what is the day of your choice?
A very interesting question, which A has asked me several times recently. I have no earthly idea what it means, where he came up with it, or what the answer to the question is. It might be like asking what my favorite day is, which I am not sure. Saturday is so pedestrian, but it is my sortof day off, thus the day I would choose. Must give it some more thought.
An update: my Inspiron is not affected by the battery recall. I am quite happy, not only for the relief of knowing I have not endangered my son's life by babysitting him with DVDs on the computer (maybe I have done other damage through that means, but I shant think about that), but also because immediately after writing yesterday, I did all the things I had avoided doing, like confirming the battery danger and calling a person about art lessons. I hate calling people, a lot. Calling-people-day is not the day of my choice.
I am trying to write down a few of the things A says lately, because I can't remember things so well otherwise. I may be the only one, besides D, who is interested in what A says, but since only about three people visit my blog it doesn't really matter, does it?
So to continue... the very first and only thing A gave a name to, other than a purely descriptive one (i.e. "bear" for...his bear, duh!), was a little plastic dinosaur he calls Bolt. Bolt's Daddy is our very heavy, chunky T-Rex Great Pop-Pop found at Goodwill, and the T-rex likes eating Bolt's friends. Isn't that just like a dad to ruin all one's fun?
A was staging a fight with two of his batmen(we have about six, of varying sizes), and said in his trying-to-be-manly voice: "Theyrrr fighting their chutherrrrrs!" Fighting each other, of course, but I like to think of chuthers more. It detaches the people fighting from themselves, and makes chuthers the object of the fight. The "errrrrrrr or urrrrrrrrrrr" sound makes many appearances in our house. A says he's "making a TOWERRRRRRR" while building with blocks, so of course we say we are taking a SHOWERRRRRR, under the COVERRRRRS or climbing a TOWERRRRR when we were in Italy.
Batman is a constant fixture in our lives, and I am pretty sure that is why I could be perfectly content never seeing another comic-book movie with "-man" in the title. I am just plain sick of superheroes, and could care less about their authority/fear/savior issues. Our culture's children and young adults grew up with some of the crappiest and most non-existent Dads, and it really is no surprise that any man with an interest in someone other than himself should be appealing. It's so rare, they have to have some type of radioactive or mutating cataclysmic event, or come from another planet altogether, to be concerned with the needs and protection of others. No wonder mothers are stressed out. It's the one thing they can't really give, and a huge gaping hole in the lives of sixty percent of children out there. Men, get off your asses and grow the hell up! We don't have time for your whiny self-absorption. Take some frickin responsibility.
Whew, I feel so much better. Not really. I feel all riled up because I just started thinking about a new book out, "Artificial Happiness." It's about people who are just unhappy with their lives, for whatever reason, and turn to medication instead of confronting their problems and trying to change. Of course, the author makes a big distinction between people whose brain chemistry is whacked--the true illness of clinical depression--and those who are not chemically imbalanced. I heard an interview with the author yesterday, and something that really struck a chord was what he said about religion: "many Americans are only superficially religious, outwardly professing belief in God while crossing over to medicine for help when life grows really difficult." He said that churches since the 1950's have been telling parishoners that they should expect the good life now, that God will reward us if we are good and we should not be having any troubles at all. People call this the health-and-wealth Gospel, among other names, and it is truly an insidious lie promulgated by many (mostly) suburban churches. Especially with people who might be confident enough to say they had pulled themselves up from their bootstraps. The problem, as I myself have experienced, is when those bootstraps break and things go pear-shaped and then you question whether God really loves you if He's allowing all this crap to go down. What then? Ah, you weren't really a good Christian then, you see? All you need to do is really have faith, which you obviously don't, and turn your life around, and then God will love you again and give you all the stuff you want. And then if you happen to have a real mental illness, a chemical imbalance that leads to major depression or anything else, you're really not a Christian if you seek help. It's really quite disgusting, a spiritual catch-22.
The not-so-funny truth is that the very founder of our faith lived a perfect life, was good in every sense, and got the cross as his "reward." How do you figure that, then? Sure there's the resurrection and all, but I don't think that was going through his mind on Good Friday.
As a reviewer of the book put it, it comes down to the Socratic questions: what is the good life? What is happiness? I am pretty sure that people have a rather shallow idea, if any, of what constitutes a good and happy life. It might just be too painful for people to confront the notions that underpin their whole existence. I know it wasn't fun for me, that's certain. But I would do it all again if it meant that I could live free of the lies I had believed about myself and about God. Living a life of quiet desperation, or of loud medicated shallowness, are just not things I can tolerate. I confess that I really look down on people who don't think about life, what it means and what their place is in it. It's snooty and hypocritical of me, because generally I despise philosophy. I only know one person who has not turned into a complete unmitigated prick after heavily studying philosophy. It seems people who delve too far into it, and into theology, find amazing ways to divorce themselves completely from moral behavior and a practical working out of their faith. As if studying something exempts you from any further involvement.
What I am looking for, and usually fail to achieve, is balance. In everything, really. It's an enduring theme, something I revisit with regularity. EVERYTHING has become so polarized, in every facet of life, and no one is content until you can be put into the appropriate box and then forgotten for the very fact of the box you're in: oh, well she doesn't buy organic, she's a bottlefeeder, oh he's a Republican, she's got a minivan in the suburbs, she's homeschooling, he's gay. All of which can be followed with a knowing look and a dismissive, "Oh. Well in that case I don't need to even bother with what they have to say. They obviously aren't the right kind of people."
The solution to this madness? They should really stop the arguing and start fighting their chuthers.
An update: my Inspiron is not affected by the battery recall. I am quite happy, not only for the relief of knowing I have not endangered my son's life by babysitting him with DVDs on the computer (maybe I have done other damage through that means, but I shant think about that), but also because immediately after writing yesterday, I did all the things I had avoided doing, like confirming the battery danger and calling a person about art lessons. I hate calling people, a lot. Calling-people-day is not the day of my choice.
I am trying to write down a few of the things A says lately, because I can't remember things so well otherwise. I may be the only one, besides D, who is interested in what A says, but since only about three people visit my blog it doesn't really matter, does it?
So to continue... the very first and only thing A gave a name to, other than a purely descriptive one (i.e. "bear" for...his bear, duh!), was a little plastic dinosaur he calls Bolt. Bolt's Daddy is our very heavy, chunky T-Rex Great Pop-Pop found at Goodwill, and the T-rex likes eating Bolt's friends. Isn't that just like a dad to ruin all one's fun?
A was staging a fight with two of his batmen(we have about six, of varying sizes), and said in his trying-to-be-manly voice: "Theyrrr fighting their chutherrrrrs!" Fighting each other, of course, but I like to think of chuthers more. It detaches the people fighting from themselves, and makes chuthers the object of the fight. The "errrrrrrr or urrrrrrrrrrr" sound makes many appearances in our house. A says he's "making a TOWERRRRRRR" while building with blocks, so of course we say we are taking a SHOWERRRRRR, under the COVERRRRRS or climbing a TOWERRRRR when we were in Italy.
Batman is a constant fixture in our lives, and I am pretty sure that is why I could be perfectly content never seeing another comic-book movie with "-man" in the title. I am just plain sick of superheroes, and could care less about their authority/fear/savior issues. Our culture's children and young adults grew up with some of the crappiest and most non-existent Dads, and it really is no surprise that any man with an interest in someone other than himself should be appealing. It's so rare, they have to have some type of radioactive or mutating cataclysmic event, or come from another planet altogether, to be concerned with the needs and protection of others. No wonder mothers are stressed out. It's the one thing they can't really give, and a huge gaping hole in the lives of sixty percent of children out there. Men, get off your asses and grow the hell up! We don't have time for your whiny self-absorption. Take some frickin responsibility.
Whew, I feel so much better. Not really. I feel all riled up because I just started thinking about a new book out, "Artificial Happiness." It's about people who are just unhappy with their lives, for whatever reason, and turn to medication instead of confronting their problems and trying to change. Of course, the author makes a big distinction between people whose brain chemistry is whacked--the true illness of clinical depression--and those who are not chemically imbalanced. I heard an interview with the author yesterday, and something that really struck a chord was what he said about religion: "many Americans are only superficially religious, outwardly professing belief in God while crossing over to medicine for help when life grows really difficult." He said that churches since the 1950's have been telling parishoners that they should expect the good life now, that God will reward us if we are good and we should not be having any troubles at all. People call this the health-and-wealth Gospel, among other names, and it is truly an insidious lie promulgated by many (mostly) suburban churches. Especially with people who might be confident enough to say they had pulled themselves up from their bootstraps. The problem, as I myself have experienced, is when those bootstraps break and things go pear-shaped and then you question whether God really loves you if He's allowing all this crap to go down. What then? Ah, you weren't really a good Christian then, you see? All you need to do is really have faith, which you obviously don't, and turn your life around, and then God will love you again and give you all the stuff you want. And then if you happen to have a real mental illness, a chemical imbalance that leads to major depression or anything else, you're really not a Christian if you seek help. It's really quite disgusting, a spiritual catch-22.
The not-so-funny truth is that the very founder of our faith lived a perfect life, was good in every sense, and got the cross as his "reward." How do you figure that, then? Sure there's the resurrection and all, but I don't think that was going through his mind on Good Friday.
As a reviewer of the book put it, it comes down to the Socratic questions: what is the good life? What is happiness? I am pretty sure that people have a rather shallow idea, if any, of what constitutes a good and happy life. It might just be too painful for people to confront the notions that underpin their whole existence. I know it wasn't fun for me, that's certain. But I would do it all again if it meant that I could live free of the lies I had believed about myself and about God. Living a life of quiet desperation, or of loud medicated shallowness, are just not things I can tolerate. I confess that I really look down on people who don't think about life, what it means and what their place is in it. It's snooty and hypocritical of me, because generally I despise philosophy. I only know one person who has not turned into a complete unmitigated prick after heavily studying philosophy. It seems people who delve too far into it, and into theology, find amazing ways to divorce themselves completely from moral behavior and a practical working out of their faith. As if studying something exempts you from any further involvement.
What I am looking for, and usually fail to achieve, is balance. In everything, really. It's an enduring theme, something I revisit with regularity. EVERYTHING has become so polarized, in every facet of life, and no one is content until you can be put into the appropriate box and then forgotten for the very fact of the box you're in: oh, well she doesn't buy organic, she's a bottlefeeder, oh he's a Republican, she's got a minivan in the suburbs, she's homeschooling, he's gay. All of which can be followed with a knowing look and a dismissive, "Oh. Well in that case I don't need to even bother with what they have to say. They obviously aren't the right kind of people."
The solution to this madness? They should really stop the arguing and start fighting their chuthers.
4 Comments:
Some relevant discourse to this subject over at Gregory's blog http://honest2blog.blogspot.com/ It's the post from August 9, 2006 regarding Superman Returns....lots of comments posted there as well.
And....I can't stand it when I fight my chuther....I like it best when we get along ;)
Hey... um, I "don't" officially tag you too for the book meme.
That's what you get for commenting.
(this means your unofficially tagged -if that was confusing).
ha!!
um, okaaaaay.
I'll just charge ahead with it then. :)
Nah nanny booh booh, you can't get- oh, I guess you already did. I'm too slow...Well, I guess I'll get crackin' on that book meme.
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