Notes on the Bible (Gen 4-7) Cain and Abel

 Where we last left off in the good book, God had made a nice garden for his new pet people (among other things) and then some drama happened. It's kind of how any situation with new pets goes, right? You lay down the guidelines, but they don't necessarily understand everything you're telling them. They're fresh from the pound and everything is all new and who knows if they can even understand you?

I think it's also like any new roommates situation. There's a brief honeymoon phase until someone gets into someone else's cookie jar, doesn't replace the cookies, and then shit hits the fan. God kicked everyone out because they had stolen his cookies, metaphorically. Or maybe it would be figuratively.

Notes on the Bible (Gen 1-3) Creation

 In an attempt to keep my recent focus on stories, I've decided to do a critical reading of the Bible. As the best selling book of all time, it ought to have some pretty good stories. This endeavor will lead me into some shit, I'm sure.

 Wisdom is knowing which decisions to avoid. However, being a curious kind of guy, I often make the dubious choice. My attention will be briefly caught by some will-o-wisp of thought until I find myself alone with unfamiliar surroundings. This may be one of those times, but I have notes so it won't be so terrible as all that.

Anyways, if you're interested, I'm operating out of The New American Bible. I found it in a box amongst old pictures and religious documents from my youth. I am going to begin in the beginning, the book of Genesis (no relation to the band, as far as I know).

I can't think of a worse way to start a story than "First Story of Creation". I'm already wondering why we can't just get one story, so before we're even into any story there's mixed messages and confusion. This is a very old book, so perhaps this method of telling tales was more valid when people had more time. They needed extra exposition because they literally did have all night.

what's your story?

Stories evolve. Not just in the sense that while you're engaged in a dynamic story it seems to come alive, but in the sense that the types of stories we engage in evolve. 

In the beginning, there were simply "comedies" and "tragedies". However, that's not even true though because there have also always been expository tales with no point (news stories, basically, or historical records). History has always been my bailiwick.  That which has come before and catalogued in a more or less straightforward method, is still a story. It's a history, but it's still some kind of tale. The scope for what I consider a "story" is pretty wide.

There are nearly unlimited types of stories and they take shape on many mediums. As a youth, my pap would tell me stories before bed. They were the absolute worst kind: "remember when" stories when my pap would just tell me something he remembered. The main characters in his tales were always him and my uncle Sonny and there was never a point to any of them and they all struggled with a coherent plot, but I loved them, regardless. I was just a child and my experience of good stories was slim at the time. This is the same reason children can tolerate page-turners about dogs running and children playing. 

 

truth to power is spiritual wealth

Thousands of years ago there was this Chinese farmer named Sai Weng and one day he lost his horse. There are tons of translations of his story but the key points are always basically the same:

A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!”. The farmer replied, ‘Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see’.

A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

This thing could go on longer than the story of that absurd woman who ate a spider and followed it up with a zoo. There are so many translations of this story because it is pretty easy to understand. You can change a lot of the details but the meaning will remain the same: never listen to other people. 

wake up and choose violence

 Life is a series of events and if they're connected in any meaningful way, it was not intentional.

An immutable reality of nature is being dynamic. There's nothing alive that stands completely still. Mimes and trees may give this idea a significant challenge but it ought to be easily overcome because mimes are bullshit and the wind is a thing. 

Change is the only constant, but that's not actually all the way true because of maths and stuff, right? Well, fuck math, first of all. Secondly, there's a difference between theoretical truths and truths on the ground. A theoretical truth is something like "the United States has a market economy, freedom of the press, and is democratic" whereas the truth on the ground is "the United States practices corporate welfare, the press is the propaganda arm of said corporations, and your votes don't mean shit because  those same moneyed interests will control either choice you make in the voting booth"