The Tapestry

The Angel that presided o’er my birth Said, ‘Little creature, form’d of Joy and Mirth, ‘Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth.’ -William Blake A very long time ago, I read an article (I think it was on Cracked?) deriding the absurdity of gambling with the Devil and his subsequent defeat at the hands of Johnny as told by Charlie Daniels in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Why would the Devil ever, ever participate in a fair contest, let alone play to his mark’s strengths? Who is to determine the victor—wait, the Devil is?! The Devil Himself concedes to a hapless Georgian boy when the forfeiture of his very soul is at stake? He’s gone and played right into the Devil’s hand, offered up his soul for the prospect of gaudy material gain (a golden fiddle, ha), the Devil even summons demonic assistance...and then Johnny just outplays Him and His demon band. And then the Devil just...admits defeat. Really? Yes. Yes, really. Much more recently, I learned of the now-forgott...

All that being said about upholding the sanctity of the historical narrative, let’s pull a direct example from history and use it to prove my point about politics. The Cold War crises which almost brought nuclear annihilation to us all and the means by which they were averted are offered by progressive thinkers as examples of free men rejecting authority to do what’s right. They broke the programming and saved us all. Reactionaries tend to avoid the topic entirely. After all, hierarchy is good, but it was the military hierarchy that almost pushed the button. This is not the hill to die on. But who wrote the programming? It wasn’t military doctrine that called for the blockades, or funded the construction and tearing down of missile batteries. No General dropped a dossier titled “Operation MAD” on the Commander in Chief’s desk. In the field of international relations, the whole idea is to pick a small set of premises, assume that they are inherently true all the time, and b...

You may want to consider what you would do in a suicide crisis situation. Like all life-or-death situations in general, and violence-defensive situations in particular, it probably won’t happen to you, but preparation is time certainly well spent nonetheless. In the case of a suicide crisis, all of the lines of defense before you have fallen, and this person is on the verge of commiting the suicidal act. It is not your fault what happens to this person; it’ll never, ever be your fault. But if you take a moment to reflect now, you might notice that you’d do anything, anything to prevent that suicidal act from occurring. It is a moral imperative that is ingrained into human nature. So what do you do? Well, the first thing you do, provided it is a logistically feasible demand, is say, “Show me your face. Look me in the eyes.” This might take you by surprise--it’s a far cry from the orthodox “don’t do it, you have so much to live for, there are people who care about you” scri...

Since I guess I’m doing movies now, my favorite one is The Shining . I’ve spent a great deal of time reading analyses and in-depth explorations of all sorts of elements of it. Generally speaking, these works set out to understand what it’s all “about:” This shows it’s about that, and so on. The authors all pick different bits of evidence to construct their arguments because they demonstrate their point, and then they ignore the rest—it’s akin to a Rorschach test, if the Rorschach test really was about word association. I won’t spoil the thrill of discovery for anyone who wants to do the same, but the most resonant conclusion I’ve seen put forth is, it’s a movie about “The Past” and its effect on the individual mind in the present. The Apollo 11 and its ascent, Indian burial grounds, quitting drinking, the McGrady family massacre, the Donner party, what you saw on the television, pulling your kid’s arm out of its socket that one time—it’s all bearing down on every single...