Daddy is Broken

To the tune of "Morning Has Broken"...

Daddy is broken,
like the first Daddy.

Shoulder has spoken,
Damn it is sore.

Lifting the boy was,
not a good plan, then.

Not in good shape, now,
Not anymore.

I don't know why it's my left shoulder, in particular, that hurts. Mostly, I was lifting the boy up to the bars so he could hang and then drop. Oh, well... time to take some Ibuprofen and get back to work.

Reflections on Conformity

You know what the worst thing is about worshipping the Great Old Ones? Learning to act “normal”. I mean, we’re raised in these isolated areas: decaying farmhouses, innocent-seeming orphanages, “survivalist” (ha!) compounds in Texas and Wyoming... And then we have to go out into the world. Some of us do, anyway.

Take me, for instance. I work at a pharmacy in a suburb of Austin. I’ve been doing this for eight years – and that’s just the job; I’m not even counting the education – all so my fellow worshippers can have access to certain sorts of pharmaceuticals when they need them. I have a lot of practice fitting in.

But just yesterday, one of the technicians sneezed, and I came this close to saying... well, never mind, I can’t really repeat that here. The point being, it wasn’t “Bless you” or “Gesundheit”.

Oh, it had been a long night – the virgin sacrifice ran late – and I was tired and not thinking too clearly. It’s not even as if anyone would have understood me; there are only a handful of the Ignorant who can even read that language – nobody speaks it. That’s no excuse, though. There are no excuses. If those words had left my lips where unbelievers could hear them, the Whisperers would have come for me... and that’s something I don’t care to contemplate without a stiff drink in hand.

You just can't win

During my brilliantly misspent youth, I spent some time at a drug and alcohol rehab. (I was recently reminded that when I say that, I should be sure to emphasize that I was employed there, rather than being a guest of the facility.) I was on the adolescent boys' wing, and this was not, let us say, an ideal job. The management was atrocious, the pay was abysmal, and the work was unrewarding. However, it allowed me to work nights - and night shifts were usually slow, so I could study. And there were some interesting bits; I learned more about Twelve Step programs than I ever wanted to know.

That was also the first time I'd really done any serious thinking about the nature of denial and the role it plays in human behavior. Denial can be a problem for anyone; for addicts, it's one of the mechanisms that allow people to continue self-destructive activities long after the point where any objective assessment would tell them to stop. As a result, learning to recognize and overcome denial is a large part of the treatment process.

So how do you tell if someone is an addict? The primary distinction is whether or not the person can stop. For drinkers, one test is whether you can cut yourself off after two drinks. (This leads to numerous, and often amusing, stories about ways people have tried to fudge the test; for example: "He only had two drinks, but each of them was a twenty-ounce mug that was half full of rum!" Denial and rationalization in action...) Another way to look at the question is whether the behavior is causing trouble in other areas of a person's life. Is drinking (etc.) causing poor performance at work or school? Is it leading them to make bad decisions that get them into trouble?

It's probably worth noting that addiction is often part of a larger pattern of destructive behavior. This often makes cause and effect hard to determine, and also means that a lot of treatment focuses on changes in lifestyle: finding new hobbies, learning how to make better friends, and like that.

Anyway, the problem with that kind of assessment is that you have to know what's going on in someone's life. You have to see their behavior in order to evaluate it. That takes time, resources, and access to the person. Counselors, as a general rule, don't have any of that.

So if you've been sent to rehab (and the adolescents were almost always sent, by either their parents or the court), there is essentially no way to establish that you are not an addict. If you try to say that you aren't, the counselor will automatically assume that you're in denial, which is clear evidence that you're an addict. If you try to lay out the specific details of your behavior, they will assume that you are rationalizing, downplaying, or lying outright about your usage - because, again, that's what addicts do. Pretty much anything you say, do, or offer just provides further proof that you're an addict.

This is the best example of a real-world Catch 22 that I've ever encountered. It's also exceedingly frustrating to deal with (but don't get angry about it; then you're acting out, which is - again - further proof of addiction). Hell, it was frustrating to watch - because I knew that inevitably, the facility was going to wind up with some boys who didn't actually need to be there. There was no way, in that system, to account for the fact that the world is full of people who simply aren't addicts.

I bring this up because it's a very similar dynamic to the one I mentioned in a previous post: the idea that if you aren't a Christian, it must because you've never heard about Jesus; or, if you're an ex-Christian, that you must never have been exposed to True Christianity - you were never really a Christian in the first place (I John 2:18-20). I've even encountered the (rather daft) argument that since the Bible says people will leave the faith (1 Timothy 4), the fact that people leave the faith is actually proof that the Bible is true.

The problem with both of these views is that they narrow down the available options, creating a sort of logical trap. The only way to disagree with them is to reject the validity of the whole setup. Depending on the power dynamic, that may or may not be possible.

The Book o' Parenting

Back when my first child was born, I decided to create an online journal about it. I hadn't yet created this blog, so I'd just write things out, put them in html, and add them to my website. This actually works pretty well, not least because it keeps the parenting stuff separate from the writing and ranting.

I'm still doing that, so if anyone is interested in reading about my experience as a parent, I invite you to check out the Book o' Parenting. There is also a mailing list, which I use to notify people when I make updates there. (Yes, I'll catch up with the current technologies one of these days. No, it probably won't be any time soon.) If you're interested in that sort of thing, you can join the mailing list by sending an e-mail to MockWriting-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. It's a one-way list, and won't make much impact on your inbox; I make updates (and send notices) about once a month.

They went there...

So I'm driving around D/FW a week ago, and I see that the "I Am Second" sign has changed. For those unfamiliar with the program, it's a Christian (but theoretically nondenominational) ad campaign which - until now - features an image of someone's face, the words "I am second" and a website. I've talked a little about this before; for the most part, it just strikes me as... odd.

There is a curious conceit among certain sorts of Christians that if someone is not a Christian, it must be because they have never heard the Good News of Jesus. As far as I can tell, this is mainly a holdover from two thousand years ago, when it might actually have been the case. In modern North America, however, people who have never been introduced to Christianity are few and far between. So the idea that Christians must spread the word (or spread the Word) seems a bit, well, silly.

(There is another possible explanation for why this view persists in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary: if Christianity represents Ultimate Truth, then you need an explanation for why some people don't agree with it. The idea that they must not know - or, more insultingly, must not understand - fills that need. By the same token, if they do understand but still don't believe, they must be angry at God or unwilling to turn away from their sins. The part where these views deny the possibility of any legitimate disagreement with Christian teachings is not a bug; it's a feature. Truth be told, I think that this explanation works in tandem with the leftover-from-long-ago explanation.)

...But I digress. Anyway, the ad campaign so far has been just abunch of people saying, basically, that they're putting God/Jesus first in their lives. While this strikes me as a bit useless (and/or unnecessary), that's fine.

The new sign said:

It's not about the bunny

After I'd finished my moment of blank incomprehension, and finally managed to parse that, I realized that they must be talking about Easter. The implication is that the holiday is not about chocolate bunnies and hidden eggs, it's about the resurrection of Our Lord And Savior.

Now, I could point out the actual origins of the bunnies, eggs, and other fertility symbols; I could talk about Christianity's long history of co-opting pre-existing pagan holidays; and I could point out that if Christianity had actually established its own holy days instead of taking over others, this confusion wouldn't exist in the first place. I won't, because that wasn't what really disturbed me about this.

What really disturbed me about this was the prospect that now, every spring, we're going to have to listen to moronic talking heads on the television as they blather away about the War On Easter.

Apocalypse River 001

Tammon crouched at the edge of the inlet, spear held ready. The water was only a little murky, and the overhanging trees held back the sunlight that would have turned the still surface into a mirror. Nobody hunted down at the river anymore; not since that fish - or whatever it was - had dragged Sashil into the water last year. The inlet was shallow enough to keep out the larger predators, and as a result made a good site to spear smaller fish; but Tammon remained cautious anyway. Old Man Gaston said that in his youth, the fish had stayed in the water, and maybe that was so; but that world was gone.

A hopper swam into view, and Tammon raised his spear. It was a light, thin weapon, fast rather than strong. The hopper’s tail drifted back and forth, holding it still against the slight current; its front fins raised and lowered lazily. The second fins, below those, looked suspiciously like paws tucked against its belly. They were useless in water, but allowed the fish to hop around on the shore for as long as it could stand the air.

The tree branches stirred above him, but Tammon didn’t move. He knew that tree, and it only ate birds and the stupider sorts of rodents. If he flinched, he would scare the hopper away, and the food situation in the village would become even more precarious. The hopper drifted closer, but Tammon remained still, barely even breathing.

It darted towards the shore, and his spear flashed down. His first thrust missed, but the hopper was breaking water and didn’t see it. His second strike pierced its scales and pinned it to the ground; it gave a low, moaning sigh. Tammon twisted, holding it place with the spear while he extended his net. He had to be sure it was covered before he lifted it; he’d seen hoppers and other fish twist off of spear tips and push themselves into the water. It was only a temporary escape - the other fish brought the wounded down almost immediately - but it still cost the village food.

The village is dying anyway, he thought, as he raised the netted fish and reached for his knife. We cower back from the river we depend on. Like the fish - if you could believe Old Man Gaston - the river had once been merely water, flowing from one place to another. Now it grew increasingly strange - like everything else in the world, only faster. Tammon could remember when his father, and others, had taken boats across it, or rowed out to the center to fish the deeper waters. Nobody would dare that now.

He stood, holding his prize in the net, and wrenched the spear free. Then he heard the warning bell from the village, and knew that they were dying faster than anyone had expected.

Anger

Anger is an odd thing for me. I have a long, slow fuse. Push me a little, and I'll move. Push me a little more, and I'll move again. Again, and I'll withdraw further - maybe a big step, so I don't have to deal with you. Push me far enough, and eventually I will go for the throat - which usually comes as a surprise to the sort of person who thinks that a lack of immediate response is a reason to keep pushing.

I don't suppress my anger - not consciously or deliberately, at any rate. But I have a hard time getting angry, and it doesn't happen very often. As a result, I sometimes don't realize that I *am* angry until we're well past the point of no return. There have been times when the sudden rush of anger is a great relief: finally I know how to react to this. It's a relief because the times when I've reached this point have been well past the point where any reasonable person would already have gotten angry.

And once angry, I don't easily let go. Oh, I don't stay angry; what would be the point? I'm not vindictive, for much the same reason. But if someone manages to get me truly angry, I don't forget it. And I treat that person accordingly. There's no point in communicating with someone like that; no point in treating them like a person.

My brother has a much quicker temper; also a much firmer, more black-and-white sense of right and wrong. (So does my mother, actually.) Cross his boundaries, and he'll let you know immediately and in no uncertain terms. I've watched him do this, and sometimes I'm jealous of it. Sometimes, it saves him an awful lot of trouble. Other times, it causes problems that he could have avoided with a more patient approach.

As a general approach, they both work; what I'd really like is the ability to use both, and to know which response is appropriate to the situation. Because sometimes one is a real advantage, and other times the other one is.