The Happiest Man Ever To Die

When one undergoes therapy for depression, suicide is always a concern of the therapist. I have told mine not to worry and none should be worried for me. There are reasons why I won't do it, although they're a bit muddled. For instance, I fear failure in the attempt and becoming further disabled as a result, not to mention the stigma that would be with me for the rest of my life. So that's the purely pragmatic reason. A more noble reason is that I genuinely believe I can do some good with my generous nature. While I am hedonistic as well, that's all just the stuff I do to keep myself going. In the end, I no longer live for myself or what I might accomplish, but for others. Theirs are the lives that matter and that will truly be of substance. Although I am not suicidal, that doesn't mean I don't have an odd relationship with death and my thoughts turn to said relationship as I ring in the year 2015.

While I was not present at my grandfather's funeral due to international travel, I have been told that reference was made to his suffering ending with his death. When my grandmother died, his diet worsened, leading to diabetes and doing his gout no favors. He hadn't felt well for some time and it was said that he was in the afterlife and could say for the first time in a long while that he felt just fine. That has stuck with me, because I too do not feel just fine. The daily struggle with autism, the limitations it has placed upon my life, and the loneliness that fills each day mean I am not afraid to die. On the contrary, I will be very happy when that day comes near enough to be obviously close at hand. Elderly people in nursing homes know this feeling and I have seen that firsthand. They feel that their days have gone on past their usefulness to themselves or others and that each day they awaken is just a pointless struggle to prolong a life they would just as soon leave.

I never judge those who commit suicide. Putting aside those who were too mentally ill to understand what they were doing, I completely get it. They just got tired of the struggle and watching every reason they might have to live turn to dust or be outweighed by some reason or another to die. My own decision to wait for death to come in whatever form it may take me in the fullness of time is supported by many things, such as possession of the means to live in comfort, the joys I take in generosity, cooking, and writing, and a disciplined rational mind formed out of necessity by the very autism that has so limited my life. For those without means, sources of joy, and/or the capacity to be objective under stress from struggles, they may choose another path. Whether it is right or wrong for any given person to take their own life, I do not and cannot know. All I can know is that that must be their decision. As for me, I will do as much good as I can with as much time as I'm given and, when the time comes, I will welcome death as an old friend.

-Frank

Something For The Kids

There's many things neurotypicals say to me regarding my autism. Many of these things turn into articles for this blog. One of the most common ones is some variation of, "Why don't you work with autistic kids?" I can understand the sentiment. After all, I know what these kids are going through from the inside and I understand the very real practical concerns that an autistic child might face in the future. However, these seeming advantages would rapidly reveal themselves to be the disadvantages I know them to be. Some things about autism are not well understood by the professionals that work with kids on the spectrum, and that is to their benefit. Even with the rare professional who does understand these things, which I will discuss shortly, knows how to compartmentalize them and, above all, keep their mouth shut about them. Total honesty is a social liability, not an asset, and being totally honest with autistic kids is where I would fail.

Low-functioning types aren't who I have in mind here. Their parents and professionals working with them already know they're damned and have probably tried to explain that to them as best as native ability to comprehend such information allows. For high-functioning ones, however, you have shades of grey. So what do parents and professionals tell those kids? Well, they probably tell them that if they work hard in therapy to develop coping mechanisms and develop as many skills as possible, they'll be fine. The problem is that might not be fine because sometimes they're not going to be fine. My mistake would be in letting them know that. I could not stop myself from telling them how hard their life may well be even in the event they manage to make friends, have a job, and a romantic life. Sure, I'd tell them they're lucky to be born now, when so much promising research into cures, or at least treatments, is ongoing and that improving their functionality is possible to a degree, but I would not sugarcoat anything.

What is so hard for any neurotypical to understand is the sense of isolation that autistics feel. From my earliest memory, I knew I felt apart from the rest of humanity, although I could not articulate, or even name, why for the longest time. That profound loneliness is the most wearying part of autism. Even in your moments of greatest comfort and joy, however functional you've managed to be, it eats at you relentlessly, mercilessly, and painfully. What most autistic kids, especially the undiagnosed, do not know is that there is no escape from this feeling. There's not a phase you can grow out of, not a class you can take, not a medication you can be prescribed, and not a therapy you can undergo to overcome that feeling. As the years go by, you will live with it as a burden you must carry alone and it will wear on you as mileage wears on car. So that's what professionals who work with autistic kids don't know that I can't help but know. They cannot know how hard this journey is and that is what allows them to sugarcoat things, give sincerely offered hope, and present white lies where they would do better than the truth.

-Frank

Utility

To quote a line from one of the best episodes of my most beloved Star Trek series, "One of the most important things in a person's life is to feel useful." Such utility has been a phantom I've been chasing my entire life and this wild goose chase is something up upon which I only recently gave. The quest to become a useful human being is a trial by fire for many autistics. Those who succeed are rewarded with a productive adult life and become capable of independent living. For those who fail, however, wandering about attempting to be useful in the lives of those about whom they care is their neverending struggle. My own quest has failed, despite waging it long and hard. So I wander my world plying my core skills of writing and baking and pastry arts, as well as financial generosity, as my way of compensating for my general lack of utility as best I can. It isn't good enough and it never will be, although what little success I have sustains me with the tiny taste of feeling useful I get from it.

There are very different reasons that my core skills do not suffice to make me useful. Baking and pastry arts, to be done professionally, requires working quickly and multitasking, both of which I am incapable. Writing is more of a matter of being born in the wrong era and having talent in the wrong areas. Novelists are still somewhat viable in the modern world, although distribution is largely changing models from the bookstore to the e-reader. Non-fiction writers, primarily meaning journalists and columnists here, are considerably less viable in the modern era. Very few opportunities are available and what few are present tend to be unpaid. A toxic idea has taken hold that artists, especially writers, ought not to expect pay for their work and the public also expects their work for free. This idea has done incalculable damage to the job market for writers. While I have my doubts that a given publication's staff could endure my company sufficiently for me to succeed, I am confident that I could perform the job well.

Generosity is the real lifeblood of what sustains me in the aftermath of failing in my quest to become useful. Someone else's life becoming better by my action is the most powerful way for me to feel useful, but it is not without its risks. I know from long experience that many people, however sincere their need, will not hesitate to take advantage of the naïveté I come by honestly via autism. So I've had to learn to be careful, but I must stay the course because the benefits outweigh the risks. As I know that I am a hindrance in most respects, I generally try and leave other people to their lives and keep to myself. Even with friends, I try and help when I can and interact primarily when invited to do so. When it comes to others, they have long since made themselves useful and I must respect that. They aren't like me. All I'm up to is marking time as I pass through a mostly useless life that I predominantly observe rather than live. So it is their lives and their happiness that matter to me. Useless though I generally am, I can sometimes manage small exceptions. These small exceptions represent what little comfort I may eke out for myself as I walk a long and lonely road.

-Frank

The Farm

Once upon a time, I was a small child at play in the forests and meadows of Oakland, Arkansas where Granny Bailey had a hobby farm. While it was nothing compared to the backbreaking labor and harsh reality that real farm kids experience, I did get a bit of a taste of what that might be like. Walking around barefoot was standard. Exploring real bat caves, crawling through hollow logs, planting my own trees, digging irrigation ditches, catching fireflies to put in a jar, and watching tadpoles become frogs in the trough where rainwater would gather were all par for the course. I think often of that blonde kid in 1980s Marion County and how happy and hopeful he was. Whatever ways autism afflicted me at the time didn't seem to matter on the farm. All I had to do was have a blast and listen to my grandmother tell me what a wonderful person I was and was going to be. You know, I really did believe that.

Granny Bailey is dead five years now. Granddad 13 years, Grandmom 26 years, Pocky seven years, and nearly all of their generation is gone from my family on both sides. While I miss them all, I'm kind of glad they're gone at the same time. Now, I don't know if they realized I was profoundly disabled by my autism or not, but surely some of them had an inkling that something was wrong and of what was coming. I suppose I'd like to think that they died with hope in their hearts for me, if only because that would've helped make them happy and I'd like for them to have died happy. In any event, I don't have to face them and tell them that I'll never earn a living or that no great grandchildren will ever be forthcoming. For that much, I'm grateful. These were not broken dependent people. They all made grand contributions to their families and the economy. May they be at peace, safe from the knowledge I cannot claim this for myself.

The more I understand the extent of the severity of my autism, the more grateful I am for understanding of the natural world and my disbelief in the existence of a supernatural one. That so many believe in and pursue immortality speaks a great deal as to how satisfactory the average person considers his life to be. Death is a consolation to me, precisely because it will mean the end of my autism. While I do not seek it by any means, it will be an enormous relief to me when it finally comes. Whatever good effect my existence may have on the lives of others, and I have always tried to make a positive impact in this way, will not change the fact that it has been a trial to me. When one is raised with all the infrastructure for children available telling you all the work you will do in school and at home is for the express purpose of finding a career and a mate, I'm not sure one is supposed to react to the reality of failure on both fronts. Maybe that kid on the farm was ultimately wrong about where life was going, but, I gotta tell you, I envy him.

-Frank

Nothing To Report

Christmas is over. I have survived my first season with the full knowledge of the limits my autism places on me. Well-wishing relatives ask me what I've got going on, and I pretty much answer with an only slightly elaborated upon, "The usual." Smoking, cooking, writing, and little else, that's what's going on. That's what'll be going on the next year, the year after that, and all the years I've got left. Of course, it's understandable why everybody asks that. Most everybody has something going on in their lives that's new, especially if you haven't seen them in a year. Nobody wants to acknowledge the disabled relative in the room as a disabled person. Maybe that's what other disabled people want out of a holiday gathering. Pretending to be just like everyone else in the room of sound mind and body sure makes a lot of sense to me, but I can't do it.

There's a lot that I did right this Christmas, especially the vast majority of the candy I made. Aside from one or two cases where relatives either didn't like food coloring or the variety of candy, nobody came close to saying I made a poor product. Buying good gifts is something for which I've long been known and I think that, since I am unlikely to have accomplishments about which to speak at gatherings, I shall need to keep up, and even step up, my game. Mostly, gift-giving is a skill that relies upon equal parts knowing the recipient and insistence upon quality goods. Obviously, the most effective way to ensure quality is to make the gifts oneself, as I did with the candy this year, but the exhausting nature of filling 48 tins with candy ultimately means that I will favor purchases, at least for the most part, in the future. As long as they get the kind of reception I got this year, I'll know there is a very important function served by my presence.

I'm still young enough that most Christmases of my life have been about how I am others of my generation are doing. Well, even though I doubt any of my peers among the Gen Xers in my family have had as discouraging a report to give as I do this Christmas, I still had a lot of fun. There's warmth and cheer to be had in everybody getting together that really is unique and precious. For now, the family I was born with is populous and we have elders to keep us anchored together. While I enjoy it immensely, I do not take it for granted and I certainly do not expect it to be around forever, at least not for me. The Christmas will come one day that is my last with my family because my generation will move on and have their own traditions and I will have nowhere to go. That's okay though. No good thing lasts forever. While it does, I'll keep trying to do it right.

-Frank

Do We Negotiate?

Well, here it is. The moment has arrived where we, as a nation, must confront terrorism without the fig leaf of religion. When Muslims resort to death threats to oppose speech they don't like, we may safely side with them because their religion must be respected above all else. When Salmon Rushdie publishes a book that inspires death threats, when Theo Van Gogh makes a film that actually gets him killed, when Ayyan Hirsi Ali tells her story and must have armed security for the rest of her life because of it, when Jyllands Posten publishes some cartoons and embassies are burned, when South Park attempts to show an image of Mohammed and gets death threats, and when a woman must change her name and go into hiding because she tried to inspire people to draw Mohammed, our society simply shrugs and says that they shouldn't have blasphemed against Islam. Free speech is important to the western world, but not so much as respecting religion, no matter the cost, is important. So we're not cowards for capitulating to Muslim terrorists routinely, we're just super respectful of their religion. What if the terrorism wasn't done by Muslims though? What if you had to take a stand to give into terrorist demands or not and you didn't have a way to hide your abject terror when you capitulated. We no longer need wonder. North Korea can tell us all what films to watch and which to not. 

The Interview didn't look like much I'd be interested in seeing when trailers for it were out. Just a goofy comedy with a gimmicky premise that could be easily avoided in favor of films like the final Hobbit installment. What never occurred to me was that North Korea could intimidate the United States into not showing a film. Art in this country is promised to be free from censorship on the part of the government, but it never occurred to me that a studio would censor itself based on threats from the most obviously insane nation state on the Earth. There can be no possible excuse for this. Fear that people would be hurt of killed of these film were released is all there is to the story. Respect for the bizarre religion of ancestor worship and deification of the dictatorial line is most certainly not in play here. Neither can the studio claim to somehow sympathize with their cause, as they are not crazy people. So let fall the notion that, "letting the terrorists win," is just a hackneyed political slogan, although it is certainly that, because that is precisely what has occurred. Do you think there are other organizations that might have occasion to perform similar terrorist threats when films portraying themselves in a negative light come out? You can count on it. By not drawing the line here, the studio has simply delayed the inevitable decision to draw it at some point, unless, of course, there is no line in the sand worth keeping so that those who would attempt to censor art through terrorism would, at some point, be told they may go no further. 

We are a society at the edge of a precipice. It must be decided, and soon, whether or not we capitulate to terrorism. What I was raised with is the idea that one should never give into terrorist demands and that the Unites States in particular does not negotiate with terrorists, let alone capitulate to them entirely. Oh, I know the sacrifices involved could be terrible. Imagine if they did blow up a cinema and we had terrible loss of life. Sometimes though, there has to be things for which you're willing to put your life on the line. Patrick Henry famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death." When you'd rather live than have liberty, you'll live, sure, but what kind of life is that you'll be living? If your liberty remains, that's a fluke and it can vanish in a million different ways the moment those to whom you are so ready to capitulate simply insist it be cast aside. North Korea is a land of a deified boy dictator whose people must endure his every insane whim. My country is supposed to be the land of not putting up with that kind of crap. When someone threatens terrorist action against the United States, I only have two questions: 1). Where are the terrorists? 2) Are the terrorists dead yet? Maybe the boy dictator will see this blog post (okay, probably not, but go with me here) talking about how awful his evil line of dictators is and how his country deserves so much better than they've gotten for generations. If that happened, and he threatened me with terrorist action, I'd write nothing but articles that boil down to, "Fuck him," for weeks. That's how the America I know acts. Liberty is sacred to my country and if you want to threaten that liberty, I sincerely hope a Seal team shows up and ventilates the meat bag containing your abhorrent brain.

-Frank

Fatalism & Indifference

For most of my life, I cared deeply about politics. By that, I mean from the ages of around 10 to the age of 31. It was something about which I thought I understood quite a bit and I generally thought I had a good bead on things. Probably around the end of the second Bush Administration was where my passion for politics began to deteriorate, finally shattering utterly and irrevocably at the close of the 2012 elections. Now, I used to think that my disgust with the Republican Party on social issues, the utter rejection of my core fiscal values by the electorate and Occupy Wall Street, or sheer frustration at the GOP for sheer incompetence in messaging, compassion, and the ability to find candidates who weren't batshit crazy were behind my lack of passion and nonvoting status. Don't get me wrong. Those objections remain important, valid, and present, but there's a greater issue I've come to understand that keeps me in a constant cocktail of fatalism and indifference to politics. Autism limits my ability to understand the lives and thinking of the vast majority of human beings and I think that that is not something I can simply cast aside.

As I have written before, I no longer watch the news, although my Facebook feed tends to insist upon exposing me to it nonetheless. The great battles of modern politics rage on, fresh with debates, ad hominem attacks, and inevitable comparisons to Hitler and Stalin. While there are still issues about which I care, I do not feel any confidence in my analysis or my ability to properly going on with current events. For this reason, when I do offer comment, it is in the form of armchair ratiocination, rather than specific comments about matters at hand. My own internal logic remains something I find to be fairly reliable. Ideology is one thing, and politics is another. What I've learned is that I am competent at the former and rather clueless on the latter. When it comes to politics, you're dealing with the messy facts of the real lives of human beings. Sure, I have aspired to that kind of life before, but that doesn't mean I come close to really understanding it. For how can a disabled man understand the life of a man who possesses the traits that allow him to live independently and must apply those traits to the struggles of making a living? How can a man incapable of good relationships understand the pressures of having and supporting one? He can't, and that's a lot of what it means to be human.

At the heart of it, I don't really feel that the world that our politicians seek to govern in the various styles available to them is my own. The world I live in is built by, for, and of neurotypicals. Perhaps autistics higher-functioning than myself feel more connected to it, but I do not. As I watch the political tide flow, I am watching it as one would watch a fictional television drama. One might root for one character to come to a certain end or a certain storyline to turn out a certain way, but this does not mean one is invested in these outcomes in the same way one is invested in, say, the condition of one's car. Of course, the actions of politicians could well affect me as much as any of you, but this does not mean that I feel a sense of agency about the outcomes of elections or that I any better understand the rest of the electorate. Everyone else has much to consider in the direction the country is headed because they are fully a part of society, understand it reasonably well, and have specific and deep interests about how they would like to see the United States government proceed. Whoever one votes for doesn't really matter to me. If a particular candidate is going to take us to Hell in a handbasket, then that is what the candidate is going to do. In any event, I'll keep enduring my struggle to stay as sane and functional as I can. Saving the world may matter a great deal to you, and, if so, go try and save it. To quote Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen, "Why would I want to save a world I no longer have any stake in?"

-Frank

Not Meant For Me

As I go about reflecting on a life without employment or relationships, I find my thoughts on the romantic element are markedly different than they were when I still considered myself to have potential in that realm. This is not to say I haven't given up before, because I have done so many times. That fact causes no small amount of entirely understandable skepticism in the ranks of my family and friends. While I totally get why they don't believe me and suspect that I'll get back on the horse if/when the proper combination of good humor and opportunity arises, I calmly insist that I am well and truly done based both upon my past experiences and the underlying reality of what about relationships and family life always appealed to me. Every time I've given up before, it has been based on some notion of my inability to manage relationships. Although that is present this time too, the deeper issue is who I have come to understand that I am, which is to say a profoundly disabled man.

At 33, I'm quite old enough to where most of my friends, especially most oldest ones, have had kids. I look upon each new life with fondness, because my friends are good people and they are making new good people, a phenomenon that can only result in good things. Of course, I also know people who've had kids where the opposite of all that is true and, with them, I feel badly for said kids and for the world that will have more dysfunctional humans thrust upon it. One has to think about what kind of parent one will make before one becomes one, and the same moral obligation applies to romantic matters. Understanding the extent of my disability, as I have been forced to do, causes me to conclude that I have nothing to offer worth having. Mine is a sad little life full of struggle and maintained only by the blessings of my family. So I, what, bring a woman into a circumstance where I can never be a breadwinner and am constantly battling my own neurology to even come close to functioning in society? There is no romance in that. Tears, frustration, disappointment, stagnation, and incompetence are no kind of foundation for love.

Of my six major relationships, I only bear ill will to two of them, and that is only because they did things to me that I would bear ill will towards anyone if they did them to me. The other four are mired in curiosity about why they ended. None of them said they ended for autism-related reasons, but I suspect it played a role about which I was simply never told. Maybe I alienated friends of hers, maybe I kept at it oblivious to an obvious lack of chemistry, maybe her parents secretly didn't like me, or maybe I moved too fast for her. Whatever their reasons, I am genuinely sorry I came into the life of the women I've dated. They were looking for the same thing I was, I suppose, but neither of us could know, at the time, that I just can't give then what they need. Human nature dictates that we want love and are slow to accept it when we are too disabled for it to be possible. Part of accepting my autism is learning to embrace the loneliness that it will bring me. As I watch my friends and family fall in love, get married, and have kids, I must remember that, however much biology and culture make me want to emulate them, I must not. They are functional adults and I am a profoundly disabled autistic man. Sometimes, we simply shouldn't have what we want.

-Frank

In Therapy

I had my first therapy appointment today with a new therapist. Over the years, I've had many of them for various purposes. What makes this one significant is that it's the first time I've been in therapy since my professional and romantic life ended and I completely accepted that my autism is severe enough to prevent either from ever being possible for me. The resultant depression is something I've been battling for the last few months and I've been using Paxil to combat it. However, medication alone is not sufficient to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and figure out how to be as happy as I can be as a profoundly disabled man. For that, I'm going to require some professional help and I've sought out a therapist who specializes in autism so she will have a good grasp on all the issues involved.

In the first session, we talked about many things, most of which were about the demise of my professional and romantic life and which I have written about before on this very blog. We also talked about my atheism and how it allowed me to let go of an anger that had been building in me for years because of the limitations I seemed to have. What surprised me was that she told me that the depression I'm going through is actually healthier than the anger common to autistics regarding the effect their condition has on their lives. Truth be told, I've let go of most of my anger, including bitter grudges I'd held for most of life. All of the people, places, institutions, et cetera that I'd been angry with were really just relics of a time before my diagnosis when I'd been looking for someone to blame. Well, I know what's to blame. It is called autism.

As therapy continues, I hope for further insights like the one about anger. I look forward to telling my story to someone who can help me learn from it. Certainly, I've learned from talking to other autistics and people with other disabilities that it's not the same journey for all of us. There's a lot of variance in severity and functionality within and between disabilities. People with physical handicaps and/or chronic pain don't even consider my journey remotely similar to theirs, although I do. All disabled people are in for a little or a lot of a private Hell completely unique to them and that only they fully understand. My own is that I'll never be part of the world that neurotypicals and higher-functioning autistics live in. To go to work every day and feel you have contributed to society, to feel a loving touch in my bed at night telling me everything will be okay, to have my children experience family traditions I once did, and to feel whatever it is people feel when they truly grow up. These are the things I will miss and the things I must properly mourn with the guidance of therapy.

-Frank

The Christmas Gathering

Some of my happiest childhood memories involve Christmas gatherings at my great grandmother's home. There were several factors that went into this. The family had been doing these gatherings for decades by the time I came along and I was lucky to get along when they really had it down pat. By that, I mean that the decorations were familiarly just so, everyone had good memories they wanted to build upon for the sake of my generation, and there had been many established traditions that the years of history had given a special resonance. It was also special because a great margin of extended family was present and this meant we legitimately got to catch up with loved ones we didn't see too often. Under one roof, you'd have Coffmans, Savells', Brandts, Morrises, Magnesses, and even some extended family based out of Atlanta members of my generation would've never otherwise met. Of course, another reason these memories are so wonderful is because I was a kid and any good Christmas is enhanced by being in the prime of childhood. All that's gone now. Our WWII generation died out and all those families I mentioned celebrate their own Christmases these days. This year though, the Brandts are all together and something a bit akin to those Christmas gatherings of my youth has come into play. Looking forward to this gathering, as I am, has caused me to contemplate the Christmas gathering.

As I have written before, I greatly fear losing the Christmas gathering as an aspect of my holiday experience. There's great comfort in it as a family gathering. Holiday gatherings are likely to remain a feature of my life, most notably the Festivus party that takes place on the 23rd at Just For Him. Other forms of holiday gathering are available, of course. Office parties, parties thrown by friends, and simply getting invited to other families' Christmas gatherings are all on the table for your average person, regardless of whether the family gathering is still available to them or not. To the extent that one's family is unique and special though, gatherings of said family are equally special. One gets to watch babies be born and grow up in the same traditions oneself did. Conversely, one gets to watch elders grow more elderly as they prepare to pass and pass on the responsibility of keeping the traditions ongoing to whatever extent possible to their adult children. A marking of time and a reassurance of one's place in the world and roots within it is comforting in a way that is unavailable in any other context and far more than the sum of its parts. When people talk about how Christmas is about more than just the presents, I think it is gatherings like this that keep that statement from being a mere moralistic platitude.

For Christmas this year, I am making candy for family and friends. There will be six kids at this upcoming gathering who will be opening the tins to see what I have made for them. The novelty and surprise at handcrafted confection should be a very worthwhile reaction to observe. While I fear that this type of gathering will be lost to me as I grow older and my parents' generation begins to die of, it is important that I do more than simply mourn the kind of experience I had as child. After all, I'm still here and most of the people left necessary for the execution of a proper family Christmas gathering are too. So I'll try and enjoy the remaining Christmas gatherings of my life, however many or few that may be, as much as I possibly can. While it is a near certainty that, as my stepsiblings and cousins have families of their own without a matriarch or patriarch to any longer bind them together, I will walk the path of most unemployed, single, and childless people and end up celebrating Christmas Eve & Day alone, I calmly accept this likely possibility. What I'll always have is the best memories I could ask for and a heart and resources capable of feeding a palpable generosity towards whatever loved ones I manage to have in my life.

-Frank

The Theory And Practice Of Torture

Torture has become a hot topic again, according to my Facebook feed. While I don't watch the news, many of my friends are still apparent news junkies. As best I can tell, the story basically goes that a senator spearheaded action to get CIA records of torture performed upon detainees in the process of American efforts to prosecute a campaign against Islamic terrorism during the second Bush Administration. Liberal friends are angry about this simply because of the use of torture methods such as waterboarding, as they conclude such methods are hypocritical, immoral, and anti-American. Conservative friends are angry because they believe declassifying these records has the potential to get Americans killed and fuel further outrage in the Muslim world that can be used against the United States, both for propaganda and recruiting purposes. As the debate rages, I can only conclude that I am not sufficiently well-informed to offer useful comment on the military and foreign policy aspects of the debate. Where I can get by on mere ratiocination is the moral aspect of the debate.

As I understand it, there are three reasons to torture, putting aside pure sadism. First, it is in order to accomplish retribution against the victim for some real or imagined slight, such as a horrific crime like rape. Second, it is in order to accomplish the concession of a point of contention with the victim, such as the famed conversions by torture once commonplace in the Roman Catholic Church. Third, if is in order to accomplish a successful interrogation because of the vital nature of the victim's withheld knowledge, such as a captured terrorist's knowledge of an upcoming attack. Reasons one and two are entirely invalid because retribution does nothing to further justice and it is impossible to verify the veracity of a conversion made under torture, respectively. The third reason is the only one where I see some room for some sort of grey area. A moral question like, "Does one take one man to the point where his suffering can admit of no possible increase if it may prevent a similar increase, or death, of several other people," can admit of no easy answer.

Liberal friends argue that torture is an ineffective means of extracting information from victims because it is impossible to know whether the victim is giving up valid intelligence or simply making something up in order to make the torture stop. The CIA claims that the use of torture has yielded good and vital intelligence. Well, one side might be absolutely wrong and the other absolutely right, but I don't think we live in a world where it's that black and white. Perhaps there's always a gamble when one extracts information with torture and certain situations are dire enough to warrant whatever action it takes to shade the odds. Sam Harris notes that torturing a single man results in far less suffering than dropping bombs, which cripples many innocents and leaves them with levels of chronic pain that equal the kind of pain anyone would agree constitutes torture. For my part, I know that the idea of intentionally causing suffering to another person is utterly repellant and I would only entertain it under the most dire need. Harris also notes that neuroscience may be able to offer technology capable of reading thoughts. If this is true, the day that happens is the day that no more moral arguments for torture can even be possible. All decent people should be as eager as I am to make the practice of it a part of our past.

-Frank

The Solace Of Smoke

For 15 years, I have been coming to a pipe and cigar shoppe in Springfield, MO called Just For Him. The place has been around since the mid 80s and is also a gift shop specializing in merchandise men like. Knives, fine hats, bar accessories, poker accessories, shaving accessories, canes, and a variety of other products can be found within its walls. What really makes the place special, however, is the lounge aspect of it. On either side of the shop, there are tables and chairs, ashtrays, and high quality televisions, with amenities like a nice bathroom, soda machine, and a few refrigerators for beer and other items. Every day, men, and a few women, gather here to smoke, commiserate, and watch television. Being a regular there is like being a regular in the Cheers bar. Everybody knows your name, your nickname, and your troubles, insofar as you wish to share them. Social environments have traditionally been temporary for me. College ended, gaming stopped being fun, religion didn't work out, and work became untenable, but Just For Him has endured for 15 years, is still going strong, and there is no end in sight. Here, I'll tell the story on how I became a fixture at the shoppe and how it ultimately became among my most powerful tools for coping with my autism.

I was standing on a small stoop attached to my dorm at what was then Drury College among friends. These friendly commonly would stand on this stoop smoking Swisher Sweet cigars. On this occasion, they ran out and asked me, as the only one with any money, to go buy them some. My instruction were to get five vanilla and five cherry cigars. Unknowledgeable about cigars as I was at the time, I was unaware they meant to go a gas station for them. So I and my best friend consulted the yellow pages for cigar shops and arrived at Just For Him in short order. Upon our arrival, we met a man I would come to know as Uncle Bob. Bob showed us to a high-end cigar line called Cojimar, which did, indeed, include vanilla and cherry flavors. These were purchased for around 50 bucks. When I returned, my friends were perplexed, since they didn't have the plastic tip to which they were accustomed. With a pocketknife, we managed to smoke them. Although my friends were not enamored to these better class of cigars, I was and began hanging out regularly at the shoppe. A year later, a freshman would go to the shoppe with me and introduce me to pipes, which further cemented my relationship with the place and made my visits to it much more frequent.

As my professional and romantic life have fallen utterly apart, most of my friends have moved away, and I've found myself battling depression, Just For Him has proven more vital than ever to helping keep me functional and sane. The easy familiarity I have with other regulars and obvious icebreakers available to me when I meet new customers have allowed me to make and maintain friendships in a way that has proven impossible in any other context. We come from all walks of life there. There's lawyers, doctors, policemen, firefighters, musicians, butchers, business owners, lawnmowers, railworkers, jewelers, phone workers, servicepeople, insurance people, truck drivers, window washers, pilots, horseshoers, mechanics, and just about anything else you can name. Incredibly, there's even another autistic in similar circumstances to myself. For him and myself, the shoppe provides an opportunity to belong and feel like a real functioning member of society, at least for a little while. That feeling of belonging is more valuable than the whole world and whatever is in it. You see, autistics crave that sense of belonging and, throughout their lives, are routinely denied it. With all the time I've put in, the shoppe has become my sanctuary from my troubles, my home away from home, and a place where I can always find a friend when I need one. They say smoking's bad for you, but I consider it a hard fact that smoking is, in fact, the best thing in a life that is largely difficult and lamentable.

-Frank

How The Atheist Stole Christmas

An atheist who likes Christmas may seem a strange thing to you, but such is the case with me. Many times, I have written on my love of the holiday and have even broken it down into its Christian, pagan, cultural, and moral components. Recent years have brought us the concept of The War On Christmas, which, as far as I can tell, is predicated upon the notion of trying to push the Christian elements of Christmas out of the holiday. While I sympathize with efforts of other atheists to try and push religion out of the public square on the basis that their tax dollars should not have to go towards depictions of, for example, a nativity scene, I am also not too concerned about the matter. It is important for atheists to stop and reflect upon what the religious are really concerned about with their concept of The War On Christmas. Individual instances of, "merry Christmas," being replaced with, "happy holidays," nativity scenes banned from public land, or traditional nativity-based school plays being replaced with productions of A Christmas Carol are not at the heart of the matter. No, the heart of their concern is that Christmas is becoming less and less proprietary. One may take heart that this is true and, I believe, inevitable.

Let's back up and take stock of one of the most defining traits of atheists and other freethinking types. We do not accept claims submitted to us unless they are accompanied by sufficient evidence. So whether or not Christmas ought to be a thing in which we may participate boils down to whether or not participating in it requires such acceptance. It seems plainly evident that the modern American Christmas requires no such acceptance. Sure, the holiday is filled with straight-out religious notions like the birth of Jesus, quasi-religious notions like Santa Claus, and entirely secular fantastical notions like Frosty The Snowman. Yet we do not have any problem celebrating Halloween, despite its connection to the Catholic holiday of All Hallows' Eve, the pagan festival of Samhain, or the secular depiction of clearly fantastical notions like ghosts, witches, and other magical monsters. Halloween is all about the joy of pretend and the power of laugher to help us deal with our fear of death. Religious origins and the fact that the church still recognizes it as a religious holiday plays no role in how the atheist feels about Halloween and nor should they do with Christmas.

Christmas is ultimately about hope, whichever of its elements makes it a meaningful and worthwhile holiday for you. People of other religions, as well as those with none, let Christians tell them that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and that's all. Well, the holiday can be about that for them all they want, but why do we have to let them get away with defining it for us? Festivus was conceived as a holiday for everyone left out of Christmas, but I say it's our holiday too. Anyone can decorate a beautiful tree, exchange gifts with friends and family, eat delicious seasonal food, and get caught up in the joy that comes from every man, woman, and child trying to be just a little bit nicer to one another for a little while. As the days grow shorter, the weather gets colder, the trials of the year culminate into whatever terminus at which they may have arrived, and we're all taking stock of where we're going in life, we all deserve to be able to claim Christmas, not as a Christian holiday, a pagan holiday, an American holiday, or any other kind of holiday but a human holiday. Whatever Christmas may have been in the past, it has outgrown that and become a thing that offers an outstretched hand of human kindness and merriment to all who wish to participate. Those who wish to put the Christ back in Christmas have missed the fact that now there is simply human solidarity in Christmas and that that may just be the greatest miracle of all.

-Frank

An Autistic Life

For two years, I substitute taught in three major cities in Missouri and Arkansas. These years preceded my autism diagnosis just barely. I got a lot of work because I had checked boxes indicating a willingness to work with special needs kids. Special education meant just about whatever the school wanted it to mean, I found, whether that be detention, study hall, true diaper-changing sadness, to simply learning and developmental disorders. One kid stuck with me for reasons that were vague at the time. Nobody liked this kid, even amongst his special education peers. He had a need to talk constantly, to the point where, unless a teacher was speaking, he was talking. While I was not then and am not now able to diagnose him with autism, it seems an obvious fact of the situation. Once he figured out I COULD keep up with him, he and the teachers basically requested I stick to him like glue and I think I genuinely brightened the kid's life for a day. Talking to the special education teachers about him during a break, they explained to me that his condition was such that they didn't think he'd ever have a job or a normal life because he was too low-functioning. Floored by this information, I was also sure that I could never be a special education teacher. How do you tell anyone, let alone a kid that's supposed to have a full adult life ahead of them that that can't happen. "Sorry sweetheart, but disregard every time an adult asks what you're gonna be when you grow up. Let go of the dreams that your heart or your loins might put in your head. Learn that certain aspects of being an adult, or even a human being, will always remain unavailable to you. You were born...different. Different enough that your life is only a partial one." That memory haunts me deeply now because that kid, with all his myriad dysfunctions was, as best as I can tell, only slightly lower-functioning than me.

As I reflect on that student in the story above, I wonder about him. He's 24 or so by now. Now, the way his teachers talked about him, it's quite obvious he's been raised with the idea that he'd always be on disability and single. So I wonder if he's found it easier to cope with that reality than I have. His grandmother never told him he could be anything he wanted to be when he grew up, he hasn't been pitched a million business and career ideas, and he's never had litany of failed relationships that each crushed his soul in unique ways. No, he grew up with no doubt in his mind that he would never be a real adult and always be a broken human being with little to offer society. Obviously, I can only know one side of the dichotomy, but I think I envy him for knowing where he stood for so long. Those who are diagnosed with autism young, however functional they may or may not be, get a head start on the work I've only been doing since the age of 27. They get to work out their limitations, what the realistic romantic and professional prospects for them actually are, and generally integrate that knowledge into how they feel about themselves and whatever kind of life that may or may not mean for them. When I was a kid, my autism was mistaken for ADD and I was simply given Ritalin, which was supposed to make everything fine. Generally speaking, I was thought of by myself and, to the best of my knowledge, others as weird and not exactly on the ball with certain things, but still possessed of a healthy amount of potential, insofar as that sort of thing goes. Laboring under that misapprehension, I went to college, dated when the opportunity arose, and developed a variety of professional skills in which I pursued employment. If I had known then what I know now, I'm not sure I would've done any of that, save for the undergraduate work I did at Drury because of the social experience it gave me.

Above all, much of my life feels as if it has been a waste of time and energy in pursuit of reaping a harvest of potential that was never there in the first place. That being said, I don't have anything like a reasonable idea of what I should've been doing this whole time. It is certain that it took my myriad trials to convince myself and my family that the pursuit of love and career were a waste of time. Learning that wasn't possible any other way, but that knowledge came at a high cost in every sense of the word. Given this, I suppose it always had to be this way, but damn it if it didn't hurt to go through everything I've been through to get where I am now. There cannot, therefore, be any real sense of regret for all of that wasted time and energy. Nowhere can I say I should've zigged where I zagged. Instead, I can only say that I wish I didn't have autism, or at least that I didn't have it to the degree it so limits my functionality. A life with autism is a difficult one to endure, although how difficult and how one feels about the difficulty will most certainly vary from autistic to autistic. For me, it honestly is all I can do to keep myself sane and functional. When concerned people ask me how I'm coping with my circumstances, I have come to tell them that I'm taking it one day at a time. Efforts to overcome it frayed gradually, and then finally collapsed in late summer, so it's been a slow bleed. While I cannot predict how I will feel about it as time goes by, I can say that right now I am mourning everything I ever thought or was told I would or could become. This is a very powerful sense of loss, and I feel it is the great tragedy of my life. Managing this feeling mostly involves enjoying myself however I can whenever I can. All the baking, this blog, the many hours I spend in the cigar shop lounge that constitutes my social life, are little shots of happiness and joy to keep my spirits up as I go through this life. These things are vital to my continuing to function as well as I do, under the circumstances. Life will get lonelier as I grow older and I fear the challenges of that time. Meanwhile, I'm just waiting out the clock as I try to do the best I can to be healthy, helpful and generous to my friends, and pass the time in pleasurable ways. Somewhere, that autistic kid I met is coping with a damned difficult life as best he can and I wish him luck. He'll need it and so will I.

-Frank

The Police

For about as long as I can remember, I've had profound respect for police officers. The only blip in that pattern has been when I'm behind the wheel and there is one in a squad car behind me. It bears similarity to having someone look over your shoulder while you're writing. Now though, the image of police officers is in a state of crisis and I find myself reevaluating my respect. Michael Brown's death at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson caused a number of issues to flare up, including but not limited to racial profiling, police brutality, and racial tensions between whites and blacks. While the evidence I've seen seems to indicate that Officer Wilson shot Brown in self-defense, I do not claim to know whether or not he is guilty. That was the decision of the grand jury, who had better access to evidence than any of us. Aside from the riots that it provoked, I was basically at peace with the matter. Then a black man was choked to death in New York by a white officer for the crime of illegally selling cigarettes, the events of which were captured on video. The following acquittal, in the face of far clearer evidence available to everyone calls much into question and all the while racial tensions boil.

I don't have a romantic view of police officers. They are only human, underpaid, and under tremendous pressure. The history of corruption in the police force is well-documented and there have been times and locales where said corruption has become toxic and highly extensive. As the Supreme Court has recently made clear, the police have no obligation to protect anyone, only to enforce the law. Undoubtably, we need the police to do so, but only where the law exists to protect us from one another. Laws meant to protect us from ourselves deny us liberty and enforcing those laws makes it the duty of the police to deny us said liberty. A certain amount of violence will always be necessary to enforce the law and a certain amount of civilians and officers alike will necessarily die as a result of said violence. Police officers are not, however, above the law they enforce and an attitude, whomever by which it may be perpetuated, that they are makes them our lords and us their subjects, instead of the mere agents of law enforcement they ought to be.

As to the racial tensions that this has brought on, I have two main thoughts on the matter. First of all, I do not buy into massive institutional racism as a given, although I certainly am open to the idea that it may occur in certain locales at certain times. If there is racism, to whatever extent, in law enforcement, I favor addressing that in whatever manner will be most effective, of course. Second, I think that anything that causes or justifies racial strife is necessarily a bad thing. When I see rioters on my television screen, I do not see anything worth having. At best, those who riot are enraged beyond the point of being rational actors and, at worst, they are amoral opportunists, using an environment of anger and mistrust to contribute to anarchy that will allow them to take what they want and destroy the rest. Above all, I see that there are massive problems, both in society and in law enforcement, that must be addressed somehow. In the past 15 years, I've smoked many a cigar with many fine members of law enforcement and my experience with these men tell me that there are too many good people in law enforcement for me to ever justify hatred of the profession or those who serve in it in any general sense. However, a police officer who abuses the power to enforce the law cannot be tolerated and falls from being exalted in my estimation to being vile.

-Frank

How I Feel

Imagine all the possibility that lays before you when you're young and how excited you are about the fact that there's all these things that you can be when you grow up. Compare this to the possibilities that are presented by the various forms of speculative fiction. You certainly get excited about the idea of being a wizard, a Jedi, a Starfleet officer, or a superhero, but that excitement is not like the excitement of possibility of having a job you love, a social life that is dynamic and enjoyable, or a spouse who is charming and loving. The difference between the two types of possibilities is obvious. With enough work and luck, you can land that dream job or find that companion, but no amount of work and luck will allow you to become a fantastical hero of any description.  Now I face a life where the ambitions of most human beings on the planet are as impossible for me as the exploits of fantastical heroes are for them. In this way, I exist as a member of society just as much as I exist as a resident of Middle Earth. Although I can perceive and enjoy human society, I can never really be a part of it beyond some superficial level. Here, I will do my best to explain my feelings about having arrived at that terminus. This will be difficult, as autistics are not terribly in tune with emotion. Bear with me.

The first thing to understand is that acceptance, both internal and external, has been the hardest part. As I wrote about in a previous article, many people have trouble accepting my unemployable nature and my inability to maintain a romantic relationship. Well, damn, don't you think I have a lot of trouble accepting it too? This is my life we're talking about here. Sure, it's nice having a disposable income that allows for diversions and being relatively young enough to live it up, but there's more to life than mindless hedonism. Money cannot buy happiness, because happiness isn't gained by the acquisition of goods and services. What it can do is buy security and the ability to enhance and maintain happiness that was there at the core from the start. Many opinions exist as to what makes for that core of happiness. My feeling is that happiness is formed by one's ability to be useful to others, especially to those about whom one cares most. Without a job or a family of my own, I have to make my own usefulness day by day and where I can get it.

A person bound to a wheelchair does not make happiness conditional upon walking again. A blind person does not make happiness conditional upon seeing again. They can't because, although medical breakthroughs might make it possible one day, the likelihood of living with their disability for the rest of their live is simply too high. So it is with my disability. I have autism and it has always been leading me to face the life of a man necessarily limited by it. Finally accepting what that would mean is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but reality is forced upon me so clearly that I can no longer cling to the dream of a normal life. All of my friends and family with their normal lives look beautiful to me. Exciting careers, beautiful families, and often both, color their adult lives and I am not always successful at fighting back the tears of, yes, happiness, but also envy and regret, that sometimes come when I think of them. They have grown up and are living the lives we all want for our loved ones. As much as I want to, I cannot be part of their world. So I'll stand here on life's sidelines, always ready to cheer on, raise a toast to good cheer and prosperity, and helping out however I can whenever I can. Across the spectrum of autism lie those who function better than me, about the same as me, and far worse than me. For those as badly afflicted as me or worse, we like your world and we wish from the deepest wellspring of yearning that we could be part of it, but we can't. Just try and be as happy as you can as you lead the life we cannot.

-Frank

Name Combinations

EXOTIC FOREIGNER ALIAS: (Favorite Spice + Last Foreign Vacation Spot)

Cinnamon Tours

SOCIALITE ALIAS: (Silliest Childhood Nickname + Town Where You First Partied)

Neener Nuts Springfield

"FLY GIRLGUY" ALIAS (a la J. Lo): (First Initial + First Two or Three Letters of your Last Name)

F-Ba

DIVA ALIAS: (Something Sweet Within Sight + Any Liquid in Kitchen)

Jellybean Karo

GIRLGUY DETECTIVE ALIAS: (Favorite Baby Animal + Where You Went to High School)

Cub Harrison

BARFLY ALIAS: (Last Snack Food You Ate + Your Favorite Drink)

Corn Dog Pina Colada


SOAP OPERA ALIAS: (Middle Name + Street Where You First Lived)

Coffman Fox


(PORN STAR ALIAS: (First Pet's Name + Street You Grew Up On)

Dixie Park


Your Jedi Name:
First name: First three letters of your first name, first two letters of your last name
Last name: first two letters of mother's maiden name, first three letters from city of birth
Title: last three letters of last name, backwards, first three letters of make of first car, OF, last medication taken.

Fraba Comou, of Yelfirzer

-Frank

25 Random Things About Me.

1. The only party I remember being invited to in high school ended up with me singing Weird Al songs from a high place while everyone laughed. With me or at me I'm not sure.

2. Being an atheist, I am probably not going to ever enter a church again unless it's for a wedding or a funeral. If it's my own wedding, I'll have to try for an Oscar at the religious parts, but that'll be the least of my problems if that day comes, trust me.

3. I got kicked out of a Catholic Church in Springfield once for taking communion while not being a Catholic. The person who invited me there really should've explained that being a no-no.

4. When I was in kindergarten, I got punched by a coach for defying his orders to get on the monkey bars as part of P.E.

5. I have a superstition about Walgreens kitchenware. The stuff is cursed, I swear. NOTHING works right for long from that store's kitchen section. It all falls apart or simply fails to function outright.

6. I can't chop wood. Something must be lacking in the technique, because all I do is create dents in wood.

7. If I could, I would audition for American Idol. I'd get laughed off, but I just want to hear what Simon would come up with.

8. I am amused every time I hear chefs complain about having to bake on Food Network. Yeah, all your speed and multitasking won't save you now bitch.

9. Lemon meringue pie is my culinary kryptonite. Only when I have conquered this troublesome pastry will I feel I have fully mastered baking.

10. Song lyrics are often open to hilariously incorrect interpretation in my hands. Example: I lean against a zebra while you get your tetrahedron and you get it while it's goin' but not while it's for free and all your sister Christians singin' 1-2-3: real lyrics, I ain't got a fever; got a permanent disease and it'll take more than a doctor to prescribe a remedy I got lots of money, but it isn't what I need gonna take more than a shot to get this poison outta me and I got all the symptoms count 'em 1 2 3.

11. My best physical feature is my hair, which I'm losing, and my worst physical feature is my weight, which I'm not.

12. I think I can sing in Latin and German respectively when I hear Adeste Fideles and O Tannenbaum.

13. I peeled, quartered, and shocked with ice water over 20 pounds of turnips recently and I didn't have to eat a single one. Get is not the word to use in reference to turnips. They are definitely a have food.

14. The only reason I want a lawn is so I can put a smoker and grill out on it. Also a fire pit like Kate and Vic have would be nice. S'Mores a poppin'!

15. I recently learned through Shinga (a webcomic artist and livejournal writer I have come to follow) that there is a website dedicated to 80s T-shirts. This could have a serious effect on my disposable income for a while.

16. If I wasn't pretty sure they'd be terribly uncomfortable, I'd wear a monocle.

17. I have watched and liked exactly three animes ever that I liked. Dragonball Z, Cowboy Bebop, and Lupin the Third. Dragonball Z is silly and infinitely mockable, I must note.

18. My Starbucks order takes ten words to say. Am I officially a yuppie?

19. I once had a gaming room decorated and built expressly for that purpose, complete with dice jars and a handmade table. The gaming community in Northwest Arkansas sucked though, so it existed as a mausoleum to a formerly great hobby for three years that I lived there.

20. I own a black pipe from a company called Dunhill. It is among my most prized possessions.

21. I bought a baker's shelf to lighten up the storage load in my kitchen and the thing is still overflowing with equipment.

22. I have been informed never to return to Disney World unless I'm with a kid. Last time I went, I was 12. If I go again, the magic may be gone without at least someone having that sense of wonder.

23. I had a dog briefly named Simon. He was named after Firefly's Simon Tam and, if he hadn't had to be put down due to a disease called globoid leukodystrophy, i would've eventually gotten a second dog and named her River.

24. My Hotmail account (frankcritic@hotmail.com) was originally made in college to refer to me being the school newspaper's movie critic. Now it just sounds like I'm hypercritical or something.

25. Saturday morning cartoons will never return to their former glory. Why do kids even get up at all on Saturdays now? I used to be up at 5:30 so I could eat real quick before CBS' lineup started.

-Frank

Things I Wish I'd Said To My Exes

Strap In.

This one is going to be mean.

I will at least try to keep the misogyny to a dull roar.

1. You know how you're afraid your sister is hotter than you? She is. Know who else is? Your mother.

2. If you want me to cheer you up every single day over every little thing, how about I make you cry? Reverse psychology don't you know?

3. If you make me overdraw on my bank account again, I'm sneaking crumbled bacon into your food you vegetarian harpy.

4. You're crazy, and not in the good way. In the, "We the members of the jury find the defendent," sort of way.

5. I think your parents love me and you're lying to me about them complaining about me behind my back. They always act like they like me, and I'm not backing off if they're going to be dicks, so safe difference either way right?

6. I don't believe your stories. Any of them. At this point, I don't believe the name you've given me is a real one. Christ, you're worse than the Janitor on Scrubs.

7. Yes, you're fat. You are, in fact, fatter than my own fat ass. In that dress, in those shoes, after you eat salt, in a plane, in a train, with green eggs and motherfucking ham, you're a plus-sized Orca of a fat woman.

8. I'm just going to sit here and think of legal ways to make you cry.

9. Don't threaten to kill me you psychotic bitch. We both know you'd never set me completely free that way.

10. You know what, after a year of me reading books, taking sex and psychology classes, buying expensive equipment, and trying just about everything under the Sun to try and get you off, if you still can't maybe that's your fucking problem.

11. You have enough clothes and for fuck's sake you're in college and could get by on pajamas alone with your lifestyle. Quit begging for money.

12. Yes. You hate my mother. I get it. Can we move on please? Not that she doesn't hate you too, as does nearly everyone I knew before you, but still.

13. If you keep trying to manipulate me, I'm going to Just For Him and smoking something that tastes better than your vagina.

14. I made promises I couldn't keep about self-improvement. You cheated on me twice and had lesbian affairs that remain unnamed. The moral high ground is not yours.

15. You have the spine and moral integrity of a Jew in 1941 Poland showing the Nazis where all the other Jews are hiding.

16. Good God almighty, never spawn. Your children will grow up in a house of madness.

17. It's surprising, I know, but telling endless stories about how much better every other guy you've ever been with was in bed than me is fucked up psychologically abusive behavior.

18. Honesty is, believe it or not, applicable in situations where it does not make you feel better.

19. I've been having dreams where you die in horrible ways. I'm hoping dreams are a window into alternate realties and these are really my own personal you snuff films.

20. You know how you like cutting yourself during sex and playing with the blood? I hope whoever you're with in the future thinks he's a vampire and that, when you inevitably manage to find an artery, he chokes to death trying to drink it and it gets infected and you die from the infection, which will also be incredibly painful. And the hospital's out of painkiller. And bullets to bite on.

21. People should try to not to mispronounce words and that's a noble ideal to have. Punching people because they mispronounce words is not acceptable behavior though. You abusive cunt.

22. Knocking people around from the moment they are a passenger in your car by driving so erratically that they don't even have the chance to get the seat belt on is also abusive behavior, not to mention passive-aggressive bullshit.

23. Punching people for saying songs you don't like on iTunes? Also not okay.

24. Your hair is not a unique snowflake. It is like steel wool and smells funny.

25. Get the hell out of my home and enjoy the freefall in your standard of living that will ensue you ungrateful bitch.

-Frank

25 Most Offensive Article Topics

Here's how this works. I will come up with 25 hypothetical article topics that are intended to get me yelled at more often than my standard fare. From the title of the hypothetical articles, you should be able to get the gist. From there, it works like a dare in reverse. Everyone will vote for which one they actually want me to write and whichever one wins, I have to write it. No exceptions. Voting can only be done by people on my friend list, which are also the only people who can see it. Mostly I'm doing this just to see how many people vote and also because I'm curious if I can write something that actually offends someone enough that it gets me physically wounded. That said, here are the articles topics, pretty much off the top of my head.

1. My thoughts on pornography and when, if, and what age it's okay to be exposed to it.

2. The following people at Just For Him are worthless assholes I never liked but have shut up about until now.

3. Anime sucks, and here is why in great detail.

4. The world would be better off if the following people I know personally were never born.

5. My thoughts on global warming and environmentalist nitwits.

6. The following non-anime media franchises liked by my friends are worthless bags of fail.

7. Humans are superior to other animals and here's why.

8. All the people in high school I should have gotten in a physical fight with at some point.

9. All the people I made friends with whom I shouldn't have done.

10. The following women are all people I would've liked to hook up with during college.

11. I will name ten female porn stars and ten male porn stars without looking anything up just off the top of my head.

12. Top ten most doable animated characters.

13. The following songs that the rest of you seem to like suck.

14. The following women I know are fat.

15. These are my views of prostitution.

16. Pornography is superior to regular sex for the following reasons.

17. Why smoking should be allowed everywhere outside of hospitals and in baby's faces.

18. These are my views of drugs.

19. No holding back: Going medieval on religion's ass.

20. Pro-death: How deep the rabbit hole really goes.

21. Why freedom from other people's children is important.

22. Children should be able to defend themselves from bullies by any means necessary.

23. Selfishness: A virtue I will defend to the death.

24. Toys need to be dangerous again, a lot more dangerous.

25. A comprehensive explanation of my view on sex with all the gory details.

So there they are. Any one of those in its fully composed and highly offensive version could be written. To vote, simply leave a comment with the number of the article you'd like me to write. Voting lasts until 10:30 a week from this posting, after which all votes will be null and void. This should be fun.

-Frank

The Subject Of Suicide

Here's the article that inspired a lot of what I'm going to say here, if you're interested. http://townhall.com/columnists/KathrynLopez/2009/04/17/suicide_isnt_a_painless_debate

So, I'm going to be advocating suicide in this one. If that's going to affect your blood pressure to the point where it might kill you, or at least shave off a few years of your life expectancy, you probably should just stop reading. Of course, regular article readers will know I'm pro-death in general. Hell, I consider abortions mercy killings, so much does life suck. However, I'll also talk about people like me in this article, by which I mean people who think life sucks just as much as someone who is suicidal typically does, yet aren't actually suicidal. Not killing yourself is an option I respect just as much as I respect the alternative and there are many valid arguments for it, just few that people actually tend to make. So in that sense, this will be a balanced article. For most of it, I'll categorize different types of suicidal people, starting with the most justifiable cases and moving down to more objectionable levels.

Terminally Ill/Chronic Pain Cases: Within this category, you have varying degrees. Guys like Kevorkian used to kill who would die in minutes without round the clock nursing care anyway, just because they keep almost swallowing their own tongue or something, to people who just have severe chronic pain that will never go away no matter what they do. Severe paralytics also fall into this category. People tend to be most okay with this form of suicide because it's pretty inescapable that these people live in hell. They can't do anything anymore because their condition is just too prohibitive. Dogs in their condition, hell, ANY SPECIES, other than their own, in their condition would be put down to ensure a merciful death, and you would face animal cruelty charges if you didn't, in fact. Personally, if I'm ever that bad off and you can kill me but you don't, I'm finding a way to haunt you.

A Comin' Cases: My clever name for these people is based on the fact that they're suicidal because they know something really bad is a' comin. Maybe the enemy army is about to overtake their castle, in olden days, so they fall on their sword, or maybe they just lost all their money in a market crash, in the modern era, so they eat a gun. Not all cases like this are so dishonorable. Some prisoners facing torture situations commit suicide rather than face more torment, something John McCain attempted at one point. Completely understandable. Other examples include murder suicides or suicide by cop, which I assume are self-explanatory.

Loser Cases: The difference between losers and the previous type is that a comin' cases know that something bad enough to kill themselves to avoid is imminent. Losers just don't have any more reason to stay alive. Maybe they don't have any kind of a career, no lovers, no kids, no friends, and sometimes not even any family. You might be tempted to call these people depressed, but people who are depressed are sad even when things are going good for them. In the case of the loser, it just sucks being him. There's no place in this world for him. No love, no mercy, no compassion, no pity. He's just an insignificant man neither loved nor needed by anyone. Why are you trying to convince him he shouldn't kill himself? How many guys like that do we need?

Mentally Ill Cases: The thing about mentally ill cases is that some people believe that everyone who wants to commit suicide is mentally ill. That makes no sense to me. Acting out of desperation or wanting to end suffering, for instance, isn't crazy. It's perfectly rational. Now maybe you insist that there's always a better way than killing yourself, but you can insist on anything by definition. Doesn't make it true. Sometimes it is the best possible option for both the person committing suicide and the society that shall be rid of them. Now, if you're talking actual mental illness, as in they're not actually capable of making rational decisions, that's different. People who are clinically depressed or bipolar or whatever are not making a rational decision if they kill themselves. Their madness makes that decision for them. So we should try and get them lucid if at all possible.

Sad Cases: These are cases where someone is simply sad about something, like a death, a temporary loss of employment, or even something as trivial as a band breaking up. Someone I know likes to say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. For the most part, I agree with that on this level. The only defense I could make for suicide in these kinds of cases would be a Darwinian one, because it's pretty clear the weak are dying off and therefore not reproducing, but that's more relevant to my next category.

Suicidal Teen Cases: Okay, I realize defending teen suicide is kind of extreme, but we have enough teens already and I'm pretty sure most of the people who think they won't be missed are right. That said, I'm effectively against it, I guess, because I believe in parents having the right to make decisions regarding their children until they're 18, including decisions regarding killing oneself. I can easily imagine cases where I can sympathize with them though, because they sense they have no place in the world. Some of them don't fit in either at school or at home. They know a loneliness that you can only know in a school cafeteria. At one time, I would've told them things get better in college, but that's temporary. Workplaces are much like a high school, and they're going to get pushed around and picked on for the rest of their life if it's already happening. Whether that's enough reason to kill themselves, well, that's up to them. I've made my choice. They might make a different one.

Okay, now that I've spent a lot of the article defending suicide as a personal choice, I'll give you some reasons to live. I consider the conventional reasons to keep living, beauty, love, religion, not hurting your loved ones' feelings, nonsense. These reasons do not assume life doesn't suck, because it does. You'll be hard pressed to find someone more consistent on that than me. However, I continue to live. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Curiosity: You gotta admit, this is a great show. No matter what kind of life you're living, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. New and interesting things are blowing up all the time on the macro and micro level. If you're pessimistic and think the world's just gonna burn here soon, stay and watch. They'll be enough guns around for a situational suicide if peril becomes imminent, don't worry.

2. Revenge: If you're like me, you know there are a lot of people out there whose life would be better if you were dead. Do keep in mind that you don't like these people. In fact, they suck. Why are doing them a favor? Whatever sort of suffering you're enduring by living, give back as good as you get. I say if other people would rather die than live in the same reality as you, you win.

3. Practical Reasons: Any form of suicide can fail. Know what happens after a failed suicide attempt? Life sucks worse than before! Think you'll get a second shot? No! Everyone will make sure of that. So you'll have less freedom and you'll be mangled or crippled or something. Fantastic. No, better to endure the slings and arrows of a natural lifespan than risk a failed suicide attempt.

4. Stubbornness: You want to make sure they win? Is that what you want? You know they they I mean. The ones that you've been pushed by your whole life and you've been pushing back. Doesn't even have to be actual people. It can be unseen forces or ways of your culture. Heck, even God. My mom offered me to move out of Harrison after 9th grade and go to school in Springfield, but I stayed because, whatever else I did, I wasn't running from those bastards. So now they'll never have that. Can't say they scared me off. Can't say they made me quit. No, I was there all through the spitting and the smacking and taunting. Sometimes they're still in my nightmares, their twisted twangs torturing my slumber, but I stayed until the end and not even the ghosts of the past can change that.

5. The Ending: Gotta know how it ends don't you? Sure you do. There are a heck of a lot of people betting against me right now. Some think I'm basically a retarded child man. Others think I'm a useless spoiled rich boy who won't ever do anything with his life. Still others root for me to fail because of my politics and the deeply immoral man they believe they make me. So we'll see how I end up. Will diabetes slowly eat away at me until I'm dead or well and truly wish I were? Perhaps medicine and my own discipline will mitigate things. Can I start Bailey's Bakehouse and make it work? Can I even get my first pastry job? You know what? None of it's certain. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. The enemies and mistakes I've made in life are lined up against me and I stand ready to take them on. That's the real advice for any person out there who's actually suicidal. I'm not like the others, I respect and condone your decision...but maybe you shouldn't forfeit the game just yet. Maybe you're going to show the fuckers a thing or two and you just don't know it yet. Be a shame to miss that, is all I'm saying.

-Frank

Proper Nostalgia

Living in the past is bad thing, but so is forgetting it.  The past is important and you'd be a fool to think otherwise.  Nostalgia is a phenomenon that I am very familiar with and which we are all familiar with, at least a little bit.  For me, an autistic who has difficulty both understanding or accessing his emotions, nostalgia is some of the most ready access I have to positive emotions.  Raw nostalgia is probably not much good for anything, but if you can harness it, channel it, and learn to focus on what's good about it while using your rational mind to keep in perspective and context what needs to be kept in perspective and context, it can be a powerful way to access positive emotion and know how one can and ought to live in the present.  A discussion of nostalgia could go all over the place, but I will limit myself to three different varieties, which I do believe basically cover it.  You've got nostalgia for youth, nostalgia for a time in your life, and nostalgia for fiction, and they all work a little bit differently.  What they have in common though is a sense of possibility, and, more specifically, an implied hope.  If things were once good or it's possible to think of things as being so good, then we may make them so. When you get older, nostalgia probably seems different in important ways, but, as someone who has recently completed growing up, at this age, it's all about what growing up entailed, because it entailed so very much and there is so much to draw upon for the future, which still lies ahead.

We'll start with nostalgia for youth, which is defined, in a general way and to varying degrees, as a time of less responsibility, less disillusionment, and less general worry.  There are two important lessons to draw from here.  The first is that happiness derived from naivete cannot and ought not be sought again and the second is that being less busy, less cynical, and worrying less do, in fact, make you happier.  You don't really want to be a kid again though, because you had fewer rights back then.  That didn't matter because you didn't have the responsibilities associated with those rights, but that doesn't mean the tradeoff's uneven.  For my part, the rights you get are way better.  If someone's annoying you socially as an adult, you get to leave and not be forced to be there by your parents or the government.  Bullies are now subject to actual laws and you can get an actual concealed carry license (unless you live in Illinois).  Also, you get whatever you want for dinner, whether that's steak, cookies, or spray cheese.  Now that we've recognized the negative of youth, what of the positive?  Well, disillusionment is about finding out things you loved weren't so awesome or that the world works in horrible ways.  Some things, such as romantic love in my own case, are horrible and you just have to move on from them.  However, the whole world doesn't suck because, as it turns out, the world is a pretty big place with a lot of stuff in it.  If you can get a career you enjoy going, find a place to live you like, and, if you're not me, find love, you don't have get your illusions back because you can be happy with your life as it is.  Sure, it's always going to be a compromise, but you can find enough magic in the world to make it worthwhile.

When it comes to nostalgia for a time (or place for our purposes), it's all about matching up the actual version of events with your recorded one.  Take Drury from fall of 1999-spring of 2000.  You know when Harry Potter is leaving Hogwarts in the first movie and he's euphorically happy with his new life and knowing he'll come back next year?  That was me as I walked along campus to my car with my old friend Jon looking back on how awesome the year had been.  Harry and I are both being ridiculous though, and for largely the same reason.  In Harry's case, he had found out a powerful dark wizard had wanted him dead his whole life and, in fact, murder was attempted again that school year, his best friend had nearly died playing wizard's chess, and he'd been granted his own personal dedicated bully.  For my part, I had alienated advisors in two majors, been bullied and intimidated by most members of my group of friends who were sporting a festering misogynistic streak, lost a scholarship to bad grades in political science,  had developed a pathetic crush yet again, and ended the semester by destroying my roommate's painstaking drawing of his supervillain headquarters (we became best friends, actually).  Why do Harry and I, absent reminders from our sense of logic and our contemporaries, have such a positive vision of our first year?  It's because it was the greatest rush of hope for the future we'd ever had.  Neither of us believed we'd ever have any friends, so the rush of excitement of having them was amazing enough to cast everything else we experienced in a much more kindly light.  How do you apply this?  Well, basically it's important to remember why you're nostalgic for a time or a place because it's not about that time or place, not really.  Believe me, I've walked around Drury and I'm now just a stranger, so that rules of place.  Talking to your peers from the time is all you can do to gauge what the time really was.  All that matters and all that you need to worry about recapturing is the positive emotions that that time and place created in you.

Nostalgia for fiction is probably fairly unique to people who get fairly geeky about said fiction.  Several different examples exist within my own life.  If you're talking my teenage years, it's Star Trek, Xena, and Babylon 5.  My college years would be Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, and Stargate SG-1.  Further back, you've got Dr. Seuss, The Indian In The Cupboard, and My Teacher Is An Alien.  One of the things that's different about nostalgia for fiction is that the fiction still exists.  For instance I HAVE The Lord Of The Rings on Blu-Ray and regular extended editions on my shelf right now.  If I so choose, Frodo will get his uncle's ring again, have to destroy it again, and Pippin will have to stop Faramir from burning alive again.   That might be fun, as I haven't done that in a while, but that's not why the dwarves singing Over The Misty Mountains Cold in the trailer for The Hobbit sends chills down my spine as I realize that world is back.  As good and timeless as the fiction may be, it's either about what it got you through or who was with you when you were first exposed to it.  Star Trek mattered so much as a teenager because it presented a world of intelligence and conversation where I would have something to bring to the table that had never mattered or been acknowledged in Harrison, AR.  Lord Of The Rings mattered so much both because of the strange symmetry that developed between the initial shock of 9/11 and the alternately escapist and pragmatic themes of confronting evil in one's time and because it was my baptism into geek culture officiated over by my best friend and many other people, many of whom remain great friends of mine.  When I saw Return Of The King, a rising cheer unanimously developed each time Gandalf struck Denethor and THAT is what I'm nostalgic about in that case.  We were all united in our disdain for leaders gripped by cowardice and madness because it was all so very relevant to our lives.  So when I get nostalgic for Harry Potter, as I certainly found myself doing at the park in Florida, it's not really about the stories, but about going through them with my friends.  It seems to me if that if you're nostalgic about fiction because it helped you get through a time, you should probably watch or read it again to get through tough times to begin with.  Hope springs eternal, as does messages of it.  However, if you're nostalgic about fiction because you went through it with your friends, that probably just means you need to have friends over more often.  Of course, it could also mean that you miss your friends, like I do in too many cases, and there's nothing for that.

Through nostalgia for the time and place that was Drury in my day, I will remember to be optimistic because that will make even the bad stuff not seem so bad.  From the nostalgia for fiction I shall remember that one must always keep, remember, and respect one's consolations and that it is not really what you experience, but with whom it is experienced that counts.  All nostalgia is rummaging through the past and all of us will do it, but we have to understand, or, indeed, have in the first place, a purpose for such strenuous sifting.  However you go about your personal nostalgia and whatever or whomever it may be about which you are nostalgic, just remember that it's a powerful thing and an efficient tool for accessing positive emotion.  What you must remember is that nostalgia is only useful in any important sense if it is useful to your efforts to build a better life in the present and in the future.  Fiction for which I feel nostalgia tells me this.  Samwise has his family, the greatest adventure of all.  Harry grows up and sends his children on their own adventure.  Maybe I won't have a family, but I'll go to the oldest of all nostalgia for me and say that I HAVE THE POWER!!!

-Frank

The Moral Concensus

There's an awful lot of different kinds of people I know at this point. Sure, some of them are actors and actresses I have enjoyed late at night on premium cable, but there's still a surprisingly large number of people I've met in real life.  Rich and poor, nonbeliever and believer, right and left, young and old, straight and gay, white with a tiny minority of exceptions, they're all here, and I disagree with just about any random one of them a lot for any number of reasons.  Yet, we get along, whatever pyrotechnics of argument may present themselves.  So what is it, exactly, that we all agree on that allows for a basic moral consensus.  Atheists and believers HAVE to share a certain set of core values in order for them to exist civilly together in the same society or, especially, the same room.  That I see this, or its corollary with other diametrically opposed individuals, on a daily basis underlies that we are significantly less opposed that we suspect.  A Christian and an atheist arguing over what is the best way to raise productive adults who will be moral and capable of raising their own productive adults are, unknowingly in most cases, conceding a great deal of common ground.  Consider a Christian arguing with an ancient Aztec about whether it would be better to have a productive adult capable of raising other productive adults or a human sacrifice victim with his chest ripped open to appease the gods and ensure the sun would rise, and you'll find out really quickly that atheists and Christians have more important priorities than nonbelief and belief.  As an atheist, you can believe in Jesus all you want, go to church four times a week, and you know what? I'll take you over an atheist Stalinist who thinks it's okay for people to die horrible deaths in the gulags, because there are more important underlying things.  With all that as a jumping off point, here are ten things that pretty much all people I'm willing to consider my moral equal must believe.  

1.  Suffering is, at best, unfortunate, and needless suffering is a damned tragedy.  Inflicting suffering upon nonconsenting individuals is evil, regardless of context, and all the moreso if done to children.

2.  Activity that harms none but those consentingly participating cannot be evil.  Such activities are, at worst, inadvisable and dangerous.

3.  Looking for excuses to hate people who have done nothing to harm you is evil and a profound waste of time.

4.  Exceptions to rules must exist because people who are exceptions to the rule exist.  Stubborn adherence to the rules in the cases of these individuals is evil because it represents a willingness to grind those who do not and cannot conform in the gears of efficiency and convenience.

5.  Withholding compassion and/or empathy is always evil.  However evil the individual suffering, it still hurts and they are still human and flawed.  Vulnerable, naked, and afraid, the most evil person who ever lived, whoever that might have been, would've deserved compassion.  It neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg to show compassion to your enemies.  For some, such compassion might be the only good in this world they'll ever see.

6.  Humanity has potential and it is exciting to think about where it may be going.  However cynical one might be about our species and however many appalling reversals one might have seen or experienced in the progress of humankind, it simply must be considered an objective fact that we have come further as a species than we ever had any right to expect and that this upward momentum is far from done with us.

7.  Pursuing happiness is the right of all persons and, insofar as it does not interfere with the happiness of others, respecting said pursuit is a moral imperative.

8.  Romantic love that involves loving the other person more than you love yourself is redundant.  Romantic love that does not involve this is not romantic love at all.

9.  When people speak about their own lives, it is a moral imperative to believe them.

10.  The collectivization of guilt is never morally justified.

-Frank

A Drive Like No Other

All sound seems to fade away, despite the fact I'm listening to a book on tape on my iPhone. Thoughts of the present leave me and ghosts and shadows of the past fill my being. A single emotion does not contain the feelings and it is not anything rational. There is a terrible focus that feels loose and disconnected despite its intensity, like a dream. This is me driving through Harrison, Arkansas on my way home from my father's in Mountain Home. Mountain Home was my life on the weekends. No memories there are really all that negative, except for a prison-like daycare called Small World I stayed at there for a while, but, really, Mountain Home is just boredom and old grumpy Chicago retirees. Unpleasant, sure, but in no way malevolent, as least from my perspective. Harrison was another matter entirely. Maybe it would've been easier if I'd known going in what I was up against, but no one understands that when they're just starting out as a kid do they? Driving through Harrison traditionally involves angry music, such as The Unforgiven, Bodies, or Epiphany, or, at other times, total radio silence in the car as I let the memories wash over me. Not this time though, for this time I just continued to listen to my book on tape, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what Jim Norton was talking about on it, for my memories and thoughts were as ever with a childhood I may forever endeavor to understand in futility. Going through Harrison takes me past my old junior high, elementary school, and high school, because it's just the kind of town that there aren't that many routes through. At any given moment along that route, I can envision people there, some long since gone from Arkansas, some long since gone from this Earth. All these memories gnaw away at me like an army of fetid rats. What the whole town wants to remind me of, what I'd give just about anything to forget, is, essentially, the following. "This is your home. You have no choice in that matter. You can call Springfield your home, or Fayetteville your home, but this is your hometown. It was here that you first experienced all the things a child or young man may know. Here it was that you sought your first love, here it was that you tried to make friends, and here it was that you came back to work after college. Oh, you can run from all these memories, and lie to others about what it means, but the fact of the matter is that this place never had any love for you, and that just hurts so much doesn't it? Yes... You'll spend your whole life trying to figure out why the community you were born into hated you so much, why you could never connect with them, why you were a pariah among people you desperately loved and tried to get along with. None of it will ever make sense to you. So you sit there and you act detached, and cynical, and selfish, and emotionally dead, but I'll always be here in your nightmares reminding you that you don't belong. No one loved you here. No one accepted you here. Seek out sweeter tender voices that will tell you that you belong on this Earth with this species if you will, but alone, in the dark, you'll breathe shallow breaths and you'll hear me reminding, insisting, and judging with finality that this place of your childhood will always know who you really are."

I don't know what other people get from their hometowns when they drive around them. Maybe it's a pleasant experience. Good, bad, or ugly though, I doubt it's as intense.

-Frank