It's nice having young cousins. They have an uncanny skill to help relive the rambunctious days of yore, whether they're hitting you in the face with a lightsaber, throwing screaming toy monkeys at you, or just clobbering each other. When the family came over for Christmas night dinner, these two reminded me of an old chant I hadn't heard since Kindergarten:
"Love? Eww... Who talks about love? Who gives hugs and kisses? That's disgusting. We may only be seven years old, but we are MEN, and MEN do not do these things! In fact, to show our disdain, we're going to concoct our own version. As MEN. That'll show 'em."
Is it natural to choose bread and circuses over the more complicated concept of Love? To this day, I still have a difficult time just saying the word "Love." it has been ingrained in my head that "Love" is the purple dinosaur, that Love is stupid, saccharine, and superfluous, not to mention unMANly. Not only is it difficult to say the word, but it's also impossible for me to demonstrate genuine, unmasked affection, especially through great big hugs and kisses. In order to make them more tolerable, they have to be accompanied by the lust factor. I wonder why this defense mechanism has persisted all this time.
It's not unusual for people to favor bread and circuses to the more complicated sensation of Love. It's the same reason I instantly get defensive when Christians say the name "Jesus." The ideas behind Jesus are simple, yet they feel complicated and intimidating. It is easier—and even more widely promoted among MEN—to embrace the brain-dulling ideas of anger and lust than the challenges of Love, and I have spent many years enamored of both. In the process of despising the dinosaur, I have denied myself the very thing that he preaches.
With the Year of the Rabbit starting soon, the challenge of letting go of my anger and learning to love remains at the top of my priorities. It is terribly difficult to let go of something that has been a part of one's personality since childhood. It will require new sources of support and a new degree of reward and punishment to accomplish in a new year. Once and if, however, it can be accomplished, the change will revolutionize the very foundations of my life. Super-de-duper amen!
Joy to the world: Barney's dead.The actual parody has been updated for the times, but I can't, for the life of me, remember who is the modern equivalent of Barney the Dinosaur. Regardless, in my younger years, I and my fellow young men never questioned the content of this song. It was perfectly justifiable to deliver the fate of Benito Mussolini upon Barney the Dinosaur because of one song:
We barbecued his head.
Don't worry 'bout the body;
We flushed it down the potty
And 'round and 'round it goes,
And 'round and 'round it goes,
And 'round and 'round and 'round it goes.
"Love? Eww... Who talks about love? Who gives hugs and kisses? That's disgusting. We may only be seven years old, but we are MEN, and MEN do not do these things! In fact, to show our disdain, we're going to concoct our own version. As MEN. That'll show 'em."
I hate you. You hate me.I bring this up because the memory of my young MANHOOD happened to get triggered on the traditional birthday of another conveyor of love, who said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind—this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40) This fellow, like the purple dinosaur, was murdered by MEN.
Let's gang up and kill Barney.
With a gun to his head
And a knife to his neck,
Pull the trigger; now Barney's dead.
Is it natural to choose bread and circuses over the more complicated concept of Love? To this day, I still have a difficult time just saying the word "Love." it has been ingrained in my head that "Love" is the purple dinosaur, that Love is stupid, saccharine, and superfluous, not to mention unMANly. Not only is it difficult to say the word, but it's also impossible for me to demonstrate genuine, unmasked affection, especially through great big hugs and kisses. In order to make them more tolerable, they have to be accompanied by the lust factor. I wonder why this defense mechanism has persisted all this time.
It's not unusual for people to favor bread and circuses to the more complicated sensation of Love. It's the same reason I instantly get defensive when Christians say the name "Jesus." The ideas behind Jesus are simple, yet they feel complicated and intimidating. It is easier—and even more widely promoted among MEN—to embrace the brain-dulling ideas of anger and lust than the challenges of Love, and I have spent many years enamored of both. In the process of despising the dinosaur, I have denied myself the very thing that he preaches.
With the Year of the Rabbit starting soon, the challenge of letting go of my anger and learning to love remains at the top of my priorities. It is terribly difficult to let go of something that has been a part of one's personality since childhood. It will require new sources of support and a new degree of reward and punishment to accomplish in a new year. Once and if, however, it can be accomplished, the change will revolutionize the very foundations of my life. Super-de-duper amen!
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