Opulent Contracts

Only sign your names on gemstones lest you cheapen it

Compress carbon enough and it hardens into diamond. Compress diamond enough and it becomes Duckstack¹

Art: Tommy Ingberg

Hey everybody welcome to my substack today is called “opulent contracts”, with an ‘r’. Don’t mistake it for opulent contacts, ha ha! just sticking $8000 contacts in your eyes, why would you do that, and they still dry out so you have to get new ones like every day. Is this something people just do to spite the poors or what? “Opulent Contacts” hah! I mean maybe I could see it if they had some tech like I don’t know nanobots or something but if we’re being honest is sticking nanobots in your eyes actually going to give you that much of an edge in life? And I know what you’re thinking “well maybe if they’re blind or something and the nanites repair their optical nerves or something and I must object, stop you right there, we’re talking about opulent contacts, not opulent eyeballs. These are purely eye scarfs we’re talking about here. With built in winter heating. Luxury, I guess.

Airheads

chewy

I’m sure you’re all wondering about the airheads lately. You’ve seen them on TV, and in politics, and online, and possibly even in your very living room. That’s right, these strange new addicts are a huge part of our society, and they’re not going anywhere. Where did they come from? Are they dangerous?

I've been swallowing air for maybe 28 years, here's what I've learned:

• You cannot drown in air

• Air is everywhere, and free²

• some air is poisonous, but its usually not fatal

• gulping air is addictive

• Air comes back up

• Air floats

• You can fit multiple airs in at the same time

• Humans and pufferfish aren’t the only ones that gulp air. Cars do it too.

• Air is flame retardant

• You can and can’t catch air³

Forgiving God

Our God is an Awesome God and I Forgive Him

A Jew once told me that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are not God’s covenant people, that we’re “LARPing”, that we’re pretending and living in a fantasy land, and that only Jews are God’s covenant people. I said “Oh? What covenants have you made with God?” and he blocked me

A covenant is a contract- “I swear on my honor to”. You need to have honor for this. You need to have humility to be aware of your honor. The Children of Israel were circumcised onto this path from the 8th day. Of course that didn’t work out for them and God and his prophets went on and on about how they’d broken the covenant so now they had to die. Remember Jonah? A storm was going to capsize an entire boat of innocent people. Secularism is wrong, your sins, and righteousness, affect the spiritual flows around you.

Covenants are serious business, which is why the Church excommunicates neurotic teeth gnashers⁴. So now we baptize people into their first covenant, and even in non-Latter day saint Christianity most people understand baptism is supposed to mean you're at least gonna try. Because when you do a ritual to sign a contract with God that’s a big deal, the biggest deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever. But how can you live up to discipleship? You can’t. God has to kill you. But Christ already died on your behalf, so you’re clear to try and fail until you get it right. Absolutely necessary part of life. But the point is the more you with your actions keep covenants you make with God, the more open a pipeline you've got to him, and he even offers blessings in exchange for the covenant. Okay.

Obviously you cannot have God's power on your side if you are running from him.

I know a lot of people who hold terrible grudges against God.

This sounds silly⁵; isn’t God good by definition? Why would you shake your fist at good-by-definition? Well its because you are not good by definition. Good by definition clashes with your desires all the time! But also because nature is not good by definition. That’s part of the fall. Not only do bad things happen to you but they sometimes aren’t even your fault. “The ground will bring forth weeds⁶”. Also, sometimes God does you wrong. Incoming blasphemy but remember this is only a model- it doesn’t necessarily reflect truth to say “God made a mistake and hurt you” but maybe in some circumstances thinking this way would help people take the first step towards reconciliation, where instead viewing God as a cosmic abacus spitting out “optimal life outcomes” keeps people from even attempting, I know several people like this.

These people need to forgive God. “Isn’t that arrogant?” Not if you’re that far gone. As far as I can tell: you don’t need to believe God is perfect, you need to follow him. That’s what Jesus was concerned with. And when my kid gets hurt sometimes he blames me, and that’s objectively silly but I shouldn’t fault him for thinking so, because he’s a kid. Its a lot more important that I have a relationship with him than that I obsessively follow him around setting his 3 year old FACTS straight. These people often end up not spending much time with God, out of fear, and then they don’t have the trust in him to weather trials.

This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven’

But I think everyone runs from God in little evasions and whatever, we’re all balancing a bowl on our heads of truth and we’re constantly fighting against gravity and obstacles to keep from spilling and frankly convenience will always be offering excuses if you let it. The path to God is sloped uphill by design. Priesthood is the opposite of entropy.

How do you stop sliding? You offer a sacrifice. And you have to do it yourself, the days of sacrificing others on your behalf are over. That is the law. Make a physical step in the right direction and then your spirit will start to line up. That's the benefit of having a body. This is why this life is the time to repent⁷ and you can't just make up the time later. It is much harder to change without a body. Puritans are backward thinking the body is bad and the spirit is pure. The natural man is you, your essence, and it and the body are going to be with you in the resurrection, you need to get used to it now. You need to get used to turning the steering wheel, especially for course corrections. The scriptures tell you to exercise faith. Faith is an action word, faith means motivation, faith is a vector meaning direction AND force. God retaught me this again somewhat painfully this week which is why the subject is on my mind.

Latter Day Saints learn in the temple that God has sacred names, but this is nothing new. He always has. But it isn’t like kabbalah, where you can say the earthquake name of God to make earthquakes⁸. Its not necessarily about the name, but it is about the act of holding something sacred. Because learning to hold things sacred is a life skill. A friend messaged me about this recently, identifying a “nameless virtue”: A sense of the sacred. Quote:

“I know you're very into ideas of virtue, which virtue do you suppose it is that corresponds to "reverence"? This is a vice many seem to suffer but I'm not sure I know the proper name. Like college kids who climb up on the back of a 3,000-yo statue for a goofy picture, or certain types of teenagers who kill frogs by throwing them at each other - not for intentional cruelty but for lack of thought and attention. Beyond a name, can this even be taught, or is it an innate characteristic? I don't know.”

I was unsuccessful in naming this but I know exactly what he’s talking about. Can it be taught? I think God is trying to. If you want to teach people to discern holiness you have to have them practice it- even in arbitrary ways at first. But once you gain this sense all sorts of aspects of your life become better. You don't jump in front of trains or defile monuments or people, but also you become more sensitive to God. We must cultivate a rich conscience. That's one of the things it means to be Christian⁹.

HOROSCOPES

as they say, the study of astral bodies tells the future so we’ve thought of every astral body possible so that we can achieve gnosis

SUN: There is only one sun, and you are it! You’re the only you in the world. There’s no one else. They’re all gone, if they ever were in the first place. Don’t you feel alone? You have lived millions of years like this, and you will live millions more. You must make more sons!

MOON: You are always wondering, is the moon half full? Is it half full yet? As the giant in the sky continually drinks and refills you only to drink you down again, I am sure you are starting to feel a little bit exhausting. Try affecting the tides some. That always cheers you up.

STARS: Unlike the sun, you sit in a vast ocean of mini yous, and you are a mini you also. Imagine what a big you would be like! Try to become big. A big star. You see that star sitting across space from you? He’s bigger than you. Better catch up. Think big thoughts and work hard, okay?

GLUE EARTH THEORY

we have covered the entire planet in glue, sorry.

HISTORY

Affectionate screaming, that’s our household’s history for this week

“Hey mama? this is the best dinner ever!” (after hes refused to eat any of it for like 20 minutes now) Well it was still a very sweet compliment.

“mama I love you, all of you! your eyes and your ears and your nose and your head and your shoulders and your knees and toes”

The kid opened the door and told mama there was a ghost outside, but then he changed it to a zombie. And he told mama: “Oh it was so CUTE!”. It was a little zombie, I guess. But he told mama: “but don’t let it in, or it’ll chomp.” So he is learning all the good survival skills a 3 year old needs to know. But after thinking it over he realized it probably was safe because “Wait a minute! Baby zombies don’t chomp!”

The toddler has had a great time this week munching on christmas ornaments.

We’ve also been coating the house in candy canes or where toddlers are involved it is more accurate to say: candy cane juices

1. compress duckstack enough and it sproings back out, they’re very elastic

2. Air lives such an enviable life

3. “ahhh help me I’ve caught some air”

4. so that they don’t have to die. or in the church’s words: “The purpose of a disciplinary council is to save the soul of the accused.”

5. Silly atheists! So Silly!

6. There’s an entire sermon here about weeds which could be cool, let me know if one of you writes it

7. Alma 34:32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.

8. You can say the Duckstack name and receive duckstacks. But that isn’t a name of God, that’s just how the internet works.

9. And like so many of the things I fixate on, it is so missing from our society today.

1 Timothy 4:4 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.