Thinking for others...

All right, I'm ugly. I admit it; never really denied it. Someone got deleted from this site, not because they called me ugly, but because the adjectives used were not family-friendly. I know my looks will scare crows out of a cornfield; that doesn't include inappropriate language for kids who might wander in here. Salty language is my sole discretion at UPI, thank you.

Worse than being called ugly was having someone think for me recently. I can't do much about my looks, and my brain is pretty much ossified into whatever it's become, but I am still the master of my destiny. I think bad thoughts at times; my faith in God shakes at the occasional notion that I might be wrong. What if Ayn Rand is right, and there is nothing beyond the grave but oblivion?

I prefer to think otherwise. My entire faith is in God, and the certainty that there is something better beyond this life. I may be ugly, and the joining of my soul with God is beyond comprehension, but I do not believe that The Creator imbued me with consciousness just to snuff it out as a bad job. Even Ayn Rand, a self-avowed atheist, winked at an interviewer when asked if she believed in an afterlife. In her public proclamations, Rand always said that man is his own higher power. There is nothing more powerful than the human mind, according to her lights.

That wink, however, haunts me. She knew there was something more. I trust that there is, too. We will all solve the mystery, and find out. I refer those with cosmic questions to Blaise Pascal's "The Wager". Bet that God is real, you can't lose, even if the bet turns to oblivion. Bet against God, and lose, and you are on the wrong end of the stick.

All of that being said, let's get back to earth. There is a new link at the right: T-shirt Hell. I put the link up because someone chose to think for me the other day. I receive a sporadic newsletter from the site masters; I give their shirts as Christmas [can we still say that?] gifts. Because of the past experiences of my life, I find their irreverence and profane world view to be howlingly funny. I made the mistake of assumption: others would find that sarcastic, earthy view of life as funny as I think it to be. I forwarded the latest newsletter to a few people whom I thought might appreciate such material.

I was wrong. I was wrong to assume that others might find cute what may be personally offensive. I have offered my apologies privately on that account.

Contained in the verbatim newsletter that I sent out, there is an "unsubscribe" link. Someone did a "click trick", and unsubscribed me. Perhaps this was for the best of motives; to save me from bad influences. Perhaps it was a joke. I thank the person that did this; not because they "saved" me from anything, but because they inspired these mutterings.

While I worked in my kitchen today, I listened to Gary Cooper, Raymond Massey, and Patricia Neal in "The Fountainhead." It was one of the few scripts that Ayn Rand wrote under her own name during her tenure in Hollywood. Shortly thereafter, realizing the film community would never accept her ideas, she left to write her masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. [You will never see this in movie form. The ideas are too intense.]

Mr. Cooper, speaking Rand's words, has a great monologue at the end of the movie. In the midst of the diatribe against collectivism and the communal mind, Cooper blurts that "no one has a claim upon my life."

To the unknown, and unsought person who clicked that "unsubscribe" link on my behalf: you have no claim upon my life. I have survived over a half-century, by accident or intelligent design. I know right from wrong, and intellectual genius from secular rubbish. If something rotting on the garbage pile of secular nonsense amuses me, that is for me to deal with, and God to adjudicate on the reaction. Thus should it be to all people. I cannot judge for others; I can scarcely judge for myself. God judges us all in the end. He has a better sense of humor than those who pretend to judge for us on this earth will admit.

Clicking an "unsubscribe" link was an insignificant act. The motivation behind it, whether annoyance factor or a moral certainty, goes deeper than that. I do not think for others, or pretend to tell them what to think. That is the territory of liberals. According to their gospel, they know what is right and wrong, good and bad, and healthy or not.

I think T-shirt Hell is funny. You may think I'm a sick puppy. I live in my mind; you don't. Please don't think for me. Check out the link if you dare; despite the ads to earn money by adding banners, I don't make a penny off the link.