I hate the line, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." When you first hear it, you have to respect it. After all, It's true. Hard work begets success, no? So, it's got roots in the genuinely respectable concept of hard work, mistakes, and toil to achieve a goal. But over time, I suspect that the line has become more of a platitude, a crutch in a particular argument, rather than anything truly meaningful or helpful.
The "You didn't work as hard as me because you haven't achieved the same status as me," or "You should pull harder on your bootstraps," arguments are really great ways for the purveyors of those arguments to dismiss indefinitely the possibility that the recipient in question perhaps had to work just as hard if not harder to achieve a lesser status. After all, most of those I hear making that argument vehemently oppose the mere mention of the word "privilege" in the context of socioeconomic class. And not only do those arguments dismiss the idea of privilege, they also implicitly absolve the person making the argument of any personal feelings of obligation to help or guilt that might otherwise arise from their lack thereof. In other words, "You didn't work as hard as me, so I am under no pressure to help you achieve anything you don't deserve. Work harder and you'll get to where I am eventually."
Then, of course, we're left with dismissing the concept of socioeconomic privilege but introducing that of any individual being deserving of anything at all. Who gets to mete out those judgments? In addition, why does the judge deserve that position? What a philosophical mess. I'm sure someone has thought of it and written about it already but I wouldn't know where to look for an answer.
Friday, March 10, 2017
Friday, April 08, 2016
Tennessee Attempts to Legislate Christianity Into Power
At one point in my life, I called myself a Christian. I read and studied the Bible on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. I discussed it with laypeople and leaders, some of whom I still hold in high regard for their knowledge and understanding of the text. Also during this time, if you've met me later in my life and might struggle to believe it, I was also employed as a part-time music director for a small church in Chicago. But these kinds of political stunts by the American Christian community are a big part of why I left the church forever. I could no longer sit idly by while an active and vocal arm of Christianity was clearly making attempts to gain even more political power than they'd been granted by Eisenhower through Billy Graham and then Reagan via Falwell, something that the oh-so-holy and enshrined Founding Fathers were trying to prevent to the extent that quotes to that end are actually engraved in stone on erected temples in their names in Washington D.C.
The Christian message, in my eyes, was becoming strident and unforgiving, exactly the opposite of the kinds of things that attracted me to the religion in the first place. I had a choice to make: I could either remain a part of an organization that I had come to recognize as one to reject its own principles in favor of power and attempt to lead by example and advocate for change from within or I could simply step outside and watch the circus from the sidelines.
And what a circus it has been! Since I left the church, watching the Tea Party movement and their ilk of Bible-thumping power mongers attempt to simultaneously keep the rights of others at bay while bolstering their own power has only solidified my resolve to stay out of churches and as far away from Christians as possible as their message has long since devolved into self-righteous, aggrandizing chest thumping that I find more in line with the Roman Empire they once held in equally low regard, by using the power granted to them by and through government to require all to tow their line.
As an addendum, I understand that many Christians may also not agree with these attempts to legislate a state religion. If you are one of these, I believe you also are faced with the same choice, to either attempt from within your own churches to keep your organization from impeding the rights of others to worship or not in their own way or to sit by and do nothing and let the problem continue to fester. If you agree with the actions of the Tennessee legislature, you need to develop your understanding of the teachings of not only the Bible but of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and learn what exactly those Founding Fathers said regarding religion and legislature. You may be surprised by what you find.
The Christian message, in my eyes, was becoming strident and unforgiving, exactly the opposite of the kinds of things that attracted me to the religion in the first place. I had a choice to make: I could either remain a part of an organization that I had come to recognize as one to reject its own principles in favor of power and attempt to lead by example and advocate for change from within or I could simply step outside and watch the circus from the sidelines.
And what a circus it has been! Since I left the church, watching the Tea Party movement and their ilk of Bible-thumping power mongers attempt to simultaneously keep the rights of others at bay while bolstering their own power has only solidified my resolve to stay out of churches and as far away from Christians as possible as their message has long since devolved into self-righteous, aggrandizing chest thumping that I find more in line with the Roman Empire they once held in equally low regard, by using the power granted to them by and through government to require all to tow their line.
As an addendum, I understand that many Christians may also not agree with these attempts to legislate a state religion. If you are one of these, I believe you also are faced with the same choice, to either attempt from within your own churches to keep your organization from impeding the rights of others to worship or not in their own way or to sit by and do nothing and let the problem continue to fester. If you agree with the actions of the Tennessee legislature, you need to develop your understanding of the teachings of not only the Bible but of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and learn what exactly those Founding Fathers said regarding religion and legislature. You may be surprised by what you find.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
This post contains some massive spoilers about the game. Read no further if you haven't played it yet and don't want anything revealed beforehand.
I didn't go into Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons with many expectations. I'd heard it was a decent puzzle platformer with a unique control scheme that allowed a single player to simultaneously control two characters on screen. And that was about it. What I didn't expect at all was that it would be the most emotionally affecting game I think I've played to date.
The fable-ish, storybook quality of both the narrative and the images and characters was charming enough. The world is colorful and pleasing to look at but I was always keenly aware of the darkness underneath, the way a good fable unfolds. There were a few points when the cover of that darkness was removed which forced me to focus on the darkness. I won't mention them all here but in one instance, the scene involves the brothers rescuing a man from hanging himself. Through cooperation, they return a music-box to his family that was killed in a recent house fire, their charred remains covered next to the smoldering ruins by a blanket. You can even see the blackened feminine legs and small childish feet poking out from underneath. Like I said, dark.
In happier terms, the way the brothers would interact with each other and the world around them in different was interesting. Each of them would have different reactions to places and characters in the game. There were some heartwarming moments when you get to bask in the glow of satisfaction, knowing that you'd just reunited a loving troll couple and returned a mother sea turtles babies to the safety of her bosom.
But the truly great part of this game, what makes it rise above many others I've played, in terms of making me feel emotions was that it incorporated that feeling directly into the mechanics of the how the game works, not just inserting it with a few cutscenes, like most games I've played have done. Because the brothers have to work together, the older one on the left stick and the younger one on the right, you begin to associate those sticks to each boy. Just before the brothers reach their final destination, the tree that contains the restorative potion that will revive their father from his sickness, the older brother receives a fatal injury. Playing only as the younger brother, you race to the top of the tree, hoping that the potion might also revive your older brother. But when you return with the potion, you discover your older brother is dead.
Once the cutscene is over, the game forces you to bury your older brother in the grave that you dig for him. It's part of the level and you don't get to just sit and watch. You have to perform the act. Then, in another cutscene, you are whisked back home through most of the vistas that you just traversed with your now-deceased brother in happiness, to return with the potion to your father. At the beginning, the game opened with a cutscene that shows the younger brother in a flashback unable to save his mother from drowning. The older brother helps the younger brother through all of the swimming portions of the game by carrying him on his back. Now at home again, alone as the younger brother, you have to swim across the same deep pond that your older brother once helped you across.
It was at this point that I realized that my left thumb ached to be able to use the older brother's left stick to use the younger one. And it was also that moment that I realized that the older brother's controls were there to help him. If I just tried to make the younger brother swim with the right side controls, he would shake his head and refuse. But by pressing the action button of the older brother, the controller shaking in my hand, the memory of his older brother pushes the younger brother through obstacles that he used to need his older brother to traverse. It seems like such a small thing, but it was that climactic moment that I felt more connected to these two characters than any other character in any other game I'd ever played.
Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I now have two sons of my own. I don't know. But those final moments of this game spoke to me more than any of the hundreds of games I've played in my lifetime. Roger Ebert once said that a game had never and would never be able to make someone cry. If only he'd lived to see this game, he may have retracted his statement. Until now, I doubted him but only out of gut instinct, knowing that someday I game probably would maybe, just maybe, make me cry. Now that Brothers has done it, not just with a cutscene but making me my thumb ache from the absence of a character, there's no question that he was wrong.
I didn't go into Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons with many expectations. I'd heard it was a decent puzzle platformer with a unique control scheme that allowed a single player to simultaneously control two characters on screen. And that was about it. What I didn't expect at all was that it would be the most emotionally affecting game I think I've played to date.
The fable-ish, storybook quality of both the narrative and the images and characters was charming enough. The world is colorful and pleasing to look at but I was always keenly aware of the darkness underneath, the way a good fable unfolds. There were a few points when the cover of that darkness was removed which forced me to focus on the darkness. I won't mention them all here but in one instance, the scene involves the brothers rescuing a man from hanging himself. Through cooperation, they return a music-box to his family that was killed in a recent house fire, their charred remains covered next to the smoldering ruins by a blanket. You can even see the blackened feminine legs and small childish feet poking out from underneath. Like I said, dark.
In happier terms, the way the brothers would interact with each other and the world around them in different was interesting. Each of them would have different reactions to places and characters in the game. There were some heartwarming moments when you get to bask in the glow of satisfaction, knowing that you'd just reunited a loving troll couple and returned a mother sea turtles babies to the safety of her bosom.
But the truly great part of this game, what makes it rise above many others I've played, in terms of making me feel emotions was that it incorporated that feeling directly into the mechanics of the how the game works, not just inserting it with a few cutscenes, like most games I've played have done. Because the brothers have to work together, the older one on the left stick and the younger one on the right, you begin to associate those sticks to each boy. Just before the brothers reach their final destination, the tree that contains the restorative potion that will revive their father from his sickness, the older brother receives a fatal injury. Playing only as the younger brother, you race to the top of the tree, hoping that the potion might also revive your older brother. But when you return with the potion, you discover your older brother is dead.
Once the cutscene is over, the game forces you to bury your older brother in the grave that you dig for him. It's part of the level and you don't get to just sit and watch. You have to perform the act. Then, in another cutscene, you are whisked back home through most of the vistas that you just traversed with your now-deceased brother in happiness, to return with the potion to your father. At the beginning, the game opened with a cutscene that shows the younger brother in a flashback unable to save his mother from drowning. The older brother helps the younger brother through all of the swimming portions of the game by carrying him on his back. Now at home again, alone as the younger brother, you have to swim across the same deep pond that your older brother once helped you across.
It was at this point that I realized that my left thumb ached to be able to use the older brother's left stick to use the younger one. And it was also that moment that I realized that the older brother's controls were there to help him. If I just tried to make the younger brother swim with the right side controls, he would shake his head and refuse. But by pressing the action button of the older brother, the controller shaking in my hand, the memory of his older brother pushes the younger brother through obstacles that he used to need his older brother to traverse. It seems like such a small thing, but it was that climactic moment that I felt more connected to these two characters than any other character in any other game I'd ever played.
Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I now have two sons of my own. I don't know. But those final moments of this game spoke to me more than any of the hundreds of games I've played in my lifetime. Roger Ebert once said that a game had never and would never be able to make someone cry. If only he'd lived to see this game, he may have retracted his statement. Until now, I doubted him but only out of gut instinct, knowing that someday I game probably would maybe, just maybe, make me cry. Now that Brothers has done it, not just with a cutscene but making me my thumb ache from the absence of a character, there's no question that he was wrong.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Embracing Chaos: The Story of My Atheism
At a number of points in my life, I have called myself a Christian, I was brought up as a good Catholic boy. I've also been a part of Presbyterian and Baptist churches disguising themselves as some sort of Evangelicalism. I'll admit I don't really get into the meanings of the labels themselves. I never really cared. I was just searching for order, some benevolent force in the universe that provided a reason for the question of, "Why?". However, deep down I've usually struggled with the idea of God and admitted, albeit only to myself and my wife, that I was really agnostic. I just wasn't sure until about two years ago when events in my life sent my identity into a tailspin, into crisis mode. That's when I started to embrace atheism as an idea that made more sense than any other about how the universe operates. Over the past year, I've embraced atheism and even started to "come out" about my thoughts on the matter, slowly, sometimes respectfully, sometimes not at all. But I've never explained why I've embraced atheism. This is that explanation.
Throughout my adult spiritual life, I heard and embraced the idea that God had a plan for me, that there was a predetermined idea of what I was to become and God would get me there through strange paths undivinable but through His wisdom. OK. All I ever wanted to do was compose music for video games. I thought it was maybe a little odd that God would have the same plan as me but it seemed to fit. That goal was a combination of my interests and skills, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich of my abilities and interests and God, of course, would want me to utilize my gifts, the talents He had given to me. Right?
But I never did get to write a single note for a video game. Not one. My guess at figuring out why that was had always been one of purity or moral purity. Video games are generally not a place where one finds spiritual contemplation happening at best and most people in the industry (that I've encountered) are questioning at the least and openly hostile at the worst. Obviously this is something I no longer care about but it was a quandary as I was trying to find my way in the world, trying to determine where I could fit in when my life and goals were viewed through the prism of religion.
Anyway, once I had two college degrees that said I knew a few things about music and I could effectively use technology pertaining to music, my first job was arranging MIDI files of public domain children's songs. I did that for almost five years. While I was doing that job, I kept applying to jobs related to audio in video games thinking that God's plan had funny twists and turns. Maybe he just wanted me to pay my dues. He was simply delyaing my gratification and not wanting to make my head swim with too much confidence. But the breakthrough moment didn't come. I still kept that faith, though, however dwindling it was.
After my time arranging children's music ended, I took a job teaching music technology. Perhaps teaching was His plan. My first two years of doing that job and dealing with another huge move of my family were, in a word, horrible. I was unhappy and wasn't sure what might come next. My answer came in a call from a friend who worked at a very prominent toy company. Trust me when I say you've heard of them. They usually have an entire ailse devoted to their products in every major retailer in the country. I was elated. This MUST be how all of my experience would align perfectly with His will for me and allow me to live the life I wanted and that He desired for me. In addition, getting that position would mean that my growing family could be moved closer to home. Instead of living with five states between us, we would practically be neighbors with our parental families, only three hours apart. Grandparents would be able to easily visit. The location of the new job was unbelievably gorgeous, rural enough for peace and quiet, urban enough for some culture and interesting things to do.
And it all fell apart. Disastrously. Painfully.
I had a number of good interviews. They flew me half way across the country to interview me personally. The interview was intense. It lasted six hours at least and seemed to go very well. I received much positive feedback both from my friend that worked there and from the other members of the department. They told me they'd call me in a month. But they didn't. So I started to call myself, first once every other week. Then every week. Then every three days. Then every day. Nobody would take my calls. Even my friend wouldn't return my emails. Finally, three months after the deadline they'd set for themselves, I got the letter in the mail. Thank you for your interest but we're not interested in you. Have a nice day. My whole world blew up when I got that letter. If that job wasn't a perfect fit, if it wasn't the perfect storm of a combination of my talents and a wholesome, moral-quandary free work environment, if it wasn't part of His plan, then what the bloody fuck was?
Within six months after my messy rejection, I was also tipped off through the grapevine that the person they'd hired instead of me had been fired because he wasn't working out, his attitude was getting in the way. That was the last straw. None of this made any sense anymore, there was no order and there was no plan. There was only chaos and disorder. At first that was difficult to accept until one day, it just made sense. Admitting that the universe is simply a chaotic place and that there is sometimes no order, no reasons behind events out of my control was the answer I needed.
In fact, that answer was the only thing that made sense because the alternative seemed ludicrous. The question was no longer, "Why?" it was now, "What the hell is your damn problem, God?". A career that makes use of my skills and talents? Check. No moral justifications required to participate in said career? Check. The ability to focus on and participate more in the lives of my family members? Check. With those details aligned but still being denied my goals, my conclusion was no longer that God was testing me but rather that God was either non-existent or He was just a serious dick with a penchant for meddling in the lives of his subjects. If the former was the truth, then I would just have to deal with the idea of being on my own, alone in an uncaring but chaotic universe. If the latter was accurate then seriously fuck off, God. Why would I continue to worship a deity that does that kind of shit? Job is a great story but, I'm sorry, that guy was a sap, a total doormat, a wife that continues to return time and again to the husband the beats the shit out of her because he "loves" her. We shouldn't choose to let other people walk on us like that so why would we choose to let an imaginary puppet master do the same? Instead, I decided to exercise that free will that You gave me (head asplode) and stand up for myself for a change!
Since then, I have embraced atheism and removing God from the picture has only made things much easier to deal with. I no longer wonder why I am not "allowed" to do what I want. It was simply that the opportunity never arose. It wasn't denied from me. It simply didn't happen. There is no deity trying to teach me a lesson, only the universe and human nature operating on its own chaotic schedules and patterns. I've learned to embrace that chaos and it's made all the difference. I am happier in my work and life because I choose to be happier in my work and life. I choose to be the person I am. I choose what my outlook is. Nothing is handed down to me from on high or forced upon me by some external entity. And it feels great. It is liberating. I am finally free. I have crawled from that prison of thought through a river of shit and emerged baptized on the other side, a free man.
Throughout my adult spiritual life, I heard and embraced the idea that God had a plan for me, that there was a predetermined idea of what I was to become and God would get me there through strange paths undivinable but through His wisdom. OK. All I ever wanted to do was compose music for video games. I thought it was maybe a little odd that God would have the same plan as me but it seemed to fit. That goal was a combination of my interests and skills, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich of my abilities and interests and God, of course, would want me to utilize my gifts, the talents He had given to me. Right?
But I never did get to write a single note for a video game. Not one. My guess at figuring out why that was had always been one of purity or moral purity. Video games are generally not a place where one finds spiritual contemplation happening at best and most people in the industry (that I've encountered) are questioning at the least and openly hostile at the worst. Obviously this is something I no longer care about but it was a quandary as I was trying to find my way in the world, trying to determine where I could fit in when my life and goals were viewed through the prism of religion.
Anyway, once I had two college degrees that said I knew a few things about music and I could effectively use technology pertaining to music, my first job was arranging MIDI files of public domain children's songs. I did that for almost five years. While I was doing that job, I kept applying to jobs related to audio in video games thinking that God's plan had funny twists and turns. Maybe he just wanted me to pay my dues. He was simply delyaing my gratification and not wanting to make my head swim with too much confidence. But the breakthrough moment didn't come. I still kept that faith, though, however dwindling it was.
After my time arranging children's music ended, I took a job teaching music technology. Perhaps teaching was His plan. My first two years of doing that job and dealing with another huge move of my family were, in a word, horrible. I was unhappy and wasn't sure what might come next. My answer came in a call from a friend who worked at a very prominent toy company. Trust me when I say you've heard of them. They usually have an entire ailse devoted to their products in every major retailer in the country. I was elated. This MUST be how all of my experience would align perfectly with His will for me and allow me to live the life I wanted and that He desired for me. In addition, getting that position would mean that my growing family could be moved closer to home. Instead of living with five states between us, we would practically be neighbors with our parental families, only three hours apart. Grandparents would be able to easily visit. The location of the new job was unbelievably gorgeous, rural enough for peace and quiet, urban enough for some culture and interesting things to do.
And it all fell apart. Disastrously. Painfully.
I had a number of good interviews. They flew me half way across the country to interview me personally. The interview was intense. It lasted six hours at least and seemed to go very well. I received much positive feedback both from my friend that worked there and from the other members of the department. They told me they'd call me in a month. But they didn't. So I started to call myself, first once every other week. Then every week. Then every three days. Then every day. Nobody would take my calls. Even my friend wouldn't return my emails. Finally, three months after the deadline they'd set for themselves, I got the letter in the mail. Thank you for your interest but we're not interested in you. Have a nice day. My whole world blew up when I got that letter. If that job wasn't a perfect fit, if it wasn't the perfect storm of a combination of my talents and a wholesome, moral-quandary free work environment, if it wasn't part of His plan, then what the bloody fuck was?
Within six months after my messy rejection, I was also tipped off through the grapevine that the person they'd hired instead of me had been fired because he wasn't working out, his attitude was getting in the way. That was the last straw. None of this made any sense anymore, there was no order and there was no plan. There was only chaos and disorder. At first that was difficult to accept until one day, it just made sense. Admitting that the universe is simply a chaotic place and that there is sometimes no order, no reasons behind events out of my control was the answer I needed.
In fact, that answer was the only thing that made sense because the alternative seemed ludicrous. The question was no longer, "Why?" it was now, "What the hell is your damn problem, God?". A career that makes use of my skills and talents? Check. No moral justifications required to participate in said career? Check. The ability to focus on and participate more in the lives of my family members? Check. With those details aligned but still being denied my goals, my conclusion was no longer that God was testing me but rather that God was either non-existent or He was just a serious dick with a penchant for meddling in the lives of his subjects. If the former was the truth, then I would just have to deal with the idea of being on my own, alone in an uncaring but chaotic universe. If the latter was accurate then seriously fuck off, God. Why would I continue to worship a deity that does that kind of shit? Job is a great story but, I'm sorry, that guy was a sap, a total doormat, a wife that continues to return time and again to the husband the beats the shit out of her because he "loves" her. We shouldn't choose to let other people walk on us like that so why would we choose to let an imaginary puppet master do the same? Instead, I decided to exercise that free will that You gave me (head asplode) and stand up for myself for a change!
Since then, I have embraced atheism and removing God from the picture has only made things much easier to deal with. I no longer wonder why I am not "allowed" to do what I want. It was simply that the opportunity never arose. It wasn't denied from me. It simply didn't happen. There is no deity trying to teach me a lesson, only the universe and human nature operating on its own chaotic schedules and patterns. I've learned to embrace that chaos and it's made all the difference. I am happier in my work and life because I choose to be happier in my work and life. I choose to be the person I am. I choose what my outlook is. Nothing is handed down to me from on high or forced upon me by some external entity. And it feels great. It is liberating. I am finally free. I have crawled from that prison of thought through a river of shit and emerged baptized on the other side, a free man.
"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
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