‘Til I Hear It From You is an awesome, awesome song! I know, I know, I’m way behind the time but I just heard it on the radio and was really impressed with it. It’s stuck in my head right now and I’m really enjoying it; a few minutes ago I went and figured out how to play the chords on the piano and it’s really fun to play, too.

I was just about to ask how it’s possible that the same act that did this song churned out such a piece of shit as Hey Jealousy (see my previous post on the subject) but I just looked it up and realized the difference: ‘Til I Hear It From You was written by a professional. With some freaking taste.

I worked overtime this month, so I haven’t posted.

Tron: Legacy is awesome. Garrett Hedlund is ridiculously good looking. The soundtrack is excellent, except it should (IMO) consist of fewer, longer and more coherent tracks. It’s also got me thinking about my sci-fi fantasy world that I haven’t mentioned to anyone. It’s been over 11 years since The Matrix came out, and it’s time for another movie to do the same thing to people: make them question the reality that’s been handed to them.

(four hyphens)

I observed today that my anger / resentment / blame of the LDS church and its members, along with the whole of Christianity and all organised religion and all expressions of faith, seems to be closely related and/or connected to my sadness / depression / frustration / loneliness at being continually single.

Tonight I took some steps, made some requests, asked to meet some people. I discovered that I file people into three categories: More attractive than me, Less attractive than me, and Female; and that I don’t approach any of them for their own reasons. For those more attractive, I think the answer will be no, so I don’t bother; for those less, why would I anyway? And for females, well, don’t worry about it, they’ll be knocking down my door soon enough anyway.

Seriously. I love my women. But can I please have some more male friends? Preferably ones around my age, preferably gay, preferably attractive, single, and into me?

In therapy last week, I stated that I don’t trust many people. I won’t lend many people money (if I thought you could pay me back, you wouldn’t need the loan) or tools (if you don’t have a working vacuum cleaner, there’s probably a good reason) and, most importantly of all, I distrust everyone else’s opinion at least a little bit, and the more espoused you are to your opinion, the more seriously I will question it.

It’s a common mistake to think that, because people trust you, you are, therefore, trustworthy. Therefore, the way to be trustworthy is to get people to trust you. Consequently, we see a great many people doing all kinds of unethical things to get people to believe them, and many more people falling for it.

But I digress. The meat of this essay concerns you (the reader) and me (the writer), personally, directly, intimately. I don’t trust you. I don’t think you, specifically, are as capable as you think you are, of making sense of the world, and of drawing correct conclusions from the evidence presented to you. In fact, I think you pretty much stink at figuring out what’s actually going on based on the information at hand.

The pious are quite fond of this. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but they’ve made a real game out of getting people to trust them while distrusting everyone else–lean not on the arm of flesh, after all. (But me? I have your best interests at heart! Really, I do!) (Aside: My belief in God didn’t provide me with anyone who I actually could trust, and without that belief, there isn’t anyone to trust, which is a pretty sad thought.)

I’ve adopted, as a rule of thumb, that the more insistent a person is that they have my best interests in mind, the more sure I can be that they don’t, and that there is some ulterior motive at play.

Which brings us back to me. (Imagine that! Me talking about myself on my own blog.)

In late February of this year, I signed up and became part of a program by Landmark Education called the Introduction Leaders Program (ILP). The program ran from February through September, though I was no longer part of it as of mid-June (that’s another story) and it’s only now I’ve started to confront the real reason I signed up. I had something to prove.

The point of the ILP is to become a new kind of person: one who listens to people, who understands them, and who is empowered to offer them something that will really make a difference for them; something that will assist them in fulfilling on their inmost and honest desires.

For most of the time I was in school, I was the best student in my class. I finished every test the fastest AND got the most questions correct; I was the best at math, spelling, science, reading–everything that you got a grade for beyond just participation. And then, when I was in ninth grade, that changed, and very suddenly, I was performing much worse than students I’d run circles around in eighth grade.

Now, it’s natural for someone who’s the big fish in a small pond to find themselves closer to the middle of the curve when they move from the pond to the lake, but usually, it’s because they’re suddenly exposed to a community of people like them, or smarter. My oldest sister was an example of this, going from West High School in little old Salt Lake City to Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

But that’s not what happened with me. My experience was with a couple of really key teachers who had something to prove themselves, convincing me that I wasn’t good at math, or language, or music. “You’re not as smart as you think you are,” one teacher actually said to me. And for a while, I believed him.

That particular teacher, it turns out, didn’t like me because I was smart, and therefore, I got in the way of his chasing the tails of the girls in his classes. That was his only year teaching there.

Is there a point? Yes. The point is that I am driven to be the best at certain things, and that I invented that drive for myself, and it exists to cover up my perceived failure: the areas where I am the best are all I’ve got. I see myself as the very epitome of failure when it comes to things that happen outdoors or involve physical strength.

And where did that come from? That’s a story I made up about myself when I was probably six, and the other boys played rough and I didn’t like playing rough, and I didn’t like when they hit me, and to them it was no big deal. (Today, I find, I actually have a higher tolerance for pain than most of my peers.) I was not “hefty, hefty, hefty!” I was “wimpy, wimpy, wimpy!” And this story plays itself out today as I sit and think about how I really should go to a gym, how I’d really like to put on some muscle, tone some things, improve some things, and the inexplicable anxiety I have around the whole thing.

You see, I trusted my own judgment about myself.

I guess I should let you all know that I don’t trust any of you. Really, at a deep level, I think you’re basically all unable to think for yourselves or reach sane conclusions given the evidence before you. There might be a few individuals here and there who I think are on the right track, but they are extremely rare.

This isn’t really important on its own, but it comes into play when the time comes for me to build my community. You see, universal mistrust of other humans makes for a lonely life, which is what I have. I find myself unable to give of myself to the work other people are working on. From the outside, it looks like I’m making the perfect the enemy of the good. Inside, it’s not that simple: I’m willing to make compromises in order to achieve progress, but when it’s time to actually participate, I just can’t make myself do it.

I didn’t used to be this way. But, as I’ve lived my life, I’ve given myself to lots of seemingly worthwhile outside endeavors. The church, the scouts, the church, Affirmation, the church, Reconciliation, the church, Landmark, the church, the Postal Service, and the church, were all central to my life for some time, and they all failed to serve me, some of them in really spectacular ways.

(I’ll pick Landmark Education out of the pack, because Landmark, as an organization, actually tried to serve me, though they didn’t have the right tools for what I was dealing with at one specific moment. The others failed to try, or went out of their way to antagonize me.)

It’s no wonder now that I dread going to work. I have come to loathe giving of myself to anyone or anything, especially if there’s doubt about that things interest in my well-being, future, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, etc.

So The Matrix has become a placeholder for all these things in life. It’s a shorthand for that which demands more and offers less to you with each passing year. That which promises Zion and delivers Hell.

This is not my best post ever, but it’s important.

(Shamelessly ripped from The Principia Discordia.)

The SOCRATIC APPROACH is most successful when confronting the ignorant. The “socratic approach” is what you call starting an argument by asking questions. You approach the innocent and simply ask “Did you know that God’s name is ERIS, and that He is a girl?” If he should answer “Yes.” then he probably is a fellow Erisian and so you can forget it. If he says “No.” then quickly proceed to:

THE BLIND ASSERTION and say “Well, He Is a girl, and His name is ERIS!” Shrewedly observe if the subject is convinced. If he is, swear him into the Legion of Dynamic Discord before he changes his mind. If he does not appear convinced, then proceed to:

THE FAITH BIT: “But you must have Faith! All is lost without Faith! I sure feel sorry for you if you don’t have Faith.” And then add:

THE ARGUMENT BY FEAR and in an ominous voice ask “Do you know what happens to those who deny Goddess?” If he hesitates, don’t tell him that he will surely be reincarnated as a precious Mao Button and distributed to the poor in the Region of Thud (which would be a mean thing to say), just shake your head sadly and, while wiping a tear from your eye, go to:

THE FIRST CLAUSE PLOY wherein you point to all of the discord and confusion in the world and exclaim “Well who the hell do you think did all of this, wise guy?” If he says, “Nobody, just impersonal forces.” then quickly respond with:

THE ARGUMENT BY SEMANTICAL GYMNASTICS and say that he is absolutely right, and that those impersonal forces are female and that Her name is ERIS. If he, wonder of wonders, still remains obstinate, then finally resort to:

THE FIGURATIVE SYMBOLISM DODGE and confide that sophisticated people like himself recognize that Eris is a Figurative Symbol for an Ineffable Metaphysical Reality and that The Erisian Movement is really more like a poem than like a science and that he is liable to be turned into a Precious Mao Button and Distributed to The Poor in The Region of Thud if he does not get hip. Then put him on your mailing list.