On the Religious Conversion of Ignatius of Loyola (Founder of the Jesuits)

When you start a religion, it’s best to do it in a cave. That’s the conclusion that I’m getting while reading A Candid History of the Jesuits (1867) by Joseph McCabe. It’s an interesting review on the beginnings of the movement (one that I, admittedly, know very little about).

The book talks about how Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) got his inspiration. Much like the infamous Mohammed, he received his revelation in a cave:

“After a few months he found a cavern outside the town, at the foot of the hills, and entered upon the period of endless prayer and wild austerity in which he wrote his book, the Spiritual Exercises. He scourged himself, until the blood came, three times a day: he ate so little, and lived so intense a life, that he was sometimes found unconscious on the floor of the cave, and had to be removed and nursed; his deep black eyes seemed to gleam from the face of a corpse. Thus he lived for six months, and wrote his famous book.”

I guess it makes a lot of sense. Divine revelation is usually received in private. Of course, the inevitable question will arise: is the revelation fact or fiction? Well, that’s in the mind of a believer, I guess.

At any rate, I’m interested in learning more.

The Jesuits are a topic of controversy. According to McCabe, every book written on the Jesuits order has been biased in one way or the other: either excessively pro or con. You either love ’em or hate ’em. This reminds of a Jamaican man that I once knew; he claimed that the Jesuits controlled the Vatican and, subsequently, controlled all the leaders of the free world. My instinct was that he left his tin-foil hat at home; however, for the purpose of polite conversation, I bit my tongue. Now I get the chance to confirm my suspicions or remove them.

Any thoughts on the Jesuits? I have some educated readers out there and I’m open to learning more…

See Related Article: Cultural Awareness is a Meaningless Term

How to Be a Man (1846 Versus 2015)

Here we have How to Be a Man (A Book for Boys Containing Useful Hints on the Formation of Character) written in 1846.

Here we have How to Be a Man (and other illusions) written in 2015.

In 1846, the teenager has a definition of manhood; in 2015, he’s told that it’s an illusion. In 1846, the teenager has a road map on the Highway of Life; in 2015, the road is covered in fog.

How can you arrive at a distant location without a map? How can you learn a trade without a teacher? How can you become a man without a mentor?

The crisis of the modern man, illustrated in one juxtaposition.

See Related Article: Why Did Bill Nye Become a Feminist?

On the Beauty of “You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me” by John Mayer

John Mayer has transcended to another level. A case in point is the song “You’re Gonna’ Live Forever in Me.”

What a beautiful ballad! It’s provocative and soulful…a song about death and the memories that remain. Take a look at these lyrics:

A great big bang and dinosaurs
Fiery raining meteors
It all ends unfortunately

But you’re gonna live forever in me
I’ll guarantee, just wait and see

Parts of me were made by you
And planets keep their distance too
The moon’s got a grip on the sea

And you’re gonna live forever in me
I guarantee, it’s your destiny

Life is full of sweet mistakes
And love’s an honest one to make
Time leaves no fruit on the tree

But you’re gonna live forever in me
I guarantee, it’s just meant to be

And when the pastor asks the pews
For reasons he can’t marry you
I’ll keep my word in my seat

But you’re gonna live forever in me
I’ll guarantee, just wait and see

Mayer’s on another level, standing next to the great songwriters. He’s become an Uber man, carefully crafting his poetic words. Age and wisdom have collided with musical talent.

The critics have long been divided on Mayer. Some people (see women) love his obsession with romantic topics. While others (red pill men) feel that he goes overboard on the topic. For example, there’s never been a straight man that sang “Your Body is a Wonderland” with conviction.

However, the musician needs time. As with any GREAT MAN, wisdom comes with age. You need to experience the vicissitudes of life. You need to see the Grand Canyon of Pain and the Great Wall of Suffering.

John’s officially there…and America needs him right now. We’ve seen too many musicians “check out” recently: i.e. Prince, David Bowie, B.B. King, Don Henley, Tom Petty, etc. So what’s needed is a new poet: a man of the new millennia.

A note to the nostalgic: Remember that the great men of a generation are like ocean waves; they soar and crash…until another wave comes to take their place.

At any rate, here’s a link to the wonderful video…enjoy!

See Related Article: Why Have We Not Heard About Stanley Jordan Becoming a Woman?

Pliny the Younger On the Value of Being Prolific

Pliny the Younger was a famous Roman lawyer and statesman. In the Letters of Pliny, he mentions the importance of being prolific:

“Good compositions, as in everything else that is valuable, the more there is of them, the better. You may observe in statues, basso-relievos, pictures, and the human form, and even in animals and trees, that nothing is more graceful than magnitude, if accompanied with proportion.”

Very true. The great artist is prolific. His creations are numerous and expansive. If he’s a musician, he has 50 albums. If he’s a writer, he has 50 books. And so on and so forth…

Agatha Christie is a good example of a prolific writer. She wrote 66 detective novels in her lifetime.

There’s no heroism in “storing it away for a rainy day,” or “waiting for the moment to be right.” Greatness is calling…the bus is leaving. Your goal is to create content. Your daily calling…to provide something of value to the public.

Remember that others will be scared of your prolific desires. What are you trying to prove? What’s the point of your hustle?

Ignore the miniature man. His future wife (if he gets married) will despise his mediocrity. You refuse to cower at the Altar of his Insecurity. He’s a meaningless clerk, working at the Hall of Insignificance. Listen to Pliny instead, for he’s pointing in the right direction:

“…in books a large volume carries a certain beauty and authority in its very size.”

Very true. Usually, the large book is great simply because of its size. Remember: most people only write large novels if they have something to say. True, there’s an occasional traitor in the bunch: the half-man, with his addiction to ambiguity. Usually, the wretch is exposed as an enemy to the GREAT MAN, or a traitor to the nation state (see Noam Chomsky).

The GREAT MAN is a creator of content. He produces on a regular basis, until a mountain of work is marking his noble name.

See Related Article: You Either Have Ambition or You Don’t

On the Wisdom of P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum gave us great advice (from his wonderful book The Art of Getting Money; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)

The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes.

Do what you love. If you love what you do, then you’ll never work a day in your life. This advice was true yesterday and it’s true today.

The logic is basic. But still, many people cannot follow it. One reason (according to Barnum) is they receive poor advice from their parents:

Parents and guardians are often quite too negligent in regard to this. It very common for a father to say, for example: “I have five boys. I will make Billy a clergyman; John a lawyer; Tom a doctor, and Dick a farmer.”… He does this, regardless of Sam’s [his child’s] natural inclinations, or genius.

Very true. Many parents are concerned with the prestige of a child’s position; sadly, they overlook the natural talents of the child. And so the boy grows up in a job that he hates. And more importantly, he never becomes a GREAT MAN.

Barnum mentions that he, himself, had very few talents. He was not mechanically inclined, and he sucked at mathematics. However, he stumbled into a job that he loved – owning a business. And because of this, he was able to apply his natural talents.

Barnum summarizes the message:

Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.

See Related Article: Book Review: The Last Playboy: The High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa 

 

Guy De Maupassant on the Brutality of War

Guy De Maupassant has a wonderful quote on the brutality of war (from his beautiful short story entitled, “Buole De Suif”).

For the same thing [war] happens whenever the established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists, when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force. The earthquake crushing a whole nation under falling roofs; the flood let loose, and engulfing in its swirling depths the corpses of drowned peasants, along with dead oxen and beams torn from shattered houses; or the army, covered with glory, murdering those who defend themselves, making prisoners of the rest, pillaging in the name of the Sword, and giving thanks to God to the thunder of cannon—all these are appalling scourges, which destroy all belief in eternal justice, all that confidence we have been taught to feel in the protection of Heaven and the reason of man.

Civility is a veneer: a blanket that covers the body for a night. But eventually, the blanket falls  and the face of mankind is revealed: brutal and blood-thirsty. And when a war is declared, the tidal wave of terror is unleashed.

Political correctness will run for cover. The natural resources are at play, and the pretty lies will meet the maker. Death warrants are placed on the innocent and the weak are stomped out. The aristocrat will kill to please his ever-fattening wife. Scores are settled. Grudges become reality. And the homeless are driven to the grave.

Humanity has always been this way. It’s only in the air-conditioned rooms of a bourgeois life that a dark reality is concealed. But when the clock strikes twelve and the cannonballs fly, the bourgeois will discard their false robes…and they, ironically, become the executioners of death.

See Related Article: I Entered Life as a Meteor and I Shall Leave it Like a Thunderbolt

I Entered Literary Life as a Meteor, and I Shall Leave it Like a Thunderbolt

These were the words of Guy De Maupassant, the legendary French writer. I am currently reading a wonderful collection of his work, entitled Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant. It’s filled with stories that demonstrate his greatness. Works of art that stand like a testament to his brilliance.

“I entered literary life as a meteor…”

These words might shock the common man. How vain, how conceited, how full of himself! This reaction is the response of a dullard. The irrelevant clerk. The quiet commoner. The man of no particular fire.

The common man will never understand the fire of a Maupassant…and his girlfriend will quietly despise him.

Some men believe that greatness is their destiny; others laugh at the concept. Some burn with a dangerous flame of desire; others are a lukewarm stove. Some are always dreaming about the apex of a Mount Everest; others are stupidly staring at a traffic jam.

To quote Thomas Carlyle: “History is the Biography of Great Men.” And Maupassant is a man whose biography belongs in the list of GREAT MEN.

*On a side note, it should be said that women despise the common man. His broken dreams, his insecure back peddling, his petty anger, etc. They secretly wish that he would dissipate…fade away into the distance. And that, in his place, a GREAT MAN would emerge – a man ready to carry her off into the heroic distance.

See related article: The Nice Man is Not a Great Man

Gold is Nothing When Compared to the Love that a Father Has for His Daughter

Years ago, I held a woman in my arms. She was sobbing on the floor and tears were flowing down her cheeks. Her chest was heaving…the tears were from a place that was deep in her soul. An agony that was at the epicenter of her existence. A pain that was profound…a cut that could never be healed.

That woman was my ex-wife.

What was she crying about?

It was about the father she never knew. A man that died two months before she was born. On a summer day in 1978, he had a heart attack as he was pouring coffee in the morning. He was only 48 years old…and he would never get to meet his unborn daughter.

And so she grew up…a little girl in the world. And yes, she had a mother that loved her. She had cousins and uncles that cared. But it wasn’t enough. For every year, there was somebody missing. Every Christmas, there was a present that was not under the tree.

What she was missing was a FATHER.

Year after year, an absence grew in her soul. The magical love that only a father could bring. A thousand kisses that she never received. A million hugs that she never felt. All the support of a father…his golden advice. An infinite love that was waiting for his little angel.

What grew inside of her was the Grand Canyon of Emptiness. A Marianas Trench of Despair. A cut that could never be healed.

If only she could have known him! Just to hold her Daddy for a day…to feel his strong support. To stand within his protective arms! She would have paid a million dollars to have felt it – if only for a minute.

My dear reader, gold is nothing when compared to the love that a father has for his daughter.

I could not save my marriage. She was too far gone. By the time I got her, the damage had been done. I tried, but it was futile. Nobody could put her back together again. The more I tried, the more painful it became. I was drawn closer to the fire. I saw a pain that I was not ready to see. And I felt an agony that was too deep for my life.

A house is constructed from the floor upward. If the foundation is not set correctly, then the house will always be wobbly.

Never let anybody tell you that a father is insignificant. Never let anybody tell you that a woman can “Do it on her own.” Never let anybody tell you that “The Future is Female.” It’s a giant lie. A media trick…

For gold is nothing when compared to the love that a father has for his daughter.

See related article: Essay Review” The Turning Point of My Life”

You Know a Book is Great in the First Paragraph

Take Huckleberry Finn, for instance:

You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the
name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That
book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.
There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another,
without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt
Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas
is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some
stretchers, as I said before.

Just wonderful.

Right out of the gate, Twain makes a colloquial connection: i.e. “You don’t know about me.” Of course, we know him…why else are we reading the book? And yet, we don’t know about him! A famous person is both known and unknown.

Then, he refers to himself in the third person (Mr. Mark Twain), and he questions his own own honesty (“there were things which he stretched”). He’s given us the “unreliable narrator” by the second sentence.

And finally, he talks about the characters like we know them: i.e. Aunt Polly, Mary, etc. In short, he’s cleverly hooked us into the tale. It’s like we’re talking an old friend. We’re on a porch in the Mississippi Valley, sharing a tea with Samuel Clemens.

A great piece of literature is not accidental. It’s the result of artist who, after years of chiseling, has developed a fluidity. He’s a skater, gliding upon on the ice. He’s the wily and crafty veteran, using a time-honored technique that he learned over years of practice.

See Related Article: Short Story Review: “The Lake” by Ray Bradbury

On the Popularity of Country Music

Numbers talk…bullsh*t walks. And when it comes to music, you either sell out the large arenas or you don’t. You either have an army of fans or you don’t. In this regard, country music is king.

How do we know this? Well, let’s take a look at Las Vegas—the entertainment capital of the world. And more specifically, let’s take a look at the T-Mobile arena. That’s the new stadium, situated right off the strip: i.e. next to the New York, New York Casino and across the street from the MGM. The biggest acts in the world will play there.

The T-Mobile arena is the new “place to be” in Las Vegas: home to a professional hockey team and major performers.

In the last four months, who sold out that arena more than any other artist? Was it The Rolling Stones? Was it Jennifer Lopez? Was it Justin Timberlake? The answer is no to all of them.

The answer is country music star, George Strait.

In the last four months, George Strait has sold out the T-Mobile arena more than any other artist in any genre.

In the last four months, Strait he has sold out the T-Mobile arena a total of six times. That’s more than any artist is any genre. The mainstream media has not covered this trend. That’s because they hate what country music symbolizes: i.e. nationalism, romantic love, family, etc. These values are in opposition to the (((Deep State))). Therefore, country music is a thorn in the side of Schiff and Schumer—a painful reminder that Americans still love simple and beautiful things.

*On a related note, it’s now plausible that the Mandalay Bay shooter was a setup by the Deep State: an attempt to murder a group of conservative concert goers, thus instilling fear into that demographic.

In summary, when it comes to numbers, country music is king. It’s about ticket sales and dollars…and you either sell out the major arenas or you don’t.

See Related Article: Why Have We Not Heard About Stanley Jordan Becoming a Woman?