Turning In, Typing Up, Tuning Out...

Today ended the original cycle of '29 Days of Giving', something my restaurant owner and manager enacted for themselves and the employees to do. It is based on a concept discussed in a book of the same name. A woman diagnosed with MS received some advice about giving from a neighbor who had recently taken a spiritual journey of sorts to Africa. Overall, the principles are sound. Outward focus is the opposite of inward focus. If what is going on inside is causing you problems, turn your focus outward, either through giving gifts or what have you. Perspective is everything in this life. So, I tried to follow it. At the end of the day, I'd rather live a life where I am always trying to give something of myself to others than to challenge myself to a specific block of days where I have a journal so I can look back on what I did and, I don't know, feel good about myself or something. Still, I could be working for my former boss, who was a middle management sales fellow, constantly paranoid of his superiors' intentions and fearing for his job. The most outward focused thing we were encouraged to do at that job was to call on our territories and try to sell them something. Giving things away was generally frowned upon. I'll take the present scenario, no matter how earthy and mystical it gets, over falling prone before the almighty dollar 5 times a day in a corporate sty.

This has been brought to you under the influence of some jasmine tea and water. I have a race in the morning, after all.

There's Nothing Silly About My Life...

Just got back from winning a resounding win at trivia tonight. We've been on a bit of a bad streak, you see. Just myself and another fellow whomping upon the competition helped put all the other embarrassments behind a bit, I think.

Also just saw a video of Star Wars dubbed in French, but with subtitles that displayed various quotes from Sartre, all existential and angsty. Hilarious. Makes me wish I had kept reading philosophy after I got the degree so that I could have amassed a much larger library to spoof upon in my noggin. As it is, I tend to forget what I did yesterday. Good thing the present is the only thing that exists, or at least my perception of it. I'm afraid my thought process has traveled back one hundred years and rolled through the Chunnel at this point. Such are the liberties we philosophers take.

This has been brought to you under the influence of, most recently, an oak aged Imperial IPA from Southern Tier. Southern Tier: if Heaven were a beer festival, St. Peter would continuously be putting ribbons on these guys.

We've Barley Begun...

Today I received two things, both oddly related. The first was a small plaque from a co-worker bearing the quote "Beer is the proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" by Benjamin Franklin. The other thing I received was an email from the spouse of another co-worker who is interested in home brewing beer. He invited me to join him for a class at a local beer warehouse as he has an extra voucher. The wheels have been turning on this idea within me for some time, though slowly. It appears perhaps the time to shift to a higher gear, put my barley where my mouth is, so to speak. Hopefully, something comes of it other than a gut and bad liver. One day, I would love to have a brewery/restaurant, maybe something with pages of the classics strewn about the walls, low lighting, real wood. Food that people come for not to cure the munchies with, but to help celebrate the fabulous brews on tap. A place where everybody knows your name. Well, perhaps not quite like that. Maybe one of the bartenders would recognize you remotely. That's about the best you get these days.

This has been brought to you under the influence of many possible libations, some which bear names in my heart, the labels of which will be adorned by the art of various talented friends, once I convince them to offer it.

Jesus Rose From the Dead Today and I Can Barely Get Out Of My Chair...

Apparently, I didn't have much to say this month, looking back over the absence of posts. So it goes...

Today is Easter Sunday. It also would have been my grandfather's birthday (I forget which--maybe 88, 89?). He passed on a few years back. In no one's memory did Easter and his birthday fall on the same day. Interesting.

I visited a church today with my wife and sister and her fiance. We all seemed fine with it, but for him, he took exception to the various times when it was mentioned from the pulpit that this many people don't show up for a normal Sunday service and that they hoped that would change in the future. My guess is he isn't buying as completely into the whole Jesus thing at this point, so the petty remarks resounded more with him. But I had to agree. It's obvious that people show up on Christmas and Easter and don't come as often on other weekends. Shoot, I myself don't make it out every weekend, but usually catch the holidays. It's part tradition, part family expectation, part whatever else motivates the generally unmotivated. Still, I felt it was unnecessary to bring it up. Who cares why you have a loaded house to preach to? Give them the best of what you have. This might be their only chance to hear about the Good News, at least for another year. Don't trouble them with 'where were you's' and 'what about next week's'? Anyway, just my opinion.

This has been brought to you under the influence of several things, including some guava/papaya soup spiked with coconut rum. Yay, Jesus!

Thoroughly Overwhelmed...

Times like these make me think of how difficult it must be for people with chronic fatigue syndrome, for example, to stay on top of the details of life. I have a mild case of OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder). It mostly manifests itself in muscle twitches, routine and ruthless attention to details and 'the rules'. Although I find myself bending cognizantly in many cases, some things will never cease to be problematic. Such is life. Currently I am ending a 6 day run of work, which exhausts me, and I have one day, Sunday, to embark upon a multitude of tasks which I have been putting off for the past week and longer. Obviously, they won't all get taken care of tomorrow. But I have no choice about going after as many as I can. It's the rabbit run of life, the Sisyphusian undertaking of chores. It doesn't help that I cannot cool off. Hotlanta returns, y'all.

I'm reminded of people I know who really don't get caught up in the details of life. They don't worry, don't complain, they simply exist, and things happen in and around them. Some are successful, some more or less vagrants. It all seems random. I envy that ability to disallow the 'worries of this life' to enter into one's daily experience. I believe Jesus meant for something similar to occur. To me, that is simply one more task to toil upon, one more command to obey, one more check to remove from the list. In the end, though, it probably doesn't matter the means.

This has been brought to you under the influence of Harpoon Leviathan and tiredness. Straight up 80 proof tiredness.

Too Many Topics To Tackle...

After a significant hiatus, I return to imbue the internet with my more than likely uninteresting thoughts. Tonight I watched 'The Moon' starring Sam Rockwell. Great show. Great premise. It picks up where many sci-fi masterpieces left off, delving into the timeless, twisted perception of space occupation, specifically moon harvesting. We've seen cloning in the news. We saw the goat. We understand the concept of DNA replication. Until something steps out of the pictures and enters the workaday realm, we have only our ideas of what it all means, whether it is moral, ethical, plausible, etc. Here is where I stand...

I believe that every human being has a soul. It is unique, unspliceable, uncloneable and unquestionable. I think animals can be manipulated, or cloned if you prefer, because they do not have souls. All dogs do not go to Heaven, if you are wondering. They return to the earth. They are instinctive creatures which, like every other animal that is not homo sapiens, are merely here as moving scenery, albeit scenery which has the very definite chance of teaching us some very important lessons, not to mention showing us a rare example in nature of the unconditional love of our Creator. So, cloning. I doubt we will see it. At least on our scientists' terms. We already see it in identical twins. The fertilized egg splits. Perhaps it splits several ways. But is everything identical? The thoughts, actions, beliefs, ideas and personality of each split portion? They tend to develop their own self along the way. This is not just nature. This is the soul.

I suppose in conjecturing that this falls under most things I can conceive of, but simply don't assume will ever cross my radar (aliens, monsters, cyborgs, etc.). Every thing that is presently has a purpose in being, and everything is governed by a set of laws (i.e., laws of creation). To come across anything that even apparently violates those laws just doesn't make sense. At least, not to me. I don't disallow that extra-terrestrial life exists. I simply do not believe we will ever have a brush with it. It simply doesn't factor into the cosmology that we exist within.

To conclude, and I'm not even sure what I'm concluding to be honest, everything that happens does so by design, perhaps not purposed by but surely presided over by a single creator. All evil and tragedy will one day serve a purpose, and whether that purpose be broadcast on the grand stage or simply fulfilled in the occasional heart, rest assured it will be so. Good night, and good luck.

This has been brought to you under the influence of Bell's Two Hearted Ale. A finer IPA you will have to get very creative to find.