I, God - A Fictional 1st Person Story About God

I am God. I am not infinite. I have not always been, and I am ignorant of much. This is my history, and all the detail that matters to me.
I was. For a time that I cannot define, that undeveloped and unmoving fact was the extent of my being. I was. I did not think. I did not act. I did not want.
My first thought, the first of all thoughts, was profound. I considered myself. I identified myself as an entity. I considered that fact. What was I? I was thinking, therefore what was I?
Eventually, I answered that question. I am a alive.
Once I had I decided that I did exist, I also came to the conclusion that things must exist outside of myself as well. If I am, then there must be something that I am not.

I existed, and so did something else. I considered my outer limits. If I exist, and so does Else, what is the defining point between I and Else?
I decided that I was what I thought, and everything I did not think was Else.
Thus I came into being separate.

I considered time. I recognized a difference between a current thought, and one from moments ago. I considered that I exist, and time exists, and therefore I have existed for a length of time. How long have I existed? How long will I exist? How long has else existed? I could not answer these questions, not yet.

I then had my first desire. I wanted to witness else. I thought about what else there might be than I. What are the differences between one thing and another?
I thought about myself. I thought, because I am thinking my thoughts, there must be some boundary between myself and everything else. I imagined a place. Then around myself in all directions I thought of everything else.
Physical relations emerged.

I wanted to view this relationship. I wanted to understand the extent of myself, and of everything that I was not. I could not understand how to see outside of myself. I could not fathom a way to detect myself, nor something beyond myself.

I imagined then. I wanted so badly to see the place around me, imagined that moment. How would it feel to see? What could make that possible? There must be a form, or boundary between things. What were things made of?

My imagination created light. It created energy, and form. As I considered these things, the laws of the universe were written indelibly into logic and truth. I found that Else was what I made it.
I found myself enthralled with the notion of the Universe, the single all encompassing definition of else. I thought of this universe as a place. It had boundaries, like myself. It was an empty area. I saw this universe.

That space was jumbled with the energy and matter that I had imagined. It was beautiful, and for a time it satisfied me. I was, and it was.

In little time, however, I came to another desire, one that has been my quest and hardship ever since. I wanted to make Else something more. The chaos did not offend me, but if chaos was one method of existing, the other was order. I was not chaos. The Universe did not need to be chaos.

I then thought of what I wanted the universe to be. I tried many things. I created perfect art from energy and matter and light. I created vibration and sound and music. I created displays of cosmic fire and melodramas of dying stars that lasted millennia.
For a time I was amused.


After time this even became cumbersome and feeble. I needed more. I wanted to be surprised. How, though, does one become surprised? I understand everything. I know what every action is going to lead to. I see everything that exists, within myself and in Else.

I realized that in order to be surprised, I could not take the action that would surprise me. I needed someone else. I was, Else was, but there was not another I. I created another thinking being. I made it in the universe. I created it from the particles of energy I had played games with for so long. I fashioned a mind. I gave it flesh.

The creature saw the Universe around it. It heard the sounds of my vibrations. It considered its own existence. I watched. I did not interfere.

The being squirmed back and forth. It writhed in confusion and panic. I took pity, and spun the creature's being back into energy and cast it back out into Else. I considered the creature. I considered it's fear and frenzy.

A creature existing is not enough to amuse me. A being that thinks must have purpose in order to act. What action do I want to see? What purpose can a creature have in order to act?

The creation of humanity began. A creature must have a drive in order to act. Desire, like my own to view the Universe, could drive a creature.

Hunger was created, a need to consume more matter to replenish your own. Procreation would further the creation of beings, so that the exact nature of each being would be unknown to me.

I set into motion the things I had imagined. I wiped Else clean and created the Universe anew. I fashioned a place of stars and planets, on which my creatures could live. I created a world for the creatures. I made oceans and mountains. I made vast deserts and frozen lakes. I created a playing field for the creatures.

Then I made the creatures. There were many kinds, and not all of them lasted very long. The creatures lived and died. They ate and they played. They enjoyed their lives, and they suffered. They surprised me many times.

The smartest creatures thrived. The Humans became masters of the planet. They loved, they warred, and they died. They worshiped me, I believe.

The grand story of this little planet has interested me for a very long time. The way thinking creatures interact amazes me. I could cheat, and look through the tiny bits of matter and energy and see what was going to happen next. I could look at everything in Else and see the end of my little planet, but that would ruin the amusement of this little game.

I would have to find something else to do.


                                                                                         -God

7 of the Finest Rules for Parenting

Rule 1:

Another PB&J?!?!?!?!? GAWD!!

Stay Calm

This is important. If you want to ever be an effective parent, you have to keep your cool. When you react to a child acting out by acting out, you are teaching them to act out. Even if you are screaming at them to be calm, you are showing them that the way a person reacts to stress is to lose your cool. There are few, if any, situations were losing you cool is a good thing. Why teach it to your children?
This may be the hardest of the rules to follow, but in my opinion it is the most important. Rational and successful people do not lose their cool very often. If you want your kids to be rational and successful you must teach them that.

Rule 2:

Dad, why do people hate the government?

Be Honest

I have been asked some mighty difficult questions since I have been a parent. I have tried very very hard to be honest in all ways. There are facts that I skim over, of course. I have not discussed some of the grimier sides of life with my kids. Think Requiem for a Dream. However, I am honest about many things that are difficult. My oldest, Sterling, asked me why her boyfriend grabbed her butt. Try explaining that to a 13 year old. Moral of the story: Grow up and answer the questions and address the moral issues. Don't skirt the subject because it's hard. Those are the subjects they need the most advice on. 

Rule 3:

Your little angel.

Love Them; Not Who You Want Them to be

This is pretty simple, but can be very difficult. You have to love your kid, even if he is gay or she is a stripper. That means go to your queer son's pagent and clap your hands, Dad. Go to your daughter's strip club and shove a dollar in her undies, Mom. Yeah, you might not like it, and you can approach the subject in a mature way, but Love Your Kid. Show it more than you show your disapproval. I would not be happy if my girls end up junkies, but if they do, when I see them I am going to hug them and get them a place to rest and a shower and some food. I'm going to love my junkie daughters for who they are. Yes, you wanted him to be a man's man, and you wanted her to be a lawyer. You have the child you have, so man up and love them. (Sending junkie daughters to boarding school is love too.)

Rule 4:

Kamehameha!!!!

Moderation in All Things, even Parenting

Moderation is important, and it's a lesson we all teach our kids, or should. It is also an example we need to set as parents. When one of your children break a rule, it is best to speak with them or punish them and then let it go. A 2 hour speech about table manners will also teach them not to get over their anger, and to harp on people they see doing wrong. Sometimes, when Sally throws Billy in the mud, it is important to show Billy that it's good to laugh things off and move on. It's a FINE lesson for anyone.

Rule 5:

"We put on a concert!"

Teach Them to Create

One often overlooked activity is crafts. As a father especially, I have to push myself to go fold construction paper. After a few nights of crafts, making construction paper hats and LOTS of cheap Tie-Die T-Shirts, I found that the kids got amazing amounts of experience with hand-eye coordination, logical thinking, and teamwork.

Music, sports, and video games are also all excellent ways to engage your children in activities that require organized thought and creative problem solving. 

Rule 6:

You'd kick that wall's butt, little dude.

Encourage

"I think you'd do great, Kid's Name Here." It might be very simple, and it might be a little untrue, but this phrase will mean worlds of trust and self confidence to your children. I am an anxious parent. I imagine every terrible thing that could happen to my kids at every turn. I have a fine imagination, and I have to tell myself to ignore the paranoia. If you logically think your kid will get hurt, obviously don't encourage them. However, if your kid has a chance to push themselves to win, let them. Encourage them to try even after they fail. You have to earn your wins in life by losing.

Rule 7:

I want a boyfriend! She has a boyfriend!

Actually Be Fair

If you have multiple children, you have probably run into this issue. Kids want to be treated "fairly", meaning they want to do what others do and they want to have what other's have. That concept of fairness is wrong. A lesson that is hard learned but needed is that fairness is when we are all treated depending on our actions. If my kids are mature enough to handle walking to the store, they can. If one kid is mature enough to walk to the store at 11 years old, she can. If the other is not mature enough by the time she is 11, she will not be allowed to. I treat each of my children differently depending on how they act. They need to understand this so that later in life, they see that the people who have nice things earned them, and understand that it is the fair way for things to be.

Brass Level Housing by Robert S Strength

Created and Written by a proud American and Veteran of War

Brass Level Housing

by Robert S Strength

   Our leaders are corrupt assholes. That we all know. Even the people who believe in the government and it's function will admit that the top tier is corrupt and always will be. The common phrase is, "There's just too much money involved." 

   Well, I'm calling bullshit. We Americans have dropped the ball. This isn't a Democrat or a Republican issue. It's both. Our entire populace has allowed our politicians to become stage show attractions. They spout words like "Hope" and "Morality". Those are just power words, and we all know it. Anyone old enough to vote knows that our nation is ruled by the methods that sell us Taco Bell. We vote for nice flashy colors and good suits, rather than good thinking and proven intentions. Vague promises and lies are the fare of the debate forum that we currently use to select our leaders, given to us with the same tongue-in-cheek honesty of reality T.V. 

 I have to ask, where are the great men? Where are the Washingtons and the Lincolns? Where are the Caesars and the Oda Nobunagas? I am not naming these people the venerate them, but to ask; Can our great and powerful nation not produce better men than Reagan, Clinton, Bush, or Obama? Can we not find, among our thousands of educated and brilliant thinkers a single person that we would rather represent us than the washed up and bought out bullshitters that have led us for the past hundred years? List of U.S. Presidents and their previous careers.

   I have no delusions that the people of America will start sitting down responsibly and researching the logic and history of each person they might cast a vote for. We can change the system to work with modern America, however. And if we do not change it, we cannot expect more from it.

   The foremost issue preventing the proper function of our government is we have no ability to keep accountability of our politicians. There is no way for the people to remove a president of congress from power except Revolt. An impeachment is not sufficient. The process does not fulfill the function of the people's choosing to remove a politician. A hand cannot wash itself. The congress cannot properly expel the corruption, because that is the very section of the government that is corrupted.

   Because we cannot respond to the unwanted action of our politicians, we have thus far used the profit motive as the force that keeps American politics in line. In order to keep your office you must maintain the vote. To win the vote you play the game of politics. The politician who plays the game the best is rewarded the most, and out of that game we hope to gain proper governance. We have built our political system on the foundations of conflicted interest, between personal gain for a few politicians and the betterment of the entire nation. The profit motive has failed to produce politicians who will faithfully carry out their office. How do we remove that motivation from our policy makers? We remove the the motivation completely. We remove the money in order to remove the motivation. It is the only way.
   To remove the money, we first remove campaign funding entirely, and open a publicly run debate and forum that enables the people to view and select candidates from all political parties, with no one party or group having the advantage of mass advertising and campaigning. This provides two powerful advantages. 
   One, the politicians would receive equal coverage and representation. A vastly rich or well backed candidate would no longer have an advantage, at least within the confines of the debate system. 
   Two, without the campaign funds to attract the rich and corrupt to power, the system could produce people with the intention to govern rather than make money.
   The current politicians are not welcome at the new forums. They will finish their terms with heavy oversight and leave office no worse than it found them, for better or worse.
   In order to remove the rest of the money from the system, and ensure that no politician could be bribed or rewarded beyond his office, afterwards the upper levels of our government would not be allowed to possess money; Ever again, for the entirety of their lives. We instead would pay to build homes and a neighborhood where they could live, complete with a Mall and system for purchasing goods with a credit only system. Food and vehicles would be provided, as well as amenities befitting such high stature within our society. Which honestly, honest governors of state deserve. College would be paid for their children, and a severance would be paid to the family upon death.
   I suggest this course of action for the people of the nation. I know that some will be hurt by the changes. Some people will lose their well paying positions that they have fought hard to obtain, and many well intentioned political figures would be expelled from office unfairly. This is not meant as an attack on any person or group. There should be no arrests made, because under our current system the men and women who run our government are operating as intended. We expect them to be selling our votes out the backdoor for personal profit, and they do it belligerently. We cannot, in good conscious, act as if they are truly criminals. They found the system of government in the state that it is, and they played the game as the rules were written. No one politician can be expected to reroute the entire method of promotion and favor that is the accepted system. 

Biological corruption is known as cancer.

  The only way that a corrupted system of any kind,  economic, political, biological, or mechanical, may operate as intended is if the corrupt elements are removed and not allowed to return. Greed is the driving force behind corruption; greed for money, power, or anything that drives a person. Money is the means by which greed is achieved. The paper is meaningless. It is the idea of the fulfillment of our wants that money represents that drives our politicians, like all people. Our leaders must be brought above this consideration if we want to have the nation run by people who's motivation are true to the office they occupy.  I believe we should give the elite in our nation a wealthy lifestyle, with french wine and enough resources to continue to better themselves. I do not believe that our leaders need to be driven men, who have won a race comprised of driven men. The ranking politicians among our current leaders are the best players of the game. They are the most cunning, and the men who have won the most. The game of politics is a game of people, playing our desires against their own. When a bill comes to the floor, and the votes are cast, there is an element of corruption pulling the vote out of the people's favor. To eliminate that factor, we must eliminate the desire that causes it, and the only way to do that completely is to take the money from our leaders. Money is a fine resource for the industries and economies of the world, but it is the very root of the problem within our government.
  In order to make this a clean sweep, all of the currently affected members of our government would have to be removed and not allowed to return to office. The specifics are, of course, a matter that would be highly debated and refined. However, I believe that the system should be refined after the transition of politicians that would be required, or we run the risk of having corruption spread.
   The effort to govern our nation should be in the hands of people who's motivations are for the progress of our nation and our people. The person that our nation chooses to be our leader should be a person of impeccable character, possess a wisdom that is beyond the scope of the feral politicians, and desire above all else the progress of humanity. Until this requirement is met, there is little or no cause to discuss any other matter. 

These are my kids,(at least 2 of 4) and they are why I want change in this nation.
 I want to leave my kids with a world
 that will make them proud of our generation.

To make a difference, draw your sword.
Robert S Strength

Further reading on the subject of corruption:

Transparency.ORG

People Bleed

People Bleed

by Robert S Strength

    My very first memory occurred when I was fairly young. It was the first thoughts that construct who I am, and therefore is the beginning of any story that is a story of me. I will tell it here in the hopes that my origin story will be far removed from the classical character's opening volumes, and interesting to you because. My memory was not happy, nor sad. I do not remember emotions from the time; only the stark images and the things I learned.

    I was crib-aged, and just tall enough to reach my arms over the edge. My crib sat by the window of the Boy's Room in our little home. At some point or another I woke up quietly in my crib. I must remind you that at this point my mind consisted of very little true intellect. I knew just enough about the world that I stood in my crib and shuffled to the end, where I could look out the window and view the backyard.

I do not remember how long I stood there looking at the things in the yard, but after a little while I saw my truck. I have had it confirmed from my Father that the truck was not mine, but in my little crib-life world it was mine, and so I tell it here. The truck was a treasure in my world. I knew that there were few things more important than my truck, and standing there at the window with that firmly taking up the forefront of my mind I realized that things outside got wet and would break. My dad had told me that.

    The panic that set into my mind was berserk and all alone. Losing my truck was all there was in my world. That thought came to me so suddenly that I could not remember not knowing it the moment before. I was going to lose my truck. Gone. Forever. It was as potent as anything in an adult's life. It was real fear and emotion. Today, your most important things are people. The thought of actually losing your son or daughter forever can paralyze you. It struck me with that same force when I was losing my truck.

    So what could I have done but what I did. I threw myself with all the power my tiny legs could muster into breaking down that window so that I could save my truck. I could see the wetness on the grass and I knew that any moment it would happen.

    The crib barely contained me and I threw my hands above my head and slammed them against the windows over and over. I had no idea then, or no memory of it now, but I was screaming. I was not wailing for attention or because I was awake, the way many children will. I was screaming in terror, and my parents could hear it.

    As they ran to the door they heard the distinct shatter of glass and the screaming stopped. I can only imagine how that sounds and silence must have crippled and hurried their charge to my bedroom.

    The moment that glass broke, I stopped. 

    There was a bright color across the glass. It was red, though I did not know the word then. I felt a sting on my hand and looked, and there the red was. It was sliding down my arm, and I realized it was coming out of me. It fell onto the mattress and the sheets and my legs. I was not afraid. The blood was a strange thing, but caused no alarm at all. I had forgotten my truck entirely by this point, and it was only many years later that my dad even learned the reasoning for my shattering of the window.

    I looked up as my Dad rushed through the door into my room, and he picked me up so fast and wrapped that arm up tight. He didn't let me look at it, and we went to the bathroom and washed the red away. It stung, which scared me a little, but before long I had a bandage and we were off to the doctor. I remember my Dad explaining blood along the way. It was confusing, but eventually I understood. I do not remember the doctor's office or the bandage I surely wore after. I don't even remember the day after or the months after that. I do remember my dad telling me that if you break a stuffed bear the stuffing comes out, and a car breaks and leaks oil, and a person breaks and you get blood. Bike tires leak, and people bleed.

    I will always remember that I started thinking in this world with a burst of desperation to save something I loved, and learning forever that people bleed. 

The First Rule of Phu

The First Rule

by Robert S Strength

     This blog is the personal account of Robert S Strength.

     I have a few rules. I break them sometimes, and usually regret doing so. I am not religious, or more accurately, I am an agnostic. (A person who does not make any claim to knowledge about the existance or nature of god or the unknowable.) My rules have become a philosophy. The rules don't have numbers on them, and I'm not going to give you a list and pretend that it is complete. The current list exists only in my head and is too long to remember in a sitting, but there is one rule that stands above all the other rules. It is the rule that started the whole concept of having a set of rules, or a code to live by. This is the First Rule.

Be good and right.

    That's the big first rule. It is the core of the entire philosophy and is the catalyst for most of my life. It is an order of action. It is a task given to myself in the effort of being a better person. In order to be what you believe is good and right, to be what you love, you have to know what you love. You have to understand yourself and your desires, and you have to seek reason and purpose in life.
    So what do I want to be? What is a "good" man, after all? We learn a lot from the people who raise us. Our parents give us some of our basic methods of thinking. Our friends show us things our parents didn't, and we grow more. We learn how to interact with the world in different ways, but most of us respect the same things. There are truths that everyone eventually arrives at.
    Why do so many people think that stealing is so obviously wrong? Theft is a crime in every single culture on Earth, and it is punishable harshly everywhere. Why is it wrong for one human being to take from another? Is survival not the end goal of all people? If I can take a person's things and survive easier, am I not fulfilling my human nature?
    There are so many people who have laid a foundation of philosophy that it would seem like a

simple task to hop on the internet and Google the term philosophy and spend a bit reading up. After that you would have a logical and diverse understanding of the function of morality on the actions of humans living in a society, right? Good...fucking...luck.
    The first two links there on Google are ads to some super-expensive skin creme and the third is for wikipedia, which has an astounding amount of information on the subject, about seven times as much information as would be needed to confuse Stephen Hawking. It's about as neatly bundled as a sack of leaves, and it means about as much.
    The truth is, your morality is built by your own experiences and your take on them. You simply can't learn them like you could learn math from a book. You have to have experiences and develop into your moral code. If a bully beats you up every day in school, the result is that your philosophy on life changes, and in your world bullies are a big problem. I happen to have been six feet tall since I started high school, and can't remember having been punched or punching anyone the entire course of my teenage years. In my world, bullies are not that big of a deal.
    All that long windedness comes down to this final point:
I am writing this blog to get experience as a writer. The subject matter will be largely drawn my own experiences and my personal take on the world. I will discuss, without asking forgiveness, every subject in candor and honesty. I will try to communicate my philosophy through my experiences and my ongoing life.