You Can Have Zeus

I am taking the day off.

Monday and Tuesday were not pleasant at all. I am still working on getting my dad’s business straight, and I am also taking care of my own loose ends. Today I just want to level off and relax.

I took my problems to God this morning, and as always, he was helpful. He reminded me that voices of worry and stress don’t come from him. They are lies. My father above, who is in control, has told me things are going to be fine, and he keeps living up to his word. There is no point in allowing lies from other sources to rattle me.

When I was younger, I worried about bad things happening to me, and sometimes they happened. Usually I was wrong, but I had some serious failures. Life isn’t like that any more. Things work out. My problem isn’t problems; my problem is doing a poor job of receiving the peace that comes from knowing my problems are fixed.

Writing that, I feel like FDR. He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He wasn’t really correct, though, as a lot of World War Two’s victims could tell you if they were alive. He was just trying to make people feel better. What I’m saying is true, because I have someone who backs it up.

I’m going to be fine. I’m not going to be poor. Peace and success will increase. I will get more and more inner healing. My character will improve. God’s help will flow more freely. I will feel better.

God makes it happen, not just because I say he does, but because he says he does, and because I am submitting to him instead of demanding favors while living in rebellion.

It took me many years to build the stronghold of bad habits and wrong thinking. It’s not taking nearly that long to tear it down and build God’s stronghold in its place. Of course, this time, someone stronger is doing most of the work for me.

Once again, I have to say I’m glad I’m not involved in the political demolition derby any more. It was a source of frustration and anger.

I used to love being a self-appointed conservative Internet avenger, linking to other blogs, writing vitriolic essays, and posting silly memes. It’s nice to be out of it. It’s nice to realize that fixing myself is more important and productive than fixing the country. It’s better to focus on the roots than the leaves.

America is dying. I suppose it’s good that there are carnal people out there making themselves miserable, trying to slow down the disease’s progression. Thank God I’m not one of them.

I’ve finally received some control over my participation in Internet squabbles. I haven’t been writing much political stuff here, but I still felt an irresistible urge to comment on news stories. This week I’ve been deleting my comments. That means the deluded and vicious people I argued with will “win.” That’s okay. Should I even have to tell myself that? Sane, healthy people don’t lie awake at night thinking the world will end if they give up a flame battle attached to a story on The Washington Post’s website.

The devil is a square dance caller, and he pairs people up on the Internet so they can dance for him. Like most square dancers, they go in circles. I don’t want to do-si-do with Amanda Marcotte, Andrew Sullivan, or Ann Coulter’s slavish fans. Those people are trapped in a sick fantasy world where nothing improves. It’s a video game, and Satan keeps resetting it.

https://youtu.be/m9SrXRNPRCA

I have accepted the fact that I have to support Donald Trump. After McCain and Romney, Trump is an easy pill to swallow. The alternative is unthinkable. It’s amazing that America has sunk to the point where we are seriously considering making Hillary Clinton the commander-in-chief. Who’s next? Rod Blagojevich? Al Sharpton? Charles Manson?

If I were still involved in political blogging, I’d probably create a T-shirt with Hillary’s photo on it and big text reading “TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT.”

Hillary may lose, but even if she does, sooner or later we are going to be ruled by extremely slimy, disagreeable leftists. We are going to be humiliated the same way the Russians and Cubans were. Trashy individuals who couldn’t hold jobs at McDonald’s will show up at our homes with guns to tell us our property belongs to the people. They will sit in our offices at our former businesses, running them into the ground. People who were complete losers in a fair capitalist system will have titles and goons, and we will bend the knee to them, just as Jews bent the knee to Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and Nazis.

I’ll be very grateful if Trump buys us a four-year delay; eight years would be an unexpected bonanza.

I don’t think Trump will be as bad as his opponents predict. When the responsibility of the office hits him in the face, he will surely take off his clown shoes and work to make his administration a success.

I never communicate with conservative bloggers. I mean, not one. I never look at their blogs. The last one I looked at was The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. I used to love that blog. Last time I looked at it, I found it disturbing. I don’t want to share that kind of impotent fury any more.

In other news, the savage blow I took from The Aeneid still has me “bug-winding,” as people in Kentucky used to say. We don’t hear that expression enough. “Get off my porch, or I’ll knock you bug-winding.” I was something like 40% into Mackail’s horrific translation when I realized I was reading the wrong book. I got the Mandelbaum translation, and it was so much better, I decided it was best to start over. I think I’m on page 70-something out of 400.

Aeneas and Ulysses had to endure long, painful journeys filled with bloodshed and frustration. At times they felt they would never get where they were going. I can totally relate. I believe I’ve been working on this one-week reading assignment for a month. Or maybe it just seems like a month.

I’m still disgusted by the Greeks. I know Virgil was a Roman, but I think he captured the Greeks as well as Homer and the other Greek writers did. The Greeks were gung-ho about things like rape, enslavement, pillage, arson, and murder. They loved invading other people’s countries and destroying them. They were horrible people. But they loved calling each other stupid things like “pious” and “guiltless.”

What kind of religion calls you pious and guiltless while you’re running around murdering everyone you see?

The weird thing about the Greeks in the classics is that they moan and whine about the suffering that comes from war, while they’re in the midst of initiating or prolonging it. They’re just like the Crips and the Bloods. They want pity and admiration for self-inflicted misery.

The Olympics are in session right now; it’s a good time to comment on the Greeks. Like Olympic athletes, the Greeks were obsessed with things that have no real importance; things that do not last. If you criticize the Olympics, people treat you like you kicked a puppy, but the whole thing is a misguided festival full of neurotics and self-worshipers, and at night, it’s an orgy.

I don’t really care who runs a hundred meters the fastest. I can’t believe anyone can make a living doing that. I can’t believe people will make you rich for pole vaulting or lifting a barbell.

How can any woman be proud she spent six hours a day for twelve years, learning how to hop around on a balance beam? Think of the things she could have done with that time. She could have learned four languages. She could have learned to play and compose music. She could have had a social life.

What do you do at age 25, when your world-class gift no longer exists? Hello, public speaking! I guess. “Here’s a motivational story about something unimportant I did not nearly as well as today’s athletes, back before I gained sixty pounds…”

Here’s an interesting thing the Olympics and the games in the Greek classics have in common: they produced a lot of losers and very few winners. People love to say it’s a great honor to represent your country in the Olympics, and that no one really minds losing. That’s not very credible. No one who doesn’t mind losing has the temperament to exchange childhood and a normal hormonal profile for a chance at some plated medals. Top athletes can’t stand to lose. It haunts them.

When a huge number of people engage in an activity and nearly all of them emerge as dejected losers, it seems to me that it’s an indication that it’s not a good investment of time. Imagine what it would be like if you could feel all the heartbreak inside the Olympic athletes as they participate in the cruel closing ceremony.

P.S.: doping. Everyone since about 1965 gets an asterisk.

We took our unfortunate love of sports from the Greeks. I’m glad we’re not quite as vain and shallow in all areas of life.

I don’t care all that much what happens to Aeneas. He’s a miserable, violent, greedy, vain person. Reading about conflicts between the ancient warriors is like watching a boxing match between John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. None of them deserve to win. A good ending to their stories would be to see their slaves revolt and put them in prison.

Ovid is next. The book I ordered is here. I took a look, and it doesn’t look too bad. Virgil is not a hard act to follow, though. After the tale of blameless Aeneas, Naomi Wolf would seem like a vacation.

I still dread Cervantes.