G-Poppers … February 3rd, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(3207)

G-Pop loves math.

He hates mathematics.

When he discovered that things could be added together, arriving at a sum, he found the experience to be practical.

Even subtraction had its appeal because after all, things come and things go.

Multiplication opened the door to expansion–blessing.

But then, division. Even as a young boy, G-Pop wondered what the power was of being divisive.

Thus began the journey, or dare we say head trip–into mathematics.

After division came algebra, where letters were substituted for numbers. Go figure.

Then geometry–everything analyzed from the position of points. Unfortunately, it seemed rather pointless to G-Pop.

Trigonometry was an angle on triangles, and calculus–well, G-Pop couldn’t even understand the definition.

Somewhere along the line, the educational system went from providing useful tidbits to compiling data, only applicable if you happened to be building your own rocket to the moon.

It is an obsession in our country–a religion, if you will–to worship knowledge.

Deep in our souls we understand that the purpose of knowing is to do and not just posture. But we still insist on touting egregious amounts of theorems and addendums to convince those around us that we have reached a higher level of comprehension.

I feel we do the same thing in the entertainment field. Rather than telling a story to enlighten, inspire or even mystify, we choose to pull out some extraordinary circumstance and present it, through theater, as if it’s the pending doom threatening the planet.

How about politics? We decide we want to build a bridge so we put together a 2,000-word report, which becomes a 4,000-word bill with amendments.

Sometimes it just seems we’re trying to justify the purpose for college degrees and give printers a way to pay their mortgage.

Certainly in religion, we’ve completely lost sight of what adds to us, what subtracts from us, and how we multiply. So the end result is, we’re completely divided.

We’ve lost the ability to understand that once you depart from the Golden Rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you’re basically interpreting dreams. For the Golden Rule is the total union of love of God, love of self, and love of other humans.

Instead, we want to talk about the Trinity, the seed of David, the order of angels, the make-up of heaven, the interpretation of the Book of Revelation, the Tabernacle of David, and exactly which sins are unacceptable, forbidding someone from entering the Kingdom, and which ones get a wink.

G-Pop is not against knowledge, but just as you have to get a degree to prove you have education, knowledge must prove that it has a degree of value to the human cause to continue to be revered.

If your belief in God goes any further than “love your neighbor as yourself,” you’ve crawled down the rabbit hole with Alice–to Wonderland.

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Confessing … June 13th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2611)

VI.

I confess so I can heal.

If I deny, I remain sick.

Rick and Larry had a meeting.

It actually was a conversation that turned into a discussion about me.

Larry was my boss. I hated to admit that. I was still young enough–in my twenties–that I was unwilling to concede that I was bossed by anyone.

When Rick expressed his appreciation for my efforts and inspiration, Larry filled him up with negative notions concerning my true value, mainly citing that I had no college degree.

Rick listened carefully, being the older of the two and having acquired some patience. At the end of Larry’s tirade, he deadpanned, “No, he doesn’t have a degree–he has a message.”

Since at that time, I was not privy to their discussion nor to Rick’s defense of me, when I did catch wind of the fact that the meeting of minds had occurred, I went to see Rick and asked for his side of it.

Exhibiting great restraint, he was unwilling to share many details. All he told me was that Larry had explained to him that I did not have a college education.

At that point I had an option.

I could have just sat quietly, nodded my head and left it alone, because I knew I already had Rick’s friendship and respect. But I was arrogant. And arrogance is the fertile soil for every rotten weed.

So I acted shocked, and explained to Rick that Larry’s assertion about my lack of schooling was incorrect. I told him I had gone to college at Cincinnati Xavier, and graduated with honors. (To this day I don’t know why I picked Cincinnati Xavier.)

I was offended because someone told the truth about me.

So I kept blabbing on, making up college experiences, gradually noticing that Rick became quiet and even a bit sullen. He knew I was lying. Yet he allowed me to propagate my myth without objection.

I walked away from that experience feeling like discarded chemical waste. Yet I was so immature that I never went back and apologized to Rick, telling him the truth.

I thought about that incident today.

It was a good ten years later when a lady came to my book table and asked me, “Where did you go to college?”

I paused, and then replied, “I didn’t.”

It was the first time I had ever told the truth on that subject. I had to grip the table and grit my teeth in order to dispel all remnants of the fictitious kingdom I had constructed in my brain.

Yet I wonder–what is left of that overwrought, lying and willful instinct to lift myself up?

I don’t know.

But rather than accepting it as part of my human foible, I am trying to hunt it down and kill it … before it renders my reputation meaningless.

 

 

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