Mormons, morons and me

I’m sorry… I lied. Or at least cowardly failed to tell the truth, which would be something like “I know what you are, and I assure you in front of the Light that we would both spend our time more wisely talking to cauliflowers than each other.”

I need to take God more seriously when he “talks” to me. That is to say, when I know in my heart what God wants me to do. OK, it is sometimes hard to say what is God and what is just plain sanity. Like “don’t be polite to Mormons unless lives depend on it”.

The other day I met two of those excessively well-dressed cute boys, speaking reasonably good Norwegian, hailing me on my way to the bus. They wanted to talk to me about Jesus Christ. I think the irony here can be cut with a diamond saw, but being the polite guy I am, I stopped and talked with them. Not wanting to get into a religious discussion, I praised Jesus Christ for his contribution to western civilization, which it is safe to say would not have been anywhere the same – or even been anywhere – without him. No offense to Hermes and friends, but history just made a pretty sharp turn down there in the Middle East back then.

Needless to say, the overly polite missionaries gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon (which is supposedly completed my Mr. Mormon’s son, Moroni, but which was for some reason not named accordingly.) Since I seem to have displaced my previous copy – probably during one of the moves – I eventually accepted the book, and in return gave them my phone number. The local branch of God did not approve.

The book is, for lack of a better word, even more “moronic” than I remember it from the first time I acquainted myself with it. That is not to say that it is a bad document. It has much positive, which I believe is without exception lifted from the Bible, of which it is a rather obvious copy. My impression is that the “Mormons” – the members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints – are good people, by and large. They also count the Bible as Holy Scripture. Not saying that this makes them good people – there are some truly awful people who worship the Bible as if it were a god.

The thing is, even if I had the power to dissuade these missionaries from their path – which I can’t, since I am not that awesome, and since changing their religion would cause them to lose face, not to mention their friends, their jobs, their families and their future marriages – even if I could change their minds, it seems unlikely that I could change them for the better. That is not to say that there is no better faith than theirs. Mine is better for me, obviously, but it is also pretty personal and verging on unique. What I mean is, most organized religions would not really be an improvement in terms of living a happy, peaceful, friendly life which most likely would serve as good practice for a great afterlife.

Even in this day and age, most people are not very personal. That is to say, they don’t have a soul (psyche) that is very differentiated. Much like sheep (which incidentally have a very good reputation in the Bible) these people tend to look to those around them and run in the same direction. For such people to understand me and others like me is quite literally impossible. This is not a matter of me being “better” than them, but rather more capacious. A child of 7 may be morally superior to a 70 year old, but there are many things the child cannot possibly understand. In the same way, there are things an unreflected person cannot understand, even after a long life, because that long life does not include that particular type of experiences that a reflected, individualized person has.

Needless to say, people who only have experience of the 5th dimension (Blue vMeme) and below will firmly believe that this is very nearly all there is. They may dimly perceive that there is something more which may be attainable in this life, but that is the realm of prophets and such.

As I said, this is really the situation for all religions. I am sure the vast majority of Happy Science followers have the same sheepish attitude. Even among “Smith’s Friends” (not Joseph Smith, Johan Oscar Smith) there accumulated such people over the years, despite starting out with none of them and literally telling those who appeared to get out. I guess it can’t be helped. But I should have listened to God – or the voice of reason, since they agree heartily on this – and kept far away from this latest bunch.

Hellish dreaming & writing

Indeed it is a dream rated 18 and above, that is why I don’t write about it in detail.

This morning again I woke up from a hellish dream. In my dream, I was a woman on another planet, sometime in the age of space travel.  I was a kind of ninja warrior type, and at the time I woke up I was torturing a father to death in front of his daughter whom he had abused.

The emotional intensity of the dream was not as high as the real thing would have been, but it was definitely not a good feeling.  Despite an hour of delta wave entrainment, my mind remained restless this morning.

The thing is, I used to read stories like this until fairly recently. They still sell them over at Fictionwise (now Barnes & Noble e-books) and probably many other places, and they are common enough.  I suppose there are reasons why we are drawn to read stories like that, apart from killing time. A twisted sense of justice comes to mind.  And of course the intensity of emotion.  Though I suppose people who have TV, and especially American TV channels, won’t get much emotional intensity out of a book after seeing literally thousands of people being killed before their eyes in a lifetime. (If you have children and TV in the same room, you are hardly in a position to judge those who sacrificed their children to Moloch.)

I would write stories about war and fighting and killing when I was younger. To be honest, I felt a need to write them, a kind of relief. Writing made from such a motivation has no right to be shared, and I didn’t.  Therapeutic writing I have seen it called, and I suppose it may work that way, if you practice self-reflection afterwards.  Otherwise you may well end up perpetuating the darkness inside.  I think the same thing about the dreams.  They tell me something about myself, but I am no longer a passive observer of myself. Observer yes, but the purpose of my observation is not to continue being the same until I die.  I am in a process of change.   “All that is revealed is Light.”

On that note, I am not happy to see the new expansion to City of Heroes, Going Rogue.  No, it is not inspired by a certain American politician.  Wouldn’t that be cool, perhaps we could have gotten new Defender power sets:  Faith Healing and Hunting Rifle.  But noo, we are offered a whole expansion based on moral ambiguity, betrayal and dark secrets. What the hell, people.  City of Heroes used to be a pretty straight forward game, where the strong defended the weak.  As a bystander would say from time to time: “Forget those postmodern deconstructionists, Itland is a true hero, plain and simple.”

I know real life is not quite as simple as your nearby Southern Baptist may claim, but then again neither are the Southern Baptists.  Lots of them have their own secrets.  But enough about that, the fact is that if you need to keep secrets more sinister than a surprise birthday party, it’s self-reflection time!

Now back to writing. There is a lot of writing in the world, and very little of it is great literature.  Most of it is simply entertainment, and I won’t judge that, especially since my attempts at fiction have mostly been like that.  When you write within certain genres, it is like a contract between you and the reader, that you will sell them cheap entertainment and that’s it.  You don’t go into McDonalds and expect high cuisine, much less a communion wafer and consecrated wine.  Conversely, you don’t expect junk food in a five-star restaurant, much less in a cathedral.  These distinctions also exist in literature, but they are sometimes less clear.

Great works of literature (and other arts) are made by great people, but sometimes also by crazy people. They break apart and the great work of art claws its way out. But most crazy people don’t have such great works within, just more crazy. So that is not a recommended path!  Greatness is always a good idea, regardless of whether you will then go on to create great writing.

Anyway, unless you are doing the equivalent of a literary hot dog stand, there is a certain responsibility in writing.  You can write what you want, but if you influence other people, you should expect to be somewhat accountable. Sure, they are free to do with what they read as they want.  Unless you have pretended to be some kind of spiritual guide, you cannot really take responsibility for everything that happens to people who read you. But it may be wise to reflect on the possibility that your words may outlive you, and affect people for a long time to come.  What would happen in that case?

Gearing up for JulNoWriMo, I am also asking myself this. Will my writing lead others into temptation?  Will someone wake up, many years from now, and feel dirty or unhappy because they relive in their dreams something I wrote? I hope not, but I must admit that my fiction tends to contain elements of a mildly carnal nature.  This is after all the human condition.  And humans can be very entertaining, even fictional ones.  But at least there will be no killing in this year’s book, and almost certainly no actual procreative acts. Although there will likely be many other creative acts, Light willing.

Fatter days

Food – the final frontier!

I definitely can eat more fat now without getting fat poisoning.  I am not sure quite how much. But when I don’t get sick, the inborn human tendency causes me to gradually eat more fat. Not every day, but now and then, a little bit more, taking a chance.  Over time, oh so slowly, it adds up.  I get used to eating a little more fat than before, and then a little more again.

I still eat a lot less fat than before.  I still eat less fat than healthy people.  But there is definitely more of it than before.  This past couple weeks I have several times eaten noodles with some added cheese.  I have done that before with low-fat cheese and not gotten sick, but this time I used normal cheese.  (I have returned to low-fat now, the shop was just out of it briefly.)  My weight loss has stopped, although it is too early to say if it is reversed yet.

I have no idea what happened.  Perhaps my liver has just regenerated – it has lots of stem cells after all, and it has been 5 years since the illness that brought this to a head.  Perhaps the brainwave entrainment plays a role – several of the symptoms were neurological after all. Perhaps even the changes in my soul affects my body.  Or perhaps it is just part of the natural changes of growing older.  It may even be, though I am loath to even think it, that a hidden tumor may be sweeping up fat from my bloodstream for its own nefarious ends.  You just never know everything, not being a god or anything.  But I can’t say I feel ill in any way, so that last part is pretty far down on my probability list.

In any case, fat is very tasty and I enjoy being able to eat a little more of it, even if just a bit. Those of you who can eat as much fat as you want should enjoy it.  And then work out like crazy, I suppose. From what I read in scientific magazines, pretty much all the problems with obesity come from the inactivity that is either the cause or the effect of the obesity, sometimes both. It is not actually enjoying fat that is a problem, it is Just Sitting There. Our bodies were not designed for that.  The muscles we use when standing and walking mop up huge amounts of dangerous fat from the blood, but if we don’t stand or walk some hours each day, the stuff will just pile up. Or that is the current theory.  There may well be another next year.

But for now, I enjoy it for all it is worth… while it is still reasonably healthy!

Reflections on wisdom

I am not sure if I have used this picture before, but I am sure I have considered it dozens of times, because it fits with so much of what I write. And then in the meaning “I have to study more”.

When I was little, I loved to learn random things. I grew up in a home filled with books and papers and magazines, and have three older brothers, so I learned to read long before my first school day. I remember withdrawing to the attic with a book often. The place was just used to store things, it was not really finished, but for me it was a special place.  If I remember correctly, I called it “klokingshulen”, a Norwegian pun meaning either “the sage’s cave” or the “the cave of the process of becoming wise”. I cannot remember if I came up with this name or one of my brothers, we were all a creative little bunch. But I remember spending time there alone with textbooks and such.

Knowledge is not wisdom, but it is a good start.  Before you can cook a meal, you need to have ingredients.  And before you can think deeply, you need to have something to think about! I am glad I loved reading, and looking at things, and using my imagination.  When I had read something new, I would afterwards use my imagination and create stories where these things appeared.

In grade school we learned by heart the multiplication table, but soon I understood that multiplication was just repeated addition. It is still kind of awesome to live in a world where two times three gives the same result as three times two, but it is kind of logical if you can count.  I suppose all healthy kids understand this pretty quickly. In the same way, we find patterns in other things as well. This is what I call understanding.  It goes beyond rote learning and provides a sort of shortcut in thinking.  Without learning, we would not find those patterns in things and be able to go forth and multiply our knowledge, so to speak, taking it to a higher order.

Somewhere, sometime, someone must have pondered the relationship between addition and multiplication. And they must have realized that if you could just repeat addition and get multiplication, then you would get something if you repeated multiplication as well.  I don’t know who first thought of it, but already the ancient Egyptians realized that if 3 and 9 were holy numbers, then 27 must be too, and 81 must be really holy.  So someone there was at least dimly aware of the power of “powers”. Today, computers are based on the powers of 2 – binary – and our common way of writing numbers is based on the powers of 10.

Wisdom is kind of like that. You take understanding one step higher, and then you find some way to make it useful.  Well, that is one way of looking at it at least. Wisdom is not just being able to learn, and being able to generalize from what you learn, but it is finding what is really important in what you have learned and understood, and applying that to your life.  Or at least that is part of it.

Anyway, you can kind of learn wisdom from others, by reading books of wisdom etc.  But you cannot just jump to that. You have to have knowledge and understanding first.  You cannot cook without ingredients or build without materials.  Also, I am not sure, but I think you need some hands-on experience of wisdom in order to “get it” when you see it elsewhere.  Still, you can definitely learn wisdom from others. And you should, because life is short.

If you enjoyed learning facts and loved understanding things, if flashes of insight gave you a thrill, then recognizing words of wisdom is likely to fill you with a bliss so overwhelming that it is hard to describe. Sometimes I can hardly contain my joy when finding another piece of the puzzle, opening up another part of the larger picture.

And it is good that I feel this joy, because the book may taste like honey when I eat it, but it burns in my stomach. Digesting wisdom – getting it embodied in my own flesh, so to speak – is the tough part. It usually comes at the expense of something else. I guess sometimes you have to bring out the butcher’s knife. But sometimes all I do is hold on, and the stupidity dies eventually.  Looking at some of the fantasy books I carried this February on the icy, slippery path in the freezing wind, I remember looking at them afterwards and still thinking I would read them again Someday.  But after months of reading a little wisdom most days of the week, the idea of going through those fantasy books again is like drinking from a puddle.  I would have to be pretty desperate.

There is a saying – I think I picked it up in the Christian Church – that “wisdom is none other than seeing the folly”.  Certainly that is a big part of it.  And first and foremost in our own lives.  But then perhaps eventually we can help others solve their problems too. There certainly are enough problems in the world, and it seems to me that the vast majority of them come from thinking that is counter-productive.  That is to say, people think thoughts that make it harder for them to live good, happy, satisfying lives.  If only there was some way to reach them!

JulNoWriMo plans

Your teacher is out to save your soul, your cousin breaks your computer while surfing for gay porn, and your club activities have you surrounded by the opposite sex. What will become of your high school life?

Because it is not crazy enough to spend November drafting fiction each year, some people have decided to supplement NaNoWriMo with a summer version, JulNoWriMo. Yay! Actually, it seems most of the clientèle are teens and students, who have lots of school work (by their standards)  in November, but are bored to tears during the long summer days off from school.  But in addition to them, I have also signed up. Just in case.

I don’t really intend to go for 50 000 words.  Even I have my limits! ^_^ As in limits to my unrealistic ambitions.  I have my job, after all, and there is not much chance to concentrate on my writing there!  I think I can say that much without breaking my non-disclosure agreement…  Still, I hope to write at least some. In July, I mean.  And what would be better than rebooting the story I have only just scribbled down a couple pages of?

The story I am thinking of is a mostly harmless romantic comedy patterned after the Japanese tradition of “boy meets girls” – a single high school boy and his relationship to a number of very different girls.  I use “relationship” in its more general meaning here, we are not talking about a harem, although the boy may possibly have a different opinion on this.  From my side, it is more about the utter craziness of girls as seen through the eyes of an uncomprehending male. This is well within my area of expertise. There may be some romance, which is well outside my area of expertise. But I am good at winging things at the last moment.

The setting is as usual a slightly Nipponized world, perhaps the way ours might have been if Japan had taken the other side before and during WW2. I am not going to get into that, but there will be a few element that are subtly more Japanese-inspired than usual.  Also, one of the characters is a quarter Japanese, a rare thing in itself since they don’t mix much with foreigners.

The story is about a boy who starts in a new high school. Bookish but otherwise healthy now, he spent much of grade school with medical problems that kept him from getting into sports, and has decided it is too late now. (No, I am not going to let him try baseball and discover that he is born to be an ace pitcher. Sorry, DONE TO DEATH.) Instead, he joins the literature club. However, it turns out that this club consists only of half a dozen girls and now him.  This is their story mostly, but seen through the eyes of a boy.

My cast so far (and cast is mostly what I have at this point):

Rick: The male lead.  He is a bit of a bookworm, but his health has improved to the point where he is near average in running, jumping and swimming. (It helps that he is not overweight, unlike many others.) He fails miserably at team sports though and has no confidence in that regard either.  As usual for his age, girls is very much on his mind.  He is also doing well in school. Hair: Black, short.

Yuki: Rick’s classmate, a stereotypical “girl with glasses”: Studious, serious, innocent, clumsy, lacking social skills but generally well liked anyway because she so clearly wants only the best for others and have no strong ambitions apart from doing well in school.  She is the one most similar to him, and the more realistic love interest. Hair: Black, thick braid.

The President: Probably only president of the Literature Club, she is not referred to by name even by her friends.  She is tall, elegant, beautiful, rich, polite and very reserved.  She expects much from others and more from herself. Hair: Red, fancy braids.

Lynne: The opposite of the President, she is short, round, talkative, friendly and extremely approachable. Grown up with 3 brothers, she feels at least as much at ease with boys. Rick is frequently distracted by her backside, as she seems convinced that chairs are for kneeling rather than sitting. Hair: Honey-colored, barely shoulder length.

Carla: Morality police, her main task is to protect Lynne and Yuki from Rick’s roving eyes, and generally keep all the girls safe from boys.  She has somewhat unrealistic ideas about the lengths boys will go to in order to enjoy the presence of the opposite sex. And perhaps she protests too much?  Hair: Brown, curly.

Two more literate girls:  Personalities to be announced.  I haven’t gotten to know them myself yet.

The Teacher: Their homeroom teacher is female, not married, and still young enough to get away with it. Contrary to stereotype, she is quite responsible. She is also from the sixth dimension, the Realm of Light. Yes, she is a member of that world’s equivalent of Happy Science, though it will not be called by that name, and will give sage advice based on the teachings of Master Taiyou Sorano.

The Cousin:  Rick lives on his own, in theory.  However, his female cousin is looking after him, and way more so than he feels he needs. She treats him like a little brother, both at school (where she is a third-year) and at home, where she comes and goes as she pleases. Not sure how big part she will play though.

Adrian: The boy from the arts club is strikingly beautiful, charming, and way too interested in Rick. Several of the girls are cheering him on in his attempts to court Rick – if that is what he is doing.  Hair: Yellow blond, tousled.

While lacking the plot of a novel, I think the character interactions should be worth at least 15-20 000 words if I take the time to write them down regularly.  And who knows, perhaps they manage to work out some kind of plot among themselves. Not getting my hopes too high though.

Pseudo-Messiah dream

Do I have a Messiah complex? In my dreams!  My subconscious reads my journal (no surprise there) and mocks my resolution to not claim spiritual VIP status.

In my dream this morning, I am like Jesus. I do wonders, I preach goodness, I am seized by the authorities and sentenced to death. Except I don’t die, unbeknownst to them, I escape at the last moment. Actually this is the third year in a row they do this, so they are understandably upset at this point. In my dream I remember the two previous attempts. This time they lock me in a small hut and burn it down. Somehow I quantum tunnel out of there or something. At the end of the dream I can no longer perform miracles. But then again, it is a year till next Easter (or the equivalent in this culture).

The dream was dramatic enough while it lasted, but when I woke up I saw the absurdity of it and that’s when I thought of Life of Brian, which I only know from pop culture references. Perhaps I should watch it some day if it is still around.

For now, though, I just stick with my plan to not claim spiritual superhero status. Or at least not above 6th-dimensional programmer. ^_^

A thoughtful silence?

I haven’t been writing much lately, but I have been thinking some, and observing myself as usual. I have been observing my dreams each morning. This morning I dreamed that I had moved to (or perhaps built) a house on the road to the farm where I grew up. The road goes through a stretch of wilderness with trees, bushes, shrubs and stones, where the nearest farms are at best distant lights. I remember when I was little, walking to school in the morning, during the dark season here in Norway, and I afraid of the dark. I would talk loudly or sing to hold at bay my fear of the dark and the things that might lurk there – wolves or giant animals, perhaps. This was a more innocent age, where the fear of children was not men. In any case, this was the stretch of road where I now dreamed that I had set up my home. While living there, I was approached by an angry fox, which I eventually befriended, and later a lynx, which I was still trying to befriend when the dream ended.

Not very useful information for future historians, perhaps. Who knows?

Part of the reason for holding my tongue is that I am, as usual, pondering the lessons I have learned from sect leader and acclaimed author Ryuho Okawa. He pretty much ticks of the check list for Antichrist: He tries to transcend and include existing religions, including Christianity. He claims to be the God who resurrected Jesus Christ, and even has temples built where he can claim to be a god. Not the Creator, mind you: He stresses the enormous distance between us and the Primordial God. El Cantare is simply the spiritual leader of this planet – in fact, the name can be translated as “god of the world”. That alone should make the neck hairs rise on a Christian. And yet, for all that, this man is the first I can think of that has so much understanding in common with myself. So what does that say about me?

I don’t know. I try to review my life as it goes on, watching my thoughts and feelings and actions. I am only at the beginning of everything I do. But if I keep the current course, if I live to a ripe old age, will I end up becoming more and more like that man? My conscience really does not allow me not to, with the notable exceptions of claiming to be a god and an extraterrestrial and so on. Let us hope that exception keeps up, at least. But the principles of love, wisdom, self-reflection and progress? Hard to disagree with those. Working toward a happiness that increases the happiness of other people, rather than taking away from it? That should be obvious to anyone. Love is something you give, not something you can claim? That is an eternal truth. Just because a scary person agrees with it and preaches it does not mean it won’t remain true forever.

In the end, I will have to simply continue becoming more and more myself. If that means I become more similar to controversial people, then I can do nothing about it.

But I am thinking that I need to build on the “iceberg that is under the surface” – the 80-90% that should be hidden from sight. I cannot just blurt out every spiritual truth that I discover. But if I don’t, then to some extent I don’t get much new either. Because some of what I write is probably not really meant for me in the first place, but for some poor chap at the other end of Google. It is my dubious task to say the words that must be spoken, before they are lost forever. And “for each useless word that a human speaks, he shall make account on judgement day”, as Jesus says. Between these twin demands live I, and I suppose anyone who thinks seriously about words. There really is no other meaningful way to relate to words. The normal is to just let them flow out, like a dog who pees on every bush along the road. There seems to be no end to the pee and the words that the dog and the human use to mark their territory. But past a certain level of consciousness this becomes no longer tolerable.

Today is St John’s Wake, an important festival in Norway, and one of the few that have survived the transition to a post-Christian society. I was invited to gather with the neighbors this evening. I have not really had the opportunity to meet most of them since I moved here. I wish it could continue that way – not because I have anything against them or even fear them, but because I doubt my ability to be of any benefit to them whatsoever. Even if I go, it will surely be a waste of all our time. But then again, so is befriending foxes in a place that never even existed. So here I go, may God have mercy on my soul.

EDIT TO ADD:

I am home unharmed except for a cough. The whole event was very dignified, and I think I blended in pretty well after a little while. Two policemen showed up at the end, probably because of the bonfire. I am not sure open fire is legal at this point, as it is very dry. The bonfire is an essential part of the tradition though, so we had a small one. Nobody got arrested.

Time travel dream

This morning I had a dream that was not hellish at all. It was very long and the details are already gone, but I traveled through time and met many historical people of fame. A couple of them knew about time travel: Einstein and King Solomon for sure, and Alexander the Great at least knew something strange was going on. I also saw some cool technology from the near future, but nothing that I could copy or that really revolutionized life.  All in all it was a pleasant dream, although I was quite tired when I woke up.

A punny dream

Picture from Møll.

Here at Møll there are several people who have that place name as their last name, a common tradition in Norway among farmers and their descendants. One of these works at the tax office.  (This is actually true in real life.)

In my dream, some guy came to the tax office and asked to see Møll. When Mr Møll appeared, the guy basically dumped a load of tax papers on the desk and excused himself and left. “What’s with him?” wondered my neighbor. I replied: “Perhaps he has read the Scripture that says: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where Moth and rust destroy…”

(The Norwegian word for moth is møll, as regular readers may remember. Yes, even in my dreams I make cheesy puns! But at least I still recall the Scriptures in my sleep, so perhaps there is some hope for my soul…)

Today was a Someday

You may have noticed that my week has 8 days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Someday.  So if there is something that seems inconvenient to do on the other days, I put it off till Someday. Unfortunately, Someday does not come every week, or even every month. But today was a Someday.

The last Someday was May 20, when I wrote to the customer service at ice.no, the wireless broadband provider I used until early this year. Even though I have not used them for some months, I have not terminated my subscription because there was no obvious way to do so.  So eventually I just wrote their customer service and told them that I was terminating the subscription. I never got any answer, and some time ago I got the invoice for July. (The subscription runs for a month after termination, according to the contract.) So today I wrote them and told them that I had already cancelled on May 20 and would not pay the invoice.

Since it was already Someday, I also wrote to the phone company to terminate the landline subscription. Again, I don’t even have that kind of phone in this house. I guess this either says something about how lazy I am or how cheap such things are by Norwegian standards. In any case, Tele2 (the phone company) needs to have the cancellation in writing, whereas you can just call them or send them a text message to subscribe.  It may be legal, but it is still not something they want on the front pages of the newspapers, I suppose. We’ll see. It would be kind of cool to meet the in court. My blog would probably get a 10000% increase in readership too.

Anyway, this makes the third Someday since I moved here, the first was when I changed the power supply in the machine that had been defective since early this past winter.  So Someday comes… sometimes.