Ian (John) McCleary (Son of the Cleric)

I look at the work of college art students everyday hanging by my janitors closet. If no one were there I would say it was lifeless and dead like everything learned academically, copied out of
books.
I am beginning to sound like my art professors from college, washed up and without ideas, so I must attack the easiest prey.
This is the problem with art in college and maybe even outside of it.
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In my mid to late twenties I lived the life of the poet Rimbaud, I lived a life of meaningless passion and aimlessness. Some of this later rebellion in my life was a self - conscious imitation of the young French poet. Around twenty years old, I had watched the movie Total Eclipse on the life of the poets Rimbaud and Verlaine with Leonardo De Caprio as Arthur Rimbaud and David Thewlis as the older poet Paul Verlaine, a mentor to the young Rimbaud. I learned a lot from watching that movie, it would eventually help me to sever ties with a college friend who I was hanging out with at the time I found that movie.
Those years after were some of the hardest in my life before I met my wife of today. I was looking for the next thrill. My job working at the supermarket, was boring to me, I wanted stimulation, something that would bring my life more meaning than it had for me at work. I got caught up in self destroying behaviors. Even when I met my wife and even into our marriage I have fought to keep this rebellion from ever coming out again in me.
Even years ago that message of sobriety came to me after a long night of bar hopping.
The year I took a trip to London, I will always remember this thing I said, which about sums up my twenties and the false promises that fleeting pleasures offer 'What is a butterfly if you take apart it's wings? '.
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What a poor representation of water, of canal water. It doesn't move with the stroke of my paddle. It stands still and frozen, what is it to do there? What is it to communicate?
The artist who painted this, do they know that this is not a painting?
Oh there's no use telling them, my face is one beige dab of oil paint, without eyes, a mouth to express my disgust for his rendering of me.
He is not yet aware of his creative powers.
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It's very unusual weather for the beginning of January, tell the oracle of Puxatawney, that it seems to be spring already in the east.
I am out in sandals and a light sweater, I was sweating in my winter coat the other day I went hiking.
Who can deny the strangeness of this winter, it's topsy turviness. Even the once most embittered critic is scratching their head on this lions tameness
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Genie, grant my every wish! Says the voice of Lucre.
And the piece of technology, as like rubbing the lamp, makes all wishes come seemingly true... well...at least for the time allowed him, without a trip to some place of wicked debauchery.
But the aftershock is cruel,
though he was relieved of all his demons in the moment, there is still one left he has forgotten,
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My father is the best example of a stoic. His very life reflects it. He is a good father and husband to his wife, he sees that as being a good enough goal in life worthy of everyones respect.
And yet he does not deny the reality of pain. He does not hide behind a gun or harbor feelings of aggression, nor does he have a deep hatred for people.. that I know of. That is a false
portrait of manhood anyway.
He does not hide his feelings like me in ideas and philosophy. He does not have any aspirations to become known for his mind and for his words of insight.
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The chicken egg causality dilemma cannot be used for whether God created man or man created God. It would be a useless endeavor to ask whether one is the cause of the other, since they cannot be proven with any form of material evidence.
Mystical experiences on the other hand, the reports of visions people have do exist in my view. But they are subjective experiences in my understanding of them, and are really only useful for that person.
For someone to suggest that their revelation of some higher reality, is a one size fit all plan discredits all the other personal divine encounters that have happened in this world, and for those who have not experienced that peculiar revelation for themselves.
Atheists trying to disprove the existence of God is foolishness, they would do better by embracing the ideas of secular humanism, which emphasize the individuals free will to choose good without being a part of any religious system.
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There is a pattern, a pattern which no intelligent person can ignore
populist right wing authoritarian violence is happening globally. This violence as a means to an end, no intelligent person can
defend the madness of this idea.
No moral person can give validation
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Some have suggested that Jesus Christ suffered from mental illness. I will not speculate into that. But I can say, that there are people who believe in Jesus and who do show signs of having a mental illness. Their self- grandiosity makes them think they are doing the work of God, even when their actions are in the contrary.
There are people as well, who still have a hard time judging holy men.
They think they see the prophet Elijah, because he claims he will rid all evil from their nation. That he will tear idols down from the palaces. That he will send fire out of the sky and destroy their enemies.
So this madness speculated of Jesus is the madness of man, man's imagination playing games with him.
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My parents had less expectations of me during my time in high school, I was allowed not to work, that was only so I could focus on my schoolwork. And throughout my time in college, they again said as long as I focused on my schoolwork that I didn't have to get a job. I eventually would graduate thinking my degree would get me a job alone in the field I wanted to be in. But that was so mistaken of me to take the job process so lightly.
Forgetting all about the hard work it takes to be whatever is I majored in.
I had my own ideas, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do as far as getting a career. I just had some vague ideas of what I wanted to do with my life, and that was it.
But things eventually changed the longer I was out of school Without some form of employment to earn money by, my parents saw that i was putting off my future, and made sure I was employed doing something. I was really late to learning responsibility
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The trees were sugarcoated with snow. When the snowflakes fall, a taste of candy coats my mouth, something sweet you can take a bite out of, something like dried up maple syrup collecting around the plastic cap of the syrup bottle.
But whenever the man with the salt truck touches it
The taste of that sugary snow becomes like vomit.
Gray slush covered in dirty tire marks send away the Sugarplum fairies to their winterberry huts.
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My Irish grandmother who is not alive anymore, was once told that if she stepped in a Protestant church she would be risking her salvation.
I know firsthand too this kind of sectarian attitude that my grandmother went through.
I experienced it in many of the churches I visited, when I was still looking for a church to become a member of. It was important to them, to distinguish themselves from the other churches. It was important to them that I did not follow the wrong teachings or the wrong ideas about god or theology. One single denomination could jeopardize my salvation and put me in hell, was what they were trying to have me understand.
It will be hard for me to adhere to my wife's wishes when the time comes to have our children baptized and receive their sacraments in the church. Because of all the negative experiences I have had with religion, and that I do not believe anymore in that religion as the true religion.
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When the spirit of inquiry is no longer widely practiced, people become easily shaped into whatever others want them to believe. When people accept information at light speed, they suspend one of their basic rights, freedom from ignorance and manipulation.
When someone wants to sell us something for a profit, they don't want us to think too long about the product they are selling, their goal is to make a quick sale to the consumer. Through clever marketing they can sell us anything. The same can be said about political campaigns. It depends a lot on how a candidate markets themselves which determines whether a person votes for them. Policy is sold just like a consumer item. No one has to know so much about what's on the inside of the box only that we have an emotional attachment to whatever is on the outside. That is what mainly guides our decision when choosing candidates.
Family members have tried to prevent me from speaking about the things that they accept and believe with blind faith.
The use of slogans and political rhetoric make it unnecessary to know the truth behind them and what they are all about.
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The word civil war is an oxymoron, how is something like warfare civil? And yet looking back on that part of history, when we had our civil war, it seems to treated just as that. Our perception of it are of gentlemen soldiers in the fashion of the time, cavalry uniforms highly decorated, plume in hat, golden buttons. But if you were to ask someone from another country about the subject, they would firsthand tell you how terrible it is.
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The movie industry acts as a promotional tool for companies like Mattel and Nike. It is in the business of not making movies as an art form. It is selling product everytime a movie based on a video game or comic book is released. While children and adults are drawn to seeing movies like this, it is also a bit disillusioning to see movies of this kind produced and the lack of creativity involved in coming up with them.
But as if we had no choice we continue to give them revenue, as if we were incapable ourselves of our own creative entertainment.
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Britt Alcrofts Thomas the Tank Engine children's show surprisingly deals with the future of technology. In the show the trains are represented as willful and stubborn, which gets them into accidents as a result of their desire to do things their own way.
Could this be a lesson for why we should probably not invest or buy into the idea of self driving cars and other forms of vehicles?
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The word and title of artist has become a solidified concept. Musician Daniel Johnston captures it perfectly in his song 'The Story of An Artist' where all his lyrics are but cliches of what the prototypical outcast artist experiences. It would be more unexpected and attract more curiosity when asked about ones vocation by calling oneself an ' exorcist, magician' than the usual title of artist, since those can be applied to the artistic process without using a dead and boxed in concept as artist.
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I am willing to give up all that I have been afraid of in the last several years, but for some reason it keeps returning and repeating itself in my head. My thoughts when it is quiet and I am to myself in a room are it's roads and oceans, that it follows the course of without trouble. I have no way of disrupting it's movement toward me. I can recite a quick prayer or think other thoughts, and that slows its wheels, but it doesn't stop it's engine. It seems that it is a force too powerful for me to drive away by my own need to control it.
I am still figuring out what I should do when they occur.
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The practical use of technology of sending emails, making phone calls, is no longer the only thing that it is used for. There was a time where those basic functions were all you could perform. But things have evolved ever since.
Our digital devices have become a new source of entertainment and something that even serves the purpose of a psychological need. Something which softens the stark realities of the everyday world and our daily routine. We search it for sensation which is as old as human existence itself. There is something primitive about our use of technology. On it we look to people in much the same way people sought shamans in the ancient world for healing.
The television was the first serve that role but now that isn't the case anymore.
It is the absence of The Holy Spirit, the indwelling person of God that used to have this spot
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Historical Recurrence can be applied to the Insurrection of Jan 6 2020 and Shays Rebellion 1786-7. Both were examples of populist uprisings in the United States aimed at control of the government through mob rule and violence. When seeing how events repeat themselves like this in history, makes the event however terrible it is, less surprising, since it has happened once before. Years ago David MacCullough, the writer of the biography on John Adams, talked about the resilience of the American people. He said we have been through many troubled times and that we always got through it somehow. He said it is helpful to always know what came before us in order to face the present moment and to find our way out of it with courage.
Everything has the appearance of being new, and while some things have changed, human behaviors and motivations have not. A consequence of this is not only from not knowing what was before us, but that we have also inherited a belief in our own immunity from the things we associate with the past. We have been a forward looking people, that when something like a worldwide pandemic hits or an attack by our own people on our nations capitol takes place, we are shocked and terrorized by it, crippled by anxiety and immobilized by depression. We thought it was something we were free from, something that we had escaped. With all the progress we have achieved as a civilization, it came as giant blow to our false security, and the life we took for granted.
We were protected for awhile by a belief in the achievements of our civilization, until that was found to be an illusion we held to.
I want this to be the way I think about the rest of my life and events that are outside of my control. It isn't an easy thing to do. But I want to develop it. Have that sereneness of character to endure the difficulties of living in this world. Everything else is madness, and I don't want any of that.
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