Elementary Penitentiary
In their role as prison guards, all teachers are responsible for losing the keys
My dear readers, I have a confession to make regarding last week’s letter. To my great regret and shame, yes, I must admit it: I have trolled you. Yes, I know, you would never expect such a thing from one such as I, but here I am, having taken a page right out of the alt-right handbook and performed a regu’lar troll. You see, the duckstack doesn't have any paid subscribers.
Yes, as you know, the duckstack is supported entirely by contributions to your PBS station by viewers, like you. Indeed, any paid subscribers I may have are either 1) imaginary, or 2) CIA assets. Any CIA members reading the duckstack would be considered “paid viewers”, in that I pay taxes, in order for them to view my content, so that they can make sure I don't attend any political rallies in favor of my country. To any imaginary CIA viewers reading the duckstack: welcome. Help yourself to the imaginary chips. Regular readers don't have access to the imaginary chips- that's for paid subscribers only.
History
At this time, according to our best scientific measurements, my life is 1/3rd sleeping, 1/3rd working, and 1/3rd scrubbing materialized marker off of the walls. Everyone is born with superpowers, it says so in corinthians1. My son’s gift of the spirit is the ability to teleport, or form2, crayons and markers into his hand. Truly a marvelous gift for building the kingdom of God! Truly a wonderous blessing! He’s going to be a flowchart man, I can tell.
Think Of The Children
I had a high school Feng Shui teacher, I think her actual subject was English, but mostly she spent our classes talking about “feelings” and “alignment” and stuff, and she once made us watch some movie about some dude’s sex life with a girl named “Summer” and I developed a crush on the girl next to me because we were the only ones obviously uncomfortable with this3.
Anyway, I remember one of this teacher’s sermons was on how children’s books are the most profound thing ever, basically on the lines of “everything I need to know in life I learned in kindergarten” except she thought it was really deep, and then she read us a bunch of books for kindergartners4 and asked us all to clap when one of the characters learned to be nice or share their toys or whatever. I, being a child myself, of course recognize the value of children’s values, but I also being an adult recognize the value of adult values, such as temperance.
A lot of this is idealism, a desire to believe the world has simple solutions. Nationalism and land disputes and complicated dealings with the pride of your neighbor would be a lot simpler if “well just everyone share!” would actually fix it, or if you could get the government to stop taxing you by being kind to it, but in most non-play situations I feel there’s a really complicated matrix of little virtues and priorities at work, and the only thing that really helps you through them is the big virtues: Humility, discernment, forbearance, charity, discipline. When you really meditate on applying any of these things to a big situation, it gets exhausting fast. In figuring out a strategy for some relationships my wife and I have spent hours, because there are just so many variables. The fantasy of children’s books is to sell a story where most of these variables don’t matter, and can be safely discarded.
The danger here is that people start to think Christ gives people a pass based on difficulty, they calibrate their normal to Harry Potter’s “petty classmates, antichrist archnemesis”5 and then when they hit a real life situation that’s what they apply, and if something falls outside their complexity baseline (The church’s stance on gay marriage, for example) they either try to solve it with children’s values (“Just love and be nice, okay?”) or assume its fake outright (“Celibacy? JESUS would never ask such a hard thing of anyone. That has to be outside his plan.678910”)
John C Wright once wrote that women are horrible at writing combat because they don’t have (or develop, or aren’t taught) a sense of chivalry. As he puts it, if you best a man in combat, men extend the hand to help him up as an ally. He’s lower on the hierarchy now, but its explicit, having been proven in combat, and there is a respect between the parties now. However: what monster would attack a woman? If a woman enters combat, it is because every other venue of recourse has been lost, she is a mother bear at last resort to protect her cubs, and will attack as violently, viscously, and brutally as possible. Because of this nature, John C Wright says, this is how women tend to write fight scenes.11 Very binary good/evil and not a lot of middle resolutions. My high school teacher reminded me of this. Stuff about chakras and the rest of the homeopathic package are the same principle, fast and simple solutions that don’t require grappling with anything messy. There is probably also an element of wanting to feel in control; persuasion, diplomacy, forgiveness, misunderstandings, the human element- these are always the high uncertainty portions of our lives. Any solution to our problems without these variables, even if the solution has no explainable12 impact on the problem, has appeal off advertised convenience alone.
A Short Horror Piece
Drip, drip, drip, drip
A Short Fashion Piece
Drip! Drip! Drip! Drip!
A Short Fashion Horror Piece
Davey Jones attended the Met Gala this week, a sign he has been fully accepted into high society and finally left the low society (geographically). He wore a stunning dress of electric eels and live octopuses, with a tuxedo coat of fishes which sources say he would occasionally feed to the rest of his getup. Sources say the caters were incensed by this, as if he had brought a home-made peanut butter jelly sandwich to a fancy restaurant. To make things worse, he kept greeting everyone with “Well met, well met!” though perhaps he just thinks this is what you are supposed to do at the “Met” Gala. In any case, the final straw was during the square dance, where his octopoid garments would cling to and occasionally strangle his partners to death, which left many of the women quite put out. Looks like Davey Jones will be returning to his life as a sea hobo, as I do not think he will be reinvited to the Gala any time soon!
Heffalumps and Woozles
Brought to you by the same guys who did “I wanna know, what you’re thinking, there are some things you can’t hide.”
1 Corinthians 12:8For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
Additional research is required here
The teacher also had us watch movies where like a whole city affirmed a paranoid schizophrenic’s hallucinations as real and stuff, anyway homeschool your kids even in Utah
Truly a microcosm of all high school
I have only watched the first and last harry potter movies but I am decently sure this pretty much covers it
Matthew 10:37He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Mathew 8:22But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
Mark:10:21Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
Mark 8:35For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
Mark 10:11And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. 12And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
This content is protected now, but the source was a scathing review of The Last Jedi. https://www.scifiwright.com/2018/07/the-last-straw-01-star-wars-anonymous/
I mean they explain how the energy flows in the room and then your orientation to that part of the room affects how the other energies you encounter react in order to bring you the winning lottery ticket or whatever, but the grain of truth in these things is, like a children’s virtue, elevated way out of proportion, its impact overestimated, and its costs undersold.