Pontificating

 Greetings.  Thank you for reading my book.  A journey of mind, yours and mine, of ideas.  A dive into philosophy and theology.   It’s based on my blog, with the aim of greater organization and better readability.  More rational, less insane.  And hopefully even more fun.  My name is Jesse Lawrence Teshara.   There’s another Jesse Teshara, I discovered (thanks, google/ facebook/ linkedin).  I don’t know his middle name.  The odds of it being Lawrence must be pretty low.  He’s a cook and an aviation ordnance man for the US Navy, from Livermore.   My uncle, my dad’s brother, Tom Teshara (d.  2017), worked for the Navy, too.  I actually met someone who knows this Jesse.  I imagine there’s some fun possibility, there.  Anyway, I’m a writer, a blogger, a thinker, a philosopher, a theologian, and an author.  My blog is “God’s Blog."   

Anyway, stick with me, we’ll get there here, too.  Where’s there?  Not to be too depressing, but death.  The universal fate.  The fun is the ride, the meaning what we make, and the joy in being yourself, if not love.  Immortality is just a concept.  A delusion.  Oblivion is the reality.  So what’s the meaning of life?  Mean, to be literal.   Or kind, if that’s more your style.   I was voted Most Kind in grammar school (St. Stephen’s), and I want to keep that designation.  Not all rides are fun.  I crashed my car (in ’94?), and my teenage sister died.  Horror, and tragedy.  It’s hard to get much worse.  Well, there’s Hitler and Stalin and Mao.  But it was still pretty damned heinous.  Moving on, hopefully I can make up for this depressing mistake, and leave the world better than I found it.  That accident was almost 30 years ago.  I turn 50 in about a week.  About halfway there.  To whom much is given, much is expected.  I have sinned in what I have done and what I have failed to do.  But I have also done some good.  Glorify God with your life, is what they say.  So, learn from my mistake(s), and be good, better, best.  Be all that you can be.  Get on with it.  Git’ r done.  Go slow.  May the force be with you.  First, do no harm.  Second, make a difference.   Third, be content and have equanimity.  Fourth, love life.  Fifth, die without regret, and sixth, leave a legacy of love.  Allright?   Just don’t be evil.   That’s good.   The bar is low.   And only God is good.   So be God!

What is God?  God is love, one, a man of war, good.   A word, a concept, a role, an identity, a status, a deity, a higher power, and a supreme being, a principal object of faith.  A heavenly father, a creator, the source of all things good.  A good and glad guide - dog, backwards.  The Most High (religion is the “opiate of the people”).   Reality is all the God there ever is.

What is reality?  “The only world that should always be used in quotes.”  What is “reality”?  It’s an anagram of re-Italy.   Or a little real, if you want to emphasize the “ity” (itty-bitty).  Virtual reality has virtue in it, kind of.  Real reality, to get real, is war and death and horror and pain and grief and sorrow and sadness and loss and misery and sickness and cruelty and aging and depression and madness and nausea and hell, punctuated by brief bits of good sex and delicious food.  Some love, some hate, and a lot of dissatisfaction.   The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.  Nature is red in tooth and claw.  The world is a vampire.  You do what you can.  Life is good!  Seize the day!  Life is nasty, brutish, and short.  Be kind, compassionate, virtuous, loving, friendly, forgiving, happy, generous, true, honest, caring, curious, engaged, funny, fun.  Don’t lose your inner child, and remember to play, share, and look both ways.  

What is love?  Wanting others to be happy.   To dispel suffering, and increase joy.  A noun, and a verb.  Love all, serve all.  Be a person for others.   Be a role model, an example, a leader, someone to look up to.   Do your best.    A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.  On your honor, do your best, to do your duty, to god and your country, to keep yourself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.  Be healthy, wealthy, and wise.  

What is wisdom?  A know it all?  Or, sympathy and empathy and mirror neurons and putting yourself in other’s shoes and compassion for all, even the most wicked and savage and cruel, diabolical and devilish, tormentors and torturers.   It’s in all of us.  The one you feed.  Love and forgiveness, caring and concern and loving-kindness.  Be good.  Religion, in a nutshell.  Don’t be evil.  Being a blessing, answering prayers, obeying your better angels, cruel to be kind, in the right measure.  Spite, malice, and revenge?  Monstrous menace, depraved evil?  The dark side?   Savagery, brutality, cruelty, and vicious victimization?  Well, leave it to the civilized legal system, and of course, the law of karma.  God is good.  Some monks delight in solitary confinement, out of free will… May the (police) force be with you!  Wisdom is...no-self,  a candle, an hourglass, a bubble, cut flowers, a dead end, moments lost, like tears, in, rain.