Five Games to Play in 2016

The last few blog posts I’ve done have been about serious topics and kind of deep and thinky, so I figure it’s time for a little bit of a break and do something a little more fun. So I’ll talk about one of my favorite topics – video games! Specifically, I’ll review five games that I’ve played so far in 2016 that I enjoy – all five of which are very, very different.

XCOM 2 (PC) – Released February 5

The original XCOM I never really played, although I watched friends in college play it all the time. It’s a strategy game where aliens are taking over the Earth and XCOM is the military force responsible for repelling the alien threat. The original game had a reputation for being super difficult. They revived the XCOM franchise a few years ago with XCOM: Enemy Unknown – a game I played the shit out of, mostly because you can customize and name your squad, which means you can get attached to your characters. Or, like I did, you can name them after your friends.

XCOM 2 was one of my most antipicated games coming out this year – it put a new spin on the XCOM strategy formula because it was a sequel where the aliens had won. Instead of repelling an invasion, now the XCOM team is an underground rebellion fighting against aliens that have already taken over. It adds a different kind of strategy to the game, which is divided into two parts. The main part is combat missions – you take your squad into a zone with aliens and work to either eliminate them all or accomplish a goal (like disable a bomb, rescue a hostage, etc.). The secondary part involves base management and is where you win or lose the game, really. You see, even if you fail a mission, the game keeps going. So you can abandon a mission that goes south and still try to soldier on – that is, until the aliens succeed in their goal and mercilessly destroy you.

It leads to some interesting strategical dynamics during missions – do you sacrifice a soldier for the greater good and completing the mission? Do you pull out if you’re outgunned and outflanked? Eventually your soldiers become battle-hardened and have their own unique stories. At one point during my campaign, I ended up having to sacrifice the soldier I’d named after myself, because “I” got mind-controlled by an alien and if I’d left “me” alive, “I” would have killed another soldier and likely brought the entire mission down. I wasn’t able to get a clean shot on the mind-controlling alien, so I ordered my top soldier to execute “me” brutally instead so the mission could continue with minimal casualties.

It’s a very fun game – especially for me because I have an active imagination so creating backstories and watching my soldiers grow as a team. If you have any interest in sci-fi and creating your own stories via gameplay, I highly recommend it.

—

Firewatch (PC, PS4) – Released February 9

Firewatch is probably the least “game-like” game of the five I’m going to talk about. There are minor puzzles and a few challenges, but in reality Firewatch is more of an interactive story with minor influential decisions. It’s very relaxing and doesn’t follow the frenetic pace of life-or-death decisions that video games usually follow.

I don’t want to spoil much of the story of the game because that’s basically the biggest part of the game itself. But you play as Henry, a guy who takes a summer job in a park as part of the firewatch and he’s doing it to get away from his life for a while. The only other person you are in contact with is a woman in another firewatch tower many miles away, and the two of you build up a rapport as the game progresses.

It’s a short game – only five or six hours at most – and could easily have been a short story or even a movie if it wanted to be. Instead, it takes advantage of the gaming medium and allows you a modicum of interactivity and exploration, so you feel much more attached to Henry as the game progresses. It’s also stunning beautiful graphically – the art design is off the charts and occasionally I ended up stopping just to enjoy the scenery of the park. I especially recommend this game for people who don’t normally play games, mostly because it’s not like a regular video game at all – much more of an interactive story.

—

Enter the Gungeon (PC, PS4) – Released April 5

The complete opposite of Firewatch – Enter the Gungeon is a fast-paced, skill-based dungeon exploration game that mixes roguelike and bullet hell gameplay. As soon as you set foot into the first level of the Gungeon, bullets are flying and you have to be on your toes through each and every room. As you progress, you start building up an arsenal of weapons and goodies that help you defeat enemies quicker and easier – from the regular ol’ shotgun to fun, unique weapons like the Fightsaber, to guns from other video games like Earthworm Jim’s pistol to other famous pop culture guns like the gun from the Fifth Element.

This game is a randomized dungeon crawler, which means every time you enter the gungeon it’s going to be slightly different. You’ll never have the same set of weapons twice – sometimes you’ll be overpowered and crush everything in your way, other times you’ll have a mish-mosh of items and weapons that don’t work together at all and you’ll be barely skating by. And you’ll die. A lot.

Enter the Gungeon is a game that’s meant to be played over and over and over again, until your skill level increased to the point where you’ve mastered every floor. There are five floors total – I myself have only managed to reach the fourth floor and yet I keep coming back to the game despite having a difficult time with it. It’s most because it has addicting, pick-up-and-play gameplay where one session of the game takes 15-20 minutes tops (depending on how good you are) so it’s very easy to just say “yeah, I’ll play one more time – maybe I’ll get a good weapon this time!”

It also has local co-op, so two people can explore the Gungeon together. The co-op has a few minor problems – the way they determined who the camera follows when two players are on screen causes some issues when you have to dodge all sorts of shit flying at you on screen – but I got my friends addicted to this game fairly quickly. Not recommended for the faint of heart, though – if you get frustrated easily this could make you burst a blood vessel if you’re not careful.

—

Dark Souls III (PC, PS4, XBox One) – Released April 12

So I’ve been a huge fan of the Souls series for a while. I was slow to get into it – I played through Demon’s Souls first and enjoyed it, but it was sort of frustrating and I didn’t really find it that great. Then when Dark Souls came out, I played it for a while but wasn’t really feeling it – I ended up shelving it mid-playthrough in favor of other games. But eventually I went back to it and the gameplay finally clicked. I played through with three different characters, had a ball co-oping bosses and finding all the secrets and exploring the lore. By the time Dark Souls 2 came out I was a huge, huge fan of the game and the Souls series has become one of my favorites in games. Bloodborne (a Souls spinoff that released last year) is probably my favorite iteration of the franchise by far – so I was psyched for Dark Souls III because it was going back to the Souls franchise but also incorporating some of the things the development team learned from Bloodborne.

I wouldn’t say Dark Souls III is the best entry point in the series for a new person. It has a lot of callbacks and references to the previous two games and is definitely a game made as a love letter to the fans. It’s still very good, some of the bosses are memorable and fun as hell to fight against (although the strategy of punch it in the dick works very well) and overall it’s definitely a Souls game. And if you’ve never played a Souls game before, it’s probably slightly easier than previous entries because it’s sort of linear and there’s no confusion as to where you need to go most of the time – just upping your skill level enough to progress is the big concern.

All in all, Dark Souls III is pretty much more of the same for the series – nothing groundbreaking or terribly innovative. If you’ve liked previous games, you’ll like this one. If you’re not a fan of the learning curve required or how the game plays, this won’t change your mind in any significant way. But it’s still a Souls game, and to me that’s good enough.

—

Uncharted 4 (PS4) – Released May 10

Uncharted 4 is the finale to Nathan Drake’s story – so if you haven’t played the first three games I recommend picking up the Uncharted Collection first and playing through all those, mostly because they’re very good games and you should totally play them. But also because the final story arc for Nathan won’t really pull on your heart strings in the same way if you go into this as your first Uncharted experience.

Naughty Dog is amazing at telling stories, and Uncharted 4 is no exception. The gameplay is absolutely fantastic – a combination of stealth & gunplay during combat, and fun but low-challenge platforming through exploration. The game itself is not as action heavy or based on spectacle as the previous three – instead there’s a lot more focus on the adventure aspect. If I had to rank all four games – Uncharted 2 still ranks as the best action Uncharted, but Uncharted 4 definitely is the best adventure. Some people weren’t as thrilled at the slower pace, but I found it to be a perfect cap on the Uncharted saga.

The graphics are also fucking unbelievable. I took more screenshots in this game while admiring the scenery than I have for any other game. I even made a screenshot from this game as my background for my work computer, and from a distance a coworker mistook it for a photograph of an actual place. The attention to detail is unbelievable – there’s a section in the game that I don’t want to spoil, but it impresses upon you just how far graphics have come in gaming.

I took a weekend and played through the whole game and it was a bittersweet ending. I loved the game, it’s a great capstone to the series, but it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to the characters of Uncharted. It’s like watching the series finale of a show you’ve spent seasons watching. You know you can go back and see them again, but at the same time…man, I wish this universe just continued on forever. I highly recommend this game – either watching somebody else play it or playing it yourself. It’s top-tier and a very impressive reason as to why I’ll always be a fan of video games.

—

So that’s all she wrote! Five games from 2016 that have impressed me. They run the gamut from relaxing story to hardcore action, so I think there’s something for everyone in this list. There are plenty more games on my radar in 2016 that will be coming, so a future list will likely be happening – I have my hands on Doom and Ratchet & Clank but haven’t started either – plus Overwatch has become a huge hit so I’ll likely be getting that at some point too. And let’s not forget Zero Time Dilemma – the last game in yet another series that I’m super excited to see how it concludes.

Alright, enough geeking out for me – time to do something productive, like play more games.

The Modern Myth of Monogamy

Since I obviously didn’t meet my goal of posting a blog post every day in May, I figured I would go ahead and at least talk about the last of my three “offensive” topics that I mentioned in an earlier post. I started off with religion, then talked about sexuality – to finish up I’m going to talk a little bit (which may turn into a lot) about monogamous relationships and the idea of romantic love.

Before I get started, I’d like to take a second and explain the title as somebody reading this may be thinking “monogamous isn’t a myth – people are monogamous all the time!” I’m not using the typical word association of myth here, but rather a secondary definition: “a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone.” I think most of us can agree that monogamy is a popular belief that grows up around most of us in society. Okay, with that in mind – let’s begin.

From a young age we’re taught very specific ideas about monogamy and romantic love – we’re taught to pair off with the idea of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.” We’re taught to yearn for “The One” – that person that we’re supposed to spend the rest of our lives with. We’re taught things like marriage is sacred, that sex is something reserved to be shared with some special, that romance is important and the ultimate goal is to find somebody that will stand by you through thick and thin, and the two of you will go on to produce 2.5 children behind a white picket fence.

And when I say we’re taught that, I don’t mean that parents/teachers/mentors specifically say these things (although some do!). But rather that society as a whole sort of drip feeds this notion into our brains through seemingly insignificant means. Like romantic love triangles in movies/TV shows – who doesn’t love the conflict of Andie having to choose between Blane and Duckie? Why is the “will they or won’t they?” one of the biggest pulls of any procedural show with opposite gender leads? Romance novels where the man who is sculpted and perfect scoops the woman off her feet. Movies where the manic pixie dream girl is exactly what the nerdy, shy boy needs and they are whisked off into an adventure and fall madly in love. Action movies where the hero gets the girl in the end. Ads on TV showing nuclear families, couples sharing their first kiss, romantic getaways and shared experiences. Even religious texts (Adam and Eve, Joseph and Mary) beat you over the head with the idea of one man, one woman.

So what is it about monogamy that makes it so easy for a major part of modern civilization to just accept it as status quo? Well, it’s partly due to selfish nature and the ego boost. Before you call me cynical, hear me out. Most people in the world have a hard time coming to terms with their insignificance. The (sad) fact is, most everybody is going to live and die without making a significant impact on anything outside their own personal friends and family. People believe in religion because they want their lives to mean something – that there’s an eternity where we get rewards for being good and somebody out there will recognize what we’ve done. It’s one reason why people become doctors or join the Army or the Peace Corps – they want to feel like they’ve done something to affect the status quo.

And relationships are a huge part of finding that meaning. Everyone wants to be the most important person to somebody. Everyone wants to be thought about when they aren’t present. Relationships are a contract – where you become the most important person to somebody else, and they become the most important person to you. And with those feelings of importance comes an inherent jealousy – and some people have it stronger than others. People become possessive. Or the opposite happens – that feeling of importance starts going away and your attention wanders, hoping to find that special feeling of wanting with somebody else.

It’s also partly due to how we view sex as a culture. Sex is, in most cases, seen as something that’s supposed to be special. It’s supposed to be mindblowing, a shared experience like none other. And so one of the most important parts about monogamous relationships? Sex is only supposed to happen with the person you’re with. Because it’s special…and it’s important…and….well, is it?

Let’s take a step back. If somebody were to ask you what the main difference was between your best friend and your significant other, what would that difference be? (And I know some people are going to be snarky and say “Well, my significant other IS my best friend.” I get it, that’s great. But for sake of argument here, let’s go ahead and say your best friend that ISN’T your significant other. I know you have one. Jerk.) Well I’m gonna hazard a guess that the main difference is that you don’t see your best friend naked on a regular basis. (Or maybe you do, if you do that’s fantastic I suppose.) You probably spend a good chunk of time with your best friend, as well as your SO. You can probably talk to your best friend and your SO about anything. You probably know a lot of stories/secrets about your best friend and your SO. You probably have borrowed/shared possessions with your best friend. You may have even been housemates/roommates with your best friend at some point. But a distinctive factor that will always come into play when defining a “girlfriend/boyfriend” is the idea that the only physical relationship you’re having is with each other.

When does a relationship become “official”? Usually when both parties involved make an agreement that they’re only seeing each other – and in a monogamous relationship this always involves the physical aspect. We’re taught that the reward for devoting ourselves to a single person is that we’re the ones with sole access to their bodies. It’s why people have such an easy time watching porn, but have a hard time with saying they’d actually date a porn star. We get jealous when we see somebody flirting with someone that is “ours.” It’s my ball, only I get to play with it, don’t touch my ball!

It doesn’t help that all around us is the idea that romance and sex go hand in hand. Romantic gestures are supposed to lead to sex. People want to be swept off their feet. People want to be worked for, to be appreciated and to be shown that appreciation in tangible ways. Romance is rose petals on the bed, romance is classical music on the stereo, romance is candles and a scented bath, romance is your favorite dinner, romance is sweet poetry and a platitude of undying affection.

And above all, romance is only reserved for one person.

I love my parents equally. If somebody were to ask me to say which one I loved more, I would say I couldn’t choose because they’re both wonderful and I cherish both and can’t imagine my life without either of them. I love all my friends – put my friends all in a firing line and ask me to choose or ask me to rank them as best to worst and I’ll tell you to fuck off. I don’t have children, but I assume most (good) parents love all their children with the same amount of love. We’re not ever told we can only love one friend, or one parent, or one child. In fact, we’re not told we can only love one anything – food, books, TV shows, movies, places, whatever. You are allowed to have all sorts of feelings for any and all things.

Except romantic love.

No, for romantic love – that you’re only allowed to have with one person. You have to find The One that makes you feel special – that you can share the romantic love with for all eternity.

Why is that?

Stop for a minute and think. Why, exactly, are we not allowed to have romantic love for multiple people? For some, why do we even have to have romantic love at all? Friendship love is enough for some, isn’t it?

Where, exactly, is the law that says romantic love has to exist within you for one person and one person only?

I’ve been in romantic love multiple times. Sometimes staggered at different points in my life. Sometimes…with multiple people at the same time. I wasn’t in relationships with some (most) of them at the time, but it didn’t mean I didn’t have that feeling of love that only comes with caring about somebody more than anybody else and also wanting to see the hell out of them with their clothes off, and then also that little something extra that gives you butterflies every time they’re around or talking to you.

Statistics time: In the US in 2011, 19 out of every 1000 marriages ended in divorce. Currently in the US (in a 2015 article) 22 percent of women and 21 percent of men have been divorced at some point in their lives. It’s estimated that 30% to 60% of all married individuals will engage in infidelity during their marriage. And these are just statistics on marriage, not long-term and short-term relationships not involving marriages that break up every day.

Why are we so obsessed with monogamy? Why do we try so hard to make it work? I get that there are other factors at play – economically it’s easier to be with a partner and share income. Socially, you don’t want to be the single fifth wheel while all your friends are married/paired off with somebody. Sometimes people get into relationships just because they need to be in a relationship to function, though, and maybe, just maybe…we need to ease up on the whole “Finding that special someone makes life worth living” mentality.

I’m not saying monogamy doesn’t work or isn’t worth it. I have a lot of friends who are happy and in very, very successful monogamous relationships. My parents have been happily married for over 30 years. I’ve been in monogamous relationships and been absolutely fine with it – at the time. But I also have friends who are divorced, and other friends who struggle to find the right relationship. And maybe some of my friends who are in monogamous relationships are actually unhappy – I don’t know, they don’t talk to me about that stuff. I’m not a relationship counselor.

But what happens if, at the end of Pretty and Pink, Andie chooses both Blane and Duckie? What happens if three co-leads on a TV show all become romantically involved with each other and they’re all okay with it? What happens if four friends all decide to cohabitate together without any romance, but are okay with having a sexual relationship that only includes the four of them?

We’re taught that romance is one-and-done, and that makes everything black and white when in reality it’s shades of grey. A big example is kids. If you’re dating somebody and you want kids and your partner doesn’t, you’re basically expected to break up at some point. It’s too important a factor for you to continue dating. But does it mean you love the person you’re with any less? Does it hurt any less to say goodbye to somebody you truly care about when you could still be happy together in other ways?

People often view polyamorous relationships as simply about the sex – you don’t want to be tied down to just one person. And because of our views on sex, you’re viewed as a bad person if you’re not satisfied with being with just one person. You get called slut, or player, or manwhore, or just whore. But it’s not just about that – it is, however, a big limit on why people can’t understand or get behind it.

If you’re dating somebody, and that person loves…say, golf. And you hate golf. What happens if your SO goes out for a day golfing with their buddies? Are you jealous of the buddies? No! Because you don’t want to be out there golfing, you’re fine with your SO doing something they enjoy while you get some time to enjoy something you like that they don’t. But apply that to sex and hoo boy, people just can’t wrap their head around it. The stigma with long-term relationships and marriage is that you need to satisfy all the sexual needs of your partner. But what if you don’t like doing some stuff your partner is into? Or what if you’re into stuff your partner doesn’t particularly care for? Why couldn’t you share? Wouldn’t it be a better experience for everyone?

It goes back to the selfishness and ego of being in a relationship. You’re supposed to be the most important and you’re supposed to be the best and most satisfying lover. You’re supposed to be the best provider, or the best listener, or the best at cooking, or whatever.

But nobody’s perfect. And sometimes, quite frankly, that strain of trying to be perfect and be everything that your partner needs is what causes good relationships to break down.

The thing is, polyamorous relationships are not always about sex and gettin’ some strange. Sometimes people just genuinely and truly care about multiple people and don’t want to lose any of them from their lives. I once heard a story about a poly guy who broke down crying and had a horrible time after his girlfriend of over a year broke up with him, and his wife helped him through it. It wasn’t about the sex – it was true feelings. And it didn’t mean he loved his wife less than the girlfriend. It just meant he was capable of loving more than one person and felt comfortable sharing that love.

Now, I don’t live in a world of rainbows and sunshine and unicorns and sparkles. All relationships take work and effort. And let’s face it, if you’re trying multiple relationships, it’s going to take even more work. It’s not for everyone. Some people want that one love, that one person to spend the rest of their life with – and that’s fine. I’m not saying monogamy should be abolished and we should all live in a free hippie commune where everyone loves everybody and there’s naked pillow fights and fountains of hot chocolate (not at the same time, unless you’re into that I guess).

But monogamy doesn’t have to be the gold standard. Monogamy doesn’t have to be “normal” while any other sort of relationship or lack thereof is “abnormal.” It goes back to what I said about sexuality – don’t put yourself in a box. If you’ve been a serial monogamist and none of those relationships worked out for you – think about why, and maybe think about shifting your world view a tad. On the flip side – if you’ve spent your whole life avoiding monogamous relationships like the plague but feel empty inside, maybe think about an adjustment in your behavior.

I’d also like to add that an important aspect of any relationship is trust. It’s not a polyamorous relationship if only one person knows it’s polyamorous and the other person thinks it’s monogamous. That’s just called being a dick. I don’t like it and I don’t approve of cheaters or infidelity. Talking and communication is key – if you’re unhappy with the current status of your relationship, talk with your partner and figure out what’s wrong. Don’t think starting a new relationship behind your partner’s back is going to fix anything. It’s likely only going to make everything worse.

Sorry for the slight PSA there, got a little sidetracked. In fact, I’ve been going all over the place for a while here – I should probably wrap this up.

I’ll end with this. I, for a long time, believed in The One. I always thought that there was somebody out there who was my perfect match, who completed the puzzle and would make me happier than ever. I went through a lot of women who I thought were The One. (Funny how there was more than one The One, huh?) And I started to realize that none of these Ones that I found actually existed. Because I had projected what I expected from The One onto all these women, and in reality they were a completely different person.

And then I started thinking that maybe I should stop looking for The One, and just start looking for what felt right. And as soon as I did that, I felt like a much more complete person.

I still want to find someone and fall in love, get married, have kids and raise them to be good, accepting people. I’m not saying that I plan on having romantic love with multiple people at the same time. But maybe instead of finding The One, I find The Two instead. Who knows. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

Until then, there’s only one The One I believe in.

Passion Aggression

I like stand-up comedy a lot – moreso than sketch comedy, actually. It’s why I prefer watching and listening to stand-up specials over watching sketch groups/SNL skits. But one of the topics that always makes me roll my eyes and view a comedian a smaller light is when they use the typical “men and women are different hur hur” jokes. It often involves some variant on “Women are emotional and complicated!” and “Men only think about sex and food and grunt a lot!” (Thanks Tim Allen.)

I was listening to a special the other day and, predictably, one of the segments was on this and pretty much hit all the stereotypical points I expected. But in the middle of the segment, he brought up a point that made me think a little bit. It was a joke about how on TV you see ads around holidays for shit that men are supposed to buy for women – “he went to Jared/Every Kiss begins with Kay/etc.” – but you never see ads for things women are supposed to get for men. (The punchline of the joke was “Well, that’s because you can’t advertise what men want – a whole day of silence followed by some good sex, then more silence.” Yes. Great punchline there.)

But the idea behind the joke, plus an article I saw recently about a comedian blowing up at a girl for not wanting to date him – made me start thinking about how bad it is in our current culture that men are always encouraged to be the aggressors, especially in dating. And I use the word aggressor specifically – instead of say, pursuer or initiator – because that’s how men are really taught to be when it comes to dating: aggressive.

In the (heterosexual) dating scene, it’s a general rule that the guy is supposed to be the one who goes after the women. We’re socially taught that the guys are the ones who have to make the first move, that guys have to get a handle on rejection and just perform the “shotgun” approach and ask as many women as possible until somebody finally says yes. Or instead of the shotgun approach, the “sniper” approach where you focus on one woman and just continue to pester her until she finally relents and says yes and you win her heart through sheer persistence.

I mean, how many “cute” romantic movie/television/book stories are there where the girl says “well, I didn’t want to go out with him at first, but he wore me down until I said yes and look how happy we are now!”? There’s this cultural idea bestowed upon men that if they just keep at it, eventually some woman is going to break and see just how amazing a guy you are and decide to date you. So you be aggressive and just keep asking because you never give up! (Never surrender!)

Anybody who has played any sort of RPG knows that if you class as a barbarian, your only tactic to solve problems is to hit things. And if that doesn’t work? You hit things harder. So it’s no surprise that in the dating scene when men are taught to be aggressive in their pursuing of women, that if they don’t get their way they end up being more aggressive. And the problem is while men are taught to approach dating with aggressive confidence, there’s a very fine line between that and confident aggression. And when that line is crossed, it leads to “conversations” like this:

“Hey baby, lookin’ good!”
“Hey baby, you got a nice ass in those jeans!”
“Hey baby, why you fucking ignoring me?”
“Hey, fuck you, you stuck-up bitch!”

As a culture, we’re making tremendous strides to even the playing field between men and women. It seems that every other day some asshole’s meltdown over a woman not wanting to date him goes viral and everybody gets to see what a terrible person he is. Or a group posts a new YouTube video that reverses gender roles and shows what it would be like if women catcalled men instead. (As a side note, when I was young and stupid I was pretty mean to some women and I’d like to take this time to apologize for being an idiot. And I’d like to go ahead and also apologize to all women in general for being an idiot, because let’s face it – I’m still pretty stupid.)

But everything still isn’t perfect. Especially because the dating scene is very much slanted in the “men approach women, not the other way around” scenario. As anecdotal evidence, I was on a dating website for over a year and I can count on one hand the number of times a woman messaged me first, compared to the (probably) over a hundred messages I sent out in that time frame. In fact, I actually got more messages from guys than I did women in that time frame. That’s right – despite the fact that I had “interested in women only” in my profile, I still got more initiating messages from men than women.

That should tell you something about roles in dating culture.

On the other hand, it could also say something about my dating profile.

I’m not gonna dwell on that, moving on!

I’m not saying there’s no initiation on female parts ever – I have friends who have been approached by women at bars, duh. But the usual result? The girl gives the guy her phone number, expecting him to initiate on a future date. So they’re being aggressive at the beginning, but then returning to a passive role. As more anecdotal evidence – I recently tried the new Bumble app as an experiment – it’s the dating app that works like Tinder, but women have to message men first within 24 hours or the match expires. In the two weeks or so that I used it, none of the women I matched with messaged me.

Again, this could simply be because I am terrible at dating profiles, but on the other hand…

(I’m going to choose to ignore the pattern here.)

The point is, as a society we have to move away from the man-as-aggressor, woman-as-passive-recipient social dating idea. The whole alpha-male/beta-male bullshit needs to stop. The teaching of “boys will be boys” and encouraging them to chase girls around a playground. Stop encouraging Valentine’s Day and “Steak and Blowjob Day” because first of all, I don’t even like steak! And secondly, things like that just encourage the “men and women are different” stereotype that bad comedians use for bad jokes.

If we keep teaching the idea that men are aggressive, testosterone-fueled sex machines who just want to eat, fuck, and sleep, what follows is when they try to date they act aggressive, show off how much testosterone they have, and start conversations with “I’d destroy every chair in the world so you’d have to sit on my face.” If we keep teaching the idea that women are passive, emotion-driven sexual gatekeepers who are finicky and only want romance and shiny trinkets to prove how important they are, then they’re always going to be passive and have to sift through idiotic messages (and/or show them off to their girlfriends while giggling) while waiting for “Mr. Right.”

It’s no longer the stone ages. We’re civilized now. Men don’t need to beat their chests and club a saber tooth tiger to prove they’re capable. Say no to aggression. And if you feel the need to be aggressive, do it in a video game or in a gym or some shit. Don’t take it out on other people. Especially over something as silly as not getting a date.

As Christopher Titus (my favorite comedian) said – “There’s 3 billion men out there and there’s 3 billion women out there and if you’re bisexual you have no excuse to not be happy!”

Sexual Orienteering

The following is the second in what I consider my offensive trilogy of posts – I started with religion and this time I’m going to talk a little bit about sexuality and more specifically sexual orientation. This is, of course, simply my opinion on the matter and I don’t really want to start any arguments but, you know, it’s the internet so things happen.

I was once conversing with a young woman and she started a sentence with “I’m straight and I have a boyfriend” – and that kind of start to a sentence is always a good indicator of something interesting following. And she didn’t disappoint. The full sentence was – “I’m straight and I have a boyfriend, but the only kind of porn that turns me on is lesbian porn.” My brain, in response to that, said “Oh honey” but I just smiled and nodded and continued on with the conversation because I didn’t feel like getting into a long, drawn-out debate on sexual orientation with this particular person. Another time I was chatting with another young woman and we had an open and honest conversation where she admitted that, while she found women super attractive, she didn’t ever feel like she could date one – she was only interested in being romantically involved with men. Both of these views are perfectly a-okay! But they’re also both nonstandard views in terms of sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation is kind of a hot button topic – even though there have been major strides for the LGBT community in terms of regarding both homosexual and heterosexual (and everything in-between) lifestyles as normal, there’s still a lot of persecution, a lot of bigotry, and a lot of things that are just simply getting lost in translation. In fact, there’s a lot of the everything in-between that’s getting the short end of the stick, simply because of the labels we’ve chosen for sexual orientation overall.

Straight and gay, despite being pretty standard vernacular now, are actually relatively recent terms for sexual orientation. Heterosexual and homosexual weren’t created and defined until the late 1800s, and while gay can be traced back to the 17th century as a word associated with pleasure and being carefree, it wasn’t until the early-to-mid 1900s that gay started being synonymous with homosexuality. And straight, interestingly enough, originated as a gay slang term for heterosexuals in the 1950s.

As the words became more and more standard in phrasing, sexual orientation became more and more of an us vs. them thing. Much like Democrats vs. Republicans, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Captain America vs. Iron Man – sexual orientation was a drawn line in the sand. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Schoolyard bullies pressuring other young men into “proving” they’re straight by kissing a girl. And if they refused? “You must be gay!”

It’s this hard line of either/or that creates a lot of cognitive dissonance within people. If you’re a guy and once you got turned on by a penis, your binary choices are either an aggressive shooing away of the nuisance and banging as many women as you possibly can to protect your masculinity, or “welp, I guess I’m gay now.” This black-and-white of straight and gay as the only possibilities are what creates weird-ass situations like senators who lobby against LGBT rights while looking for sexual favors from younger men in bathrooms, or religious leaders who preach about the sanctity of marriage and sex should only be between a man and a woman, but don’t practice that at all. It also leads to the marginalization and erasure of bisexuality, pansexuality, and other non-binary sexual orientations.

As an overall culture, we’ve started a slow progress into adapting a wider view towards sexual orientation. There are a lot more words and phrases that are thrown around with more and more frequency to accurately describe people’s feelings of a sexual nature. From biromantic (a person who is romantically attracted to two genders) to asexual (a person who has no sexual feelings) to sapiosexual (a person who finds intelligence sexually attractive) to heteroflexible (a person who is predominantly interested in the opposite gender but sometimes is sexually attracted to those of the same gender) there’s pretty much a label or name for whatever your personal feelings are.

I, however, am a firm believer that sexual orientation (and sexuality in general) is fluid and operates closer to a sliding scale similar to the Kinsey scale of sexuality – and the fact that people are insistent on labeling what they are is actually a detriment to sexual orientation as a whole. (As an aside, the Kinsey scale is flawed in that it is too rudimentary in design because trying to categorize everyone into 7 different scales of sexual orientation still limits the possibilities in a disadvantageous way.) For discussion purposes, it is great to have words and labels for different ideas so we can move forward as a culture. But labels often times get in the way of people truly opening their minds and accepting who they are – we as humans are generally focused so hard on being accepted we try to force ourselves into the boxes that words and labels provide just so we can find that acceptance with our peers.

Sorry, I went off on a little tangent there.

Let me try to explain of the viewpoint I’m trying to get across. Let’s, for example, talk about “straight” porn. If I say straight pornography, for most people it would likely generate the image of a male and female having sex. Straight is a slang term for heterosexual, and heterosexuality is, as defined by a website on the internet: sexual feeling or behavior directed toward a person or persons of the opposite sex.

But here’s the thing…if you’re heterosexual, you’re attracted to the opposite sex. But “straight” porn involves members of both sexes. If you’re a “heterosexual” guy who likes to watch straight pornography, you’re watching other dudes on the regular and enjoying it. If you’re a “heterosexual” girl who likes to watch straight pornography, you’re watching other gals on the regular and enjoying it. In theory, a perfectly 100% heterosexual person would only be interested in watching pornography that only involved the gender they were attracted to. Is this the case for some people? Probably! There’s also probably people who have never watched pornography in their life. That’s cool too! But for some reason, we’ve been conditioned for it to be acceptable for a “straight” male to watch a video of people having sex, where sometimes there are more naked men than naked women involved in what he is watching, and yet he is unflappably 100% heterosexual.

This is where labels tend to fail us.

Let’s go back to where I started and talk about the girl who is totally straight with a boyfriend but only enjoys lesbian porn. What is she? Well, in my mind, she’s a girl who likes having sex with men but enjoys watching women have sex. What does this make her if we’re going to label her? Therein lies the rub. You see, it’s perfectly okay for people to be entertained by watching one thing and not be interested in doing it themselves. I, for example, enjoy watching horse racing like the Kentucky Derby. I also have zero interest in actually riding a horse myself. But that doesn’t change or erase my enjoyment of watching other people ride horses. So this girl can, in fact, enjoy watching women have sex but have no interest in it herself. But if somebody pulls up her internet search history and sees nothing but girls making out, and that person doesn’t know about her proclivities, the immediate assumption is probably going to be that she’s an in-the-closet lesbian or something similar. Which might not be true – she may not ever have a physical interest in women! But she’s not a poser, she’s not fake, and she’s not denying herself anything.

The point is there’s a much, much larger spectrum of sexual orientation than simply straight and gay. Or straight, bisexual, and gay. Or even straight, bisexual, pansexual, and gay. Or even…well, you get the point. Don’t rely on words that have already been made up as a way to define yourself. Think about what you like, think about what you desire, think about what does or doesn’t get your motor going – and accept that as you. Every person is unique, and every person has a unique sexuality and sexual orientation. If you’re a guy and you consider yourself straight, and yet you have a go-to guy on the brain that you’d immediately choose as “well, if I have to have sex with a dude it’d be that guy” – maybe you might belong in a slightly different position on the sexual orientation spectrum. If you’re a guy and you consider yourself gay, and yet you occasionally just really, really want to play with a pair of boobs – maybe you also might belong in a slightly different position on the sexual orientation spectrum.

And that’s okay! It doesn’t undermine your masculinity or femininity or agenderinity or anythingelseinity if you aren’t 100% one way or the other. Like most things in life, there’s all sorts of shades of rainbow to sexual orientation. You’re you – accept you and be happy with you and don’t try to deny yourself. There’s lots of people out in the world that will try and deny you lots of things – don’t push down yourself because it’s not part of the box you feel like you need to be in. Make your own box!

(As another random aside – an alternate title for this post was going to be “You’re Not As Think As You Straight You Are” but I figured that was a little too inflammatory for the point I was trying to make.)

I could probably continue to talk about this for a much longer post – there were points and ideas that I was planning on discussing that didn’t quite fit into this particular train of thought. I also feel like I may not have made my point fully and accurately about how varied the spectrum is on sexual orientation, but I think what I did say flowed well enough. Maybe I’ll talk more in a later post, maybe not. Anywho, 2/3 of possibly offensive topics down – only one more to go!

Just the Type

“So what’s your type?” That’s a question that’s always bothered me, mostly because I don’t really know how to answer it. For a lot of people, it refers to a physical type – blonde or redhead, tall or short, barrel-chested or lithe. It can also refer to a personality type – maybe you like bookworms over party people, or maybe you want somebody blunt and straightforward over somebody shy and quiet.

My problem is I don’t really have a type. Friends have pointed out I tend to have a thing for blondes, which is true. But friends have also pointed out I tend to have a thing for redheads, which is also true. And other friends have also pointed out I tend to have a thing for brunettes, which is also true. And writing this has made me realize I also tend to have a thing for women who change their hair color frequently – one girl I dated changed from brunette to blonde between our first and second dates, actually.

The point is I don’t really have a preference at all physically wise. It doesn’t matter what skin or hair color a girl has, what ethnicity she is or whether she had body art or piercings or not. I’ve found women of all kinds attractive! In fact, the only two similarities I can trace between women I’ve been interested in are that they are A) shorter than me and B) have boobs (usually of the ample variety, but even then not always). And in fact the height thing is often skewed because fuck if I know how tall a woman actually is due to the nature of heels and all that.

The issue arises, though, in that people want a physical preference – which I just simply don’t have beyond “short.” It makes it easier for blind date recommendations or looking for matchups when somebody can simply say “Okay, she’s not blonde so you probably wouldn’t be interested.” When, in fact, attractiveness is a lot more than simply checking a few boxes like you’re in a character creator or ordering what you want in your coffee at Starbucks. Also in general having a physical type can sometimes border on racial fetishism – where you boil down a person to their physical attributes without caring about their culture or background. (See, for example, the preference for Asian women because they are assumed to be “submissive” which is idiotic.)

Now what I like aesthetically is a lot easier. Hair-wise I’ve always preferred up to down – ponytails, pigtails, twintails – essentially anytime long hair is up in a tail (not a bun). I also find baseball caps aesthetically pleasing, although that could simply be because lots of women put their hair in a ponytail through the back of the cap which is A+, would recommend.

For aesthetics clothing-wise, when women wear collared shirts they catch my eye – either polo shirts or blouses. But I also like jerseys and t-shirts as well so I mean… Not a big fan of dresses, although I am a fan of shorts (gym shorts/running shorts, preferably) and skirts. I’m also a big fan of any sort of knee-high/thigh-high socks/stockings. I learned a while ago about a term called “zettai ryouiki” which came from an anime – which essentially means “absolute territory” and is a reference to the skin shown between the end of a skirt and the beginning of the socks/stockings. And…yeah, outfits that fit into that area are attention-grabbing for me.

(In a Freudian aside, I tend to blame my aesthetic preferences on Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time video. When I was 13 in the middle of puberty and saw that video, it caused all sorts of things to light up in my brain like a Christmas tree.)

I also have a strong aesthetic dislike for, well, basically any kind of clothing that is “incomplete.” Fish-nets or anything mesh, leg warmers, ripped jeans, etc. Fingerless gloves are an affront to my sensibilities. Dresses that are one single piece of cloth but show off midriffs while still being connected? Yech. I don’t know if it’s something obsessive-compulsive in my brain but for me clothing has to be all there or…well, all not there, I guess. I’m the type of person that immediately throws away any clothing I have that has a hole in it. I don’t even bother sewing it up or patching it – just see a hole, throw it out.

Enough about aesthetics – personality-wise I’m also kind of a mixed bag in preferences. I have a lot of friends who have similar interests in me on the less active side of the spectrum – watching movies, playing board/video games, eating dinner, etc. It’s a lot harder for me to get my group of friends to do more active things I like. I’ll occasionally get to go hiking or camping and what-not as that’s what some of my friends like to do, but not a lot of my friends have the same enthusiasm for things like playing pool or tennis. Bowling, going to the batting cages or driving range, etc.

As such, I tend to pursue (or be interested in) women who reflect the side of my life I enjoy but don’t normally get to participate in. I mean, I do also prefer women who have some sort of “nerdy” side (I want my cake and I want to eat it too), but I also end up usually pursuing women who are more likely to want to go out and do things that I don’t normally get to do. Or at least inspire me to do things I don’t normally do.

This reminds me of an aside – one of the things that’s always stuck with me is when I was younger, one of the men in my ward got up and talked about his family and more specifically his wife. And one of the things he said was that every day his wife inspired him to be a better person. Not in that he thought he wasn’t good enough for his wife, but whenever he was with her he just aspired to be better than he was because she inspired that in him.

And that’s kind of what gets my interest in women. Yes, I like women who can match my sarcasm and who tend to point out how much of an idiot I am. But I have always kind of seen the single, bachelor me as the beta version of me. Good, maybe even great, but still a little buggy and needs a few fixes. And I’m always looking for the person who doesn’t try to change me, but takes who I am and inspires me to become my version 2.0. (Did I mention I’m kind of a nerd and sort of an idiot?)

So why did I make this blog post? Well, because for a long time what I’m interested in has been a closely guarded vault that I didn’t let people into. As I think I’ve mentioned before on here, I learned at an early age that if girls find out you like them, their response is to laugh. And I don’t want to be humiliated, so I don’t tell anyone. This eventually spread to me not sharing what preferences I have for fear of people using it against me – finding things I like and using it to tear me down.

But as part of me writing every day, I’ve just decided to say fuck it. People post shit all the time about themselves now. It’s the future. I’m just gonna roll with it.

Oh, and as a final thought – the title is a reference to Archer. You’re welcome, good day.

Happy Mother’s Day!

If you’re lucky enough to have a good mother – go spend some time with her today. That’s what I’ll be doing. Go show some appreciation to all the moms in your life!

A Marvelous Movie List

So I saw Civil War on Thursday night, and on Friday morning I read a “news” article listing every Marvel movie property from worst to best (which included Civil War). After sitting on my thoughts for a day or so and letting the movie sink in I decided to rank my top 10 favorite Marvel movies (not just MCU, all Marvel movies) and combine it with a semi-review of Civil War. No spoilers for Civil War are involved in this write-up so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you don’t have to worry!

10. Fantastic Four (2005) – I have a soft spot for this movie. I saw it originally in theaters by myself because nobody else was interested in seeing it with me. Chris Evans as Johnny Storm is fantastic, Michael Chiklis is great as Ben Grimm and Julian McMahon does a nice job as Von Doom. There isn’t a ton of action in the movie – there are a few scenes but overall it’s more character focused. It’s not a great movie – it’s sort of cheesy and campy honestly. But it’s fun which is what superhero movies are about – the differences between this movie and the grimdark new Fantastic Four that came out last year are like day and night.

Plus, c’mon – you get to see Johnny Storm pull the whipped cream-tickle the nose while sleeping trick on The Thing. Can you seriously say no to that?

9. Deadpool – A true tale of when a low-budget risk pays off in spades. Ryan Reynolds was basically born to play the Deadpool role. Plus it’s a better love story than Twilight. Raunchy and dark humor abound as this is basically one of the most true to form from-book-to-screen adaptations of a character. What they do with Negasonic Teenage Warhead is pretty awesome and we finally get a Colossus in the movie universe that’s awesome and we can be proud of. Well, I mean the royal we. Looking forward to the sequel.

8. The Punisher (2004) – Before Jon Berthal’s take on The Punisher in the most recent season of Daredevil, to me Thomas Jane was the perfect Frank Castle. I have another big soft spot for this movie. The opening scene with what happens to Frank Castle’s family is probably one of the more legitimately heartbreaking origin stories I’ve seen on TV and it still pulls at my emotional strings every time I watch it. Plus – you get this scene between Frank and Harry Heck which is fucking amazing.

7. The Avengers – This was basically a large-scale event movie. Nothing like this had really been attempted in mainstream cinema before. A shared universe between movies? It would never work. I was skeptical of Marvel from the very original Iron Man movie being announced. And yet somehow they pulled it off with Whedon at the helm. I did an Avengers marathon where me and my friends watching all five of the Phase One movies leading up to Avengers in one sitting in one day at AMC theaters – it was a blast and the crowd of fans really energized the overall experience.

The movie itself is pure popcorn. Witty quips, mindless action, a few character moments – but overall it’s a summer blockbuster. Lots of flash, some substance if you really dive deep. It still makes the list, though, just because it’s always going to be fun and watching all these characters interact together for the first time never gets old. And after three tries they finally got the perfect Bruce Banner in Mark Ruffalo. Plus if I were to rank my top 10 favorite superhero action sequences – the helicarrier sequence from this movie would definitely be on there. Everything about it was awesome.

6. Iron Man 3 – I know most people think the original Iron Man is the best of the three, and I do give it props for kickstarting the MCU. But I really enjoy the pacing and structure of IM3. The action sequences are the best of the trilogy (as well as the best directed) and I legitimately enjoy every single one – from the barrel of monkeys airplane drop to him escaping from capture with just a boot and a hand, each sequence was creative and not just “Iron Man flies and blows stuff up in his suit.” And let’s not forget Trevor. (He’s the best.)

All in all, I think this is RDJ’s best performance in the three Iron Man movies, with great performances by Don Cheadle and Gwyneth Paltrow as well. Plus Guy Pearce is always fantastic.

5. X2: X-Men United – When this came out in 2003, this was the peak of superhero movies. As an eighteen year old who had always loved the X-Men growing up in his childhood, this movie was it. No movie could ever get better. From Hugh Jackman’s pitch perfect Wolverine, to great adaptations of two personal childhood favorite mutants (Iceman and Nightcrawler) to some really awesome action sequences (Nightcrawler intro? Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike, anyone?) to having an actually decent story, this movie had it all. Nothing was ever going to top it. There was no way Hollywood could get better than this, right?

I’m really glad they proved me wrong.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy – I think this movie pretty much sold the idea that the MCU can get away with anything if they continue to pull off perfect casting like this. Chris Pratt went from Andy Dwyer to household name as Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon went from a minor character who was in Ultimate MvC3 to a fan favorite, and Groot…well, Groot was Groot and dancing baby Groot is probably the cutest thing anybody has ever seen.

It’d been a long time since a good space opera movie was released and this fit the niche quite nicely. The entire snarky team worked amazing together, getting to see all sorts of fun locations in space (especially the giant Celestial head) and the soundtrack was quite awesome, too. Another great, fun, superb movie that surprised due to not being as well-known as other properties.

3. X-Men: First Class – I know a lot of people consider Bryan Singer to be the best X-Men director and either X2 or DOFP as their favorite X-Men movie, but I just love everything about First Class. The slower pace, all the kid mutants being trained – Michael Fassbender’s amazingly conflicted performance as Erik/Magneto as well as James McAvoy as the proto-Professor Xavier. Maybe it’s that I just really enjoy Matthew Vaughn’s directing, as every movie he’s directed has been up there in my favorites. This also started my crush on Jennifer Lawrence. While she’s definitely become a more household name since First Class came out, how fun she was as Mystique in this was what set off my crush on her. Funny enough – this is the only movie on my list with any of my celebrity crushes in it.

Anywho, with that we get to the top 2:

2. Captain America: Civil War
1. Captain America: Winter Soldier

Winter Soldier is by and far my favorite Marvel movie. In fact, it would probably rank in my top ten favorite movies ever, not just Marvel. As such I had high expectations for Civil War – it was being directed by the same people and while it was going to be telling a completely different story, I felt like they were going to be able to handle the project very well. The writers were the same, the composer was the same – everything was shaping up for it to be an amazing sequel.

And it didn’t disappoint (except in one area). Civil War is an absolutely amazing movie. It manages an ensemble cast to a T – it never feels crowded, all the characters get their own moments. People who are funny are supposed to be funny. People who aren’t supposed to be funny still get some fun moments, but they’re natural – unlike a Whedon script where everybody gets a quip like Oprah was handing them out. All the action sequences are fantastic (except for a little bit of shaky-cam in a few places). It’s a true, good sequel to Winter Soldier.

There’s only one place Civil War fails that makes it not as great as Winter Soldier – the score. As I’ve stated in a previous post, music is important to me. The Winter Soldier score was top-notch and I bought it immediately when I got home after the first movie. The Civil War score is forgettable and non-offensive – it’s just there. We have all sorts of different heroes that could have had their own motifs – it was a veritable playground for any composer. And yet somehow Jackman dropped the ball despite already having a great base in the Winter Soldier score.

Winter Soldier is a pseudo-spy thriller action movie with great characterization and a few lighthearted moments. It makes Black Widow a much more well-rounded character than she was in Avengers, it introduces the best bro in superhero history in Sam. The elevator fight sequence is one of my favorites overall – along with, well…basically every action sequence in the movie. I could go on and on about the praise for this movie – the writing, the directing, the music – I’ve probably watched it seven or eight times since I got it on Blu-Ray two years.

Civil War is almost as good. I’m definitely going to be seeing it again in theaters, and I’ll probably be watching it on Blu-Ray a decent amount as well. With the right score, it would have been a perfect movie. Without it, it gets #2. After this movie, I’m really looking forward to both the new Spiderman and Black Panther movies that are coming in the future – although they better have as good writers/characterization as they did in Civil War. I’m also confident that the Russos are going to be able to handle the Infinity War movies well since their writers are also scheduled to be the same.

I just hope they either get Henry Jackman to kick it up a notch, or grab a composer that will astound and astonish for the big MCU finale. I want that event to be as awe-inspiring as the initial Avengers was, just with the amazing story beats and action that I now trust the Russos to provide and a score that adds oomph.

If you liked the Avengers or AoU, you’ll love Civil War – it’s better on every level if you’re an action movie fan, it’s better on every level if you like a good storyline and great acting and characterization. It’s great on a humor level as well, although the humor feels more natural and less like everybody has the smartassery skill equipped. It’s…about the same music wise (the Avengers score wasn’t particularly memorable either). It’s a definite yes. Go see it.

Always #TeamCap.

PSA About P

So I don’t really have time to do a long blog post, so I’m just going to rant a little bit about bathrooms.

No, not that bathroom issue. As far as I’m concerned, I’m in the bathroom to pee or shit and then leave – I could care less who else is in there with me. Your genitals, your gender, your business – I just wanna pee/shit, wash my hands, and leave. Don’t care how other people are dressed, don’t care what gender is on their birth certificate or what gender they are now – hell, I’m a fan of just having unisex bathrooms to make things simpler.

No, the bathroom issue I have is this – for God’s sake fellow people with penises, if you’re gonna pee in a toilet learn to fucking aim. Seriously, nearly every other time I go into a stall in a public place there’s urine all over the toilet seat. It’s not that small a target and you’re not that far away – you can master your own penis and hit the damn water in the bowl.

And hey, you know what? If you aren’t confident in your aim, they have this handy-dandy modification to the toilet where you can lift the seat up and not only give yourself a bigger target, but that way there’s zero chance you get your urine all over where somebody’s butt will be in the future! I mean, I guess you could still hit it if you’re going for a crazy bank shot off the back wall, but then we’ve got bigger issues to discuss. But honestly, it takes two seconds and a miniscule amount of energy to lift the seat. Not that difficult.

If you still don’t feel like you’d be able to hit the broad side of a barn with your pee stream, guess what else you can do? Sit the fuck down. Take a breather. Relax a minute and just enjoy the fact that you don’t have to think about aiming at all. Oh, are you worried that you might sit in somebody else’s urine? WELL THEN DON’T FUCKING PEE ALL OVER THE DAMN SEAT YOURSELF.

It’s not that hard, people. It’s not rocket science. Look where you’re peeing, that’s all I’m asking.

The God Question

Once I started writing this blog, I came up with many, many ideas on things that I wanted to write about and discuss on my blog. I’ve touched on a few things but there are a lot of subjects I want to write about that I just haven’t sat down and done because they’re going to take a decent amount of time and effort. One of these sets of ideas I dubbed the “Offensive Trilogy” – a set of three subjects that I have opinions on that I feel are most likely to either offend people or start arguments. I’ve been hesitant to write these posts because I’m not an argumentative person by nature – I’m very laid back and don’t particularly care to push my viewpoints on certain subjects onto other people. I go by the philosophy that I have my views and you have yours, and we might disagree but as long as you aren’t hurting anyone and I’m not hurting anyone, we can agree to disagree and let’s move on and be chums.

I’ve decided that today’s a good enough day as any to breach one of these subjects, so today’s blog post is going to be what I consider my least offensive viewpoint out of my most likely to offend viewpoints. And that topic is religion. Right now you’re probably saying to yourself “His least offensive viewpoint is about religion, one of the most heated subjects to discuss in all sort of social situations? What the hell are the other two topics?!” Well, we’ll get to that in later posts, I’m sure. Let’s focus on the now.

I decided to start with this subject because I recently had a conversation about it with a friend and it’s sort of fresh in my mind and easy to articulate. So what’s my opinion on religion? Well, I can sum it up pretty easily: I believe in God, but I don’t believe in religion.

I could go into a long backstory about the religion I was raised up in but that doesn’t really apply to why I settled on my views now. The simplest explanation for my views is basically through following a short logical leap. Taking a quote from Wikipedia: “In monotheism and henotheism, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.”

In essence, the general belief is that God is perfect. The idea then goes that God created man in their own image. Except man was imperfect by design (whether intentionally or through original sin, or whatever mechanism the religion itself believes in). So we have God – a perfect being – and man – an imperfect being. Now, what is religion? Religion is what man created to worship God. So what follows logically is that religion is imperfect.

Now, dependent on your religion, there are lots of origin stories, different prophets, people that were spoken to by God, etc. But all of these stories are written down by man – passed on by man. The Bible is sometimes referred to as the word of God – except the Bible has been translated and retranslated many, many times over the centuries. Interpretations of religious texts vary wildly between religions – and a lot of times within religions. The fact of the matter is – if we follow the idea that God is perfect and man is not, no religion can be the one perfect, true religion because man created and runs all religions, therefore man has made religion imperfect through their own existence.

(This argument is, of course, centered around the monothiestic God and what-not – I’ve taken a few classes centered around Eastern religions but have not dived into them enough to make a cohesive statement or belief about them.)

On top of that, it is my personal opinion that if there is an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God – that God would know what is in your brain and is in your heart. Therefore, true belief should not be dependent on a set of rules created by man but rather what you believe in your own self. If a person is good, truly good – God will know it. Why would that God get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday life choices? Why would God care who you marry, or what restroom you want to use, or whether you sat in a church last Sunday, or whether you masturbated last Tuesday?

There is a quote that I remember seeing once that was attributed to Neil Degrasse Tyson, but I can’t find it so I’m not sure if it was actually by him. Nor can I remember the quote exactly, but it was something along the lines of “How arrogant can man be to think that they are the center of the created universe, when the universe is so vast and infinite.” I may be completely misremembering but I swear I saw something along those lines somewhere by somebody. (I’m great at bibliographies.) My counter-argument to that (possibly made up quote I made up myself) is – the universe is so vast and infinite, that in my opinion it makes no sense for there not to be a God or God-like being out there somewhere. There is so much we don’t know about the universe and what is out there. The cosmos are so vast that it gives me the willies thinking about how insignificant this chunk of rock is that is hurtling through space.

And yet I’ve still felt that peaceful, calm feeling within myself that makes me certain there’s more to life than just this. I’ve never really felt that sitting in a church pew on a Sunday, unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess, depending on your viewpoint) but I have had it. Sometimes at a concert when I feel one with the music and one with the universe. Or those small moments when everything just seems right and you know that this is your place and where you’re supposed to be.

I choose to believe in God, but I also choose to believe in God in my own way. I don’t need a book or a preacher or a guy on the sidewalk to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, and what my own morality should be. But I also choose to respect all religions as well. Just because I don’t believe in organized religion myself doesn’t mean I don’t see how it benefits other people. Like I said at the beginning, I’m a fairly laid-back person – as long as you aren’t harming anybody you can believe whatever you want to belive. I’m aware all religions have fanatic nutjobs, but there are plenty of fanatic nutjobs with no religion, too. I choose to judge each individual person on their nutjobbery, thank you very much.

If you believe strongly in a higher power and choose to use that belief to promote bigotry, racism, sexism, and prejudice in the idea that you know what God thinks about that particular subject, remember this: the God you believe in is omniscient. Which means they know what you’re thinking. And you’re not omniscient. Which means you don’t know what God is thinking. Which means God probably thinks you’re an asshole.

I’m going to end this particular post with one of my favorite quotes by Albert Einstein: “A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”

That’s my opinion, at any rate. Hopefully I don’t offend too many people.

Untitled Rambling

I tried to go to bed last night and was having trouble falling asleep. So after rolling around in bed for a while I reached over to my nightstand to grab my glass of water for a drink. Unfortunately, my depth perception is shit without my glasses (okay, to be fair, my vision as a whole is shit without my glasses) and me being the clumsy idiot I am, I knocked the glass over – spilling water all over my lamp, the book I was reading, my phone, and the floor.

I smelled burning so I quickly unplugged the lamp and used a cloth to wipe up the water around the electrical cords near my nightstand, then tended to my phone and book (which luckily still had its plastic cover around it so damage was minimal.

Needless to say, after this auspicious start (and continuing to struggle with sleeping) I expected today to be a pretty miserable day.

But it wasn’t! Nothing particularly good happened, but for some reason over the course of the day my mood just got better and better. I’m pretty happy today. But being happy means I can’t really think of anything in particular to write about. So I have a problem because while I have a lot of topics I plan on covering, none of them strike me as something I’m in the mood to write about right now.

Since I’m in a good mood and need to write something, I guess I’ll just ramble about a few things I’m excited about. Like the final season of Person of Interest is premiering tonight! It’s sad that it’s the last season, but not many shows get five seasons of content – and those that get more usually wear out their welcome. So I’m glad we’re getting a finale that’s planned and not cancelled out of the blue. And if you haven’t seen any episodes, please watch a few episodes on Netflix. It’s good, trust me, you’ll be hooked by the fourth episode I promise.

You know what else is this week? Fucking Captain America. Winter Soldier is my favorite MCU movie and high up there on my list of must-watch movies, so I’m super stoked for Civil War. I realize it’s more of an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie – but the Russos are amazing directors and I can’t wait to see what they do with a full superhero cast. Suicide Squad is the only other movie coming out this year that I’m nearly as excited for. Well, Independence Day: Resurgence. And Magnificent Seven. Okay, you know what – I like movies and I’m really psyched for Civil War and let’s just leave it at that.

(#TeamCap)

I’m excited that I get to see my favorite comedian around the time of my birthday. I’m excited that Blink-182’s album is coming out at the beginning of July and that’s going to be awesome. I’m excited that I’m going to be visiting two new cities over the summer (maybe three?) and will most likely be seeing Blink-182 live in concert.

And next Tuesday I’m going to get my hands on Uncharted 4 – which I can’t wait to play. Of course, that means I have less than a week to finish Dark Souls 3 (but I can do it – maybe). Oh, and Dishonored 2 was announced as releasing in November so hell yeah I’m all over that shit, too. Oh, and what caps off June? The conclusion of the Zero Escape trilogy – fuck yes. I love video games.

I have a lot to be excited about – maybe I’m in such a good mood because I’m letting all the good things in today and not letting the negative energy get to me. Or maybe somebody spiked my coffee this morning. Whatever, this has been a random rambling train of thought as that’s all I can put out right now. Whee!