaining guests at a birthday party for my daughter. I was able to “geek out” with a couple of guests, and in the pursuit of doing so I heard someone tell me that “most comics are left of center.” The context for the statement was that there was a particular group that was advocating “right-of-center” comics, but that they were met with fierce opposition from within the community. (I wasn’t aware of this, but I assume that all hell broke loose because of it.) I found the idea odd, that we need comics written “right-of-center.” No comic book writer/film critic/author writes content that establishes a worldview based on their enemy’s characterization of them—that is, I wouldn’t specifically write a book that was “liberal” because a critic of mine suggested that I was “liberal.” I would assume that they would write a story that reflected their own beliefs. I write stories that discuss things that interest me. I am not out to incite arguments. But I write what I write because I find that content interesting to me.

I find, that when someone (person B) characterizes your views (person A) as their opposite, what is happening behind the scenes is an instilling of existential competition, to validate beliefs of the original critic (person B) as valid, or more valid. I see this a lot in religion because I am a Christian and people are often insecure about their faith (myself included). I see instances where a layman witnesses same-sex marriage become validated by popular culture or reads about a scientific finding that sheds doubt on aspects of Christian orthodoxy, and their initial reaction is to characterize the supporters of those positions as being in opposition to his/her own. It’s therapeutic, ultimately, to be validated by creating an enemy. The stakes are higher now. And because enemies ultimately “lose,” we are invigorated when we read or hear something that sheds doubt on our opponent’s position.

The unintended effect is that we create our enemies as a toxic pursuit to escape our fears, rather than confront them and try to make sense of them.

What should we do, then, to avoid this?

Sorry, I have no idea. But I have thoughts.

See, going back to my opening point. If I write something that inadvertently challenges the worldview of another person, the onus is on that offended party to confront me and ask me in an understanding way why I have that position. Because I am not intentionally trying to offend someone. I’m, in most cases, just writing a story, or creating art, that resonates with me. The specter that we create of our enemies is a strawman that we sling mud upon rather than making an attempt to bridge the gap and attempt to understand any view different from our own.

Another interesting example: there was a time when I thought I was going to be a pastor of a Christian church. The unfortunate thing about this, was that I was very involved with the viewpoint of a certain pastor and I had purchased all his books and followed all his sermons. When I would confront a viewpoint that was different or, worst, in opposition to this pastor, I would write it off as poor scholarship on the opponent’s part. Then I was told an interesting anecdote as I was venting my frustrations our on my sponsoring mentor. If you read one author (his works in total), then you are a clone. If you read two authors, you’re confused. If you read three authors, you begin to develop an ecumenical understanding of knowledge pertinent to that topic.

This applies to everything: cooking, knitting, philosophy, politics, video games, religion, film, etc. What I don’t want you (reader) to take away from this is that your viewpoint is invalidated, or diminished, once you’ve reached this point of ecumenical understanding of your topic. What I desire you to take away is that people believe certain things because it’s personal to them, and there is a story behind that belief. When enough people are like-minded, they coalesce into a larger entity that takes core values (but not all of them) and synthesizes a new position that lacks the multifaceted explanations of certain beliefs.

In light of social media, I am convinced more and more that Facebook and other platforms are a cancer to our ecumenical understandings because they have condensed conversations and familiarity into statements and surface level understanding.

Chew on that for a bit.

Video Games are Racist, Bruh

I have a sneaking suspicion that RPG games are inherently racist.

Hear me out.

I’ve thought about this for a while, and I don’t think it’s intentional at all. Or maybe I just read too deeply into things like this. If you’ve ever read Umberto Eco’s Inventing the Enemy you’ll know that we seem to naturally, throughout history, create enemies to propel our societies forward. We rely on differences (physical, political, religions, social, and economic) to separate the undesirables out. All this hinges on a lack of empathy toward this “other,” because once we feel empathy for the other, these differences can no longer be superficial.

From birth we are trained to recognize and pick out classes, like being a young kid and seeing a homeless person, and then—in the same day sometimes—going to a neighbor’s house of moderate wealth. Then, while still being kids, we encounter as we get a little older videogames of varying complexity that implement progression and class based forms of entertainment. Not only are they competitive, but each class’s specialization locks you into a certain path of gameplay. Fantasy roleplaying games take this concept further and suggest perks and disadvantages for playing a certain race. Elves may have bonuses to stealth and intelligence, or charisma even, evoking the image of an elite member of society, connected to social and political strongholds. Conversely, orcs may have penalties to intelligence and charisma, but they have proficiencies that boost strength and traits that are integral to physical combat. To add insult to injury, at least in the Dungeons and Dragons game system, orcs are also typically evil in alignment. (I once played a game as an orc paladin, and the whole time I was reminded by the dugeon master that orcs could not be paladins because they were evil and having a good, or even neutral alignment, was tantamount to breaking the rules!)

Race is an artificial term already, as there is no genetic difference between a human from Africa and a human from North Africa. While there are physical differences between someone from Africa, who has extra skin pigment after exposure to blistering, equatorial sunlight, and a North American person, there is no degree of separation that would deny procreation between the two. Race, if anything is an artificial moniker that human beings have employed to categorically separate individuals from each other whom hail from a variety of geographical regions on the planet. Yet there are stereotypes, not unlike the class based systems in role playing games and other video games that implement class and skill progression trees, which entertain the idea of “racial traits” (I.e. Asians are intelligent, Blacks are lazy (yet exceedingly strong), Caucasians are politically cunning). These racial stereotypes supplant the familiarity we all share as human beings with a veil of obscuring unfamiliarity and suspicion. This is how “others” are created.

So imagine the reality that as children, while we are still building a conceptual framework of the work through our observations and experiences, we are encountering the ideas, suggestions, that certain people are better at some things and others are not. Not only that, we are doing battle with, struggling for resources with, engendering a “race” based competitive ecosystem with complete strangers. The entire premise is literally Darwinian in nature.

Obviously, this is all introspective speculation and the strength of this argument depends on how willing you are to look into it. But I could easily write a book on my experiences, incorporating trolling, anonymity, death threats against female developers, and Varg Vikernes’ roleplaying game MYFAROG. The latter is funny, because on my way to Norway a few years ago I sat right next to a personal friend of Varg who told me that certain, less desirable races, were meant to specifically emulate the stereotypes of people of color (specifically blacks).

Anyways, food for thought.

RCT, Easy as 1,2,3

It’s been a long time – too long.

My book’s first draft is complete and I’ve sent it to my trusted advisors for their notes and insight. This is a common practice, one that I had only recently heard of and embraced by accident when I gave my first book to my good friend Desmond. He proceeded to shit all over my book. That sounds bad, but it wasn’t. It was eye opening. Everyone should be subjected to criticism, even if you’re fucking James Joyce.

I get these moments that come and go. Fleeting ideas that condense and then dissipate like morning mist in the desert. I like writing about these but I don’t, because they are rants. And no one wants to read that shit. Most of the time I think about them because I’m mad at something, or someone. Or, I am sitting alone and recounting the day’s events and considering the slights that I received and then avenge myself by articulating these brisk and colorful responses.

One, however, coalesced.

Something that has always bothered me is the concept of white guilt. Let me preface this by affirming that there is a deep need to reassess the social and economic damage that Americans have inflicted upon indigenous people. We owe the descendants of slaves, the victims of failed Reconstruction era politics, a fighting chance to compete and receive the education they deserve. I can go on, but it would detract from the point I want to make.

Like all things, the narrative of prejudice is hopelessly complex. Let me summarize: Realistic conflict theory, as demonstrated by the Robbers’ Cave Study. I find this study fascinating, mostly for the confirmation bias it offers me in my spiritual views on the nature of humans. The experimental model of the study is rudimentary, and lacking in the sophistication of modern psychological studies that attempt to account for extraneous variables, and deploy methodologies that curb all manners and sorts of bias. Still, I think it demonstrates a tendency for prejudice to occur as a byproduct of social, political, economic, and existential tension. And I suppose what bothers me so much about this concept of white guilt is that the narrative is embedded in western civilization, largely ignoring the social narratives of other cultures where there was a demonstrable presence of ingroup/outgroup prejudice. We only ignore it because we don’t wish to make the investment of investigating the “oriental,” the “other,” and bridge the gaps we make between western civilization and the myriad expressions of humanity.

In High School, I knew a “feminist.” We are decent friends today, Facebook friends (for what it’s worth), and our contact is cordial and mutually beneficial. But it’s interesting how our relationship evolved over prolonged periods of antagonism (mostly because, at the time, I had a crush on her). She would make these outrageous, though not misplaced, claims that because I had a dick, I had wronged her, which seemed a bit harsh, granted that I had never done anything to her. It was classic “guilt-by-association.” Nevertheless, it is wrong to pay a woman less than a man because of their sex. It is wrong to view a woman as not capable of arising to the occasional “manly” deed, mostly because men and women offer mutual benefits to working together in synchronicity. It seems disingenuous, if not hypocritical, to hoist one’s self onto a banner of moral superiority and commit the same crime: devaluing someone because of their genitalia. And the same is true of “race,” which is a bit overstated, as we are all homo sapiens.

To further my point, over the last few months I binge-watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was a science fiction television show flexing its intellectual muscles in the late 80s and early 90s. In all seven seasons were captured hypothetical arguments and debate over the preoccupation with Cold War paranoia and interracial conflict – magnificent and worthy pursuits all. I enjoyed the show for its rampant, albeit unintentional, embrace of Globalism, sundering conflict and quieting planetary squabbles under the pretense of dissident races joining the Federation of Planets. It teaches us about the worthiness of our ethnic values, while at the same time devaluing them because they innately encourage the very realistic conflict theory studied by Muzafer Sherif. All ethnicities are, in the end, are artificial divisions based on superficial expressions. To be “enlightened” is to, instead, join hands toward a common goal, and cease the perpetual blame game that has progressed into the 21^st century. This is all the ad absurdum reductionism that I could glean from the show, whether they would like to acknowledge it or not.

The issue of white guilt that I have is the caveat of its proposition. I myself have never enslaved a human being or devalued one based on its sex, ethnicity, social tier, or religion. Yet I am devalued based on the assumption that my default predilections are innately sinister. Were I a Martian, living on mars with other Martians, with red skin, and there was an equally powerful group of green-skinned Martians, and we were at each other’s throats for our superficial differences, it would seem very silly to us, but it would make sense to Muzafer Sherif. He would watch us from afar taking field notes in a dust stained moleskin about our petty disputes over limited resources. And, suppose, that I am wrong, and there is no God, I have only just described the very basic principles of evolutionary biology, in which a dominant group supplants another because of their supremacy in means and resources. So I am at a precipice, a crossroads. I have the opportunity to believe that racism is as natural as Realistic Conflict Theory, but I won’t because that’s fucking stupid and we have a choice. We have always had a choice. I believe, wholeheartedly so, that this is who we are when we are blinded by our own egos. But I reject it as the definitive mode in how we operate.

Ghost in the Shell and Whitewashing

I will be seeing Ghost in the Shell fairly soon (not this Tuesday, but the following Tuesday). The Rotten Tomatoes aggregate reveals that I will be mostly entertained by the visual fidelity of the work, though I will likely read into the film from my own working knowledge of the source material and glean some added appreciation from the set pieces and characters.

The whitewashing controversy is the big question and I will have to judge for myself to see if this is any reason to discredit a film which is based off a series preoccupied with transhumanism and the transcendence of ethnic and nation boundaries because of the unification of the world through a thinking, feeling internet. In one episode of Stand Alone Complex (Season 1, Episode 19), a former Russian operative active during the Cold War undertakes a full body operation to implant her brain into a prosthetic body. This body, distinctly Japanese and likely made by Mitsubishi, or some fictionalized Japanese multinational heavy-manufacturing company, is younger, sexier, and masks the ethnicity of an old Slavic woman in favor of a Japanese appearance. One wonders why there is no uproar in Japan over the whitewashing (Japanese-washing? Yellow-washing?) and depiction of foreign nationals as Japanese citizens who speak impeccable Japanese with Level  N1 speaking comprehension. Or perhaps the show (likely) is making a statement about the malleability of race and how the advent of machine prosthesis supplants the need for racial classifications? Obviously, my dismissive tone indicates my position.

Whitewashing is a peculiar thing because the concept of it is exclusive to Americana. I say this because we have many distinct ethnic contributions to the “melting pot” (originally from a play, where the phrase is pejorative). That we originated as a British colony of varied religious diversity—and in the case of Pennsylvania, Pluralism—indicates a largely Continental European origin. It wasn’t until our success drew the eyes of the world to come and take part in the great “American Experiment,” albeit built on the back of slaves and the poor. But the original body of colonists, that heritage societies covetously illustrate (Daughters of the American Revolution, The Mayflower Society, Sons of Norway, etc), their rank in society managed to remain dominant. When those from other countries come to American they culturally assimilate to the “American Way.” And yet this way has changed markedly over the years. The “way” is not the same as it was in 1865, when the Irish acclimated to American Customs and traditions, not fifty-three years removed from the War of 1812, when the sons and daughters of the Crown eschewed their British customs and accents for more “American” expressions of their nation’s proof of concept, earned by a successful repulsion of the British incursion from both Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. Imagine being a Polish immigrant adjusting to the “way” paved by culturally normative customs purloined from the Irish, the Germans, the French, and the Italians. Imagine the strain and intercultural conflicts between blacks who had been there before all of them. Somewhere, in all of this historic complexity, is the Hollywood controversy of whitewashing.

                I do not presume to be a sociologist, or someone with the ability to read culture with lossless accuracy, but I do know a thing about myths and legends. But were I to ask a Greek what a God looked like, he/she would describe a Mediterranean man or woman, with smooth bronzed skin from the Agean Sea. Were I to consult a “Galatian” (3^rd Century Christianity), they would likely describe a Hellenistic Jew, with a dark complexion and curly dark brown hair that was short and groomed. Were I to ask a pagan Northman in the 8^th century (from Denmark or Sweden) to describe the complexion of Thor, they would more than likely describe a pale, muscular warrior, with dark brown beard and white skin, similar to a man that would not see the light of the sun for eight months out of the year. The Yoruba people, from Nigeria, would not describe their thunder god Shango, as a white Northman, but would likely think of him as a creature matching the same definitions of beauty and magnificence that a Yoruban would think. So for each ethnic group of people there are idealistic permutations of beauty and strength and grace that they believe. Our very “American” problem is that we have such a diverse culture that we no longer know what to worship as an ethnic standard of beauty.

When the motion picture industry began, our caste like system, invigorated by failed attempts at post-Civil War Reconstruction, placed non-whites at the bottom of the barrel. And so the trend continued. No “respectable” film company would star a black man as Othello. So, instead, they cast Orson Wells and Lawrence Olivier, and put them in black face. America’s problem continues to this day where Motoko Kusanagi is white, and I recalled reading somewhere they were considering using CGI to make her look “more Asian.” I can’t confirm that so take that with a grain of salt.

In Ghost in the Shell, the producers-that-be felt, for some reason, that Motoko Kusanagi would actually be named “The Major” (a short-hand name for the character in the manga and animated productions), which is coincidentally fitting given the subtext of the near post-human future where ethnicity doesn’t matter and a four hour operation can change your skin color, height, weight, and eye color without consequence.  

I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have preferred a Japanese woman to play Motoko. (Maybe Lucy Lu, who is Chinese. Would that still count?). The Major’s character consistently is an over sexualized, lean and athletic, no-nonsense commanding officer, who is bi-sexual and also sexually ambiguous (if you have seen the latest incarnation, ARISE). Scarlet’s stint as Black Widow is an approximation to Motoko’s character, but there is still a lot left to desire, and I am certain that an equivalent actress of Japanese ancestry or nationality could fit the bill. Lasarus Ratuere, who plays Ishikawa, a very typical Japanese intelligence officer and A-Class hacker, is a Fiji born, Australian actor. Does that mean he was “brownwashed?”

Whenever I see these articles on whitewashing, there is little thought to the deep cultural, social, mythological biases that particular cultures embody. Moreover, every country is guilty of doing exactly what we do in other aspects. In Dr. Who it’s the United Kingdom that always makes first contact with the alien invaders. In Star Trek: First Contact, the origin of faster than light travel originates in the American heartland of Montana, on an American missile base. (Thus from the vestiges of the military industrial complex rose the event that catalyzes global peace and interspecies communication.) And, must I remind you, the rampant cultural appropriation made by Bollywood, where the government isn’t in a constant state of upheaval and isn’t profoundly corrupt. Evolutionary Biologists recognize that within our own groups we see those most similar to us favorably and keep away those that are foreign and unfamiliar. They, in essence, suggest that this odd brand of cultural antagonism is bred into us as a survival mechanism and is our “human nature.” But, while I believe in the process of Evolution and the ability for organisms to adapt to their environment, I also don’t want to believe that we are hopelessly shitty and destined to fight over resources with one another like a pack of wild dogs. I believe that we are sentient and enabled to make decisions that descend from our will and not our biology. Which means we can work past our monkey brains to make a responsible, adult decision to not need Emma Stone to play a half Asian Air Force Captain.

And can I add something, slightly unrelated? “White people” itself is sort of a pejorative categorization of lumping anyone with fair colored skin into a larger group of people. There are Germans, Norwegians, Polish, Bulgarian, Czechoslovakians, Italian, French, Belgian, British, Scottish, Irish, Finnish, Russian, and Greek, all with “fair colored” skin. Each of these are simplistic reductions of larger bodies of minorities, that are underrepresented in mainstream culture. (Such as the Soumi people, who are the indigenous people of Finland, and live as nomadic tribes, and, are you ready? Very white.) To say that all white people are alike is, frankly, fucking offensive.

The Bottom Line is, the only way to stop whitewashing is to stop reducing people to skin colors and geographies, but see people as fellow humans who occupy the world alongside us, and to be acquainted with their cultures, and to understand the reality that culture is fluid and ever changing. As a Christian, I know the Gospel of Christ referenced a Kingdom of Heaven, wherein ethnic, social, financial, and gender boundaries co-inhabit  the same lands. There are non-religious alternatives also. But, in either case, I believe a shakeup is in order. All this social outrage is nauseating. 

To the Co-Worker That Said I Believe In "Creepy-Christian-Shit"

At happy hour two months ago, you said something to me that I have thought about in the passing weeks and I have been burdened with it since. Not that what was said I found distasteful, or disagreeable, but that I felt excluded from something far deeper; a dialogue of trust and friendship.

Generally words like these have hidden in them a lifetime of experiences. Experiences warranting legitimacy. Who is anyone to tell us that what we believe, and how we came to believe it—short of being brainwashed, or impressed with another's knowledge—is wrong? We are, after all, the sum of our experiences, moments weaving a canvas patched with assumptions and conceptual gaps informed by the majority of the fibers. So when I hear you say “creepy-Christian-shit,” in reference to my beliefs, I can only assume that you were brought to that conclusion by legitimate means and that the defense of that truth is warranted.

                There are common assumptions made about one’s beliefs by the Other, that we succumb to naturally, if not due to some form of mechanic employed by social evolution, to preserve our identity in the presence of something we don’t understand. I do this all the time, usually in the presence of the marginalized and the poor, occasionally in the presence of those of a different faith. If introspection is worth anything, and it likely is despite what postmodernism has suggested, I would say that I am afraid of losing my identity in the presence of another, more convincing and powerful one. Warding off intellectual and spiritual fascism with definitive statements.  Without overstepping my bounds and assuming your prejudices, I would say that this is at least, in part, something that influences your beliefs about my beliefs.

                Likewise, in a current climate of relativism, not to be confused with pluralism, I will be bold enough to say that not all beliefs are as valuable as the rest. Prejudices, for instance, are not worth as much as truths, because they are innately defamatory and aim to devalue something else, person, institution, presupposition, etc. A belief that declares a value statement needs to be assessed and vetted to determine whether or not it is a prejudice. Being that you and I are cut from the same cloth, or that I aspire to be what you are, I hope you can appreciate the social obligation we have in a pluralist society, to establish a mutual dialogue that encourages a common understanding and a collaborative spirit.

Transparent Faith For a Transparent World 

                I admit that in your life you have crossed paths with undesirable permutations of Christianity. History subjectively describes movements and campaigns that highlight the forceful and dominant expressions, which I have struggled to reconcile. Those in a position of power leveraged their social and political influence to perpetrate acts out of self-interest that tainted the reputation and following of forgotten followers, their voices drowned out by the influence they did not have over the events they did not initiate. (The same is ever true today, with the rise of the “Moral Majority” and other caricatures promoted by fringe groups and leveraging fear of the the Other.) We are all familiar with the corruption of institutions and the choice we make to generalize that quality across the diverse spectrum of historical expressions. I have chosen to not do that in regards to secular humanism, to see the good that it has brought to society by questioning beliefs long held, and often proven untrue upon further reflection. I would not wish to make a straw man like administers of my faith have made, often to draw simple comparisons and conclusions for those without formal education, to create a digestible, conceptual framework; much to my chagrin as I know full well, the multiplicity of expressions. As I have had patience for those accepting simple explanations I ask you do so as well, understanding, with positive intentions, the intended effect.

                But there is a personal dimension to all this, for without it I would just be blustering elevated quips.  Rather than see you as the Other, I wish to traverse that gap as a confederate, a brother to you in attempt to achieve a common goal of understanding. Regardless of my points of view, informed by my personal theology, I would like to express my love for you as a person, with identity and worth. I see you as unique and capable of great things, as we all are the same at the core, acting out of self-interest on the small and large scale. I wish to express my intentions that I am committed to your well-being because of what I believe, and that I am committed to doing good for you, your family, your friends, regardless of their positions and beliefs. I believe that my truth is definitive to this reality, but that does not stop me from appreciating what you offer to the world, what I believe my maker has given you to advocate for those that cannot advocate for themselves, to seek equal opportunity and rights, for dignity in an undignified world. While it is true that I have given myself over to what others would declare an insane proposition, the belief in an entity unverifiable by empiricism and its tools, of a poor, homeless Jew embroiled in the socio-political conflicts of 1^st century Palestine, I have paradoxically employed tools of reason to do so, just as you have defended the antithesis. Without the guarantee that I would dully receive your blessing and acknowledgement of my beliefs, I would like to acknowledge yours are valid and legitimate and it is my deepest hope that we can foster a relationship of mutual empathy.

My Best to You for the Betterment of All,

Stuart J. Warren

Being Naïve and the Consequences Thereof

 I am a very gullible person by nature. Chances are, if you have met me in person, you have told me something that I had willfully believed without question, or sarcastically made a comment that I mistook for truth. As I get older, the façade of how I perceived the world to be gradually falls away like rusty scales or a deteriorating shingles from a Victorian rooftop. The process, ongoing, brings mixed emotions, some of anger and disillusionment, others of genuine joy and gratitude for my aptitude to learn.

                That’s my most common pastime these days, learning. My wife and I like going to used bookstore and buying esoteric titles. The illusion that they are used and, therefore, inexpensive has set us back several hundred dollars, and produced only an overflowing bookshelf. (I should actually say, “myself.” I’m the one that buys all of them.) Learning is protection in a world of post-modern, post-truth, post-humanity. The act of filling up with knowledge gives me support, a feeling of protection from being exploited by those that are stronger than myself.

                As I said before, I’m naïve. It has caused me lots of grief in my life to be behind, to be told that I was stupid, that I was below average. While my contemporaries in grade school were being advanced through government funded programs for the gifted, I was a year older than all of them but considerably more dull, I was told. I tested twice to enter the GATE program, each time taking logic tests and solving puzzles to approximate my IQ. I somehow managed to keep up, in a system designed to disenfranchise me and others like me that didn’t excel at curriculums structured around boosting state testing scores.

                In AP courses, and parts of college, I did better. Marginally better. I held my own and passed with satisfactory marks, excelling at English. But I didn’t appreciate scholarship for what it was and what it was meant to be. That came after.

                I was in an internship for my church. I told myself that I wanted to be a pastor of the Reformed tradition. So I read, and read, and read. I was reading two books a month, sometimes three. During the fruitless process I learned to absorb knowledge in a way that I had never considered ever in my life. I was driven, and motivated, by a powerful inclination to understand every facet and argument as it applied to the Christian faith. When I became disinterested in becoming a pastor, receiving confirmation from both myself and others that I didn’t possess the proper gifting, my reading proficiency translated to my hobbies.

                But as I read, as I ran from my naiveté, I became unhappy. An aside: one of the prerequisites to being an author is being able to see whole worlds, see how they are made, what they are made of, what people populate them, what histories turn them. My own conception of reality, of the world at present, I breathed it in, and in my eyes began to see through the cracks of our humanity. I grew angry. I am angry that we would be so blind to the forces that press the world forward, and contend ourselves to glut on petty things.

                (Knowledge brings sadness and sobriety to a repugnant world filled with disappointment. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul once said “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” My vision is bleak, yes. But it is true and I have the courage to see it for what it is.)

                And yet learning, for what it is, has breathed life into every facet of society since man could reason. There are some admirably and qualitatively “good” things to arise out of education: public sanitation, for instance. A means to wipe and flush, washing ourselves of excrement. This, and many other technologies, distract ourselves from our true natures.

                But I digress. I am still naïve, despite what I’ve learned. It brings clarity to Socrates’ certainty of uncertainty, something that I can appreciate as I stave off my descending spiral into nihilism. Learning has made my life more rich and, myself, a better author, but at the cost of my ignorance, which I consider a worthy trade, despite the sadness it brings to me on occasion. I can scarcely describe the wonder I feel when I read about the exploits of the Romans or experience the mystery of existential comicbooks. The history of medieval Europe, the language of the Norsemen, their epics and traditions, expanded my understanding of what it means to be human. And, in all this, I am somehow a Christian, experiencing the already-but-not-yet Kingdom of Heaven.

                Being naïve has tainted my interactions with others. It’s difficult for me to feel comfortable and at home in a situation because I have been taken advantage of many times for my goodwill and belief in the inherent goodness of others. There are few people I can feel like being myself with, one of them being my good friend Desmond, a fellow scholar of erudite wisdom. When we talk, everything comes forth, like a dam bursting with thoughts and ideas. Our rank commentary, foul words, bring great joy to us, dethroning the world in absurdity like a Samuel Beckett play. My love for him transcends fraternal bonds.

                There is always hope. The washing and cleansing of disappointment helps. It’s good to get things out on “paper” and talk about what we struggle with. I do this occasionally, so forgive my rambling. Some of the books I purchased this weekend are as follows, in case you wondered:

Foucault’s Pendulum and Misreadings by Umberto Eco

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Odd and the Frost Giants and Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman (the latter illustrated by Dave Mckean)

Stay dry out there.

XOX