A Merry Spirit

 I just wrote a ginormous little article over at my 'mommy blog' about laughing at the tragic irony of the narcissists in my life, and today I ran across this article about charitably using humor against foolish or evil ideals.  I'm a huge fan of G.K. Chesterton, Jane Austen, and the Babylon Bee/Not the Bee, as all of them have true wit, expose folly, and never use humor to attack or personally harm another living soul, rather they ridicule the runaway ideas of their day and encourage people to take a second look at the nonsense they are espousing.  I vaguely remembered a couple Proverbs about just that and thanks to the interweb, I can magically provide them: 15:13 and 17:22, but they can be summarize with a merry heart heals while a broken spirit shrivels.  I can't undo the wounds of the past, I can only laugh at the behavior and ideas of those inflicting them, that they take a less central part in my soul and history, allowing me to move on and heal rather than dwelling upon them ad infinitum.  Too many of those who are highly outspoken about their particular crusade, on whichever end of the spectrum, will not be reasoned with, will hear nothing a heretic will say, but perhaps they might be willing to laugh at themselves, if so there is hope, if not, I fear their cause and soul are doomed.

The Book of Jonah is one such example.  We all know it as a children's tale about a guy who gets eaten by a large aquatic organism.  But have you actually read it?  It is a wonderful example of satire warning against our presumptions about God's character and actions, modern day Trumpian Prophets would do well to take heed!  The Bible isn't a dry, repetitive book of impossible children's tales, rather it is as chockfull of one-liners, zingers, and pointed humor as Hamlet or Pride and Prejudice.  Job, Esther, and Proverbs all have their humorous or ironic parts to say nothing of scenes like David acting the madman, Mary Magdalene mistaking the newly risen Jesus for the gardener, Rhoda leaving Peter standing at the door while everybody else is praying for his release from prison, and angels asking the mystified disciples why they are standing there staring at the sky.  It is a very human book or rather The Human Book written specifically for our good and edification and dare I say amusement?

Many of our modern zealots (for whatever cause) have lost their sense of humor and thus their purpose, the Bible has not, neither should the church.  Humor and mirth are as much a part of life and your soul as sorrow and sin, and woe to the man or nation who forgets how to laugh, grieve or repent or believes himself above such paltry concerns.  Wit can be a powerful healing tool, but like any weapon or tool, it can also be used to inflict great harm, enjoy with caution! 

Big Story and the Death of an Artform

 American media is always abuzz about 'Big' whatever be it pharmacy, business, oil or whatever the trendy cause of the day, I'd also like to add media and medicine to that, but obviously that won't play well in our 'democratic' media outlets so I'll refrain and talk only about 'Big Story.'  Story is an art as old as language, as young as childhood, as immortal as life and it too has been coopted into a multi-trillion dollar corporate enterprise.  While 'indie e-books' are certainly thriving and YouTube has its niche successes, the overall popular and successful 'stories' of our day are all produced by big business and/or big media and they back each other up as necessary to continue the farce that they actually produce great tales people flock to see, rather than offering tasteless pablum we eat only because we've been starved of all other options.

I first discovered I was racist when it took me over a year to admit that I didn't like Star Wars VII.  I went, as a good and faithful acolyte, to the altar with the rest of the faithful, paid my tithe, and hoped to enjoy the show.  I had read all the books (now banned and non-canonical) and had even sort of liked the prequels and was hopeful for the next addition to the tale.  Visually it was lovely but the plot and characters left me flat, sort of like leftover room temperature soda but with no sugar or caffeine to ease the misery.  I left stunned, not at how great it was, but at how great it wasn't, but unable to admit, even to myself, that in that moment I had become a heretic.  Then the next one came out and I hoped it would make up for things and maybe absolve my heresy, but it was even worse and no, I haven't seen number nine.  And yes, it is because I am racist that I didn't like either new movie.

If that last sentence makes sense to you, please indulge in binging either The Babylon Bee or Jane Austen immediately, for your own sake as well as those that must put up with you!  The latest travesty to strike is obviously Amazon's Lord of the Rings spin-off.  I hardly survived the Hobbit in triplicate so I'm not planning on seeing how someone could make Tolkien even worse, but what really gets my goat is that nobody is allowed to not like it or else they are racist.  I don't care if they have black elves or pink hobbits or winged cats, and yes, there are some of Peter Jackson's elves that might qualify as transgender, but I really don't care, I care about the quality of the tale, the believability of the characters, the cohesiveness of the plot, not the diversity quotients required by modern film execs.  The whole venture was panned by Tolkien fans immediately and Amazon and its flying monkey media friends immediately labeled the whole kit and caboodle racist without even listening to their concerns.  Are there some racist weirdos out there, certainly, but painting everyone with that brush because they don't like your show seems a little egregious to me, but what do I know, I'm racist as anybody!

How does Big Story plan to keep people interested in paying money to see or read stuff if they must lie, manipulate, and coerce them into 'liking' it?  This is why it took me a year to admit I didn't like the new Star Wars!  Turning out pretty but pointless spinoffs, remakes, sequels, and prequels of a onetime hit and ruining favorite 'brands' just to momentarily attract new eyes seems like longterm suicide to me and then ignoring your would-be audience when they offer suggestions on how to actually improve the experience and insulting them in process is even worse.  I'm still hoarding my old Star Wars books and occasionally rereading them, even if I'm now a heretic; the same with Tolkien.  But then I'm racist, why should that surprise anyone?  I especially love the criticism bestowed on pretty much everybody that they are homophobic if they didn't go see the new gay romcom on opening night!  I don't like heterosexual romcoms, why one earth would I go see one of any sort, but what do you expect of a racist?

Bullying me into paying you money to see pointless drivel really isn't my idea of entertainment and I'm guessing won't breed longterm success, hence the success of indie content producers and alternative media outlets.  Netflix is already starting to crumble, take heed Disney, Amazon, and everybody else that thinks we're all just mindless sheep willing to huddle in a corner and pretend the danger will just go away, there are enough rascally goats in the mix that the whole herd may just bolt in a direction you hadn't anticipated.  It is not racist to call a story out for being lame, pedantic, boring, uncreative, preachy, incomprehensible, or whatever the case may be.  Refusing to see something because it has a diverse cast is one thing; refusing to see something that is poorly written, acted, produced or whatever is not.  And what are you going to do when actual racism rears its head if you cry wolf so often in defense of everything else?

Story thrives when it is free, uncoerced, isn't overtly pushing a certain agenda but still has a point, where it grapples with immortal truths, where the characters are real people with all their flaws and beauties, where magic and wonder and mystery can exist, where surprises can happen.  If it is merely a matter of taste or fashion or money or political trends or enforced or imitation, the result will fall flat on its face, no matter how the gods over at Big Story spin the fallout.  The only thing worse than writing a bad story is blaming the poor quality on the listeners, who will then never listen to you again.  You can spend your billions to produce eye catching splendors but my worn paperback is by far more satisfying on every other level because at heart a good story is really human which is the race we all share, the tale in which we are all enmeshed, and if you forget that, you'll never tell a truly good tale!

The Uses of Diversity: 1920

 I was replenishing my G.K. Chesterton collection off project Gutenberg, as iBooks seems to forget previous volumes after a while or perhaps it was an incident peculiar to my device, but I came across another volume of his essays of which I was previously unaware, title in the title of this post.  I'm only halfway through, but rather enjoying it, if mostly baffled and highly amused, as ever I am reading his works, but it really strikes me that he is both prophet and clown and his writing is strangely cognizant of an age he would never live to see, but then that is probably unsurprising as he writes about Man, the human condition and heart, even if clothing some of his suppositions in the color and fashion of his day, which is why his metaphors and analogies often elude me, a hundred years later and in a different empire entirely, if not the timeless meaning of his words.  While the political, literary, and historical references he uses means little to me, his eternal truths echo down through the ages as clear as ever they have for they echo the words of the Word Himself.  And no matter your time or place or culture, those are Truths and Realities with which we must wrestle, not against spirits or powers or principalities but rather against the human heart, wild, unfettered, untamed, like a wolf at the door, ready to rend at will rather than a trusty dog on the hearth rug, courageous, unflappable, and true.

It is interesting to note that in Chesterton's day they had all sorts of fads, fettishes, and fashions just as we have today, and apparently so has it been since civilization began and will be until something better comes along to replace it.  I wish he were still around today to write a jolly retort to the untenable quirks of our day or perhaps Miss Austen might be inclined to write a novel thereupon?  But perhaps it is better that they are not, for it seems we have forgotten, or are afraid, to laugh, most especially at our own foibles.  There was a day when a man in woman's clothing was a joke, now this sort of person seriously demands a routine medical examination of anatomy they don't possess by a neutral-faced medical practitioner who daren't tell the emperor he's naked, and a man at that!  I used to joke about being in such a predicament professionally, never imaging there would be a day when sane and licensed physicians would be ordered by ethics boards and lawyers to give prostate exams to those possessed of XX chromosomes but nary a hint of a prostate!

I thought the realm of animal medicine would be safe from such insanity, I used to think transgenderism would never gain a credible foothold in the public purview, oops!, and now I do not doubt the 'otherkin' will soon be equally legitimate, but where does that leave the medical community, human and not?  Human physicians are not licensed or trained to treat animals; veterinarians are not licensed or trained to treat people.  Human physicians have had to treat biological males as if they possessed XX chromosomes, do you really think there won't come a day when a man who thinks himself a dog will not demand to be treated by a vet or that the dog-man will sue a human physician for trying to treat him as if he were a human patient?  I really want to submit this conundrum to the powers that be in the veterinary community, who are gladly embracing all the other tenets of wokism.  What is my moral, ethical, medical, and professional responsibility here?  They won't tell a man he isn't a woman, can I tell him he isn't a dog?

Will I lose my license for treating a biological human or will I get sued for not treating him?  Our profession is based on the physical reality of the world around us but we want to be trendy and not hurt anybody's feelings but it only causes chaos!  Cancer has no trouble interrupting someone's vapid reality and oncologists don't usually pretend it isn't there because obviously that would be everyone's preference; you can't pretend not to have cancer and make it a reality any more than a man can be a woman or a dog just because he thinks he should be and forcing physicians and everybody else to sing the same refrain doesn't make it any more of a reality: the emperor is still naked even if everybody but one little boy pretends otherwise.  Do I vaccinate him for canine distemper and leave him vulnerable to measles and tetanus or am I allowed to say he should see a doctor who specializes in his biological species?  Where do you draw the line?  We jumped off that slippery slope and nobody seems to want to answer the tough questions that are cropping up because of it, we just pretend the cancer isn't there and villainize anybody who says differently while it wreaks havoc as we play pretend.  O Chesterton where art thou?