If My Wings Should Fail Me, Lord, Please Meet Me With Another Pair

I feel that nature should be more thematically appropriate.

I know, of course, that most people like sunny days, blue skies, and all that other happy go lucky nonsense. But there are some occasions I feel that those weather conditions are just not appropriate.

A while back my wife and I were driving home from the store. We had bought some ribs and we were going to have a cookout with some friends. We were excited and happy, and were just discussing the usual nonsense that happily married couples talk about when they're alone. You know, music, food, terrible social mistakes other people are making, that kind of thing.

Then we came across a funeral procession.

I know there are some places in America that do not practice this, but it's practically a law in the Southeast, which is where I (unfortunately) live. All cars that are not part of the funeral procession turn down their radios and stop driving, so as to show respect for the passing dead. On a two lane road both lanes stop, and on a divided highway only the lane on the same side as the procession stops. So naturally we stopped, we turned down the music, and I took off my hat and wondered idly who had passed. After the procession had passed we picked up in the conversation right where we had left off.

A few minutes later I thought about that, and it occurred to me that outside of that person's family and friends, no one really cared that that person had died. Everyone on the road just kept going; to us it was just another day.

I understand that we can't stop and weep over every person that dies. If we did so, we'd never get anything done. But I can't help but feel that there should be some indicator that someone has left this world, just to help out the family. Logically thinking, this is what the funeral service is for. But despite the fact that I pride myself on logical thinking, I'm not always the best at it. This is about the time that I decided that weather should be more thematically appropriate.

When there's a funeral in the area, it seems unfair that sun goes on shining and the sky is blue. It should be overcast at least, if not pouring rain and storming, and it should be cold, especially if the person was taken before their time, if they were younger. Perhaps fair weather would be appropriate for someone who died in their nineties, sort of indicative of a good long life, but for younger than say, sixty-five or so, the weather should be more appropriate.

I remember the day of my dad's funeral. Do you know I actually prayed the night before that it would be storming the next morning when I woke up? I felt honestly that entire world should darken, and freeze, and that hail should pour out of the skies, and that the ground should shake and that everyone in the world should know that a great man had died, and the Earth was the lesser for his passing. Of course, I didn't get that. I didn't even get a cloud. It was blue skies, sun shining, birds singing, and ninety bloody degrees outside at ten in the morning. So I went and delivered the eulogy at my father's funeral, to the accompaniment of birdsong and whispers of "It's a good day for it at least." And thinking now I am sure that that's what my father would have wanted in the first place. He loved good weather. Well, actually he loved both, he always said that there were few pleasures in life as good as standing out in the rain while blaring Pink Floyd out of a boombox. But he wanted his funeral to be a celebration of his life, not a mourning of his death.

It didn't help me any, knowing that. The funeral is more for the ones left behind anyway. And because of that I feel that if it is a sad death, that there should at least be clouds in the sky.

That way those left behind will feel that at least whatever force controls the weather actually cares, even if no one else does.

I Fought For You, Fought On Your Side, Long Before You Were Born.

It has been quite a while since I posted anything. In excuse for that, my life has been incredibly busy lately. We've been moving and working a lot. And above all that we found out about four months ago that we are expecting.

I was not ready for that. Honestly prior to the actual discovery I wasn't sure that I even wanted kids. At the least maybe someday, but not anytime soon. But that changed almost immediately.

The first thing that affected me was how excited my wife was. After the initial freak out phase, she got excited and began to be proactive about everything, setting up appointments, getting help, studying. It started to rub off on me somewhat, and I made it even more because of how much I love my wife.

We got set up with the local Pregnancy Resource Center, and they soon scheduled an ultrasound, so that they could measure exactly how old the child was. That is when the world turned for me.

I looked on that little computer screen and saw a tiny heart beating. Something that the love of my wife and I had called into existence. It was truly a life changing experience. I teared up right there in the room, and immediately felt elation and excitement about the entire prospect of parenthood.

Don't get me wrong. I don't like kids. Even when I was a kid, I didn't like kids. But there's something so much different about it when it's yours. I felt an intense amount of love for that little graphic on the screen immediately.

This was followed by a panic.  Not about the prospect of parenthood. But about the fact that my life is not "together" yet. My finances are wrecked, I work in a job I hate for barely above minimum wage, and I have at least a year left in college still. For God's sake I was still living in my mother's house, although that at least I have fixed, (and also, my mother didn't live there and I paid her rent).

But I am not well off enough, I feel, to be a father. I worry that I will be struggling to provide even the barest modicums of existence to my child. That my child will have to grow up with a loser as her father. That's right, by the way, it is a girl.

But as I've said before on this blog, I believe in improving your station by hard work in life. So that is what I will attempt to do from now on, to practice what I preach, so that my daughter won't have to want for necessities, as I did many times, growing up.

Ending note, her name is to be Cambria Jade Wester. I love it already.

Nothing Left to Lose

Freedom. It's one of those words that gets thrown around more than is necessary.

People talk about it all the time. All the pundits, the talking heads, seem to worship the concept, regardless of what side they are on. And the conservatives reading this will say that the liberals hate freedom, and vice versa.

Because you see, when they talk about freedom, they do not mean freedom for everyone. They simply mean freedom for those who agree with their views. Take into account the southern Fundamentalist, patriotic as they come, who, along with God and the military, worships the Founding Fathers as his idols. The man will stand and preach about freedom, say over and over again that he believes in a free America, but if you are gay, or athiest, or agnostic, or Catholic, or Muslim, or anything that disagrees with him, he believes that you should be locked up. That views opposing his should be made illegal.

And what about the flip side of that record? What of the tolerant new-ager, who believes that the whole world should coexist, believes that war is unnecessary, believes that prejudice is the worst evil our country faces? Well, nine times out of ten, that person will want the Fundamentalist silenced. There are so many times that I have heard peace loving tree hugger types say that the people from Westboro Baptist Church should be put to death. Hardly the tolerant people you would expect them to be eh? I mean, I of course agree, but I also think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

You see, freedom is the natural state of man, yes, just as the pundits like to claim. You know, the whole unalienable rights thing and all that. And yes it is the way things were originally. But so is sitting in a tree, naked, eating your meat raw, and raping whatever you wanted.

We changed that. Humans decided it was better to have less freedom in order to have more protection. Very few true anarchists exist. Oh, a lot of people my age claim to be anarchists, but are completely unable to use a weapon, fix a car, grow their own food, hunt, kill, skin, cook, handle indoor plumbing. They're a bit useless really. What they really want, is for people older and richer than them to stop making rules they have to follow. The world system they want is not truly anarchy. They do not want to live in some sort of Mad Max-esque world, where they have to fight for every scrap they get. They want true socialism, where the people have no real leader and everyone works together for the common good. They equate this with anarchy, because they know that this form of socialism has never taken place. Whatever or whoever created humans left in one major flaw: the tendency to bend at the knees.

See, they don't want true anarchy. Because true anarchy would cause their deaths. They have too high an opinion of humanity. I love humanity, as anyone who reads this can attest. However, I am aware of our shortcomings. If it comes to me going without food so that you do not starve, then forget it. As a matter of fact, if we lived in a lawless society, and you had food and I did not, I would most certainly be willing to end your life to get it. Maybe that makes me a sociopath. I believe it makes me human. I believe that deep down, every human has that animal inside, just waiting to claw its out when necessity calls.

People do not realize this. This is why we created government. This is what the social contact is. To protect ourselves, from ourselves. Without laws, and more importantly, consequences, what little freedom we retain would be taken from us by those stronger than us. And well it should! If one is talking about the natural order of things, then one should realize that in nature, the strongest survives. There is no room for sharing or charity among animals that are similar to humans. The most that we, or any other mammalian animal are willing to share is with our families. Think about it. If something were to happen to you, to your job, or your house, if tomorrow you had to move onto the street with no food, no car, no job, no house, you would do anything to ensure that you had food and shelter. Maybe not at first, but the longer you live in a truly natural state, the more animal you become.

This is why true freedom does not exist. Most of us would not survive true freedom.