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The Elephant and the Artist

There was an Artist who prided herself on painting. And she painted simple, thinking, "No animal on earth paints, beside we people. So, therefore, I shall paint like a child, and become prosperous." Yet, the Elephant saw this, and was ashamed. He said, "Little painter, you are a Man, and can do great things with this paintbrush. I shall show you, that even an animal can paint like you." So, the Elephant took his finger, on his trunk, and painted a picture of a sunset with his Elephant body standing by a stream. The painter was perplexed, "For I thought only humans could paint?" said the painter. The Elephant then said, with a sigh of humility, "You are Man, capable of greater things than I, so prove it. For, I am but an Elephant. Do greater things than the beasts, for you are ashamed that I can paint? Why then do you paint, when the beasts of the field have equal talent to yours? No, excel it and your compassion and your moral law, for in your creation there is meaning."

The Bear and the Crow

There was a Bear who coveted the Bees' honey upon the highest bow. And the Bear said, "I shall not be stung by the Bees, for my skin is thick." So he began to climb up the cleft of the rock, and when he had approached the top, a Mocking Crow landed next to him on a branch. "What are you doing?" asked the intelligent bird. The Bear said, "I am reaching for this honey." The Crow said, "Have you worked for the honey? Did you do anything noteworthy to get it? Or do you wish to spoil these great and wondrous architectures for your own belly? The Bee Keeper at least lets enough for the Bees he keeps, you would spoil the whole hive." The Bear swatted at the Crow, but in that instance, lost foot. He began to fall, and the Crow cawed at him, as he fell to the ground beneath.

My Role Model

He was a good man. He did nothing wrong. He healed the deaf, the blind, the lame. He fed thousands. When I needed Him, He was always there.

I was happy as a child. I had good parents. He gave them to me. I had good grandparents. A pool to swim in. Good aunts and uncles. A full belly.

I sat on my Pop-Pop's lap. I watched the birds feed. He gave me that, too. He gave me my Pop-Pop's love. He gave me my Mom's love. He gave me my Dad's love. He gave me my Grandma and Pappy's love. I was full of love.

Then He gave me play. He gave me lots of play. He gave me four good dogs. He gave me piano playing skills. He gave me writing skills. He gave me lots of love. He gave me lots of talents.

He gave me friends. They were good friends. He gave me freedom of speech and religion. He gave me cooking skills. He gave me poems in my dreams. He gave me knowledge of math. He gave me knowledge of history. He gave me knowledge of science. He gave me knowledge of people. He gave me knowledge of English.

What did they do to Him? They took Him. They beat Him. They whipped Him. They scourged Him. They spat on Him. They teased Him. They put nails in his hand and feet. He hung. And then they cut him with a spear.

I didn't do my homework. I got a little crazy. But I passed school. I had work. I have a good brother. I learned to love him.

I made mistakes. I hurt people. I told lies. I got angry at God and told Him mean things. I did what I wasn't supposed to do. A lot of things I wasn't supposed to do. God did a lot of good things for me. And I thanked Him with doing bad.

I played violent video games. I was alone a lot. I didn't like anyone but myself for a while. Then God showed me love. And I fell in love. With who? With Peace. And I loved Peace. And I was bad. But then I knew what was good.

And I loved Peace so much. It was my constant friend. And I took it everywhere I went. It taught me good. It taught me what was bad. I saw lots of beautiful art in school. And then I saw ugly. That sort of taught me good and bad. But Peace taught me what was good and what was bad. And that man on a donkey and colt taught me peace.

I fell in love with good. And I hated evil. So I wrote everything I knew. Every drop of what I knew. I wrote it. When I was sixteen I began writing what I knew. And at age 35 I continue to write what I know. And I know Peace is good. And I know He is good. They killed Him because He was good. They hated Him because He was good. He set an example for me to follow.

I knew what I did was wrong. Whenever I did something bad, I knew it was bad. That didn't stop me. But I think it's the same for everyone. They know it's bad, but they still do what's wrong. But they do it anyway. My friend saves us from that. His name is Jesus. And He is my role model.

He is my teacher. He teaches me everything I need to know. He gives me peace. And when I'm sad, I know He still loves me. I know He loves me because I see it every day. Food on my table. I have a comfortable bed. I have clothes in my dresser. And even if I didn't have those things, I still see what He did for me. He hung on a cross, and bled and died.

What I learned about life is it is not good. It is full of evil and sadness. I cried a lot in my life. I cried over good men dying. I cried over evil men getting rich. I cried over little children being naughty. I cried a lot. I cried because I was naughty, too.

At times, I don't want to go on. But then I think of Him. And I know He would want me to carry on. I know He loves me because scars are on his hands and ankles. That says He loves me. If I get nothing more in life, I know He did a good thing for me. He's good.

Stupidity

I saw the rise on the left,
Great, and gross and illiberal things
That no sane or rational man
Could tolerate--yet it was.

Then, a Beast arose, and squashed it
With his lion's paws, and stripped liberty
Away, while cloaking his decrees:
"I shall set you free!"

I stood flabbergasted.
I knew not which side to 
Ally with, for both were false causes.

The Good Friar Said

The good friar in his sermon on sunday said these things,
And it was true, yet borrowed them
From Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor:

Had Jesus been tempted to turn the stone into bread
He'd simply be a man who feeds the people.

Had Jesus been tempted to throw himself off the ledge
Jesus would simply be a street magician.

Had Jesus taken the world from Satan
He'd simply be a dictator.

Thus, we must know these three core facts:

Christ is not a means to get rich or be fed;
Christ is not a means to perform gross illusions;
Christ is not a means to usurp power.

Tiers of Intelligence

There’s tiers of intelligence. I’m just going to go over them.

1.Reactive. It just moves according to stimuli.
2.Interactive. It interacts with things in its environment.
3.Communitive. It understands how to socialize with other lifeforms.
4.Extra-communitive. It forms into social hierarchies and communities and forms social behaviors.
5.Existential. It has an awareness of self. And possibly a sense of humor.
6.Extra Existential. It not only has an awareness of self, but also has an ego—will look into a mirror is an example of this.
7.Creative. It has cathexis, and needs creative activity to keep it interested. Elephants and Dolphins are the only animals known to have this so far. Not even Chimpanzees. Maybe Rats.

Now above this, only humans have.

8. Reason. The ability to put things together, and build upon them to higher principles, and find things through putting things together in new ways.

9. Judgment. The ability to correctly identify right and wrong.

10. Logos. The ability to not only judge and reason, but correctly interpret patterns and understand them the right way.

11. Prophetic. The ability to construct patterns, and predict them. Which is what Calculus does, actually. You need a Prophetic Intelligence to understand it. (I don’t mean “Prophet” as in a Bible Prophet, but rather someone who can understand and predict behaviors and trends before they happen, by analyzing previous data. Or an ability to form conclusions with incomplete data.)

Some people have high IQs but lack certain kinds of intelligence, and some people have lower IQs but have the higher cognitions. It’s really not about IQ, but your capacity. And unfortunately, having a High IQ doesn’t always correlate with having higher forms of cognition. It really only measures Reason.

I’d also say, some people only come to tier 6. So, there are some animals that are more intelligent than humans. But, humanity has a moral worth the animals don’t. I don’t know how to quantify that, but it’s not necessarily intelligence that makes us human, but God’s image being borne in us. That’s the only thing I can say… and why humanity has a moral worth higher than all other life forms on Earth.

Idiocracy: “Not Realistic?”

As a writer of sci-fi myself, people tend to think something's "Not Realistic" when in fact it follows the proverb, "A bit dog howls."

Unfortunately, this is happening in real time, and the internet is the cause of it. Too many simplistic conversations, and while I don't believe it's caused by ill breeding, what it is caused by is information overload, and moving people from topic to topic.

Just for reference, in the past 3 months, there was an assassination on a CEO which was forgotten instantly, then a Black Hawk Helicopter that crashed into an Air Liner, and then a near disastrous episode where the president of Ukraine and Trump had a violent disagreement on Live TV.

So, just for reference, I think the movie has some extremely prescient thoughts regarding reality, and at the time it was released, in 2005 these problems were nascent, and you have to see the issue through Mike Judge's eyes, that it was spurred on by two people fighting at Disney, with strollers nearby. You have to see the tyranny of the Corporations threatening it with lawsuits for criticizing them... Which should never happen in a free country, as if you can't criticize power--including corporations--you have a real problem on your hand.

The show and all the controversy surrounding it, shows the lead up to what is happening right now. In stark nakedness.