It's A Crazy Afterlife

Here's a question you can pose to your pastor on this fine Sunday morning. Or you can wait until this coming Friday or Saturday, if that's when your holy day falls.
   Are crazy people crazy in the afterlife?
   The first assumption is that an afterlife exists, let's agree that's the case. Let's further agree that people made crazy at some point in their life - by brain injury, drugs, what have you - will be restored to their previous non-crazy status in the afterlife. That leaves people who are born crazy. And these people do exist, talk to any mental health professional. What happens to them? Their natural state is disordered, it's the way their brains were wired during fetal development, nothing happened to them to make them crazy, it's just the way the are. The way they were meant to be.
   Do they become non-crazy in the afterlife? If so, what was the point of them being crazy in this life? And don't spout me that 'God's ways are unknowable' stuff, if someone was naturally crazy in this life and they become non-crazy in the afterlife, there had to have been some point to it all, both to the being crazy and to the switch to non-crazy.
   Let's extend this a bit. So far you've probably assumed I've been talking about someone schizophrenic or psychotic or manic-depressive, something relatively benign, at least from a social perspective. What about someone psychopathic? If that's a natural condition, and we have no reason to believe it's not, are there psychopaths in the afterlife? Why wouldn't there be? And if being a psychopath is their natural state, and assuming they haven't transgressed or been absolved of their transgressions, they should be in paradise with everyone else. But if they were, would the afterlife be a paradise? It might be for them, but what about for everyone else?
   But let's assume that crazy people don't get into paradise. For some reason. Which would make paradise better for non-crazy people, but would automatically consign crazy people to damnation for no other offense than being true to their God-given nature. That hardly seems fair.
   Go on, ask your religious professional, I want to hear what they have to say. Go ahead, I'll wait right here.

A New Boutique

Ah, sir, welcome to the Change Boutique.
    Actually, I think I'm in the wrong…
Nonsense, sir, you wouldn't have been able to find this establishment if it weren't your time.
   So why am I here?
That is the question, isn't it? Have you undergone some sort of drastic life change recently?
   Not really. Well.. I was one of the millions of people who lost their jobs last year.
That counts.
    But I was cool with it. Really. I had money saved up and with an unemployment check coming in I made it work.
Are you still 'between assignments?'
   Hey, funny, that's what I called it. No, I found a gig. Contract work.
And?
    I'm doing doing the same stuff I was doing nine years ago.
Ah… a step back.
    Kind of. But they're paying me pretty well. I just don't want to that work any more.
So, not recently unemployed, then re-employed at something you'd rather not be doing.
   It brings in rent money, can't ask for more than that.
Actually, you can. Anything else?
   I'm trying to get a franchise started back in my home town.
That's certainly a change.
   Wait, are you taking notes?
Of course, sir. Is there anything else, anything big that's happened to you lately?
   No. Well, my father died.
That's very big. My condolences. How are you holding up?
   Some days are better than others. Some days are way worse.
Feeling your own mortality, then?
   Big time. And I'm not married and I don't have any kids.
Do you want those things?
   Absolutely.
Wow, just a barrel of conflict here. What else is happening?
   I'm trying really hard to sell my writing.
Ah… you want that particular change then, you want to make a living as a writer?
   Of course.
And you feel you're being kept from it?
   Well… I suppose…
I can say without equivocation, sir, that you belong here in the Change Boutique.
   I don't like dealing with this kind of stuff.
Of course you don't. That’s why you need our help.
    Who are you?
Just relax, sir. Go with the flow.
    I can't. I want to fight this, try to swim out of the rip tide.
Struggling will only tire you out more.
   Crap… do you mind if I cry? Maybe just a little?
You go right ahead, sir.

Alone

I didn't used to mind being alone. I preferred it, to tell you the truth. Just being by myself didn't mean I was lonely, and no roommates meant my place was mine, I could walk around in my underwear to my heart's content, do dishes or not, leave laundry until it was an absolute emergency. No big deal.
   I don't like it now.
   I find myself coming home to an empty place, no wife, no kids, no pets, just a few houseplants, and I know I'm missing out. I'm alone and I'm lonely. Even as recently as six months ago I didn't know that.
   What changed? I wish I knew. I'm getting older, as we all are, and maybe I'm feeling the march of time, maybe my chance to have a wife and kids is slipping away. But I'm so out of dating practice I don't know how to go about it any more; I don't know how to find someone I want who would want someone like me. It's enough to make me despair, really.
   But I'm not gonna. Things will get better, but they're not gonna get better all by themselves. I have to do something, I have to make this happen. I know what I want and I just have to go out there and grab it.
   Sure wish I knew what to do...

The Earl of Sandwich

Who doesn't love a good sandwich?
   Well, people who have wheat allergies, I suppose, but other than them people the world over adore sandwiches. There's just something about two pieces of bread with stuff in between that quiets a restive soul. I could wax rhapsodic about the sandwiches I've consumed over the years, with their pillowy bread and tangy mayo, zesty mustard and sharp cheese, succulent tomatoes and wonderfully salty oh-so-processed lunch meat, cut into triangles like equilateral slices of heaven...
   Ah, sandwiches. I've had good, I've had not so good, and I've had downright terrible. The difference, I've found, is love. And I don't mean that to be sarcastic - I understand that sometimes I can come off that way, totally unintentional* - love really is the difference. Not necessarily the love of the sandwich preparer for me (though Mom sandwiches are the best), but the love the preparer has for the ingredients, for the process, for the Aristotelian essence of Sandwich.
   Why is it, for instance, that you can go into a Subway on a Tuesday and get a half-assed thrown-together mess that barely passes for lunch, but you can go into the exact same store on a Thursday and get a sublime, delicious meal that makes you happy you wandered by right when you were hungry? The ingredients are the same, the store is the same, you're the same, the only thing that's changed is the person behind the counter. The best and worst sandwiches I ever had were at the same Subway. One was a haphazard, borderline-inedible pile of garbage, the other was an almost picture-perfect pleasure to consume. The guy who made the good sandwich didn't take longer, or use better ingredients, or slip me $100 to say this, that guy took pride in what he did and had a love for making food that showed in the work he produced. The other girl would clearly have been happier working anywhere else.
   A friend of mine gave me the title of a sandwich cookbook about a year ago, and I've had the proposal for the book sitting half-done in my computer for a while now. I think it's time to dust it off and put out a cookbook that's also a personal philosophy. Anybody interested in buying the first copy?


* okay, that was sarcasm

Sims Echo Park

When I was driving home today I was stopped at a light watching a phalanx of people trotting across the intersection. An old guy, a pregnant woman pushing a stroller, three women in office attire, a fat guy wearing a too-short shirt and pajama bottoms (I suspect he was an escapee from the hospital on the corner), two students with backpacks, and several men and women running for the local bus. Quite the collection. I could hear their conversation, but since I was in the truck I couldn't make out the words; it sounded like the nonsense sounds the Sims make.
   Then it hit me. Maybe they really were Sims. Maybe I was a Sim. Maybe the words I was speaking, thinking, and writing made no more sense than the gibberish the Sims used. Maybe I only thought I understood myself because my delusion was internally consistent. Like dream logic that makes perfect sense in the moment but doesn't stand up to scrutiny when you're awake.
   Thoroughly freaked out, I drove on when the light changed. Did I think in pictograms that only some at-a-distance observer could see? Was my existence a figment, and only in-progress when some person started a program? Was I just a copy of some piece of code, trapped somewhere in a larger algorithm?
   Then I realized that I was starting to think I was in the movie Tron. Or maybe the Matrix. Probably Tron because that's way cooler, and they're coming out with a sequel next year.
   But that brief two-block episode did bring me back to my college days and discussions in philosophy class. How do we know what's real? How do we know that we are experiencing what we think we are?
   I honestly don't remember the answers to any of that. Probably there aren't answers. But I would say that if I can sit behind the wheel of my truck and have a brief solipsistic crisis, then I have too much time on my hands. The fact of the matter is, real or imagined, there are other people in the world, and it's connections with those other people that matter the most. Any one of those people crossing the intersection this afternoon might have made a great friend. Or a terrible enemy. Or maybe they just had an interesting story to tell, or a tragic one, or an hilarious one. Thing is, I'll never know because I had the windows rolled up.
   I need to fix this. I need to get out more.

Wishing Ring

There are tons of fables, fairy tales, and stories about being granted wishes. Almost all of them involve finding a ring, or catching a fish, or rubbing a magic genie lamp that results in you getting three wishes. The first two are usually ill-advised and you need to use the last one to undo the effects of the first two.
   That seems like a lot of wasted effort just to learn a lesson about morality or greed or lust that you probably should already have learned.
   So I got to thinking, what would good wishes be? I'm talking about ones that wouldn't ironically backfire on you or wink you out of existence.

*Fix the air conditioning in my building. Of course, that would probably make it like the South Pole in here, and I don't like penguins. They're not trustworthy.

*Bring prices down in Whole Foods. Of course you can't use wishes to make impossible things happen, like touching your right hand to your right elbow, so this would probably just be a wasted wish.

*Make it so my shirts would never need to be ironed. Which would probably turn them into polyester.

*I'd never want to go hungry. Which would probably turn me into a tree or something else photosynthetic, like phytoplankton.

*Give me the power to run really fast, like the Flash. But I'd probably run right out of my clothes, which would be freeing but would ultimately be embarrassing.

*Find out the secrets to everyday things that no one seems to know the answer to. Like what fire is, exactly. Can't think of a way this would backfire... except I'd probably have to become one of those mountaintop monks, dispensing wisdom only to those with enough moral fiber to make it all the way to my cave. Which ain't bad, actually, as long as I had really fast wireless.

Speecy-Spicy

You know what I was thinking about today? Why doesn't anybody make spicy lip balm?
   I'm not talking about cinnamon-flavored, or menthol or peppermint. I mean cumin or red pepper or bay leaf. Maybe basil. Rosemary or cayenne pepper. Don't you think there'd be a market?
   And what about animal-flavored, like barbeque brisket or jerk chicken? Baloney? Wouldn't pasty, weak vegans just love to rub some meat flavoring on their lips, for old times' sake?

Man... I think I just found my new business opportunity. Nobody steal it from me. I know who you are.

COMMUTE: there - 45 minutes, fire trucks     back - 41 minutes, I went a new way
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 74 days

Things I Had To Go To Australia To Learn

I went to Australia two years ago, and it was a learning experience for us both. Here's what I learned:

You can put beets and pineapple on a hamburger and it's actually pretty good.
   I didn't know if I would like a burger that way. I do like beets, and I do like pineapple, and I do like a good cheeseburger - but all at the same time? Yeah. Good on ya, mate.

Santa looks good in shorts.
   A little pasty, but it's not the affront to my senses I imagined it might be. And there are some really cool Christmas sand castles. It's summer in December in the Southern Hemisphere, for those of you who don't know. Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, for those of you who don't know that.

Up close koalas are a little creepy.
   Sacrilege, I know, but the eucalyptus they eat don't give them very much energy, so they sleep all the time. So when they're active they have permanent bed-head and bags under the eyes. Like they're on the late shift at the cute factory.

The purple-flower trees lining many Pasadena streets are called jacarandas.
   I never knew the name of this tree until I went to Australia. I was describing the scene - much like today - where the trees are all blooming and there is a riot of purple lining most major streets (except Colorado where they tore all the trees out). My friends told me the name of the tree, and I amaze and confound everyone with that knowledge to this day.