How, then, shall we view the masses?

The many, the humble, the ignorant, the mediocre?

I have taken this post nearly word for word from an assignment I have completed for my philosophy course upon reading Dostoevsky's tale of the Grand Inquisitor, omitting only insignificant details in respect to others' privacy.
May it lead you, my dear reader, to further doubts and questions regarding the state of your soul, your faith, and indeed, your very existence.

"As _____ stated in the very first post, this is, indeed, difficult reading. I found myself at several points making the same objections _____ did - but, humanity is glorious! We are strong! We are wonderful! We possess choice, and this is the gift which God has given us!
We are up to the challenge.

At this point, I came to my most uncomfortable realization.
We're not.

The Inquisitor, in a sense, is right. While he does, in the end, release the prisoner, while he does retain the warmth of that kiss in his heart, he refuses to depart from his love of humanity.
Indeed, how could he?
Being a student of Christ and a student of humanity, he had no other option.

I have returned, at _____'s gentle (and likely entirely accidental) prodding, to my old haunt - a forum I frequented in my youth, and may yet frequent, driven by the protective glow of my memories.
I am not there, however, as an equal to the children who call it their home - rather, I am their older brother, I am their caretaker, I am their protector, I am their guardian and their shield, I am loved and adored there still: and it makes my very soul sick.
It makes my heart ache to know that these children - mere children! - are destined to lives of ignorance, not by force, but by choice. That they long to give up their bread, to push away their freedom, to sacrifice it to another.
And so I take their bread. I shepherd these children in the ways of doubt, I assuage their pain and restore their broken confidence, I stand as the impenetrable wall between them and all who would assault them.
For I remember only all too well the days of living among an online community - of dedicating myself to those I had only met through lines of text and disembodied voices in my ear, living all over this forsaken planet. Of loving them, caring for them, needing them.
I remember all too well the days of doubt, of captivity and fear, and the comfort which lies in the protection of others.

Now, of course, that I have left these things behind, I see the behaviors in others still - and I have no recourse left but to act as their Grand Inquisitor.
I cherish these children - As representatives of humanity, as individual sparks in this sea of light, I could even be said to love them in my way. I believe that humanity is worth protecting.

With that in mind, I am confronted with the dilemma brutal honesty brings: those that need protecting aren't worth protecting, as the effort devoted to their protection is effort taken from the reach for ever greater glory, learning and discovery - in my own way, I sin.
Rather than reaching for God myself, I acknowledge with some wistfulness that although I possess that capability, though I possess that strength of spirit, that very spirit bestows upon me the duty to protect those who will not, who cannot do the same.

The Inquisitor presents us with a difficult dilemma.

Yes, humans possess the ability to choose freedom. We possess free will, we possess consciousness, we possess awareness - the problem lies, however, in the fact that many of us simply don't desire it. In the vast fearfulness of an entire universe laid bare to our wondering eyes, many of us - the huddled masses, the poor in spirit, the weak and the ignorant - choose to screw our eyes tightly shut and beg Jesus to make it all go away. We don't want fear, we don't want wonder, we don't want insecurity or uncertainty - we want love, unfettered and unconditional. We want a mother's embrace, the relief and security of a stalwart guardian's strong arms bearing sharpened sword and plated shield.

What, then, of those who take up the sword and shield? Who crusade against certainty, who assail the fortresses of ignorance and hatred with questing darts of curiosity, who plant seeds of doubt in the mortar of blind ignorance?

First, we are hated. If we are weak, we succumb and apologize, lay down arms and stop asking questions. Sometimes we join a church, sometimes we simply settle down to our basic duty as humans to produce offspring and foster generations to come.

If we are strong, however, we stand fast. We shatter the arrows of hatred upon our shields of doubt and cut through certainty with blades of curiosity.
And what then? Why, we are loved.
We are suddenly revered as pillars of knowledge - knowledge we often don't have - and held up as role models for entire communities. We are feared and awed, and approached with the meekest timidity, if at all.

We have, in essence, taken God's place. Others come to us to ask who to worship and how to worship them. They come to us to reinforce their faith, when we were the ones who tore it down in the first place.

At this point, another transformation has the potential to take place.
At this point as well, a crucial question must be asked: where does our love lie? Does it lie with the divine, with the growth of love and learning and knowledge? Do we dare to explore more and more of the world outside the cave?
Or does our love lie with humanity? Do we reject God, reject the divine, in order to call to our fellows dancing with shadows and lead them into the light? Do we sin in our deception of our weaker brethren while we take their hands and give them succor in their fear?

Which shall we choose? In our love of humanity, do we reject God? Or in our love of God, do we reject humanity?

At this point, I don't have an answer - but I must admit that the Grand Inquisitor frames it in such a way that I'm sure it will be nestling in the back of my mind for weeks, months, possibly even years to come.

The profound is rarely satisfying, it seems - the greatest questions lead only to more of the same, while only a combination of fear and the basest answers truly sate the appetite of curiosity.

Making Barfing Sound Pretty, Among Other Things

Yeah, so it's the end of the class.

I think I did okay in a few of the discussion bits here and there, I'm pretty sure I failed the quizzes miserably due to the fact that I missed most of them entirely and didn't realize it until tonight, and I honestly couldn't care less whether I did okay in the blog bit, because the fact of the matter is that I've enjoyed the hell out of blogging.

If I fail the class...well, I enjoyed it, I actually learned new things for the first time since junior high, and the instructor was fantastic (Mark, I know - or hope, rather - that you're reading this at some point in time. You've been great!). With all in mind, I suppose that if I do fail, it's worth it anyway.

In any case, back to blogging. It's like writing. On a daily basis. Except it's not really writing. It's more like regurgitating as-yet unformed thoughts onto a keyboard, at which point they spill from your fingers in tiny rivulets of creativity and become words, dancing across a lovely little white box of text in perfectly aligned chorus lines of ideas.

I have to admit, as well, that there's some satisfaction in making barfing sound pretty.

...

Gotcha. =)

Now then - down to the assignment. For this one, I'm to pick a vanity blog (sorry, Justine) and an information blog (sorry, Scott).

Now, while I don't know either of these folks in person, I positively adore their writing. Also, Justine uses the same distortion of the word "love" that my fiancee and I do, which, I must admit, while the slightest bit creepy, is made awesome by the fact that Mrs. Larbalestier is that rarest of all creatures: a real writer. Not just a wordsmith such as myself, or a budding poet such as my fiancee, but an actual writer. Someone who gets paid actual money to write actual stories about not-so-actual things. Which, of course, being the geeky type I am, I've always wanted to do and never gotten around to.
Of course, her blog has very little to do with actually writing and more to do with life in general - in a very entertaining way. Writing is a way of meeting someone without seeing them (minus the creepiness). To a wordsmith, words are personal - they're part of your soul. When you create sentences, put them down on paper, you are giving birth and these are your children. When people see you, they don't just say your name, they know you by your writing as well. They know your personality, your likes, your dislikes, and your opinions. They know your tendencies, your habits, and that odd mutter you develop in the middle of the night.
Such is the power of writing.
And such is the power of a blog written by those rarefied people who must write - and Justine Larbalestier positively exudes that particular glow. It's as if rather than sitting down and straining, fighting the words to get them to settle down in a nice neat row on paper, they joyously flow from her fingertips, dancing in ecstacy at the touch of an enthusiastic practitioner.
As such, her blog - while not expressly about writing - is a joy to read, nonetheless.

Her husband, on the other hand, is another story entirely - no pun intended. While just as much a writer as his wife, with the same deft touch and finely honed skill, his blog is entirely about writing. Writing workshops, writing quotes, writing interviews, writing ideas, writing hints, writing guidance.
He may as well call it "Westerwrite". Except "Westerblog" sounds cooler. And a little bit more sophisticated. And just very slightly urbane, although not so much that it'll scare off the teens looking to be really cool despite the fact that they're reading a writer's blog. Although, of course, when you think about it...the whole idea is really very clever. By the time the teen realizes they've been sucked in by a writer's blog pretending to be cool (because we all know writers can't be cool. Cool people wear sunglasses, and it's a well-known fact that writers enjoy sunshine. Rain, after all, gets our pages wet), they're already so caught up in Scott's cuttingly caustic cunning that they've stopped caring about coolness in the refreshing flow of genuinely well-written words.

Of course, these two are a rarity in today's blogosphere. In this social community, as in all others, there is a sparkling upper crust of glory which must be supported by the dense, monotonous press of mediocrity underneath. Blogs like this one - hell, even I don't know what that is - or this one, which seems to be...a series of pictures aimed at getting you to rack up an enormous phone bill? I really can't tell.
Don't say I didn't warn you, though. Just in case.

With this in mind...my thesis hasn't changed. I still think that blogging is slowly but surely revolutionizing the world of journalism, and I think that it's perfectly suited for opening up a whole new universe of relationships and connections that most of us never even knew were possible.

Here's to the future - may it be entirely devoid of law-enforced plastic surgery.

O, I See Wut U Did Thar!

(Paraphrased) What is your favorite ad? Why is it your favorite, and what makes it effective?

Word of mouth=EPIC WIN.

First of all, this is a webcomic (by the way, xkcd apparently has more webcomic than Wikipedia). It is one of the few webcomics I read on a daily basis (the others are, of course, Ctrl-Alt-Del and Order of the Stick, if only because 8-Bit Theater doesn't have an RSS feed I can use with my Google homepage). It is written by a genius. Also illustrated and colored.
The man is amazing, I tell you. I don't have that much talent in my right pinky toe. Probably because it has a funny habit of going numb when I get cold.

That said, the most effective ad I've ever seen is on that page. You see the sidebar? The one with the blip about today's comic? Look lower. No, not there, we're not donating right now. We're not going to Dayfree Press either.
There. You see it? That little line of text, the one that says "recommended reading"?
That is the single most effective ad I've ever seen. It is the reason I read Dr. McNinja, Overcompensating, and Indietits. It is amazing. And hypnotic.
Like Picard.

Why is it effective? Because it is full of recommended reading from Jeph Jacques. This means that it is guaranteed to create laughter from nothing except for air and maybe a little bit of alcohol (if that's your thing. I don't like alcohol myself. My dad used to drink it and get angry, and boy, that just sucked. It's most of the reason I've been straightedge for the past three years).

There you go.

(Paraphrasing again) Which ads don't you like? Why not?

Ehhh...anything except for recommended reading from my favorite webcomics? I use the adblock extension with Firefox, so I don't see ads when I'm surfing the net.
I don't watch TV, so I don't see commercials.
I don't listen to the radio, so I don't hear those ads.
I don't drive and I read in the car when someone else is driving, so I don't see billboards.
I don't read magazines or newspapers, so I don't see those ads, either.
Oh, and the ads that randomly get dropped off in your mailbox? They are the cozy lining that keeps my real mail warm. I like them.

So uhh...yeah. Ads are bad, mmk?

Also, this is going in my blog. With better linkage.

Clicky clicky!

I told you.

Update

Hitman was awesome. Guns, swords, explosions, bad dialogue, improbable international intrigue, and bald dudes kicking ass. What more could a Bruce Willis/Vin Diesel fan ask for?

Question of the day:
Why do you/don't you believe in God? And no shallow answers - what really makes you want to believe in it or not?

Oh, my.

Anonymous vs. The Church of Scientology.

The power of the internets compels you!

...Oughta be interesting to see how this turns out.