What Do You Value More?

We've heard plenty of excuses for gun ownership. You need to protect your home. The Second Amendment says it's your right. Making them illegal won't make them go away. There's a seed of truth to all of this. The Second Amendment certainly does give you the right to own a firearm. Guns probably make you feel more secure in your home than you actually are, but--in theory, anyway--gun ownership allows you to fend off all but the most determined and well-armed of miscreants. And no, making guns illegal won't make them disappear.
All of this misses one crucial point: There is no logical reason for anyone in this country outside of the military or law enforcement to need an assault rifle, handgun, speed loader, high capacity magazine, body armor, or anything normally used in combat. All these things are made for one reason: To help you harm a lot of people in a small amount of time.
Think about the context in which the Second Amendment was created. A cursory search of the Internet reveals that the main weapon during the Revolutionary War was a flintlock musket. A well-trained soldier could fire once every 20 seconds or so. Rifles were more accurate than the musket, but took far longer to load. And flintlock pistols were laughably inaccurate. Killing sprees were effectively impossible, since the time it took to reload was time enough for unarmed bystanders to subdue the would-be killer.
Now think about modern weapons. An automatic AR-15 (basically a civilian version of the M-16) is capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. The most common magazine size is 20-30 rounds; the largest appears to be 100 rounds. Now let's pretend that it's just a semi-automatic, and that you can only pull the trigger once per second. With a 20-round magazine, you can potentially kill 20 people in 20 seconds. Let's pretend that the shooter's a moron, and it takes 20 seconds to switch out the empty magazine for a full one. Remember, that's how long it took a trained soldier to reload his musket 200 years ago, so odds are good that it'll get done much faster. But let's assume our modern psychopath takes 20 seconds to reload and doesn't get subdued. Let's assume he's a lousy shot and only a quarter of his shots hit the mark. That's still a lowball estimate of 10 people wounded and potentially dead. In one minute.
Now add body armor to the equation. And multiple handguns, with magazines that hold anywhere from 8 to 30+ rounds. Now put our modern psychopath in a packed theater, or the 500-seat lecture halls that you can find on nearly any college campus of a decent size. Or, god help us all, one single kindergarten class of 30 kids. Think of how much damage one disturbed person can do.
Do you honestly think this is what our forebears had in mind when they created the Second Amendment? Do you honestly believe that they wouldn't be horrified at the prospect of tens or dozens of unarmed civilians being laid low in a matter of minutes? This is a situation not dreamt of on their worst night. These men were thinking in terms of attacks by unfriendly Native Americans and foreign military forces, or just hunting to put food on the table. These are things of the past. Yes, there's a depressing amount of crime that takes place in this country, but how often does someone fend off an attacker with a gun? How often does anyone's personal safety come down to gun ownership?
Not often enough. Not often enough to justify twenty 6- and 7-year olds being gunned down in a classroom.
It's time to take a stark look at the world we live in. This ain't Mad Max. The gestapo isn't going to break down your door in the dead of night and take you away. The Commies aren't going to take over your town. And I've lived nearly 34 years without myself or anyone I know being raped, tortured, murdered or otherwise harmed by "Them," whoever the hell they are. If these are truly concerns for you, I suggest you take half a Xanax and join the rest of us in reality.
You want to hunt and kill your own food? Fine; I believe in your right to put food on the table the old fashioned way. Have a single-shot rifle or a shotgun. You wanna cower in fear inside your home and stroke your precious gun to feel safe? Fine. Have a single-shot rifle or a shotgun. There is no need for assault weapons. There is no need for handguns.
You may think that single-shot rifles and shotguns are still capable of doing damage. You're right. But they're harder to reload, so any rampage would likely be short-lived. You may think we should concentrate on mental health, on identifying and helping these people before they snap and take people with them. You're right. But that's only part of the equation; people will always slip through the cracks. You may think that banning these weapons won't make them disappear. You're right. But it'll make them harder to obtain, especially for someone who's presumably not in his right mind. And the harder it is to perpetrate a monstrous tragedy like the one in Newtown the better.
I've fired handguns. I've fired rifles and shotguns. I've even fired an assault rifle. It's a hell of a lot of fun. But I'm willing to give up that fun if there's even a chance of making this country and its people safer. We should be attacking this problem from all sides, not spouting useless platitudes and then passing time until the next tragedy. They may be well-intentioned, but your thoughts and prayers are meaningless to the kids and adults felled in these incidents.
The right to go out in public without being murdered by a hail of bullets should trump the right to own weapons that serve no useful purpose. And if you honestly think that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the Second Amendment, then you're just as deluded as the gun enthusiast who was shot in the face. By her own gun. Wielded by her son.

A Slice of Pi

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I went and saw Life of Pi and I enjoyed it, but I’m left with the same question I had after reading it: Did I truly understand it? I’m about to let the cat out of the bag (or the tiger off the boat, as it were), so if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie and care about spoilers, now’s the time to bail.

The story is really two stories. The first encompasses most of the book and movie, and features Pi and his battle for survival after a shipwreck. He shares a lifeboat with a zebra with a wounded leg, an orangutan, a hyena, and the tiger, Richard Parker. The hyena kills the zebra. The hyena kills the orangutan. Richard Parker kills the hyena. Pi and Richard Parker then spend innumerable days on the Pacific, fighting for survival, until ultimately making landfall in Mexico.

The second story is simpler, shorter, and much more gruesome. Pi shares a lifeboat with a sailor with a wounded leg, his mother, and the cook from the ship. The cook kills the sailor. The cook kills Pi’s mother. Pi kills the cook. Pi then spends innumerable days on the Pacific, fighting for survival, until ultimately making landfall in Mexico.

Unless I’m much mistaken, the latter story is the “truth.” The former appears to be something that Pi invented because the truth is too painful to face. And, perhaps, because it makes for a better story.

And here’s where my confusion lies. In the film, the adult Pi says that both stories feature him losing his family, and both stories feature him suffering, and then asks the visiting writer which story he prefers. The writer says he prefers the tale with the tiger. “And so it is with God,” says Pi.

Forgive my lack of subtlety and insight, but what is the implication of that line? Is he saying that life is full of loss and suffering, and that, all things being equal, we might as well believe in God, because it makes for a better story? Or a better life?

If so, I wonder about the truth of that. I’m agnostic, and while I allow that there are indeed aspects of existence that I don’t understand and can see the appeal of religion, I’ve never experienced something to make me Believe, with a capital B.

It feels disingenuous to go through the motions of faith simply because one wants to believe. That feels like a lie. Isn’t it more honest to push on through life without faith than to pretend to have it? Wouldn’t God, if he (or she) exists, prefer your honest dubiousness to you comforting yourself in the dark by clinging to the tatters of a less-than-genuine faith?

These are not rhetorical questions, by the way. I’m honestly curious as to what you think, especially those of you who are religious, who do Believe with a capital B. Maybe you’re seeing a side of this that I’m not. Or maybe someone out there can inform me that I’m grossly misunderstanding the point of the story, and that I’ve blazed a trail off into left field and beyond.

Regardless, the story moves me in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. It did so when I read it, and the film had the same effect. It feels like a sliver of something special, of some greater truth.

And that’s another thing that strikes me, especially with regard to the film: Pi travels through the Pacific, seeing wondrous phenomena. Terrible storms, bioluminescent seas, flocks of flying fish, carnivorous islands inexplicably filled with meerkats when he’s in the Pacific and the nearest wild meerkat population is half a world away in southern Africa. He witnesses these things and is overcome with awe in the face of God. I see those same things, and I too am filled with awe, but I am in awe of Nature.

Does it matter whether that awe is inspired by God or Nature? Is there really that much of a difference? Is Nature merely my secular surrogate for God? I don’t pray to Nature. I don’t expect guidance or strength from it. But I’ve studied it pretty extensively. My love of biology and affinity for its many sub-disciplines could be seen as something akin to a secular sort of Talmudic piousness, I suppose. And there’s nothing quite so humbling as standing on top of a mountain and looking out over the world around you; or seeing the stars from the countryside, unspoiled by the city’s light pollution; or hiking deep into a forest and knowing that you and your companions are the only human beings around for miles. These things fill me with awe every time.

It seems to me that what really matters is the awe, the appreciation of something outside oneself. It’s a surrender of sorts, an acknowledgment that we are adrift on the sea, powerless to do anything but fight for survival. And maybe dream up an unbelievable tale or two.

Murderloving Jackass Says What?

I got into a brief argument last week with a militia-style psycho. I know, I know; I just wrote a blog about being less of an asshole and not arguing with crazypeople, but it was fairly innocent. I saw someone comment on a friend's Facebook post, calling Obama a murderer of woman and children, and I couldn't resist cracking a joke about how I'd just seen him run a woman and child down in the street last night. No personal attacks, no direct response to anything he'd said, really. Just a quick little bit of absurdity to go with this guy's absurd comment.
His response was to call me a "murderloving jackass" for voting for "Obombya." The guy's attitude was hateful and toxic without provocation, all while he asserted that he had moral superiority for "voting with his conscience" against the "genocide" Obama has been perpetrating with drone strikes. I suggested that it was naive to think that a Republican president would endanger fewer women and children (given their penchant for bellicosity), and that Obama had likely endangered as many as any president has, and less than quite a few. He, of course, wasn't buying it, and threw more insults my way.
I said that the world's a shitty place, and there's little an average person can do about what our military is up to half a world away. I then suggested that instead of vilifying people for voting for six of one or half a dozen of the other (there's less of a difference between the two parties than most people would like to think, in my opinion), that he instead concentrate on what he could control, and start being kinder to the people he interacted with. I may be a murderloving jackass, but I don't go around attacking complete strangers at the drop of a hat. And I really don't think I could go around acting like a hateful asshole while simultaneously claiming to be morally elevated above the people I was attacking for no reason; I think the irony would make my head explode.
I spent a good portion of my 20s concentrating on how awful this world is. How selfish and greedy and willfully ignorant people can be. And do you know what that got me? It exacerbated a pre-existing penchant for clinical depression and made me genuinely wish for release from this shitty world. Only when I stopped staring into the abyss and started trying to fix myself did things get better. I've still got plenty of work to do, but I'm a hell of a lot happier now. And I'm damn sure you're not going to make this world better by being a dick, no matter how strong your convictions are.
Start small. Be a better person. Be kind to the people around you. That'll make more of a difference than calling someone online who disagrees with you a fascist.
Then again, what do I know? I apparently enjoy the deaths of innocent brown people.

Wait...What?

Ok, I admit it. I was trolling a little on YouTube today. I didn't go there with the intent of doing so; I merely followed a link posted on Facebook, and then made the mistake of reading the comments below the video. You know how it goes...you watch a video that amuses you, you scroll to the comments to see what other people thought of it aaaaannd...people are bashing Republicans. Or Democrats. And the video had nothing to do with politics at all.
It's obnoxious, right? Am I the only one who jumps into the fray out of mere annoyance? I doubt it. That doesn't excuse my actions, of course. I admit it; this is me debasing myself. But dammit, sometimes it's fun to screw with small-minded people that have to make everything about bashing someone else.
So I was watching the bashing unfold, not yet having joined the melee, when someone veered off into left field. To give a little context, this was in response to a call put in to a radio morning show. People were arguing whether the call was real or whether it was a bit. And then there were the people saying stuff like this:

Actually, I think this is precisely the sort of thing that got Obama elected. This is a hoax where the public perception was shaped by other people initially supporting the authenticity of the lie to shape public perception. Isn't that exactly what took place during Obama's election bid and election? What was presented in 2008 was a lie and an illusion, backed by the media, which helped shape social perception of Obama. Those who think this is real are more ones likely to be Obama voters.

Pretty kooky, right? I thought so, but I rolled my eyes and let it slide. But then the same guy posted this in response to another's assessment that the call was indeed a hoax:

I go one further. This was so bad, I'd bet there was an expert in mass psychology with a clip board who came to the radio station and pitched this as part of a research experiment that they were conducting. I wouldn't be surprised if you see this in a documentary on the subject of groupthink. The comments here are probably being collected as data points.

Jeepers, that's pretty out there. At this point, I felt the overpowering urge to chime in. And I have to admit, this isn't exactly the most shining moment in my life, but at this point I just thought the guy was a rabid right-winger. So my inelegant response was:

Wow dude, your tinfoil hat is showing. I think it's time to get back on the meds.

Not attacking, per se. Just pointing out that his views were a bit like those of Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory. Or Mel Gibson's views in real life, for that matter. As in, "Ground control to Major Tom! You're needed back on Earth! Come back!"
Then came his response:

Wow dude. Your ignorance is showing. Didn't you know that tinfoil hat is used as a pejorative to describe people who complain about human rights abuses that are occurring inside the United States, whereby local law enforcement and community watch groups are participating in and running cover for military grade psychological operations against citizens in conjunction with torture with microwave weaponry and other electromagnetic frequencies? Didn't you know that death squads are operating here?

This earned a hearty belly laugh from me. Clearly I'd misjudged this guy, and he was putting me (and everyone else) on. My response to this was the only one I could think of through my tears of laughter:

LMAO

Best. Response. Ever.

Or maybe not. Still rolling with my initial tinfoil hat comment, he then posted this:

Didn't you know that the standard operating procedure that is taken for someone who gets wise to the fact that they are a target is to use what is known as a psychiatric reprisal on them, a tool that was used by the repressive regimes that existed in the U.S.S.R. and in East Germany under the Stasi? Didn't you know that the DHS is eerily similar to the Gestapo and is torturing people inside their own homes, while violating their privacy through illegal and unconstitutional surveillance?

Ok, he was taking this schtick a bit far, wasn't he? Was this second bit of nonsense really necessary for the joke? Maybe he just had a Kaufmanesque devotion to staying in character. He didn't actually believe this crap, did he?
Hard to say, but he finally noticed my "Best response ever" comment and replied to it:

I thought you'd find it amusing. It's probably almost as amusing to you as Polish partisans being forced to dig their own mass graves before being lined up and shot.

I'm at a loss. This guy has left me speechless. I went from thinking he was a sorta-nuts right-winger to thinking he was a subversive wit to thinking he might actually just be certifiable. If he was joking, then his method acting was dizzyingly convincing. If not, then I've basically been making fun of someone who's literally mentally ill. Shit.
I slowly backed out of conversation, doing my best to save face if he was indeed joking (if so, he got me good), and yet trying not to be an unempathetic dick in case he wasn't:

I can't decide whether you're going for tongue-in-cheek Stephen Colbert-style humor, or you actually believe this stuff. For your sake, I hope it's the former.

Regardless, I wish you a long and happy life, free of microwave-irradiated testicles, good sir!

Yeah, that's the ticket. A little humor, a little empathy, mixed and served. If he was putting me on, he'd likely enjoy that irradiated testicles comment, and if not, hey, he'd probably still like it. No one wants irradiated testicles, right? His response:

Well, once you have been targeted by it, then you know the realities of it all too well. It is not my job to help the sickos running the program keep it quiet. By the way, I find it interesting that you'd then refer to a very real aspect of the program, which is the attempted forced sterilization of members of the population at a distance by irradiating their sex organs. Since I have moved to a new location, no one has been able to hit my genitals, you compassionate soul.

I...still don't know if he's joking. That last sentence alone could be taken in at least three ways:
1. He's fucking with me, and that's his *nudge nudge wink wink* to me.
2. He's serious, and he's genuinely thankful for my regard for his testicular welfare.
3. He's serious, and, worst of all, thinks that my testicles comment was condescending (which it wasn't meant to be), and this is his sarcastic response.
It's hard to say. There's a very real chance I've been screwing with an unmedicated schizophrenic. The fact that I've got a psych degree and should know better makes me feel extra shitty if that is indeed the case. I've got my own issues with depression and anxiety, so I know full well that laughing at someone else's mental health issues is the height of douchebaggery (although you've got to laugh at your own at some point, or they'll eat you alive--at least, that's how it feels to me). Granted, I wouldn't have laughed or poked fun if I'd genuinely thought this guy was mentally ill, but that doesn't change the fact that my schooling and personal experience should make me more attuned to this kind of thing.
Regardless of this guy's true mental state, I learned a thing or two today. First, I learned that the "crazy" people on the Internet may actually be crazy. It's probably best--for my conscience, if nothing else--to just assume that they are and treat them as such, not as the under-educated bigots that they sometimes appear to be.
Second, I really need to be less of an asshole.

Growing Up Black

Ok, so I’m obviously not black. In fact, I’m practically albino. But you know what? I can relate. Not in a being-a-target-of-racism-on-a-constant-basis kind of way, but as much as any cracker raised in my circumstances can be said to relate.

You see, I grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s on a steady diet of what might be considered “black pop culture.” I was raised watching The Cosby Show, A Different World, and In Living Color. I firmly believe that Richard Pryor is the funniest motherfucker to have walked this planet, and still to this day think that Eddie Murphy’s Raw and Delirious are among the best standup acts ever (if a little dated at times, as is the case with his gay jokes). It makes me sad when those younger than me seem to only remember Eddie from crap like Pluto Nash and The Klumps. He used to be funny, dammit, just like Michael used to be black and awesome!

On top of that, I grew up on a steady diet of R&B and funk. Prince, Earth Wind & Fire, Michael Jackson, Kool & The Gang…you name it, I listened to it. This was mostly due to the fact that my dad listened to it, and you can’t escape what your parents listen to, but that’s hardly the only reason. I loved that music, and I still do. I was rocking out to some old school stuff in the shower over the weekend, and I gotta tell ya, that shit is my happy place!

As I grew older I started listening to hip hop. I started with the gateway drug of the time, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, but quickly moved on to the hard stuff. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock. Digital Underground. A Tribe Called Quest. I remember eagerly awaiting the release of Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle (which is still easily his best album). And I am now the proud owner of a hip hop collection to rival that of any hip hop head with limited hard drive space.

Now I can hear some people muttering, “That shit doesn’t make you black,” and you’re right. Being black makes you black. A simple twist of genetic fate, as it were. But part of who we are as adults is what we experienced as kids, both everyday interactions with the rest of humanity and the culture that we experience. I may not know what it’s like to be a black kid realizing for the first time that racism exists, but, for what it’s worth, there’s a hell of a lot of overlap in the area of cultural experience.

I know damn well that Homey don’t play that. I mentally giggle every time I hear someone talk about Dwayne Wade, because all I can think of is Dwayne Wayne and those glasses. When something ominous happens in a TV show or movie, I often yell out “…And then a big brown shark came!” despite the fact that no one ever seems to know what the hell I’m talking about.

I know that it takes two to make a thing go right. I like it like Debarge. I feel for you like Chaka Khan. The Gap Band dropped a bomb on me! Hell, I couldn’t tell you when John Denver or Kurt Cobain died, but I know that Tupac died in the fall of ’96. I remember exactly where I was—in the kitchen of my parent’s old house, wishing that what I was hearing from the living room was a bad joke.

That’s got to count for something, and I think it’s a large part of why there’s less overt racism these days. Racism—hatred in general—is rooted in fear, generally the fear of the unknown. But I—and the people of my generation and beyond—grew up experiencing many of the same things that black kids our age experienced. This has led us to empathize and understand each other in ways that might have been impossible, or at least unlikely, for those who came before us. In other words, pop culture has helped kids—who are by nature accepting—bridge the gap that race often presents to us.

I just wish there was a little more acknowledgment of this fact. We Geeks Who Drink quizmasters have a private Facebook group where we talk shop, shoot the shit, and make myriad tasteless jokes, and within this group has grown a running gag in which I’m a racist. This is due to my naïve proclivity to quote black culture. I program the quizzes, which means I pick which rounds go in which night’s quiz and then upload the quiz so that the QMs across the country can download it and do their thing. This means I hear “When is tomorrow’s quiz going up?” on a pretty regular basis. A week or two ago someone asked this question a might bit early for my taste, so when I finally did get it posted I affected a slave accent and paraphrased Bernie Mac, asking if they wanted me to do anything else, like shine their shoes (about the :50 mark). Now some people would inevitably find this offensive, but I can’t for the life of me understand why. I’m quoting a line from a movie. The fact that the character is black and that there are racial aspects of what he’s saying is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is the quote to the situation. And that’s why I said it. End of story.

Racism is about intent. Some asshole threating to lynch a black guy is malicious, overt racism. Me saying, “I’m callin’ niggas out like the umpire” along with Lil Wayne is most assuredly not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings, no matter what color my skin is. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a world in which his kids (and presumably everyone else’s) were judged by the content of their character, not their skin color. I’d like to see that too. And yet, in the aforementioned situation, I am being judged by the color of my skin. Some may say, “Boo hoo,” and point out that it’s hardly the same level of racism blacks deal with every day.

And they’re right.

But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that we can be above that kind of pettiness. In fact, we have to be above that kind of pettiness if we really want equality. We don’t have to compare marks in the win-loss columns to see who’s got the advantage. We can wipe the slate clean, give each other the benefit of the doubt, and start being as colorblind as Stephen Colbert. At least, I like to think we can. But I don’t know what it’ll take. Maybe it’ll take the Civil Rights-era people dying off. It surely must be hard to be the better person when you’ve seen so much human cruelty aimed your way. I really don’t know, but I do know that if we want to move forward then we need to stop paying so much attention to what’s behind us and focus on what’s ahead.

My hopes aren’t too high, but I hope that in my lifetime I get to see our species better itself a bit. I’d like to see us take better care of our planet, worship money less, and take the stick out of our collective politically over-correct ass and learn to relax. You’re a dude and want to marry another dude? Have fun with that, and good luck. You wanna smoke some weed in the privacy of your own home and then demolish the pint of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer? Have fun, and try to get a run in or something to offset all those calories. And if I want to rap along to a song with the word “nigga” in it, then I should be able to do so, no matter whose company I’m in.

I mean, really, what’s a honky gotta do to get some love up in this bitch?

Why God Hates Gay Marriage (And You Should, Too)

Well! President Obama just announced his support for gay marriage, so it's time to take this thing out, dust it off, and put it on display again. Enjoy!


We all know that gay marriage is an abomination that will forever sully the sacred institution of marriage, destroy society, and upset the natural balance and order of our Lord God’s universe. The signs of our Lord's displeasure are there for all to see: He, knowing our wicked ways, has blessed us with antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea; new episodes of Jersey Shore continue to be made; and MCA has died, while Kesha continues to make us all feel dirty on the inside.
“But Gryffindork,” you say, “how do we know God hates gays?”
Well, friend, the answer is simple: It’s in the Bible. The Bible gives us a very clear answer to this question. If you read Leviticus, you shall know our kind and gentle God for the gay-hating deity that he is. Leviticus 18:22 says, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.” Clearly, God hates gays. If you need more proof, look no further than Lev. 20:13, which states, “If a man lie with mankind, as he lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.” This is a clear indictment of homosexuality, and even suggests you go out and bash some homos (bring the kids; it’s fun for the whole family). So as you can see, God hates gays with a passion pure and true.
“But Gryffindork, doesn’t Jesus say that we should all love one another? Didn’t he tell us to ‘judge not, lest ye be judged’”?
I’m glad you brought that up, friend. You see, sometimes it can be hard to tell what God hates, especially with Jesus’ message of love and understanding mucking things up. First of all, God knew that the Bible was a really, really long book, and that most people would have neither the time nor the twelfth grade reading level necessary to read it all. That’s why he put the really important parts like Leviticus in the front. So when in doubt, ignore Jesus’ hippy rantings in favor of the Old Testament’s more wrathful take on things.
Second, most people have an incomplete Bible. Most Bibles completely omit the Gospel of Cletus, the thirteenth apostle. Cletus was once an attendant at a Roman bath, until Jesus showed him how totally gay it is to stand around helping naked men all day. As a result, Cletus quit his gay job in order to follow another man around the Holy Land. The Gospel of Cletus shows Jesus’ true feelings about homosexuality, which the other homo-loving apostles left out. Cletus 13:34-37 clearly states, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Excepting, of course, those damn queers. Oh, and brown people. God, I hate brown people. I guess what I’m trying to say is that ye should love those people which ye hold dear, and feel free to hate everyone else. I mean, c’mon. How hard would it be to actually love everyone? That’d be, like, impossible.” As you can see, a complete Bible shows us the way our good Lord really feels about all manner of things.
“Thank you, Gryffindork, for showing me the light. I now understand why I should hate gays. But did God say anything about gay marriage? Would it really be so bad if gays were granted the rights they so desperately seek?”
A fine question, my good friend. No, God doesn’t say anything about gay marriage explicitly, but it’s easy to read between the lines. Marriage is a sacred institution, meant to be shared between a man and a woman. We heterosexuals treat marriage’s sanctity with the proper amount of respect. Elizabeth Taylor is a shining example of this. She loved and respected the institution of marriage so much that she got married eight times! Praise Jesus, that's commitment to an institution!
If gays were allowed to marry they would desecrate the institution with their flirty eyes, pouty lips, and hard, washboard abs. How could a man resist the urge to cheat or divorce when constantly faced with the firm yet supple man-ass that surrounds him at gay clubs, gay restaurants, and gay libraries? It’s impossible, and God knows it. Thus, he hates gay marriage. And as for wanting to be able to visit each other in the hospital, inherit each other’s belongings, and get tax breaks . . .what do gays think they are? Human?
I’m glad we had this talk, friends. I hope that I have cleared up any doubts that you may have had regarding the evil nature of gayness and gay marriage. Never forget that it is a pestilence that will spread throughout the land, infecting us all with good fashion sense, the desire to go to the gym, and a love of show tunes. Now if you’ll excuse me, the Lord has just commanded me to go take a cold shower.

Investigating Inception

I watched Inception for the second time a few days ago (the first was in the theater), and I’ve been mulling it over ever since. I love a story with some depth, a story that you can go back to over and over and always come away with something new. I feel as if this is one of those stories. And since I’m a giant geek, I like to spend time on the data. I like to let it marinate. Like Cobb, I like to see how deep I can go. I’m not saying I’ve got everything figured out—far from it. And I’m sure there are areas where I’ve missed something or misinterpreted a bit of datum. So join me as I offer my impressions and insight, and let’s see where it leads, shall we?

But before we do, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say “SPOILER ALERT!” I’m about to spoil the shit out of the entire movie, so if you haven’t seen it please do yourself the courtesy of not reading on. Watch the movie first. To do otherwise would be a mistake.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s start by taking the movie at face value. On the surface, the movie is actually pretty simple. Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) has learned to manipulate dreams—to become an Architect—and he’s fallen in love, with both the god-like wonder of creating a world and Mal (played by the entrancing Marion Cotillard), the woman with whom he plays God. It’s revealed over the course of the film that Cobb and Mal essentially experimented on themselves. They trudged deep into their own minds, into Limbo, and created their own personal world.

The problem, of course, is that they got lost in it. They became unable to discern fantasy from reality, and spent a lifetime in Limbo growing old together. Hardly the worst fate one can imagine—oh bummer, you spent a lifetime with someone you love—but Cobb somehow became aware of the unreality of their situation and tried to convince Mal of it. When she resisted the truth, Cobb planted an idea—that their shared world wasn’t real—in her mind. Inception. The idea took root, and she was finally prepared to take the leap of faith with him. They killed themselves (Rather gruesomely I might add. Death by train? Yuck.), awakening in the real world.

Unfortunately for both of them, they didn’t live happily ever after. The idea that Cobb planted in Mal’s mind bled into reality. It had become so deeply rooted in her mind that she couldn’t shake it. Reality became unreality. She was convinced that they were still asleep, that their real lives—their real children—were waiting for them above, in the real world. Cobb did his best to convince her otherwise, but he had done his job too well. She knew she was asleep.

And so, one fateful night, she forced his hand. She wanted him to take the same leap of faith that he had once asked of her. She was so sure of herself that she had written a letter to the authorities claiming that Cobb was unstable, and that if she died it was at his hands. She wanted to be sure that he’d join her, but, try as she might, she was unable to convince him that she was right. And try as he might, Cobb was unable to convince her that she was wrong.

And so she leapt to her death, turning Cobb into a man on the run, estranged from the family he loved.

Plotlines aside, think about the psychological ramifications of that for a moment. Imagine being trapped in Limbo. Imagine becoming aware of it, and having to resort to subterfuge to convince the one you love that the world around you is an illusion. Imagine winning free of that illusion, only to watch your wife go mad because of what you’ve done. That, my friends, is the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

And now the love of your life is gone, and it eats at you. You know she was wrong. You know that you’re in the real world—that death in this world is truly Death—but it doesn’t matter. She was so sure. She asked you to take the very same leap of faith that you once asked of her, and you failed to believe in her the way that she once believed in you. Even though you know she was wrong, you can’t help but feel that you’ve failed her on a number of levels.

And now her steadfast belief sits in a corner of your mind, rotting. Just how sure are you, anyway? What if she was right? Is she waiting for you a level above? She and the children you miss so dearly? You miss them all with every fiber of your being, and even though you know you’re right—even though you know this is the real world—the delusion of your dead wife haunts you. Every day the pain of loss and guilt grows, and every day the delusion becomes more attractive. It pulls at you. One simple action—the pull of a trigger or a leap from a ledge—and you could regain the woman you love. You could regain your family.

This is the burden that Cobb deals with. This, more than anything, is his reality. This is why Mal keeps showing up while Cobb and his cohorts are on the job. His subconscious has spun this aching need into a self-destructive Projection with an angelic face. The greater Cobb’s pain grows, the stronger “Mal” becomes, until she begins to endanger not just Cobb, but the jobs that he and Arthur (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are doing. He tries to sate her by spending time in dreams—in memories—with her, but this only makes matters worse. She wants him dead.

Or rather, he wants to die.

But enough of his sanity remains. He wants to go home. He wants to be a father to his motherless children. And so he takes the job offered by Saito (played by Ken Watanabe). He will lead a raid into the mind of Saito’s business rival, Robert Fischer (played by Cillian Murphy), with the purpose of planting the idea of breaking up his father’s business empire. In return, Saito will make Cobb’s legal problems disappear, allowing Cobb to reunite with his children and ensure that they have at least one parent to raise them.

Glossing over large chunks of the movie (not to mention the scene-stealing acting of Tom Hardy, who played Eames), Cobb and Co. succeed in their attempts at inception, and Cobb is finally reunited with his family. The last thing we see is the top spinning, about to fall over, thus proving that he is, in fact, in the real world.

Or is he? Maybe that top wasn’t about to fall over. Maybe it would have just kept on going, proving that Mal was right all along. And so begins the fun of not taking the movie at face value. There’s certainly evidence to lend credence to Mal’s idea that they were not, after all, in the real world.

Why is Cobb being chased across the globe by mysterious men? Doesn’t that seem eerily similar to the way a Dreamer’s Projections end up chasing intruding minds? Is the name of Cobb’s newfound Architect, Ariadne (played by Ellen Page), irrelevant, or a bit of symbolism on the part of writer/director Christopher Nolan? Why does Cobb have Mal’s totem? Where is his own? So many questions, so little brainpower with which to answer them.

But I’ll take a stab at it.

I think Cobb was right. I think Mal killed herself, albeit unintentionally. Why is Cobb being chased? Because of a job gone wrong, that’s why. To believe otherwise—that these “men” chasing him are, in fact, Projections—is to believe that he is not only asleep, but in someone else’s mind. After all, projections don’t attack the Dreamer, only those who don’t belong. Presumably the “someone else” is Mal. But that doesn’t seem right, because Mal killed herself. If the world Cobb now inhabits isn’t the real world, if it’s been created by Mal, then why is it still there after she’s gone? Does the movie ever address what happens to the others—the invaders—if the Dreamer wakes up first? Not that I recall. My assumption would be that everyone else would wake as well, that the effect would be similar to a mental version of having the rug pulled out from under you. You end up on your ass, back in the real world.

But then again, maybe the result is madness. Maybe you get trapped down there. Who’s to say?

Regardless, I’m inclined to believe that his world is the real world, because the alternative hurts my brain. And I think that Page’s character’s name, Ariadne, is a hint. Ariadne is a character from Greek mythology, the daughter of King Minos. King Minos occasionally sacrificed young men and women to the Minotaur lurking in the labyrinth of Crete. One day, Theseus was to be the sacrifice. Ariadne, however, fell in love with Theseus, and provided him with a ball of thread, allowing him to lay the thread down as he walked the labyrinth, and giving him a clear way out.

In other words, Ariadne provided Theseus’s path out of the labyrinth and back to the larger world. And I believe that she provided the same function for Cobb. Ariadne followed Cobb into Limbo in search of Saito and Fischer. (Note that his name is “Robert Fischer,” so they were “searching for Bobby Fischer.” And Ariadne’s totem is a chess piece. Not sure if that’s just a joke or has some deeper meaning.) Ariadne found her way out, and so did everyone else down there at the time. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the fact that Mal’s very name is derived from the Latin for “bad” seems to lend credence to the idea that, at this stage in the game, Ariadne is the reality, and Mal is the fantasy.

But even if this is incorrect, would staying in the “un-real world” really be so bad? Let’s assume that they’d been trapped in the fist level down. According to the movie, 5 minutes in the real world is an hour in the dream world. Assuming my math is correct (if you know me then you know that this isn’t exactly a safe assumption), that means one could live out 60 years on Level 1 in just a month’s time in the real world (and the further you go down, the less real world time it would take). Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Sure, your kids would miss you for a while, but you’d be back soon enough. It’s surely not something to kill yourself over, because the alternative—that you’re wrong and dying really would mean Dying—is rather permanent. As such, the entire movie could be seen as suggesting that, real world or dream, we should make the most of what we’ve got. “Real” is irrelevant. “Real” is what we perceive.

And then there’s the confusing business of the totems. Cobb uses a spinning top as a totem, and at one point mentions that it used to be Mal’s. But he also notes that a totem is personal to you and that you should allow no one else to touch it, lest you be fooled into believing that the dream is reality. The totem is supposed to be your sure-fire way of telling dream from reality. So why did this suddenly fail Mal? Shouldn’t she have been able to spin the top, watch it fall, and be reassured that she was in the real world? Was the idea planted in her mind so powerful that it was able to overcome this simple and elegant solution to recognizing reality?

And one must assume that both Cobb and Mal both had their own totems while they were together, so what happened to his totem? Why is he using Mal’s? Is using someone else’s totem just as foolproof, so long as you don’t let anyone touch it once you’ve started using it? Is Cobb’s use of the top merely his way of honoring Mal, of being close to her, or is it some form of self-deception? This line of thinking seems to be the clearest path to believing that Mal was right all along. But most of the evidence seems to indicate that she was in error.

And so, in the end, I’m left in a position eerily similar to Cobb’s: being nearly certain that he’s in the real world, but with nagging doubts that maybe—just maybe—his “crazy” wife wasn’t so crazy. What fun!

And now I must know! What do you think? What did I leave out? What did I get wrong? I’d love nothing more than to hear your take on things.


--Gryffindork