Insidious Adaptation

Cartoon depictions of worldly desires tend to make a situation more acceptable, more tolerable, less critical. The depictions of a friendly Santa, the cartoon ghouls, the jokey turkey with a personality fighting with a can of whipped cream. The comfort of child-like nostalgia, we are trying to recapture what we once had, innocence. Not innocence in what the the world has shown you through years of experience, but in knowing God as well. Ouch, see, that is the harsh stuff we don't want to hear. However, once one looks at what nostalgia in this world is, once one pieces apart why we feel a certain way, even a good way, we tend to see through the smoke of it all. Why do this? Why look into even the good emotions and see what causes them? Why would I stare at a box of Pop-Tarts, looking into why they provide comfort, a sense of slight warmth that all is right in the world, despite knowing it isn't? Because we cannot have one side of a coin without the other. We must understan...

"So then you are choosing to suffer?" "No, I am not choosing to suffer, but I do suffer." "Well, that is a choice is it not? Suffering is about how we interpret, through choice, our environment and the circumstances instances we experience." "I guess" "So then, the suffering you experience is based on choice." "Maybe..." Double-click for suffering.  On an unexpectedly warm autumn day, the air conditioning inside my office is particularly frigid, thus the interaction between extreme heat and extreme cool condenses on any surface flexible with the temperature, my client looks at me with a blank stare. "So, how's your week been?" "Good." He does this. He comes to see me, yet, refuses to willingly give up information. Sometimes I feel like some kind of private investigator, having to snoop around the obvious to get client to subconsciously tell me something to grab on to. "Yea, t...

In 2004, I was thrown into another world foreign to all I had ever known. It was called Basic Military Training. I referred to it afterwards as, "a break." The reason I referred to this 7-week time in my life as this period of relaxation, despite the physical and mental exertion, was because I no longer had to make any decisions. Is all I had to do was literally sit and listen. If it wasn't for my own internal desires to stay, "muscular" I would have been fine. It was the brief evenings where a few of us Airmen stayed up to do some extra push ups or setups, you, know, to stay healthy. It was my first night at basic training, and the yelling and chaos to break our comfort ensued. Those who served know the anarchy that the BMT instructors bring about, and even at the time is nonsensical. It is absurd, brash, quick, and really gets you on your toes, for if the screaming didn't get you, the shuffle inside the cold showers, penetrating any comfort zones through...

Like a piece of meat in a pool of sharks. Nashing, bodying, pushing, insufficient altruism, yet no contempt, simply survival. The human male is worse, for we have the knowhow, the insight, to know that   when we harm or bully another for something they have or a resource we all want, it can get personal. Sorry Larry. This one's mine.  Like a girl in the gym, sports bra, toned midsection, tight, trendy yoga pants accenting all features of self, men clamoring, trying to vie for the affection, but attention will suffice. Every man has their reason, some for lust, strictly sexual, others for attention, for if this apparently confident and attractive girl is interested in me, she might fulfill what I don’t see in myself. Other men want to show for other men and be the dominant one, the one to gain the attention of the quietly-agreed upon head lioness. The difference between Animal Planet and the Real World, is intent. Man’s intent is not to merely mate, despite the argument ...