the_serious_one hsg "14 OCT 2003 Struggle for the soul: escaping the clutches of the serious one Being an engineer, I am a worst-case customer for my own religion, and have written about my struggle to overcome my serious beliefs last year (7262, 7341, 7354) I had another outbreak of deep-seated seriousness four days ago, a deep ego question. The engineer still thought he was in charge and responsible for my mission and my life. This is the serious intellectual ego, the serious one within us, taking over in a weak moment. This is why the engineer is at the bottom of the humor hierarchy. He is the very embodiment of the serious one. Well, we had a short, sharp fight. There was blood. The engineer got demoted. He has to serve the true believer missionary. His job is to support the revealed truths with Jesuitical argument, which makes him funny. He does not make policy. I don't know if that's the end of it, but demoting the engineer allows the true believer to appear." mbf 08951 091118 ... hsg "The purpose trap Our noblest goals are always serious. Are we to reject them? Don't we need a purpose in life to follow? All our serious purposes must go. We will not find salvation in serious world. The funny mission provides a funny purpose instead. What could be greater than building a funny world? Then making the world funny becomes our noble goal, our improvement project. Funny is good for health, wealth and happiness. . . Nope. We are still in the purpose trap. We have invited The Serious One right into funny world. The most potent temptation of the Serious One is Doing Good. That's a hard one to escape from. This is where our faith is tested. In cases of severe temptation, we invoke the divine mantra, "must be funny," and The Serious One vanishes, leaving a slight trace of brimstone to remind us of our narrow escape. Traditional version: Not my will but Thine be done. If we serve Thee faithfully, all else will be added to us. Updated: We put funny first, as the source of all good things." mbf mfp2.htm 091118 ... In_Bloom This makes me want to cry because I sniff out something in here too close to home. How far is the tether unless we make enough funny to stretch out and test it. Damn the Serious One though for waking up and yanking back on the leash. Bastard. 091118 ... unhinged when we were talking about pictures of people as kids the other night ( kindred on red ) i told him about my favorite picture of me and my sisters. it was from long before my brother was born, in the very first house i lived in but don't remember. we are sitting on the picnic table in the front yard, the table that sat in several more yards of my childhood, in pretty little dresses. there were a bunch of pictures taken that day on the picnic table, but the one i have kept over the years and framed was more candid. my sister jennifer, always so obedient, had a cheesy smile on her face. my sister allison had her cheeks puffed out and eyes closed in a monkey face. i sat in between them on my sister jennifer's knee with a furrow between my eyes. looking at the camera, but behind it like 'what the hell is going on?' years later, we took arielle to her first football game because my brother was playing and we found the cutest little bee costume for her since his team mascot was the bee. her little brow was furrowed the whole time. we took her to the sideline to get a picture with uncle jeff. she looked right at the camera like 'what the hell is going on?' the serious ones my father gave her the same nickname he gave me when i was little. the similarities would take up a book. 091118 ... hsg you can only make_fun of the SO's prayers. And who would want to take the SO seriously?! 091227 what's it to you? who go blather from