Adopting a zombie on Facebook makes people like you.
Posting a note each day? Not so much. Sigh.
Category: year26 (Page 77 of 92)
I posted an entry each day during my 26th year of life.
Happy Easter everyone!
Katie and I went to church this morning, which is always an interesting experience. We’ve never really had a “home” church, like the one that Katie’s family has gone to regularly in Portland since she was a child. We also tend to go mainly on holidays (Easter, Christmas).
My relationship with organized religion has always been, well, complicated. On Facebook, I list myself as “Lutheranish” and I’ve left it that way for a while. Why did I change it from blank to Lutheranish? Why don’t I change it to just Lutheran?
Because I feel Lutheranish. I grew up without religion. I remember going to a few Buddhist temples, but there was never much beyond that. When we moved to the U.S., we didn’t go to church. Most of my friends in elementary through high school were Jewish.
I had not stepped into a church (except perhaps as a tourist into “famous” churches) until I started dating Katie. The first few times, I’ll admit it was a bit odd. Maybe odd isn’t the right word. I was nervous. And I’m still a bit nervous when I go; I don’t have a lifetime of church-going experiences to look back on.
Why do I get nervous at all? Because churches feel heavy; they feel like “important” places. I get nervous because I don’t know the hymns that well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do all the time, and I still don’t quite know if I belong.
Because I started this whole thing as a young adult, it’s harder. I’m not baptized and I don’t feel like I’ve had the appropriate experiences as a child to be a true Lutheran now. I also didn’t have my parents teaching me anything about religion as a child, and it’s hard to find time to teach it to myself nowadays. What I have more than anything else is questions.
I like a lot of things about religion: the community that a church fosters, the overall teachings of Jesus Christ, and how friendly being in a place of worship makes everyone. Then, there are the parts of organized religion that are a bit more distressing, that I haven’t quite made peace with. There are sections of the Bible (the Old Testament, mainly) that require further exploration. There’s the historical use of religion as a catalyst for violence and bigotry. But these are almost all on a macro level; one could argue that religion itself is sometimes being exploited for the gain of certain groups of people.
Either way, like most things in life, I think organized religion is a balance. But on a day like Easter, when in a church surrounded by like-minded people who are wishing peace and happiness on their fellow men, it’s hard to see that as anything but a good thing.
I don’t know when the word “spoiler” entered my vernacular (and I’m actually not sure when it started to become popularly used as either a warning or condemnation), but I’m glad it has.
Although I myself don’t particularly like spoilers (I turn up my headphones a bit if people near me at work discuss an episode of Lost I haven’t seen, and I try to remember not to visit entertainment blogs and websites if I know of the possibility of spoilers), I find the passion that surrounds these tiny nuggets of information astounding.
Perhaps the greatest spoiler moment in recent history was when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, and people had the opportunity to “ruin” the book for with three simple words.
It’s fascinating on both ends of the spectrum: first, why do some people get satisfaction out of intentionally spoiling (or is it now spoilering?) twists/endings for others? And second, why do some people cling so strongly to the belief that hearing a spoiler (be it intentional or not) is so…wrong?
I imagine we have active spoilerers for the same reason that people like to post blatant negative generalizations on message boards, or shoot their teammates in video games, or edit Wikipedia articles to contain random naughty words, or draw on the fire warning signs by elevators. There’s something in most of us that derives a bit of sinister fun out of what we consider relatively harmless vandalism. Nobody really suffers when I vandalize a random Wikipedia article or draw flames on the guy running down the stairs on the fire warning sign. When I spoiler something for someone, that person doesn’t really suffer any kind of enduring mental distress.
The argument that a spoiler has ruined a show or movie or book is a weak argument. A piece of media isn’t just about the twist or the ending, although M. Night Shymalan may argue differently.
But it makes a certain kind of sense. When you hear a spoiler, it’s as if you’ve lost a bit of innocence; like the cold hard fact that Santa doesn’t exist (oops, SPOILER, if you’re a kid) has suddenly been thrust into your face again as an adult.
Spoilers feel wrong, for some reason. When I accidentally read one online (which is much more common now because of DVR technology) or overhear it, I do feel a bit sad for a moment. But it logically makes little difference. I’ll still watch an episode of Survivor, even if I know who’s going to get voted off. I’ll still watch a movie, even if I know one of the main characters dies in the middle of it. Maybe I’ll watch it in a slightly different way, but if spoilers actually ruined things for me, it would mean I’d never watch an episode of TV or movie or read a book more than once.
So maybe it all boils down to this: if a spoiler ruins something for you, it probably wasn’t that good to begin with.
“I don’t understand,” the man said, eyes wide, mouth open, lost in the winds of the market. He rolled other words around on his tongue, in his head, but nothing else sounded intelligent. He waited while the watchmaker looked at him. The two men sat there, neither wanting to make the first, wrong move.
The watchmaker was, at first, overwhelmed. He was unsure where to begin, how to explain a lifetime of a confidences to a man he had only known a half hour. The watchmaker felt a feeling he had not often experienced; doubt. He was unsure of his role, uneasy at being thrust into the middle of a story he did not know the ending of.
“Have you ever heard of the recipe?” the watchmaker asked, testing the waters. He searched the man’s eyes for recognition. There was none. The watchmaker let out a little sigh. This was going to be an uphill battle.
“It does make sense,” the watchmaker mumbled. “The Morse, the recipe, and all on the final night market of the season.” He looked up at the man. “You are the messenger of the revolution.”
“I am…I am not,” the man stammered. “I’m just a delivery man. I usually deliver food. Today, I delivered a watch. I am not a revolutionary.”
“You will be,” the watchmaker said, with sudden force. “You’ll have to be. If I am to reveal the recipe to you, as the message on the watch tells me, then it has already begun.”
“What is this recipe?” asked the man. He was still fearful, still confused, but the watchmaker’s confidence in him had given him a jolt. He was suddenly curious about the recipe, wanted to know this secret that had been trusted to him.
“The recipe is a map. It is a hidden series of landmarks spread throughout the city.” The watchmaker rose from his chair and went to one of the many file cabinets scattered around the workshop, taking a small keyring from his pocket.
“It leads to a building. A bit of a…hideout, if you will. It was constructed after the Great War, as a bit of a…ah! Here it is.”
The watchmaker finished flipping through the series of colored folders he had in the cabinet, and pulled out a solid yellow one. He glanced inside quickly, confirmed his selection, and returned to the man. He slid the folder across the surface of his workdesk, and the man reached for it.
“Ah, not yet, my friend,” said the watchmaker, pulling back on the folder slightly. “Just a few more important things. First, these papers are still a recipe. The answers are not spelled out – getting to the hideout will still require a bit of thinking on your part. But, they would not have sent you if you were not the right person for this.”
The man nodded, understanding. The watchmaker released his hold on the folder, and the man instinctively placed his hands on top. “Second, there will be others at the hideout. You may arrive before them, they may arrive before you. These others – you must trust them. There cannot be dissension among you. There must not.”
The two shared one final moment of silence, this one filled with mutual respect and the smallest sliver of hope. “Now go,” commanded the watchmaker, standing up from his chair. The man arose at once, secreting the folder into the darkness inside of his jacket. He wondered whether he should shake the watchmaker’s hand, wondered what the proper protocol was. But the watchmaker had already turned away, was looking in the cabinets along the back wall of his workshop.
The man left, as silently as he could, although the small bells attached to the top of the door announced his departure. The watchmaker’s eyes were still focused on his cabinets, where among his many tins of tea, he spied what he was looking for: a small vial, with a small handwritten label that read, “For When My Work is Done.”
Slowly, he pulled it out of the cabinet, closed the door, and twisted open the small cap. “Godspeed, Leonard Kinsman,” he said, softly, and emptied the contents into his mouth.
“Godspeed.”