I was particularly happy to see this letter. Mainly because it signifies the official END to my Charity Challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to do it and all….but let’s just say that throwing one of these things was a bit more difficult than I imagined. West Valley wasn’t really set up to accept fund raising from a website and I didn’t really know what I was doing, either.

However, all ended well and the children at West Valley ended up roughly $5,400 richer. Here’s to hoping they spend all that money on cheap booze and loose women.

Also, big THANK YOU to Myroid from Myroid Type Comics for helping put this thing together. I really don’t think I could have done it without him.

I was twenty-one and barely a man when the horror came. It has stuck with me to this day, a dark spirit that looms over my shoulder whenever a quiet moment comes over me and leaves me free to think. The shape of the horror has been burned into my mind’s background noise. It has become something that I have to see the same way I have to see a purple after-image after I stare at a bright light source. As hard as it is to see some things, still other things are harder to unsee. God, how I wish I could.

What I saw in that five by five metal shack in the oil fields will follow me till my dying day.

I had gone to the oil fields that summer to make money for college. I soon realized however that the real reason I had come was to see rock bottom. Just outside Farmington, New Mexico at an altitude of over a mile I almost died so many times I lost count. My coastal lungs could barely breathe the thin plateau air, my rainy weather complexion was scorched by the desert sun, and every day the work cramped my muscles so fiercely that I almost cried. One day I collapsed on the rig floor, throwing up as though I’d never stop. I felt death coming to greet me then. I felt it in the way my entire face was flushed with heat while my fingers and toes were corpse cold. But I got back up. I got through it. I endured. I survived.

It was the summer I used all the gas in my tank, save for the rarest life sustaining fumes. I knew who I was after that. I knew how far I could be pushed. I knew how much I could take and what I could get over.

No one could get over what was in that five by five metal room. No one human, at least. Two years later and the after-image still burns when I close my eyes. Heather… why did you have to do it? I still need to know.

It was at the end of the summer that I met Heather. I was in better shape than I had ever been in my life, having passed through the crucible of the oil rig. I was twenty-five pounds leaner than I had ever been and my muscles were iron hard. In the outside world I may not have been more than average looking, but in the oil fields I was an Adonis. It was the first time I had ever thought of myself as handsome, and the first time I had ever thought of being handsome as a curse.

Heather was an assistant to a directional driller, an outfit that helped us to drill well holes at an angle. As fate would have it, I was the one who signed her in the front gate. Dark fate brought Heather and I together. Bonded our paths so that we would walk the same horrific road.

There are almost no women in the oil fields, and to be honest women don’t belong there. There’s no pretension on an oil rig. You drill the hole. Period. If you can’t take the work you quit, do meth to make it bearable, or you go nuts. I went nuts. Everyone I worked with did meth. All my defenses were down. My natural instincts were on a bare simmer. That’s why I didn’t wince when I first saw Heather. Normal human reactions have no place in the oil fields.

Heather may have been an inch or two over five feet tall, but not much more. It was hard to tell because she sat on a pad about six inches thick most of the time. She had a body for sitting and hardly ever stood. Heather must have weighed at least three-hundred pounds, and had a face that could have terrified a thousand ships back to their lands of origin. It looked like someone had tried to extinguish a fire on her face with an ice pick. She also had the subtle odor of urine and syrup clinging about her obese fat rolls like cologne.

“Need your John Hancock right here ma’am,” I said handing her the sign in clip board. I should have displayed my disgust for her, but the rig had eroded by revulsion centers. She could have been a burn victim and I wouldn’t have batted an eye.

Heather licked her lips sensually, the tip of her tongue tasting the place where her front tooth had been knocked out. “Ooh, a smart guy huh?” She had an ugly voice, and a predatory almost malicious way of looking at a man that made him feel vulnerable and hunted.

The words “I try,” and a smile later, Heather had marked me as her property.

Everywhere I turned for a week I saw her watching me. She dropped litter outside of her trailer so that I would have to come near it to clean it up. The smell of her animal den made my nostrils burn.

“You know, BC… I have this whole double wide trailer to myself. It’s so lonely in here.”

I never responded when she said these kinds of things. I just kept picking up her trash. I guess that was enough for her. If you want someone to want you bad enough, you’ll take any little sign to mean great things.

It got worse. She would find heavy objects she suddenly needed me to carry. I picked them up and set them down in silence. I should have shut her down, but I was not myself then. Not thinking straight. Quiet was all I could muster. Heather watched me like a coyote watches a limping rabbit… waiting… breathing at me from behind her trailer window.

“BC, I haven’t seen my boyfriend in so long. I need a man so bad.” We all knew she didn’t have a boyfriend.

My face was stone, showing no emotion. All I wanted to do was drill, throw connections, and keep the machinery working. I ignored all other concerns.

I only had a few weeks left to go in the fields when I saw the terror. I can see it even now. Even as I type. Superimposed over the words like a gaping chasm into the abyss. A gaping chasm. How ironic. I see what Heather did, and I am revolted.

I was putting tools back in the locker, getting ready to get off of evening tour, and go home. My co-workers heckled me, calling me Shrek, asking if the gringo with glasses thought he was a man yet. I ignored them too. I had fought with all of them enough that they left me alone except for the taunts. Heather’s voice came over the intercom, crackling and breathy. “Can Shrek come down? I need him to give me a… hand… with something.” I grimaced at the cat calls.

I had only two weeks left on the rig. I needed to come alive again, get reacquainted with the world. To do that I needed to shut down Heather once and for all. I knew my time as a zombie had to come to an end. I walked down to the Directional Drill shack, a cramped box no more than five feet on each side, filled with monitoring equipment and a single chair. I opened the door, prepared to tell Heather exactly what I thought of her.

It was the smell that hit me first.

There was the slight odor of urine and syrup that composed Heather’s natural scent… but over and above that smell… was… something like tuna fish that been left to spoil. Something that smelled like it had come up from the bottom of the sea and beached itself at low tide. When I saw the horror, my throat clenched so tightly I could not even vomit. I knew then that there was no God. That all of creation had been an accident.

It looked like an octopus that had been crushed by a hydraulic press, or perhaps raw hamburger someone had thrown on the floor of a barber shop and picked back up. Only it was worse than all those things because it was phlegmy and gooey, and just by looking at it you could feel its horrible clinging texture. It was the texture of rape and invasion, of penetration and soiling. It was Heather’s vagina, and she was wantonly shoving her entire fist in and out of it licking her lips at me. I would have thought that a woman that fat would never have been able to crawl up on a desk and spread her legs open that far. I would have been wrong.

Heather’s lips curled back enough that I could see the hollow spot in her gums where her front tooth should have been. “Wanna give me a hand, BC?” Just like that my revulsion centers came back on-line, stronger than ever.

I more fell backwards out of the shack, than ran out of it, although I somehow managed to slam the door shut. I spent a whole five minutes just venting the oxygen in my lungs, trying to get the scent of her out of my system. I didn’t want a particle that had touched her to touch me too. So I gagged for a while, too shocked to realize this was the first time I had felt properly human in three months. Revulsion is one of the most human emotions there is.

While I did my best to talk to no one in the oil fields I found myself wanting to scream the story to the nearest person, but knew I could not. I had no friends here. No one to hold witness with me. So I suffered alone, thinking about it for days every time I did anything. In my dreams her terrible vagina wrapped around my whole body and swallowed it hole, only to queef out a skeleton a few days later, like a monster out of Norse myths.

The next day Heather was gone. Her crew was done with our rig, and just like that I knew why she had been so forward and why she had not thought to care about the consequences. She was never around the same people for longer than  a few weeks. She never had to worry about repercussion. For Heather the world was a great big free for all where anything went.

In two weeks I was back in college, and the shock could have been no greater had I been tossed from an inferno into an arctic ocean. How could I care about chemistry, I used to think, when I have lived through the vision of Heather? I looked at carbon structures, fighting the urge to stand up and shout, “I have seen the abyss! I have stared into the source of all human nightmares, and I have lived!” Only I could not. There was no common experience by which my fellow students could relate.

An interesting thought, and then we may depart on separate paths. I will go back to my horror. You will live on with a muted reflection of it.

If your existence on this Earth has been greater than twenty years, a molecule of water that has passed through your body is in every cup of water drunk by every person on the planet Earth. The same is true of everyone else, dead or alive, if they have occupied space here for over twenty years.

Every time you shower, every time you quench your thirst after running, every time you water your lawn, you are using molecules of water that have been through everyone over the age of twenty. You are using particles that have been all over their bodies. So think of Heather next time you’re feeling thirsty. Think of her horror and how many of its molecules you are swallowing. I know I do.

***

BC Woods authors the site DunceUponATime, where he relates stories about events in his childhood, such as being attacked by a fawn, injuring himself with a sword, and his fourth grade teacher dropping dead in the middle of class. While he admits there are thousand of sites on the internet much better than his, readers are always welcome.

Furthermore, I somewhat agree with the idea that it’s also rude to write a ‘no gifts’ request in your party invitation. I don’t think it’s as rude as including a goddamn wish list in there, mind you, but it’s still impolite nonetheless. Very vaguely, it does imply you were expecting a gift in the first place. Not only that, but if someone really wants to give you a gift, you are kinda refusing them and that’s pretty ungrateful.

So how do you refrain from being a greedy jackass while still retaining your manners? Well, I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve simply quit throwing gift themed parties.

Don’t have a birthday party for your kids. Just have a party. Invite all her friends over to hang out, eat some food, and have a little fun. You can casually forget to mention it’s her birthday in the invitation. Explain to your child that parties are about friendships as opposed to new toys. Tell her that the party itself is a gift. For family members who realize that it’s a birthday and ask about bringing a gift, you can quietly ask them not to bring a gift to the party because you don’t want to make the other guests uncomfortable. If they give your child a gift at a later date, great. If not, also great.

Quit having bachelor parties, wedding showers, etc. In fact, quit having weddings all together. I’ve said this before, but weddings are nothing more than an expensive show off day for women with princess complexes. Don’t indulge in that crap. Instead, go get married and throw an informal party for your friends and family at a later date.

Mother’s day. Father’s day. Valentine’s day. Secretary’s day. Quit celebrating them. You don’t need a holiday to validate your personal relationships. Hallmark should not dictate to you when and how you honor you parents, lovers, and coworkers!

Baby showers could still be somewhat useful for first born children (And first born children only) assuming the family is in legitimate need.

Throwing a party because junior graduated from anything or because you’re ‘house warming’ or recently engaged is just obvious present grubbing. I’m guessing that if you’re stooping this low, you have no interest in manners. You’re too obsessed with stuff to worry about cultivating meaningful personal relationships. Yeah. I’m judging you. What of it?

No matter what, it is always rude to have a wish list, gift registry, or to ask people to donate to any sort of ‘fund’ when they are buying you a present. If you receive a give, love whatever it is simply because someone thought of you and how cool is that?

Anyway, that’s my solution. Take it for what you will.

In other news, I am completely fascinated with this site. I’m particularly partial to this article and pretty much everything he’s written on narcissism, borderline personality disorder, and pornography. I totally want this guy to psychoanalyze me. If only to see if what he says matches up with what all my other shrinks said.

Hey everyone! Jacob is turning 4! So let’s break out the crabby patties and have a party!
Where: [deleted]
When: [deleted]
Please RSVP: [deleted]
Gift ideas include: Construction toys, dinosaurs, and toy tools!

I grew up in a household where it was taboo to even expect a gift. So the idea that someone would send out a party invitation that also doubles as a shopping list is particularly horrifying to me.

But hey! I suppose it’s a great way to teach your children that people are nothing more than walking, talking credit cards you can use to get more stuff! Why make a celebrations about spending time with the people you love when you can tactlessly and shamelessly turn every event into ‘GIMMEE GIMMEE GIMMEE’ grab time?

Am I the only one who is turned off by the blatant present grubbing that is running rampant nowadays?

My Sister-in-law just got done throwing three separate birthday parties for her youngest son’s first birthday. And yes, if you got ‘lucky’ and happened to be invited to all 3, you were expected to bring 3 different gifts. Ignoring the fact that my 1 year old nephew could theoretically amuse himself with a piece of aluminum foil rendering most store bought presents a foolish waste of money, what the hell does he need three parties for? His mind is mush; he has no concept of what a ‘birthday’ even is! It’s not like he’s going to greet my ass at the door, all, “Aunt V! So good of you to come! Please, toss your coat in my crib and grab yourself a drink!”

I’ll tell you why she did it. She wanted to use his birthday as an excuse to grub for money. Flummoxed by the idea of picking out three presents for the kid who doesn’t yet have the mental capacity to understand he sometimes sits in piss and shit, most people just wrote that greedy bitch a check.

I wish I could say this new trend of shockingly poor manners was reserved strictly for children’s birthday parties. But unfortunately, it’s everywhere.

Bachelorette parties! Bachelor parties! Buy me stuff!

Mother’s Day! Father’s Day! Secretary’s Day! I did my fucking job just like every other shlub on this planet day! Buy me stuff!

Hey! I just moved into a new apartment! Buy me stuff!

How many excuses are we going to utilize in order to convince those supposedly nearest and dearest to us to buy us stuff? And not just any stuff, either. Please only buy the stuff I’ve listed on my gift registry/Wish list/Internet gift guide. Oh, and leave the receipt in the bag in case I get two.

So rude. So presumptuous.

Bridal showers! Baby Showers! Buy me stuff!

A quick word about showers: a long time ago, when a man and a woman got married, it was tradition to bring the bride and groom a small gift in order to help them ‘set up house.’ You see, people back then usually lived with their parents up until the day they got married, so the young couple was honestly in need. Not only that, but for couples living in small towns in the middle of nowhere, it was hard to get your hands on basic necessities even if you had the money to spare. They didn’t have a Macy’s right across the fucking street!

Furthermore, they faced the same trials and tribulations when they had their first baby. Back then, there was no mall and no Babies R Us store. They had nowhere to go to buy a stroller. So the neighborhood friends would ‘donate’ their unused baby items to the expecting couple to help ease the stress and expense.

In short, the tradition of having ‘wedding showers’ and ‘baby showers’ made sense….70 years ago.

However, now we have couples who have been living together for years before they tie the knot and therefore have no legitimate need for anyone to help them ‘set up house’ and Mother’s who actually demand baby showers for their 3rd or 4th child. Showers are no longer about tradition! They are about greed and taking advantage of friends by peer pressuring them into buying designer knife sets when they’ve got their own damn bills to pay.

Valentine’s Day. Sweetest Day. Buy me stuff!

Didn’t I just invite you to my wedding? Please, buy me something from my list to cover the cost of your meal.

(My Grandmother used to say that if you can’t afford to feed them, entertain them, and fill them full of booze, then you have no business throwing a party)

Hey everyone! Junior just graduated from kindergarten/middle school/high school/his first semester of college! We’re throwing a party! Please review his wishlist online for proper gift suggestions! After all, we made that list for your convenience. We wouldn’t want you to actually pick a gift out yourself or, God forbid, make him something with your own two hands. Egad. We’d rather you just donate to his ‘new car fund’ or buy him an Ipod.

For those of you who are tuning in to this little website of mine from a different country, I just want to make it perfectly clear that this is how the common American treats his friends. His friends! Trust me; I know why you hate us. We’re greedy. We’re tacky. We think everyone ‘owes’ us something. In fact, I’m willing to bet money that some lousy fuck is out there right now trying invent a ‘tradition’ that forces anyone visiting America on holiday to purchase a gift for someone beforehand.

Welcome to our country! Buy us stuff!

Burn us. Burn us all. Burn us before it’s too late.

Hey Americans! Guess what, you dipshits? It’s not a gift if you ask for it! It’s an obligation, presented in the greediest and most classless way possible. Congratulations on managing to take all the heart and soul out of gift exchanges while simultaneously trivializing your personal relationships. You no longer have friends. You have breathing ATMs! Kudos. Kudos to you all.

The sad part is I actually love to give people gifts. I’m a big fan of the ‘just because I love you’ gift or the ‘I know you needed it’ gift. But the rudeness, the audacity, and the horrendous gluttony of some people is enough to turn me off to the whole gift exchange process altogether. I’m a living, breathing person and if my only value to you is what is in my wallet, then we don’t need to be fucking friends.

I’m going to sum this article up with two stories I stumbled upon on the Internet.

The first story I found on Yahoo Answers. It featured an Entitled Bitch asking people whether or not it’s appropriate to send a child to a birthday party without a gift. The reason she asked was because she just got done throwing her child a birthday party and one of the friends apparently showed up sans gift. Entitled bitch went into this big long explanation where she detailed how much she paid to throw the party and speculated on how much the child’s parents made per year. It was quite obvious that she thought the little girl who came without the present should have been excluded from the gathering completely if her parents wouldn’t (or couldn’t) pony up a present.

Hopefully, she’ll pass that devastating good will onto to her spawn.

I can’t, for the life of me, remember where I ran into this next story. I think it was on an Internet forum or something and if someone could point me towards it, I’ll link to it.

However, the true story was written by a girl whose very best friend in the whole world came from a very poor family. One year, this girl was throwing a birthday party and her best friend’s parents declined the invitation because they honestly couldn’t afford a gift. Completely unknown to the little girl, her Mother spoke to her friend’s parents and assured them that a present was completely unnecessary and begged them to send her friend to the party anyway. This little girl’s Mother didn’t want her daughter to have to spend her special day without the presence of her best friend over some silly piece of plastic.

Anyway, on the day of the party, the little girl in question got all caught up in the ‘Queen for the Day’ mentality that comes along with big birthday bashes and started behaving somewhat bratty. When her very best friend in the whole world showed up and rang the doorbell, she keenly remembers answering it and saying simply, “Hey! Where’s my gift?”

Humiliated, the little boy burst into tears and ran all the way back home. Her friendship with him effectively ended for good that fateful day. The little girl/now grown woman ended her story by saying (loosely paraphrased), “I will never forget the look in his eyes when I said that to him. It absolutely haunts me to this day.”

Reading her story actually broke my heart a little. More so because I know most kids nowadays, if placed in a similar situation, wouldn’t think anything of it.

After all, celebrations aren’t about people anymore. It’s all about the presents, baby! Buy me stuff! Buy me stuff! Buy me stuff!

Fuck you all. Buy your own fucking stuff.

V: I’m just so bored with myself. And I figured I could either develop a personality or get a new haircut.

Gay Hairdresser: Haircut is easier.

V: That’s what I thought.

We live in an era where the decision to have a child is considered by many to be of less importance than the decision to get married. Given how frivolously marriages are formed and broken, this is not a statement made lightly. The rate of teen pregnancy in the US is significantly higher than in almost all other industrialized nations. For a surprisingly large number of people, the idea of creating a new human life does not immediately imply the responsibility to create a safe environment in which that life can flourish. Would-be parents simply think that they will have a child and the world will somehow fall into place. Worse, the world does not even seem to recognize that this value system is flawed.

When I attended my younger brother’s remedial high school graduation a little over a year ago, a retarded girl was given special recognition at the ceremony. Her accomplishment? She was not yet eighteen years old and already had two children. She was eight months pregnant with another. The crowd saw fit to erupt in applause. Given the fact that every family there, including mine, was dysfunctional, this is not surprising.

Contrary to popular cultural memes, it’s not always a good thing when a child is born. Firstly, a child born to a family without a home or an ability to feed it is a child sentenced either to die or to become a ward of the state. Secondly, a child who grows up in a home where they cannot observe a healthy loving relationship (gay or straight) is sentenced to a myriad of mental dysfunctions. Yet when we see a retarded girl pregnant on a stage we applaud. It is no longer our impulse to demand to know who raped her, because a retarded person cannot possibly give consent. It is no longer our impulse to take her children away and give it to a loving family that cannot have children of their own. No, when we see a poor child totally incapable of understanding the magnitude of what she is carrying inside her, we stand up and cheer. They even gave her a plaque. I bet if she could read it, she would be honored. Maybe one day if she doesn’t kill her children by mistake, they’ll be able to tell her what it says.

Why this has come to be is complex. Most of it can be explained away by the fact that people fully expect that the world is responsible for them. They never stop to think that the world is full of people, and that’s it’s the individual people who have to shoulder the burden of their short-comings. No one ever thinks that if everyone has to lean on everyone else, we all die. In this environment it makes sense that people will have children irregardless of the consequences. If someone doesn’t even have to be responsible for their self, why should they have to be responsible for their child? The problem is complex, but the solution is simple.

In our society, a woman has complete biological authority over the life of her unborn child. Growing in her womb, taking its sustenance from her blood, an unborn infant and the mother share a unique bond observed nowhere else among humans. For this reason, when a woman becomes pregnant it is her absolute right either to keep the child or to have it aborted without considering the wishes of the father. This cannot be disputed. However, society, even in legal terms, does not recognize any such rights for men. I would propose that a simple tweaking in the law could fundamentally shift the entire reproductive paradigm for the better.

What I propose will shock you. Your immediate instinct will be to rise up and call me a misogynist. All I ask is that you seriously consider what I am about to propose, and carry it to its logical conclusions:

Allow men the right to legally disown their unborn children. In cases where the father is never told of the child, he should have no legal obligation to assist in the child’s upbringing except by free choice.

We currently have something in the legal system called child support. In the case of a married couple that has divorced this is a fair concept. But we have another situation in which a man that has had sex with a woman he does not love can be held legally responsible for the child she bears. He will then have to pay for this child, and his mistake for the rest of his life. Many mothers would be unable to support themselves without this source of income.

Our sensibilities of course immediately go to the mother and child. What will she do? How will she care for the baby? What if they can’t make rent? What if they starve to death? We know that such children are already disadvantaged. We know that they are predisposed to commit crimes if no one steps up to the plate. How can the world be safe for these children with this too stacked against them? How in such a world can such families hope to exist? Exactly.

You see, in a world where men are legally allowed to disown their unborn babies the incentive on a woman to make certain that the man she is having her baby with has some kind of nurturing capacity and integrity is directly tied to her survival. No more casual dalliances, no more use of babies as bargaining chips, no more families brought together by legal pressure instead of love. With the safety net removed people will be forced to become good parents. If you can’t find a partner you can be sure will stick around and raise your baby with you, you will not be able to have a child.

An immediate criticism of this is that it would destroy American families. What American families are we protecting exactly? Do you think dependable, respectable people raise their children solely out of legal obligation? Do you think fathers who love their children and their wives would be gone in a heart-beat if they didn’t have to be there? The obvious answer is no. This would cause the dissolution of exactly one kind of union: the dysfunctional family.

Of course necessary reforms would have to be made in the welfare system. Namely, individuals on government assistance would not be allowed to have children. If you cannot make enough money to care for one child then having another child is an act of intentional abuse. For those who suggest that this is a violation of liberty, consider the crime committed against hundreds of thousands of children who are born into an environment in which there is almost no hope. Compared to this, a required contraceptive is menial. Those who honestly need assistance can have as many children as they want once they’re back on their feet.

I know a woman who poked holes in her boyfriend’s condoms so he would knock her up and marry her. I know a man who uses his child solely to hand him beers when he’s having sex. I know a woman who sold her baby to his father for $500. I know a man who used to beat his son hard enough to leave bruises the size of baseballs. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Prisons do not fill themselves. I do not find it a bit wrong to create a system wherein this caliber of individual, by their own free choice, is allowed to stop breeding. That’s not discrimination, it is natural selection. No one is being forced, in fact quite the opposite. This is freedom of choice creating a healthier environment for children. We can simply stop letting a segment of society use the government to facilitate its breeding activities.

The other option of course is that in five hundred years the average IQ will be less than seventy, Carl’s Junior will own the government, and people will live in giant Costco villages watering their plants with Gatorade. Let’s not lie to ourselves, if we don’t do something that’s the alternative.

***

BC Woods authors the site DunceUponATime, where he relates stories about events in his childhood, such as being attacked by a fawn, injuring himself with a sword, and his fourth grade teacher dropping dead in the middle of class. While he admits there are thousand of sites on the internet much better than his, readers are always welcome.

When confronted with this question, most people will parrot all the typical scientific answers. We have larger brains and a more complex thought process. We have opposable thumbs and the physical ability to build some pretty amazing things.

But the size of our brains and the mechanical ability of our hands is just dumb evolutionary luck. Why should we develop ego over something about ourselves that we have no control over?

Some people insist that humans are better than animals because we’re at the top of the food chain. However, the tendency to judge the value of society strictly by its ability to kill the most efficiently makes me a little uneasy. For one thing, it creates an awfully slippery slope. Are Americans more human than the members of some tribe in a third world country simply because we have bigger guns? Furthermore, citing ‘ability to kill’ as the most important asset of the human race kind of sells us all short.

Lastly, some people claim humans are better because we were chosen by God. As an Atheist, I find ‘The God Excuse’ in most matters to be counterproductive at best and actively harmful at worst. With that said, it’s almost deliciously ironic than in this circumstance, the God mongers are as close to right as anyone has come yet

Of course, the idea that we might have been ‘chosen by God’ is not only silly, but completely irrelevant. What is relevant are the possible reasons why we would have been chosen if God actually did exist.

The answer to that lies in the human brain. Or, more specifically, our ability to ‘see the big picture.’ In short, if God existed, he would have chosen us because our thought process is complex enough that we are able to comprehend how are actions affect others.

The difference between a human and an animal is an animal is solely focused on his own genetic survival. He wants to stay alive and he wants his children to stay alive. The rest of the world and how it works is beyond his comprehension.

A human, on the other hand, possesses a survival instinct as well a desire to preserve and protect the rest of the world. Animals don’t give a shit about the rain forest or the plight of the giant panda. Humans do. An animal never stays up late at night worried that another animal, unrelated to him, may be suffering. Humans do.

Are humans sometimes misguided, illogical, or just plain wrong? Sure. But at least they care. The ability to care about something greater than yourself makes you a human. It’s only in the execution where mistakes are understandably made.

The ‘top of the food chain’ jerks like to fancy themselves these amazing predators. This couldn’t be further from the truth. After all, a predator kills to survive. This instinct is necessary. When a lion kills a gazelle, he does so simply to fill his belly. Afterwards, he probably takes a nap. He does not go out and kill 100 more gazelles he has no intention of eating just because he can.

The fact is modern day “humans” rarely display predatory behavior. They don’t spend their lives acquiring overly large houses, ipods, and shit made out of diamonds because they need them to survive. They do it because they’re mindless consumers who need more, more, more. And once they have it, they want it again…only bigger, better, and faster. Why they want it doesn’t matter. Just shut up already and charge it to their credit cards!

This behavior is in no way predatory. It’s parasitic.

Make no mistake about what I’m trying to imply here: if you live your life mindlessly consuming, without thought or consequence, completely oblivious to how your behavior affects the rest of the world, then you are not a human. I don’t give a flying fuck what your DNA suggests. You are an animal. You are a parasite. You have no more intrinsic value than that of a common maggot. In fact, I would go so far as to say you have less value than a common maggot. The maggot is at least doing his job. You’re just being repetitive.

Existing at the top of the food chain is not a privilege. Nor is a free pass to rape and pillage and plunder. It’s a responsibility. As humans, we have an obligation to contribute to this world and protect all the creatures and resources that come with it. That’s our job.

If we want to continue to insist that humans are somehow ‘better’ or ‘different’ from the rest of the animal kingdom, then we have to be willing to embrace that which sets us apart. It’s not all fun and games, this ‘being a human’ business. It’s fucking work. But we do it, because nothing else can. So if you’re not ready, willing, able and even eager to do your part, please return your ‘Human Card’ now. Quit demanding recognition because you were blessed with fancy thumbs.

The problem with this world is we have too many parasites and not enough contributors.

Look, I realize that a vast majority of the population longs for a world in which everyone happily does their own thing without it affecting anyone else. I felt the same way as a child. I also wanted unicorns to be real. Unfortunately, we have a better shot at inventing unicorns than we do at creating a society where people can do whatever they please with consequence to others. A society without individual consequence to the whole is fucking impossible. We don’t live life in a vacuum!

If you lie, cheat, steal, litter, waste or ignore, those actions will affect others. Likewise, if you help, clean, give, or heal, those actions will affect others. Everything you do and everything you don’t do feasibly affects someone else. You can’t even speak on this planet without affecting another person. You can’t breathe on this planet without affecting something else. Hell, you can’t even kill yourself without creating a consequence for someone else.

Welcome to reality, folks! There are no unicorns here either. Yet.

Convincing people that it is impossible to opt out of society even if they really, really want to is hard work. I’ve noticed that if I try, I produce 1 of 3 results.

1. They put their fingers in their ears, scream ‘La la la! I can’t hear you’ really loudly and outright refuse to believe that a world where they can take care of only themselves without any negative consequences to others will never, ever exist.
2. The lament the unfairness of it all while simultaneously embracing the role of perpetual parasite.
3. They accept their position on this planet and start working for something greater than themselves. They contribute.

Again, I say the problem with this world is we currently have too many parasites and not enough contributors. We have a generation of people who would prefer to live in a bubble, but no bubbles to give them. We have more maggots than we have room for. Even worse, we have maggots that speak. We have maggots that won’t let a day go by without curtly informing you what they are not responsible for.

Want an example?

A bunch of loan officers gave money to irresponsible people who were financially incapable of honoring the terms of the loan. As a result, people defaulted on their loan in droves creating an economic crisis. The value of the American dollar plummeted and gas prices rose for everyone. At the end of the day, who is responsible? We’re all affected, but no one is accepting culpability.

Loan officers continue to insist that the irresponsible people shouldn’t have accepted the money in the first place. The irresponsible people point at the greedy loan officers and cry trickery. Everyone is too busy playing the victim role and pointing the finger at someone else to accept personal responsibility in creating suffering or strife for others.

So who is really responsible? The human or the animal? Obviously, it’s the human’s fault, every time. Remember, an animal is incapable of seeing the ‘big picture’ and therefore needs human protection. The animal, through no fault of his own, victimizes others and if he’s unlucky enough ultimately victimizes himself as a result.

The question shouldn’t be who is responsible in this scenario. The question should be: between the greedy loan officers and the irresponsible people, which one is the human? The answer to that is also simple: the first one to raise their hand and say, “It was my fault.”

An animal will never accept culpability for anything, ever. An animal will idly watch another animal beat the shit out of some poor kid and when you ask him why he didn’t intervene, he will say shit like:

“It’s none of my business.”

“He’s not my kid and therefore not my responsibility.”

This befuddles the human race because we understand our responsibility towards creatures weaker than ourselves. Whether they are biologically related to us or even belong to the same species as us is a moot point. We’re human and it’s our job to protect them. Because if we don’t, who will? No one else is capable, so the responsibility lies with us. Furthermore, humans realize that allowing animals to ‘parent’ potentially human children creates dire consequences for the rest of the world.

An animal will ignore that child, but you better believe he will be the first one to cry foul when that same child grows up and rapes his daughter. He’ll gladly place the blame on the parent, claiming that it was the actual beatings and the neglect and the molestation that turned the child bad. He’ll even blame the child and try to convince us that the kid willingly chose to become a monster. In reality, it’s his short sighted animal mentality that is really to blame. He feigns helplessness, refusing to consider that his intervention could have prevented a tragedy.

I know I’m starting to ramble. I know I’m being vague. So instead of going on and on and on with this lecturing, I’m going to tell you how you can tell whether or not you are a human or an animal. Revisiting my last example, I’m going to set up a scenario for you. Afterwards, I’m going to ask you a question.

A parent beats a child. A neighbor knows the child is being beaten, but for personal reasons, refuses to become involved. The child grows up to become a monster.

Who is to blame? Is it the monster’s fault for merely existing? Or is it the parent who twisted him, arguably a monster himself and so mentally fucked in the head that he likely didn’t realize that beating his child was wrong in the first place? Or is the fault of the completely sane and stable neighbor, who knew it was happening, who knew it was wrong, who possessed the ability to see the ‘big picture’ and still refused to do anything to stop it?

Thank carefully about this question because your answer determines your level of humanity. Furthermore, if you need the answer spelled out for you by me, I can almost guarantee you that you answered wrong. Welcome to the animal kingdom.

Don’t worry, us humans will eventually figure out a way to take care of you, too.

My Birthday Charity Challenge ends tomorrow, so donate while you can. As it stands, it would take a fucking miracle to make our $10,000 goal, but donate anyway. Donate because sometimes doing the right thing is it’s own reward and lecture, lecture, lecture.

I wish I could be more inspiring than that. However, if this contest proves anything it’s that I fucking suck at inspiring the masses. Sorry.

“Ninety percent of small businesses will fail within the first 5 years!” they chirp like pre-programmed fail robots.

My retort is always the same: “So does that mean no one in the world should ever try to start anything ever again?”

In my case, I’ve never failed at anything I’ve set my mind to. Perhaps if I did, it would do me some good. I’d finally get to eat my piece of humble pie.

But more than that, failing doesn’t scare me. It’s the not trying that terrifies me. The idea that I may live my whole life without ever pursuing my personal vision, without even attempting to leave a mark or make a positive impact on my community, pursuing a scripted life crippled by the fear of possible failure scares the ever loving shit out of me.

There’s more to life than monetary success or failure. Furthermore, sometimes the journey is worth it no matter what the result.

So far, I haven’t yet bothered explaining this concept to those who recite the small business failure statistics as if those magical numbers will stun me into submission or a life of mediocrity. They’d never understand anyway. I learned a long time ago that fear and fear alone is the one emotion that separates the warriors from the weak. We’re like a whole different species, man.

Instead I tell them that I’m currently in the process of convincing a panel of lenders to lend me a cool million and I’m planning to use every piece of real estate I own, including my own personal home, as collateral.

When they whisper in shocked voices, “But what if….”

I curtly reply, “Hey, if I’m going to lose, I might as well lose big, right?”

It’s fun to watch the cowards turn green.

Our school happened to have a sustained silent reading program and once a week our teacher was obligated to force us to read something, anything, (preferably without pictures) in a vain attempt to improve our overall vocabulary. Personally, I relished the time. Rarely did I need an excuse to read.

It was during silent reading time that I suddenly found myself overcome by an almost irresistible urge to pee. Briefly, I thought about raising my hand and requesting a hall pass. However, I was in the middle of a particularly smutty sex scene in my book and I was reluctant to put it down for even the 10 minutes it would take me to run to the restroom and back. Instead, I resigned myself to doing the ‘pee dance’ in my seat, shifting around from side to side like an excited second grader, as I gobbled up sentence after sentence with my eyes on the page before me.

Out of nowhere, my thighs started to spasm. Panicked, I looked up from my book to see if anyone was watching me. Luckily, everyone was obediently reading or sleeping, so I was free to conduct my mini break down in relative peace. With a choking sigh, I slumped over on my desk and forced myself to breath slowly.

After a few moments, the feeling finally passed. When the bell rang a couple of minutes later, I escaped into the hall without the vaguest notion of what had happened to me.

It took 2 full weeks jam packed full of fresh incidents before I made the connection that the episodes nearly always occurred when I was reading a book. It took another week on top of that for me to realize they happened whenever I was reading a sex scene, in particular. But even as I made the connections, I tried to deny what was happening. I told myself that my body was being ‘all weird’ and I had nothing to do with it.

But the truth was I was masturbating.

What was so foolish and silly about the whole thing was my aversion to touching myself. I would twist around in my seat. I would rub up against my blankets, spray myself with water, or gyrate in my clothes. Yet…yet…I could not bring myself to connect my finger to my clit.

It was almost as if my lack of finger action gave me some sort of victim status. After all, if I never made the conscious decision to diddle myself, I could continue to pretend that my body had a mind of its own and I was helpless against it. Right?

This went on for months. It might have gone on forever, if not for the fact that every instance of muffled masturbation produced a more and more muffled orgasm. Like a heroin addict who needs more drugs to achieve the same high, I found myself pacing my room frantically wondering how I could intensify the feeling between my legs.

Finally, that fateful, desperate day arrived where finger finally connected with clit and life became an almost nonstop blur of chronic masturbation. I masturbated when I woke up in the morning. I masturbated in between classes at school, hidden in the rarely used 3rd floor restroom. When I got home from school, I holed up in my room with my hand permanently attached to my crotch. I touched myself so often that a few times my wrist literally gave out on me. But even as I clutched it, moaning with pain, I would find myself eying my room looking for alternative ways to get myself off.

I was a goddamn fiend.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up now is because a friend and I were recently discussing all the odd fetish porn out there nowadays. One of us brought up balloon porn (girls masturbating with a balloons, yes, there is a market for this shit) and I started laughing as I remembered all the fucked up shit I masturbated with as a teenager while I waited for my poor wrist to heal.

However, after thinking about it in depth some more, I was struck by how hard it was for me to actually touch myself in the first goddamn place. Never in my life had anyone told me that touching my nether regions was gross or dirty or anything like that, either. In fact, no one had mentioned masturbation at all. Still, I was definitely skeeved out by the idea.

To this day, I have no idea why.