Words of (Sci-fi) Wisdom...

I've been watching a lot of sci-fi lately, and even reading some.  All of this science-fiction exposure has led to some words of wisdom that I think would apply if you were ever to find yourself caught in a science-fiction story.  It is important to note that these bits of advice don't apply to the real world, but only to the science-fiction world, and should only be used in that particular reality.

1.  If you see a door open, or open a door yourself, and it makes an ominous noise, beware.  The door may or may not be dangerous.  The best way of knowing if it's immediately dangerous is the tone of the noise.  Minor key noises, bad; major key noises...well not good, there are no door-opening-noises that are good exactly, but if the noise is in a major key it's unlikely that a guy with a laser is about to charge through the door.
2.  All super-powerful artifacts are intrinsically dangerous.  In fact, the danger of the artifact is related directly to its power.  That is to say, the more powerful the artifact, the more dangerous it is to the user.
3.  If there is a place in the universe that you don't want to be, that's where you will find the person/object/information that you need most.
4.  If there is a wise and comforting mentor in your life, she/he will be dead as a door-nail by the third act.  Sorry, there's nothing to be done about it.
5.  If someone approaches you holding a harmless looking object in a threatening or ominous way, it very well may be an artifact of immense power (cf. item #2) and you should treat it accordingly.
6.  Grunge metal music in the background is a bad thing, especially if it's in a minor key and especially if there is somebody nearby welding something.
7.  Be very careful who you trust, you never know if it might be a killer robot.
8.  That woman/man you can't stand and constantly exchange sarcastic banter with?  That's your soul-mate, may as well just get it over with and make out with her/him already.
9.  Footsoldiers, peons, and "average" badguys of every description are the worst shots in the universe.  If one of them has you in his sights I wouldn't worry too much.
10.  Finally, the mystical power or energy that you think is bunk?  It's actually the most powerful tool available to you and you may as well just get on board with it.

Again, these pieces of wisdom are offered as a public service to all those of you who might, at some time or another, find yourselves in a science-fiction story.  I do hope that you find them helpful.

The Finish Line...

I'm writing again today.  As with the last time I posted on a writing day it's a paper for The Old Testament in the New Testament.  This time my outline was in the neighborhood of 2,800 words for a 5,000 word paper.  I'm about half done and sitting in the 2,000 word realm, so that's more or less right (the back end of papers are always longer, that's where the meat is).  The only problem is that this time I'm much, much more tired than the first time.  I've loved my first semester of PhD studies, but I can't pretend I'm not ready for a break.  Eventually mental attrition becomes a serious factor and I'm all the way there right now.  But I can see the finish line now.  My last assignment is due at 3:30pm tomorrow afternoon.  I'll give a 5 minute presentation, then I'll fall asleep until Thursday.  Seriously, it might actually happen in the classroom while the other students are presenting.  Don't anyone take it personally.  If you're in the class with me you feel free to fall asleep while I'm presenting, I won't mind at all.  Okay, I'm going to take a 30 minute break and then it's back at it until I can't make my fingers type anymore.  If things go well (which they generally don't) I'll be done before midnight tonight.  Wow that would be nice.

God on Trial...

Before going to bed last night I was channel surfing for a few minutes and ran across the tail end of a film.  It was clearly a holocaust film, set in one of the infamous barrack houses of an internment camp.  I watched for maybe 30 minutes, and for that entire time the action unfolded only in that little room filled with shaven-headed Jewish men in filthy prison garb.  It slowly dawned on me that I was watching a trial, and that the defendant was God himself.  The two dozen or so men had accused God of breaching his covenant with the Jewish people.  Men from around the room spoke, arguing their side of the case.  Some defended God, calling Auschwitz a test.  Others contended that there was no God and that religion was simply a tool used by the powerful.  Some said that God was real but had abandoned the Jews.

Near the end came an incredibly powerful and moving moment of the film.  All that had come before was mesmerizing, beautiful, and terrible.  But this moment will remain branded in my mind.

Just as the judges sit to deliver their verdict one final man stands to speak.  He has been silent.  He is a rabbi.  He begins by asking questions about the history of the Jews, posing them mostly to the other rabbi, who is also a judge.  The questions begin with the Exodus and each one challenges the motives of God.  What is so powerful is that this rabbi, who knows his Torah in and out, asks questions that require the listener to question, not what God did, but why he did it.  This rabbi, named Akiba, accepts that God sent the plagues on Egypt and gave the Promised Land over to the Jews.  What he questions, however, is whether this demonstrates God's goodness.  "What of the Egyptian children?" he asks.  "Was the Promised Land empty?"  Then comes the climax of his speech.  He inverts the usual Jewish (and Christian, and Muslim) proclamation that "God is Good!"

"God is not good!" he cries.  "God was never good!  He was only on our side."

That last phrase should be branded onto the hearts and into the minds of every believing person in the entire world.  It reminds us of our great sin.  The belief that because we are on top, because we are winners, because we are prosperous and happy and rich and comfortable, that God must be on our side.  What an evil that sentiment is.  What it requires, as Akiba saw so clearly, is a God who is a son of a bitch.  It requries a vindictive, feckless, hateful, cruel, and wicked diety who's morality is far surpassed by his creation.

God is convicted of breach of covenant.

Then the Germans come.  Half of the men are taken and half left.  As the selected men are taken one of them, a quivering, whimpering man, cries out to Akiba, "What now?  What do we do now that we've convicted God?"  Akiba answers, "Now we pray."  And so the half that are taken and the half that remain are shown praying.  They each hold one hand over their heads because they have no headcoverings.  They pray a liturgical prayer together, witnessing the greatness and mercy of God, and the half that were taken are led naked into a chamber that looks like a shower-room but, of course, is not.

So often artistic attempts to deal with issues like suffering, election, and the nature of God are either reductionist or just stupid.  This, thankfully, is not.  The film takes seriously the problems associated with true evil and suffering, as well as the sometimes paradoxical and even hypocritical nature of faith in God.  For all of that I still felt a sense of hope in the end.  I didn't feel distant from God but drawn to him.  The sense of horror at the sight of those men in that stark "shower" room was balanced with an equal sense of love for their nobility and their faith.

Which Moses?

As I mentioned some time ago, I have recently written a paper on the way that Luke and Paul see and appropriate the character of Moses, particularly in Acts 7 and 2 Corinthians 3.  On Monday I submitted the final revision of that paper.  It is significantly improved from the initial submission but still needs a little bit of work.  I'll see what my professor says when I get it back and if the changes required look reasonable I may reformat it for publication.  In any case, this is one of the reasons blogging has been light lately so I thought it was only fair to reward my handful of loyal readers to read and critique the paper.  If you do bother to read it and have any thoughts, please do let me know.  Even if you think my argument is total bunk, it would still be nice to hear your thoughts.  Follow the URL below to enjoy (or, you know, not).

Toffelmire, Colin.  "Which Moses? An Exploration of the Function of Moses in Acts 7 and 2 Corinthians 3," McMaster Divinity College, 2008.

PS though it seems absurd that I need to make this explicit, I will anyways.  Please note that all content on randomcolin, including academic papers provided by external hyperlink, are the sole property of Colin M. Toffelmire and shall not be reproduced in any form without the express permission of Colin M. Toffelmire.  Brief citations may be used without permission on the condition that such citations include complete and accurate attribution.

A Good Day...

Today was a good day, and until I'd had it I had no idea how badly I've needed it.  As I've shared here a little bit already, PhD studies have been very challenging and the life adjustment involved has been pretty significant.  It hasn't been bad.  In fact Jinny and I love our new town and our new home, and life here has generally been great.

All of that is true, but the one thing that I've been missing is the feeling of triumph.  All of you career students out there know that you really do have to win sometimes.  Sometimes you have to do better than you expected.  Sometimes you need to be told something was excellent.  This is what keeps you going, keeps you thinking that maybe you really do have a contribution to make.

Doctoral programs, however, are not designed to make you feel good.  They are designed to push you, to challenge you, to make you think harder and more deeply than you ever might on your own.  I don't know about other programs but in my first few weeks at McMaster Divinity College I can't count the number of times I heard some variation of "our job is to push you."  Well, the faculty are doing their job and then some.  The very best work I ever did in my M.A. is at best acceptable here.  All of this is important.  I need to be pushed, and as one of my friends reminds me repeatedly, I did pick this path.

But for all of that it still feels nice to win.  Today I got back an assignment from the toughest marker I've ever sat under and it was much better than I'd expected.  That felt great.  Then this afternoon I presented a paper that frankly wasn't fantastic (though the fundamental idea is, I think, great).  I was challenged with some really great constructive criticism, but I also received some very kind words and some affirmation that I was going in a fruitful direction.  Those things may seem like small victories, but quite frankly victories of any kind feel pretty good, so I'll take it.  Only two more significant papers left to write and I'm out of the woods until the Winter semester.  Time to stop celebrating and get my head down again.

Something New...

You'll notice a new blog on the blogroll in the coming days.  It's the outgrowth of an idea I had a long time ago and have been trying to get off the ground in some form or another for years.  Four, Seven, and Twelvefold is a host-blog for a public conversation about the nature and state of evangelical Christianity in North America.  The topics that I hope we'll explore are simply too numerous to mention but if you think a question needs to be asked, then post it in the comments over there or over here and I'll ask it.  Feel free to advertise the new blog in whatever medium is available to you.  The broader and larger the audience, the better the chances that a fruitful and interesting conversation will ensue.

Election Day...

Well, the polls are closed out here in Hamilton but if they're open where you are and you haven't gone to vote yet, get going!  CBC promises the first election results at 10pm ET, which is in about 5 mins, but I don't think I'll stay up to watch.  I personally find the endlessly changing poll numbers rather dull, particularly when I remember that the die is cast and the only really interesting fact left to come is the list of actual winners.  I'm fairly sure that my MP will be the NDP's David Christopher again, though there certainly did seem to be a significant Green party presense around the neighbourhood (if lawn signs mean anything).  As far as who will form the government?  Well if I was forced to guess I'd say another minority Conservative government but I guess we'll see.  In any case, to all of you who are waiting up to see the results, do enjoy the moving numbers.  If you'd like to see them online, check out CBC's interactive election map here.  Looks like the conservatives are in the lead at the moment.

Update:  Well, looks like another Conservative minority indeed.  The hyperlink above will still take you to the main CBC results page, but just in case you're too lazy:

Con.: 143
Lib.: 76 (29 of which, incidentally, are in the GTA)
Bloc: 50
NDP: 37
Gre.: 0

That's a gain of 16 seats for the Conservatives, a loss of 19 for the Liberals, a gain of 7 for the NDP, and a shocking (oh wait, not at all shocking I mean) showing of 0 for the Greens.  In my riding my prediction came true.  We re-elected David Christopher by a fairly stunning 26.2 point margin.  That has to feel nice.

All that's left now is the slightly sexier USAmerican election in a little under a month.  All I can say is that I sure hope it turns out like the polling is suggesting right now.

Election Day...

Well, the polls are closed out here in Hamilton but if they're open where you are and you haven't gone to vote yet, get going!  CBC promises the first election results at 10pm ET, which is in about 5 mins, but I don't think I'll stay up to watch.  I personally find the endlessly changing poll numbers rather dull, particularly when I remember that the die is cast and the only really interesting fact left to come is the list of actual winners.  I'm fairly sure that my MP will be the NDP's David Christopher again, though there certainly did seem to be a significant Green party presense around the neighbourhood (if lawn signs mean anything).  As far as who will form the government?  Well if I was forced to guess I'd say another minority Conservative government but I guess we'll see.  In any case, to all of you who are waiting up to see the results, do enjoy the moving numbers.  If you'd like to see them online, check out CBC's interactive election map here.  Looks like the conservatives are in the lead at the moment.

The GOBM...

I have discovered a new scholarly society, the Guild of Biblical Minimalists (this via Jim West).  I'm still not entirely sure about the precise level of seriousness, but this post for those seeking nominations for the "Billy" award does seem to give a hint.  It is quite an impressive list of scholars, and it appears that joining all but guarantees you some kind of title or office.

It...

I am, once again, it; tagged by my wonderful friend Tara so long ago that the original post no longer appears on the front page of her blog.  Of course Tara posts 80-90 times per day so that's not really all that surprising.  I'm supposed to tag a bunch of blogs I love, but as I've said before, this blog is where memes come to die.  If you want to know which blogs I read check my blogroll.  I am supposed to list five unusual things about myself.

1. I love literary theory.  I just took 7 books on intertextuality out of the library and I'm totally excited to read them.
2. I love Kraft Dinner.  I really shouldn't, and I hardly ever eat it anymore cause it's so unhealthy but it is my personal comfort food.
3. I have an inordinate love for Harry Potter.  The books I mean of course.
4. I love school.
5. I don't like berries of any kind.  Not strawberries, not raspberries, not blueberries...you get the idea.

Well, since I'm not tagging anyone else it's time for me to go to bed.

4,471...

Yep, all done.  4,471 words in the main body of the essay.  It's a little shy of the 5,000 words in the syllabus but I think that considering the size of the class and the fact that we all need to read everyone's papers (there are two more like this) I think that everyone will be grateful that I was concise(ish).  Of course if you include the footnotes the word count jumps to 5,756 but what can you do?  Well, time to format the bibliography and footnotes and then go home to bed.  After I've presented the paper and then reworked it in response to comments maybe I'll post it here.  Huh, maybe I'll post it here sooner so that I can get some comments before I present...we'll see.  Nightie night.

But...But I...You Can't...It Isn't...Over? Is it?

It happened.  It finally happened.  The final, hilarious, brilliant, wonderfully written post in the near-eternal deconstruction of Left Behind went online at Slacktivist today.  Bravo Fred, bravo.

2,478 (matey!!)...

I'm writing today.  Before I'm allowed to sleep tonight I must have completed the first draft of my paper "Whose Moses?  An Examination of the Appropriation of Moses in Acts 7 and 2 Corinthians 3."  It's the first written assignment I'll hand in for doctoral studies and it's coming along pretty well so far.  I was fiddling with my outline last night and realized that the outline itself seemed a little long.  So I did a word count.  My outline (for a paper that cannot, under any circumstances, be longer than 5,000 words) is 2,478 words long.  Hmmmm...well at least I shouldn't have trouble getting to the required length.

Oh, and it's national Talk Like a Pirate Day today (ye scurvy curs!!!!), so be sure to talk like a pirate to someone today.

ps I don't think that Kathryn reads my blog, but if she (that is to say you) does (do), please do remember that it's Talk Like a Pirate Day, and not Talk Like an 18th Century Whaler Day.

Assigned Reading...

I am up at 12:22AM to tell you that you must, without hesitation, read this post at This Side of Sunday.  Jon's clear articulation of a serious problem in North American evangelicalism should be a matter of urgent concern for all of us who consider ourselves members of the Body of Christ (and I don't just mean evangelicals).

Just in Case...

Just in case anybody was wondering, it turns out that PhD studies are hard.  Harder than MA studies were.  Shocking, I know.  Back to work now.

GAHP 6*: Wherein Harry Is Sorted and We Consider the Question of Determination and the Smell of Asparagus Pee

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.
'Hmm,' said a small voice in his ear. 'Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting...So where shall I put you?'
Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, 'Not Slytherin, not Slythern.'
'Not Slytherin, eh?' said the small voice. 'Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that - no? Well, if you're sure - better be GRYFFINDOR!'
-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 90-91

Sometimes, just as a conversation starter, I like to ask people if their pee smells after they eat asparagus. I'm not sure if you know this or not but eating asparagus produces a bizarre little chemical reaction in human beings that makes our urine smell strange. The really funny thing about this is that not all human beings have the ability to smell this particular odor. I'm told it's a genetic thing.** Wikipedia appears to agree.

I bring this up because it has been my experience that people in Western culture are under the impression that their lives are in their own hands. So many of us think of ourselves as free, as self-determined, as the agents of our own greatness or folly. But here's the thing: not all of us can smell aspargus pee. Not all of us can roll our tongues into little tubes. Not all of us can see. Not all of us can walk. Not all of us can run 100 meters in under 10 seconds. No matter what anyone ever tells you, you are genetically determined. There are things that are, and are not, possible for you.

The idea of determination is important to theology. Theologians don't usually speak in terms of genetic determination but in terms of calling and election and the will of God. The cliche theological terms are Calvinism and Arminianism but the debate between people who believe our lives are pre-determined and people who believe that we have free will is far older than John Calvin and Joseph Armin. More than a millenium earlier Augustine and Pelagius were having the same argument. Let's see if we can summarize the oldest debate in Christian theology in a couple of sentences.

Classical theism (aka Calvinism. Though equating the two is pretty inacurate it will serve our purposes here.) holds that God is completely perfect, all-powerful, unchangeable and that he knows all things. Consequently, if God is these things then all things that occur on earth must, by definition and logical necessity, serve his purposes. Thus, at the level of the individual, everything you ever have done or ever will do is a product of the will of God. Free-will theism (aka Arminianism, same caveat) holds that God is perfect, all-powerful, and all knowing. In contrast to Classical theism, however, the Free-will theist holds that though God knows the future and has the ability to bring about his will, he consciously allows his creation to make decisions that are contrary to his will.

Back to Harry and the Sorting Hat. Those of us who have read the entire series (which I assume at this point is pretty much every human being on Earth) know some things about Harry that Harry does not yet know. We know about his heritage. We know that, amusingly enough, he is actually a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Even more interesting we know that a fragment of the soul of one of the most powerful Slytherins ever resides within Harry. Harry is also a pure-blooded wizard. Harry is also a parselmouth. All of these things mean that Harry not only meets the requirements to get into Slytherin, he's actually a perfect fit. But, as Dumbledore will later point out, Harry chooses to become something other than a Slytherin. There is a degree to which Harry's life has been determined. His heritage, his history, his very abilities, all conspire to remove his ability to decide which course he will take. And this determination is not merely theoretical. All of the most important things that make Harry who he is and help to present him with the choices and situations he will face in his life are the product of someone else's decisions. Harry's life has been predetermined, his course has been set, his choices have already been taken away from him. And yet he decides all the same.

You see though we are all of us determined, whether genetically or historically or perhaps even theologically, that determination is not complete. That some of our options have been limited does not mean that all of our options have been eliminated. In what ways are we limited and in what ways are we free? I haven't the faintest clue.

I do, however, like Harry's example. Determined or not I want to live as though I have a choice. If God has predetermined my actions, then so be it and I'm sure he'll take responsibility when the time for that sort of thing comes. But as far as I'm able I think it's important that I live as someone who is responsible before God for his own actions. I think it's important to live as though I have a choice until a situation arises where I really don't.

Are our lives pre-determined? Of course they are, in a great many ways. But, to be frank, I really don't see what that has to do with whether or not I make the right choices in my life. I say, live responsibly, as though you have a choice. If it turns out in the end that you didn't, then who the hell cares anyway right?

*I realize that I skipped GAHP 5. As I've mentioned to a couple of my readers privately I really do want to do a GAHP post about Harry's entrance into the Wizarding World and the idea of conversion but I just can't seem to get my head around the ideas involved. I guess I'm holding the 5 slot in case some day I can get that post right. We'll see.
**For the record, yes I can smell my asparagus pee.

Coffee...

One of the drawbacks to being back in school is that I now don't really have time for sleep. Add to this my general anxiety over being ready for classes as they come up, particularly my intermediate Hebrew course, and I'm already feeling pretty tired. The solution, I suppose, is that I must start drinking coffee.

I've never been much of a coffee person. I used to say that I despise the stuff, though admittedly over the past few years I've been capitulating more and more, allowing myself to be slowly absorbed into the coffee drinking culture around me. I see this as a kind of betrayal, like I'm waiving the white flag of surrender after vowing for so many years that I did not like and would not drink coffee. Today, it would appear, the final armistice in this long and fruitless war was signed.

Because of the aforementioned fatigue Jinny and I decided that I would purchase some coffee and use that as a drug to keep my poor, addled brain in working order. I thought of this as a kind of necessary evil, a kind of medicine that must simply be tolerated in order to gain the desired effect. Sadly this was not to be so. I enjoyed it. I liked my first cup of La Minita Tarrazu (purchased from Second Cup) and am kind of looking forward to another cup this evening or perhaps tomorrow morning.

Sigh, just another way in which I'm exactly like everybody else. I really am starting to wonder if we shouldn't just take Jerry Seinfeld's advice and start dressing in uniforms like in Sci-Fi movies.

Things That Are Cooler...

For those of you who haven't noticed Google launched the beta version of their new internet browser called Chrome today. It looks kind of cool and I really do like the way that the URL box automatically functions as a search engine but overall I am underwhelmed. It doesn't really do anything that Firefox doesn't do and like Jim West I find the lack of a Home Page and the way the shortcuts work irritating. I think that I'm just going to stick with Firefox for the time being unless someone suggests a reason that Chrome is superior.

On the other hand I did come across to online applications that are both much cooler than Chrome. I'll start with the one I found second. This may sound lame but I've never heard of Scribefire until today. While I was reading around about Chrome I ran across Jim's critique (linked above) and he mentioned this app called Scribefire that he uses to blog. I just finished installing it and I'm using it to write this very post and it is cool as all get-out. Links are easier, I don't have to fiddle with the Blogger Dashboard, I don't have to sign out of my wife's account and then sign into mine, this is awesome.

The second (really the first) app that's cooler than Chrome is a Hebrew/Greek vocab program I found a couple of days ago. For some absurd reason I accidentally deleted my Hebrew vocab software a few months ago and I'm in pretty dire need of it right now. This internet app, however, kicks the living crap out of my old software (Teknia in case you were curious). It also kicks the crap out of Greekflash Pro. You can run standard flashcards, you can do fill-in-the-blank quizzes, you can do multiple-choice quizzes, or you can do a combination of these. It runs the quizzes based on part of speech and frequency, and the best part is that if you get a word wrong that word gets cycled back into the mix radomly and appears many, many times. At any rate I'm finding it very helpful.

Both of these apps, which are cooler than Chrome simply by the virtue of being more useful, are now available in the Links section on the sidebar.

New Addition...

There's a new addition to my sidebar in both the Links and Blogroll. My friend Trevor (probably my oldest friend that I still keep in touch with) has started a blog.

Like me and so many people I know he's something of a recovering fundamentalist and so far he's been blending his love for ANE studies with his interests in the primeval history of Genesis 1-7 in a pretty strong challenge to the biblical "literalism" that we were both raised on.*

For anyone who's spent time in serious study of biblical literature nothing Trev says will be all that surprising but there are a lot of evangelicals who hover uncomfortably on the edge of conservatism who will find his thoughts unsettling and maybe even a little bit of a relief. Sometimes it's just nice to hear people agree with your privately held beliefs out loud. Anyways, go give him a read and see what you think.

*I use quotes on literalism there since, as I've said before, the fundamentalist/evangelical readings of Genesis 1-7 are often so bizarre, arcane, and disconnected from reality that even the idiotic misnomer "literal" hardly applies

Opinions...

I haven't been writing lately, in any capacity. This is an unfortunate development for me because, as I've said before, writing is one of the things that keeps me sane and centred. There are some good practical reasons for this drought but as we all know practical reasons never keep us from doing the things we love.

I have been terrified lately of the danger of opinions. This is the product of many varied streams of thought. Partly it has to do with a discussion that was making the rounds on a number of academic blogs that I frequent and partly with the related experience of applying to several graduate programs. In the discussions on the blogs I just mentioned there were some bloggers and commentors who suggested that there is a great deal of danger involved with posting on blogs. The danger is that you will make a statement or present an opinion that will later, and I'm sorry I can't find a more elegant way to put this, bite you in the ass.

The relation to applying to schools seems pretty obvious but I'll spell it out anyway. I have been nervous for some time that I will not be wanted because of who and what I am. I simply do not fit into very many traditional molds and this blog is one of the best examples of my personal oddity. I love whimsy too much. I am not conservative enough. I am not liberal enough. On top of that I know that I make mistakes. Sometimes factual errors and sometimes errors of logic or rhetoric but errors nonetheless.

I am afraid of being unwanted and of being wrong but I know that this is hypocrisy. All statements are fraught with danger and written statements all the more so since they can be referred to at will. But all statements are also powerful and written statements especially so. To appropriate that power an author must be willing to risk, and in many cases to risk all. In my experience authors who are willing to take that risk are either great or awful (and occasionally they are both). That awfulness is the danger that any writer of any kind fears but it cannot be negated or set aside. It is necessary. It must be.

And so here I am, risking myself and my reputation in a forum that hardly anybody reads and anyone can find and hold against me at will. Why? Because I need to write. I need to share and challenge others and even more to challenge and push myself to think more carefully. Writing is the only way I know how to do this.