The Right Mix

After missing it two weeks in a row, I remembered to watch BSG last night. I know that there have been complaints that the show was lacking in it’s previous luster, but I think last night had the right formula – a mix of character drama and action; man vs. self and man vs. nature (in the case of last night, at least.)
So last night was Admiral Adama’s turn for self-reflection and growth; with the memory of his ex-wife, his son, and his possible new love interest. All very well done and convincing. Interspersed with this is an action story of sorts, Kalli and the Chief getting stuck in the airlock and having to go out the back way. So a good balance of character development, and harrowing adventure to keep the show from becoming a soap opera. I think that as long as they don’t stray too far to either side for too many consecutive episodes they’ll be good.

No Big Surprise

Well the reviews for Ghost Rider are awful. And that includes sites where the movies are reviewed by comic fans like IGN.com. Sadly, I had a feeling. Oh well, I still have Frank Miller’s 300 coming out in a few weeks, and the early reviews are stunning. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival yesterday and was greeted by a ten minute standing ovation afterwards, as well. Swords, epic battles, men who stand up for an ideal and lay down their lives to fight for it, this film has everything I love in a story. Oh and it is based on one of my favorite Frank Miller graphic novels, so it has that going for it, too.

It just fell on me like a ton of bricks.

It’s weird how random elements often come together around the same time and coalesce in us as revelation. While some might see this as coincidence, I see this as providence. The latest gift I’ve received of providence has to do with Joseph Campbell, Pierre Abélard, C.S. Lewis’ four names of love, Garret LoPorto’s revelation that much of modern Christianity focuses on logos while all but abandoning eros, Jesus’ command to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and the old truism that we hate in others that which we hate most in ourselves.

It starts with the marginally related elements. I’ve been thinking of Pierre Abélard recently, as I have a situation similar to one for which he is most famous, but that’s not something I’m going to go into. Anyway, to soothe myself I’ve been listening to an interview of Joseph Campbell, where he speaks of love in western mythology, specifically Christianity’s doctrine of agape, which is of course one of the four loves identified by C.S. Lewis. I was reading up on Lewis’ The Four Loves because I’m organizing my music according to them. Let me paraphrase Lewis’ definitions so everyone is on the same page:

• philia – brotherly or friendly love; generally love for another person devoid of sexual interest
• eros – sexual love, or as Campbell describes it, “the zeal of the organs for each other.”
• amore – what we traditionally think of love, or romantic love. The love reserved for spouses/partners.
• agape – love of God, but also love for others that is both unconditional and voluntary. It is the love of which Jesus spoke when he commanded “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

So having both the definitions of love from Lewis and the assertion that agape is the ultimate tenet of Christianity rolling around in my head, one or both of them must have bumped into my memory of LoPorto’s assertion that many modern Christians focus on the logos or logic, dogma, rules, of the faith almost to the exclusion of its eros (which in this context refers to love, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding). Put another way, many Christians are acting in an Old Testament fashion to the exclusion of New Testament action. It’s the type of behavior that turns so many off to religion; that has so many people sneer and scoff at the sound of the word “Christian.”

The question is, “why?” Why do so many feel that judgment and condemnation are Christian virtues? The answer I think is in the old truism: we hate in ourselves that which we hate most in others. Now that I’m divorced, the distinction of ‘person who most easily gets under my skin’ is my dad. Why? Because we’re so alike. I see his sheepishness, his lack of self-confidence, and his social awkwardness and I get angry with him. I get angry because those are all things that I wrestle with in myself. Those are things that I hate in myself.

So why are so many Christians so quick to condemn others when the second-highest commandment in Christianity is to “love your neighbor as yourself?” Why do so many Christians disobey that penultimate command?

Maybe they don’t. If you look at the command, it states that Christians should love their neighbors as much as, as well as, they love themselves. But if you don’t love yourself, then that pretty much dictates that you’ll be a big jerk to everyone else, too. And from what I’ve experienced, much of modern Christianity may give lip service to self-love (agape in Lewis’ definitions, not eros), but in fact promotes self-loathing. We are such bad people that Jesus had to sacrifice himself as a scapegoat for our sins.

But I agree with Abélard’s understanding of the crucifixion that it is not a ransom paid or a penalty applied, but an act of at-one-ment (atonement) with all humanity. The crucifixion illustrates the suffering inherent all our lives, and removes our minds from commitment to things in this world in compassion for Christ. It is in this capacity that the wounded becomes the savior. Humankind yearning for God and God yearning for humankind on the Cross in compassion met.

Which is what we need, compassion. We need unconditional and voluntary love – agape – first for ourselves, and then for others. We must truly and without self-deceit love ourselves first, and then we can do so for our neighbors. When we can pluck the beam from our own eyes and can forgive ourselves for having imperfections in the first place, we will not mention the mote in another’s because of our common unity (community) in imperfection and common passion (compassion) for life, suffering and all.

More Is Better – A Pet Theory

Pimp’s last post got me thinking about why some ideas get taken to extremes. He also got me wondering about the Girls Gone Wild stuff, and what prompts that kind of behavior.

Now, not being omniscient, any and all theories I have are subject to a bias of my experiences, and a lack there-of. That being said, my best guess is that somebody will always figure more is better. If moderation of alcohol is good, then abstinence must be better. Or, if moderation of alcohol is good, then total immersion must be better. If my parents were too harsh, then I should be far too lenient. What kids need today is a good ass-whipping. The solution imagined is often more of the same. As I’ve heard people say, “if violence doesn’t solve the situation, then you aren’t hitting hard enough.” It’s rare to hear someone suggest balance.

And why is balance so often neglected as a solution? Because it requires more of us. We have to make constant judgment calls, rather than make a single decision and apply it to every situation. Balance requires us to analyze every situation individually. And what if we’re not good at doing that? Well, rather than admit it and try to learn how, we often simply yell louder, hit harder, drink more, or become stricter.

Now, as for the Girls Gone Wild stuff, I actually don’t know. I do know that I’ve known plenty of girls who would do things at 20 that they wouldn’t do at 25 or older. I don’t know if it’s an age + culture thing, and I never will – I’m a dude. I do know that every woman that I’ve known personally who had ‘relations’ with another woman at one point has also been promiscuous with men. And, they have had abusive or neglectful childhoods, usually heavily the fault of the father. I guess what I’m stumbling towards here is that often the joy and wild abandon you see on the late night commercials might come more from an attempt to salve a sorrow than anything else.

Or maybe I’m way off. I don’t know.

Stirring the Soul

Often times it is easy to get discouraged, and to let your dreams just fade into the background. Once that has happened for me I just sort of wade through life until something inspirational stirs my soul and awakens the dreams again. So to keep this from happening, I am making a list of the things that I find that wake my soul up and get it excited so that I can resort to them when I get discouraged. A few from my list would include the movie Braveheart (as well as the soundtrack), staring at campfire, and reading Hebrews 11. The list goes on, but I would like to know what inspires you? What stirs your soul awake?

A little something I’d like to have …

In an effort to fill some of the blog slack that Swany spoke of, I have decided to share with everyone something that I hope to have some day.

Some of you may know that I have started trading in the stock market, but what you might not know is that there is a whole niche of computers and monitor set-ups for traders. What you are seeing above is something that I could actually put to use right away. At a large price tag, though, that won’t be happening anytime soon. It will happen though.

Another year or two in a galaxy far, far away…

A sneak peek at the New York Toy Fair this week of what the future of a certain sci-fi license holds. I may have to put myself in carbonite to wait that long. For several years now there were rumours of a planned Boba Fett heavy TV show set in between Episode 3 and Episode 4. I’d say that might just be more then a rumour now. Oh, my Star Wars Boba Fett collector cup runneth over!

From now on, please refer to me as the Artist Formerly Known As Scootypuff jr.

During my past ten years of goofing off in the realm formerly known as cyberspace (notice that name has gone into disuse?), I’ve adopted several nom de keyboards, usually taken from whatever was tickling my funny bone at the time. Because of this, I’ve developed a form of internet personality disorder, and I’m losing track of who said what where. Was it Blue Fugate on AIM? Was it Spice Weasel on CoX? Was it Scootypuff jr. on the Kool-Aid blog? It’s all oh so confusing.

So in an effort to integrate my multiple user personalities, I’m adopting a single screen name. I’d go see a psychiatrist instead, but I don’t have health insurance.

If you mourn the passing of Scootypuff jr., please know that I think you’re friggin’ nuts. It’s still me, guys.

As a friend recently said, “God knows us by our hearts, not our names.”

I hope that booger pizzas invoke much fear.

This might get Scooty all excited, but my guess is that he has little clue.

Every so often I get to help a kid with his homework. This last Monday was one of those days. I got to help a 4th grader separate words into diphthongs and digraphs. Fortunately, he had the answers from class. Unfortunately, he had no idea what either meant. I had only a little clue about diphthongs, and no clue about digraphs. Plus my little clue about a diphthong stopped with only having heard the word before.

Well, something you should know about me is that I like to know stuff. My sister loves to refer to me as a Sabe La Todo (it is ironic that I do not know how if Spanish phrase is spelled correctly). Not knowing what something means usually requires me to find out the meaning – but only if I can find out with little effort. As a kid this meant asking my parents what something meant. They would either tell me (which would also include making up an answer that I would believe), or they would tell me to go look it up and return with the answer for them as well. Things have not changed much since being a little kid. The only difference is that Wikipedia has now replaced my folks. Wikipedia responds the same way though. It either knows the answer (which would also include made up answers that I believe), or it tells me to go find the answer somewhere else and bring it back to make an entry on the site.

Luckily, little effort was spent because little miss Wiki had the answer for me. I even found out some really fun stuff about voiceless postalveolar affricates and voiceless labiodental fricatives (which all this time I really thought was men quietly using nature’s own dental floss). What I want to know is if you know what a diphthong or digraph is without looking it up first? Does your elementary education stand up to the test?

A little blog update…

Here at The Life and Times of Chester Cheetah and the Kool-Aid Gang we like to promote procrastination, but not time wasting. It occurred to me that some of you may still obsessively check back into the website multiple times during the day expending precious seconds/minutes/hours that could have been spent surfing other sites/blogging/playing video games/playing with yourself and wondering if someone validated what you thought was a rather humorous piece of writing.

Well, I thought I’d throw in a “Recent Comments” section to the sidebar, just so you don’t miss any comments responding to posts that are months old. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed both for new posts and for new comments.