Jesus is a contradiction (Post of the Month)
Jesus is a contradiction because he is God but also a man. He is king but also a servant.
He talks about how those who say they can see are blind, and those who say they can hear are deaf.
He's a contradiction focusing on contradictions, drawing attention to them.
Life itself is a contradiction. It's normal to be a miracle. We're all lucky to be here considering the one sperm that made it to the egg and yet we are surrounded by people who all accomplished the same feat.
God is real but he's also imaginary. He came into reality and gave us his only son.
Even the virgin giving birth is another contradiction. The Almighty God was killed.
Then he was resurrected. Jesus talked about giving up your life for him and then that's how you find it.
He came to save the world and the world killed him. He says to love your enemies. Yet another contradiction.
God wants to tune our minds to the frequency of contradictions. He seems to want us to realize that we have it backwards without his aid.
By being free from God's laws we become slaves to sin.
By surrendering to God we become free.
Jesus came to teach us about contradictions and how they are the truth.
God dying is a contradiction and yet it happened.
God needing our help is a contradiction and yet he wants us to love him.
If the story of Jesus is all made up, then people created the ultimate story of contradictions. A virgin giving birth to a God who is also just a man who dies but also lives after death.
Why are contradictions so important to either God himself or our collective imaginations? Why is the best way to be king to be like a servant? Why does a rich man not get into heaven? Why would a kid get in? Why would the priests get the most grief from Jesus? Why would the church try to kill the son of God? Why would his best friend betray him? It's all contradictions. It's all the opposite of what is sensible.
God gave us free will. Even that is a contradiction. How can he be God if we have choices? How can he be all-powerful if he doesn't know what we're going to do? Why did his favorite angel become the devil? None of it makes any sense! The truth doesn't make sense to us. Lies do. So God came down to teach us to stop thinking we have anything figured out. God came to open our minds to the possibility that we don't know as much as we think we do.
The Bible is a collection of stories all designed to open our minds to the Godlike possiblities that we doubt with our lack of faith.
Walking on water is a contradiction!
How did Jesus know what to do and where to go and when to do it and who was going to do what to him? Because he's a contradiction. He's impossible. He's God in human form.
God won a war against a dragon in heaven without even fighting.
God is incomprehensible and wants us to have faith in him and to love him for creating this impossible world we live and die in. He wants to have a relationship with each of us. God blurred the lines between God and Man with Jesus Christ, our savior.
Jesus died for our sins. God took a bullet for us and lived to tell about it. Most of us don't even listen to him tell the story. He went to Hell and back for us.
Heaven is for the people who understand that they do not understand. For people who treat others like themselves, another contradiction.
Getting hit and turning the other cheek instead of fighting back is yet another contradiction from Jesus. Like, yo Jesus, shouldn't we fight back? No, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Stop using your puny human logic and use mine (God would say).
I think God wants us to learn about the contradictions of life, the deceitfulness of riches, the restful sleep of the hard worker.
God created a stone so big he cannot lift it, another contradiction. That stone is our free will. We choose whether or not to love and obey God.
I choose to love him and I am bewildered and in awe of his amazing contradictory existence. Existence defies all odds and yet it's the only way it could be.
God is everything everywhere all at once, and Jesus is a time traveler.
We must know that we do not know. We must be like a child to get into Heaven.
Heaven is a contradiction because it implies life after death which is final, fatal.
How can there be life after death? Faith in God. Belief in the impossible.
So do it. Embrace your own contradictions. Notice the contradictions in the bible, like the prodigal son getting a better party then the other son. The shepherd rejoicing after 1 lost sheep, leaving the other 99. Pray like a sinner. God loves contradictions. Skip like a soldier. See like a blind person. Live as man, but be like a God.
This whole idea started out as a poem I was writing about contradictions. I liked the sound of "Cold like an oven". I was playing around with variations of that and discovered that that is Jesus's whole coolness. He is all about the contradictions.
Without further ado, here is my poem that inspired this post:
----
Cold like the oven
Smooth like sandpaper
Sting like a kiss
Hot like ice
Gamble like a priest
Pray like an atheist
Rule like a servant
Serve like a king
Fight like a pacifist
Surrender like a warrior
Treat death like life, life like it's death
Sin like a saint
Volunteer like a criminal
Jesus like an average guy
Hold on like a failure
Persevere like a loser
Hide like you're brave
Stand and fight like you're scared
Run away like you have no fear
Love like a psychopath
Evil like a saint
Good like the devil
Grow like a stone
Wither like a seed
Skip like a soldier
Sing like a mute
See like a blind person
Hear like a deaf person
Round like a square
---Jesus is a contradiction---
Man like a god
God like a man
-----
I really like the line "persevere like a loser" because I can see how God would enjoy watching a loser push through and become a winner, and how he's more impressed with a guy with low self esteem working up the courage to ask out a girl in a bar than Christiano Ronaldo getting a bus full of models. A sinner's first prayer is more meaningful than a saint's thousandth. That's why Jesus dined with the sinners and prostetutes. He came to heal the sick.
He makes the blind see because it's a contradiction and he wants the people who can see to realize how blind they actually are.
The lepers are made clean because it's another contradiction. It's impossible and barely fathomable.
Jesus is the ultimate contradiction.
If the story of Jesus is just a made-up story, then it is undoubtably a story about contradictions. Contradictions are either divine, or so core to our collective consciousness that we made up an entire religion about it. But why?
Because we wanted to tell ourselves that anything is possible. We wanted to tell ourselves that we lack faith. We wanted to make sure our future generations remembered that with faith all things are possible. With God, all things are possible. Jesus is my friend, and I love him. God fucking bless! Another contradiction.
Be a man like a God. Be a God like a man. The best way to have a relationship with Jesus is to try to live like a God, and follow his commandments. Because God already lived like a man, and now we need to do our part and live like a God. God understands us because he lived as us. We need to live as him if we want to meet him half-way. I will do my best to live like a God and follow Jesus's example. Amen. Selah. Elam
P.S. -- Capitalism is a contradiction because it's supposedly people's individual self interests forming the greater good. There's a Chinese Marxist paper called, "On Contradiction"and I find it interesting that Mao thought all life was made up of contradiction, and how it relates to Marxism. Personally, I would like an economic structure built on cooperation rather than competition. It's a lonely world right now in my humble opinion. What if instead of a dog-eat-dog world we had a dog-helps-dog world? Wouldn't that be better? Isn't that worth striving for?
9/11/22
Evidence of Hans Cheating
My video got 2.5K Views in the first day!
09.29.22
The Teen's Gambit
The chess world has been rocked by a cheating scandal with the world champion Magnus Carlsen unofficially accusing the prodigy Hans Niemann of cheating. After losing to him and Hans making rude comments, Magnus has left a major tournament and refused to play him in the next one by resigning on move 2.
There is a tremendous article covering the story where I got the title from.
I have been following the story live and side with the world champion. The game Magnus lost was very complex and Hans destroyed him with black in a classical game. Magnus doesn't lose classical games with white against players of that rating. Then after the game Hans was behaving like an immature kid or a magician who had just won a chess game by using a magic trick like when a magician beats two grandmasters at the same time by playing their moves against each other. He famously remarked, "the chess speaks for itself" and also said how Carlsen "should be embarrassed for losing to someone as dumb as me."
Very bizarre unsportsmanlike behavior from Hans instead of being classy in his momentn of fame. It angered Magnus so much Magnus withdrew from the half a million prize fund sinquefield cup.
I think if anyone is capable of detecting cheating it is Magnus because he has experience playing people online who are using engines to beat him, and he basically can't be beaten without engine assistance because he's simply the best player. He literally hadn't lost a classical game with white in years.
Magnus is all in on accusing Hans without actually accusing him straight up, to avoid legal trouble. The resignation after one move is awesome because he's taking the loss but still trying to win the tournament in spite of throwing the game.
Chess.com has banned Hans. Hans has come out saying he cheated at age 12 and 16 online, but chess.com says that he's cheated more than that.
I admit I don't know what's happening, and it's possible Hans is legit, but it's possible his chess acumen is not high enough to compete with Magnus without cheating. And that was exposed during a post game interview where he showed poor analysis of his own game. As for how he's cheating, I think Neurolink is an option, or some sort of contact lens with Augmented reality. I don't know for sure, but I lean towards Hans being some sort of trickster with the blatant way he's behaving to agitate Magnus, and then I also side with Magnus's expertise in detecting a cheater.
The other possiblity is that Magnus is slowly unraveling and losing his mind. Chess players and champions tend to do this. First he withdrew from the World Championship and won't defend it, seemingly due to stress, then he loses to Hans and backs out of a tournament in progress for the first time in his career, and now he's resigning every time he is paired up against Hans. I reiterate though, I'm on team Magnus. Hans rubs me the wrong way and seems phony. He's also an admitted cheater and it takes a certain kind of person to cheat at chess. I myself never have.
The way Hans taunted Magnus after beating him made it seem like Hans cared more about beating Magnus and drawing attention to himself then he did about chess. He barely was invited into that particular tournament. He was a late throw in from someone backing out and was the lowest rated player. He seemed like he had his insults prepared. I think if he is cheating, he turns it on against Magnus specifically. I think he used his opportunity against Magnus on the biggest stage to draw attention to himself and he has succeeded in doing that although now some of the attention is negative. He didn't seem like rising chess star who was happy to play Magnus. Instead he behaved like how a schoolboy would if he beat Magnus by using a computer to cheat. He rubbed it in his face which is more in the style of a cheater than a competitor. Because a cheater plays only to win, whereas a true competitor is playing for the game's sake and therefore respects his opponent. Hans' attitude and his chess against Magnus, as well as his meteoric rise in rating points makes me feel like Magnus knows Hans is cheating but he can't prove it. Yet.
9.20.22
Water and Fire
Beautiful analysis of men and women and how they are different and society would be better off treating them as such instead of trying to make us the same.
9.17.22
Power Rankings
Fantasy football recap week 1 for Westlake Fantasy Football league is now live.
9.12.22
Add Vice (with a friend)!
I played my original song "Add Vice for a Friend" palm-muted and let my friend play with me and it turned out fantastic!
9.8.22
Alone! with a secone guitar player (and a squirrel obstacle course)
I wrote a song last year about being alone and now I replayed it with another guitar player soloing to it and it sounds really great! Enjoy!
This is just really awesome
9.6.22
Leeroy Jenkins, Prince Daemon, and Donald Trump
This World of Warcraft player yells his name and charges in, ruining the quest for all his buddies in one of the funniest clips ever.
It's old but I'm posting it now because someone made a meme of the House of the Dragon comparing Prince Daemon's fake surrender with Leeroy Jenkins and it made me rewatch it. House of the Dragon is a great show so far.
Jamie Fox doing an amazing Trump impression.
9.5.22
The Assault on Masculinity (POTM)
So I've been noticing this for a while. This guy I often listen to does a really good job showing how masculine media is being overwritten by feminist garbage. It's nothing against women, if a woman character exists, go for it. But stop making masculin men get their asses kicked or replaced by strong females.
In Drake Uncharted 4 Drake can't take a girl in a fight basically ever. He's been kicking everyones ass and then there's multiple sequences where he gets his ass beat by a girl and there's nothing the player can do to stop it.
Now I'm hearing the new James Bond is infected with this bs and now even Thor is going to be a female.
Now, I'm not here to state the obvious. Anyone can see this. The question is why. Why are they doing it? Is it virtue signalling, or the changing of the times? Are they giving the people what they want?
No, they aren't. The quality of content sucks. And they try to remove things like James Bond sleeping with a bunch of girls because it's awesome for men to see, and then they want to suck away all of the awesome and destroy all of masculinity so they have a bunch of pussies to easily rule over.
It is true that in the past, video game girls used to be just big tits and stuff like like, but we've swung so far in the other direction that now Abby in the Last of Us 2 has the biggest muscles in that game. It's stupid and unrealistic.
I think everyone is secretly starved for good old fashioned masculine and feminine roles. I'm not even going to waste my time with disclaimers like some woman are strong and smart. I want a story with a hot hopelessly weak princess getting rescued by a badass man who gets to bang her at the end.
That's why I wrote Cloudland, and even part of the reason I had a mental breakdown. I could see the attack on all masculinity, including my own. I knew I had to shake things up with my behavior and rebel. I ended up losing it but I still stand by the essential goal which is to be a real man.
Andrew Kirby has a video where he explains how Alexander the Great was so obsessed with being the Alpha that he eventually had to call himself God because he didn't want God above him. My mental breakdown was similar in that I renamed myself Elam Ahpla, the character in my story of a dragonslayer princess rescuing sword wielding hero.
Problem was I went into cannabis withdrawal psychosis but at least I managed to quit smoking.
The other video I want to share that I saw recently is from Quantum of Conscience.
I like Quantum of Conscience, 1st Man, and Andrew Kirby, in that order.
In this video he takes his famous half-page explanation of reality and extends it to 5 pages to truly explain it and I think he has a good grasp of how reality works.
He often says to examine what this reality wants you to do, or this society, and then just to do the opposite. So if they are trying to stamp out and ruin masculinity, I want to rebel in the opposite direction, I want to bring balance to the force.
Humans thrive when Men and Women embrace masculinity and feminitity respectively. It's like a battery with opposite charges. We cannot thrive without a strong charge in both directions.
I just bought a Temper Pedic cloud mattress with my commission money and I will be building an excellent life for myself and have a beautiful girl on that bed and no one can stop me. I just learned "Guarenteed" By Eddie Vedder on Guitar (Into the Wild) and I am forming a better life for myself. I went swimming today and did pushups and I am excercising more frequently now. If you want to look like a beast, you have to be a beast, and work like a beast. I'm not working out like a beast, but I'm getting closer.
I want to be a James Bond type badass who sleeps with women and is ubermasculine and there's nothing wrong with that. It's natural and it makes me happy. Just like it's natural for a woman to want to do feminine things. What's unnatrual is all this bullshit in the media confusing people and making them forget who they really are, which is what that QOC video is all about. It's about just moving past the conspiracies and focusing on who we really are and becoming the best versions of ourselves.
God Bless Men and Women in their natural roles. No disclaimers or virtue signalling here.
09/19/2021
Is God Imaginary?
Unbelievable Artwork from Richie Mason on ArtStation. I use it as something to look at while I discuss it and the philosophy of God.
High def version coming soon.
09/27/2021
Something Interesting to Say
I was just listening to Tim Ferris of the 4 hour workweek interviewing Ryan Holiday, the bestselling author of "The Obstacle is the way", a book about Stoicism.
Why? 1) Someone I admire who has a beach view from their bedroom reads his books and 2) I am a philosophy major and I'm a fan of philosophy the way someone is a fan of sports.
Tim asked Ryan, "What are some mistakes writer's make?" My ears perked up, because I write this blog and want it to be better.
"People often write without having anything interesting to say". "Or they just start writing and try to find the point as they go along".
I'm guilty of this, but not every time, not this time.
Discovery writing is when you write without an end in mind and get your thoughts flowing. This technique is useful for writing novels, so I've heard from Brandon Sanderson in his creative writing course on youtube. But that's not what I've been doing.
I've been writing, blogging, and making a habit of creating content because I want to improve at it and I'm not going to let fear of failure get in my way. I started this website in January and I now have 9 months of experience of writing and maintaining a blog and coding this website.
So for my own personal development each post has been worthwhile, something to learn from. But in the interest of improving the quality of this blog for my readers, I am going to start taking steps toward using what I've learned to write a better blog, instead of just doing it for experimental purposes.
Blogging, like journaling, is therapeudic. It's almost addictive. Sometimes I just like to create instead of consume. But, as a songwriter, I know, you can't force the writing of a good song. It just happens. Some days, there's nothing there. A few days or weeks go by, you pick up the guitar and then BAM! the song writes itself. Everything you've been processing or daydreaming about just comes out all at once.
Blogging is the same. Sometimes I'm forcing it but I really just have nothing interesting to say which is the main ingredient you need. However, there are days where some insight occurs to me and I just have to turn it into a well thought out blog post. Sometimes, like the song, the blog writes itself.
That said, I'm going to promote myself to Editor and go back and comb over the past posts I think. As much as I like authenticity I also think it'd be nice to delete my bad posts and just leave the good ones for any future readers who want to start from the beginning.
The thing I have to say
The interesting thing I have to say is about finally setting a schedule.
After having the recent experience with going on a date with a desirable girl, I have realized what I want to achieve.
Once I really crystallized my goal of being a desirable partner for a desirable woman, (because, let's be honest, guy's, I think girls are God's best offer to us for satisfaction in this world)... Once I crystallized my goal I was able to set a schedule of what my ideal day would be, that would also be conducive to achieving my ideal self.
I work from 9:20-6:00 in insurance. I decided my ideal workday, if I'm to be the man I want to be and get the girl I want to get, etc... I have to wake up before 7AM, eat breakfast, go to the gym and break a sweat, then come back and shower, and then spend a half hour to an hour on my personal business plans, and then I can go work for someone else to pay the bills, and then when I get off of work, I'm making a new schedule. To be honest I haven't figured out how I want the nights to go, but my morning was near perfect. I just need to go to bed early enough to do it again tomorrow.
I'm turning 30 in a week. I made a video called turning30 a while back and shared my thoughts on turning 30. I have been thinking about it for a while and I'm faily comfortable with where I'm at moving into my 30's. I have clear goals, priorities, skills, a job with room for extra income, and a website people use for my fantasy football articles. I'm pretty happy with my progress.
09/22/2021
Cinepolis Dream
—Dream
My dad was throwing a lavish party with 100+ guests.
It was kind of like in CINEPOLIS
I was there hosting.
My dad arrived with important people and I briefly saw him.
Then Sven, Devin, and Andrew arrived
Sven and Andrew and Devin informed me that we were going out . ( you guys sometime don’t include me in plans but I’m still invited)
There was a line of people and I was searching the line for other “Giants” to take with us. (Most my friends are tall). But you guys laughed and assured me we already had everyone.
I was laughing to myself that there was $1000’s of dollars worth of food in the party behind us but we were all going to pay to go out to dinner but it made sense because it was our last night together for a long time, and we were significantly younger than the crowd. And we wanted some time with each other before returning to the party (maybe it was the premier of bug therapy). Only catch, when we got outside, I was still in my socks. Andrew was slightly annoyed, and said the taxi would be getting here any second, and I went to run back inside to find my shoes.
You guys all waited outside.
On my way deeper into cinepolis, I saw a wallet on the ground by where Sven and Andrew were sitting, by the XBOX. There was like a massive projector like near the bar in cinepolis where they put football on, and you guys had been playing halo.
I noticed the wallet and picket it up, as well as several stray 100 dollar bills on the ground, at least a few. I put them all in my hand and went deeper into the party. Before I switched rooms, I turned to the old couple playing pool and said, “I’ll give these to my friends outside”… They nodded skeptically and said they would return it to lost and found if I hadn’t. They knew you guys had been sitting over there.
Anyway now I’m inside the party again, my hands are full but I didn’t want to mix up your money with my money so I wasn’t putting it in my pockets. I also didn’t check the wallet’s photo ID, I figured I’d just ask outside, and I thought about calling/texting but my hands were full and I had no idea where my shoes were.
Then I woke up! LOL
Analysis
I once had an experience working at cinepolis where I found a wallet with many hundreds in it.
I only found it after everyone else on staff had given up looking but the man on the phone seemed desperate.
I reached my arm deep down the seat he was at and found a wallet full of hundreds.
I told the man and I gave it to him and he was worried sick but overjoyed when he knew he had enough to buy his kids christmas presents or something. He gave me like $20 as a reward which I thought was small but looking back, his relief made it totally worthwhile and the reward was inconsequential compared to actually helping someone out.
I also had another experience working at Brookestone at the mall where a shopped was dropping bills behind her accidentally as she walked and I grabbed them and chased her out the store to show her the money.
Also sometimes my freinds have plans that involve me that I really have no say in the matter because of my financial struggles in years past. That's no longer the case as much. I just bought a temper pedic cloud bed! I am going to turn my room into "Cloudland" the mythical place I invented in my story
Also my dad is starting to get famous for Bug Therapy and I didn't realize that until I woke up that it was probably a bug therapy premier.
Back to sleep I think!
09/19/2021
Kingslayer
Video on the contradictions of modern society and political correctness.
Not my best video because my laptop camera broke and this is me balancing my phone on top of a whiteboard.
09/17/2021
Leverage
I'm really digging this guy's content.
He talks about using leverage, like the ability to code or the internet or youtube reaching more people than you ever could in person, and making it profitable at scale.
I've managed to turn part of this website into content for my fantasy league of 11 other guys, but imagine how profitable it could be if I had 1000 readers at $1 per month?
It's just a matter of leverage
I just spent like an hour trying to learn how to spice up my nav bar. This site is in despereate need of an upgrade, especially the nav bar.
Here's what I got so far
09/14/21
Step 1
I really like this short video from this guy explaining that you should just start before you learn or you'll never get started. Learn while you do. Action is key. I don't know how to manage my own chess business but I know at some point I want to have business cards. So I'm just going to make business cards when I get my next paycheck.
Also, I really want to put a professional nav-bar for my site. I have too many /somethings on this website and I need to invest time into building my own mobile responsive nav bar.
I'm excited for the rest of my life. Let's go!
And what a great experience taking that girl on a date was. I'm very happy I did that. It was much better than nothing.
09/13/21
School of Rock
It's 1 o'clock in the morning and I have work tomorrow but I had to finish watching school of rock and now I have to blog about it while it's still fresh in my mind.
It reminded me of when I was a teacher and how awesome and full of potential kids are.
If you've been living under a rock, I'll tell you real quick what it's about before I analyze it. It's about a guy who can't pay his rent because he's trying to make it in a band. Dewey (jack black) lives with his brother and his brother's girlfriend is pressuring him to tell Dewey to get a job or move out. Meanwhile, Dewey also gets kicked out of his own band.
His phone rings and he decides to pretend to be his brother who is a substitute teacher.
Then he goes to teach at a prep elementary school and collect the money letting the kids do whatever. But then, it stops being about the paycheck. He sees the kids during their music class and sees their potential. Then he get's all engaged as a teacher and his passion takes over. Nothing is better than teaching a kid something for the first time that you're passionate about. Bringing what you love to their attention and seeing them experience it for the first time is epic.
Then he starts this whole class project called "Rock Band". He plans on entering Battle of the Bands with the class. I forgot to mention he put out fliers and no one wanted to join his band.
Anyway, the whole time I'm thinking about the ethical implications of what he's doing. Are the kids missing out on a real education by studying rock and roll everyday? No, they aren't. Is math worth learning? Yes, but you don't need to study it everyday. That makes it boring. Engaging the kids with passion is all that really matters. If kids are engaged, you can teach a months worth of math in one day. It's when it's monotonous and boring when it becomes difficult to teach.
Also, the idea of him not being qualified to be in front of children and teach, it's ridiculous. He's the perfect teacher. He's so honest, and genuine. He wants the kids to unlock their potential. He loves them. It's beautiful to watch, seriously. Kids are robbed of people like that and people like that have to basically lie to get in front of kids and teach what they're passionate about. I remember teaching a lego robotics class but I was very into math at the time and I would teach the kids secret math lessons way above their grade level and it got them super-engaged.
Children will rise to whatever expectations are placed on them, without fail. If you tell them they're all going to be treated like college kids, they'll start acting like it. It's remarkable. I had half the class teaching itself. I'd teach one kid one thing and have him master it and then each kid was a master of one skill and they all taught themselves it. Teaching is the best way to understand something. So, that was my golden teaching method. I think it could be widespread and incredibly impactful, so I'll have to revisit it. But imagine if during middle school you got to read ahead about geology, or whatever your favorite subject is, and then teach the class that one subject, or lesson. you would be pro at it. And then all the "teacher" has to do is make sure each kid is master of one thing. Then they will all naturally be dying to explain their expertise to one another. It's impossible to have 7 expert kids in a room without them all sharing ideas. It really does work.
I know it's just a fictional movie but it's such a great story and I love love loved watching it.
Rock on.
Also, all my rules had caveats. Like No cell phones, unless you can solve this math problem. Then, go on your phone the rest of class, I don't care. do you know how frantically the kids try to learn math when you attach a reward like that? They leapfrog 50 IQ points and 5 grade levels I'm not kidding. You can teach a kid algebra in 30 minutes with that trick.
