Let me first start off this post by saying that I think Banksy is a creative genius. There is something special in his work that is worth tipping our hats to. It makes us think and question and turn over ideas in our head that we long ago cast aside like a child bored with the new toy mom bought the previous week.
With that said, I think it is ironic that in many ways he contributes to strengthening the system he rails against.
Take the following piece:
“Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock that someone just threw at your head. … They owe you.”
Translation: “Do what you want because the world owes you.”
No. The world doesn’t owe us anything. Advertisers don’t owe you anything. The government doesn’t owe you anything. Rich people don’t owe you anything. Poor people don’t owe you anything, and neither does your neighbor.
In the middle of the vast cold void of space we were granted life, health and intelligence, and we often spend it sitting on a couch shoving potato chips in our face while complaining we don’t live like a Hollywood celebrity. Life alone should motivate someone to look inside themselves, be eternally grateful and then go out into the world to be the best person he could be. But instead, we’re told that someone or some thing “owes” us. It’s a poisonous seed of thought that generally just sprouts fear and envy and jealousy.
One of my best friends sent me the following email that sums it up quite well. (I’ve altered the text slightly, but he’ll understand why):
I think it’s the whole mindset that only govt can solve things … Since there is no personal responsibility, there are no personal human failings in their world because they believe only the system corrupts. Where they confuse me is that they want to add on to the system they hate.
I’d point out that when govt dominates every facet of life, you inevitably get the mess that you have in Detroit, and the people suffering are the poor, tax-paying (if there was a job available) people that they want to protect. The officials in Detroit artificially inflated wages (unions/politicians in city), they taxed heavy to “look out for the poor,” they filtered every city contract through a goverment committee that led to worse corruption — they threw money at everything — and look at Detroit now.
Talking biblically to them is difficult because belief in God forces you to acknowledge you are a sinner, which forces you to look at yourself. It’s much easier to blame the system. The reward is heaven. Jesus dies a horrible death, St. Paul dies a horrible death, 11 of the 12 apostles meet an end at human hands, and yet they didn’t “blame the system” — they kept trying to do what’s right (Jesus didn’t have to “try,” but you get my point). Even Judas took some sort of personal responsibility and threw the silver away and killed himself in shame realizing what he did. You will never get that mindset in their world.
I’ve thought long and hard about guys like them. I think it’s a fear to fail. Doing something about your situation is riskier than blaming God for your problems. The television will always be there, but stepping out on your own is much more difficult. I may fall flat on my face for leaving a comfortable job, learning a new skill set, and establishing a new career, but I hated what the company I worked for morphed into, so instead of blaming the system I decided to do something about it. I’d have it no other way, but I have faith in God and because of that, faith in myself. I actually feel sorry for individuals who won’t see past a system and tap into their own abilities.
Again, Banksy is a creative genius, but for whatever reason he looks around him, doesn’t like what he sees, and instead of looking inward he keeps his eyes focused on the material world. He seems to assume that people do not have free will, and instead of coming up with art that unleashes what is already inside all of us, he expresses himself in ways that, in all likelihood, calcifies the human spirit.
Coupling the idea that we should be able to do whatever we want with the belief that others owe us something is an extremely dangerous thing. While Banksy’s creative talent is worth acknowledging, the effect it has on society is something that deserves much more scrutiny.
Years ago I met a friend who was heavily influenced by the Gym Jones training philosophy. I had always thought I was a pretty fit guy — and then I met Mike. Those workouts broke me. They were truly a humbling experience, but I wouldn’t trade them for the world. They taught me a lot about myself, as well as just how much more was possible if I was willing to venture deeper into the realm of pain and anguish than I ever had before. Some of our greatest moments of mental, physical and spiritual growth are born out of pain and suffering, and in a bizarre way the person who realizes this truth comes to love and appreciate such feelings in proper doses. And that is why I highly suggest watching the “Solider of Steel” video for the new ‘Man of Steel’ movie by Zack Snyder.
When I was in the military, there was a joke that was made during our morning PT or in the middle of road marches: “Pain is weakness leaving the body!” Gym Jones offers plenty of pain, but there is so much more. It’s the kind of philosophy that turns boys into men.
Mark Twight, Gym Jones trainer, explains:
For me in the mountains, fitness was often the difference between life and death. In a military environment, it can be the same thing — you never never want to come up short due to a lack of conditioning. When we talk about training one of the most important characteristics I believe, is functional training. And by functional I mean “transferable.” The training that you do in the gym should be transferable to the actual task, which means that if I have to sprint forward to grab a buddy who might be injured and drag him back to a point of cover, then sitting on the a bench wearing a little seat belt doing quad extensions is not transferable. When you’re training for your military tasks you should be training to develop functional fitness, not the appearance of fitness.
Point number one in our training philosophy in the gym is that the mind is primary. And one of the outcomes of training the mind in the gym is the development of values. Values that are very similar to military values. One of the things for me that is important in the gym is that you always do what you say you’re going to do. You show up every single day. What we practice in here becomes a habit, and if my habit is always to do less that’s how I’m going to behave in the field. So get in the habit of doing more than you’re asked to do.
Respect starts with self respect.If you respect yourself, you prove to others that you are worthy of their respect. One of the things I like to do is to set up a tag-team type of workout, where one guy has to accomplish a particular task all the while his teammate is suffering. And the faster he does it the less his teammate suffers. These types of workouts really cause a person to digger deeper than they would to save themselves because we will always work harder in the service of someone else.
In the gym context we always know when people are telling the truth and when they are not telling the truth. If you do what you say you’re doing when in comes to diet, then the result is going to be obvious. If you do what you say that you’re doing in terms training, then the result will be obvious. When we make that honor, that honesty, part of our daily life, then it becomes automatic.
A lot of times we assign homework to people outside of the gym because I need to know how they’re going to behave on their own. Does that person have the integrity to do what they said they were going to do? In the training environment, if we practice on a daily basis confronting the things that we’re afraid of and confront our fear — if we get in that habit — then we’ll be to express that in an automatic way once we get outside into the real world.
Wow. Mr. Twight’s passage is a thing of beauty. If all Americans were exposed to this philosophy, let’s just say that the political landscape would change dramatically within a single generation.
Gym Jones is not for everyone. It should be, but it’s not. The reason is because it doesn’t accept excuses, and the modern world is filled with people who live to make excuses for their failures, be it with their diet, love life, personal finances, physical fitness or any number of things.
Regardless, check out the other videos if you get a chance. If you’re interested in taking the first step in transforming you mind, body and spirit they’re a great place to start.
Editor’s note: The image of that guy falling off the rowing machine into a lump on the ground in Episode 3 just gave me a flashback. Sometimes hitting the floor is the best way to motivate someone to reach for the stars.
Here I am doing a workout inspired by Gym Jones, 2009. Pain never felt so good.
What does it feel like to cheat on someone you love? If you’re a fan of Scott Weiland, it’s probably a lot like listening to Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington take the lead for the Stone Temple Pilots. When I first heard the new single ‘Out of Time’ I felt a little dirty; STP has and always will be Scott Weiland’s band to me — but Bennington is so darn good that I’ve crossed over to the dark side. I would plunk down serious change to see them live. In the end I hope Weiland returns, at which time so will I. Ewoks will sing and it will be awkward.
For years, Scott Weiland has struggled with drug problems, and it’s affected the band. I’m not sure who is to blame (I’m sure there’s plenty to go around) but STP haven’t felt inspired in years. ‘Out of Time’ sounds like a tank rolling through the desert that’s being driven by growling lions. As a friend of mine said, “They sound hungry.” Indeed.
In a statement, Bennington expressed his admiration for the band, which is in part how this collaboration came about. “I’ve loved STP since I was 13 years old and they’ve had a huge influence on me,” explained Bennington. “When the opportunity came up to do something creative with them, I jumped at the chance. The guys in Linkin Park have been incredibly supportive of me undertaking this project while I’ve continued to work on new music with LP.”
A friend of mine said that Bennington, these days, “does a better Weiland than Weiland.” I also found a similar comment in the Rolling Stone message boards. It’s a sentiment I agree with and, on some level, the lyrics to ‘Out of Time’ seem to be created as a wake up call for the singer:
Longing is the animal inside you when you bleed
Suffering is critical in finding what you need
Deliverance is evidence there’s more than what you say
Pain is there the moment that you wake up from your dreams
Oh, I know you can’t hide
Oh, when you look inside yourself
You’ve got to cross that line
Yeah, you’re running out of time
Loneliness is beautiful, it leads you home again
Happiness is overrated, joy is infinite
Liberate the hate you feel before it’s permanent
Smile when it hurts, it works like mother’s medicine
Oh, I know you can’t hide
Oh, when you look inside yourself
you’ve got to cross that line
Yeah, you’re running out of time
You’ve got to learn your lesson to see what you’ve been missing
You’ve got to cross that line
Yeah, you’ve got to look inside
Yeah, it’s time that you decide
Yeah, you’ve got to cross that line
Yeah, you’re running out of time
Beautiful! When we look inward and attempt to honestly examine what’s there we can not lie. That is why so many people spend so much time trying to keep themselves busy. They will do anything they can to keep themselves from having to perform the tough task that is introspection.
Video games. Shopping. Drinking. Eating. Exercise. Sex. Drugs. Work. All of these things and many more are used in excess to prevent individuals from sitting in the silence of solitude to figure out who they really are and where they want to go. And all of us — not just Scott Weiland — are “running out of time.”
“Happiness” in terms of that which the material word brings about is fleeting. It does not last. And when it runs out, most people look to fill it up with the same sugary goods over and over again. An honest self-evaluation is always painful, but it is “critical in finding what you need,” as Bennington’s lyrics point out.
I hope that when Scott Weiland is done trashing his apartment that he acknowledges what a masterstroke this was on the part of the DeLeo brothers and says, “Touché.” My fear is that instead of responding positively, he will once again choose the dangerous path, as he’s done since the 1990’s.
Regardless, I tip my hat to STP. ‘Out of Time’ is hands-down evidence that there’s still plenty of juice left in its engine. I’m looking forward to further collaborations between STP and Chester Bennington.
Every so often bloggers are accused of writing for “attention.” There are many reasons why this is silly, but what drives me to write is because I’m a writer. It’s really that simple. That’s just what I do. I have thoughts and feelings and emotions that I have to get off my chest. They’re inside me and they have to get out. Every time I get a random comment from someone who essentially says, “I thought I was alone out there,” it brings a smile to my face, because one of the primary reasons I write is so that people who have similar experiences do not need to feel as if they are alone. No one should ever have to feel like there isn’t somebody out there who they could talk to or lean on, and bloggers of all kinds help mitigate such situations.
It is for that reason that today I’ll part ways from politics and popular culture to talk about lucid dreaming … and the floating purple orb.
The following is a dream I woke up from at 6:47 a.m. EST.
I’m at an old high school cross-country meet, but I’m on a pair of swings talking to my old friend Larry about the upcoming season and he says he’s in better shape going into senior year than he was in the past. Then I think that I am in really good shape too and I say, “One more year! Gotta make it a good one!”
Then I pause and think: “Didn’t we already graduate? I’m actually not in cross country shape anymore because I’ve been lifting weights and I like where my physique is at. Wait a second … I’m lucid dreaming!” I jump off the swings and start running around in circles like an excited little kid, saying, “I’m lucid dreaming! I can ask anyone anything I want! I can do anything! I need to talk to someone before I wake up.”
I see my old coach, Coach Devine, and he looks confused for a moment and says, “Doug, is it really you?” I say yes and he says: “Do you still think about me? Do you still love me?” (There wasn’t any sexual connotation to it.) I say, “Yes. I do. I really do think of you,” and he smiles and I smile and we both come close to having these tears of joy and then I give him a really big hug.
As I hug him everything begins turning white and then I start flying towards this book that opens with pictures of an older woman hugging a child drawn in purple ink. It’s not my deceased grandmother and me, but it reminds me of the two of us. I try to read the lettering that is on the bottom as I then start to enter the book, but can only make out ‘Ha xx Ho xx Ho xx’.
I then started to really wake up and my whole body was tingling, particularly my arms and hands. As I opened my eyes I saw a purple orb floating directly above my head that scared me, so I closed them again, and then there was a little “whooop” feeling (Perhaps like I was disconnected from my body?) and then I woke up. The purple orb was gone.
Question: Was I lucid dreaming? Was I having an out of body experience? Was the purple orb real or was it just my eyes playing tricks on me? My wife thinks I was dreaming that I was lucid dreaming and she thinks my eyes were just playing tricks on me.
I’m sharing this story, again, because on a long enough time line I figure someone out there will have had a similar experience that they could share, or perhaps they just think it’s all a bunch of “hooey” and they can let that be known as well.
The only thing I will add is that this dream felt real. Very, very real. It was extremely vivid and clear, perhaps an “HD” version of my other dreams.
So there you have it. Thoughts on lucid dreaming and floating orbs? I’d like to hear them.
Here is me accepting an award at the Crystal Lake South cross country meet as a junior in high school. I believe I came in 17th place out of perhaps 120 runners. I was always a “mudder” and a hill runner. On a rainy day I always performed a lot better, and for whatever reason I could grind out hilly courses and beat guys who would fly by me on flat terrain. Larry is dressed in the maroon running pants.
Sometimes the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person is for them to get what they wish for. Every time I start seeing news stories about “Powerball fever” or a run on gas stations when lottery jackpots explode, I can’t help but think of Tim Burton’s Batman. In it, Gotham’s population lunges for cash as The Joker throws out bills to them from on high, stuffing the paper in their pockets and crawling on all fores to claw in as much as possible. Then, the poison gas hits.
There is a big difference between a “what the heck, why not” lottery ticket purchase and one bought where the person essentially fantasizes about how “all my problems would be solved” with a winning draw. Whether it is the at a federal, state, community or individual level, all too often people look at dollar signs as the ticket to happiness or fulfillment, when it is not.
More often than not, the lust for money only serves to mask or exacerbate existing problems. And when anyone dares to point out that it is our emotional weaknesses and spiritual bankruptcy that is more likely the root of our financial ills and cultural unhappiness, the citizens of Gotham get defensive.
Barring some sort of medical problem or environmental disaster, the vast majority of people who are so hopeless that they see a lotto ticket as “a way out” of their financial predicament need emotional and spiritual currency — not money.
Let me put it this way:
When I was in high school I was a cross country runner. Sometimes, on an eight mile run I’d pass a casino and I’d see extremely poor people walking inside, in all likelihood to spend what little cash they had, hoping they’d hit a big jackpot. Today I live in Maryland, where politicians — both Republican and Democrat — have pushed casinos as a form of economic stimulus.
Question: Does Maryland want an economy built around Blackjack dealers and zombies who pull on slot machines, or does it want an economy built around science and art and engineering? That question has already been answered, and sadly the zombie-backers have won out.
The people who promote lotteries as a way to fund education are like plumbers who fix your leaky faucet by diverting water to flood your basement. The people who promote casinos as a the ticket to long-term economic growth are like high school guidance counselors who would tell a student to consider dropping out and getting a GED sometime down the road. We constantly mislead people, and then when they go down dangerous paths that with disastrous results, we blame this guy or that guy or anyone else within our line of sight.
Instead of running out to the grocery store to buy a lotto ticket when the payday hits 700 million dollars, I suggest using that 30 minutes to sit down in solitude and work towards figuring out what will make you happy at the deepest of levels. When you figure it out you’ll realize that such knowledge is worth more than any joker could ever put in your bank account.
Update: The title of this has been changed after a civil conversation with reader xmenexpert. To see the conversation, click here.
Dan Slott is incredibly proud of the Superior Spider-Man, both as a hero and in regards to sales. And why not? It’s his creation. And to top it all off, he has plenty of fans who tell him at comic conventions how much they love the book. But that still doesn’t change the fact that one could arguably call Doc Ock the Superior anti-Semite.
Quite a charge, is it not? Is Doctor Octopus an anti-Semite, or was his actual end game “just” to kill six billion people (all the Jews included)? Let us revisit the “Ends of the Earth” storyline, shall we?
“But the human race is resilient and the first thousand or so who climb out of the wreckage … they’ll rebuild. Life will go on, and they’ll remember me. For that new society I shall live on in infamy — a mass murderer worse than Pol Pot, Hitler, and Genghis Khan combined!” (Doctor Octopus).
Here’s a little history lesson from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate just how evil of a man Otto would have to be to transcend Hitler, Pol Pot and Ghenghis Khan combined.
German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting. In its entirety, the “Final Solution” called for the murder of all European Jews by gassing, shooting, and other means. Approximately six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust — two-thirds of the Jews living in Europe before World War II.
Got that? Doc Ock had a “Final Solution,” but it involved being a “superior” version of Hitler; he would implement a plan that would in effect kill all of the Jews instead of just those residing in Europe. And now he’s Spider-Man. In Peter Parker’s body. In fact, he’s Dan Slott’s Spider-Übermensch.
Kind of sick, isn’t it? And the only retort Dan Slott and his fans could possibly have is that Otto didn’t want to kill millions of Jews — he “merely” wanted to kill six billion people, which would just so happen to include all the Jews.
Silly me. The guy who “just” came within inches of an extinction level event because he hated all of humanity is now housed in Peter Parker’s body. And fans “love” the story. It’s what brought them back to the book. Congrats Mr. Slott, those are the kinds of winners I want giving me high fives and pats on the back at comic conventions…
With that said, it is also important to once again revisit how on earth Marvel fans could get a run-of-the mill genocidal maniac swinging around New York City in Peter’s body. Mr. Slott’s recent Newsarama interview gives the answer.
Nrama: With Superior Spider-Man, you’re writing Doc Ock as a lead character for really the first time, and a more long-term Doc Ock story than has really been seen before. We’re seeing the character put in very different situations, interacting with totally different characters. What kind of task has that been — approaching his mindset and his attitude in the position of a lead character?
Slott: He’s trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?
Hmm. Good question. Is Hawkeye “more annoying” than Otto, or has Mr. Slott’s moral relativism inadvertently produced Marvel’s first genocidal maniac superhero? Let me revisit the Holocaust Memorial Museum one more time:
The Nazis frequently used euphemistic language to disguise the true nature of their crimes. They used the term “Final Solution” to refer to their plan to annihilate the Jewish people. It is not known when the leaders of Nazi Germany definitively decided to implement the “Final Solution.” The genocide, or mass destruction, of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of increasingly severe discriminatory measures. …
After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, SS and police units (acting as mobile killing units) began massive killing operations aimed at entire Jewish communities. By autumn 1941, the SS and police introduced mobile gas vans. These paneled trucks had exhaust pipes reconfigured to pump poisonous carbon monoxide gas into sealed spaces, killing those locked within. They were designed to complement ongoing shooting operations.
Question for Dan Slott: What issue did Hawkeye triumphantly declare that he would be remembered as a worse murderer than the guy who deployed gas vans to exterminate Jews? Just asking. Was that an annual, or a Comic Con exclusive?
Does a character go from wanting to transcend Hitler, Pol Pot, and Genghis Khan in terms of perpetuating pure evil upon the entire world to a “hero” just because a really good guy beamed his life story and “with great power comes great responsibility” into his head? Probably not. And since we’re talking about the Superior Spider-Man — the guy who blew a defenseless criminal’s face off — Magic 8 Ball says “Why would you ask me such a dumb question?”
Superior Spider-Man is an abomination. It’s an insult to Stan Lee, long-time Peter Parker fans and anyone with a shred of respect for the character. Sales may be fine for Superior Spider-Man, but history will not treat the book kindly. One day a group of editors with a working moral compass will be at the helm of the Spider-Man books and they will look back at this era and ask, “What were they thinking?”
The end of the book can not come soon enough, and the ‘Ends of the Earth’ arc tells us why.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Holocaust image that was previously here has been removed after reflecting on the request of a reader named Rogue. You can view her comment here. If Dan Slott had acted like an adult from the very beginning and demonstrated half the intelligence and grace as Rogue, it is very likely the picture would have been removed in May.
Update: Here is an email I received from a reader disagreeing with the decision to remove the photo:
“I think Rogue is way off on the sensationalism and especially the testosterone rationale. It is important to show what Slott so casually put in his dialogue and inside Spider-Man’s head. I agree they are real people with no voice, I agree it was horrible, I agree it’s grisly — but it was Slott who betrayed their legacy — and that needs to be shown. Obviously his own grandfather’s story didn’t keep Slott from writing a tasteless story with an iconic hero, so maybe that image drove it home. I respect Rouge’s opinion, but I wouldn’t have changed it. It was Slott who inserted this awful chapter of history into the comic,” (douglasernstblog.com reader).
Removing the image was an incredibly tough choice for me. The reader accurately sums up my feelings on the issue, but in this instance I think removing the image sends a more important message: How you conduct yourself with those with whom you have fierce disagreements will often determine the amount of progress you make towards finding an amicable solution.
Update: Dan Slott has called me a “bad” person and “immoral” for writing this blog post.He then was so incensed that I’m able to tactfully defend my decision that he requested the moderator close out the thread. In Dan Slott’s mind, asking if a character who wanted to transcend Hitler, Pol Pot and Ghengis Khan in terms of evil perpetrated upon the world is the same thing as accusing Dan Slott of being anti-Semetic. Reasonable people can separate the two, but Dan Slott can’t. That’s why he sticks to forums where he can control the moderators and count on his devoted fans to verbally attack. His moral relativism has warped his mind so badly that he now puts my soul on equal terms with real life dictators and despots. Telling.
Update II: Dan Slott is upset that the moderator at Comic Vine put him in his place, so now he’s trying to send his 39,000 followers here to give me grief. Welcome! Here’s the abridged version for some of you:
What Dan Slott doesn’t get (in some sense because moral relativism has warped his mind), is that this post points out the obvious — it doesn’t matter what Dan Slott’s intentions are if the end result is that a monster worse than Hitler is in Peter Parker’s body.
How fitting is it that after my June 10 “Beautiful Music Monday” on Facebook, featuring Schindler’s List, that Dan Slott would call me “immoral” on June 13 for writing this blog post. That’s okay, Dan. There are many, many others that can see why making a character who wanted to transcend the world’s most notorious dictator into the new Spider-Man is an abomination.At one time Marvel had heroes who punched out Hitler on the cover. Now, with Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man, fans have a “hero” who wanted to transcend Hitler in terms of successfully bringing forth murder and mayhem. Congratulations, Marvel. I’m glad “sales” are doing so well for you. It’s just fascinating that you can still look at yourself in the mirror. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Just because you can write a particular story, it doesn’t mean you should. Maybe Dan Slott missed that lesson when he was reading Spider-Man as a kid.
It’s April 18, 2014 — almost a year after this post was written — and Dan Slott is still obsessing over it. That’s what you call hitting a nerve. Deep down, he knows that my reasons for writing this piece were spot on.
Dan Slott wants people to believe I’m “deceptive,” a “weasel,” and someone who is an evil master of “semantics,” but yet I’m also “stupid,” “insane” and incapable of capturing nuance. Which is it? The truth is, he knows I’m highly intelligent. He’s admitted as much on CBR, where he said something along the lines of: “You know exactly what you’re doing.” Here’s the truth: Dan Slott does not think I am stupid — he thinks other people are stupid. Follow his Twitter feed and you will soon see evidence of this, as it manifests itself in his political tweets. Essentially, people are so stupid that they need 535 elitist masters in the nation’s capital to control every aspect of their lives.
Yesterday I was eating lunch at Panera, and next to me were two men, one of which was trying to sell the other on some sort of pyramid scheme. The seller said at one point: “Don’t you want to make some extra cash in your spare time?” l generally had a depressing lunch because I thought of all the people like them who don’t realize that there is no such thing as “spare” time because there is only “time.”
Every moment of every day you are either moving closer or farther away from fully realizing who you were meant to be. How you spend your time when you aren’t working is just as integral to living up to your potential as what you do at your place of employment. Your friends and your associations matter. Do you exercise to relax, or do you drink? Do you make time to read a good book once in awhile, or do you play video games? Do you get adequate rest on Saturday and Sunday, or are you out all night trying to fit as much fun as possible into the weekend? All of these things matter. I am not passing judgement on one activity or another. I am merely stating that everything requires self examination.
You could die ten minutes after you read this blog of a heart attack. You could die a few days from now in a car accident. Or, you could die many years from now in your sleep simply due to old age. That is why every second counts.
What kind of person wants to spend their life chasing after spare change like they were Mario or Luigi from Super Mario Bros.? No one should ever have to do that unless, for whatever reason, that is what their spirit truly desires to experience during its time on earth.
The person who goes around thinking of “spare change” in their “spare time” will generally just lead a life where they’re only just getting by because all of their energy is focused on just getting by. On top of that, people who are always looking for spare cash usually tend to do so because they want to buy “things”; it’s a good indicator they are way to concerned with filling up their life with gizmos and gadgets and clothes, and when you lead a life chasing after earthly pleasures you will never be satisfied.
Look at some of the most successful Hollywood stars out there, sports figures and politicians who have enough money to buy anything they want. They have closets and mansions and garages filled with “stuff.” They don’t need “spare” change, and yet, if you follow that person in the news it’s not long before the writing is on the wall that many of these people are absolutely miserable.
But I digress. That’s another issue for another blog post.
The point is, one of the keys to finding happiness is asking the right question. Instead of saying “how can I make some spare cash” one might ask: “How can I be financially independent by age 50?” Or they could ask: “How can I make $100,000 a year and enjoy what I’m doing?” The brain is a supercomputer, and if you ask it the right questions it will come up with answers for you. However, if you put garbage in, you will get garbage out.
There is a reason why people say they need to “focus like a laser.” That’s because the human body is pure energy. Your thoughts and your feelings and everything that makes you “you” — when you dig deep enough down — is pure energy. So it stands to reason that if you focus your mind and your body and your spirit in one direction, that energy will begin to carve out the reality you desire.
You might think the Catholic guy is getting all New Age at this point, but he’s not. Regardless, I hope this post will do its little part to help get you focused on what you need to do to attain true happiness.
The good news about Iron Man 3 is that it’s a sharply written, well-directed movie. The bad news is that while some of the messages it conveys to the audience hold incredible truth (e.g., “we create our own demons”), it might just be the conspiracy-theorist must-see blockbuster of the summer.
Do you have any friends who think 9/11 was “an inside job”? Iron Man 3 is the movie for them. (You might want to consider getting new friends if that’s the case, but in the mean time you could still enjoy a solid movie.) Do you have any friends who refer to the “military industrial complex” at parties so they sound smarter than they really are? Iron Man 3 is the movie for them. Do you have friends who hate “Big Oil” and “fat cats”? Iron Man 3 is the movie for them. Director Shane Black ingeniously — or perhaps devilishly? — devised a film that is drenched in anti-Americanism in a way that will leave many Americans exiting the theater not even knowing they’re all wet. At the showing I went to in Tyson’s Corner, Va., many people even burst out clapping twice during the film. On many levels, Mr. Black deserves kudos. That’s not easy to do.
Because so much of the movie focuses on Robert Downey Jr. and the “demons” his actions have brought into his life (his enemies literally breathe fire), and because he owns the role, one could forgive friends and relatives if they don’t leave the theater angry. The “truth” about the Mandarin alone, which I will refrain from disclosing here, is one that will play very well in Muslim nations that actually allow Western movies to be screened — for reasons that have nothing to do with their religion and everything to do with conspiracy theories that run rampant in those parts of the world. Given the fact that the writers and producers created entirely new scenes for the Chinese release, it’s not hard to believe that the endeavor was specifically crafted to maximize both foreign and domestic sales. Again, it is rather awe-inspiring what Mr. Black has pulled off.
Strangely enough, perhaps the group of moviegoers who will be most disappointed in Iron Man 3 will be long time fans of the Iron Man comic book. As already mentioned, the “truth” about the Madarin is something that will drive fans of the character up a wall. They will be livid, and rightly so. However, the average person who knows nothing about the character’s history will not care because within the context of the film, the changes work and that’s all that really matters to people who count box office receipts. It’s sad, but that’s the truth.
Moving forward, it will be hard for figure out how an Iron Man 4 would take shape. Robert Downey Jr’s shtick is enjoyable, but even the great and powerful RDJ gets annoying. It was a wise move to knock the chip off his shoulder in the third installment by stripping everything away from him. He needed to be taken down a notch. He needed the smile wiped off his face. He needed to look lost and confused and panicked because sometimes the rich billionaire guy who mocks everyone and everything just comes across as a jerk. Downey had an incredible balancing act to play between being that witty sarcastic smartass with a smile, and being the vulnerable guy who just recently learned their are forces in the universe that are beyond human comprehension — and he did it almost perfectly.
Perhaps my feelings on Iron Man 3 can be best summed up in response to something the Madarin says midway through the movie. The character, played by Ben Kingsley, says that America is “like a fortune cookie — hollow, and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
Iron Man 3 is definitely not hollow. There are many, many layers to it. The acting, writing, directing and special effects are all top-notch. Iron Man 3 does, however, leave a bitter aftertaste. Shane Black could have written a movie that did not blatantly appeal to large swathes of moviegoers who love nothing more than to blame America for the world’s ills, but he did not. Marvel signed off on it. Disney signed off on it, and so did Robert Downey Jr. And for that, while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it is not one that I will ever purchase for myself.
Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing Iron Man fly again when The Avengers 2 hits theaters. See you there.
Dan Slott and Marvel decided they would fuel sales by tapping into fan anger, which is rather sad. If you read Superior Spider-Man 9 you’ll see just how deeply the sadness runs. It’s Mariana Trench deep.
If you’ve read Spider-Man comics for years, you’ve likely felt as though the character of Peter Parker was growing and maturing with you. Time in a comic book doesn’t correlate to time in the real world, but it was fun to see Peter go from being a naive young kid into a responsible adult. Each stage of life has its own set of challenges and responsibilities we must face up to, and for awhile Peter was hitting his stride. Then, at some point the creators of Spider-Man began to shirk their duties. They were nervous about moving forward with the character, so instead they came up with a laundry list of reasons why the title wasn’t performing and ultimately began moving backwards. With Superior Spider-Man #9, Dan Slott proves that he is the Mole Man of Marvel writers; he can go extremely low. Subterranean low. Congratulations.
Years ago they said Mary Jane was a creative obstacle. Solution? Kill the marriage. The writing still stinks? Make Peter act like a younger dumber version of himself. Still not right? Here’s an idea: Let’s kill Peter Parker. In fact, let’s just kill off The Amazing Spider-Man and ride the gimmick-wave as long as we can (i.e., Doc Ock in Peter’s body), until people get sick of buying a superhero book about a “hero” who tried to kill six billion people and completely flouts the rule of law with impunity (e.g., blowing a defenseless guy’s face off in front of numerous witnesses).
Question: What does it say about a title when people tune in just to see how much damage one man can do to a beloved character? The great thing about comics is that a good writer with enough time could put Humpty Spidey back together again, but the fact remains: instead of uniting Spider-Man fans around a specific direction for Marvel’s flagship character, the Brain Trust has allowed the title to turn into a character study on the inner workings of Dan Slott’s mind. And Mr. Slott does not disappoint. By the end of Superior Spider-Man #9 we know exactly how he defines Peter: a mentally weak man-boy who at his core would allow a deranged psychopath like Doctor Octopus to bring him to his knees and wipe him from existence.
This is Dan Slott’s Spider-Man. With decades of experience, at his core he’s still just a scared little immature man-boy with tears welling up in his eyes. Sad.
Here’s a quick recap, so you don’t need to purchase the book:
1. Doc Ock figures out that a piece of Peter still remains locked away in his brain.
2. The villain attempts to erase this memory from existence while inside his laboratory and fails. Doc Ock must “go in.”
3. Having physically “killed” Peter in Amazing Spider-Man #700, writer Dan Slott gives Doctor Octopus a chance to “kill” him off psychologically as well. Once again, the true hero goes down in rather embarrassing fashion.
4. Doctor Octopus is triumphant.
Again, Marvel’s promotional campaign for the issue promised readers they would be angry, but why? Dan Slott does the equivalent of a double tap — he killed off Peter in ASM 700, and for all intents and purposes he did it again in SSM 9. Perhaps in a few more issues Doc Ock could make a deal with Mephisto to scatter Peter Parker’s soul into a billion pieces across the universe just to rub it in even further. Maybe Slott wants to go for the mind-body-soul hat trick of destruction. At this point, it’s almost to be expected.
If I was writing the book, I’d have Ock find all the secrets Mephisto locked away of Peter’s life with Mary Jane still inside his head. Ock could tell Peter the truth, undo “the deal,” and in many ways redeem himself by resurrecting true love. In the process, Ock would then create his own new enemy — Mephisto. It would be a great story, it would make fans happy and it would quickly undo a ton of damage done over the years in a plausible way. But hey … I’m just that “crazy conservative blogger” who loves Spider-Man. Who am I to talk? Call me when you want a writer who loves Spider-Man on your payroll, Marvel.
The real questions for Spider-Man fans are as follows:
Do you believe Marvel will bring back Peter Parker? If the answer yes, it will be obvious that he will have his reputation completely ruined and, on some level, be forced to build it back up from scratch. (This is actually a good idea, but the execution of it all — no pun intended — has been horrendous).
Given that, does anyone trust Dan Slott with the rebuilding process?
I’ll leave you with a quote from my brother, who read Amazing Spider-Man to me on his lap when I was a child:
You and Main Event don’t enjoy the story and [Dan Slott] comes back with sales. Let’s see … remember the Sesame Street “which of the 4 don’t belong?” game as a kid? My four are Jimmy Page, Aretha Franklin, Neil Peart, and Justin Bieber. Three are respected musicians with decades-long career success. I’ll say Bieber doesn’t belong in the others’ league. Then again, Bieber did have more “sales” this past year, so by Slottian logic I guess I’m an idiot, too.
Boom. Quality-wise, Superior Spider-Man is the Justin Bieber of Marvel titles. Enjoy those sales while they last. Years from now, it will be the quality that critics talk about, and they will not treat this era of Spider-Man kindly.
Update:
Here’s another question: Where was any meaningful presence of Uncle Ben in SSM #9? In Peter’s mind, Uncle Ben would have towered over Doctor Octopus like a colossus (or was that a Galactus?). In a battle for Peter’s existence, how cool would it have been for Uncle Ben to give Peter the strength and courage to adapt and overcome? How amazing would it have been to see Doctor Octopus quiver in the presence of a real man — Uncle Ben — and melt away like the Wicked Witch? We’ll never know, because Marvel wanted to make readers “angry” instead of inspired.
Fantom Comics, Washington, D.C. Union Station location. According to the man behind the counter, sales are “Going okay. We had a drop off because I think what’s going on with a lot of people is that they’ve shaken up the status quo so much that they’re just uncomfortable with it.”
Since sociologists who write on marriage for the New York Times are too lazy (or afraid) to address the religious and spiritual aspects of the institution, perhaps they could learn something from watching ‘Pacific Rim’ this summer. They could just think of the ‘mind meld’ as something they’d find around Mark 10:8.
Andrew J. Cherlin is a sociologist and the author of ‘The Marriage-Go Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today.’ He’s apparently studied marriage for three decades, which is sad because he doesn’t seem to have learned very much over the years.
Andrew J. Cherlin’s three decades of study have shown him that marriage in America is a social and political battlefield in a way that it isn’t in other developed countries. Americans marry and divorce more often and have more live-in partners than Europeans, and gay Americans have more interest in legalizing same-sex marriage. The difference comes from Americans’ embrace of two contradictory cultural ideals: marriage, a formal commitment to share one’s life with another; and individualism, which emphasizes personal choice and self-development. Religion and law in America reinforce both of these behavioral poles, fueling turmoil in our family life and heated debate in our public life.
Wrong. Marriage and individualism are only “contradictory cultural ideals” in the world of clueless sociologist clowns writing pseudo-intellectual psycho-babble in the Opinion section of the New York Times.
Here’s an excerpt from Cherlin’s NYT’s piece, which oddly enough never mentions the words ‘God’ or ‘love’ once:
IT’S surprising how many people still marry. As everyone knows, it’s a risky proposition; the divorce rate, though down from its peak of one in two marriages in the early 1980s, remains substantial. Besides, you can have a perfectly respectable life these days without marrying. …
Marriage has become a status symbol — a highly regarded marker of a successful personal life. This transformed meaning is evident in the Obama administration’s briefs in the two same-sex marriage cases now in front of the Supreme Court. Those documents reflect, in part, the assumption that marriage represents not only a bundle of rights but also a privileged position. …
In the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Justice Department wrote that marriage “confers a special validation of the relationship between two individuals and conveys a message to society that domestic partnerships or civil unions cannot match.” …
Today, marriage is more discretionary than ever, and also more distinctive. It is something young adults do after they and their live-in partners have good jobs and a nice apartment. It has become the capstone experience of personal life — the last brick put in place after everything else is set. People marry to show their family and friends how well their lives are going, even if deep down they are unsure whether their partnership will last a lifetime.
How is it possible to write an entire op-ed on marriage and not mention the words ‘love’ or ‘God’ once? As of 2010, roughly 75 million Catholics live in the United States, and yet no mention of God, Mr. Cherlin? Gallup found that as of 2012, 77% of Americans identify with a Christian religion, and yet no mention of God, Mr. Cherlin? I suppose it’s much easier to redefine marriage when one takes any mention of God out of the equation and replaces religious elements with words like “status symbol” and “capstone,” but one would think that academics with an agenda would hide their tracks a little easier. The smart kid who cheats on his spelling test always gets a few wrong on purpose because a 100% by a kid who has never shown he was capable of delivering such a score is mighty fishy. In short, Mr. Cherlin is probably not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
But I digress. Back to the issue at hand, which is that marriage and individualism are not contradictory in the least. The astute reader will realize that there is another word missing from Cherlin’s opinion piece: ‘compromise.’
It is entirely possible for two people to embrace individualism while also being 100% dedicated to another person. The two are not mutually exclusive, and anyone who understands the nature of compromise knows the two can coexist.
Since Mr. Cherlin is afraid to touch the Bible, I will. Mark 10:6 – 10:9 reads:
“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together let no man separate.”
Again, perhaps I’m just a rube, but if tens of millions of Americans draw some sort of basic understanding about the nature of marriage from the Bible, it might be worth maybe-sorta-kinda looking into it. Just a thought.
Regardless, my point stands: On the most important level, I do not view myself as a separate entity from my wife because we are spiritually tied together. We are spiritually one. And so, it would make no sense for me to not try and aid her in reaching her full potential, just as I’m sure she feels the same way about me and my long-term goals.
If I were to lash out and hurt my wife, I would be hurting myself. If I was to cause her unnecessary emotional distress, it would ultimately be my own spirit that was damaged. There is no reason for me to work at odds with my wife because it would be similar to me picking up something with my left hand and then slapping it out with my right. It would make no sense.
Mr. Cherlin’s refusal to try and understand what individualism is to a man and a woman who see themselves as spiritually one unit hurts him. It’s a very complex subject, which is another reason why I suspect he avoided it all together.
With that said, I might still buy ‘The Marriage-Go Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today,’ if for no other reason than to make me laugh.
And since this blog is supposed to mix politics with pop culture, here’s another analogy for marriage: the “mind meld” from Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. For sociologists who are too scared to study the Bible, it’s a dumbed-down version of two essentially becoming one.
Douglas Ernst Blog 