tales of hope and temptation
subtitle: “nothing’s gonna change my world”
On the one hand, I have a hospital bill for $1032.35, we wait on the “this is your final notice!” statement before we call and arrange a monthly payment plan, might as well. On the other hand, I have a check for $150.00 that places me in a moral quandary.
The bill, I know we owe. I know exactly why we owe it, and I’m used to working the system to pay it off as we can, when we can, without letting it hit our credit record. So far so good.
But the check is from someone with a caregiver. And now for the rest of the story. What? I’ve already been compared to Andy Rooney! I might as well shoot for the big guns! (grin)
I keep going back to incidents that happened over 14 years ago, about the time I first moved to OKC. This particular time I was driving on a cold and rainy day, and before anyone leaps there, I wasn’t intoxicated or on any medication. I was just still arrogant enough to believe that I would never be the cause of an accident. Not by doing anything so foolish as to assume that no one would be driving in my blind spot when I decided to make a sudden un-signaled lane change. On the freeway, on an overpass, on a cold and rainy day, with patches of ice on the overpass.
The back, driver’s side corner of my car met the front passenger side bumper of a 3/4 ton truck. The driver of the truck said he didn’t have any time to react, and watched helplessly as my car suddenly swerved across all lanes of traffic to wind up against the railing of the overpass. I was lucky. I got to watch all of this from the passenger seat of my car. Oh, did I mention I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt? I didn’t get a scratch either. The truck got a small scratch in his bumper. My car was totaled. Nobody else was involved.
But as the adrenaline wore off, and I realized I was in the passenger seat with nobody at the wheel of the car, I began to question my judgment. What? You’ve never been there? (grin)
In a few hours, I have to risk offending my wife’s friend, the one who sent us the check. I have to call her caregiver and ask if she is aware that her charge sent us this check.
A few month’s ago, my wife was feeling much better. She was happy, aware, alert, doing our finances again, controlling her own medications, and she got her driver’s license renewed. Those last two happened against medical advice, but heck, she had made so much progress, and you can’t fight progress, right?
This culminated in the incident that occurred three days before we had to re-commit her to the Senior Diagnostic Unit for treatment of manic delirium. We call it the “muddin for God” story. Don’t ask. Let’s just say that I began to once again question my judgment in allowing her to drive. Again. What can I possibly say to excuse this decision? How about hope for a loved one is very addictive and persuasive? Never mind. I guess you have to have been there. Believe me, where I had to go next was worse.
As her caregiver, I had to ask her Psychiatrist to issue a written statement that she was incapable of driving. Ever again. I had to take away her driver’s license and her keys. Again and for the last time. No matter how much “improvement” she may show or experience in the future.
Still, we don’t go out to eat anymore. Can’t afford it. We are allowing her sisters to buy us Angel Food Ministries boxes every month to stretch out our food budget. I’ve PAP’d every non-generic medication she has that I can, and still wince at the amount we have to pay every month for generics and medical service bills that can’t be avoided in serious or emergency health care situations. And the health insurance is gone.
At this point, even $150.00 out of the blue is a lot of spare change. Sometimes acting in a godly manner is a pain.
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This has become one of my favorite versions of this song. I love the emotional and visual contrast. The movie wasn’t that bad either. Gotta give mad props to the Rufus Wainwright cover as well.
Fifty years of personal experience have taught me that the reality I live in is a creation of God. Godly behavior always gets a better result in the long run. Hey, have any of you watched FlashForward? My wife says it’s really good, so I’m going to watch the first seven episodes today. I still trust her taste. It’s her judgment that I have no choice but to start to question. For her own safety, as well as that of others. I hate that. I’d rather nothing change my world.
Wouldn’t you?
tuna fish salad sandwiches rock
Subtitle: Jesus invented the 3 day rule
So what is the three day rule all about anyway? Who cares! Isn’t Neil Patrick Harris funny?
“Barney: Plus, it’s Sunday, so everyone’s in church already. They’re all in there, “Oh no, Jesus is dead”.Then, bam! He burst through the back door, runs up the aisle. Everyone ’s totally psyched. And, FYI, that’s when he invented the high-five.”
Can you tell I’m almost through Season 4? Have you watched all the episodes of every season of a good sitcom since you first heard of it this year? This is my 3rd one.
In case you were wondering, I just got back from a week at my mother-in-law’s house in Bella Vista. Nice foliage, hills, dales, etc. I stayed in the basement almost the entire time watching TV and reading Sci-Fi. Hard stuff too! Honor Harrington, dude. Just can’t get enough of that chick. Or is it dude? I mean, David Weber writes the Honor Universe stuff. With other people sometimes, but mainly other dudes.
Can you tell I’ve run out of things to talk about? Hey, that last post should’ve included the theme song from Smallville. I got like, zero responses to teh theme, dudez. Oh well. I did get comments! (grin)
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If only we could get Neil Patrick Harris to front for Shinedown in Save me:
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What? Too soon after the good, the bad, and the ugly? Have you seen the Remy Zero Live version of the Smallville theme song?
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Well now you have, sunshine. (grin)
Can you tell we’re in better spirits? We have absolutely no reason to be, but you can’t be depressed all the time. It’s just not healthy. Besides, the Dow is up today! So far… What? I can’t be happy for it even if I don’t own any?
Scuse me while I go eat the Tuna fish Salad Sandwiches my wife just made. With some lettuce, yeah baby, that’s the stuff. The secret to good Tuna fish is to make sure it’s half egg salad. Why not? And she made ice tea. Home made ice tea. Yeah, you heard me. Want some? (grin)
sinner for sale
subtitle here: you’ve got God. I only have me.
I saw this over on Candid Chatter and couldn’t resist stealing it. Heidi did all the heavy lifting. (grin)
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I’m going to add this to my About Page. It’s why I keep coming back every time I give up. Any takers? Bueller? Bueller? (grin)
the ugly
subtitle: why can’t the bitch just drop dead already?
I’m not above confessing. As long as we’re being all transparent. The truth is there are times when I wish she would just die already. I’m hating this descent into madness. “We” are ever so agonizingly spiraling deeper and deeper into it mentally, physically, spiritually every day. And because it’s a “relationship”, and I have to say those words; “she’d be there for me if our positions were reversed”, I have to stay. I can’t run. No matter how tempting that is. Just to give up and run.
As she loses more and more of the person I married, and I have to go through these exhausting, sleep-deprived, soul numbing, brain on fire nights and days of her ranting religious ideation that makes a mockery of her beliefs, there are times when I wish she was dead.
Yeah, I know. Pitiful and disgusting. There’s more. I hate the person I’m becoming almost as much as I hate the person she’s becoming. And since I already had low self-esteem issues before she had to go and get prematurely old and senile and unhealthy on me, it’s not a pretty picture I am painting for you.
I wake up from nightmares of what my life was like before her and what it’s most likely going to be like after she dies and I blame her, you, God, anybody but me. Right now my brain burns from lack of sleep and worry and this constant need to try and “fix” everything and take care of everybody and I’m not that guy. But I have to be. And it’s all her fault.
Get better or drop dead. I don’t know who you are anymore. I’m tired. I’m sick. And I’m sick and tired of being “there” for you when you can’t be there for you. Or for me. I want to scream and yell and pick you up and throw you across the room. I don’t want to have to become the parent, and be comforting and sympathetic and all that bullshit. And never ever again get to just yell and scream at an equal, my wife, and then make up. She took that from me. And she takes more every day.
Give me back my wife, you selfish, childish, needy bitch. Or just drop dead. So I can be free of both of us. I don’t have to be here. I don’t have to do this. I can leave.
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I just don’t have anywhere to go now. You became my home.
Ugly enough for you?
the bad
Subtitle: dwindling from the middle class
I’m not above begging. We have been notified:
Dear Demented, Pre-senile(so no DHS help because yer not 60), Manic Depressive, Preconditions etc., person. Please be advised that your Health Plan coverage ended as of October 9, 2009 because you have incurred $100,00 in processed claims. You should have stayed healthier, but you didn’t. Be grateful you have SSD. We know we are, because we expect to get as much of it as possible in the near future, and here’s why:
As a reminder, the Health Plan has a maximum benefit of $100,000. You will be responsible for any claims incurred over $100,000 that we approved and paid out at 100% without checking first to see if you had any of the $100,000 left. Just consider us another creditor that will be making those annoying phone calls night and day to harass you into paying us our money. And thanks for participating in the program! The data we gathered will be invaluable to us. Not to you of course. But have a nice quality of life. If you can.
OK, I admit I took a few liberties with the formatted letter notifying us that we are now among the many people falling through the doughnut hole between Employed Health Care participation and Medicare.
So I called her family Doctor to change her next appointment to a Free Clinic Day since the Insurance Card won’t “work” anymore, who has been treating her, her daughter, and her granddaughter(and tolerating me at her free clinic)for many years.
Guess what? She’s had to join the Health Care network. She couldn’t afford to maintain her Clinic, Free and otherwise independently any longer. So now her Clinic is a member of the Deaconess network! Oh, by the way, the Free Clinic had to go. I mean, Deaconess may be one of the best in the city in dealing with patients who have pre-senile dementia, but they still have to make a buck. Off of every patient’s Health Care Provider. That IS how the system works. So, non-Patients Of Means need not show up any longer. But have a nice quality of life. If you can.
We knew it was coming. All she has to do is not get sick or go crazy. That’s what they call it when you don’t have Health Insurance, not Bipolarism symptoms or Religious Ideation brought on by stress, Sundowning, or necessary medication adjustments by Health Plan Doctors as indicated by blood work and other expensive but necessary tests. Necessary IF you have Health Care coverage. Otherwise, get in line and beg like all the other bums.
I will. I will hit up every doctor and therapist she’s ever seen for samples and signatures on PaP’s. I will find a way for the blood work she has to have done to make sure she doesn’t go into kidney or renal failure can be done. I’ll find a way to pay for any emergency trips to the ER or Inpatient stays at Geriatric Diagnostic Units that she needs.
And we will wait until she gets to climb out of the “doughnut hole” next May. That is, if Medicare is still there, and they haven’t pushed her qualifying date off even further. I mean, we are in the middle of “Health Care Reform”.
Which I’m sure will benefit the rapidly disappearing middle class and the exponentially growing marginalized class(the shiny new Politically Correct term for Poor). Not the Wealthy. I mean this IS America! Home of Capitalism or yer a commie pinko fascist! What? I left out Or the Terrorist win and Get a job you bum? My bad.
One thing that’s puzzling me is when they compare mandatory health insurance to mandatory auto insurance. I mean, if you don’t own a car, you aren’t required to have auto insurance. So, what don’t you have to have to not be required to have the mandatory health insurance? Life? Health? Citizenship? Oh come on! They aren’t gonna take away your Life or Citizenship!
Speaking of begging, I saw this thing on TV about Anonymous Donations you can make online to anybody! You just need to provide their email address! You get a copy of the check cashed by the recipient as proof that your donation was actually received by the person you wanted to donate to Anonymously. Here I am, begging. It doesn’t have to be anonymous. When it comes to my wife or family, I’ll do just about anything. Just ask.
Here’s the site: http://www.givinganon.org/ My email address is jimmyparavane@gmail.com. Can you spare a brother $100K? $50K? $10K? five bucks? Seriously, looking at the medical bills we’ve stacked up without knowing we’d reached her cap, and needed to just let her suffer or die, well, I’ll take any amount. What? I’m not allowed to ask for money here? Oh. My bad.
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So, how’s your QOL? That’s Quality Of Life, for those of you not familiar with the Health Care lingo. Yet. Ours is just peachy.
the good
Subtitle: “Embrace your inner goober!”
another subsubtitle: from delirium to delirious
I’m not above praying. I don’t think I do it like you aliens do. I usually start by equivocating, then ranting angrily, then ranting desperately, then more ranting and raving and finally just quiet desperation and fear.
I actually ended up thanking God, and specifically saying a phrase I hesitate to say: “Thank you Jesus!” It doesn’t feel completely “right” to be saying it while claiming to be unsaved, but I really meant it.
My wife didn’t have to go into a locked unit of any kind yesterday. She got to come home with me instead. Her Psychiatrist didn’t feel that the mood swings she’s going through now merit the level necessary for in-patient treatment. She started her back on her anti-depressant, and didn’t raise or lower her mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics. She feels my wife has reached a point of stability with no signs of mania or delirium.
So we’re gonna tweak her meds at home. But these are minor tweaks to address the depression and anxiety she feels “normally” when she’s not on an anti-depressant.
There’s some “bad” news and some “ugly” news along with all the happiness and gratitude I’m feeling right now. I’ll get to those, but not today. I’m going to enjoy the relief I feel for another whole 24 hours first.
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Then I have to get to work in my new, unpaid position of “Patient Advocate”. More on that tomorrow. For now, it’s Happy Happy Joy Joy! And this time, I really mean it.
Aren’t you happy for us? Yes, that WAS the concluding question, now comment, dang it! I need to marshal my army of twitter followers. All 43 of em.
(grin)
a lack of transparency
subtitle: And the greatest of these is
I’ve left some details about myself and my family offline, and yesterday reminded me of why I choose this degree of “untransparency” while talking about things in an online forum. Forum in the general sense of the word, not a message board.
My wife added one too many friends or posted one too many messages that crossed over into her Facebook and was suddenly shocked to have someone on there call her bipolar. It’s an issue she’s wrestling with, but having it suddenly invade the place where she’s been trying to make happy chatter with distant family members and new found old friends and acquaintances from work, etc., along with close friends and family, well, if you are on Facebook, you’ve seen just how quickly life online can become much more transparent than you were ready for very quickly.
Or maybe not. Maybe that’s just something the untransparent non-alien risks. Isn’t it just another word for sin?
Today we go to see her outpatient psychiatrist. Thursday and Friday of last week we went to the ER to have her assessed to see if she needed to go back into the Geriatric Diagnostic Unit. She hasn’t been manic, but has been afraid that she is getting there. The fact that she is making this decision, I guess it’s progress? I can’t tell anymore.
But it’s possible that her psychiatrist will admit her to the unit today. The only reason she hasn’t been self-admitted yet is there wasn’t a bed available. Yet. Fortunately, she wasn’t assessed as a danger to herself or others, just anxious and depressed enough to qualify for the waiting list. And she was able to wait at home.
If there’s good news in this it’s that she isn’t delirious this time. They won’t have to start by hitting her with an extremely large quantity and strength of medications to shock her out of that state.
I don’t know if I have anything new to contribute here. At times like these it feels like the cost is more than I want to pay. Yet I keep coming back. I can’t tell anymore if it’s a bleak spark of hope, morbid curiosity, smoldering anger or an actual desire to communicate something of value to you.
What can I possibly say that isn’t already written? What can I possibly gain that I haven’t already tried? I know it’s my failure, my lack of courage or strength or determination. But I can’t help feel like it’s your loss as well.
Not that that really matters. Whatever you lose will be forgiven. Whatever lack of transparency stands between you and God will be removed. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
I should be hiding while I can. What sinner yearns to be “known”? Is that what you aliens mean by transparency? You wish to be “known”? Do you expect the sinner, the marginalized the lost, to meet you there? If that’s the case, I am a lost cause. I can’t stand for anyone to come over and see the condition my house is in these days. I barely have the strength, the will, the desire to empty the litter box, wash the dishes, and take out the garbage. I haven’t vacuumed or dusted in weeks. I can’t stand for anyone to see the filth we live in that I’ve just given up noticing.
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You think I want to bare my soul to you? Shame, fear and pride. And the greatest of these is
too early to write anything serious
subtitle: For The Horde!
O M G! as Bladezz would say, it’s early! Yes, I know. I’m not geek cool enough to watch The Guild. (grin)
It finally happened. A day where I got no search hits on christian hotties. I still got one on marine snipers. During those brief periods when I don’t write anything on here for days, sometimes even weeks at a time, this blog would have died of neglect, except for those two search phrases. I should write a post called “christian marine sniper hotties. But that’s a long reach, even for my “creative” talents. (grin)
OK, I’m sorry but “Hank”? Even I will admit there’s a difference between good writing and bad writing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought Kelsey was funny. But recycling every skit, joke and sitcom expression of his entire career does not a funny sitcom make. Can you say Big Bang Theory, Glee? Heck I’d even watch reruns of The Office before some of the new sitcoms that are on this season.
I’ve reached post topic overload again. There are so many things I want to write about, I’m having difficulty getting the one I once again, despite my best intentions, have committed myself to write to jell. Oh well. Sounds like something a casual WoW session would fix! What? You didn’t know I was a big MMORPG geek?
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OK, I’ll admit that If I was single and dating, I’d probably have a better chance with Vork than Codex. Oh come on! You can’t tell me you have an iPhone and you haven’t seen that video by now! You haven’t? Loser.
I just thought as long as we were being all transparent and such, I’d share this with you. Too geek? (grin)
it’s just a little sin part two
subtitle: godly people can be annoying
I guess the main problem I have with aliens claiming to be transparent is that it’s very difficult to prove or disprove. I’ll dip into my own lack of transparency, and reveal a moderately ugly little sin to you. One that I’m sure none of you aliens is guilty of. One that I’m sure you never realized I was capable of committing.
I’ve abused the privilege of having a blue handicap parking hanger. Yes, I said it. Now, I don’t do this a lot. Just a little. That makes it a smaller transgression, right? The vast majority of times that I use the hanger, my wife is with me, and is not walking very well. We generally go straight into whatever place we are and get her one of those electric carts to ride in.
The other day, I needed to get a loaf of bread and get back to work setting up a wireless laser printer and cleaning up a brand new wireless laptop for my grandchild. (Brief sidetrack here. Really? Middle schools now require their students to have laptops and print out 30 and 40 page PowerPoint chapters at home? I am getting older by the minute. sigh)
So I parked in a handicap space and felt so guilty about it, I got my cane and faked leg pain. So it would look like I actually needed the handicap space. I know. I’m evil. And it went downhill from there, as one thing led to another, and another.
Now for a little wiggle room here, because despite the pseudonym, some of you actually know me in the RL. I DO actually NEED my cane once in awhile! I occasionally have back and leg problems due to a ruptured disk, and the weather that make it necessary to walk without falling down. It’s a little humiliating when I actually need it, because most of the time I don’t.
But I didn’t need it the other day, except to make my deceptive use of the handicap parking space look more legitimate. Anyway, I go into the store, find a loaf of bread and “limp” my way ever so visibly in pain towards the exit. I’m standing patiently behind a nice young couple in the checkout lane when they make things much worse.
First, the nice young man indicates to me that there are shorter lines in the express lanes. I thank him and move over to one only to discover it’s a self-check out lane. ALL the express lanes are self-checkout! Can you guess which store chain I was in?
I hate it when the consequences of my ungodly actions, no matter how small, meet up against your God’s sense of humor. I HATE self-check out. So, I got back into line behind the nice young couple and mention that fact to them. I tell them I’m in no hurry.
Naturally, he does the “godly” thing and invites me to cut in line ahead of him and his nice young wife. Fine. Great. So I fake limp up and am standing in front of him feeling very guilty about the whole stinking situation now, but it’s not like I’m gonna suddenly throw down my cane and admit anything to these very nice young strangers.
I engage them in a conversation about what I’m doing, fixing my family’s tech problems, ANYTHING that will make me look better and distract me from the reality I’ve put myself in. Thank all the tech gods that the nice young man then says those famous last words I normally HATE to hear from strangers, “Now that I’ve got you here, let me ask you a question?”
I really hate your God’s sense of humor. Seriously. I could definitely hear the chuckling in the background. How surprising that the nice young man asks me a tech support question I don’t have the skill set for. Apple computers. I hate Apples because I have no experience with them. Makes all my geek skills look like unsubstantiated bragging. I don’t know what a .wk4 extension is. Was the file he got corrupted, or just needed the right viewer? I don’t know.
I gave him the best advice I could; do an advanced google search using the parameters “.wk4” and “viewer”. If that doesn’t help, call the people that sent him his flight log file, and ask them what app they created it with, or what app he needed to view it with.
And then I got my very embarrassed and ashamed self out of there, and out of the handicap spot, as quickly as I could. Transparent enough for you? (grin)
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This is all a lead-in to a post I want to do about what happened over the weekend on my blog. I still need to gather a few facts. It’s probably going to be called a daughter of a King, or love beyond measure. I think it’s going to be about what happens when transparent aliens meet the very muddy reality of the margins. I think it’s gonna be interesting, well, at least for me.
Does anybody else here that chuckle?
the reality of morality
subtitle: self examination sucks
I don’t make friends very easily. Acquaintances, yeah, I do that once in awhile. What you normals refer to as friendship is very difficult for me. My wife is much better than me at this. She makes friends that last for her entire life. The only two people I would actually consider long time RL friends of mine were actually friends of hers first.
The reason I have those two friends for decades is because for some odd reason, they put up with me. Still, I’d like to have more friends, it’s just I have this tendency to be a little too transparent with people. Transparency may be a good thing for you aliens, but it doesn’t help very much with keeping friends.
Now, you may be thinking that I’m talking about being transparent by telling them what I think of them, their beliefs, their actions, their church, etc., and you’d be partially right. But, I don’t really have a problem being all that transparent about myself with them either. I prefer this type of transparency in person, but the interesting thing about blogging under a pseudonym, is that I can show you all a little transparency here as well, without worrying overmuch about RL consequences.
It’s been an interesting weekend. On Friday, I posted what I considered a humorous post, mainly because I was in such a good mood over the improvement my wife has made since her last episode. Blah blah about her health and all that, but she is very close to being back to my twin. I depend on that a lot more than I ever realized before all of our health problems.
Saturday, I published a post I had written Friday, but held under the Blogging logic of spacing posts out. There’s suppose to be a good reason for that, I’ll let you google for it if yer interested. Anyway, I thought it was a very interesting post because really, all I was doing was commenting on a video on another blog. It was a very intense video of a woman in a ministry relating the story of salvation of someone from the margins.
It was all the more interesting because there was some doubt of it’s validity cast on it by two very brief comments on the YouTube host page of the video. Saturday, after I uploaded the post, I noticed that the video had been pulled by the YouTube user.
Yesterday was also an interesting day in that I commented on a post on BigIsTheNewSmall. It was about the experience the Unchurched or “First-Time visitor” had at churches. I’m not Unchurched, but I’m often invited, online, to visit churches, for the first time. I used my experience with visiting LifeChurch campuses as an example, and once again, LC came out looking not so hot. Due to my relating a subjective viewpoint.
Funny thing is, I’ve visited the NDUB LC numerous times. I’ve taken my wife to visit the NDUB LC campus numerous times. The Campus Pastor and Youth Pastor both recognize us, and have been nothing but kind, considerate and compassionate to both of us. Being kind, considerate and compassionate to my wife, especially when she’s not feeling her best, earns you all kinds of respect and credit with me.
So why do I keep picking on LC, especially on the NDUB campus pastor’s Blog? Well, they put up with me. In fact, the LC person I’ve gotten along with the least, has been by leaps and bounds a better human being than I am on my nicest day. I have never ever met an LC person that was anything but an example and reflection of Christ. I like to kid around and call that more of a refraction than reflection.
I guess that’s another reason why I pick on LC so much. For everything I’ve ever mentioned, objected to, or questioned about the way LC does things, I can easily point, and even hyperlink to examples of real missionary effort, not just to spread the gospel of salvation, but to actually minister to the needs of others, all over the local internet wherever you find an LC campus. And that doesn’t even count what they are accomplishing worldwide through their online efforts and outreach.
I want to do more posts about that side of LC, and I want to look into this video issue, and the church and ministry and people involved. I think I’ll find that when transparency encounters the muddy waters of the margins, shadows are cast. This doesn’t change either the reality of the Light or the morality of the darkness those in the margins can find themselves.
Not being an alien myself, I probably need to show a little more transparency about the reality of my own personal morality. So tomorrow, I’m going to post something I’ve been working on since yesterday about a little sin of mine. I’m not so trusting of the anonymity of the internet as to get too dark on you all. Besides, some of you know me in the RL! (grin)
Transparency. I have a lot of issues with that word. A lot of confusion too. Funny thing about even a little sin is that it can change your subjective view about the sinner. Even if it’s just a little bit, it can make you wonder just how moral your own subjective view is. I know I like to be a little blind when I turn that view on myself.
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So tomorrow should be fun. (grin)
