Divine Right
For two thousand years there was one divine right: The king had every right to kill who he wished, rape who he wished, steal from who he wished and do as he pleased to those he stood over. The King’s right to be a jack-booted thug came from the fact that some greater jack-booted thug told him he could he pleased with impunity due, to the protection afforded him from the divine right.
In my lifetime there was one divine right for the common folks, those not the king, you had the divine right to be considerate of your fellow man. For me this meant thinking about those around me as much as myself, if not more. I’d open the door for others, say thank you to everyone, even to a traffic cop who handed me a ticket. I’d try not cut-off the guy next to me on the highway, or the old lady walking next to me. In short, I spent a lifetime being polite, and now, after half a century of this effort, I’m not sure why I did this.
There is some silly notion of politeness karma, as if when I hold the door for another, one will be held open for me, except, this doesn’t seem to be the case. There is some golden rule that says something like; when you thank someone, they will thank you. Except, this doesn’t seem to be the case. There is some universal law that says; do a good job, and a good job will be done for you. Except, well you get the idea. It seems all my efforts to be a polite person were in fact, just efforts, like my efforts to keep my hair cut, or my efforts to avoid saturated and trans fats. Just efforts. I say this as it occurred to me the other day my current personal failure is the failure to see myself as the others around me see themselves.
Since 2005 the divine right took a turn. Why 2010 in particular, I have no real idea, maybe I just noticed or maybe the planet was hit by some cosmic ray. Regardless of the exact moment, the divine right of kings passed to the common man, and boy was I not prepared for this. The world is some bizzaro, upside down world, where nothing is as it was and nothing makes sense to me.
It is now your divine right, no matter who you are or think you are, to continue your conversation no matter what is happening around you. You may continue your conversation if you are mindlessly crossing a highway. You can keep talking even if you and your buddies knock me to the ground in order to keep the lively discourse going about who you shagged last night. You may keep the conversation going during a concert, movie or even during a funeral. Now that the divine right has been passed to the common man you are under no obligation to stop speaking, ever, even if god – the one who gave you the divine right, asks you to shut the hell up, as he has something to say.
You have the divine right to talk on the phone no matter where you are. That of course is a divine right that came from the cellphone companies and not the distributor of divine rights. You may speak on the phone; while shagging, while on the can, while walking, while in the locker-room, while talking on another phone altogether, while on the plane, while receiving open heart surgery or while holding a fire hose during a three-alarm fire.
You have the divine right to expect, well, demand really, that everyone open the door for you. You have the divine right to demand that you go first, even when there is a line of a thousand. You have a divine right to eat the last sandwich – your tenth, even when others have had none. You have the divine right to eat yourself into a grotesque example of human expression and then demand airplane manufacturers, car manufactures and chair manufacturers alter their entire design systems to accommodate for your handicap – your handicap being your inability to control what goes in your mouth. You have the divine right to self-proclaim yourself a victim of discrimination at any moment, over anything at all, and demand mountains be moved to accommodate you in any way you see fit.
You have a divine right, no, a divine purpose, to share your music at the loudest possible volume so the maximum number of people can share it with you – no matter where you are or what others are doing. This music right includes in your car, at the park, at school, and anywhere you feel excited to share your favorite music. You have a divine right to make sure your ten-thousand watt home theater surround sound system is played at volume eleven so everyone in every nearby country can hear it.
You have a divine right to leave your dog at home to bark, all day, while you are out performing all the other divine rights you have to perform.
You have a divine right to move over when ever you want, whether in a car or on your feet, as the need to move is protected by that divine right. You have a divine right to wear what you please, even if it barely fits or barely covers anything.
You have a divine right to speak your truth, no matter how ignorant it sounds, no matter how hurtful it is to others, and no matter how incoherent the gibberish you spit out sounds.
You have a divine right to spit, urinate, or release any other bodily excretions whenever and wherever you feel the need to. You have the divine right to toss anything, anywhere at all, be it from your body, something like your fast food packaging, or a couch you no longer see as divine.
You have a divine right to ignore the entire world around you wherever you are, as you are finally the entire center of the universe.
As a divine holder, you have a golden rule, a god-key, a jewel of your divine rights, which your must execute at all times or you may loose your divine right. You have the divine authority to attack anyone who asks you to refrain from executing your divine right, no matter how much your actions may hurt them or bother them. As a holder of the divine right, you are under obligation to attack, with violence, verbal indignation, or both, anyone who asks you to refrain from the blasting the loud music. You must attack those who ask you not to piss on their shoes. You must forcefully abuse those who ask you to be quiet during the funeral. And you must use all divine methods of defense afforded to you when someone, anyone, asks you not to be who you are – the divine one.
Now, the way I figure it, since it seems more then three quarters of the population feels the spiritual calling of the new divine right, it is incumbent on the rest of us to take what is ours, to get into the spirit of the new divine right. So I dub all thee who read this: divine!
Facebook Post
The most amazing thing happened to me last week. I was posting an Instagram picture on my new iPhone 5 of this awesome fishing bass-hat baseball cap I had just purchased when I fell down the main escalator at the Greenfield Mall.
The next thing I know I am standing in front of these gigantic pearl-essence glass and steel gates. After a few moments they open slightly and a guy walks out. “Eric Samuel” he says. I say “yes, I’m Eric Samuel.” He begins typing into a tablet he was holding (iPad 3rd generation).
He was about my height with a perfectly shaved head, Dieter glasses and a black turtleneck. While looking down and typing he says, “I’m Saint Peter.” I was shocked, “Am I dead” I asked? Staring at the tablet he stopped typing (not an iPad, Surface 2?) and said, “not yet.” Then he typed some more.
“So, what now,” I asked? He said that I needed to answer a few questions before he opened the hallowed gates. I said, “Okay, is it like I have heard, questions like, ‘were you true to your family?’” He said without looking up, “no, things have changed and the questions are more comprehensive.” I was a little freaked out, as this was a St. Peter pop quiz? After a little more typing he looked up and said in a very stern voice, “The questions I will ask must be answered truthfully. You may answer the questions as I as I ask them or you may choose to hear all of them first and then go back and answer each one.” “I’ll hear them all first,” I said, as it was best to get a feel first so I knew how I should answer them. “Okay, let us begin,” and he continued to look down at his tablet (I’m sure it was a Kindle Fire 1st gen).
Without looking up he said, “This is the end of part one, there are three parts in total.” This really through me for a loop, as I needed to be honest with him but I could see by his questions that the fact that I watched Fox on occasion for laughs was going to hurt my chances to get in.
I was wearing flip-flops so I had to be truthful there. I once ordered a pizza from a chain store and they said the cheese was Artisanal but I had my doubts. I considered lying on each question when he looked up from his tablet (Nexus 10 for sure) and said, “Before we go on, I need to warn you that we use the NSA total information data system to check the truthfulness of your answers.”
I panicked when I realized my Wi-Fi connection was a shared connection with my roommates and, even worse, I occasionally drove my mother’s Escalade to take my grandmother to her weekly kidney dialysis, so blurted out something like, “this isn’t fair, I didn’t know there would be a test like this…” and moment later I was lying on the marble floor at the base of the main escalator in the Greenfield Mall.
I looked and saw my iPhone was still in my hand and it hadn’t posted the picture of the bass-hat so I hit post. The amazing thing happened right after I hit post, as some random dude stole my brand new iPhone 5 right from my hand!
The Wasting Of Time
The Wasting Of Time
I am now 15945 days old, 43.75 years - 382,680 hours spent on planet earth. Being at the midpoint of my life I’ve decided to take stock. Rather than looking at what I’ve accomplished to this point or determine what I still have left to do, I’m going to look at the time I’ve wasted and how it was wasted. Perspective is needed to evaluate the myriad of life’s events so I have decided to see what didn’t contribute to my evolution as my guide. The 23 hours I’ve wasted by being dropped on the cell phone has not contributed to my evolution. The 2 hours I spent viewing the Mona Lisa contributed immeasurably.
The purpose of life is to learn as much about yourself and your environment as you can through your interactions with what you encounter. Through this process we achieve awareness, then understanding and hopefully our experiences lead to knowingness about ourselves and the world. Yet life is filled with time wasters, experiences that don’t seem to lead to anything in particular, let alone knowingness about who and what I am.
Of my 382,680 hours I’ll subtract 127,560 hours off the top for sleep; leaving 255,120 hours spent doing everything from eating Mexican food, engaging in sex and being perfectly stupefied by the game of golf – activities that are clearly not a waste of time.
I consider the first two years of my life a total waste. Diapers, baby food, gurgling and baby talk from my parents add up to make this an obvious waste - that and I can’t remember a thing about those two years. 17520 hours wasted...
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...A Live Studio Audience
... A Live Studio Audience
When I was eight years old my mother carted my sister and myself off to participate in the taping of a children’s television show called the “Grab Bag.” My mother was overly concerned with her appearance, both physical and reputation, as such, we were dragged off to all manner of things we had no real interest in simply because doing so made her look good to others. This time she garnered eight tickets for friends and family for participation in the local TV show hosted by Jim Allen. I really had no interest in any of it at all, so when it came time to volunteer to play one of the games I did not raise my hand in the frantic waving designed to get picked - the only one who did not. Evidently I thought keeping my hands in my pockets would both signal my intention and seamlessly blend me into the background of screaming kids, but since I was the only one not raising my hand I was a stand out, a lone wolf, an easy target for being selected. As I recall I completed the first simple task and was sure that was it, but to my chagrin I ended up being selected as the grand prize contestant as well.
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