This evening I was all set to write about a different subject. Then while eating dinner, I watched an episode of a streaming series that I've become addicted to. I'm on season 4 of the seven seasons, having belatedly discovered this show.
Which is going to remain nameless, because I don't enjoy having plot twists revealed in a series that I'm watching, and I don't want to run the risk that I'll do the same to someone else.
Good actors with good scripts can convey messages about life that are deeply moving. I was hoping to be able to share a video of the actor saying what I've transcribed below, but such doesn't seem to exist. So I replayed the scene with a pen and notepad in hand, getting his words down as best I could.
What follows is almost entirely accurate. To set the scene, the actor, who plays a well-known attorney seeking political office, was prepared to tell a press conference that he was going to withdraw from a race, because a shameful truth about him was going to be revealed by an opponent.
He has those remarks in hand. Then he puts them away. What came next captivated me. Reading his words won't be nearly as powerful as watching them acted on screen. Still, the message resonated with me big time: none of us should fear speaking the truth about ourselves.
Unless we have a very good reason not to. Even then, generally it is better to be open and transparent -- naturally with exceptions. Most of us feel that if other people knew who we really are, they wouldn't like some parts of us.
Maybe. However, it's also possible that because everybody is hiding something from other people, an act of radical honesty would be refreshing, not off-putting. I could say more, but I'll let my transcript of the scene where the attorney reveals his secret do the talking.
Nope. Not going to read that one.
"A lie," the wise man Winston Churchill purportedly said, "goes halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants off."
But, uh, I have a feeling that this truth will find its way quick enough. It's high time for truth, for openness, for unburdening.
I'm not here like most politicians might be to ask you to trust me. No, instead I'm asking if I may trust you. With my deepest fear. Which is that you might know me for who I really am.
The idea of a prosecutor is to expose that which is hidden away, the evil, the dirty, the crooked, and the untruthful, to shed light, to reveal what is under all that darkness.
And I've come to realize that to do it right, I must first shine light on my own dark parts. Which is why I've asked you all here today.
You know what, I'm just going to say it. I, uh, in my private life, in the confines of my happy marriage, with my consenting wife, practice sadomasochism.
Uh, yeah. Bondage. Dominance. All the rest. Masks. Binds. Ropes. Fire. Wow, even just saying it like that I can feel my shoulders loosen for the first time in decades.
I am a masochist. In order to achieve sexual gratification I need to be tied up, pinched, whipped, kicked, or otherwise tortured. By my loving wife.
And here's the bigger truth. All of us need something, right? I don't know what you do in your bedroom, with your loved one.
But I do know that you're probably a little embarrassed about it. You probably don't want the rest of us looking at you while you do it. Unless that's your thing. And if so, great.
But wouldn't we be better off if we didn't let shame win, if we didn't feel sheepish, like we need to hide what moves us?
There are those who believe I've just ended my legal and political careers. They don't think that you can handle what I've just told you.
I know that you'll get it because, at the end of the day you want the truth. At worst, maybe it won't stop you from getting to the polls to support me.
But at best, maybe on the way you tell someone who you really are. And maybe they like it. And maybe you feel just a little more comfortable in your own skin. As I finally do in mine.
OK, having typed in the transcript, I decided that because I like what was said so much, Iwant to share a You Tube video of the last part of the politician's speech. It begins with a spoiler alert, but you're going to know the show I'm watching from the video. That's the price to be paid for seeing a great acting job where a powerful messge is conveyed.
Understand: the attorney, though invariably fascinating, is a complex mixture of good deeds and bad deeds. Revealing who he really is in the bedroom was both good and bad. It made him feel better and took away a threat to use his secret against him, and surely inspired others, but his wife wasn't at all pleased with him. Such is life, a mixture of good and bad.
Back to basics: our faithless faith and commenting policies
It never hurts to return to the basics. So in this easy-to-write post I'm going to copy in one of the first posts I wrote after I started this blog in 2004, "Our Creedless Creed," plus this blog's commenting policies.
Regarding the latter, note that comments are supposed to stick to the subject matter of a post. I'm flexible about this, but today two commenters (UM and Nimfa) engaged in an almost entirely irrelevant series of eleven chat comments on a post about the RSSB guru's authoritarianism.
That's unacceptable.
As you can read in the commenting policies, off-topic comment conversations should go in an Open Thread, which I call "free speech for comments." When people read a blog post, a newspaper story, or such, then click on the comments, they expect to find comments about the subject that's been written about.
Hijacking comments for purely personal purposes is a form of spam. Again, I'm fine with an occasional off-topic comment, and admit that I haven't been consistent in enforcing this rule, but don't be surprised if your comment is deleted if it doesn't pertain to the topic of a blog post.
Here's Our Creedless Creed. It's in the category of "Basics of our faithless faith." I'm impressed that after 18 years of blogging, during which I've become steadily more atheistic, there's nothing that I would change in the creedless creed other than the last item. Currently I don't think it is likely that death provides any final answers.
If you think that any of these statements are inaccurate, make your case in a comment on this post. That will be totally on-topic! I'll add numbers to the items to make it easier to comment on them.
UPDATE: I decided to add "any possible" before "immaterial reality" to make clear that currently there is no evidence of an immaterial reality separate from our universe. And I added "may" in the final item of the creed to make clear that if consciousness ends with death, as is very likely, getting any answer after death is low probability but still possible.
Our Creedless Creed
Note: to make this Creed more readable, some qualifiers have been omitted. So "God" signifies God/ultimate reality/final truth, not just a personal divinity. And "religion" signifies religion/spiritual path/philosophy, not just a mainstream theology.
(1) There is no objective proof that any religion knows the truth about God. If there were such proof, most people on Earth would have converted to that faith long ago and all scientists would be believers.
(2) Spirituality thus is an individual affair. Proof of any metaphysical realities that exist will be subjective, not demonstrable to others.
(3) Every person has the right to pursue their own spiritual quest without interference, so long as he or she doesn't interfere with the rights of others.
(4) Since the veracity of each and every religion is unprovable, equally unprovable are the moral and ethical tenets derived from any and all religious teachings.
(5) Thus morality also is an individual affair. There are no absolute laws of right and wrong as there are absolute laws of physics. Subjectivity rules in ethics.
(6) Individual ethical decisions may be formed into a collective codification of societal norms, or laws. These are purely human, not divine.
(7) Science is the surest means of finding truth. Theory, experiment, analysis of data: such are the tools of science, whether directed toward knowing material or any possible immaterial reality.
(8) Religious teachings are hypotheses to be confirmed through individual research. As such, they must not be taken as gospel truth by adherents of a particular faith.
(9) Religious doubters, skeptics, and heretics should be honored for their efforts to assure that unproven assertions about God are not put forward as solid truth.
(10) Every adherent of a particular religion should say to himself or herself, "I could be wrong." If he or she won't do this, other people can say it for them: "You could be wrong."
(11) This creedless creed of the Church of the Churchless also could be wrong. It needs to be reexamined and revised regularly.
(12) Death may provide the final answers (if only momentarily). The spiritual quest is to get answers ahead of time. But the big question is, "What are the questions?"
And here's this blog's commenting policies.
You're welcome -- even more, encouraged -- to leave comments on Church of the Churchless posts. Some of the most interesting writing on this blog comes from other people, not me, Brian the Blogger.
All I ask is that comments be in accord with the following policies. Otherwise a comment probably will be deleted or edited.
(1) No personal attacks on me or other commenters. Challenge the message, not the messenger. Best: You're wrong, because... Semi-OK: You're a fool, because... Not-OK: You're a fool.
(2) No extreme obscenity. Write as if you were in a congenial coffeehouse discussion group, not a high school locker room after your team lost the game in the final seconds. Mild swear words are fine. But goddamn it, don't go over the top.
(3) No rants about the uselessness of this blog. If you're a religious believer, I can understand why this blog could make you angry. Solution: don't read it. If you need to vent, leave a comment on my "I Hate Church of the Churchless" anti-site, not here.
(4) No commercial or religious spam. Advertising, in a comment or a URL, obviously isn't acceptable. Neither are lengthy quotations from a religious scripture, or preachiness. See #5 below.
(5) No irrelevant comments. Please stick to the subject matter of a post in your comment. If you want to talk about something else, leave your comment in an Open Thread, email me with a blog post suggestion, or use the Google search box in the right sidebar to find a previous post on this blog concerning your "something else." (Note: Open Thread comments also should adhere to the policies above.)
(6) No trolling. On the Internet a "troll" is someone who tries to disrupt normal discussions through various annoying behaviors. Here's some ways to recognize a troll. Best response to them: no response. Their sad lives thrive on attention, so ignore them.
(7) No false "facts" about critical issues. As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. This applies to this blog, especially about COVID-19 and other critical issues. Blatantly false comments won't be published if they're about life and death or other critical topics such as global warming.
Lastly, one of my pet peeves is how uncourteously many people behave on the Internet. "Flame wars" aren't productive, so try to keep your cool if you disagree with what somebody has said.
I agree with Wikipedia's take on Flaming:
Posted at 09:17 PM in Comments, Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (8)