soapboxdiner

Five questions

That Shivery Girl sent me questions! I love questions, especially exceptional ones like the following. You've all seen this thing floating around, so I will dispense with a description and jump right into the rules, the questions, and my answers:

First the rules: Post this along with your questions and answers:

1. Sign the guestbook, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond with five questions for you.
3. You'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. You'll include this explanation.
5. You'll ask five other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

Now the questions, as provided by Shivs:

Q. What is your biggest regret in life?

A. Oh goodness. Just one regret? I have lots and lots of regrets. I suppose I regret most... having been a teenager. That just about covers it. I regret not heeding at least some of the well-meant and wise advice I received. I regret choosing to lie about going roller skating when I was really tramping through Seattle and ultimately meeting my first love boy-man. I regret all that followed. I regret the first cigarette I smoked. I regret not taking my education seriously. I regret my loss of confidence in my own self-reliance and the times I gave up on myself. All in all, I suppose my regrets are pretty standard stuff.

Q. Do you believe in God?

A. Oh, I love this question. The short answer would have to be, "I don't know." Looking through history, the only constant in the belief that I can find is change. 10 thousand years ago, god was nature. 5 thousand years ago, god was superstition. 2 thousand years ago, god became Jehovah/Yahweh/He Who Has No Name. He started as a lonely soul who created man in his image using nothing but the earth. But then again in other contemporary stories, god wasn't the only god in the heavens, but only a misinformed egotist who denounced his fellow (and higher) ethereal beings and called upon his lesser astral minions to create a pathetic, brainless, boneless dupe to worship him on earth. This god twisted Sophia, goddess named Wisdom, into the modern snake of Eden when she took pity on man and enlightened him/her at the Tree.

There are simply too many gods for me to be able to rationally say that I can believe that there is just one. Most especially the Judeo-Christian interpretation. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if there was a god, He/She/It/They would be universally believed through history and geography? How can there be a Zoroaster, an Allah, a Buddha, a Shiva, a Pele, a Ra, a Yahweh, a Zeus, a Thor, a what-have-you, all of whom contradict each other?

Further, whatever (the Christian) god may have been originally, I sincerely doubt that much of the original teaching and belief, what these 2000+ years of human self-serving bastardization later, today bears any resemblance to what it was when it began. I've discussed this frequently and more than abundantly on these pages before to belabor it further now.

What I can say I believe is this: I believe there is a higher consciousness. I doubt it is external to humanity because this higher consciousness has shown itself to be universal. In it's essence, I think it in large part is basic morality - as touchy-feeling and hokey as that sounds.

Q. Do you believe in plastic surgery?

A. Hey, if you have the money and the desire, who am I to pass judgment? If I had thousands of dollars sitting around with nothing to do, there is a very good chance that I'd even consider some plastic surgery myself. But it would all be to improve the quality of my life - not superficial vanity. (Right? uh. right)

Q. Name three people you consider to be geniuses.

A. Man, this is a tough one. There are so many different kinds of genius. Do you mean besides Jack Horkheimer, Star Hustler; a man who's galactic accomplishments are self-evident in the way he tap dances upon the rings of Saturn?

Or do you mean like Dubya (convincing so many that he really won the election and that Saddam all but piloted the 9/11 planes); Martin Luther, John Calvin and all those who preceded and followed of their ilk (who through their hostile, fanatical psychopathy convinced a great part of the civilized world for half a millennia that we are ALL going to hell so just be good and chaste; not to mention getting them to believe that women are nothing more than the chattel God put on the earth to serve in obedient penitence the will of men who are anything but Godly)? Or do you mean like Muhammad (who convinced a great part of the remaining civilized world that Allah is too busy smiting those of His people who dare eat a bacon cheeseburger and therefore denying them admittance to the Paradise of an eternity with 70 virgins that he has little time to dispute the erroneous human belief that He pours his favor on those who die in his name over petty human disputes such as land and resource ownership?) I have a vast, undying respect for those souls who through sheer force of will can overcome common sense and make blatant and ludicrous lies fundamental truths that change the world. Fairly brilliant stuff, no?

But that probably isn't what you mean, is it?

Well, I have great admiration for Robin Williams - a man who can descend into tangent within tangent within tangent and digress back out through them all to his main point, and weave them all together so they are coherent, illustrative, and pertinent to his original topic. Man, most days I can barely maintain one train of thought - much less five or six simultaneously.

I would also have to list the Dalai Lama. I find him to be a man with a nearly inconceivable ability to divorce himself of emotion and speak with convincing logic on topics that lesser souls have and do commit war and genocide for. How rare is it for one person to have logic and altruism? Humanism and intellect in such equal and elevated states? That to me is genius.

Lastly, please allow me to submit the genius of the physicists who have documented particulate matter travel that exceeds the speed of light. In essence, time travel. Though it may not send us Mr. Peabody style back on neolithic adventures but by damn, if it can make my internet connection faster, it has to be good.

Q. Where do you see yourself five years from now?

A. In five years? Man, I barely know where I'm going to be tomorrow. I'd better quit while I'm ahead. God what a depressing question.

6:20 pm - 09.03.03
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