Failing to recount my thots about the shindig

Dear diary,

I was anxious all day yesterday, because I was scheduled to attend a party in the evening. The party was for one of my sweetheart’s colleagues who is now retiring from work. I always feel nervous about these types of things — I get all butterflied, and I pace back and forth in anticipation. My mind grows cluttered, considering possible things I might say and do, because I want to be a good social mingler; but then when the actual event is before me, I make a fool of myself and say and do all the wrong things. Then I can’t sleep because I keep mentally replaying my mistakes; so I wake very early and try to tell my bad memories here to you.

First of all, let it be stated for the record that the party was a very good event. The house was beautiful, the food was excellent, the guests were superb, the music was perfect, and the mood was festive. So when I say that I have bad memories, it’s not anything that anyone would’ve been able to detect by simply viewing photos of the event. My problems are all with myself: for I am a living, breathing faux pas.

My problem is that I’m overconfident in certain realms, and I forget that our time to consider different perspectives is not unlimited. Every talk is under the gun, by which I mean that the clock is ticking: you’ve gotta finish your conversation FAST — it’s like a speed round on one of those game shows — but I’m accustomed to long-form everything: I do everything slow (that’s why David Lynch named The Slow Club after me, in his 1986 film Blue Velvet), because I live in eternity where clocktime doesn’t matter one fig, therefore why hustle?

Our elders tell us that there are two topics that should be avoided in polite conversation: religion and politics. My habit is to dive straight into one or the other, preferably both. My presumption in doing so is that I alone am immune to whatever ruins everyone else’s attempts to talk civilly in these areas, but it turns out that I’m not as adept as I assume; consequently my own conversation ends up rude.

My first bad memory from yestereven is that I chose to blame the economy for all the unsavory aspects of the upcoming generations. Someone had said something like, “Oh these college kids nowadays are all lazy and they all end up living at home; plus the crime rate is increasing.” And I answered that there are very real changes that have been made to the economic system, which affect these kids’ situation. I argued that the world that their parents inherited was favorable to providing a living — owning a house & raising children — but that since 1977 all the knobs that control the prices of goods and services, including college and housing, were tweaked around so that these things became extremely expensive, whereas the knobs that increase the wages that people can earn at any given job, as well as the knob that increases how many jobs are available and whether they’re humane and provide crucial benefits such as guaranteed income and pensions, were tweaked so that these boons became verboten.

And with poverty comes crime, so, in short, the people behind the curtains who turn the knobs of our economy tweaked them in exactly the wrong direction, and now we’re seeing the ugly results of this decision.

But the folks with whom I was pleasantly chatting just said, “I don’t think the economy is the problem.” And I said, “Oh? Well tell me what you DO think is the problem, because I just want to learn the Truth from the Truth’s own owner.” And the folk all chanted: “The latest generations are just lazy: they don’t wanna work hard for anything. OUR generation, which is known as The Baby Boomers, worked really hard for all the war-spoils that WE purloined.”

So I had to leave the discussion there. I don’t know how to answer such a blatant statement of opinion. The realm of the economy that I was talking about is measurable: All those things that I mentioned (job pay-rates & availability, cost of living, etc.) are part of a record that can be referenced; whereas the notion of “how hard a given soul has luxuriated” is in the eye of the beholder.

And I’m not persuaded that there’s much difference between the mettle of one generation and the next — I’m not comfortable saying that suddenly a majority percentage of humans were born without gumption, in contradistinction to previous generations. Instead let us say that every generation possesses a similar ratio of hard workers to lazy folk (so-called), so when we see an increase in things like homelessness and drug addiction, it’s an indication that the economy needs changing, not that human beings have lately grown faulty. The economy was made for humankind, not humankind for the economy.

Am I passably explaining why I feel that I failed last evening? The answer is: NO!!! Instead of articulating my flaws, I’m committing the same flaws again; I’m just blabbing about my ideas rather than making this entry enjoyable.

What I dislike about my recent performances (on this here blog and at last night’s soiree) is that I’m too concerned with accuracy in my speech, and I achieve my aims in that direction at the expense of imagination.

Following that last-mentioned devastation I enjoyed a conversation about Christianity; & yet again I dropped the ball. It could have been an enjoyable talk, full of new perspectives and interesting takes, because I have many fine things to say about religion in general, and specifically against the traditional Christian Church; but somehow I allowed myself to get hung up on defending Jesus from Paul, and on denying the shibboleths of resurrection and biblical infallibility.

I was told by my satan (my intellectual opponent; that is, the one with whom I was enjoying this conversation) “the important thing is to have a personal relationship with Christ, who is God — don’t you believe in Christ, who is Almighty GOD?”

Here, I should have simply answered “Yes, of course I believe in Christ — what wretch would ever be so craven as to disbelieve in Christ; for, as we all know, Christ is Almighty GOD!!” But instead I said, “Well this idea, the very framing of your question, comes from Paul not Jesus: I love the teachings of Jesus, for example all the stuff that Mark’s gospel says that Jesus said, but then when Paul tells us that ONLY a belief in the death of Christ can wash the sin from our soul, this usurps all the focus from the actual teachings of Jesus (etc., etc.)...”

Who cares about the teachings of Jesus! Why do I waste time explaining this point and defending notions like “do good to them that hate you” (Matt. 5:44)? I should just mouth the words that I’m pressured to mouth.

I really do wonder why it’s so hard for me, in those moments when I’m confronted by the equivalent of “worship the modern idol” that I continue to refuse. For my whole stance is to comply with foreign customs, for the sake of social harmony. It shows a nasty pride, a miserliness of spirit, when I eschew bowing to someone else’s Baal.

“Jesus is different from the other leaders of all the other religions because he resurrected after death.” That’s what I was told last night — it’s a familiar statement, and I should just accept it: I should answer, “You are correct; there is no example to be found, in the folklore of followers, of any other cultmonger defying death.”

Instead I said: “I believe that Jesus resurrected prior to dying.” And then I explained all the ideas that this entails. But nobody cares about IDEAS. I need to remember this: United Statesian Christians (USCs) care primarily that your papers are in order: they just wanna see your papers; they don’t wanna philosophize. When USCs say “Well it’s all quite interesting what you say about Paul’s views versus Jesus’ views; but in the end, I believe what the Bible says, and Paul’s views state that Jesus died and then literally resurrected, so that his blood can blind God’s eyes to our original sin,” what MY response should be is “Ah, you’re right: I was intoxicated by my own fancies when I dared to question Paul — the main thing I need to remember is that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, which, like it or not, contains the writings of Paul of Tarsus.” Any statement along those lines will be sufficient to prove one’s membership in the gang; and that’s all that matters: that one’s papers are in order.

I’m serious when I say that I need to learn to convert. I must figure out how to feign a genuine hypocrisy; otherwise I’ll only end up ostracizing myself further and not even enjoy doing so. When I was young, I savored my ostracization. But now that I’m old and broken, conversion is appealing. There are benefits to conversion. You get to become part of the Big Club. This means they give you access to the kitchen. Now the kitchen contains clean silverware and non-perishables. What you do is open up a big can of…

Was Paul a good guy, tho? Really? Last night, at one point, I said: “I hate Saint Paul intensely, but I hate him only the way that I hate my own parents: I know that my parents were good people, and they never behaved in any way that could be labeled abusive — they were very good parents, on paper — nonetheless I do hate them; and yet I love them too; this is the same way I feel about Paul the Apostle; I love him but I hate him; and I hate him more than I love him; but most importantly I feel that I AM Paul: I even know that if Paul were alive today, at this party, he’d act exactly as I am acting: agitated and annoying, arguing about everything and generally implacable; putting everyone to sleep with his stupid theories.” I really did say this.

Do you see, gentle reader, how boring it is to talk to someone like me? Wouldn’t you rather just have someone seduce you and undress you? There’s the rub: I’ll never undress you. I’ll always have one foot in a book.

Moreover I dislike bathing — so I’m like a cowboy, in that respect; but I lack the romantic reason for disliking baths, for I do not spend my days lassoing quadrupeds, and our modern tubs are not like the tubs of eld… in fact, we have shower stalls now. Plus I could never protect myself, if attacked by a walrus.

And there was a married couple at the party — a man & a woman — who assured me that the current president is destroying our future. And I said, “Ah, I don’t like that guy either — I’d be happy if we could just pause our collective dream of reality, and remove him from the picture, and then allow reality to continue without him. HOWEVER I’m afraid that if we did so, some other monster would fill the void that was left when we removed this present prez; so my point is that there’s something inherently evil about our electoral system: it’s not democratic enough (let us make it 100% direct democracy and not 'representative'; also, while we’re at it, let us render every aspect of government transparent) and THAT’s the true problem.”

And this couple answered me as one, with their voices speaking in unison:

“But this president is controlled by Russia, our great enemy.”

So I asked, “Why is Russia our enemy?”

And the couple said, “Because oligarchs control their government.”

And I said, “Do not we United Statesians also suffer oligarchs to control our government?”

And the couple answered, “But our oligarchs are good whereas theirs are evil.”

And I said, “How can one tell?”

And the couple said, “Russian oligarchs stitch the Russian flag on their undergarments, whereas U.S. oligarchs carefully display only our own country’s flag as a pin on their lapels, like responsible statesmen, and they bear no brand or label on their undergarments, which were sewn by Betsy Ross.”

And I said, “Wait a minute — correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Russia formerly a communist nation?”

And the couple answered, “U.S. oligarchs put an end to communism there, by meddling in their election and causing Boris Yeltsin to become The Very First Prez of Anticommunist Russia — our U.S. oligarchs did this in expectation of being able to divvy up the pie (we think of countries as pies to be divvied up by capitalist oligarchs); but then the People of that great nation elected their next (and, later again, current) president who placed a hedge around the pie so that only THEIR oligarchs could divvy it; therefore, in a sense, they are still a communist nation, because the term ‘communist’ now means ‘unfavorable to U.S. oligarchs’ whereas ‘capitalist’ means ‘favorable to U.S. oligarchs’ rather than what the dictionary says those words used to mean; for meaning is dictated by usage; and only you, dear Bryan, use English words properly.”

& I answered, “Are you sure about all that? Your historical analysis sounds rather fishy. I fear that you are trying to propagandize me.”

And the couple said, “We are correct; you can trust us.”

So I trusted them. And then I asked, “But why must we persist in considering Russia ‘our enemy’, when we know that all the people who live in that land love the people who live in this land, and we love them right back — it’s apparently only our respective leaders that have any conflict. If, at present, as you say, our prez is a puppet of their prez, and, rather than to consider our countries as at odds with each other, he (their prez) is manipulating our prez to urge us all to make friends and be nice, which is exactly what we all naturally want to do anyway, then isn’t their leader, in a weird way, on our own people’s side? In other words: If this is truly some sort of coup, then isn’t it almost a fluke of a takeover, since the people already want the peace that’s being forced upon them? Or maybe a better question would be: What group exactly IS in favor of animosity and antagonism between our two large countries, since none of the people and neither of the prezzes want conflict?”

Again, the married couple answered as one, and said: “We do not understand this confounded speech that you have just delivered. Our leader is being controlled by their leader; that is all.”

So I said, “OK, I guess I hate Russia then. If we look back in history, at the various dealings of our individual nations, I bet we’ll find countless instances of THEM dealing unfairly with US, rather than the other way around.”

CONCLUSION

Nations are like people at their most apelike. One can expect a country to act in a sophisticated fashion only for war, never for love. Therefore, if you are a Christian Nation, whatever you do, do NOT “do good to them that hate you”: I suggest beefing up your military.