Your Offense Means Nothing

to anyone but you:

I SAY I BELIEVE IN SOMETHING, or I display a flag in front of my house, and you tell me you're offended by these things. Well, do you really think I should care that you are offended?  What do you want me to do about it?  Change my behavior to suit you? Die? Do you even see me as a a sovereign individual? Perhaps you think I should care about your offense because you might inflict dire consequences, or perhaps you think you're more important than you really are? It's strange, this obsession with not offending people. It's taken a firm hold on our culture, up to the point where in some countries people are jailed for being offensive. Anyone who tries to manipulate people- through fear of the consequences of offending them- are classic malignant narcissists, and many of them are also tyrants. These sorts of people are the ones always demanding to speak to the manager for even the most trivial of slights. They are the ones who are offensive, in the true meaning of the word; they cause displeasure or resentment.  This fetid self-centeredness and the total lack of awareness of others is very uncomfortable to watch. Here's what it boils down to: constantly offended people think they deserve a value (discounts, line jump, et al) not because they deserve it, but because they're offended and will have you cancelled if you don't. 

I Know Who You Are, Karens and Wokesters

An open letter to Karens, Trump haters, and all who hate the good for being the good:

I know who you are, I understand that you hate everything. Here's how I know: when something hideous happens (1,800 Israelis killed, Donald Trump shot, children being sterilized and mutilated, et al), you become inflamed with passionate support for these things. When something good happens, you seek to destroy it. You truly believe it is OK to lie to get what you want. I see you frequently at work, with your perverse exaggerated sense of self-worth, making strident demands, blocking traffic, disrupting the lives of those around you and your smell.  I know that there is no love in you at all for anything, including your self, because what you feel is a massive emptiness inside that only serves to remind you how you destroyed your soul by embracing such hatred. I would help you if I could, but I know you don't want help, and I also know without any doubt that you would kill me if you could get away with it. No, you are wholly and existentially evil, and beyond redemption-most of you don't believe in God, the real one-and so your life becomes hellish, what you are doing is slowly killing you. But you don't care, and I know it. You filthy sick bastards cheered on the brutal killing of women and children watching TV in their homes, you support the monsters who perpetrated this, and some of you are the ones who stridently demand to see the manager whenever an employee struggling to make ends meet says "no" to you, for any reason. And why do you do this? That's between God and you. My job is not to placate you, to understand you, not to help you in any way, but to discredit you, by exposing your hideously evil depravity. Yet even so, at the moment you begin to realize that maybe you aren't at the center of things, and that yes, there is a God, you will greatly improve. I did. I was you. I changed. You can, too. For the sake of the miraculous, wonderful fact of you being human and existing, you should think twice before you deny God and claim yourself as Him.

My First Experience as an Employee Facing a Karen

and why I forgive her

THIS IS AN ACCOUNT of what happened during my first verifiable encounter with a so-called "Karen" at work. Some background: I work at a big box home improvement store in Savannah, GA, as a customer service/sales associate. So, 

Morning Reflections, 9/14/24

It is 3 AM here. I am sitting at my coffee table writing this. Suddenly, a thought occurs to me out of nowhere: you have everything material that you need, and more. You eat well, have a great place to live, you can get quickly treated if sick, and other things. From this space I can improve my relationship with God, analyze my actions from the past in order to understand myself better (thus minimizing future suffering, and maximizing my potential). Self-centered indeed, but with a view to be a better self. Why, you ask, why would anyone want to have a better self? What's wrong with just being happy with who you are? Well, I'll share my thoughts with you on this subject, which appears related to the question, why be good? Aside from the comically obvious, the short answer is: in order to better serve others, and to please God.  Also, I know that happiness as a goal is doomed to failure-one mishap in life and it's gone. Happiness, exactly like success, is ephemeral and as such, not worthy as a primary goal. These things are by-products, often the mere result of living life in a manner proper to human beings. A better self, or, a self better than who he was yesterday, is desirable because it enables him to be more effective in serving others. So this morning, by focusing on gratitude and humility, I chase away a million useless, often harmful thoughts. It occurs to me that humility and service are indeed humiliating to the person who is proud, arrogant and filled up with the hubris of intellect and accomplishment.  Humility is realizing and accepting the simple truth of your own inadequacy, the truth that you know very little and therefore what you don't know is more important than what you do know. Service to others is not  being their butler, maid nor slave; it does not mean that you sacrifice unnecessarily (i.e., just for the sake of sacrifice). No, it instead means (in this context) a willingness to help others with love and sincerity. 

Morning Reflections

Tell the truth, or at least don't lie.

-Dr. Jordan Peterson, Twelve Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos

IS IT OK TO LIE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT, as long as in doing so no one is harmed and someone benefits? This seems to be the standard of popular morality. For example, if I wanted you to cheer up and be hopeful, I might tell you "everything's going to turn out alright", when disaster is looming. If a child asks you what happens to our bodies after we die, it's probably not a good idea to truthfully describe this process. When your wife asks you if she looks fat in her new jeans, etc., etc. The rule seems to be: "tell the truth unless it could hurt someone, then it's OK, even mandatory, to lie".

The Truth of God for a Lie

Even if it grants you great wealth,  puts food on your family's table, or just another car payment due, it is a grave mistake to be wicked. People think they are invulnerable, that they will never get held responsible for their evil deeds. All criminals in jail believe they are innocent, and all of them thought they'd never get caught. It often involves breaking Man's law, and also God's law at the same time. Evil despises God, because He exists and is good. All men know this. Over 2000 years ago, Paul the Apostle wrote: (Romans 1, verses 18-25, NIV)

Morning Reflections, 9/5/2024

Oh boy, we're now well into September, looks like the weather is just now starting to cool down. I am writing this in Savannah, Georgia, where summers can be hot as well as humid- every day. My friend is excited at this recent cooling trend, as she can leave her patio door open all the time. She and I just moved into a new apartment; our old one was getting annoying so we found a new place. Anyway, I've been thinking that the more I read Dr. Peterson's work (he's a famous clinical psychologist), and the more I understand the nuances and variations of human psychology, the more I understand myself.