The Gremlin's Wings

As I was traveling on the train the other day, I saw someone reading a book about morals. The title of the book escapes me at the moment, but I clearly remember the sub-title of the book: “How to live a moral life in an immoral world”. I can not find the book by a Google search by this string, unfortunately, but that is not the important bit. What is important is this: while I do appreciate a good read every once in a while, this one just seemed to get me chuckling inside, the more I think about it.

Now I know you are probably wondering what I am talking about at this particular point in time.

Truth be told, they inherently are. Most moral codes are instilled in us while we are still young and impressionable. By the time we are teenagers, we have this set of ethics and morals that is harder to change and usually forms the core of our beliefs. Morals, ethics and beliefs are are so closely intertwined that it is difficult to discern where one ends and another begins. Is it the moral thing to chop someone’s hand off if they steal from you? Not in Western culture, but it is a practice that still persists to this day in some parts of the world.

Is your own sense of morality horrified at this?

What is surprising is that mine is not necessarily. They stick to their guns of what they believe in. A belief is what we base our own personal moral codes behind. Again with the Godwin’s Law, Hitler believed the Germans were the Master Race, and all others should be eliminated. He had the moral that he protected Germans at all costs. Then again, Hitler was a crazy man. Beliefs help us shape morals, and are an integral part of the process of creating our morals.

So why did I find this book funny?

I swear, I am not this guy.

Well, it all comes down to why the person would need that book.

I understand self-confidence issues; I have about ten billion of them. However, what I was laughing at was… if someone does not stand up for what they perceive as a moral wrong, what good is it for them to read about other people’s morals? I can sit here and tell you what my morals are. Do I expect you to take them all as your own? No. Most self-help books – and this was the way this book was coming off to me as – promise something of a how to for dealing with life challenges. Personally, I think they are all a joke.

Is it morally right for them to publish these books?

Then again, I guess it may be. Maybe I am wrong in this. Maybe what these books do is inspire people to stand up for what they believe in. Maybe. I do not know. hey, maybe I can get in and write one, see where it would take me. “How to Not Get Ridiculed In My Blog”. Has a nice ring to it, no?

Apparently, that book title was already taken.

But truth be told, this title also got me thinking about something. Something very dark. Something that makes me question things, to see if I have strong beliefs, good morals supporting them.

What would you give up your morals for?

Would you give up your morals if the alternative was to starve to death?

Would you give up your morals if your child’s life (or for the people who do not have kids, the life of the person you care deepest about) was threatened?

Would you give up your morals for large amounts of money?

There are people I know who would not do this whatsoever. There are others that I know would. Some may say that the morals of the people in the military are quite high – at least, the good ones that defend their country – but I submit that some may have turned over their own morals for enlistment. We are taught from a young age to not hit or fight with others, and yet soldiers all they do is fight for our freedom by killing those that would take it away from us. I respect that in them, and I respect that their moral code is changed significantly from what mine is. But still, they gave up some of their own morals to protect our ability to set our own.

I think I will leave this one here, because I want you to feel out the answer to this question yourself. I invite anyone who read this to comment below about what they thought about what they would give up their own morals for. Would it take desperation, a noble cause, love to give it up?

Think about your answer before you say that you would not.

It may come as some shock to you that I was never a born leader. Wait a second… there are people who may read this whom have worked with me in the past. In that case, then you would not be shocked at all. And neither would my parents, my friends, ex-girlfriends… okay, so it might not be a shock to many. But still!

When I am put in a position of leadership, by whatever freakish circumstance there is, I will admit that I am probably not the best choice for the position. I am moody, sometimes getting really irrational, sometimes confrontational, sometimes just wanting to run away… and the list goes on. There has only ever been one position that I was leading in that I have ever even been remotely good at, and even then I am not too sure of it.

One of the things I have learned in my few years out there is that in order to be a leader, you have to do some things differently than what you used to do. It works a lot like customer service, really: no one wants to know what the sales associate’s attitude is towards certain people; they want a sale. Anything less than this, they do not make the sale. Sales associate does not sell something, they get let go. The funny thing is that the same principle is true of leaders, whether it is business leaders (with the exception of Donald Trump), politicians, or something small, like leadership of a gaming guild or a gaming community.

Is his comb-over the source of his dark power? Or his wallet? ...I think the former.

The Internet is a good example of a place where this is present. Generally, if someone is a friendly and courteous leader, they will have people follow them willingly. Some can see why a position of leadership is a position of power. In the case of the Internet, though, the position is usually granted to you by a few people. I, for example, can say things here and I have the power of writing this down because I know that, somewhere, someone will actually read this. According to some, this is a power. I think it is just that I might have something interesting to say and someone may want to read it. Whether they do or not is up to them. That is the way of the Internet.

However, some people who do have people elevating them to a position of power have to remember what comes with great power. This guy by the name of Peter Parker might have some idea, he got told it by his Uncle Ben who died tragically.

With great power comes great responsibility.

It is true, but really it is any type of power has responsibility for usage of said power. It is the moral thing to do.

Take, for example, the situation with al Qaeda. The leaders of the organization were given power by people who believed them, and then they took that power and twisted it into something destructive. Hitler did it too (and yeah, I just used Godwin’s Law), by shaping it up for the Germans being the master race and leading an attack on sovereign nations just because they could.

If you want less violent examples… let us examine the story of the douche bag Perez Hilton. Actually, let us not do that, because that makes me want to break a standard of decorum I decided upon for this space a while ago: I am not going to swear on here. Let us just say, it is already thoroughly covered and move on.

This is an accurate representation of a douche bag.

My original point was that people do listen to the leader of a group, and of all those above examples, the group does listen to those people. Osama still has followers, the leader of the Third Reich used his power to kill dissenters, and Perez has traffic to his site that I would love to see on mine (well, okay, maybe not the people per se because I do not want Valley Girls all over my comments, but you get my point). All leaders do have people that will listen to the leader, and they give them that power.

The question is… what does a leader do with that power? Do they take it and try to do good things with it? Or do they do evil with it?

Obviously I am not saying that we will get the next Hitler off of the Internet. We probably already have that at 4chan.org’s boards. What I am saying is that there is different things that a leader can do. Here’s what a good leader does:

• Stays neutral in debates and moderates the discussion
• Lets others vent their frustrations
• Acknowledges that there may be good points within negative feedback directed towards them
• Listens to and publicly respects the opinions of those they do not personally like
• Acting academically in discussions
• Be understanding of others’ emotions and different volatile relationships

Here is what a bad leader would do:

• Slanders someone who does not have power to further their own point
• Does not listen to the advice of others
• Publicly humiliates those directing negative feedback towards them
• Acting emotionally in discussions*
• Ignore the feelings of others

I do recognize that when I have had a chance to do some leadership, I have done the stuff in both the good and the bad columns. I am no saint when it comes to this, and neither is anyone else.

Not an accurate representation of me. I got a haircut and found my shoes.

I only acknowledge that the good leaders also acknowledge the things that would make them bad leaders, and they try to minimize that impact in their role. I guess you can summarize everything I am trying to say as: try to be good. That’s really all I want to get across.

Now, back to my other writing goals, and less blasphemy for me.

*This one can be taken both ways, really. On the one hand, how you feel about a topic does come into play when defining your own moral code, but on the other hand reacting to others’ points with raw emotions is a bad thing. It is a balance that should be reflected in a leader’s everyday life, and one of the defining characteristics of a good leader versus a bad leader. H-uh. I may have to analyze later.

All right, there has been something on my mind for the last long while. It has nagged at me, especially since I moved back to the city and saw this every day, I feel like a dam that is going to burst if I do not vent this frustration with this particular trend anywhere. The fact of the matter is:

I hate skinny jeans on men.

Yes, this is a fashion trend. Gah!

Just posting that picture up there has made me feel sick to my stomach.

Skinny leg, low-cut jeans on men is a fashion trend that I cannot follow in good conscience, and there is some damning evidence for it as well. First off, I’ve seen this one around for most of the 2000′s (I always get confused in what to call this decade – the 2000′s? The Zeros? The Naughties?), and the first place I saw it? Women. I can admit, a woman in one of these jeans doesn’t look too bad. Maybe they look a little more fragile in these ones, more like a stiff breeze could break their legs, and I think it may encourage the anorexic/bulimic look, but if you have the body for it and it works for your fashion sense, go for it. There is some women that genuinely can rock out this look.

Note I only say some women.

Some fashion designer, in whatever infinite wisdom they use (insert very sarcastic eye-rolling motions here), decided that this look would be perfect for males. And voila. A trend is born.

Problem is… it looks ass-ugly.

I have no problems with some things being unisex. The hooded sweatshirt, for example, is a good example. I think females look good in one – granted, they look even better when wearing mine after a night of… okay, let us not go there – and it is an acceptable thing. Guys’ ties is something that some people are using as a fashion trend on females – a hint, it only looked good on Avril Lavigne for about two years and she stopped wearing it too. Some of the long hairstyles that made it over from females to males I can stand, as well.

Definitely not this one, Justin. Glad you cut it, or else you would be getting a subscription to Ass Pirate Monthly.

But these jeans that is the focus of this post… just… NO!

Unisex is great, but when I hear stories about men interchanging their pants with their girlfriend and wearing their girlfriend’s pants… that is just stepping over a line. (Yes, I have heard that one, from a male who was proud of this fact. Scared me to no end.)  It almost seems that society is trying to castrate men – first the mustache falls out of favor, then male manicures, and now this?!? – and leave us with effeminate males. If I was a conspiracy nut, I would say that a group of hardcore feminists are in control of the fashion world and trying to strike back at males for centuries of oppression, and it was a subtle way of striking fear into those that are male, and proud to be male. I am not, so I will just say it is disturbing.

Why am I speaking up now? Actually, I have told this to the face of several men, whom have just shrugged it off. The one that I mentioned earlier that swapped pants from his girlfriend told me that she thought it was hot. To be fair, I knew both of them, and I always thought they were both semi-freaks of nature as-is. Is this anti-masculinity as a trend, or is that the little paranoid voice in my head that feels that it is perfectly logical to buy a shack in the middle of the woods, three rifles, enough ammo to declare World War 3 and foodstuffs to last a nuclear holocaust talking and saying that?

Yeah, but does it have a good 'Net connection?

Of course, it could just be that fashion is inherently stupid. I mean, have you ever actually watched any of the reality shows where they are competing to be fashion designers? I would not want any of them on a remote desert island with me, and they would be the first ones sacrificed for food if that were the case – a fashionable roast, anyone? – so I tend to agree with that. So really, we are trusting trending to come from these people?

I guess I will just have to live with the fact that men want to be emasculated. The more we buy these clothes, the more plentiful they become in the Gaps, the Old Navys, the Off The Walls, or wherever people buy clothing. I am just wondering when it will be fashionable for men to wear skirts and dress like 80′s hookers… and not be in drag. Maybe never. Maybe in ten years. Maybe we will all look like extras from the Rocky Horror Picture Show in five years. Who really knows?

All I know? I am not going to be doing the Time Warp again. Even if it is just a jump to the left… and then a step to the right.

I would like to eventually get married.

Is this a surprise that I declare this? Probably not, but maybe it is for those that may be uninformed about me. I’m not exactly the most sociable person around, true, but I think that there’s a Mrs. Gremlin out there for me. Some people spend all their lives searching for that special someone, and they may find them. I prefer to look at the positive side that I can find my Mrs. Gremlin, and I still have many years ahead of me, more than what I leave behind. At least, I hope I do. Have I found her already? Yeah.

You know, marriage is a true oddity. It is about the commitment of two people to each other, how they will love each other for all time, etc. Marriage and weddings is a religious ceremony repeated across many faiths; even for the non-religious and the atheists it can be a big production, though. It is one thing that most people across the globe can say that they have in common, that weddings are prevalent in societies. The ceremonies may look different, but the process is almost the same if you look at all of them. The general gist is people joining their lives together. Most of the time, I would assume this is because of another force: love.

I can’t go through a post on marriage without talking about love, and explain a few of my views on this particular subject. Whether you believe love is a wonderful thing that links people together, or a biological reactionary to the human need to procreate, it is essentially present in our lives. It is a passion for something that cannot be easily denied or forgotten, and leaves an incredible impression on our psyche, one that I would dare say would be something that shapes us the most in our lives. We associate most of our relationships through our passion we have for others and ourselves, and the direction we go in life can be heavily influenced by the aforementioned passion we can show for things. To borrow a quote from a Hugh Grant movie:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around.

(TANGENT: Love Actually was an impressive movie that openly discussed love in an entertaining fashion. I would recommend it… but if you are a male, grab a woman before renting it. Definite chick flick, but it’s not as obnoxious as others. Also, rent it in the month before Christmas for maximum effect, preferably within a week or two. You’ll see why.)

Note my use of “passion” instead of “love”? Passion, rather than just being a purely physical thing trashy romance novels try to portray, is actually a general term that should be behind love… and hate, really. Nick Scipio said it best: “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.” The same passion you use for love can easily translate to hate, but the lack of passion, the lack of any intense feelings, or indifference, is at the polar opposite of the emotional spectrum. This explains propaganda so well, as the entire point of it is to erase all indifference and set the subject in a passion that is controlled in a way that is favorable to the presenter. Case in point: any political smear ad campaign ever done.

Now that I have gone off and talked about love, the point I was trying to make was that love is part and parcel for a marriage to work. An expression of two people (leaving out polygamists, sorry) to the commitment of lifelong love and partnership is getting married, and who am I to stand in the way of two people expressing that? I ask myself that in this subject, and I cannot really say that I am justified in any way to stand in the way of this, unless I believe that the couple, on a case-by-case basis, does not love each other. Yes, I take that part of wedding ceremonies seriously; you do not?

A few years back, there was a similar debate to this in the United States of America about certain people marrying other certain people. It was against God’s nature, perverse, unholy… you name it, there was an argument against it. What am I referring to? A man of dark skin marrying a woman of white skin… or was it white man, black woman? I know one was frowned upon, even illegal for a long time, within the States. Some places it is still frowned upon and discriminated against, but that is because the people that do are brought up that way and do not know any better. (They are still wrong, though, in my opinion.) Is it illegal anymore? No.

So if the same arguments are being used today for same-sex marriages, did the Bible change?

Did someone find a new scripture?

Did Pope Benedict (whom I always associate with eggs) suddenly come up with a new Bible that specifically says that weddings between people of different skin color is OK, as long as they’re not the same sex?

Actually, that last one has always confused me. WAS there a new bible that specifically forbade two people from expressing their love for each other by getting married? I am not a Christian, true, but I have problems believing that an all-mighty God that is forgiving and loves everyone suddenly hates people that openly admit attraction for the same sex. Did Jesus all of a sudden hate little Billy because he found out he liked looking at Tommy instead of Jill? I just… I do not get it. As far as I know, there is nothing specifically in any part of the Bible that says a marriage is only in between a man and a woman. Marriages had been going on for years before the New Testament was written; it’s only natural the Bible includes at least one marriage ceremony.

(Also, I would like to point out that the Bible as read today has been edited at least once a century. Oh, right, and it’s been translated from Latin. Languages change over 2000 years. Perhaps not Latin, but English does, definitely. Just saying that people reading and translating could have made errors; the Bible may be the word of God, according to Christians, but the Bible was not written in your language first, it was written in Latin or Aramaic. Some impact may be lost in translation, and other via just humans over the years that admittedly sin and seek forgiveness for their sins; nobody is perfect, after all. Whoa, heavy tangent… but I have a strong idea that you may want to question things before trusting them fully.)

The passion I see in fighting marriages in between same-sex partners, I acknowledge. Obviously, there is some passion in this subject, though I do not understand it – how is marriage cheapened by two people whom do not believe in the same thing as you but love each other getting married? – and I do not personally agree.

So everyone out there, can we agree on dropping any modifiers from the word “marriage”? According to common law, marriage has no modifier anywhere else, why should those of the same sex that are marrying be called something different so that “your” term is not cheapened? Ownership of a concept and a word that has been around for thousands of years and predates the Old and New Testaments, practiced around the world just seems to be stupid to me. If a church does not want to perform the marriage, fine. Making others not perform it? Seems like a case of “I’m imposing my morals on others, believe in what I believe in or DIE!” to me. I thought that sentiment was waning, but apparently I was wrong.

Live and let live. You will live longer.

You know, I had this great post lined up to speak about today. I was going to talk about humanity’s stagnation over the past ten years, and how we as a culture (the “Western World”) are headed into the vast abyss of thoughtlessness and uncreative culture. I had something so clearly written in my head… and now it’s missing. I’ll probably return on this subject at a later time, but for now…

Something happened in the meantime that got me thinking on a completely different track. I’m sort of flying by the seat of my pants on this one, but for all that do know me… it’s something that I do quite often, with mixed results – usually good ones, but that may be just tooting my own horn.

Anyway…

A friend of mine approached me recently and told me her dog died. No, not just died… poisoned. Someone fed her dog a wood stain, killed it, then proceeded to taunt her and her family via phone calls – including a twelve year old and a seven year old – that the dog was dead and not coming back, laughing at their reactions, and repeating this process. Yes, they were familiar with the person that did it… but my God.

Humanity is made up of people on all sides of the cruelty spectrum, from the people who wouldn’t harm a fly to the people who would commit genocide without batting an eyelash. We all coexist within a strange little world, where we interact with each other in a way where we can hurt others by doing some of the cruelest acts that can be imagined, if our minds are put to that test. I’m not citing any facts there, this is just my opinion on it, from human observation and just what I have seen. A good way to tell how cruel a person is is to figure out how cruel they are to those that are more vulnerable than they are.

I know, I am not perfect. I get mad, I lash out. It’s just something that I do, and I regret it instantly when I do. But still, it pales in comparison to those that would murder for entertainment value, or to those that would mistreat small animals so that they can feel a sense of power or control. I understand why they do psychologically… but I don’t agree with it.

I’d do more on this subject, but I think it’d better be left for when I am concentrating properly. For now… I’ll just let my outrage at these people stew as I plan a very nasty and vile way of dealing with the people who did this.