19. February 2010 by Frank.

My memory is full of gaping holes since the stroke.  Large parts of my pre-stroke life are completely gone.  My current short-term memories are rather limited, to say the least.  I generally have to rely on some random stimulus to get access to some forgotten memory.

I realize there’s nothing particularly unique about that, it works that way for pretty much everyone.

But what do you do when detailed events, including names, don’t elicit any response at all?  I believe I mentioned it back when it happened, but my father was reminiscing about my early teen years in the neighborhood.  He was rattling off names and describing how the whole neighborhood came over to our house to play football and other games because we had quite a bit of land out back complete with a pond full of fish.  I recognized a lot of the names because they were neighbors for many many years.  But I couldn’t come up with a single memory about doing anything with any of them.

Nothing.

My dad covered several years but I drew a blank for the entire period.  It was as if he was talking about the experiences of some other person.  It was an awkward conversation.  And it was weird.

Especially weird since I do think of myself as a different person than I used to be.  That guy I was as a teenager doesn’t exist anymore. (Big surprise.)  That guy I was up until the ripe old age of 43 doesn’t exist anymore.  (Here’s where the weird comes into play.)  I have some similarities to him but I’m not him.  Why should I expect to be able to access his memories?

That’s why I tend to use the same stories over and over, I’ve got limited material to work with.

It’s also why I tend to go in random directions with this blog.  Often I’ll read something which triggers memories which I tend to write down before I forget them again.  Kind of like LSD flashbacks to the 60’s and 70’s.  Of course, I try to encourage that by having random PINK FLOYD songs come up on Pandora while I’m trying to write.

Music is one of the few things that my memory gaps don’t seem to cover.  Although I have to admit I really don’t understand why I used to like URIAH HEAP so much.  Similarly, I’m not sure if it’s memory or maturity which makes me wonder how I could ever have thought BLAZING SADDLES was actually a funny movie.  I guess that’s not really abnormal.

I used to read a couple of hundred books a year but in the last 12 years I’ve only read a handful.  (I still read a lot but it’s almost all online.)  Music is still important but I used to buy two or three albums a week.  Now I might buy a disc every year or two whether I need it or not.  Movies have remained the most consistent from the old man to the new man.  I still prefer science fiction/fantasy/action/adventure to everything else although I indulge in quite a few musicals and (gasp) chick flicks.  My taste in TV shows is the same as movies but I don’t have a clue what night or network anything I like is on.  I don’t watch TV on my television, I watch a few shows on HULU.

The thousand pound gulley cat in the picture, however, is religion.

I was fully planning on becoming a full time preacher.  I was even convinced that in order to do that I might have to start my own church.  Gung ho doesn’t begin to describe my attitude.  I was a fanatic of the first degree.  Nothing could stop me including multiple setbacks thrown in my way by other preachers intimidated by my style and passion.  I was so into living by faith that I nearly killed myself by refusing to take essential medicines to control my blood pressure.  I was an all or nothing type.

I still am.

I don’t understand this wishy-washy, agnostic, I’m not quite sure, stuff.  You are either a believer or you’re not.  Hot or cold.  Lukewarm will get you spit out, read your bible.  You don’t actually think that you can believe just a little just in case and be able to fool god into thinking you’re the real deal?  You don’t actually think just saying the magic words without any real conviction will get you in and keep you in without requiring all the other obedience necessary?

Seriously, folks, according to the bible, god has shown up in undeniable ways before and people still didn’t believe in him.  Study out some old testament Hebrew history.  If god were to show up today all over the earth at once, billions of people still wouldn’t believe he was really god.  Because if any little preconceived notion about him proved wrong, you would reject him; you would not automatically accept any new evidence, no matter how powerful.

Quite a few atheist bloggers like to claim no real atheist isn’t willing to be persuaded by some real proof.

Nonsense.  Jesus was god’s best statement to mankind.  Here’s a guy wandering around for three years speaking a few words of wisdom and performing some relatively minor magic tricks.  Supposedly the religious leaders didn’t recognize him but the common people did.  Those same common people turned right around and called for his condemnation when stirred up by the priests.  Those same common people did not rise up and save him from the Romans. 

Do you really think if he appears again that all the atheists, Hindus, Muslims, etc., are going to rise up and proclaim him king?  Now that there are actual explanations for how things work and technology has reached a point that it would appear godlike to any primitive person, do you really think any of god’s simple tricks are going to be sufficient proof?

I look at religion now and all I see is superstition.  Primitive fear.  Ignorance.  How could I have devoted myself to it for so long?  I first accepted the message when I was at the absolute lowest point in my life.  I had no resistance to the appeal of someone who would forgive me, cleanse me, make me whole, and become my best friend.  Why do you think they use funerals to preach their salvation message?

How can so many people be so blind to the fairy tale aspect of their holy word?  God gets so disgusted with sin that he wipes out all life except an impossible collection on an ark which includes people who are still sinners.  It took no time at all for sin to reclaim the world.  Bad plan there, god.  But we are also told that Jesus was the lamb slain from the beginning, he was the eternal plan for salvation.  If that’s the case what purpose did the flood serve?

Or how about the tower of Babel?  Do you really think they could have built a skyscraper taller than anything that exists now back in those days?  God was so threatened that he came down and confused the languages of men to stop them.  We have probes going to other planets and my computer can operate in multiple languages.  You can carry a little device in your pocket that will let you translate languages.

That may have impressed some primitive goat herders but what’s the big deal now?  I’ve been on the moon Pandora which was cool as hell, but it was all technology.  Think about it, we have moving pictures (with sound!) that come right out of thin air and we think absolutely nothing of it.  It’s perfectly normal and no big deal.

God would have to pull off the biggest stunt ever to convince the whole world and even then it would not do it.  But read your bible.  God doesn’t work that way.  His miracles and his power keep getting smaller and smaller in his own book.  His followers keep getting more and more simple minded.  God makes appearances in grilled cheese.  That’s not exactly big time proof.

I look and I wonder.  Why didn’t these things jump out at me back in the day?  Why didn’t the absurdity strike me?  Why didn’t I question the things I was taught?  The man of god said that god’s word said that’s how things are and I believed it. 

If only I could remember why I was so gullible.

Posted in interpretation, technology, humor, listen, hearing, religion, emotion, education, stroke | Print | 4 Comments »

8. February 2010 by Frank.

(This was supposed to post several days ago but I’ve been on a mini-vacation (a wonderfully refreshing mini-vacation) made possible by an insurance payout from my late father-in-law.)

My job is deteriorating at an alarming pace.  Some truly bizarre plans and programs are being instituted at higher levels which can’t possibly bode well for a peon like me.  My particular store is apparently on very shaky ground despite decent sales numbers overall.  It’s certain key stats, however, that aren’t good enough.  Yes, that’s right, it’s the annual store is going to close scare.

This is the seventh or eighth time in the last ten years that this hoary old chestnut has been reused.

As usual, I’ll believe it when I see it.  I spent 17 years trying to convince myself you have to believe it first then you get to see it.  That’s what faith is, the evidence of things unseen.  You have to believe god’s promise first, believe you have already received the answer before there is an answer.  Then it will come to pass because god’s promises never fail.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.  Got that?  Faith is substance and evidence of the invisible.  Word of faith bible teaching at its best.

If you refuse to believe something until you see the evidence of it, well, that’s not faith.  It’s just an observation.  But if you believe it just because god (or one of his minions) said so, then you have great faith.  If you believe without any evidence at all you can work miracles.  Just ask Jesus.

Except that it doesn’t work.

Even the people who teach this stuff know it doesn’t work.  Baptists and other mainstream denominations know it doesn’t work so they try to alter the meaning of the verses or add all sorts of conditions.  Pentecostal types tend to declare the verses in question are absolutely true but almost without exception the people are full of sin and prevent them from working.

God’s humble followers always have an excuse why god never does what he says he does.

The believer is always at fault or god has some mysterious purpose why they must suffer.  But there is always an excuse.  We always want the answer right now but it isn’t always god’s time, he operates on a different level at a different pace.  But rest assured that all the shit in your life is happening for a reason, a real good godly reason.

I tried to convince myself of that when I got sued, I tried to persuade myself when my wages were garnished, I knew god had a plan when he let my wife drive our new car into the side of a building, I tried real hard to believe all those times and more.  But guess what, I still can’t fathom any plan in any of those events even thirty years later.  None of them made me a better person or a better christian.  I didn’t learn any valuable life lesson.  I gained no understanding, I didn’t become wiser.  And my faith most certainly did not grow stronger.

So what divine purpose could there possibly have been?

Faith was my life despite all those failures, which shows how far gone I actually was back then.  My faith convinced me that I could beat my ridiculously high blood pressure without medication.  Surely god would honor my faith in his healing power instead of the chemicals of men.  I most certainly had more faith than a mustard seed.

God was busy elsewhere the morning the morning of my stroke.  My blood pressure was so far gone I should have been dead.  I had no symptoms, I felt absolutely normal, there was no warning.  I was full of faith, praising god.  I was completely convinced I was right.  But my heart couldn’t pump blood to this small part of my brain.  The  oxygen it carried couldn’t reach the brain cells that were dying by the millions.  And suddenly, I lost control of the right side of my body.  Some fundamental component of who I was died as the brain tissue died.

My old life was over.  There was a new man in his place.  This new man had no faith and didn’t care.  But that didn’t matter.  This new man was a better man than the old man.  He wasn’t deluded.

In August I will have been living with this for twelve years.  Twelve years of pain daily, continually.  Twelve years of being unable to concentrate long enough to read a book by an author I love.   Twelve years of not caring.  Twelve years of altered perceptions.  Twelve years of being unable to remember large chunks of my life.

But it’s also been twelve years of not trying to make all this crap fit into my belief structure.  That’s the big BIG difference.  In many ways life is much simpler than it used to be.  Back when I believed god was in control and he had a plan for my life, I had to work very hard to make all the random disasters that kept befalling me fit into that plan.  Which is very very difficult (if you think about it) because god never seems very willing to let you in on just what that plan actually is.  A wrecked car here, a financial disaster there, a horrible illness on the one hand, an untimely death on the other.  All of them have to fit some ill-defined plan that you’re only guessing about in the first place.  It’s a stress producer.

I always used to wonder why so many church people needed to be refreshed from daily life every Sunday.  How could they get so burdened down every week?  Why did they have to show up for mid-week service so they could get through to Friday?  At least for me what was happening was the exact opposite.  All the praise and worship and sermons and teaching were in reality just loading me down with more sin and guilt and more worry that secular life was going to corrupt me even more during the week.  So I rushed back to every service to get the strength I needed to cope with life.  But what I was really getting was reinforcement of what a wretched sinner I was and how desperately I had to cling to god.  And to church.

I’ll admit that “shit happens” isn’t always a very satisfying way to think but it is worlds above “I wonder what god’s plan (purpose) for this disaster was?”  It doesn’t require any great anguish or soul searching. No mental gymnastics required.  No trying to figure out a plan that doesn’t exist except in your own imagination.

Shit happens.  I’m screwed.  Let’s get on with it.

Simple.

I like it that way.

Posted in listen, interpretation, humor, hearing, education, religion, emotion, stroke | Print | 2 Comments »

25. January 2010 by Frank.

I went with my wife to church today because she was going to sing a special.  She did good.  The pastor, however, didn’t.

His main topic was prayer with faith being a secondary reinforcement.  Unfortunately for him his choice of verses quite clearly state that the prayer of faith WILL heal the sick.  This does not fit in with his beliefs or the doctrines of his church so he was forced to add conditions and alterations to the verse to make it mean something it did not say.  At the very least this is rather dishonest.

It’s also why it is no use trying to use logic and reason to refute these people; they are masters of making contrary statements fit their own preconceived notions by any means possible. 

Part of his elaboration was that in order for god to be god there had to be mystery involved.  Our minds are so petty that they can’t conceive the things of god.  His will is a mystery, his reasons for our suffering go beyond our ability to understand.  And since there is such mystery we can’t assume the prayer of faith will actually do what the bible says it will do.  Why?  Because we’re all sinners with tiny little pea brains.

Besides, it’s more about spiritual healing anyway.

What, may I ask, is spiritual healing?  Seriously, go in any church and try to get someone to actually explain what your spirit is in comprehensible terms.  I guarantee getting a straight answer is next to impossible.  Get them to tell you what’s the difference between spirit and soul.  If anyone has an answer it will be some variation of only the word of god can divide the two.  It is one of god’s mysteries.

Let’s just go with a basic definition; your spirit or soul is that part of your consciousness that makes you you.  Simple enough?

Now then let’s ask someone such as myself who has suffered brain damage what they think that means.  Any  small amount of research will show you that brain damage (injury, stroke, disease, drugs) can radically alter your personality.  It can change what makes you you in such a way that you can no longer even recognize yourself.  It can baffle other people so much that they will literally withdraw from you because they can’t comprehend how different you are.

If simple physical damage can change who you are and how you think how can there be some immaterial spirit being who is the real you?  How could I go from a fired up christian fanatic to a complete unbeliever without even trying?  I have a clearly defined dividing line between who I was before the stroke to who I am after.  There’s no grey area.  Faith was everything before and it’s nothing now.

Not that I just accepted that.  No, I studied relentlessly to find an explanation.  I studied different doctrines, church history, different philosophies; works I never would have looked at before.  I looked to science and medicine and found out about brain damage and what it could do.  I found actual, real, physical, natural explanations for what I was convinced was a spiritual problem.  And I learned to cope with it.

I found the truth and the truth set me free.

The truth wasn’t the bible.  It was cold, hard facts.

What I want to point out to people is simply this; if your faith and beliefs require you to add words or alter their meanings from your own sacred texts, then, obviously, your texts aren’t quite so sacred as you claim.  You know the verse doesn’t work but you can’t admit that.  So you throw in some mystery.  You add some variable that allows you to fail so that you can claim god’s word didn’t fail.

If the bible was really the word of a real god it wouldn’t need such dishonest help.

Would it?

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, communication, listen, hearing, religion, emotion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

23. November 2009 by Frank.

I’m getting tired of being told no real atheist is 100% certain there is no god.  I’m sick of hearing the words “trope” and “meme” as if they magically expressed some deep truth.  I’m quite exhausted by all the logical arguments.

We’re not all college age debate squad members.

And I know for a fact that the average church goer does not seek out unbelievers to use logic on them.  Nor are they likely to understand logical arguments if they do encounter one.  As much a deal is made about witnessing and saving the lost, the vast majority would rather just let the pastor do it.  I was in church, in ministry, for 20 years; I know whereof I speak.

So why are so many atheist blogs so big on trying to debate and prove wrong theologians and apologists?  Seriously, where does one go to find the local theologian, the wise holy man who knows all the arguments for and against?  There aren’t any mountaintops here in Michigan to make a pilgrimage to.

If it makes perfect sense for people to reject every god except one, then how is it that when one rejects that final god he still isn’t allowed to be 100% certain there are no gods?  What?  Have we got an additional supply of gods we don’t know about?  Am I being facetious?

Definitely.  I get tired of being told what I can and cannot think.

Practically everyone I know is some form of christian.  I do not debate any of them, I have no desire to do so.  I could show them so much proof their beliefs are wrong from their own holy bible that you would think anyone would be convinced I was right.  I don’t bother because it’s futile.  Anything I say goes into a very selective filter so that the christian never hears anything they don’t want to hear.

You can’t even get a Baptist to hear a Pentecostal belief correctly.

What chance would an atheist have?

There’s a time and place for debate and anyone can blog about whatever they want.  I actually enjoy some sound logic now and then.  What I resent is being lumped into groups that I’m obviously not part of.  We do that to the religious all the time and think nothing of it.  But they aren’t all the same, they don’t all agree, they certainly don’t all think alike.  Atheists don’t have any common bond other than a lack of belief in god(s) and yet we still try to put labels on each other and define how we all should think.  Sorry, that doesn’t work.

I read.  I come across words and phrases constantly that I have never heard anyone use in conversation.  I am reasonably sure I would have to define those words to whomever I was talking to, if I were to use them myself.  Meme and trope are two such words.  Atheist blogs use these words with alarming frequency and yet I have never heard them spoken by anyone.  I come in contact with a lot of people.  Atheist bloggers seem to think that everyone sits around thinking about these concepts if not all the time at least most of the time.

But what in the world is a meme?  From Dictionary.com, “Richard Dawkin’s term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do.”  Or “Ideas can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution.”  Heavy stuff.  College professor speak.  Atheist bloggers picked up on the concept and obviously ran with it to the extent that one of them is mentioning a meme every time you look around.  I find it odd that my spell checker knows meme but apparently hasn’t heard the obvious sounding but totally obscure parasitize.  Put simply, memes are thought viruses.

Now that we have that straight, what’s a trope? From Dictionary.com, “any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than a literal sense.”  Don’t be embarrassed, I had to look up metonymy and synecdoche, too, although my spell checker does know them.  Let’s just say figure of speech shall we?  I used to get in trouble when I was a kid because I enjoyed reading the dictionary.  I was delighted to find cool sounding words that no one knew the meaning of.  I stopped doing that a long time ago but obviously other word nerds didn’t.

The point is, nobody talks like this in normal conversation.  What are we doing, trying to sound intellectual?  Or just trying to give the impression that we’re all a bunch of deep thinkers compared to our religious targets?

I do have to admit that there are quite a few atheist bloggers I read that actually are college students.  But outside their little groups who actually talks like this?

I have the misfortune to be related to some people very heavily involved in politics, law, and big money.  Occasionally I have been in their presence when they are communicating in political, legal, and wealth language that I barely understand.  I politely listen, keep my mouth shut, and manage to get the gist of what they’re talking about.  It isn’t pleasant and, again, most people don’t talk like this.

It’s also extremely obvious that nothing I think or say would be of interest to any of them.

I get the same feeling with quite a few atheist bloggers.  That’s what I’m ranting about.  I haven’t read all the relevant books, I don’t know all the right words.  I understand all this stuff far better than you might think but I don’t find it useful in dealing with other people.  Logic and reason are wonderful things but beating people over the head with them doesn’t work.  Someone struggling with losing their faith isn’t necessarily looking for cold hard facts, they may need some kind of emotional empathy more than that.

I had to deal with my stroke altered life and my loss of faith at the same time.  I didn’t have anyone to turn to, no one stepped in to help me or lead me to someone who could help.  My doctor knew nothing of stroke effects beyond his PDA and textbooks.  If there was any kind of support group in the area, no one referred me to them.  Not one but two churches turned their backs on me, there was no spiritual counseling either.  There weren’t any atheist blogs back then and, in a way, I’m glad there weren’t.  All the memes and tropes and logical arguments thrown around today would have left me cold back then.  I needed cold hard facts.  I needed solid reasons and explanations for what happened to me.

I didn’t need word games.

I certainly didn’t need anyone to tell me what to think or to believe.  I didn’t need to be assigned some label or to be put in some category.  I didn’t need to be alienated from the very people who actually could understand what I was going through.

That’s what disturbs me about a great many atheist blogs currently.  They seem hell bent on alienating the very people they claim to be trying to reach.

Lighten up, people!

OK.  Rant over.

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, communication, humor, listen, hearing, religion, emotion, education, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

28. October 2009 by Frank.

I know some christians that like to post on Facebook.  Some of the things they post spark memories of when I used to do such things.  Some of them are things I was aware other people were doing but never bothered with myself.  Some are definite behaviors I indulged in.

The first one that sparked a memory was the request for travelling mercies.  I used to hear people pray for this all the time, I never did because I thought it was foolish.  But there were people who wouldn’t go more than a few miles without having the whole church praying that god would grant them travelling mercies.  Somehow, it seemed to me, these folks thought god wasn’t aware they were going anywhere and that travel can be dangerous.  They wanted some kind of force field around their vehicle to protect them from potential harm.  Having been involved in several wrecks over the years, I had already come to the conclusion that god wasn’t going to prevent an accident no matter how many times you asked him or how many people you had praying for you.  He never seemed to be the least bit concerned that your insurance premiums were going to increase nor did it seem like he cared how badly anyone got hurt or how much property was damaged.  When my wife had a seizure and drove the car into the side of a building, folding it up like an accordion, we gave him credit for keeping her from getting hurt but I could never get over why he let it happen in the first place.  So even as a christian I thought travelling mercies were bullshit.

On the other hand, some one else has to go for some nasty medical tests and wants prayers to keep himself from bad results.  I indulged in this sort of thing not necessarily asking others to pray for me but calling on all my own faith, rebuking the devil, claiming the blood of Jesus, and standing firm against any evil that might befall me because I was a man of god.  Because satan wanted to bring me down.  Even though I believed in divine healing I still didn’t want to come down with some horrible affliction.  Unfortunately, god let me down with all this as well.  My faith was no match for high blood pressure and god did not intervene.  There was no protection or deliverance from the stroke, either.

There also wasn’t any result with casting out the epilepsy demon from my wife.

The only thing that works with any of this is man-made medicines prescribed by human doctors who like to think they’re gods.  The thing of it is, I don’t see how anyone can continue calling on god for matters of health.  You witness enough suffering (go spend some time in a long term care facility) and agony of both the saved and the unsaved and then tell me you see the hand of god involved with any of them.  Watch your best friend be eaten alive by cancer, watch a mother’s grief when her daughter’s head is torn off in a motorcycle accident, watch an elderly woman grieve because her husband was killed by some teenaged moron with a cinder block while her husband tried to help the kid get his car out of a snow drift, watch your own mother die in agony because her pancreas decided to consume itself, watch your father-in-law die from an untreated and undiagnosed black spot on his foot and then come and convince me that god gives a shit about anyone’s health and wellbeing.  All these people were (and still are (if still alive) christians) when it happened.  God neither prevented, intervened, nor relieved any of this suffering despite the prayers of several churches full of mighty warriors of faith.

Not very impressive for the creator of the entire universe.  When I see these prayers being requested I just shake my head.  I used to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary so I can’t really criticize them too harshly.  But sooner or later you’ve got to admit there’s something radically wrong with believing in a caring healing god.

The Baptists have a sort of work-around for these things.  They don’t pray for the sufferer to be healed.  That way when nothing happens they’re off the hook.  No, they pray for the doctors to have wisdom or for the medicine to do the job it was designed to do.  I’ve seen several of these types of requests lately.  This sort of prayer lets god get away with doing nothing because they can blame the doctor or the medicine for failing instead.  I used to go along with this while in church but secretly prayed for complete healing while alone.  It didn’t do any good either way.

Least in frequency, are posts praising god for answering prayers.  Don’t want to jinx the results, you know.  I used to have to pressure people to get up and praise god in church.  It was worse than pulling teeth.  Their faith was so tenuous that they were literally afraid that praising god would somehow cause everything to fall apart. 

Looking back on all this now I wonder how otherwise intelligent people can become so deluded.

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, listen, hearing, religion, emotion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

11. October 2009 by Frank.

Periodically, I have recurring nightmares.  They almost invariably take place in the factory I worked at for 23 years before I had the stroke and became a new man.  They always involve people I knew, whom I thought were my friends.  They always take place in the factory, which is quite recognizable even though it is always altered in some bizarre manner.  Tonight it was several thousand times bigger and employed thousands more bedraggled people.  It featured extremely odd material handling equipment including a spinning lift truck which shot out an enormous arm that grabbed objects with pinpoint accuracy before rapidly spinning back into a compact ball.

It was quitting time which was after midnight.  Everyone looked as if the life was completely drained out of them.  They were all dressed in shabby winter coats and other garb.  They shuffled past the time clock in a near zombie-like procession but then became incredibly nimble as they had to go to great lengths to dodge the aforementioned material handling machines in the parking lot.  These machines were moving every kind of container under the sun with completely disregard for the workers attempting to leave the plant.  Several groups were crushed under huge cargo crates but no one had time to notice because they were so busy trying to save themselves from the same fate.

By the time the workers made it to the far side of the parking lot there were only hundreds instead of thousands of them.  But they weren’t out yet.  The office building now had to be passed through.

This building was a labyrinth of featureless black glass panels.  People were crashing into invisible walls and being trampled to death when they fell.  The hundreds were reduced to tens and twenties.  These decimated groups made it up stairwells to a lighted section of the building.  At first it seemed empty but gradually there were signs of white collar workers in various cubicles.  They sat at computer terminals typing but they were all faceless.  Literally.

Then the remaining groups burst into an area that looked like a shopping mall.  It was almost entirely women’s clothing stores featuring pathetically bad clothing, brightly colored fabrics the were essentially just rags.  The women in the groups began ooh-ing and ah-ing and eventually started having orgasms as they hurried to touch the pretty fabrics.  They pulled all their money from their purses and coats and gladly threw it at the feet of the faceless minions who worked the stores.  Once they entered a store they never left.

The few remaining men took no notice of this but rushed on to the back side of the mall where there were several bars.  They rushed inside and began ordering beers.  They drank as fast as they could so they could order more.  They, too, spent every last penny they had.  They all drank themselves into a stupor which lasted all of five minutes before an alarm sounded and a voice announced that it was time for work.  They dutifully made their way back to the factory.

New workers were being brought in by the busload.  There were more familiar faces among them.  They trudged in and immediately began working, blank faced, glassy-eyed, and drooling.  Thus another workday had begun.

And thus I woke up unable to go back to sleep.  I used to wonder why I frequently woke up more tired than when I went to bed.  Vivid dreams like this are the reason; I’m far more physically active in the dream world than I am in real life.  This is what my brain is doing at 3 AM.

No wonder I’m worn out all the time.

Posted in interpretation, humor, wild guesses, signs, stroke, Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

27. September 2009 by Frank.

I work for a company that thrives on statistics.  Every single day we are bombarded with this year’s sales figures compared to last year’s sales figures, customer counts, percentages to various budgets, variations to forecasts, comparisons to holiday weekends even if they don’t fall on the same general dates, and a plethora of other essentially useless numbers.  All any of us peons really want to know is if we sold enough stuff that we get to keep our jobs another day.

With this in mind, the first submission to this week’s Symposium prompted me to have a facepalm moment and shout, “Statistics!  Why’d it have to be statistics?!”  Turns out that Luke at Common Sense Atheism has a good reason to cite some statistics.  Drawing from the book, Society Without God by Phil Zuckerman, he lays out some pretty impressive stats (shudder) that clearly show non-religious societies are actually among the most “well-developed, wealthiest, most democratic, most free, most entrepreneurial, least corrupt, least violent, most peaceful, healthiest, happiest, most egalitarian, best educated, most charitable, and most environmentally compassionate societies in the entire world.”  Read it for yourself right here.

I am wholeheartedly interested in a less religious society.  It seems at times that I am being constantly pressured to move back to religion, almost like any other position is completely unacceptable.  So you join up in any way that you can with other atheist and humanist movements and discover that there are like minded people.  Unfortunately, none of them seem to be where you are if you live in a small town.  So you have this weird feeling that you’re part of something but not really part of anything because you’re the only one in your group.  It’s lonely out here.

I don’t think Greta Christina is lonely but she exposes a darker aspect of the atheistic and humanist movements brought about by perceptions of them being the exclusive domain of white males.  Being a white male myself, I was not aware there was even a problem.  Or that anyone would have reason to feel excluded.  (I’m not exactly the brightest bulb in the lamp.)  But that’s why it’s so important to read as many blogs as you can from so many divers people.  Greta has an excellent two part post exposing this attitude and suggesting some very practical things to avoid letting it get out of hand while we’re still early in the game.  (Part 1, Part 2)

Greta seems to be extremely well-known by virtually everyone I read.  She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve come across online.  This view is shared by the Humanist Symposium’s own Ebonmuse who offers his thoughts on the same subject after being inspired by reading Greta’s 2 posts.

It’s far too easy to be complacent and remain unaware of very real problems of this nature.  There are major issues at stake in the political culture of our country and the world and there are voices demanding to be heard.  A great deal of the loudest and most attention getting voices want to set us back a few hundred years.  One voice that wants us to move forward is Sikivu Hutchinson.  An interview with her by Greta Christina and several of her articles inspired more than just Greta and Ebonmuse to write about these concepts, I’ve read a number of other articles Sikivu inspired recently and must say that she is opening quite a few eyes.  Bold, reasoned, and unequivocal are some of the words I would use to describe her article “This Far By Faith?  Race Traitors, Gender Apostates and the Atheism Question.”  It’s not often someone of this stature notices a humble little blog carnival, let alone submits an article to it.

Originally, I had intended to link this Symposium together with a lighthearted rambling science fiction theme which I had all worked out in advance and was planning on writing this weekend.  I had correctly surmised that the vast majority of submissions would show up just a few days before they were supposed to be posted.  I wanted to do something fun and upbeat as well as unusual.  But things don’t always cooperate.

Phil for Humanity says, “Whatever that is keeping you from being with your loved ones, your family, your friends, your lover, from your true passion, or from just living your life in general; it is not as important as you may think.”  His brief post, It Does Not Matter, hits home for me in quite a profound way.

My father-in-law died quite unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.  He had a serious infection in his leg and my wife had moved in with him this last week to take care of him.  He was a very large man and she had called the EMT’s to come take him to his doctor’s appointment but he was having some trouble so they decided to go to the hospital instead.  He died before they got there.  Just the day before he was full of life griping and complaining about everything and what a nuisance his leg was becoming.  Death is a very ugly thing.  Lighthearted and frivolous just flew out the door.

Glowing Face Man submitted a post entitled, “The length of a Human Lifetime,” that is oddly appropriate just now.  Perceived time isn’t the same as real time based on age.  By any standard my father-in-law led a very full life in his just shy of 80 years.

One of my wife’s sisters remarked last night that Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be the same this year.  She was obviously distraught but I had just read “Humanist Rosh Hashanah” by The Purloined Letter a few days ago and thought here was a great idea that could be applied to the holidays for our family this year.  Amazing how many of these submissions were comforting and appropriate to my family situation just now.

The aptly named The Emotion Machine sent in This Too Shall Pass (A Lesson In Impermanence).  Some things you think will never change and yet they do.  The wisdom story that begins the article is particularly effective and also illustrates perfectly something very near and dear to me; that is perception.

All of my perceptions about life were radically altered by my stroke eleven years ago.  I went from wanting to be a preacher for the rest of my life to having no faith and no belief in god in an instant (although it took a long time to figure out what happened.)  But very subtle and often very simple differences in perception can change an entire worldview.  Consider these examples:  Atheism: The Essence of Morality by Towards a Rational America and an Enlightened Judaism in which reasons for moral behavior are diametrically opposed and Concentration Brings Happiness (Why People Think They Can Actually Sing) by Scientific Living in which being mentally occupied is preferable to being mentally diffuse.  Singing in the shower is definitely a  matter of perception if anyone could hear you.

Religion and science butt heads all the time often in such things as the meaning of certain words or the perceptions of certain concepts.  It’s no secret the word THEORY doesn’t mean the same thing to a scientist and a creationist.  So The Evolving Mind says that Religion is a Rotten Variable; define your terms.  Our own prolific Philly Chief makes the same sort of connection pointing out how god belief attaches itself to morality so that they are perceived as one in the same.  God Belief is a Third Wheel says Philly and you know he’s right.  Meanwhile, The Primate Diaries points out that The Unseen and Unknowable Has No Place in Science just like questioning has no place in religion.  C.L. Hanson of Letters From a Broad is quite excited about “Here Comes Science” by They Might Be Giants.  Aimed at kids (obviously) but wouldn’t you rather see more science is exciting promotion in our current American society?  I know I would.  Let C.L. explain “Why I Love ‘Here Comes Science’!!!”

The Chaplain over at An Apostate’s Chapel is outraged, outraged I tell you that a big time publisher is cowering to extremists in publishing a book about the cartoons that offended the Muslim extremists without including the cartoons themselves.  She even uses the phrase, “…should have the balls to stand up for free speech and a free press,” in her article:  Yale University Press Caves In.  That’s outrage.

Celebrating the Win Does Not Always Mean Deriding the Loser says Vjack of Atheist Revolution which again brings up how you perceive the situation.  I myself can’t help but feel good when religion loses a little more of its hold over our society.  Indeed, as religion lost its hold on me personally, I became happier and happier.  So when they lose one on the national or world stage I get a boost out of it.

And finally, a post that was perfectly in tune with my original lighthearted intent.  Symbolism Shmymbolism by She Who Chatters (great name by the way) tackles an actually serious issue involving who we are as a movement and whether or not we need symbols to identify ourselves.

My wife is doing what she does to handle her grief, she’s out talking to her friends.  And I’m here doing what I do to handle my grief, I’m writing to my friends.  We handle things much differently not only because of personality but also because of religious differences.  I’m not sure why but there has been very little god talk the last couple of days beyond some religious songs they want played at the funeral.  Nobody wanted to see the chaplain while we were at the hospital.  Being quite familiar with what passes for compassion and comfort from religious folks at these events, I was relieved not to hear the same old platitudes I heard when my mother died a couple of years ago.

But no matter what you believe, death is ugly.  So ugly that we shouldn’t fear it but do everything in our power to overcome it.  To live our lives to the fullest extent possible.  To enjoy every moment of every day.  To rejoice in our humanity and share our lives and love with one another.  What more do we need?

You can participate in the Humanist Symposium by visiting the Symposium homepage for all the details.  The next issue is on October 18, 2009 at Cubik’s Rube.  Do Cubik a favor, submit your articles early.  It will make his life so much easier!

Posted in wild guesses, listen, interpretation, communication, humor, signs, hearing, stroke, religion, emotion, education, Blogroll | Print | 5 Comments »

12. September 2009 by Frank.

I’m still not quite right after 11 years since the stroke.  I have rather bizarre problems that I think about quite a bit but that I don’t discuss with anyone.  Not that I’m embarrassed, but simply that I can’t understand myself so I don’t expect anyone else to comprehend it either.

I have some huge gaps in my memory.  I was talking with my dad the other day and he mentioned how all the kids in the subdivision used to come over to my house to play,  He named quite a few names and described several regular events that went on all the time.  I didn’t recognize the names or the events.  I have absolutely no memory of any such things ever occurring.  I have racked my brain trying to remember anything he mentioned.  Nothing.

There are many many more such instances.  It isn’t just my childhood that’s gone.  It’s current events as well.  Don’t be alarmed, it’s not Alzheimer’s or dementia, it’s a huge memory black hole that sucks up things with a vengeance.  Aside from specific events what’s mainly gone is a sense of time when any of those specific things happened.

I do remember an awful lot of things but I would have a horrible time trying to tell you when any of them happened.

Actually, this is one of the main reasons I blog.  So I have a record of what I’m thinking at any given time.

You may have noticed that I have quite a few stories from my past so it’s clear it isn’t all gone.  I don’t know if you have ever experienced someone relating what they thought was a shared memory but you weren’t able to recall at all, but let me assure you it is very weird.  When you can come up with nothing at all after hours and eventually days of trying, it’s more than a little disconcerting.

Even worse than the memory problems is the not caring about anything problem.  This one is brutal.  There are things in life you have to care about like financial obligations.  Minor little things like taking your medicine because if you don’t your condition will kill you or worse.  Maintaining family and friend relationships.  All sorts of things essential to everyday living.  When I say not caring I literally mean not caring.

Nothing is important to me.

I don’t care if any of these things gets done.  I don’t give a damn about the bills.  Who needs relationships?  Who gives a flying rat’s ass if I go sit under a tree and drool on myself for the rest of my life?  This is not an exaggeration.

Fortunately for me, no one has stepped up and offered to do any of these things for me or even offered to help me do any of them.  That’s the proverbial blessing and curse all rolled into one.  I know those things must be done and since no one is going to help me, I do them despite not caring if they get done.  I could really use some help keeping focused but, at the same time, that help has to be limited or else I will not do it at all.  I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

I went to a psychiatrist many years ago (30 – 35 years?) after I went cold turkey with my drinking.  I can’t remember how many sessions I had but even then I was studying the psychiatrist as much as she was studying me.  I learned her methods and used them later on when I was working on a christian prayer line at the TV station.  I’m not sure how it happened but we became friends and I eventually wound up playing volleyball with her and other doctors in a gym in the basement of the hospital.  This was not normal.  She also introduced me to the local theater production company.  I managed to get the lead in the first play I ever auditioned for.

(I guess that paragraph should have been in parenthesis because it’s an aside.)

I mentioned all that because it’s the reason I have no desire to seek counseling for my stroke related problems.  I’ve been far too up close and personal with these methods to see any benefit in pursuing them now for several hundred dollars an hour.  The whole premise is simply to keep asking questions until the person works their problem out themselves.  I can do that for myself without even charging me a dime.

I know a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient but I’m not a doctor, I just play one on the stage occasionally.

Which brings me to the auditions next week for Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.  I do plays at the college, have been since 1994.  Before ‘98 I was just doing them for fun but since then I have been doing them to keep my mind sharp and active.  I usually manage to land the lead role which guarantees 200 – 300 lines to memorize.  It’s getting more difficult but it’s great mental exercise.  It’s part of the secret I learned to deal with the stroke.

The greatest weapon I have against the brain damage I suffered is to keep my mind active.  I read several hours a day every day.  My job involves reading and manipulating numbers, thousands of numbers.  I take training online for technology (which involves a lot of quizzes and memorizing.)  A part in a play not only requires a couple of hundred lines to memorize for my own part but essentially you have to remember everyone else’s lines, too.

At the same time I have learned to appreciate the beauty of nature and the pleasure of just going out to breathe some fresh air.  I soak in the details of the world around me and I use my camera to capture them.  My world isn’t just inside my computer.

When you add in all the pain I have to deal with as well you realize that my life is one long battle.  Believe me this level of pain sustained for this length of time is very debilitating.  I have to fight it constantly.  But it’s my own choice because I refuse to live all drugged up all the time.  It’s a functional system for me, however, because if I give into it, I’m as good as dead.

I’m reasonably sure that dead isn’t anywhere near as good as alive.

Posted in communication, humor, wild guesses, education, emotion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

5. September 2009 by Frank.

This has been the mildest (coldest) Summer on record here in this part of Michigan.  Outdoor beach activities and business have been way down but the weather has been beautiful overall except for a few really stormy days which only occurred on weekends.  Basically, if you want to deny global warming this Summer just screamed, “See, there ain’t no stinkin’ global warming!”

Of course, what’s true here isn’t necessarily true anywhere else.

This is also back to school time which means all our local retailers are getting trampled by massive hordes of back to school shoppers looking for deals.  We sold 12,000 paper folders for a penny each in 3 days.  Do you know how many people brought 5 or 6 little kids with them because there was a limit of ten on the folders?  Each little kid comes through the line with ten folders and a dime.  The company does it to get shoppers in the store but it backfires on them because these people only come in for the penny items, they never buy anything else.  The corporate greed is bad enough (they’re even going to stay open until 10 PM Monday night) but the greed of the customers is just as repulsive.  The sense of entitlement and the outrage when we run out of the penny junk is ridiculous.

The shoplifters are also out in force because us just giving stuff away isn’t enough for them.  They have some incredibly complex scams and they work in teams.  My primary job is inventory control so I’m usually the one who discovers what’s been stolen.  I can’t help it but it feels as though these people are stealing from me personally.  It makes me very sad.

Speaking of something for nothing, it does pay to be in tech sales.  Take some training and pass a few tests and Microsoft will give you Office 2007 Standard and Windows 7 Ultimate.  I’ve already got my copies reserved.  Norton does the same thing with their products but unfortunately none of their stuff will run on Windows 7 yet.  A few hours of my time has netted me over $1000 of free top quality software in the last couple of weeks.  Of course, I also run mostly open source and beta software which doesn’t cost anything (except potential computer disasters) and the only thing I buy is an occasional game from the bargain bin.  Computing can be frugal.

Today is the dedication of a huge new fountain down by the beach.  It’s laid out like a giant compass and the artist renderings of it make it look like it creates some pretty impressive rotating walls of water.  I’m going to go take photos of it.  The museum/convention center complex being built next to it won’t be ready yet but they are supposed to have some of the carousel horses on display.  There used to be a very popular amusement park on the beach up until the 1960’s and it featured an old fashioned merry-go-round.  There is a local group that has been working for many years to get the horses back and restore it to it’s former glory.

This weekend is the Tri-State Regatta, an annual sailboat race featuring hundreds of sailboats.  I’m also going for a photo shoot of that today and tomorrow.  Beautiful, low humidity, mid seventies, abundant sunshine weather is scheduled.

The end of Summer is the beginning of Fall which, as you may have guessed, is my favorite time of the year.  Some trees are already changing colors and it potentially can get very gorgeous here.  The last couple of years have been marred by really weird weather which seemed to bring down the leaves way too fast.  Hopefully, this year will be different since we already had the weird weather for the Summer.  Many weekend photo excursions are amongst my plans.

I bought myself a little pedometer the other day because I really want to know how far I’m actually walking.  I used it at work yesterday and racked up three miles which is what I had estimated.  The instructions for the thing recommend you take 10,000 steps a day which I also accomplished even though my feet are blistered and are killing me.  I’m curious how much ground I cover when I’m out taking pictures for hours at a time.  It looks to me like I may be walking 20 – 25 miles every week which I think is a very good thing.  When I consider that I didn’t even know how to walk eleven years ago right after the stroke, I feel that I have really accomplished something very worthwhile.

I know all of this is off topic and probably of little interest but it’s a three day weekend, it’s beautiful, there’s some really fun things going on, and I have the time and enough money to enjoy it all for a change.  So it’s the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall.  It’s wonderful to be alive.  Life is good.  I’m completely peaceful and full of joy.

I don’t feel like this very often.  I’m going to indulge and revel in it.

Woo hoo!

Posted in communication, humor, listen, emotion, stroke, Uncategorized | Print | 2 Comments »

6. August 2009 by Frank.

So today’s the day when everything changed.

Ho hum.

I did manage to score an $11.50 Maxtor 500GB external hard drive on clearance (obviously) at work yesterday.  That’s really pushing the budget to the limit but what the hey, I don’t ever get to celebrate much.  In fact, my air conditioner died Monday after the coldest July on record here in my corner of Michigan.  Which means that it will be the hottest August and September ever recorded here.  I will be losing some 25 pounds due to sweat alone so it’s all good.

The thing of it is I really do have to deal with the stroke induced changes on a daily basis.  A number of people including my wife used to get onto me all the time about their perception that I needed to get over it and get on with my life.  They couldn’t comprehend the constant pain or the still severe mental desire to just give up and drool on myself for the rest of my life.  I battle that all the damn time.  I had gotten over it and had gotten on with my life but my struggles did not magically go away.  So I kept talking about it and kept getting condemned.

Eventually I gave up trying to get any sympathy or compassion from anyone.  I write about it but I don’t talk about it.  I look at myself in the mirror and I see the lifelessness in my eyes.  That isn’t just a saying.  One of the doctors who examined me after the stroke said that stroke damage is visible in your eyes.  He’s also the one who correctly told me that I would never feel “right” again.  Have you ever had a bad headache that lasted 11 years?  If they ever film a zombie movie near here I can get the part without even acting.

(My new back up drive just finished backing up my 55,663 photo files (103 GB!)  Wow!  I take a lot of pictures!).

For that matter, I could play the Wolfman without a costume because as Gaston sings, “Every last inch of me is covered with hair!”  Well, except for my head.  I only mention this because the play at the local college this Fall is Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.  I was in a production of it 32 years ago and it was such a horrible experience that I gave up acting for 17 years.  The egomaniac director thought he was so good he cast himself as the lead character.  He then proceeded to go on an all out drunken binge in Kalamazoo a couple of days before the play opened.  He got arrested, spent the night and the next day in jail, and didn’t get released until an hour before the play was supposed to open.  He was still bombed out of his mind and arrived about fifteen minutes late.  He rushed out on stage, forgot his lines, made up something about leaving his notes in the car, left us on stage to cover, and came back in with his script poorly disguised in a stack of papers on a clipboard.  I would really like to do it right this time.  I have had the lead in almost every show I’ve been in and have had to memorize 300 – 400 lines for each of them.  I do it to challenge myself, to keep my brain functioning.  Not to mention to pretend to be enthusiastic, fired up, and full of energy.  Auditions are the beginning of next month.

There was a very beautiful girl, who had suffered a fall off a high wall that had caused brain damage, who was in the first play I did after the stroke.  She was there for the same reason, to challenge herself.  We got along real well because of that and we both felt we accomplished our goals.  We beat something that wanted to stop us cold and make us give up for the rest of our lives.

I could use some more people like that in my life.  My wife is partially paralyzed and has epilepsy but she fights it tooth and nail.  I always admired her for that but for some reason she never had any sympathy for me.  Somehow I was supposed to just get over it and go back to being myself.  Even after 11 years she still doesn’t get why I have no interest in church.  And I can’t go back to being myself because that guy is dead.  I am version 2.0

Sorry for rambling all over the place but I just felt like writing and this is what came out.  But you’ve learned some new things about me, read my most memorable theater story, and now know that I am a picture taking fool.  I didn’t have the slightest interest in photography before the stroke, now it’s all I really want to do.  Some changes are really good even if they seem bad at first.  All you have to do is hang in there and never ever give up.

No matter how much you may want to.  Or for how long.

Posted in interpretation, communication, humor, wild guesses, listen, religion, emotion, stroke | Print | 2 Comments »