Forgiveness

Some people actually thrive on demanding repeated, shamelessly obligatory "forgiveness." In fact, they need you (me, everyone, really) to good-naturedly overlook their serial transgressions and outright abuse like a vampire needs to force its prey to "donate" even more precious, life-sustaining hemoglobin.

The problem is, however, that most of us normal, healthy human beings only have just so much to give. And I for one just plain ran out of veins to self sacrificially crack open a very, very long time ago. Yes, we should all learn how to genuinely forgive with all our hearts, of course, but you don't have to forget. Not if you don't want to become yet another serial victim, that is.

So whatever you do, please remember that you don't owe anyone a pint of blood (real or psychic) today, or any stinking day of the week, month, or year either. Not ever. Unless you truly, genuinely want to donate blood or plasma, of course. But for that, all one really need do is visit their local chapter of the Red Cross, which is of course something altogether different to begin with.

Either way, I do sincerely believe with all my heart and soul that Jesus Christ really did die for the sins of all mankind (and was subsequently resurrected on the third day). And that means for absolutely everyone everywhere, for all time, past, present, and future notwithstanding. So that's why I also do not believe for even a single millisecond that I, or anyone else for that matter, should be preyed upon by any serially abusive person.

Because Christ already did that for us. All of us.

So if you really do fancy yourself a true "Christian," and you've interpreted the Gospels otherwise (that we should forgive and keep on serially suffering for this or that demonic creep in the guise of a "friend," family member, spouse, etc., etc.), well that might actually just be your very own personal problem. Yes, that may just be your very own flawed, perhaps poorly educated misunderstanding of the genuine Word of God.

And maybe, just maybe, you really ought to take a good long look in the mirror at anyone, absolutely anyone, especially yourself, who honestly thinks that Jesus Christ wasn't truly man and God enough to have fixed that particular, pre-Christian era problem (with every last drop of his sacred blood, and terrible, prolonged suffering) so that he could fulfill what had long before been written, so that He could do just exactly as our Heavenly Father planned from the very beginning, and finally, so that He would therefore truly be with us, "even until the end of the age."

So by all means, we really should forgive all those who trespass against us, just as they really ought to in turn forgive our trespasses against them, but you'll never get me to buy into the clearly predatory notion that God actually intended for absolutely any of his beloved children to suffer unnecessarily if any one of us might serve as the instrument of God, and thereby intercede on His behalf. And that includes us interceding for ourselves in time of great need, if need be.

Because isn't that ultimately why we are all planted down here in the humble mud of Planet Earth in the first place? I mean, if we're not here to help each other (and sometimes, perhaps selfishly, help ourselves as well), then what, I humbly ask, are we actually here for? Only for our very own self gratification, and all others be damned? Uh-uh, no. I think... not. Definitely not. 

So even though we really shouldn't (under normal circumstances) seek revenge to punish our persecutors, and we don't even have to hold onto all that pain, we certainly must be entitled to a certain degree of self protection.

But sure, when it comes to all that personal pain, sure, if we can, we really should just let it go. Let it all go. Because it was never ours to hold onto to begin with. Which, believe me, I know, speaking from my own personal experience, just like so many others who've also been mistreated by various people throughout the course of their lives, all of the above is always so much easier said than done, isn't it?

But with a little (or even a whole lot of) effort, if we really can find it in our hearts to truly forgive, and then just walk away, having learned a thing or two from the hard lessons we were unfortunately forced to learn from being abused by others, then we really should consider ourselves lucky to have survived the ordeal.

Because now, by embracing the true blessings of forgiveness, we're finally free. Free at last, to treat the next person whom we may someday have the misbegotten opportunity to harm in a much better way than how we ourselves were mistreated by key figures in our past lives.

Because as far as I'm concerned, the true test of any human being is how we choose to wield our own personal power. In other words, if you were just a defenseless little child when some so-called "adult" figure, who may have just been on an all too typically childish tirade, chose to use their temporary power over you to get revenge for something or another that an equally misguided so-called "adult" did to them way back in their own troubled past, then what they deliberately chose to do to you says a whole lot more about them than it does about you. Doesn't it?

Thus, in the final analysis, we are all forced to make all sorts of choices, great and small, throughout the course of our lives. For we all possess varying degrees of personal power to either repeat (and thereby pass on) the Cycle of Abuse, or... we can deliberately choose to put a stop to it all. We can literally and finally say to ourselves, "The buck stops here." So we can finally well and truly take a stand, and not unconscionably simply "pass the buck" onto the next generation. And that particular personal choice, right there, my dear readers, is what ultimately makes one a truly good human. Or not.

Recreational Drug Use, Peer Pressure, and What It Really Means to Be All Grown Up

Here's the thing; I really like chocolate. I also like to drink a nice cup of tea almost every day. Yet even (and especially) people of the Mormon Faith aren't supposed to consume certain types of one of my all time favorite beverages. 'Cause, believe it or not, caffeine really is a mild stimulant. It's a drug. Likewise, at some point, somewhere down the line, such as in ancient Middle Eastern societies (primarily Jewish and Muslim), someone or other suddenly decided that they'd better not eat animals with ("parted") cloven hooves. Okay, okay, so God told someone or other among them not to partake. And that's perfectly okay, right? I mean, as they say, "To each his own." You know, "free will," "religious freedom," and all that.

But you know what? In addition to chocolate and many different types of teas (some that contain caffeine and many that do not), I also really love bacon. And when I say, "I love bacon," I mean I really, really love bacon. In fact, to me, there's just about nothing better for breakfast (or lunch, dinner, or even just a snack) than a whole plateful of nice, crispy, salty-sweet strips of well cooked porcine flesh.

What's more, I just happen to currently live in East Asia, where pork is a practically indispensable food stuff. You really wanna get even with authoritarian, organ harvesting, human rights abusing Communist China for starting yet another global pandemic? Just take all their pork away! Sounds silly, I know, but literally billions of people the whole world over would probably starve in pretty short order if all the pigs in the whole entire world were to suddenly die off en masse.

But me, I prefer chocolate. Though bacon is a close second. Or is it the other way around? Hmm. Well anyway, I eat something with chocolate on or in it at least once every single day for months at a time sometimes. No foolin! I mean, let's not forget that even Mormons eat chocolate. Or so I'm told. I'm not Mormon myself, so I think I'll just have to take the Internet's word for it.

Yet despite my sincere and abiding love for this often sugar-saturated tasty treat, I sometimes I go for literally weeks at a time when I don't eat any chocolate at all. And yet, curiously enough, I end up experiencing absolutely no withdrawal symptoms. No lying in the gutter because I'm unable to even think of anything except that next piece of chocolate, yet another Snicker's Bar, or even a scrumptious double decker, choco crunch ice cream cone. Sometimes, I actually even prefer vanilla. Blasphemous, I know, but... what's a guy to do, eh?

Yet still, believe it or not, I can also go for long periods of time when I don't eat chocolate at all. And that right there is the point, you see. In other words, my strong preference for chocolate may indeed be habitual in nature, but it's most certainly not indicative of any sort of addiction.

So that's why I actually do eat chocolate. Because choosing to periodically indulge in the joys of that particular sugar-sweeteed, cocoa-infused concoction simply does not affect most people in any appreciably negative fashion. Sure, it's often packed full of sugar and does contain mood emhancing chemical compounds, but eating chocolate doesn't cause significantly delayed response times and the markedly slowed reflexes that are commonly associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Nor is it particularly prone to give most folks "the munchies." Or cause them to gradually withdraw from society, due to, perhaps, conspicuous over-consumption. Though I'm not entirely sure that all recreational drugs need be used more than once before they end up practically enslaving the user.

Worst of all though, I've even noticed that if I have a big package of Hershey bars, and I'm at a party, or some other typically shallow, show-offy public gathering, and I ask everyone, "Hey, do you all want one of my Hershey bars?" some will say yes, and take one. And some won't. Some will say, "No thanks, I'm on a diet." Still others may say, "Oh man, I wish I could, but I'm diabetic." And that's that. Dude or dudette said no. And the last time I checked, no most certainly meant just exactly that; NO.

Right?

But, let's just say, hypothetically, that you're at a party, or some other so-called "social" gathering, and somebody is drinking alcohol, certain individuals just tend to simply not be able to "drink alone." And by that, I mean if even just one person is doing his or her very best to get inebriated, so they can... I don't know... lose all their inhibitions, and gradually stop being able to even speak clearly, to the point where they often end up spitting in other people's faces, or manhandling them, while their words all start to slur together, they simply must get everyone else to join them in "the fun." I mean, that's the way it usually works, isn't it? No chemicals, no "social lubrication." Or... something like that.

Or maybe, curiously reckless individuals like this are simply motivated to slurp down copious amounts of whatever noxious libation they can get a hold of just so they can hopefully trick other members of the group into engaging in some sort of impromptu sexual activity. Something that not everyone involved may be able to fully recall later on. But I guess whatever it takes to get what you want from others, right? Although... I really don't think I'd want anything like that from anybody if I had to resort to getting it in that particular way.

I mean, yuck. And here I thought that consent was actually supposed to count for something when it comes to being a "consenting adult." But maybe that's just me.

Whatever the case may in fact be, I've just noticed over the years, that if I eat too many chocolate bars and then get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, there is almost no chance whatsoever that all that sugar and caffeine will actually do anything more than simply sharpen my senses. See, that's why, in most cases, caffeine is fully legal and mostly unregulated almost everywhere in the world. Because, in most cases, it's just plain harmless. Okay, okay! In fact, chocolate also contains phenethylamine, a chemical that actually makes people feel more romantic. That's why it's such a staple of Valentine's Day festivities, and why, in the good old days anyway, when a guy wanted to impress a girl, he might give her a nice box of chocolates. And maybe some flowers too, of course.

But here's the thing; if I'm at some stupid party or "social" gathering, and I say, "No thanks" when someone wants me to "have a beer," or even do something else that's even stronger, everyone seems to suddenly turn into a horde of pubescent, peer-pressured high schoolers, and they look at you like you're some kind of creature from another planet or something! So that's why I never go to parties anymore. Or even class reunions. Ever. As in, never ever never.

Oh, I've tried over the years, to visit a "pub" or two, especially while I was teaching English in Taiwan, just to get out and meet people, but there always seemed to be some jerky little person in those kind of places - sometimes even the "friend" I came with - who would simply not listen when I said NO. And then they even ended up buying both of us glasses of this or that alcoholic beverage, and then they'd just sit there, just waiting for me to take a swig

But I never did. Ever. Which, yes, just in case you were wondering, I do know, really is rather odd when it comes to most members of this here fancy human race.

Once, in Taipei, Taiwan, I had this one girlfriend for a while. Nice girl. A very talented artist, she was. So anyway, one year, for Chinese New Year, or whatever it was, she invited me to her family's house for dinner. Her parents weren't even there, but one of her overly cocky A**hole Chinese American cousins from California just happened to be visiting family in Taipei. You know, the kind of guy who probably grew up feeling rather insecure because most of the "cool" guys around him were either black or Caucasian surfer dudes. Or... whatever this guy's personal problem may have in fact been.

And despite the fact that this hipster dude was told in advance that I never drink alcohol, he just kept giving me that "Are you serious?" look. And he kept repeating, "Like... you mean... never?" in that deep, overly "masculine" sort of voice that I've noticed that many clearly overcompensating individuals tend to affect sometimes. But hey! Maybe it really was his real voice. Who knows. I just know that in more than five years living and working in all sorts of places all over Taiwan, I never met any other Chinese/Taiwanese person who talked or presented himself quite the way this horrifically macho California Taiwanese dude did. "ABC" (American Born Chinese), they call them in Taiwan. But they're not all the same, of course. In fact, I've met some really nice ABCs. But that guy.... Uh-uh. Nope.

Whatever the problem may have in fact been, like other people I've unfortunately encountered throughout the course of my life, this cousin of my former girlfriend decided, like some kind of demented, socially challenged high school bully, that he was just going to have to make me drink. So he had a glass of whatever it was passed down from his end of the long dinner table to me. But being a dedicated teetotaler, I of course refused. And that did not make him at all happy. Not at all. No, not one little bit.

I mean, don't you just hate it when people don't get what they want by coercion, peer pressure, or even brute force?

So you see, that's what's actually really funny about socially acceptable drugs, you know. A person says no, but certain individuals just keep right on pushing. So, for some odd reason, when it comes to addictive, mind altering substances, many, many people just simply will not take NO for an answer! Go figure.

And then I look around, and I see all the lonely people standing or sitting around in some dingy, smoke-filled, often dark and extremely noisy drinking establishment, and almost none of them look all that happy to me. Even and especially when they start to get drunk and act really, really stupid. And irresponsible. Or even, sometimes, so aggressively, and even violently, that the bar, pub, or restaurant owner actually has to have some typically over-sized dude or other on staff on a regular basis, just to throw all the pathetic people who just don't seem to be able to resist overdoing it out ye olde door. I mean... they actually to pay people to do that.

And that right there, kids, is exactly why you can take your booze, and all your other "socially acceptable" drugs, and stick 'em right where the sun don't shine.  But... that's only if you won't take no for an answer, of course. Otherwise, "To each his own." Right?

Don't Be a Bully

 Might does not always make right. Sometimes it just makes you a self-righteous bully.