Knee-deep in Nonsense

The devil he claims is a friend of his. I know he doesn’t mean that, but then again, maybe he does. I gave up a long time ago attempting to analyze the unanalyzable. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but then you don’t know Jude. I hope!

Jude is one of those people who believe in astrology, stars, moons, horoscopes, and hororscopes. Most people believe in all kinds of things, but not hororscopes. I asked Jude what that even means. I know what a horoscope is; like being mind read by the celestials, who we all know exist, but like God, we just can’t see them. They have never come down her themselves, only send signs they exist, shooting stars, eclipses, things like that.

Jude believes hororscopes are basically the same thing as crystal ball insight into our future demise, be it kind, or brutal, it is predictable and can be foreseen should one have the time and interest to want to see. Course, most people don’t want to see. They’d rather be hit by falling star, than be run over by a teen breaking lose from the chains of adolescence on a moped, he has no interest in learning to ride. He’s been bucked about for so long he thinks it is a part of life that can’t be avoided, and therefore why try. Escape-Ville sometimes, is the only place to hide.

I have attempt to understand Jude's perspective on life and its divergence from what Jude refers to as "the dream." I assume he is referring to his dream, as I've returned mine for diagnostic re-evaluation. 

It is this bone of contention that separates Jude and I into differing camps concerning fate, which I perceive to be a smorgasbord of possibility, depending upon the ingredients. Jude is a staunch believer in predestination, which as he describes it, “is when something mystical, perhaps a God, has written your story before you exist, and because of the spiritual nature of God’s plan, you not only have to follow the commands, but follow them religiously." No pun intended, I assume. 

It is according to Jude, like having a narrow path to traverse, life, with giant walls of temptation rising into the heavens on both sides, keeping you from making a mistake that you will regret. I understand the philosophy, but am tired of arguing the “free will” scenario, that gives you the right to go to hell on your own terms, or bypass limbo, collect your two-hundred indulgences and go straight to the promised land. It is the promised land we disagree on. That and a thousand other things, but even though we understand each other and agree to disagree, we retain a right we both agree with. We are allowed to dislike, or even hate one another’s stupidity, no matter how egregious we perceive it to be. Perception, we do agree, is the common denominator in all disagreements; that and alcohol. We both agree that the abolitionists had it right. What they didn’t have right was forgetting that when you take something away, you need to replace it with something else, or it leaves holes in people’s lives. 

Previous to prohibition, and even after that time, they were using cocaine as a medicinal agent, thus Coca-Cola, the dream maker for young children served two purposes simultaneously, while directly opposing one another. Coke would rot your teeth, but at the same time, kill the pain a bad tooth would cause. A win-win as some would say, especially dentists, who had acquired nonvaccine which created a dead zone, that unlike the more modern and interesting nitrous oxide, only worked on the area it was applied to.

We both agree marijuana, although more therapeutic than alcohol, until recently didn’t engender what counts most in life, money. Therefore it was considered an illegal substance at the federal level, and will remain that way until its ability to generate money becomes too important to ignore. "Morals are interesting inventions of manufactured necessity," Jude says when in one of his contemplative moods. 

That leads to one of our biggest disagreements, which would have come to blows had either of us been able to get off the floor. It began with him owing me twenty dollars. Now twenty dollars is not a lot of money, unless you don’t have twenty dollars, but then that is the measure by which we measure success in our society.

I should say in an effort to be fair, that Jude came from an atmosphere of disillusioned predictability. He wrote a paper once on how absolute, has to be absolute, as it is the basis for his contention that we are corralled, fenced in, driven by ghost riders in the sky towards the big reckoning, and there isn’t a thing we can do about it. Perhaps you are getting the impression, as to why we have our misunderstandings.

I cannot see what the purpose of all of this… life, would be, if we are programmed like a robot to go through the motions until our batteries run out. As far as I know there are no energized bunnies that are going to come to our aid. But that is the crux of my argument, many of us suffer from dumb luck which allows us to disavow reality in favor of prognostication.

I have dreams about the angels in the sky, some playing marbles, some having pillow fights, some crying over the winner or losers, depending on how your bet paid off. But when all is said and done, it is likely that one of the marbles is going to miss their mark, and fall landing on yours truly, as I’m signing the lottery check for two hundred and fifty million pesos. Maybe it only amounts to thirty-three dollars after taxes, but it’s the emotional high one gets from winning that counts. If it wasn’t, all our states and tribes would continue to be habitually depressed.

We also disagree over greed. I personally feel greed is right up there with arrogance, unless you are extremely wealthy, then it is simpler to disregard either or both. 

Jude believes money and arrogance, although not joined at the hip, usually have one or the other up their sleeve. People he says who indulge in greed and arrogance are, “inherently selfish, and become even more so, but in a good way.” I had to ask what a good way might be.

He says, “like on a plane, when you are going to crash, and the masks fall from the ceiling that is about to become tin foil, you should help yourself first, then if not to overtaxed, help others.”

He likes to use the word taxed in every conceivable way. I think that is because he doesn’t pay taxes. “What’s the use?” he says. “If you don’t pay and get caught, and go to jail or get fined, which you ain’t going to pay anyway, why bother, no matter what happens it is predetermined, so it all works out. If it doesn’t, more power to the Tax Gods.”

He also doesn’t believe in the idea of taxes, as he sees them as, “a temptation for people to become lazy and ungrateful, which is a waste of everyone’s time, as you are then forced onto a treadmill you can’t escape."

I assumed he was referring to social programs.

"So just go with the flow, and except the fact it may appear that although some are receiving the benefit of your dollar, you are all ending up, more or less in the same place, hopefully not Winslow in August.”

When all is said and done, all the thoughts about punches being thrown, derogatory words written on bathroom walls, hopefully your own, and the professorial misconduct being reduced to burning the boy scout handbook that belonged to Abraham Lincoln, or so his story implies. We believe no matter what happens, it was either meant to be, or one of us was just lucky.

Understanding another's way of adjusting reality isn't easy, and in most cases not worth the effort. But every once in a while?