DS & NT: Small Man Complex

To all and any who are interested, there's a new Dreamscapes and Night Terrors up: Small Man Complex.

If you're coming late to the show, you can start at the beginning here: The New Weed.

Enjoy!

A Broken Man

Hey, this is just a head's up for anyone who's interested. There's a new vignette up at Dreamscapes and Night Terrors: A Broken Man. Enjoy.

Ping-Pong With the Devil

Last night an expatriate friend of mine bugged me to write a post for his blog, Universe Think Tank, where he pursues questions of a theological nature. He's still very much wondering whether there really is a god, a higher realm, or an unseen reality, and while he's been orbiting that particular question for a while he seems to be honestly seeking answers he can't seem to make the 'leap' and just start getting on with things. Well, debating the God vs. No God issue is kind of dull for me, I admit, but I ended up writing an essay anyhow, which is now posted over at his site as Ping-Pong With the Devil. I was just thinking now, though, wouldn't it be a nice if a few of the Mirrors crew stopped by there to leave some of their erudition behind in the comments? Who knows, maybe something someone says might give the kid a nudge in the right direction.

Dreamscapes and Night Terrors

As if it wasn't difficult enough keeping two blogs on the go, I've now added a third: Dreamscapes and Night Terrors, where I'll be posting my short fiction whenever the muse takes me. The first story, The New Weed, is already serving as the inaugural post.

Mea Culpa

I'm a terrible human being. No, really, it's true. Let me explain:

Last night I was checking up on my grad school applications, and I noticed that a letter of reference had yet to arrive from a professor who'd agreed to do it some time ago. Now, the grad office had very nicely agreed to let me apply even though the application deadline had passed a few days previously, and a month later my application remained unfinished due to the lack of said reference letter. I was thrown into a panic. My hopes and dreams for this year are very much tied up in attaining a master's degree, and if I didn't get in simply because the professor hadn't bothered to send a letter of reference ... well, what was I to do?

Now, this professor is in the physics department (my undergrad major), but the program I'm applying to is economics. My mind immediately leapt to the conclusion - wholly unsupported by any evidence - that this man had spitefully decided to withdraw his support solely because I'd turned my back on his noble profession. I wanted to call him up, shout at him, "You two-faced bucktoothed goblin, you've destroyed my year!" Revenge fantasies swam through my head: I'd take him to small-claims court, to recoup my wasted application fees; I'd hand out defamatory leaflets outside the lab; I'd stencil a black magic sigil on his office door; I'd ... this and that and all manner of other vile things.

I didn't sleep well at all last night. So strong was the pull of the negative attractor my mind had fallen into that I could find no peace.

But today, I called up. It turns out that while the application deadline is well passed, the deadline for reference letters is considerably more generous, with quite some time remaining. He simply hasn't gotten around to it yet, but only because he's your stereotypical absent-minded professor, with a head full of abstract mathematics and the weight of the underraduate program on his shoulders. Talking to him, hearing his mild voice and mannered words, I was reminded of what a pleasant and decent man he is. He's helped me before, in other manners, and is helping me again.

And I wished him ill, because ... because of fear, I suppose. And under the shadow of that fear I assumed the worst, as I so often do. And so I wished him ill, and saw a deformed and hideous part of myself that, much as I hate to acknowledge it, is indeed a part of myself. It's come to the surface before, and I'm sure it will rear it's ugly head again, sometime in the future. It seems only fair that I give that monster its due, which is why I'm telling you all about it, whether you want to know or not.

And, professor? You won't read this, nor will you ever hear about it. You won't know the awful things I thought. And nor will you know now that I'm sending a blessing your way. You deserve much better students than I.

The Antichrist Stole My Name

It may not have escaped your notice that the URL at this site, http://moonslurpies.blogspot.com/, doesn't match the title on the header, Moon Food. That's not on purpose, of course: when I was picking blog names, Moon Food was already taken. So, proceeding with the mental image of a plethora of hair-thin straws sucking up the subtle energies of every conscious being on Earth into the Moon's puckered lips, I went with moonslurpies and the rest, as they say, was history. (As a side note, I'll have a graphic of that up, just as soon as I figure out how to use the image processing software my graphic designer friend lent me (and I'm making no promises for how soon that will be.))

It occurred to me recently (and yes I know you'll be scratching your heads wondering why this didn't occur to me to do before, at the moment even, but then mind is funny that way) to check out what was going on at the nemesis who'd snatched away my brilliant idea for a blog name before I'd even thought of it. Behold, then http://moonfood. blogspot.com/, the Mega site of Bible studies and information.

I've got to say, that's given me a serious WTF!? moment. What does being Moon Food have to do with Biblical prophecy?

Well, a great deal I should imagine, though I'm not sure if however many people actually visit this gargantuan accumulation of lizard shit (a lot, I should imagine, though a visit counter is conspicuously absent) would really get the joke. Think any of them have even heard of Gurdjieff? No, neither do I. Visitors might raise an eyebrow at the URL, shrug, and go back to reading about the Antrichrist, how to pick a church, and why you shouldn't swear. Whoever put the site up, however, no doubt does get the joke ... and I imagine they think it quite a good one, at that.

Well har dee har har. Good one. But this blog's only been around for a few months, and it's already very near the top of search headings for Moon Food, where my presurper is nowhere to be found. Who's laughing now?

Let me make it clear, here, for anyone who hasn't heard me say it before: the faithful Christians who believe so strongly in the return of the Antichrist, are in fact serving that Antichrist. They don't know that, of course. They think they're fighting him in their day to day lives and preparing for the day when they'll be fighting him for real. What they don't realize is that the energy focused by this conflict creates exactly the conditions that allow an Antichrist to rise in the first place. Their efforts to eradicate his influence within society instead cause that influence to permeate it, preparing the ground as it were, until finally we get something like this:


Congratulations, bozos. Now you'll get that fight you've been waiting for. And the Moon will be sucking it all up and loving every drop of it.

"Leaders"

This is a subject that's been on my mind a lot recently. It's unavoidable, really. Whether it's the legions of Obamanoids drunk on the latest kool-aid and hypnotically mouthing the new presidential pledge ... or otherwise sane people freaking out and throwing around accusations of being a paid disinfo merchant when someone has the temerity to talk trash about one of their pet foreign leaders ... what is it about people that makes them want to believe in their leaders, oh, so badly?

Look, here's the thing. I'm not some kind of anarchist. Really, I'm not. I've done my time in the army. I've taken orders (though I admit, it's not my strong suit.) I'm mature enough to recognize when I should listen to someone who's older, or more experienced, wiser in the ways of ... whatever it is I happen to be doing at the moment. That's really the only sort of leadership I recognize, the sort that grows organically out of experience and wisdom. If you know more about what we're doing than I, well all right then, consider yourself in charge. By the same token, if neither of us is any more knowledgeable about the task at hand, let's just agree to cooperate ... and if you still feel the need to give orders ("Hey, someone's got to be in charge around here!"), please shut the fuck up and go your own way, 'cause brother, I don't play that game.

Well, that's my attitude. But it seems there's a lot of people - an easy majority - who have this pathological need to suspend their own judgement, handing over their will to self-proclaimed messiah figures who promise to deliver them from ... well, from whatever they need delivering from. From the enemy? Sure. From the economy? Why not. From themselves? Even better. You can promise anything you want when you don't have any intention of following through.

I wouldn't mind this dynamic so much if it weren't for the fact that once people get it into their heads to follow whatever leader comes around, sooner or later dead bodies start piling up. Read your history (I know, I know. Read something!? So much to ask. To paraphrase Xerxes in 300, your masters ask only that you kneel before them; I demand that you stand on your own two feet.) And if you think it's going to be any different this time around, if you think the end result of Obamamania's going to differ in any way from the Cultural Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution or Year Zero or ... well, you get the idea.

Actually, it will be different this time around. There's gonna be a lot more dead bodies.

Don't believe me on that? Well, that's your prerogative, naturally. But you might want to ask yourselves what's up with the FEMA camps ... why the laws preventing martial law were quietly dismantled during the 43rd presidency ... and how, precisely, a bankrupt government proposes to pay the entitlements for a whole generation of baby boomers....

It's not that the people following the leaders are bad, though some of them inevitably are. It's that those leaders are almost invariably psychopaths, in the clinical sense of the term: they are masters of dissimulation and manipulation, they have no conscience, and they are not so much playing you like a violin as conducting a whole symphony of lies. Of course you don't believe me, and they count on this, that once you've made the investment of self in whatever brand of salvation they've gotten you hooked on, you won't want to hear different from anyone. In fact, you won't want to hear different so badly that you'll look the other way when the camps start filling up ... you'll plug your ears when the screams start coming through the fence ... hell, you might even beat the shit out of anyone who questions whether whatever you're doing is right.

Sure, you're not a bad person.

But if you keep drinking that kool-aid, you will be.

Now, maybe a few people reading this - a few who haven't already been nodding along with me, a few who don't belong to the choir I'm preaching to - maybe a few of you are getting tired of the kool-aid. The artificial sweeteners aren't doing such a great job of hiding that chemical aftertaste ... maybe you're starting to feel the gut-rot ... maybe you want some real food. Well, I can't feed you. But I can promise you this: you can feed yourself, if you really want to.

And in the final analysis, that's what it comes down to. See, they've got the whole world convinced that, one way or another, we need to be led. Even the most cynical amongst us find it hard to accept that there aren't some leaders - Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Putin, take your pick - who aren't merely self-obsessed narcissistic pathocrats. Surely somewhere there must be someone in power who's a basically decent person, right?

Right?

Bullshit. The only way anyone gets power in this world is if they seek it. And if they seek it, five'll get you ten you're dealing with a psychopath, because ordinary people simply aren't interested in telling other people what to do (and when I say 'ordinary people', I don't just mean the man on the street. I mean the 96% of us who have a conscience.) Ever heard of ponerology? Chances are you haven't, and that's not just because you don't like to read.



Listen. By their fruits ye shall know them. Look beyond the press releases, the speeches, the shiny new endowments and charities and social programs, and look at the state of the world. Anyone who's ever observed any organization knows that you can learn a lot about the man in charge simply by observing the state of his fiefdom. Get a bad person in power and the rot will inevitably spread downwards. So: can you point me to a country (any country) where the indicators have been unequivocally positive, recently? Even in Venezuela, that bastion of the progressive New Left, has seen an explosion in violent crime and corruption over the past decade. You want to tell me that Chavez hasn't had anything to do with that?

So how's that fruit taste?

What it comes down to is this: you cannot trust anyone who wants to be your leader. Real leaders are elected by the people by a sort of natural democracy, and I'm not talking primaries and parliaments here. The position comes to them, not the other way around. They're the only ones you can trust, but they're few and far between these days so first, you have to learn to lead yourself and follow your own heart. The sooner you realize that - the sooner you get it through your head that regardless of country, party or cause, self-appointed leaders will lead you nowhere but towards your own destruction - the sooner we can all stop breaking each others heads and get on with the business of making a world that doesn't need leaders.

Or you can take another bite of that fruit.