As long time readers are no doubt tediously aware, I spent arguably the best years of my life in a Christian fundamentalist cult and for most of that time I was a True Believer; not only did I zealously adhere to the cult’s tenets myself, I worked tirelessly to convert others to my sorry theology. But for the last couple of years of my time with the brethren I existed in an odd and excruciating limbo. Though I was convinced that my erstwhile belief system was a crock of crap, I remained a nominal member of the church: in short, I had a decision to make. On the one hand, I could retain my family and half a lifetime’s worth of friends by continuing as a putative cult member. True, I would be living a lie, but in retrospect I am convinced that many of my brethren had made exactly this choice.

On the other hand, I could sever my ties with what I now recognized as a vicious cult. This might strike you as an easy decision… but there were complications: since this cult practices a severe form of excommunication, opting out of this false worship meant that I would also be opting out of community. Probably, it also meant the end of my marriage and to be honest with you, I dearly loved the wife of my youth.

But I did pass through it

So I dawdled a year or two, contemplating upon this weighty decision, and here is why I dawdled: disillusioned, as I was, with a particular religious ‘truth’, I wondered if it was such a great idea to risk, really, my entire life on a concept as nebulous as absolute truth. I thought there might, in fact, be an upside to hypocrisy. It seems a little presumptuous to say that I passed through what St. John of the Cross called the “Dark Night of the Soul”; let us say, instead, that I passed through a ‘Cloudy Afternoon of the Soul’. But I did pass through it. In the event, and as you have probably figured out, I did renounce my vows to the idiotic religion I had become ensnared in and I chose Truth. And, in fact, things turned out much as I expected. My so-called friends dumped me like a carton of sour milk, my marriage ended, and my children were coached to look at me with fear. For several months, life sucked. And then… things got better. New friends, new opportunities, a surge of creativity, and above all, a sense of joy and freedom that remains with me even now. In a very meaningful sense, I was born again.

So now I suppose I am that tiresome creature, a person with advice. For I am certain that a percentage of you, my readers—like a percentage of all humans—are living a lie. You’re in a loveless relationship, a toxic religion, a thankless job, or are existing in some other form of hypocrisy. And I am here to tell you… choose truth. And especially… choose your truth. I won’t promise you that your path will be easy or pleasant, for I know from bitter experience that it may, in fact, be painful. You could even die. But the fact is, when you live a lie, you are already as good as dead… and you may as well start acting like it.

Everything we see and even the thoughts that form in our brain are made of molecules and molecules are made of atoms and atoms are made of subatomic particles, and subatomic particles… well they’re made of nothing; what I’m trying to say is that everything comes from nothing and, therefore, everything is a miracle. To single out some things as being somehow more miraculous than other things is a mistake. A mistake I’m going to make now by telling you stories of three miraculous events: a visualization fulfilled, an answered prayer, and a direct, non-verbal communication from the Christian god, together with prologues and kickers, and an optional application to your very own life.

A Visualization Fulfilled:
Prologue: Finding myself jobless in Idaho, I talk myself into a position with a one-man software firm. I have a facility for the work, and prosper modestly, but there’s one problem: the owner, Gary, has always worked from his crowded basement office and sees no reason why I can’t do the same. Seeing no other recourse, and having just read a book on the subject, I decide to bring the perfect office into my life via visualization, which is a strange decision for me as the Christian fundamentalist cult to which I then adhered rather frowns on visualization, affirmation, meditation, positive thinking and… well, they frown on a lot of things.

The Event: I form a mental picture of the office I desire. It is to have four components: high ceilings, elaborate millwork, a downtown location, and some interesting architectural detail. Several times a day I hold a vision of this ideal office. That’s all I do. I take no other steps, I simply… think about what I want. Within three weeks, our little firm is located in a downtown Pocatello office. The ceilings are 12 feet high and the millwork is nearly a foot wide. Oh, and the unspecified architectural detail? Turns out this office comes complete with its own jail cell.

they frown on a lot of things

The Kicker: Shortly after moving into this office, Gary appears to lose his mind. He begins by diverting company funds amounting to $30,000 into the construction of a backyard shed, a shed built to resemble a Japanese teahouse, on a rock foundation, constructed of high grade redwood, and roofed with… copper shingles. He next manages to fall prey to a recently released scam artist, who talks Gary into supplying him with a desktop computer, two laptop computers, and some cash for ‘investment’, all while taking meetings in a Motel 6…

Shortly thereafter I quit in disgust.

An Answered Prayer:
Prologue: While taking a bath in Idaho, I receive a phone call from my mother in Kentucky who tells me that my father has just had a stroke. My family and I leave the next morning and arrive two days later. My father’s right side is paralyzed and he is unable to speak. Since my mother has just undergone double bypass surgery, the situation is serious and we decide to move to Kentucky to help them out. I have one day to secure a job before returning to Idaho to pack. Since I am still a member of the aforesaid wacko Christian cult, and since visualization didn’t seem to work out so well, I offer up a fervent prayer to God, asking for His divine assistance.

I have been working as a land surveyor, so I take the yellow pages and a map and head to Owensboro, determined to apply in person to every survey company listed. I begin by driving to a firm named McDonough-Brown. I know that I am in the right block and have the correct address, but for the life of me I cannot find it. I walk up and down the block a few times and ask the locals for assistance, but ultimately I leave in frustration.

I manage to speak to every other firm on my list, and none have any openings. It is a long, frustrating day and, frankly, I am a little disappointed with God’s effort.

The Event: I impulsively try one more time to find the mysterious McDonough-Brown. This time, when I pull up to the address, I immediately see a fairly prominent sign that says, “McDonough-Brown”. I walk in. I launch into my spiel, which by now is well-practiced. Everyone seems surprised, no, shocked to see me, and they fall all over themselves to show me the place, explain what they do, and persuade me to work for them. It was weird… but I leave with a job.

I later learn why everyone was so astonished to see me. Turns out, moments before I arrived, the owners were abruptly forced to fire a long time employee for failing a drug test. If I’d looked over my shoulder while walking in, I would have seen him driving away. Had I arrived earlier in the day, there would have been no opening. My arrival at that precise moment struck all of McDonough-Brown’s employees as an act of… God.

The Kicker: This is easily the worst job I have ever had. I am away from home for weeks at a time, working in swamps, nominally in charge of a crew of pistol-packing politically paranoid rednecks named Wayne. The work is brutal and degrading, and sometimes involves lugging sacks of cement hundreds of yards from a truck to a boat, a procedure that systematically lines all of my orifices with a thin layer of concrete. Though still a Christian, I can’t help but wonder if there might be something to reincarnation and if I was, perhaps, a really nasty person in a previous life.

A Direct Non-Verbal Communication from the Christian God:
Prologue: In the beginning of the summer of 1984, my life is, frankly, perfect. I am on my university’s honor roll, I have been training for a triathlon and am an Adonis, I am sharing a beach house with friends, and I am beginning to realize that girls, though puzzles, are solvable puzzles. Even my hair is looking good. Clearly, this is going to be the best summer ever and I kick it off with a trip to a Grateful Dead concert in Sacramento.

At that concert I have a bad acid trip, the most harrowing experience of my life. To tell the story of that bad trip properly would be a separate lecture, but for your entertainment I am going to attempt the impossible and condense it into one sentence.

{breath}

Arriving early at the concert I begin to take any and all drugs that are offered to me and wind up gobbling acid, shrooms and unidentified pills by the handful which gradually engender in me a paranoid conviction that the concert is in fact a ploy to attract and slaughter would be hippies like myself and so I escape from the stadium by jumping a fence and running across an eight lane freeway only to find myself in a field full of thorns, stickers and burrs, convincing me definitely that this is no ordinary would be hippie slaughtering conspiracy but that I am in fact in hell, and if I’m in hell, of course, I might as well take off all my clothes and surrender to the demons, which I do, but the demons don’t show up so I run back and forth across the freeway, naked, looking for them and then I run into an apartment complex, still naked, to make a phone call, and the police show up and I’m actually pretty happy to see them, so I surrender and am handcuffed and placed in a squad car only to realize, too late, that the police are in league with the demons and now I want to escape so I kick out the police car door window with my bare feet and, yes, still naked, wriggle out and almost make it until four of them land on me like, well, a ton of cops and I am placed in four point restraint and taken to a hospital where I suddenly realize that I’m not in hell but, rather, am in the midst of a millennium-long, life and death struggle between good and evil and it’s absolutely imperative that I take sides in this struggle and after thinking it over for a while, I choose… good.

{breath}

The Event: Two days later I am sitting in my living room, trying to figure out just how one signs up on the side of good. I hear a knock on the door. And then something happens that I can’t explain; sitting there in my living room I suddenly feel as if a non-verbal stream of information is being beamed directly into me, as if God himself has decided to reach out to me, and the message I am given is the absolute certainty that whoever is knocking is bringing the Truth. It is a profound, soul-shattering, supernatural event. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure I’ve just been born again.

So whatever the folks at the door are selling, I’m buying, and when I open the door I am not particularly surprised to see a pair of… Christian cultists. The next evening, I attend my first meeting and am a faithful, true believing cult member for the next 18 years.

The Kicker: Being in a cult really sucks. I quit school and never do get a degree. For 18 years I attend five meetings a week and go door-to-door as many as 100 hours a month. I read four church magazines, a book or two, and a couple of pamphlets each month. I see no R rated movies, smoke no tobacco, give and receive no oral sex, celebrate no holidays, take no blood transfusions though I need them, offer no toasts, salute no flag and am generally an insufferably self righteous son of a bitch. I drop my non-cult friends, refuse to attend my own brother’s wedding, and take Prozac to suppress obsessive suicidal ideation. When I finally leave the cult, more than a hundred close friends immediately stop talking to me for fear of offending God and I leave behind an ex-wife and two children one of whom, frankly, fears me to this day because she believes that a heretic like myself is a sinner worse than a murderer, rapist or child molester.

What I am trying to say is that the holy sense of rightness that I felt, the conviction that God himself was leading me to Truth… led directly to the most… fucked up mistake I’ve ever made.

An Optional Application to Your Own Life:
So what am I saying? That visualization is useless, that answered prayers come with dark strings attached, that divine revelations are from trickster gods who seek to mislead us? No, not at all. My point is more subtle than that.

I have a truth to share with you, and it’s an optional truth because it’s mine, not yours or, at least, not necessarily yours. But my truth is this: you are your own gods. You are miracles creating miracles, you are the weavers of reality. And that’s a heavy burden and it’s tempting to lay that burden down and turn it over to some God or prophet, but here’s the thing: you can never lay it down. Never. Never, never, never; never.

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Is this a problem? Is it possible that the handing down of belief from one generation to the next leads to confusion, like a massive, centuries long game of telephone? Is it possible that as a religion gets older, it gets farther away from its roots? Does the survival of the organization become more important than the spiritual needs of its followers?

Should every generation make up their own religion?

I was thinking about these questions and a little story, a parable, occurred to me and I wrote it down as fast as I could. Frankly, it didn’t feel like something I’d written, it felt like a gift… and here it is.

Once upon a time there was a village in the hills, suffering from drought. The villagers searched for water and found, miraculously it seemed, a fresh pure spring high in the hills and far away. They were so happy. Though it was a difficult journey, they went to the spring often, to drink at the source and to haul back what they needed for day to day use.

But eventually they began to notice that it was quite a long round trip and that it was difficult to bring back all that they needed. So they conceived of a pipeline, the greatest task they could ever set for themselves, and with great effort and after many false starts they were able to build it and it made them happy. Now they could have water from the spring right in their village.

a funny taste now and then

Now the villagers were the first to admit that their pipeline was not perfect. Having no other material at hand, they were forced to use rather thin bamboo that limited the flow and the tar they used to seal the joints could give the water a funny taste now and then. So, although they were happy with their pipeline, some of the villagers would journey up to the spring on occasion, to drink pure water from the source.

Time passed, and eventually all those who had discovered the spring and built the pipeline passed on. Their children had been told about the spring, and they believed in it. After all, they could see the proof of its existence in the steady supply of water that was delivered to their village. Few of them had actually been to the source, but they appreciated the water (not knowing it could taste better) and the pipeline, and they were content.

Still more time passed and the flow of water began to wane and it even stopped at times. The villagers assumed that the spring was dying away – but they could never have thought this if they had seen the beautiful spring for themselves. In reality, the pipeline was failing because it was old and because it was being neglected.

The villagers began to grumble and to doubt everything they had ever been told. Needing water, some moved to other villages. Most of those who remained tried to live off of the water that still came through the pipeline, though it was scarce now, and foul tasting. A few, a very few, went searching and exploring, and followed the old pipeline far back into the hills and discovered the spring for themselves, as full and as fresh and as pure as it had ever been.

And they were very happy.

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In our attempts to gain supernatural insight, humans have consulted tea leaves, animal guts, bird flight, umbilical cords, crabs, shoulder blades, runes, books, coins, clouds, fecal matter, mahjong tiles, logarithms and there are, literally, hundreds of other well defined systems for consulting the divine, which is to say, divination. Like drug use and magick, divination has a history as old as humankind and for all that time has been slightly disreputable; something about fortunetelling has always irritated established power structures, perhaps because it offers a direct and untaxable link to wisdom, an end run around the dreary formalities imposed by authority.

Typically, divination systems have three components: randomness, codified meanings, and interpretation. In tarot, for example, the cards are selected randomly, each card is associated with meanings collected in books, and the tarot reader interprets the cards and meanings that show up. And here’s an interesting thing: though divination tends to be associated with psychic abilities, in fact most methods are better suited for people like myself who exhibit no psychic talent; after all, why would a person with genuine psychic ability go to the trouble of learning the usually complicated systems associated with most divination systems? Wouldn’t it be easier to just, you know, be psychic?

as it happens, I have an opinion on that

But what you really want to know is, ‘does divination work?’ and as it happens I have an opinion on that, and the supernatural is not necessarily involved. I believe that an acceptable ‘minimum’ explanation for the uncanny insight received via divination can be derived from the combination of randomness, codified meaning, and interpretation I’ve described. It may be that the intersection of randomness and judgement is a reliable way to access unconscious knowledge, a relatively easy way to tap the kind of inner wisdom that we sometimes receive in the form of dreams, visions, hunches and other premonitions. A corollary to this idea is that all of the paranormal claptrap typically associated with divination—the gypsy robes, the ceremonies, the meditations—might all be useless window dressing, and that the real secret of divination lies in the entirely human skills that we bring to our chosen fortunetelling technique. And if that’s the case, the inescapable conclusion is that you might as well try it yourself, rather than relying on others. After all, who has more unconscious knowledge of your life situation than you yourself? And what are you risking, other than demonic possession?

All that said, I have had experiences with tarot that elude rational explanation, and curiously, these experiences have not tended to be particularly helpful—it’s more like I’m abruptly playing poker with an intelligence considerably vaster and less scrutable than my own… if you can imagine that; put another way, it sometimes feel as if I’m being trifled with. But on the other hand, these brushes with the divine inspire awe and a certain humility, and given my cynical, egocentric ways, may be the best reason of all to persist in divination.

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The making of vows seems hardly human

Though I can’t remember the details of the oaths I took as a Cub Scout, Webelo and Boy Scout, I believe I am safe in saying that I have violated both the letter and spirit of all of them. The same can be said for all the godly commitments I made at the various levels of the YMCA sponsored Christian brownshirt program to which I adhered for several years. I actually can remember the vows I publicly professed when being inducted into the cult in which I misspent my youth, but I am too embarrassed to repeat them here – suffice it to say that I have broken them repeatedly, and with gusto. Finally, the earnest vows I made to my first wife in a ritualistic church ceremony were broken just a few years ago and I have to admit, that one hurt and was also expensive, much like necessary surgery. But still, I did it, and I must acknowledge that I am by now a practiced oath breaker, a promise non-keeper, and a passionate disregarder of all my youthful commitments… hurray for me. The pleasures of idolatry, fornication, drunkenness, heresy, the occult and several other categories of taboo are magnificent and easily outstrip the pallid rewards of faithful asceticism. My mental and spiritual well-being are also improved, which only makes sense – it is always a good idea to escape confinement, in whatever form it occurs.

I now maintain that breaking vows is not nearly so sinful as making them in the first place; after all, when you think about it, a man who makes a vow is a man who has decided not to change, not to adapt his beliefs to new knowledge or circumstances. He is a man who has decided not to think and, at least in my book, is a grievous sinner indeed.

The making of vows seems hardly human, and it’s interesting to note that the nefarious practice most often occurs in political and religious settings. Governments and churches are very eager to bind us with our own words, to tie us up with guilt and fear. It’s easy to see what these corporate entities get out of the arrangement – armies of self-policing followers. But how, exactly, do humans benefit? Can it ever be a good idea to agree in advance not to change my mind? Doesn’t it seem a little paradoxical to use our human capacity for reason and commitment to commit to not reasoning?

The whole thing stinks to me; if what I am agreeing to is such a good idea, why can’t everyone involved trust that it will continue to be a good idea? Why must my very soul be subjected to an eternal, non-negotiable contract? I wouldn’t sign such a contract with a used car dealership or a time-share condo association and nothing in my personal experience – or world history – suggests that religions or governments are any more reliable.

Perhaps I need to make just one more vow, one that settles the matter once and for all. I swear to God, I am never going to swear to God again or, for that matter, to any other entity.

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In one respect, I’ve always had minor erectile issues; for some reason, my first time or two with a new lover, I don’t usually attain a full erection. And yes, that has been mortifying at times but I live with it and have learned to explain it to my lovers fairly smoothly. Since I have been serially monogamous for most of my life, and not usually a cheater, I only have to explain it once in a while. And after the short acclimation period, my erection used to be everything a young man could ask for: hard and heavy like a bar of lead, a recovery period of less than an hour, and good for several shows a night.

it was mildly insulting to my lovers

But beginning sometime in my early 40s, Dr. Manhattan’s performance began to drop off noticeably. A third erection in an evening became a thing of the past, and even a second erection became a notable event. Oh well. I’m in my 40s, right? These things happen. And in fact it wasn’t that big a deal. I was still able to make love whenever I wanted to, and staying up late enough to have intercourse a third time was not so attractive anyway. There were times when it bothered me; I have had some vigorous lovers, women who seem energized by the act, and it was a drag to not keep up with them. There were other things I could do, of course, and I was happy to do them, but… well, suffice it to say that I wrote this poem around that time:

The Penis of My Youth
If you want to know the truth,
I miss the penis of my youth.
It was longer, stronger, thicker, harder;
it never failed before my ardor—
and, I’m told it went well with vermouth.

Real Problems
Beginning sometime before my 46th birthday—that is, about a year ago—my erection issues grew (heh) into a cluster of issues that seemed (to me at least) like genuine erectile dysfunction. Put simply, my erection was often out of pace with my libido.

Also around that time, I began to consciously date more than one woman at a time, that is, I became polyamorous. That’s a subject for another post, but one relevant consequence was that I was having more sex, and more exciting sex. For example, I was in a couple of BDSM-flavored relationships, was in a few group sex situations (fun!), went to a couple of sex clubs, and several times was having what I would call ‘casual’ sex, where there was no intent to start a relationship. And frankly, there were several occasions where I was completely excited, horny, and aroused… but the Good Doctor was not ‘in’—that is, every available signal I have that tells me I’m ready for sex was going off full steam… except that my penis was either completely flaccid or somewhat soft. It was a problem, it was embarrassing, and it was mildly insulting to my lovers. Most of them were understanding about it, but that’s not exactly the kind of understanding a guy craves, you know?

So, I tried things. I lost weight and improved my overall health, because improved circulation is said to help matters. I began lifting weights again, and taking vitamin D, in an effort to increase testosterone production. Tried acupuncture. I tried masturbating less, thinking that I needed to ‘save up.’ I tried masturbating more, thinking that it might be a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. And I do this thing I read in a book once, where I squeeze my balls every day, one squeeze for each year of my life—can’t say if it’s helped or not, but it’s become a habit.

These things seemed to help—I’d get a noticeable ‘lift’ after an acupuncture treatment, for example—and I always had some erectile capacity. The Doctor was fairly reliable with some lovers, intermittent with others. But there were some pretty spectacular absences as well, or whatever one calls the absence of spectacular. There were also a lot of times when I was able to achieve intercourse, but was softer than I would have liked. There were even more times when I would get hard but have trouble sustaining the hardness—my erection would come and go. I learned to work with that (tried a cock ring, with mixed results) but it wasn’t optimum.

One ‘absence’ was instructive. I was with a couple, a couple I (and an exuberant Doctor) had slept with previously. We’re all comfortable together, we were having fun, but… no erection. And I was offered half a Viagra. And I took it, and… problem solved. A good time was had by all.

You’d think that would be enough to convince me to see an actual M.D. immediately and get Dr. Manhattan his own prescription. But in fact I held out for about nine months. I had serious reservations about using drugs to enhance erection, and wanted some questions answered. These are the questions I had, and my thoughts after using Levitra for about two months:

Would I Always Need Levitra? Here was my biggest worry: that once I started using one of the PDE5 inhibitors, I would have to use them. That is, I was worried that I would lose my intermittent but serviceable ability to have ‘natural’ erections without drugs. But my (literal) doctor explained that—here I paraphrase—the erectile dysfunction drugs act by stimulating production of the chemical that encourages blood flow, and that overall production would increase, so that I would have somewhat better erectile performance even between the times when I took a pill. This Wikipedia article makes me think that he was simplifying matters for my benefit, but in fact he was completely right about the effects I experienced. I have great erectile performance on evenings I take Levitra, and I have pretty great performance the next morning and day, when it is presumably out of my system entirely. Nor do I need to take a pill every time I want to have sex, or even every week—taking Levitra now and then seems to improve my overall erectile capacity. This was a pleasant discovery.

Would I Develop a Tolerance? I worried that Levitra use would follow the course of some recreational drugs, where an increasing amount would be required to attain the same effect. Per the above, that is not supposed to happen, and I haven’t experienced it in two months. In fact, I sometimes take less than the prescribed amount—a third of a tab instead of a half—and seem to experience the same benefits.

Would I Have Uncontrollable Erections? The cliché is that one pops a pill and, soon thereafter, a big boner pops up whether or not there is a need for a big boner. In my experience—and again, per this article—this does not happen. Instead, it’s more as if an erection is readily available when I want/need it. That is, I still have to be sexually excited to have an erection. But when I am sexually excited, an erection is right there for me. Frankly, it’s a lot like the erectile performance of my 30s; nice and hard, reasonable recovery period if I and my partner want to try again, and sustains well. However, I once took a whole Levitra (twice my usual dose) when I had intended to take a Valium and get some sleep. This did make me uncomfortably priapic and I had to take matters in hand—thank Ganesh for phone sex. So, dosage matters I guess, and I recommend finding the minimum effective dose for you. One more thing: even on nights when I and my partner have intercourse a second time, it is unusual for me to ejaculate again. It happens, but it’s rare.

Would I Be Distanced From My Lovers? This was a more subtle concern; it seemed possible that a chemically enhanced erection would make me insensitive to what was going on with my partner. That I would be so happy with my new toy (my rejuvenated boner) that I would lose sight of other factors during sex. And frankly, I’m not sure about this one. I’m not getting any complaints (quite the opposite) but there have been times when I felt like my very erect penis was setting the agenda, and that subtle signals that might have led lovemaking in another, mutually enjoyable, direction were being missed. I’m not really concerned about this and it certainly beats the alternative (not having an erection when both lovers would like one to be available) but it’s something to be aware of.

So those were my main questions and concerns. And at this point, after two months of use, I think that they have been satisfactorily addressed.

Other Matters
I chose Levitra because Cialis seemed inappropriate (I didn’t anticipate a regular need for multi-day erections) and because Viagra (which is fairly equivalent to Levitra in its effects) had bad associations for one of my lovers. In retrospect, maybe I should have gone with Viagra—it’s cheaper.

Regarding expense, I get 20mg tablets, split them, and take half a tablet on evenings I expect to be having sex. Half a tablet costs about nine bucks, so if I do the math I’m spending about $80/month for my improved erection. Worth it, but not insignificant.

I do feel a sense of shame around needing a chemical to have a good erection. Probably shouldn’t, but there it is. So, I keep a half tab with me, and take it discreetly at the appropriate time. My partners know I take Levitra, but I don’t go out of my way to let them know I’m going to pop a pill. Sometimes, in fact, I’ll let them know that a particular erection was not the result of enhancement… which seems a little weird even to me.

I have had zero side effects. No flushed face, no headaches, no nothing. And I would put up with a flushed face if I had to.

In summary, I could hardly be happier. Levitra seems like a pretty good drug. And no, I didn’t write this whole article simply to have an excuse to publish my penis poem.

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When asked about my faith I am wont to reply, cheerfully, that I’m a godless heathen but that felt like rather an unsatisfactory thing to be, a few years ago, while listening to a breathtakingly fine local production of Handel’s Messiah. The music washed over me like waves of pure spirit, alternately exalting and humbling, leaving me breathless, expanded, teary-eyed… the whole bit. For minutes at a time I even felt religious, which never happens, and at one moment in particular I was quite ready to fall to my knees and offer praise to the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Thankfully the feeling passed and I reverted to my usual state of introverted cynicism, wondering what had just happened. Clearly the power and majesty of this particular piece of music depends entirely on its devotion to a particular religious view—it would be ridiculous to assume that a work of equivalent power could be dedicated to, say, the taste of a ripe tomato in mid-Summer, still warm from the garden, though that, too, is divine. And yet, the religious ideas being expressed are also ridiculous—even at the height of my musical swoon I would not have agreed that the creator of all-that-is makes special provisions in the afterlife for those lucky enough to have decoded his preferred form of devotion. And my pompous ruminations on faith and religion are probably the most ridiculous thing of all—who am I to take the measure of another’s faith?

It seems to me that faith itself is holy

The one thing that wasn’t ridiculous was the performance itself; in fact, it was sublime. And isn’t that always the way? We silly humans, we careless naked primates, working with the rough asymmetries we have at hand are, fairly often, able to call forth beauty that approaches perfection: how?

Could it be faith? I attended the Messiah at the invitation of a friend, and it was during her solo that I was most vulnerable to the Lord. The purity of her devotion, the expression of faith without one particle of hypocrisy, was a moment of such intense beauty that I am happy to call it divine; indeed, I don’t know what else to call it. And not incidentally, her inexplicable faith in my miserable self was the only reason I was there at all.

It seems to me that faith itself is holy, and not necessarily the objects of faith. If beauty is to manifest at all, ever, it must necessarily make use of the imperfect materials offered: to call forth that beauty requires faith, which is to say, it requires a disregard for imperfection, an ability to see the divine even in this sad world: glory be to God for dappled things.

If faith is a blindness to flaws, and if faith is required to call forth beauty, then perhaps I am a man of faith after all. For I too see the Lord lurking everywhere, cloaked in the tawdry imperfections of religion and culture. And when He chooses to drop the disguise, to flash forth beautifully and radiantly, I am as moved as any man, and as happy to be in His presence. And, when the occasion calls for it, I am very happy to sing, “Hallelujah!”

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The Western World’s dominant mythologies teach that made things turn on their maker, causing misery. In the Genesis story, for example, the seemingly excusable curiosity of Eve leads to sin and death and alienation from the creator, but Genesis is merely the best known example – similar morals can be drawn from the Pandora story and Islamic versions of the Adam and Eve tale, and can be seen in Native American creation mythologies. Even Hindu cosmology tells tales of fallen humans who just won’t obey, who insist on rebellion and betrayal.

socially maladaptive troglodytes

As humans, we play a uniquely benighted role in this sad drama, for not only are we made things rebelling and causing our own misery, but as makers we are surrounded by made things rebelling against us, and this motif also rises to the level of myth. Frankenstein’s monster is a good example, as are golems, zombies, and other created humanoids. In science fiction, we find troublesome computers like HAL 9000, the multitude of robots and androids, such as Battlestar Galactica’s Cylons, who organize to wipe out their pathetic biological makers, the legion of man made viruses that exterminate us in vividly imagined end time plagues, and the current apocalyptic favorite, nanotechnology that disrupts matter itself.

But the more troubling setting for these myth enactments is real life. In retrospect, the millennium bug flap seems like a preemptive Doomsday scenario that didn’t come to pass, but there are plenty of examples that seem to put us in less vaporous peril. Air conditioning that thins the ozone layer and gives us cancer, internal combustion engines that emit greenhouse gases and cook us alive, video games and social networking sites that turn our young people into violent, socially maladaptive troglodytes, the convenient plastic packaging that pollutes our land and emits carcinogens and mutagens, the toxic wastes that cause testicular atrophy, the nuclear power plants that create mutated giant flying turtles that level our cities with laser vision… but you get the idea, and no doubt you have your own favorite example of technology turning on humanity.

Could it all be a myth? Not myth in the sense of not being true, but myth in the sense of an overarching tale that we all unconsciously subscribe to and use to order existence and make sense of the world. And as devotees of this myth, are we making our lives much harder than they actually need to be? That is, what if we somehow replaced our creation stories with tales of things going right, with created things that are helpful and useful to their creators? Might our technology turn out benign, even beneficial?

We’ll never know until we consciously adjust our creation stories until, as a species, we come up with better archetypes for technological success. In other words, maybe it’s time to come up with better myths.

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This rant was inspired by all the gloom and doom about lately, and by a ridiculous article making the rounds. For the record, if Douglas Copland really believes this, he’s a useless asshole. All of the following was pulled out of my ass and written down in five minutes. People who actually know what they’re talking about have even more cause for optimism.

• Cheap Energy: I can name a half dozen plausible technologies, including concentrated solar power, fusion, cold fusion and clean nuclear, that could come online soon and make energy cheap and clean. In a world with an oversupply of energy, what can’t be created?

• Ubiquitous Supercomputing: Two about-to-happen technologies, quantum computing and molecular computing, can give humans the ability to design infrastructure with God-like skill, and build intelligence into nearly everything manufactured – I’m talking things like paint. When intelligence is everywhere, aren’t we likely to do smarter stuff?

• Nanotech: It’s been knocking on the door for decades, and we’re gonna let it in sometime. A world of functional nanotech is a world where you can pour goop in a vat and extrude iPods, antique wood furniture, car parts, a molecularly perfect Van Gogh, etc. Who cares about wealth polarization? In a world where anyone can have anything, it’s going to be people with taste, not people with money, who live well. Oh, and nano works the other direction, too: all the toxic sludge and other trash we make can go in one end of the hopper and come out as compost, or Deadwood DVDs. A clean abundant world, what’s not to like?

• Facilitated Social Change: Sure, you’re tired of hearing that social networking is changing everything, is making the world a smaller place, that humans are forming the neural network of a global mind, etc. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. What it means is that social structures that now seem entrenched, like government, the economy, bigotry, war, religion, and you-name-it are now global thoughts that humanity is becoming conscious of. And what’s easier to change than a mind? In an interlinked world, there is a new capacity for rapid, massive change. Think good thoughts, people, and talk to your friends on FB, twitter, LinkedIn, and of course your local pub. We can literally create exactly the world we envision. Indeed, we pretty much HAVE TO create the world we envision, so envision well.

• Biotech: Cloning gets a lot of attention, and genetics and new wonder drugs. Those are all cool. But I think the real promise is in agriculture. We haven’t got it right yet (I’m looking at you Monsanto) but shit, we will. And then we’ll have abundant, organic, fresh, tasty, cruelty-free meats and vegetables. Yay us.

• Rapid Adoption of New Technology: Remember how fast cellphones became ubiquitous? REMEMBER? They were bulky, expensive, cranky oddities for, like, a week or two and then EVERYONE had them in their pockets. Same with laptops and PDAs, and the internet and DVRs and, you name it. We humans obviously have no issues making use of the next great thing, which amplifies all the above trends. And there’s more, lots more, things that aren’t even glimmers in somebody’s brain yet, but will arrive overnight BECAUSE HUMANS ARE GOOD AT HAVING GREAT IDEAS AND IMPLEMENTING THEM!

Humans are awesome, and the universe is safe, abundant and friendly. Enjoy your lives, people, and get ready to live in paradise.

cheers,
Angus

A couple of weeks ago, the Diva and I found, and walked, the labyrinth pictured below. It’s at Land’s End, and has a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s one of at least four in San Francisco—there are two at Grace Cathedral, and one at the California Pacific Medical Center; as it happens, I’ve walked them all. The Land’s End labyrinth is easily the most vulnerable of the four, made simply of rocks and gravel found nearby and raked and set into the labyrinth outlines—in fact, it’s been destroyed by cretins, and remade, at least once. It’s beautifully sited on a promontory, with a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay. Though it must have taken substantial effort to make, and appears timeless, in fact it was laid out in 2004 by one man, Eduardo Aguilera.

The Land’s End labyrinth depends for its survival on the kindness of strangers, and as the Diva and I negotiated its twisty inevitability we both, without discussion or premeditation, found ourselves tidying and rectifying the pattern by nudging stray rocks back into place. It felt like instinct.

I was reminded of the medicine wheels that appear in (presumably) sacred sites across vast swathes of North America. They are referred to as ‘Indian’ or ‘Native American’ but in fact they are far older than any extant culture and archaeologists tell us that they have existed for several millennia, serving—and being served by—several of the cultures that washed across their range like oceans receding and swelling. Think about that. Medicine wheels—which, like the Land’s End labyrinth are simple patterns of rock laid on the ground—have proven more durable than several civilizations, while also depending on civilizations for their creation, maintenance, and renewal; is it not flabbergasting? Our own civilization protects them carefully, with fences and guards, preserving them for… what?

placing our feet with Jain-like care

Of course, much the same can be said of cities, languages, religions, and other human constructs that outlive humans, and nations, and yet depend on humans for continued existence. It’s as if we are parasitized by patterns of varying complexity who make use of our bodies and minds as a means of life. Think of a medicine wheel filmed from above, its 1,000s of years of existence compressed into a movie of, say, an hour’s duration; it alone would persist while forests shimmered in its margins, while humans, like flickering brown worms, swarmed about and kept it repaired, occasionally adding or deleting pieces of the pattern according to some unguessable logic. I think it would look much like a cell under a microscope, or like a city seen from a satellite. It would be a living, lordly thing, and we its vassals.

The Diva and I walked the labyrinth with something like trepidation, eyes cast down, placing our feet with Jain-like care. I can’t tell you the unknowable vastness of her thoughts, but I know that I was contemplating the labyrinth as a metaphor. Because they are twisty and surprising and yet, in retrospect, inevitable, labyrinths are unavoidable metaphors for relationships, careers, and life itself. And so the walking of a labyrinth should be conducted reverentially, for our passage through it is like our passage through this life. Missteps are likely to find some expression in our circumstances.

I know whereof I speak. For once I walked another labyrinth, with another girl, and though we arrived at its center without mishap she made a fetish of being unrestrained by convention and walked straight out, across the lines, without a backward glance. I felt it like a blow to my heart, and followed her with dread. And in fact that was our last good day together—everything went bad after that, and we both crossed lines that I, at least, came to regret.

These patterns we walk, and live within, and build and maintain and renew; we make them and then they shape us. So much of what we do is set in stone, long before our individual selves exist. So much of what we do is inevitable, but only in retrospect—in the moment of walking, the best we can do is note the lines as best we can and walk with care. And should we choose to flout a line, as sometimes we must, we should do so consciously and face the consequences with open eyes.

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