Peter Anspach has listed 100 keys to success to being a Successful Evil Overlord. I like #7:
When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought, I’ll shoot him and then say “No.” (via Kotkke)
I mentioned yesterday in my very maudlin post that I was tired of people buying things instead of doing things. I had several people email me or stop me in the coffee shop and ask me just what, exactly, I meant by that.
To support the troops, we buy yellow magnetic ribbons for our car and feel good. How about going to a VA hospital and volunteering? Well, yes, that would require you to change your life.
So, we buy a $16 t-shirt from American Apparel made with fair trade cotton by inner-city youths. [Rant: so, what is the message of American Apparel, anyway? "Our stuff is made so as not to exploit people, yet we objectify women in our advertising?" Sorry, rant over.] How about try to get by with fewer t-shirts? Or support your local charity thrift store and buy a recycled t-shirt for a buck? Or, heaven forfend, if you are truly worried about inner city youth, how about hooking up with an existing charity and volunteering as a mentor? Yep, another life changer.
We are worried about orphans in Africa, so we buy coffee for $12 a pound that gives kids in Africa food. How about… we study the issue, raise money (maybe by swearing off expensive coffee) and actually get involved? (Drink less expensive coffee? That is it, he has went over the edge!)
We hear that water bottles damage the environment, so we rush out and buy a $20 aluminum designer bottle. What if, instead of that, you bought one bottle of bottled water and actually saved the bottle? Better yet, I bet a friend already has some bottled water at their house they would give you. (But how would people know I am cool?)
So everyone knows that you are into saving the environment, you go out and buy a $25,000 Prius, financing it for five years. What if instead, you actually decided to drive the car you have now, less? What if you decided to try to get by on one car, so you sold one of the two you have in your garage, paid off the other one and used the money you save each month to change the world? (What, and ride the bus? Do you know the dredges of humanity that ride the bus? You want me to sit next to those people?)
I have no problem with organic, with fair trade, with hybrids or helping orphans. My big problem is when people who buy $20 water bottles or organic coffee think they are actually doing something. Here is a news flash: you are not. At best, you are engaging in a holding action, rendering your footprint neutral (there are worse things, I guess). At worst, you are perpetuating the suicide machine that is the American way of life that says we are fulfilled by what we own, what we drive and where we live. Buying things does as much to halt consumerism as promiscuity does to encourage virginity. Instead, use your creativity and intelligence to find ways to reclaim, to recycle, to reuse and to halt the madness.
Change requires change. It just does.
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The last few days have been hard. Without going into too much detail, I found out Monday morning, via email, that someone who was once very important to me had died over the weekend.
I did not even know she had been sick.
Life can be a cruel bastard, sneaking up on you like that. The doubts, the what ifs, the should haves and the could haves will drive you nuts. Knowing that someone you once cared about suffered can be heartbreaking.
Luckily, I have some awesome friends who keep me sane. For those of you who know all the details, thanks for being there. For those who do not, trust me when I tell you I just do not really want to talk about it right now, maybe later.
Thanks for understanding, and if I am a bit uncommunicative the next few days, I am just working things out, in addition to all the craziness that is normally my life.
I have the coolest friends.
Just a note to let everyone know I am fine and, apart from the crazy amounts of pollen and my sinus’s reaction to it, things are good.
I expect the next few weeks to be crazy as I prepare to move into a new apartment and begin to work on building a sustainable infrastructure behind my work with the homeless. I will write more about that later, so watch for it.
In short, my life is a bit crazy right now, but a good crazy. I am meeting new friends, expanding my horizons and finding out another world is truly possible.
I have been writing, but not much has made it to the blog… it is a bit disjointed and I would really like to make it a bit cleaner before I release it to all of you.
In the interim… If I owe you an email, I will get to it, I promise. If you owe me an email, don’t stress over it, as life is too short. Instead, hug your kid and get some rest… I probably would not have much time to read it right now anyway. 
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I tend to be very NOT political. Politicians do what they do, and being mad about that is sorta like being mad the grass is green.
When I was a small lad, (I think it was the 1980 presidential election) I remember asking my mom who she had just cast her vote for, and she told me that was private and that you never had to explain to anyone who you had voted for. That always made an impression on me, and to this day, I am very closed mouthed about who I will (or have) voted for.
Today, I got an email from a high school friend who I reconnected with last year. Now, I am on her email list, where she forwards me dire warnings of computer viruses, various urban legends and poems about Jesus superimposed over huge memory hogging pictures that end with the admonition that if I too love Jesus, I will forward the email to every person I know, post haste. Normally, I just hit the delete button. I am sure you do too.
Today I was informed by an email she forwarded to me that Barak Obama is the anti-christ. Who knew? Maybe he is, I do not know. Heck, for all I know, you are the anti-christ. However, there were a lot of allegations in the email that I have heard again and again and are just plain untrue.
For instance, Barak Obama is NOT a Muslim, radical or any other sort. He is an active, baptized member of the United Church of Christ, a rather liberal mainstrean Christian Church, and has been for over 20 years.
Barak Obama was NOT sworn in to office on a koran. That was Keith Ellison, from Minnesota.
Yes, his middle name is Hussein. So What! One of my best friend’s middle name is Sherman, but that does not mean he burnt Atlanta.
He has NEVER refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance. He has NEVER refused to put his hand over his heart when saying the Pledge. The infamous picture you have no doubt seen was during the singing of the National Anthem. The last football game I went to, well over half the people did not cover their heart with their hand during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. Many of them went to get beer and peanuts. Give the guy a break, for crying out loud.
His father is NOT from the Middle East. He is from Kenya, which is to the Middle East what Mississippi is to Wisconsin. This I found curious, but if you cannot be bothered to do research, I guess geography is beyond your reach as well.
Look, next time you want to forward me a dire warning about people stealing kidneys, Obama being the Anti-Christ or some dying kid who will get free chemo if I save my coke can tabs, check it out first on Snopes.com. You will save yourself much embarrassment.
For example: http://snopes.com/politics/obama/
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I am afraid I did.
I screwed up and managed to sabotage my site, causing everything to go to hell in a handcart. Luckily, I had backups of most of the data, so I only lost the last two weeks worth of stuff.
It is frustrating, no doubt, but in a way it is refreshing, as I have been meaning to give this site an overhaul anyway; now I have to.
For those of you who do not know, my friend-girl Renee is in the hospital, awaiting heart surgery. Which means I am in the hospital, a-waiting on her. Until they send her home, I will be here, sleeping in the world’s most uncomfortable cot.
I had a brilliant post all laid out, full of insight on the concept of fear, of mortality and of the comfort of faith in a time like this. However, I just don’t have it in me. Suffice it to say I am very tired, very scared, very nervous and, without a doubt, very loved.
I love Christmas. Real Christmas; you know, the religious celebration, birth of the Saviour of the World.
It is a time when we remember a pregnant unwed teenager and her boyfriend, who had no money and no station in life, and so had to give birth in a stable and the only crib for her baby was a feed trough.
It is a time when we remember the three wise men, who were on a search for their star, just like so many of us are.
It is a time when the hope and anticipation builds up, when all of creation is awaiting the birth of this crazy God/man who will one day teach us the power of love.
It is a time when we give each other gifts as a small symbol of the love God showed for us by giving us his son.
It is a time when families come together, when those who were lost are now found and when those who have no hope can find some.
It is a time when those of us who claim to follow the Galilean look back and remember just what it cost him to love us.
It is a time of “Good Tidings and Great Joy, for all people…”
I just wish I saw more of that when I go to the store.
Over at my other blog, I have started a small periodic newsletter to keep folks informed of what we are doing here in Raleigh and what they can do to help, whether they are here or from where they are.
If this is your sort of thing, I hope you will consider signing up. Of course, we will not share your info with anyone and you can unsubscribe anytime.
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How much is enough? At what point are you no longer buying your house for you, but for the high opinions of your friends and neighbors? When do you stop owning things, and things begin to own you?
With the exception of the Gospels, no book has had a larger impact in my life than Walden by Henry David Thoreau. His “experiment” has entered the American mythos; how he “went to the woods to live deliberately”, how he built a shack and lived there, largely self sufficient for a shade over 2 years, always asking himself those sort of questions and writing down the answers he found.
Thoreau was a man with an insatiable curiosity and was a tireless reporter of his surroundings. As a pimply faced, un-confident 16 year old, the advice he gave me was not only good, but in a real sense, lifesaving.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
A good friend of mine (Hey Kim!) is reading Walden right now, and she was blogging about it yesterday. She recounts one of my favorite stories from Walden; the tale of the three rocks.
Henry (as I like to call him) was on an outing and found three pieces of limestone. He put them upon his desk, because he liked the way they looked (Haven’t we all done that? Maybe it was not a rock, but a geegaw we got at the flea market, or that broken music box, or the three months of newspaper you have in the corner). In any event, it was not long until Henry discovered that he did not just get rocks, but he now had a job dusting rocks, moving rocks, looking at rocks. In a fit of disgust, he threw the rocks away. You see, he had discovered that he no longer owned the rocks, the rocks now owned him…
Possesions have a way of owning us. That new car is not just a payment of $350 a month to the finance company. It is also oil changes, insurance premiums, pumping gas, the car wash, worry over nicks and dings… When you buy a car, you buy all that as well.
In addition, Henry talked about valuing things by the amount of life energy it cost you to get them. A some quick examples may serve here.
Most everyone trades time for money. Some do it directly, such as getting paid $10 an hour, while others (such as myself) are paid more for results, but those results still take time to produce. Let us say our hypothetical person has an hourly value of $20.
If that is true, then that $60 coat you want costs 3 hours of your life. You will never get those 3 hours back. They are gone. That $800 computer is 40 hours of your life, or almost 2 full days of your life. If someone told you they would give you the computer for free, but you would have to die two days before your time, would you be willing to do it? No? Well, that is what you did. That $200 games system cost you 10 hours away from your children.
By looking at things this way, the value (or lack of it) becomes real clear, real fast. I am unwilling to shave 20 hours off my life each month in exchange for the privilege of driving a new car; I refuse to trade 3 hours a week in exchange for a meal at the finest restaurants; you will not see me surrender two hours of my life for a pair of fashionable pants. Not when I will be just as warm in a pair that cost me only 15 minutes, leaving me an hour and forty five minutes of life to watch children play, to see the sun come up, to sip coffee and read a poem.
I think Henry would agree.