Living as a Lion

As much as I love to be a participator in life, you know... Be included, involve myself in things, start up conversations, et cetera... As much as I love that, I equally love being an observer. I absolutely live for the sharing of ideas, especially if they are ideas that are completely alien to me. This may or not be because I incorporate a lot of ideas that are predominantly Buddhist and/or Daoist into my own beliefs-- i. e., "Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know." That sort of thing. However, on the other side of that coin is a side of me that really caused a lot of dissonance within me and didn't fall quite right with me.

That side of me is a fighter by nature. I would rather not engage in conflict, but if I see no other way out, I will not back down and I will fight... fiercely. I have a hell of a time reconciling that with my endeavor to be peaceful in nature, and with my desire to also treat people with respect and love in all cases.

Within Daoism especially is where the dissonance lay. Daoism speaks of a concept known as "无为", "wú​wéi": It translates roughly to "Inaction" or "non-doing". It says that if you take no action, everything flows on in the right, natural course.

This led me to a bit of an internal conflict. For example, if I walked down the street and noticed a good friend of mine being mugged, would I simply sit and watch it happen? Of course not! That can't be right. I wouldn't outright hurt the mugger, but I would do everything I can to defend the lives of both myself and my friend. But would that really fall in line with my core belief of Inaction?

That thought plagued me for months. I meditated upon it constantly until I finally came upon a realization. "Non-doing" or Inaction does not mean sitting and watching life go by. It means participating in it, taking it day by day, and going with the flow: Letting things take their natural course! When the time is right, someone who is really in line with Daoism won't take action: That person will let the action take them.

We shouldn't be hesitant to defend ourselves. We should not be aggressive, though! We should be sturdy and we should stick to what our instincts tell us is right. In the grand scheme of things, though, we do need to realize that it's not incredibly important and the discretion to know action from inaction is key.

I read a quote that stems from a very famous graffiti photograph that has inspired a lot of people, including myself.

"It is better to live one day as a Lion than one thousand days as a Lamb."

My best friend once asked me a peculiar question out of nowhere.

"David, fight or follow?"

 At first, I thought of it as somewhat of an unfair or loaded question. Surely I would need a bit more context! However, she intentionally denied me any such thing. I thought about it for a moment and answered,

"Follow. I think a lot of the things we think matter, in the end, really don't. And that's completely okay. While it's not a bad thing to stick up for what you believe in in any case, I think I personally would rather just avoid the conflict."

 It was the best response I could offer. She responded that she would rather fight, and I was not at all surprised. What I admire most about this girl is the fire in her heart, the ever-extended middle finger she displays to the world.

I used to fight with my family a lot, especially my mother. I've always been the black sheep of the family, and I used to think that my differences were, in a word, irreconcilable. After I was shocked out of it by a few big impacts, I tried to be as peaceful as possible. I tried to preserve harmony at all costs, even if it meant certain people were walking all over me. Now, however, I owe my friend so much for teaching me how to reignite, reforge, and focus my fighting spirit into something different than anger: resolve.

Fight or follow, lion or lamb... Somewhere between these two extremes lies where I try to live. I know that discretion is the better part of valor, and that sometimes it's better to just smile and nod patiently... But I also know that there are simply some things that are not right. When instinct tells me what to do, I try to know to let the right action take me.

This one's kind of all over the place. Sorry.

My friend Ann Renner wrote a poem! Well, actually, she wrote several poems. I liked what I read, so I asked her to let me post one of them!
OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING WORK DOES NOT BELONG TO ME IN ANY PART WHATSOEVER. IT BELONGS TO, AND WAS WRITTEN SOLELY BY, ANN RENNER.

Puppet Master

Raise one hand, now the other
Left foot, right foot, spin around
Paint on your smile
Dance, dance, for your puppet master
Eat, Sleep, and work when told
Sit, stand, as your strings are pulled
Just keep smiling, don’t ask why
Dance, dance, for your puppet master

When not in use you’re locked away
In darkness you sit
You sit and you wait to
Dance, dance for your puppet master
You never questioned your life
You were scared to ask why
You were to be the perfect little puppet so
Dance, dance, for your puppet master

But the dance wasn’t perfect enough!
You made mistakes
You just couldn’t be perfect but still
Dance, dance, for your puppet master
You didn’t always do what they wanted
You clothes didn’t fit
Your strings were all tangled…still
Dance, dance, for your puppet master

When not in use you’re locked away
In darkness you sit
In darkness you wait to
Dance, dance for your puppet master
You begin to question your life
You begin to ask why
You had to be the perfect little puppet to
Dance, dance, for your puppet master.

You are free at last
You are no longer theirs
Another has taken your spot to
Dance, dance for the puppet master
Raise one hand, now the other
Left foot, right foot, spin around
Stand without strings to hold you back
Dance, dance for your self and no one else

Today was a rough day for me, for many reasons than one. But I'm not going to feel sorry for myself, because only assholes do that. That poem was also one of the darker ones that are up here.

Therefore, I will give you 15 reasons to be happy because assholes don't do that.

1. You should live with regrets, but don't hold each one for too long. Remember, at one point, it was exactly what you wanted.
2. Music. Music is a bridge between Heaven and Earth.

3. "A nerd is only one who isn't afraid to embrace what he or she finds enjoyable."
4. If one of your friends betrays you, that simply means they weren't one of your real friends.
5. Of course you keep fucking up your friend's lives! Why else do you think you're all friends, anyway?
6. If you really, truly want to make it happen, no one will ever completely be out of your life. You may be separated by oceans, nations, states, or the mortal coil, but even if you fall out of touch, sharing parts of your life with someone is written in your history.

7. I guarantee that you know someone who is painfully jealous of you.
8. Nutella.

9. It's never shameful to sing along with your favorite song.
10. You are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can't-- Okay, okay, I'll stop. But, no, seriously, you are one attractive piece of human.
11. When you speak without inhibitions and without fear, and just let the emotion flow like a river, every syllable becomes like that of poetry.
12. Hey, that's a nice shirt. It looks slick on you.
13. High school sucked for everybody, not just you. You all entered as equals, in the middle you were forced into a hierarchy... But believe it or not, you all exited as equals because guess what? First year of college kicks EVERYONE'S ass.
14. Everyone has problems. It's okay to have problems! It's our problems that make us normal.
15. You have that bit of God in you that is unique to ONLY YOU. Your Divine Spark belongs to you.

I hope at least one of those brightened your day. Or night. Or whenever you happen to read this.

"That Guy"

Dungeons and Dragons is a roleplaying game. It is extremely open-ended, allowing for a player to be pretty much whatever they want (within reason) and allowing for a DM, or Dungeon Master, to write whatever kind of story they want.

The drawback of how open-ended it is, however, comes when "That Guy" joins the party. "That Guy" is pretty much what he sounds like: The guy that somehow, some way detracts from the experience and gets on everyone's nerves, but the party tolerates him anyway for reasons they can't explain.

I recall a group a few months ago where “That Guy” was a relatively new player to our group and we’d agreed that the game was going to be about mid-high fantasy DnD heroics… So this guy shows up with a drunken old man lout of a Fighter. Meanwhile, the some of the others were all playing some young kind of anime-nerd hero type for the lulz. My character wasn't, however, I was a Half-Orc Ranger stylized as a pirate admiral who was a total mama's boy and wrote letters to home every month. His name was Bilge. 

However, this story is not about Bilge. It's about "That Guy".We tolerated him and how often he’d talk about how drunk, smelly, and generally obnoxious his character was. He would use metagame knowledge (knowledge the player has that the character doesn't)  to make fun of our characters in his roleplaying, laughing at us when we got knocked out, et cetera. 

It was worst when he started calling us cowards when we failed our fear checks, and the DM would take pity on us and give us a look that said “Just let it slide.” and would let us take rerolls. We never understood why he let us reroll the check simply for being called cowards, but we weren't complaining.

We’d bitch about it in between sessions and we grew to hate the guy as a player. His character would go onto long diatribes about dungeons and gold and how useless we were and we’d get into hour long arguments before the DM would constantly remind us to keep it in character. Anyway, this campaign went on for a year and the storyline is climaxing and a big NPC gets captured, and "That Guy" gets us to go on a suicide mission and storm a castle, and he’s pretty much yelling at us IRL that we gotta do it.

When we finally agree, he leaves the room with the DM for a few minutes, and we all assume this is all some metaplot about how he’s gonna fuck us over and steal our shit. They come back as though nothing happened. Session continues but we’re all on guard, assuming something is up. We storm the castle or whatever, and have fun, not really noticing that this guy has stopped being so obnoxious. He wasn’t referencing how he reeked of whiskey or onions or whatever, though he wastes 5 minutes explaining how his character shaved his beard. Whatever, we just assume the DM talked to him about it. 

Epic battles ensue, fast forward to face off with the final boss, some Undead Warlock or something, and it isn’t going so well.

In fact, we’re getting spanked. Our Cleric is down, and Mr. Fighter has a haste and out of nowhere he goes “I rush over to the Cleric and slap him. ‘Get up, you damn coward!’” At this point I groan, but the DM actually says “Cleric, you’re back up with 50 HP.” Then Mr. ‘Fighter’ says “I turn to the Lich… My sword glows a bright gold. I use Smite Evil.” Suddenly it clicked for all of us.

"All right, chums, up! Let's do this."

That fucker had been playing a Paladin, a holy knight, a crusader, the entire time.

We realized that his insults were his Lay on Hands (which explained why the Cleric was healed), and his calling us out as cowards was his Anti-Fear aura, which allowed us to take rerolls.   

The reason he made such a big deal out of him shaving and cleaning himself up was that he had finally reconciled himself for his past mistakes (which we were all too distracted by his annoyingness to remember).

We all had thought of him as “That Guy” but he actually had been out-roleplaying us for almost a year.

Words for Love

I know it's been a while since I posted something last, so I'm going to make this count.

Valentine's Day is the one holiday that more people dislike than enjoy. I, for one, like everything about it. It's great to see lovers expressing their feelings for each other. Even if the PDA is a bit much, I really like seeing expressions of love in any form!

One thing that I've noticed in my study of multiple different languages is that the word for "Love" is difficult to translate. While I understand the meaning that those words try and convey, I never understood why it differs so much. 

Growing up in a church school environment, you learn a fair amount of things about ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew (if you're paying enough attention), as those are the two languages that the Bible is written in. What I loved most learning about are the four Greek words for Love. English has one word, two or three if you bend the rules a bit... Greek has four.

The first is φιλία, or Philia. Philia in modern Greek means friendship, but in ancient Greek carries the connotation of a brotherly love. We can see that meaning in "Philadelphia", the City of Brotherly Love, and in the words "Philosophy", a love for wisdom, and "Bibliophile", someone who loves books, et cetera. It also could mean loyalty to friends or to a specific cause.

The second is στοργή, or Storge. Storge means simply affection, a natural, innate affection such as that which a parent loves their child. It's often described as being affection through familiarity. Strangely enough, it's the word used least in any Greek work.


The third is ἔρως, or Eros. Eros is a very intimate love-- It's where we get the English word "erotic". It's a very passionate love, filled with desire and longing. However, it's not always sexual in nature. Plato once said Eros-type love for a person is also a love for the beauty of that person, and ultimately an admiration of beauty in and of itself.


The fourth is my absolute favorite word for love from any language: ἀγάπη, or Agape. Agape is the strongest love, and often translated as "pure love". What differentiates it from the other words is twofold: It is unconditional, and it is always giving, without expecting anything in return. It also carries an undertone of being completely content with the status quo-- When someone feels Agape, they won't want to change a thing.

The only thing I dislike about Valentine's day is that it focuses romance's importance into a single day. This is a problem for two reasons: Obviously, the first is that romance should be Valentine's Day-strength every day of the year, and the second is that it only focuses on one kind of love!

Real, true love is unconditional. It won't stop or sputter-- It's like a river, always flowing and rolling over or around any obstacles, no matter how much work it takes. It's determined! It's strong!

But it's also gentle. Like water, it can be as fierce and powerful as a crashing sea, but also peaceful and serene as a lake in the early morning. It is always content to take the lowest places. It is humble! When the lowest path is taken by water, eventually you will find the ocean.

 Look at how much Love has grown! When it is determind, strong, gentle, peaceful, and humble, it grows into something immense and strong as the ocean itself!

We should always strive to live out all kinds of love. When we do this, and we strive for what love should be, we become very strong by sharing love with our friends, our family, and (if we have one) our lovers. We should have Philia, Storge, Eros, and Agape all in balance in our life at all times. We can live in harmony this way.

Happy Valentine's Day. Let's all try to act out Love in all its forms, every day.

Reflections on Rice

At least twice a week, I work as an assistant coach for my old high school's speech team. It's a wonderful opportunity to stay involved in what I love and help cultivate the amazing talent that some of those kids have.

Today, my good friend Josh and I (Who is also now an assistant coach) had the privilege of coaching a young girl from South Korea. Her speech category was Poetry, and her pieces were quite... well, I'm not exaggerating when I say they were powerful. The poetry she recites was written by a North Korean man who documented, through his outstanding spoken word, the injustice dealt to them.

Now, before I get to the core of what I want to express, I want to say that seeing this piece gave me a new perspective on exactly how venomous the conflict between North and South Korea is. Growing up in America, we pretty much learned that "North Korea= bad and people can't leave and their leader is crazy and" et cetera, and that "South Korea= the victims". It's quite a bit more complex than that.

The words were heavy. The poet witnessed what was called "relief rice" from the UN brought for hungry people, but given to the military. At first glance, one can already see the horrible leadership, but when one looks mindfully into the text, one begins to realize exactly what is happening.

Rice is the staple of almost every single Asian culture's diet. Over 3,770 million (that's almost 4 billion, yes) people eat rice every day, myself included. It truly is the stuff of life. The poet witnesses the rice being transported past starving, emaciated people and given to the military. Any excess rice they had was thrown during a parade to display the might of their military having had a full meal. This says something strong... Not only do they not even drop the extra rice into the hands of the starving, they waste it by throwing it in celebration of war.

The poet tells the "people of the world" not to call it "relief rice"-- How powerful that request is! He doesn't want relief rice, because that makes it sound like rice alone will solve all of North Korea's problems! He even tells the United Nations that if they have rice to send, it would be better to fire it into the air! This again draws a terrible picture of misusing life-giving food as ammunition. Rice, the grain of life, is being used to support war, spread starvation, and deal out death.

Rice is so small, so light, and yet so powerful. Something so innocent, if misused, can spread suffering-- But it still brings life to billions of people.

I like hearing prayers, songs, poetry, et cetera in other languages. Sometimes translations use very subtle changes to influence the message they want to get across. In the Chinese translation of the Lord's Prayer, for example, the Prayerspeaker asks God to "give me today my daily rice". I love that! It's a fantastic coloring of the difference (and also similarity) of Eastern culture to Western culture. Staples of our diet such as bread and rice can say such simple but powerful things about who we are!

If you've ever seen videos of people farming rice in countries such as Vietnam and China, when it's done traditionally it is quite obvious that it's back-breaking work. As much as I may not look like it, I do understand the value of hard manual labor. It's a fantastic feeling, being able to contribute strongly to something through work! Rice takes a very, very long time to farm and the work is quite tedious.

Rice can be a very powerful symbol of what I believe I should be like. Simple, subtle, but full of power. Hardworking. Fast to give life, and careful to not take it away.