J. M. Verville

I dislike the word ‘inhumane’ when I sit and think about it.

If you really look at most of history, it isn’t that un-human like to ride a horse across the countryside with a band of raiders massacring different ethnic groups; it is not that strange for humans, as well, who are “civilized,” to go and enslave a different population.

We’ve also managed to defeat slavery by simply going to the most terrible places on Earth to make factories so the wages we pay them for hard work become irrelevant in modern times; we’ve also managed to largely be observers to events like the Rwanda genocide and the whole of the history of the DPRK.

Humans, of course, have done a lot of great things. However, we’ve also had a society comprised primarily of literate, modern Europeans whom once were listening to jazz music and reading Karl Marx massacre millions of helpless people.

I am guessing the word ‘inhumane’ was invented by a European who thought civilization was spreading far and wide to heal the world and was aimed at describing non-European treatment of one another.

Or I imagine it was created relatively recently, after WWII, when we thought the whole world would somehow be healed and we’d never have to see what was about to happen in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, etc.

It’s just a funny word.

I think one could just as easily say it is ‘inhumane’ to donate money to a charity as it is to kill.

Humans have both great capacity for good and great capacity for evil, and it seems that it is seldom dependent on our upbringing but more dependent on the current conditions that we perceive.

I found this passage to be very interesting:

Quote:

” 31″To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:
” ‘We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not cry.’ 33For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ‘ 35But wisdom is proved right by all her children.”
Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman
36Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

39When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

40Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

41″Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[d] and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

43Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

44Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

48Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The first half implies something important: the Prophet who comes with a rigid, strong moral code and an unbending will is a demon; the Prophet who comes and is merry is a glutton and a drunkard.

This plays well off of the idea of people ‘though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not hear.’ (Luke 8:10). This implies the obvious: they see something great and reject it as unearthly and inhuman (demonic) or they see something as overly earthly and indulgent (gluttony & drunkard).

They are literally incapable of conceiving Goodness in any form because they will distort it.

I found it to be poignant by demonstrating that one can be Holy through extreme fasting and devotion as John, yet also there is a Holiness that was also embodied by a man as Christ who both ate and drank.

The last part that caught my eye was: “47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”"

It comes after an illustration of a woman who was a sinner making a big display of herself as repenting, and I think it is hard to easily and fully wrap my head around the idea that he who has been forgiven little loves little.

I think the implication would be this:

It is the self-righteous who count their sins as few; it is the humble who will always count their shortcomings as many.

When push comes to shove, Christ and His closest followers literally sold all of their belongings; early Christians lived not far off from Utopian socialists who valued essentially nothing other than their brotherhood and Christ.

It is hard to not fall short of that mark, drastically, and it is hard for someone I imagine who has even done something like that to still be well aware of the demons they wrestle with.

These passages merely caught my eye and I thought they were interesting and although not paid much attention to (in my experience) have a lot of ramifications in Christian thought.

To be embarrassed is to feel shame about something which you had done. Sometimes this makes sense, and sometimes we all have to feel like slaves just for a few moments so we can demonstrate to others the sincerity of our regret towards disappointing or hurting them. But this is usually not why people feel embarrassed, and it is not slavery to feel embarrassed you hurt somebody else. Rather, that is a natural human emotion of regret. Regret that is true and good. In these circumstances, we become righteous in our slavery to others, because our only motivation is to make somebody else feel good after we had done something wrong. This is not a wrong emotion, and I feel that we should no longer associate this feeling with embarrassment, but rather, we should call it ‘regret’ and make that distinction.

However, there is the embarrassment that is slavery.

Lao-tzu said, “If you care about what others think about you, you become their slave.”

You will notice this all the time if you look for it, and it is a painful thing for me to teach 10 to 13 year old children that are in the process of becoming slaves.

You have a moral obligation to yourself to do everything that you want to do and to never do anything you do not want to do unless it is for some reward (e.g., going to work to get money, so you can live, and do what you want to do; this is not slavery because you are literally being paid for it).

Everything you do when you are not at work should be done with this thought: “Is this what I want to do? Is this who I want to do it with?”

Inside of all of us there is something distinct, individual and true. To hide this from others because you would be embarrassed is to be their slave; is to be weak; is to cheat yourself; is to Miss The Entire Point Of Life.

Embarrassment is an expression that often says, “I wish I was as good as the people around me. I wish I was approved of. I wish I could be with them. I am wrong and they are right.”

Embarrassment is a sin against yourself. And if you love anything in this world, you should love yourself.

There are only two rules that I think should be applied to your human behavior and the fulfillment of yourself.

(1) Do not do something if it hurts other people physically. You can do it if it is True & You but causes mental anguish to someone because they have no right to prevent you from being yourself just because it would cause them to feel that way. However, to hurt somebody else physically is not OK unless they ask for it by either attacking you or literally asking to be hurt, and even then, it is a gray area. To hurt someone else physically when they have not done a grave offense or have asked for it is metaphysically wrong. You are damaging their ability to fulfill themselves (which is the only reason why we live).

(2) Do not do something that will prevent you from carrying on life. E.g.: do not get a tattoo on your face. It is not worth it to destroy your livelihood for your individuality because the payoff is too extreme. Actually, it would be OK to do this if you have made peace with this fact, but this is not something anyone should put themselves through unless they are prepared. After all, Christ did not tell the Soldier he must lay down his spear and become a celibate, homeless monk who wanders the world doing good deeds. This is not for everyone.

Other than this, I think that what you need to do is to do everything you want to do, and to do it with people you want to be with, and you must do this often and you must do it without any embarrassment.

If you do not know what you want to do I suggest that you take a long hike surrounded by Nature, by yourself, and you look at everything that is around you. When you see the most beautiful thing, you can stop and look at it, and this will probably help you figure out what you want.

If you still do not know what you want, I suggest that you take a giant leap backwards. Reject everything, and then look at them as an infant looks at new objects, and pick that which is most pleasing, and slowly rebuild your life.

That is how we abolish slavery.

To be true and complete is to be yourself and to feel no regrets for it.

To be a slave is to not be yourself or to be yourself but feel shame.

There is the type of pride that is based off of arrogance and smugness; the pride that is based off of ‘us’ Vs. ‘them’ group formations that divide our societies from one another and leave some of us feeling isolated and alone. There is the pride which blinds the eye to the truth and deafens the ear to goodness and righteousness.

It is the pride that is hurtful to others who are around it, and the pride that destroys the people who buy into it.

But then there is the other kind:

Pride in the things we worked hard for, and proud that we work hard.

Pride in our friends and our family — proud to know them, to have done so much with them.

Pride in our students and our children our younger friends who we see living and working hard, and growing.

Pride in our nations not because of something destructive or arrogant or self-righteous but because we liked Mom’s home cooking and think there was something intrinsically valuable in some of the experiences our cultures brought us.

I am not proud to be an American because “we are the Best” or “we are the most Rich” or “we are the most Powerful.” I am proud because there are many valuable lessons I learned in America, from Americans, and I feel that there is intrinsic value in that.

For the same reasons I am proud of Korea.

Pride in a school or in a football team — it seems silly, but in a sense, it is something that is also natural and beneficial. It makes us feel good. The players, the school, the idea, it is something we like and have positive memories of. So we are proud of it. Besides, anything seems silly if you overanalyze it.

We should be proud only in ways that embellish ourselves and raise up those around us; in all other things, we should be acutely aware of our human fallibility.

Children are profound because they give us insight into what a human being is when they are fresh and new and not overly abstract or bothered. They are an uncorrupted form of ourselves. They demonstrate what I believe is the skeleton of human thought and emotion:

They are quick to laugh and they are quick to cry. They will laugh about the small things, they will cry about the small things. They will laugh when they are confused and they will cry when they are frustrated.

Children laugh when I simply lower my voice and say something slower to them during class. Because it is different. Because it doesn’t happen a lot. Because it is new.

Because everything is New to children, everything is something that needs to have an emotional reaction, whether positive (laughter and smiles) or negative (tears and tantrums).

Children are like drunks: their reactions are extreme to simple things, and their emotions become true and raw. A better word to describe what is expressed is Bonseong, because it is the concept of a raw and natural interior of a human being, and that is what children do: express the bonseong without the corruption.

Next time you are drunk, think a little bit about this, and try to understand the Natural Raw that is inside of you, and try to bring that to the surface. It is literally like staring at yourself in a mirror and thinking that, for a split second, you saw your Soul flash before your eyes. Sometimes when I drink I feel like I know myself better than when I am not drinking.

Children seek your approval — just as all humans subconsciously seek the approval of others, a child will do this in more obvious and extreme ways, by literally copying everything that you do.

And they are good at it. There are few people in their 20s and 30s who are Korean and can say “Verv.” They all say “Burb.” But in 2 to 3 tries a child can usually properly say “Verv,” because they literally stare at your mouth while you speak and imitate the formation of your lips and teeth.

Because their brains are uncorrupted by a complete molding of a lingual format into them, they are capable of it. That seems profound to me: the less you have in your brain, the more you can achieve linguistically. I think we can learn from this that if we were to destroy our preconceived notions about certain concepts and think Clearly, as a Child, we could think of something more profound. I am trying to do this.

A child in Monterey, California saw me walk into a Quiznos sometime during the summer of 2004. She said:

“Daddy, why does that man have drawings on all his arms?”
“Those are not drawings. Those are tattoos.”
“Daddy, I want to get a tattoo, too.”

This was a good demonstration of the innocence of children: they understand a tattoo as a drawing on a body, and as people who appreciate drawings, they see tattoos as a positive. If children ruled the world, we’d all draw what we like on our arms, and we’d all walk around with pretty pictures of awesome animals and city-scapes on our bodies. What harm exists in art? And who wouldn’t want to carry art on themselves?

Because they have no preconceived notions they can appreciate things better than adults. And if we destroy our notions of them, we can also appreciate things better. Not only do we grow intellectually through Emptying our mind, but we grow aesthetically.

A child is also Quick to Anger and Quick to Forgive. But their Anger is different. When a child feels hurt by something, they ask, “Why did you hurt me?” in their expression. There is a sense of shock and awe. When an adult is hurt by someone, they do their best to hide this fact.

Adults are dishonest to themselves with their own emotions. Children are so utterly honest about how they feel they will let the world know.

Women are more connected to themselves than men because they are less likely to hide it, and this is also why in Taoist tradition it is believed that women have a unique ki and strength. A man is just Yang energy, he is the Heavens, but the Taoists knew about volcanoes, and they believed inside of a woman (represented by Earth), the Yin energy has a core of Yang energy, as well, and thus is a more complex lifeform. Maybe that’s true.

What I recommend to you to try to do differently in your day to day life is the following:

- Empty your mind of preconceived notions of other people and of ideas. You will be able to see beautiful for beautiful and ugly for ugly, because when you classify things into systematic reasoning your system will fail you, and you will fail to see some of these things.

Systems literally state “it is good to be X, so it is not good to be Y, because it is not X.” (Of course it is more complex than this but you get the idea). What if we were capable of appreciating both X and Y? Wouldn’t that be nice?

- Be honest with your emotions. It is too much to ask an adult to be ready or willing to cry over spilled milk but it is not too much to ask an adult to express the fact that they are wounded when they are wounded, and happy when they are happy.

You cannot grow as a human being unless you are honest with your emotions and do not lie to yourself. You must feel them purely. You must feel them in solid colors. Never deny that you are sad. Never deny that you are happy. Let everything naturally come up from your gut unfiltered by the brain.

- You subconsciously want to be accepted by everyone around you and children fulfill this by laughter & smiles. When you laugh and you smile you will produce this in others and gain acceptance.

If you smile at a stranger one of two things will happen:
- They will look away.
- They will smile back.

Do you know why they look away? Because they would smile if they kept looking. Humans naturally, as we are similar to herd animals, imitate the expressions and emotions of those around them.

If I smile at someone I know, who I know doesn’t look away, even if there is nothing to smile about, their reaction will always be the same no matter who the person:

They will smile back at me and say “What? What is it?” and they will feel happiness even though it is literally reasonless smiling.

Children are experts at charming other human beings through the expression of reasonless happiness.

And reasonless happiness — that is an amazing concept in itself.

Chuang-tzu was seen by some disciples jumping up and down and clapping his hand in a pattern while walking on a path one day. His disciples asked, “Master, why are you doing this?” All of them expected a profound answer as Chuang-tzu was always a man of profound words. And they received a profound answer:

“Because it’s fun.”

Christ also noted that we must become like little children to accept the Kingdom of God. I think that in some way this is a little bit of what he was talking.

I will end this by saying that I am honored and blessed to teach young children. I initially thought it would be boring because these children would have nothing profound to say — they would not be like the high school kids that I could have adult discussions with.

But I was wrong. And literally, everything that occurs is a lesson to me on what human beings can be like at the base of their souls.

Children have helped re-affirm that humanity is fundamentally good, and they have taught me to be a better person. I am indebted to this experience.

It is a privilege to teach.

I saw a picture last night that was taken by Yi Juyeong. It was from a punk rock concert I was at on Saturday night. The picture almost made me lose my breath, because I realized this is everything I have ever wanted, and this represents everything that I live for. And I think it could represent what everyone wants for themselves, whether it is exactly like this photograph or not. But I promise you, you want something like this:

Punk rock girl has punk rock boy holding the microphone, putting it towards her. He is smiling and he is saying: “Please, sing the line.”

Normal boy is in the center, and he is shouting with the passion of the moment; he approves of everything that is happening.

Spiky hair punk rocker has lost such control of himself that he is thrusting his fist out, pumping it wildly; he is doing his best to avoid knocking over everyone else in the picture because he is so full of the moment he is Lost To The World and Connected With The Entire Universe.

Punk rock girl is singing the Line.

She has closed her eyes and her whole body has gone stiff and rigid because literally every muscle of her, every fiber of her being, has been waiting and yearning to shout into that microphone.

The picture says everything: group acceptance and approval, of diverse people, lost in a moment of passion and happiness, dedicated to the fulfillment of their individuality.

In the moment of the picture, everything is right and could not be better. If humanity were to die, to end, I hope that this picture and only this picture was left, to tell the alien archeologists who we were and why we lived.

When I was 12 years old I went to a VFW dive bar with 4 other friends. We were wearing band shirts and jeans and tennis shoes, and we were scared as hell. We were careful. This is something we knew we already loved, and we were scared to have the people who loved what we love not love us.

We were going to a punk rock show and there were people who were 15 and 17 and even a lot of people who were 20 or even 30. When I went there, a 16 year old girl came up to me and asked me what my name was.

She told me she was a vegetarian and she told me how she loves all these various bands I had never heard of. She asked me what I thought. She asked me what I liked. She held the microphone for me, and I screamed the Line.

We were all different people, but we were all the same. Punks, skins, metalheads. Normal people. We all held the microphone for each other, and we all took turns screaming the Line. And The Line is whatever we want it to be, whatever is inside of us.

And after another human being came up to me and wanted to know who I was, and cared, and had something interesting to say, I knew that no matter what happened during the rest of my life, I knew where I could go to scream my Line, and I go there all the time, because all of us have a lot that we need to scream, and that is the only thing that makes us feel good and forget everything else.

I do not know what I would do or where I would be, and I am not sure how I could exist, if I did not discover this Expression of Humanity.

We need to save the world and how we are going to do it is pretty simple but very effectively.

We must remember the world will not be saved by politics or religion, because there are a million reasons to disagree and all of those reasons are right to other people. That’s OK.

But what we need to do is provide a hobby & a group to everyone — we need to give everyone their second family.

When people feel accepted and when people feel a close bond with others who have the same hobby, the same style, they can say what they want and do what they want.

When you are loved by other people, you will love yourself. When you love yourself, you will be happy. And when you are happy, there is no need to mock or scorn others.

If we can make a way to find everyone around us feel accepted and loved by some group of people, they will all close their eyes at the same time and they will all scream what they feel into a microphone, and we will all hold the microphone for them, and we will all be lost in this moment of sheer and utter madness, and every single problem in the world disappears.

When some people have the microphone held to their face, they make a good golf shot; or they talk about a movie they watched; or they fix a car engine with their friends. When some people hold the microphone out to somebody they are teaching them how to build a model boat, or they are telling someone some interesting statistics about a baseball player they like. Or they are helping somebody learn how to fly fish.

Figure out how to hold the microphone for somebody, and figure out how to scream.

Nobody will ever bother hurting another human being as long as somebody bothers to hold a microphone for them.

We have exactly four duties as human beings:

(1) To hold the microphone for someone else.
(2) To scream whatever we want when the microphone is held for us.
(3) To encourage other people to scream.

If you have to, grab the other persons hand and escort them to the microphone, and promise to scream with them while they scream so they feel less embarrassed. Sometimes, you even have to scream badly just to get someone to have the courage to scream. But do it. Every time somebody screams God is happy.

I think the basis of every moral or ethical action be measured by the Intention, and the Intention should always be to express oneself and to help others in their expression.

If we express ourselves honestly and truly, and if we care about what others express and help them in their expression, then we can Be Better Than We Are, Now.

 Being a foreigner means being from a different nation, from a different culture. A person who is not Native. Does not understand exactly what is happening or what is supposed to be happening and merely goes about things the way they see fit, borrowing from both the culture of the different land and their own. Or exclusively from their own.

In this regard, I have been a foreigner since I discovered punk music. Bob Stone pointed out that people used to think I spoke with an accent since I was 13. But it wasn’t an accent. But it was. It was just a foreigner speaking.

I think a lot of you have also been foreigners your entire lives, and living in a different country came easily because For Once you were a foreigner in the true sense of the word, and it no longer felt odd being a foreigner. It felt Truer than before.

When I do what I do I do not have Americans wondering why I do what I do and finding me odd; I have Koreans seeing what I do and attributing this to my foreign nature in the most non-judgmental sense. I felt more comfortable and more alive the moment I stepped into a place that I knew other people could not rote judge and appraise me by a known standard. I am recognized as someone from a place whose standard is unknown, and because it is unknown I can Be Who I Am without facing appraisal.

If we could all be Foreigners we would all be Happier because nobody would demand of us loyalty to standards and ideas that we wished we never had to subscribe to.

It is more welcoming to be a stranger in a strange land than to be a stranger in your homeland.

I will be a Foreigner no matter where I live until the day I die.

But every Friday and Saturday, every show, every concert. Every time I meet with my friends — that is a gathering of Foreigners.

And yes, we are still foreigners to each other, but we are also Foreigners together.

Fung Yu-lan said there are four stages of human consciousness; the first stage is to behave by your natural standards as a human. The second is to behave by the standards set by society and culture. The third is to behave to higher standards for the benefit of society. The fourth is to behave to the highest standards for the fulfillment of the Eternal Path of the Universe.

Most people behave only according to the second stage. It is a privilege and an honor to strive for the fourth stage.

I do not think about politics the way that I used to because there is more than one way to skin a cat. Rather, I think about skinning a different cat. I think of the context of the universe. I no longer think of the context of the political state.

Because we strive to be part of the Universe we are foreigners to people who strive to be part of a smaller society.

A wise man once said “Hell is others.” I did not know the meaning of this until I wrote what is above.

But also, Heaven is others. Every person is born with a metaphysical substance inside of them that naturally points them in the direction of striving to be the best human they can be, and it means being good to others. This later becomes corrupted through our emotional expressions said the philosopher Yi Go.

Inside every person we see on the street is someone who should & could be our friend and mentor; but through the natural worldly degradation it is lost and others become Hell because they are judgmental.

They are judgmental only because it is the nature of humanity to categorize and classify. If we were to view every person as an entirely different situation than the other we would be running the risk of being cheated or scammed by others, being taken advantage of. But oddly, it is because we categorize and classify each other we scam one another, we cheat one another.

To classify and categorize other humans on whether or not they are “in our Pack” or “our of our Pack” is a bestial relic we ought abolish. It is the thing left that gives rise to fear and pain in one another.

Everyone is a foreigner because everyone is different, and everyone ought to be different and expressive of their differences. Nobody should allow society to define them and their behaviors.

But forgive them for they do not know what they do.

Society ought to be organized with the understanding of the Individual being the smallest and most importnat part, and the customs of respect and courtesy ought to exist to honor one another’s inner selves.

I guess it is like what Jon Bishop said:

I have to view everyone as an extended member of my family. And in that sense, I have to believe what is inside of me is also inside of them.

Inside everyone is a foreigner.

And we all live in the context of too many societies: our neighborhoods, our work places, our cities and towns and our states and provinces and our Countries and our Races and our Likes and Dislikes.

We should all strive to live in the context of the Universe.

One thing that humanity has in common, across the board, are our amazing capacities for both good and evil. It seems one can find any group of people who developed a society and see them go from periods of enlightenment and equality into periods of darkness and hatred, and with many of the most positive and most negative qualities being seen at the same time.

The very fact that humans are morally equal to one another should produce a better sense of understanding the people who are on the wrong side of history, so to speak.

When you look at the clashes of civilizations we’ve seen we often get comical portraits of history: native Americans are all hippies preaching peace and environmentalism while the settlers were war hungry racists; the institution of slavery was applied exclusively by white anglo-saxon protestants on the world, the Japanese were war mongering barbarians exploiting their technological advantage to brutalize all of Asia only towards that end, etc.

It is vaguely true that the victors write history, but in civilized societies it often ends up with the victims writing history out of an acute sense of guilt the descendants of the victors feel.

In no way do I seek to lessen the horror of the atrocities committed by white settlers, slavers and Japanese imperialists, but rather I think it needs to be understood that if the tables were turned there would be the same result. (more…)

Last night I was out with some of the neighborhood crew and one of the women there was really digging for some sort of information, or a sort of admittance, you could say….

“Why did you like that girl?” she asked me, and I meekly said something along the lines of her being nice and having similar hobbies. She nodded and it was a non-issue…

Later she asked some fellows what he likes in women and the guy had the nerve to say that he likes a woman’s “heart.”

Unfortunately at this point I had had a few drinks and was willing to say the butcher’s truth of it.

“Everyone likes women’s hearts, but if that were true fat girls would have men tripping over each other to date them. Ugly people have the best hearts –probably not because they are good hearted people, but probably because experiences resulting from their ugliness has made them the most empathetic of people, and because if ugly people were mean and hot tempered, who would they ever be friends with?”

After I said this I got a round of high fives from all of the women present, and the men vaguely scowled at me.

I told them what matters to me, first and foremost, is the happiness I get from someone, and part of that happiness is the concept of sexual attraction and status — you want someone who both turns you on and also builds your status as a person. Of course, a part of ‘happiness’ is also how nice and good hearted a person is, but who would want to be with a person who gets you made fun of because they are so overweight or unattractive, and who you cannot be sexually excited about?

As I have gotten older the physical standard has dropped, certainly, but the fact is that I am not going to marry a pumpkin shaped woman unless I have no other recourse. The last thing I want to spend the rest of my life doing is going into the workplace or walking around a mall having people wonder why a non-morbidly obese man is with a morbidly obese woman. Yes, I love the Tao Teh Ching and I love non-conformity but that does not mean I would not be upset if everyone around me thought I had some sort of mental problem.

I just would like people to no longer utter such contemptuous lies.

Saying that you’re attracted to women or men by their hearts? Are you kidding me?

Oh, yeah, sure, I like nice people as much as the next guy but I have something also called integrity.

I am not going to be such a brazen hypocrite because I am no longer a teenager who thinks people believe the lies.

And I simply do not have the gall to make statements to people who are disadvantaged by their physical presence that really, truly, I am not with you because you are ugly… I am just not with you because I value people’s hearts.

In an odd way that is so ironic — it is almost as if by saying we value people’s hearts with our words we are taking away the one advantage the ugly have…

Believe that people truly love other people for their hearts long enough and then you get a world full of ugly people with bad hearts. Oh, the irony!

On that note, I think this circumstance best summarizes my opinion:

An overweight 14 year old girl looks up to her father and says,

“What do you look for in women, dad?”

“I look for women with good hearts… But, really, if you want a boyfriend you should go jogging, dear.”

On a Black Metal forum that I visit there is an ‘Ask J. M. Verville’ thread. Here is one of the better questions and my response:

electricprophet said:
Dear, J. M. Verville

What are your thoughts about freedom, and do you think that people will ever be truly free to live their lives as they choose ?

First: all people are born free. I subscribe to the Sartre school of thought that we are damned to be free. the only thing that governs us are physical laws.

Observe young children: they have no concept of law. They are selfish. They go where they want and do what they want. It is possible for people to be liberated as such and become what Ernst Junger refers to as an anarch, a person who lives within society yet ignores the laws and does as they please and as their heart.

There are some people who do amazing things that are even against their instincts — people who commit martyrdom for a losing cause; people who take vows of celibacy; people who go on hunger strike; hell, people who commit suicide.

However, you will see that there are many people who aren’t free.

Even the most individualistic person will sometimes put on a suit and tie and go to work.

You have met the political idealists who are forced to do all manner of things against their ideals. (more…)