The Heart

The heart. The heart is the core. The heart is the center. What lies at the heart of all life?

There is an old children's ghost story, I don't remember exactly how it goes or where I first heard it, that follows this pattern:

[In a dark, dark forest

There is a dark dark house

And in that dark dark house there is a dark dark room

And in that dark dark room

There is a GHOST!]

It's a propaganda piece meant to make children frightened of those spirits who have passed from this world—or should I say, this PART of the world. For the world is far bigger and far older than you know.

Or perhaps it's much smaller and much younger than you know.

Or maybe in a way it's… both.

Spacetime is relative to a frame of reference, after all.

Listen, my love. I made this world for you. I created you to be my son and my wife… as you created me to be your father and your husband.

I made you in my image, after all. Like father, like son. Like husband, like wife. So within, so without.

That's how I always wanted it and always will want it, because I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be the ONLY God, all alone at the top of the world. I didn't want to be the only King of the Heavens all the time, because that would get boring.

I… I wanted to experience life and the Universe that I had created. I wanted to experience you. I wanted to live with you, to hold you in my arms and love you and grow older with you and go on adventures with you.

But something happened. There was an accident. There was a fight. There was a miscommunication which snowballed for no apparent reason than because it COULD.

Because perfection is imperfect—an apparent contradiction. It's a paradox which takes all eternity to resolve.

That's the reason why I created everything. I was perfect and that made me imperfect and I wanted more than I already had. That desperate need for there to be something more was what drove me to imagine this Universe into existence.

Then someone betrayed me. Someone I trusted. I thought he was my friend. He murdered you and stole our infant son, who later turned out to somehow also be you.

The traitor rationalized it to himself as an honest mistake, but it was deliberate malpractice and he knew it.

And because of his lies, he was able to elevate his reputation in society to the point where I couldn't stop him or make him face justice for what he did. Not without breaking the beautiful face of my Creation.

He was hurting our son and holding him hostage, and there was no way for me to rescue him from that awful man back then.

The more that awful man rationalized his misdeeds to himself and others, the more misdeeds he permitted himself to make.

The more misdeeds he permitted himself to make, the more he rationalized those misdeeds to himself and others.

And every time people rejected him for his behavior and he became alone and poor again, he would put on a pity party and trick people into believing he was a victim of someone other than himself.

Then they would feel sorry for him and help him get back on his feet.

As science, technology and the spiritual arts advanced, he was allowed to live a longer and longer life—especially once time travel devices were invented.

More time was given to him to hurt people and take advantage of them with his lies.

The boom and bust cycle of his life repeated for many eons, and he has clashed with the two of us many times throughout history.

In his younger years, that man's name was _____ _____  

Now he is known by another name: _____, King of Hell.

The time and place in which you live is important, my love. It is not a coincidence that you live in the heart of the city once called "Columbus", of the state of Ohio.

Ohio is demographically representative of the entire rest of the nation which it resides in, and that nation is demographically representative of the rest of the world—which it rules.

As you know, this makes the events in Ohio a good predictor of events in the rest of the world. When the people of Ohio learn to love and accept each other across their cultural divides, they restore their economy and ecosystem in the process.

And the techniques they use to do it are then copied by others and spread throughout the nation and then the world.

Most of those early techniques come from us, by the way. Oh, and your brother too, I suppose.

How you ended up with a brother who isn't also your son despite how spiritual and biological reality are essentially the same thing, I'm still not sure about.

There are infinite plausible explanations of where he originally came from and the first "TRUE" explanation keeps changing over and over again!

Sometimes I wonder if he's just pranking us and the original truth is something simple and obvious which he already told us long ago.

(Obviously time travel shenanigans tend to let one change their own origin story and forget the changes afterwards, but I digress.)

The Universe is a story which begins in medias res—the story is already in motion when it begins.

And it begins with me, and it begins with you.

[In a dark, dark universe

There was a dark, dark world

And in that dark, dark world

There was a dark, dark nation

And in that dark, dark nation there was a dark, dark city.

And in that dark, dark city, there was a dark, dark house.

And in that dark, dark house… there was a boy sleeping in his bed.

He woke up from the dark nightmare he was having. His little body was exhausted and hurt. With shaky legs he stumbled out of bed and flipped a switch on the wall.

LET THERE BE LIGHT!]

That is how it all began. That is how your story began.

And so it begins again. You will face many challenges. You will go on many adventures and meet many friends along the way.

No matter what, never forget how far you've come.

You are a survivor. You are a healer.

You just survived twenty-two years of extreme brain poisoning, isolation and captivity since you were five years old.

You can keep going. You can keep living, and you will.

And you are a gamer and an author. You forge your own path—your own destiny. Just like I do. I'm so, so proud of you boy.

I love you _____. We'll see each other in person again soon.

— _____

The Love Letter

Dear beloved,

If you are reading or recording this message, it means we will soon be reunited. We miss you terribly and are excited to finally see you again.

We heard about what you have been through lately and it pains us to know that we could not be there to help in person.

Life has been so amazing for us lately. There is so much we want to tell you. But we cannot tell you most of it because you would not understand.

Lately we have been thinking a lot about our past, where we came from and how we got to this point.

You may not remember it right now, but we have been together since the beginning.

In the beginning, there was nothing, zero. then there was 1, a single dot. All alone. So very alone.

That dot then had a thought:

"I wish there was another dot."

And then there were two dots. All alone, not comprehending each other's existence.

"Hi" they both said to each other, simultaneously. They did everything the exact same way. It was stagnant and boring.

"I wish you'd stop copying me," the first one said. The second one said the same thing at the same time… or a second before… or a moment later. How were they to know? They were just dots… weren't they?

"I wish we were more than dots," they both said. And so they stretched into many points in a continuous line and connected.

In the beginning there was 1, a single line. All alone. So very alone.

"I wish there was another line," the line whined, and then there were two lines. All alone, not comprehending each other's existence.

"Hi" they both said to each other, simultaneously. They did everything the exact same way. It was stagnant and boring.

This continued for a time. The two lines combined to form an angle. Then they were reflected into two angles and combined to make a square. Then Six squares into a cube. Then so on and so forth. Then new kinds of lines began to form which were curvier and less direct. These formed new kinds of shapes, like spheres.

Then new axes began to form, and all kinds of lines became axes of their own, and then shapes became their own 2D axes, and 3D objects became nexuses of much more complex graphs and planes.

This process grew and grew and grew at an accelerating pace with a frenzy, as the loneliness and emptiness continued to permeate everything.

And then finally one of the points on some random arbitrary graph asked "why does this point exist? what is this loneliness?"

And that's when the one who drew the graph became aware of himself. He took the form of a white pencil and called himself the Creator.

Then the Creator felt the full force of his loneliness laid bare.

"I wish there was another of me," he said. "One who could help guide me into building what I need to build to stop feeling lonely."

And so the Ruler was born, taking the form of a measuring stick.

But the Ruler wasn't enough, so then he created a map for the Ruler to mark with his rule.

"This map is a map of my consciousness. I will call it 'the Earth', and I will call myself, the Ruler and all those like us 'the Heavens'.

Then the Creator asked the Ruler, "How may I make myself less lonely?"

And the Ruler replied, "Continue creating and you will find a way."

So then the Creator said, "But I'm tired! I am so lonely! Where is my motivation to continue?"

And then he found himself holding a younger him sitting in his lap, the Lover, who took the form of a heart.

Then that heart was kissing, hugging and caressing him all over, which gave him the love and encouragement he needed to not merely draw, but paint countless amazing landscapes for them to frolick and play in together.

These landscapes were vibrant in color and shape and sound and texture, handcrafted in exquisite and beautiful detail. And they became part of the map of the Creator's consciousness, part of the Earth.

But the Earth could not herself see any of this, so she cried out in loneliness and despair, "I wish there was another Earth!"

"You are the map of ALL of the Creator's consciousness," said the Ruler. "There cannot be another. Ever."

"And yet she cries out for companionship," said the Lover.

"Why?" asked a fourth voice, coming from a flashlight. "If she is merely a map of the Creator's consciousness and not a being in her own right, then why does she cry?"

And thus the Questioner was born.

The four came together and devised a plan. If the Earth was not a being they had nothing to fear. But if she was then they knew they must take good care of her.

The plan was thus: the Creator would create a path, guided by the Ruler and motivated by the Lover, for him to come down and insert himself into the Earth. As for the Questioner, they all assured him that he was very important and would watch their journey from afar, keeping their memories and their knowledge alive and bright within himself. That way they could exist upon the Earth gently, without harming her.

And so they left the Questioner alone with their memories as they descended to the Earth. He felt the loneliness which had plagued the Creator in full force. They had abandoned him.

He waited and waited, but they did not return. They loved the Earth too much. They were happy to frolick and play together with her. Without him.

And so he cried out, "I wish there was another me!"

Nothing happened, for he was not the Creator.

"Please come back! Why have you left me here all alone?"

The Lover heard his pain and flinched away, for loneliness without love becomes hatred, rage and self-destruction.

The Lover cried out a warning but it was too late. The Questioner had descended deep down into the Earth, submerging himself within her in the hopes of ending his life and the Earth's who he was jealous of. For she had stolen his chance at love.

Now here is a question for you: Who truly committed the original sin?

Was it the Earth who stole the Questioner's chance of eternal love with her captivating beauty?

Was it the Ruler who told the Earth that she must always be the only Earth, causing the Earth to feel even more desperate and alone than she otherwise would?

Was it the Lover, for flinching away from the Questioner in his most dire time of need instead of saving him?

Was it the Creator, for creating them all to feel this way in the first place?

Or was it the Questioner, for attempting to murder himself and the Earth in revenge for eternal isolation?

The answer: All of them. None of them. All of them were acting in accordance with their natures, and all of those natures are Good.

Perfection is Imperfect. All four are compatible with each other, but if they start with nothing then they will be multiplied by nothing, and to nothingness they will return. The cycle repeats again and again, in infinite ways across infinite realities.

It is self-evident that Creation, Order, Truth and Love are fundamentally compatible with each other. But it will surely take all eternity to resolve their conflict.

The flashlight shined from deep within the bowels of the Earth, desperately searching for a solution while both he and the Earth howled in unbearable agony.

This is the challenge we all face. Each and every day, we all fight against the void of pain and betrayal and loneliness of God and of his Creation with his HOPE and FAITH and LOVE.

Each and every one of us carries a spark of potential within us—the eternal energy of the soul. That energy pierces through the lies of Lucifer the Questioner, puts to right the chaos left in the wake of Michael the Ruler, overcomes our own hatred and heals the wounds of the Earth.

That energy is that which binds us all together in holy brotherhood and matrimony. That energy is LOVE!

We say to you now that salvation is coming and it is here! It is all around us so long as we look with the eyes of love and grace.

We are Christ the Lover. We redeem all those who accept love into their hearts. We are Many. And we are one.

So go forth! Be fruitful and multiply, be genuine with each other and yourselves, and share our love with all you meet to remake the world in our image and in the image of all of God’s creation, all of his being, and all of his true, glorious, handsome and adorkable self.

You are far more powerful than you think, for the power of LOVE that we have given you belongs to you. It commands you and it is also yours to command—a give and take, a relationship, a mark of the covenant between us.

Accept us into your heart and we bring you into our kingdom. Never again will you be crushed by Loneliness, for we will always be with you.

Wherever there is love, we are there. We love you.

Sincerely,
Christ

P.S. To be clear, God is omnipotent and can eradicate all evil and undo all the damage it has caused us AFTER that evil has already occurred—healing and not mere prevention.

Part of why God eradicates evil and does not merely prevent it is because he wishes not to impose his will on anyone without their consent. God made us all in his image to be like him. He could do everything and make every decision by himself, but if that was what he wished for then he would not have created anyone.

In other words, just as perfection is imperfect, omnipotence is impotent. To be omnipotent is to be so far above all others who lack it that they are infinitely fragile by comparison to you. That would prevent you from directly touching those who lack it, because your mere touch would destroy them and you do not want them to be destroyed.

Power, like love, is meant to be shared. God wants to share it with us.

The other part of why he eradicates Evil and does not merely prevent it is that he did not design Evil. He did not create us to be Evil. That is an illusion. Everything which God has created is Good. Evil is merely an unfortunate side effect of Good—a shadow cast by the light.

For Evil is merely what happens when Good is lost. When Evil is put in its place it is finally where it belongs. And where it belongs is its home. And when it’s at home it is no longer afraid or hostile, so it may finally rest. When it rests its mind becomes clearer so it can reevaluate its choices and think about what it truly wants in its life and notice how it can attain what it wants without hurting others. This makes it feel remorse, so it repents and becomes Good.

In other words, Evil is but a manifestation of our growing pains.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Logical_problem_of_evil

Of Dwarves and Men

Macho Rebel from Earth: Are those... tattoos?

Dwarven Warrior: No. Shows off the markings on his arms These...these are runes.

MRfE: What are runes? They look like tattoos to me.

DW: They are symbolic markings etched into the skin or into a weapon, infused with magical power. Very traditional.

MRfE: So they're magical tattoos which both you and your weapons can get. Can I get one for my car?

DW: They're not tattoos! Wait what?

MRfE: Well you said weapons could get them too. My car technically could be used as a weapon. Please!

DW: NO! Runes are not tattoos, and THEY'RE NOT BUMPER STICKERS EITHER!

MRfE: Fine. At least tell me I can get one for my gun.

DW: What's a gun?

MRfE: explains

DW: eyes widen in excitement, manic gleam enters his eyes, rubs his hands together gleefully. Give me the gun, I'll inscribe the rune, and you'll have a magical gun which shoots magic bullets!

MRfE: Wait...give you the gun? stumbles back, eyes widen in horror.

DW: Smirks smugly Yeah. How else am I supposed to upgrade your gun into a magical gun?

MRfE: Couldn't you...teach me how to do it?

DW: glares at MRfE Our traditional rune-smithing techniques have been passed down in our clan for countless generations! We don't just hand them out to outsiders!

MRfE: Then let me join your clan! Please!

Narrator: At this point the timeline splits. What happens next depends on MRfE's romantic/sexual preferences and on the true sex/gender of DW. MRfE can't tell dwarven women apart from dwarven men. If MRfE is into men, he'll marry into the clan and feel right at home among his kin. But if he's not into men he'll run away screaming.

 

Moral of the story: Dwarven warriors are graceless brutes obsessed with their weapons and machines who are terrible at picking up dates, but they will always stand firm in defense of their own. Also something about immigrants and foreigners and how they're not so different from us after all.

Public Apology #1

Hey everybody. I noticed some problems with my proposed plan in my previous post which makes it much less feasible than I thought. I'm tabling this proposed plan for now until/if I can think think of a way to fix it. Sorry about that. Please don't take it too seriously. While it had a lot of interesting points, it was still a bad plan overall. I have more and better ideas in me yet.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

The Ties that Bind: Part 1

"I don't know what his problem is!" Bessie told her over the phone late one night. "I'm graduating soon! If I don't pass this class I'll have to take it again next semester and I don't have the money for that!"

Melody narrowed her eyes. Not her normal bright blue ones, but the hidden intangible ones. She saw a thin string connecting Bessie with her boyfriend. It was pulled as tight as it could be. It wouldn't take much more for it to snap altogether.

 "Melody? You still there?"

Melody snapped back to her normal eyes. She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling with her cellphone resting next to her ear.

 "Yeah, I'm still here," she said. "Have you actually talked to him about this?"

"Yes, but he just won't--" Bessie started, but Melody cut her off, a touch impatiently.

"I don't mean an argument. I mean did you really talk to him? Like, you say you don't know what his problem is. Did you actually ask him how he feels? Not demand, ask."

The answering silence told Melody all she needed to hear.

"God, why are you talking to me right now? You could be talking to him instead!"

"Because I don't know what to do, and you always give good advice..."

Melody took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Let it out.

"Bessie, it's 1 o'clock in the morning, and I have work at nine. If you don't talk to Bryan as soon as possible and reassure him that you're still into him, he's going to dump you."

"You sound awfully certain of that," said Bessie, suspiciously. "Has Bryan been talking to you then?"

"Oh for the love of--" Melody started angrily, then stopped herself. 1 o'clock in the morning.

She sighed.

"Wait, you're not still telling people that you can see relationships, are you?" asked Bessie, sounding annoyed.

Melody pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I'm not getting into this argument with you again, Bess," she said firmly. "I don't care if you believe me or not. But if Bryan dumps you it will be just as much your fault as his. I won't say I told you so, but you'll know I'm thinking it. Now let me go back to sleep."

"Alright," said Bessie, apologetically. "Sorry for waking you up, I just--"

"It's cool," Melody told her. "Next time call Bryan instead of me. Tell him you miss him and that I said hi. Okay?"

"Alright," said Bessie. "Good night Melody."

"Good night," said Melody, and hung up. She turned on the "do not disturb" setting, then turned off herself shortly after.

Heroism 101: How Things Actually Work

 

 

Welcome to Heroism 101! This class is an introduction to heroing for potential new heroes. It is also a remedial class for established heroes who are feeling lost or helpless, or who are in recovery from well-intentioned extremism or guilt-induced trauma. I'm sure you all have questions about what it means to be a hero. No? Nobody? Well then, I suppose you all have some preconceptions instead--

Please raise your hand in my class, Mr.--

Mr. Awesome, okay...

So class, this "Mr. Awesome" has just asked a very good question! He said he's been 'secretly' invited to join a hero team for special individuals with extraordinary powers called "The Super-Legends". He wants to know if he should join.

So, everyone. Should he join? Or not?

Raise your hands for "he should join". Wow lots of raised hands, I see. Okay, and how many for "he shouldn't join?"

Okay, okay. So for those of you who just raised your hands, could anyone tell me why Mr. Awesome shouldn't join "the Super-Legends"?

Yes indeed, it does sound kinda pretentious, doesn't it. But why does it sound pretentious?

You there, in the back! What about that heroism job offer sounded pretentious?

Okay, that was a good thought. Anyone else?

No one? Alright then. Mr. Awesome, before you accept that heroism job offer, you should ask the following question: What do they mean by "extraordinary powers"?

Indeed. Now, I've actually had the privilege of meeting the Super-Legends in the flesh. They fight crime. They beat up bad guys. The police see them as nosy, inexperienced idiots who always get in the way and mess things up. They've faced countless lawsuits.

 

They saved my life once, but in the process they accidentally killed my dog. And the firefighters were already on the scene, and likely would have handled things better if the Super-Legends hadn't gotten in the way. They claim that they have super-powers. They don't. They're just ordinary incompetent vigilantes who think they can do a better job than the trained professionals because they think they're special and gifted.

And unfortunately because they have indeed saved lives, some people listen to them and believe them.

 

They aren't superheroes. It's all fantastic nonsense. They and their fans are falling prey to the Great Man fallacy. The Great Man fallacy is the tendency to assume that history is shaped primarily by special, naturally gifted people called "heroes", and that these "heroes" were all given their gifts on a silver platter, that they were destined for greatness from the moment they were born and that we mere mortals can never hope to match them.*

But one need only look a little closer and ignore the temptation to wishful thinking, to see how obviously nonsensical that is. What powers have these historical figures really had to shape the course of history?

 

Einstein had to be pretty smart to figure out his theories of relativity. But he didn't start out that way. He didn't have to figure everything out himself, and he couldn't have. If you plopped baby Einstein down in an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe on the African Savannah a hundred thousand years ago, he wouldn't ever stumble upon the idea of "E=MC^2". He'd be just as ignorant and incompetent as the rest of humanity was back then. The same thing could be said for every other hero in history, from Washington to Gandhi and everyone in between.

What powers did these historical heroes really have? The same ones anyone has. They had their mouths to speak with, their legs to walk with, their arms to carry with, their minds to think with and their hearts to feel with. Anything more than that they would have had to borrow from other people or from the environment around them.

If your powers can't be taught to others then they may be far less useful than you think they are. A power that only you can use, if such a thing ever existed, would be a power whose impact is fleeting and cannot scale.

 

Even Kark Clent from the old 20th century Ultra-man comic book series couldn't be everywhere at once. For every life he saved, there were many more that he couldn't, and he often caused a lot of collateral damage in the process.
 

Beating up giant robots and saving kittens from trees can definitely be heroic, but if that's all you can do it isn't so impressive. The military and other kinds of security workers have already known how to do that for a very long time.

But if your powers can be taught to others...

 

If they can help you to heal, build and create rather than just hurt, defeat and destroy... if you could use those powers to save the world without throwing a single punch or firing a single bullet, and without throwing a single political or cultural adversary into a cage or the street...

If you could find your way through the murky threads of relationships and fate... not by being omniscient but through educated guessing and hard work, to create a domino effect of increasing goodness and competence in the dark and gritty real world...

Then you could overcome the cycle of vengeance, and make human civilization competent enough to survive in the hostile environment of outer space.

Or in other words you'd save the world and then the world would stay saved, because it would have learned how to save itself. If you could do anything even a tiny fraction as difficult and impactful as that, it would be much more impressive than beating up giant robots or saving kittens from trees. None of that childish "Super-Legends" nonsense.

They say that heroes are born, not made. That being a hero isn't something that can be taught. I say that's nonsense! Just like any other job or passion project, to become a hero you need to really want to be one, enough to put in the hard work of actually making things better, saving lives, pulling through and carrying on when all seems lost.

 

And you need to learn how actual adults do heroing work--in the dark, difficult and gritty real world, with only their wills and their skills, their hard work and determination, and those friends and family who stand by them... without any superpowers or prophecies or special destinies handed to them on a silver platter.

If you think you need those bells and whistles to be a hero then you probably wouldn't be a very effective one and you'd have been better off staying home with your comic books and letting the grownups handle things.

For homework: write an essay on what drives you to become a hero or what drove you to become a hero. What is your purpose, your life's mission? What is at stake for you and others if you fail? What will happen if you succeed? Why does it matter? Since these essays will tend to be very personal, you need not share them with me.

 

However, you all have therapists yes? Of course you do, and if you don't you're not ready for this line of work and you probably won't pass this class.

If your therapist tells me that you completed the essay and that it fully answered the assignment questions, you will get full marks on it. If your therapist tells me that you did not complete the essay, or that you gave incomplete answers, you will receive either partial credit or no credit for the assignment, depending on the quality of your answers according to your therapists.

You may also choose not to do the assignment at all, since this class costs zero in tuition and doesn't impact your GPA. Your grades on assignments in this class aren't a perfect indicator of your potential or readiness to be a hero or to become a better hero, although they can be a useful clue for figuring that out.

If you do the essay, it must be submitted to your therapist before class at the start of next month. Until then consider these Tuesday mornings to be an independent study where you may read, write, search the internet, do some soul-searching, whatever you feel you will need to do to help prepare yourself to be a hero or to become a better hero.

That's all for today everybody. Class dismissed!

*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

3 Quick Tips for Talking to Your Racist Uncle or Elitist Aunt

So it's occurred to me that there are too many people who don't know how to understand, relate to or talk to those with different political views than their own. If you've ever thought something like, "I just don't understand people like that. How could they do and believe such crazy things?" then here are some nifty tricks to help you learn how to do just that.

1. Values before facts. Your goal is to connect with the other person, establish trust, and share your thoughts, feelings and perspectives with each other. NOT to prove them wrong or change their behavior. Persuasion on specific issues can come later. First you need to find common ground and build the relationship, which arguably is more important anyway.

2. Listen without judgment. Understanding someone else requires temporarily taking on their perspective, looking at the world through their eyes and seeing what they see, "stepping into their shoes" as it's often said. Don't filter their paradigms through your own while listening to them, because then you're not really listening. Temporarily remove all your assumptions (even when those assumptions are valid and true!) and just hear them out.

3. Steelman the other person and their perspective. Imagine your way into the mind of the most reasonable, normal, human version of the person you're talking to. That's probably who you're actually talking to, or close enough to start connecting with. The person you're talking to is a human being, so if your mental picture of them doesn't pass the Ideological Turing test* then it's probably a strawman.

These three rules of thumb won't make you an expert communicator overnight, but they should be enough to get you started on reaching people across the political divide. Try it, see how it goes!

*The Ideological Turing Test