Enemies

i had a thought tonight...

at some point, i think we got a little confused about the word "enemy."

today, our enemies seem to be the people we've just...you know: decided we don't like, or that look too different from us, or...i don't even know, really. it's actually rather confusing.

are our enemies the people we hate?
the people who hate us?
are they the people we fear?
the people who've hurt us?
the people we want to hurt?
are they the people we believe are causing some sort of problem or problems in the world?
the people we've just kind of decided that we don't like for some reason - or for no reason at all?

i mean...that's honestly what it feels like. it feels like we just pick some random people/group of people and decide that they're somehow wrong or bad or ugly or responsible or...whatever.

and, frankly, it all feels very, very arbitrary to me.

why should we dislike this or that entire group of people? yeah, there are some duds in there, i'm sure. there are duds in every single group. but isolating an entire group just sounds...

...well, insane. literally.

and here's what i mean, that we seem to have gotten confused about the meaning of the word "enemy" somewhere along the way:

you might remember that Paul talked about enemies, clear back about 2,000 years ago:

"Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink" (Romans 12:20)

so did Jesus, for that matter:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:43-48)

reading these words, it kind of seems like, back then, an enemy was almost...a friend. i mean, sure, maybe you didn't really like them a whole lot.
but you still treated with kindness and helped them and - heck - even provided for them, if it came down to it. in fact, Jesus commanded us to not only be nice to our enemies, but to actually LOVE them.

nowadays, though, it seems rather like an "enemy" is the person we hate and fear and wish bad things for, and they're the ones we wish would leave "our" country (ha! as if a plot of land "belongs" to anyone).

but...i mean, really now. REALLY: that's not what Jesus and Paul described, is it? really.

so where did the disconnect happen?
when did our enemies change from being people we love into being people we hate?

i don't like it one bit. 😟

a Prison of Glass

Often, when people ask me how I’m doing, I’m not really sure how to answer this.

That sentence probably sounds really heavy. Is Aaron depressed? you’re wondering. Is he facing some tragedy I don’t know about?

Not at all, actually. I’m feeling rather content about things these days, more or less.

But for some reason, I’ve noticed that sometimes I feel ashamed to admit that I’m in a good mood.

…yes, that sounds as weird for me to write as it probably sounds for you to read.

It's true, though. Sometimes when I’m at work texting Emily, she’ll ask how I’m doing. Sometimes I want to tell her that I’m happy or in a good mood or that my shift is going well, or any number of things along these lines.

Instead, though, I usually settle on telling her that I’m “fine” or “okay.” Or, worse yet, I try to think of a negative spin to put on it: “I’m okay. Tired, though.” “Meh. I’m alright. Work is pretty busy.”

It’s not that these things aren’t true. I’m tired a lot. And if I tell her that work is busy, this is because work is busy.

If my dominant mood is happy or content, though, why don’t I just say this? Why won’t I let myself simply tell her – or other people – that I’m in a good mood?

I freely admit: it’s a very curious thing. Why should I feel ashamed of saying something positive?

Thinking about this reminds me of something I wrote years ago. I’ll re-explain it here:

One night I had a terrible dream. When I woke up in the morning, I was in a rather foul mood. This happens to all of us, I think. I kept dwelling on the events and the negativity of the dream all morning, and it kept me in that funk.

Later that afternoon, I started feeling better/happier. As soon as I “caught” myself feeling better, though, I literally remember “reminding” myself that I was having a bad day.

For a minute there, I let myself sink again. I soon became conscious of this fact, too, and asked myself, Why am I preventing myself from being happy?

Why do I sometimes seek out different moods that I imagine I’m “supposed” to be in, rather than just let myself be in whatever mood I am actually, naturally in?

This makes sense if I’m in a bad mood, seeking out the good. It’s worth pursuing happiness in that circumstance. But why do I seek out the negative when I’m feeling positive?

These are great questions. Unfortunately, if there are great answers, I don’t know what they are.

Perhaps I am not so happy as I suppose. I have found that this is true of many people. For at least myself, though, what I hope is more likely is that perhaps I am not so unhappy as I portray.

For now, though, I will just try to work on letting myself feel what I feel, and on letting myself express positivity without justifying it or toning it down.

People grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into the reality …

Temperament also enters fully into the system of illusions, and shuts us in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

from Experience by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Answer, part 2

After posting my previous blog (The Answer), a coworker left me a comment on the blog. I, in turn, wrote an answer to him, which, it turns out, far exceeds the character count allowed for comments - ha! It is, for that matter, significantly longer than the previous blog (ha! again), and being such, it seemed to me that I might as well make it its own new blog...

I truly hope that my response comes off as nothing but friendly - not at all a challenge to my friend's comments, but rather, an invitation to look at this topic from a different perspective.

First, then, his comments, in case you missed them:

"I think that the question that so many try to answer is not so much just Life? but What is the purpose/point/meaning of life? Why am I alive? What is my purpose/point? What is the meaning of my life? Does life have significance?

"These are all answerable questions, and the answer that you come up with has drastic implications on your experience of life.

"From a Christian perspective, yeah, I believe that God is 'The Answer' because I believe that Jesus is 'The Life,' and therefore, if I truly want to experience life to the fullest, if you want to truly experience life to the fullest, it must be within Him, because He is the answer to a different question, What IS life? and within Him is pure unadulterated life.

"'...I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.' -- John 10:10"

* * *

In my post, I more or less tried to anticipate the points you brought up – my apologies if I did not do so effectively enough (or perhaps you are aware of this, and are merely trying to express another point of view on the matter? - perhaps you are trying to kindly express that you disagree?).

At any rate, I suppose I could say that the point of The Answer – though I didn't state it directly this way – is that I am trying to express an alternative to our western dualistic mode of thinking (and yes, I am aware of the irony in calling dualistic philosophy “western,” meaning: “as opposed to eastern” – haha).

Yes, we could say that “what is the meaning of life?” is the question most directly on the table here. What I am trying to show in my post, however, is that, it seems to me, this is a non-question. Understand, I'm not saying that there is no answer. Rather, I'm saying that perhaps there is no question.

I would not say that there is anything inherently wrong with wanting/looking for “something more.” And this idea – of “something more” – is, I think, where the meaning-of-life question originates (this is what you're saying too, I believe).

When we treat life as though it is a question, however (by asking things like “what is the meaning of life?”), we are belittling the experience of life. We are assuming that there is another side to the coin.

We are, in all actuality, saying, “life is only half the story.”

What I am proposing is that, it seems to me, life is the full story.

This does not mean that there isn't “something more,” or that nothing happens to us after we die – maybe, maybe not.

But life is one thing, and that “something more”/that place we may or may not go after death is another thing. They are not different sides of the same coin. They are different coins entirely.

Life in and of itself is the entirety of the experience. It has no opposite, no mirror-image, no symmetry.

Though I did not intend to bring a Christian angle into this topic, I will happily meet you there on that point:

You said that Jesus is “The Life” (clearly, of course, referring to John 14:6 - “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life...”). This is a fine interpretation of the matter. It's not what everyone believes, of course, but I can respect and appreciate that this is your – and many millions of other peoples' – stance.

A mathematical way to look at it, if you don't mind:

If, to you, Jesus = Life, why bother turning Life into a question?

1. As I've expressed, turning life into a question (such as “what is the meaning of life?”) = “life is only half the story”

2. Jesus = Life (see John 14:6)

3. Therefore, Jesus = half the story.

I assume (if you don't mind me being so bold; of course I don't mean to put words into your mouth) that you do not believe item 3. And yet, it is the conclusion of parts 1 & 2.

So then:

If Jesus = Life, and Jesus is not only half the story, then Life cannot be only half the story either.

If Jesus is the whole story, then Life is the whole story. Which means that, by extension, Life is not a question.

But of course this is only a way to frame this topic within the realm of Christianity; there are many, many other frames, many other realms.

And really, my larger point isn't meant to be attached to any one religion:

By making life into a question (such as by asking “what is the meaning of life?”), we are bringing a dualism to life that, I believe, is not naturally a part of it.

Rather, I propose that life is the entirety of the story, nothing more or less or other. It is the breath you take in, the moment you realize that watching the sunset could never be a waste of time; it is all of the love and frustration you feel for your children all in one instant, every single day; it is how you treat other drivers on the road, even when they're being unfair; it is the song that gets stuck in your head when you really don't want it to; it is where you are between your thoughts.

I have a tattoo on my arm which reads “the kingdom is now or never.” Because life is an experience, not half of an experience.

It is the experience of looking at a tree and saying “Ah!”

The Answer

Often, you hear people say things about looking for – or finding – “the answer.” What they mean, I suppose, is that they are looking for – or believe they have found – the answer to life.

Christians, for example, like to say that Jesus is “The Answer” – with a capital ‘T’ and a capital ‘A’, of course.

This is fine, I guess. Many people believe they have found “the answer” – whatever it is to them – and I don’t really want to take that away from them.

But, at the same time, when people talk about looking for or finding “the answer,” I can’t help but wonder:

What, precisely, is the question?

Again, what they want is the answer to life, I guess. And yet, life isn’t a question, is it? It doesn't start with a "what" or a "why" or a "how," and it doesn't end with a question mark.

Rather, it seems to me that life is an experience.

The problem, then, is that if we treat life as though it were a question, we are taking something away from it. We are turning life into something semantical, trying to turn it into something more knowable than it really is.

Joseph Campbell once said, “God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying ‘Ah!’”

There is no tree, of course. And, according to Joseph Campbell, there may or may not be a god, either. Rather, what he means is that “God” is something that is meant to be experienced.

Life is the same, I think. If we spend our time assuming that life is a question, then we can’t help but try to understand it. That’s what you do with a question, right? – you try to know it, try to find out its answer.

But maybe the point is to spend less time trying to understand life, and more time just doing life.

Certainly life has many mysteries that are worth unraveling. But it seems to me that – most probably – the only way to really unravel life is to just experience it. It’s not that we shouldn’t wish to understand life. But of all things, life certainly is something that you can’t know until you try.

So try it.

 

 

Freedom of Religion & Gay Marriage

Before reading, hopefully you already know what you're getting into by reading this post, just from the title. And that's your only warning...

* * * * *

I think the problem with the gay marriage debate is that it is entirely missing the mark.

First of all, I feel it’s important to say:

I’m married. And my wife and I do not feel that allowing homosexuals to marry will somehow cheapen, belittle, or “ruin the sanctity” of marriage. The reason for this is remarkably simple: it is because our marriage is not based on other peoples’ beliefs, nor on other peoples’ marriages. In fact, our marriage is not even based on what governments and churches and religions and people consider “marriage” to be or to mean or to look like.

Instead, our marriage is based on what my wife and I think marriage should be.

And that’s it.

Other peoples’ marriages have no bearing on ours, because our marriage has nothing to do with them. If it did, this would be allowing a lot of people into our marriage that don’t belong there.

The sanctity of my wife and my marriage depends solely on the two of us. It is how we treat each other, how we speak to each other and about each other; it is how we handle each other when one of us is having a bad day; it is how we make it a point to always put the other first; it is how we are sure to not withhold love or joy from each other for any reason; it is the things we do and learn and experience together.

Our marriage is sanctified because we sanctify it. Governments and religion have nothing to do with this.

That said: Whoever else is married does not concern me.

Whoever else can get married, however, concerns me quite a bit.

It concerns me because who we allow to get married says something about our country, about the state of the government and the heart of the people.

And when people oppose gay marriage, it tells me that people are willing to violate the United States Constitution to support their own ideas of how the country should be.

To be clear, what I’m saying is: Any way you look at it, to oppose gay marriage is to oppose the United States Constitution.

That this is not being discussed more often is remarkable to me; this fact seems quite self-evident to me. But here we are.

Many people in favor of gay marriage argue that it’s a violation of homosexuals’ equal rights. That may or may not be the case, but that’s actually not the main violation against the Constitution that I see or that I’m interested in discussing right now.

Rather, what I’m more interested in is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Mostly, for our current purposes, I’m thinking of the first bit before the semi-colon: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Very often, people simply phrase this as “Freedom of religion.” So this is what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees us, all the citizens of the United States: Freedom of religion.

And, of course, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

What this simply, literally means is that the government cannot make any law which is based on the teachings of any one religion, nor can it hold any persons accountable to the teachings of any specific religion. The government cannot favor one religion over another, nor can it favor religion over atheism or non-religion.

Again: simply, literally, this means that if a law is made based on a Christian belief, then everyone who is not a Christian loses a piece of their freedom of religion.

That said, my impression of Christians’ opposition to gay marriage stems from their beliefs, from what it is they understand their scriptures to mean, what it is that they believe their God wants and expects from them. This is fine; I’ve no interest in debating whether or not homosexuality or homosexual marriage is “sinful,” nor “what the Bible actually says about it,” at least not in this piece. 

What interests me, however, is that there is not a single argument against gay marriage that is not, ultimately, based on religion.

To reiterate: I’ve never once come across any meaningful, relevant, logical argument against gay marriage that does not, at its core, stem from religion.

If such an argument is out there, I haven’t heard it, and I have yet to imagine it on my own.

So it is that when people use their religion to argue against gay marriage—which, again, is the only basis for arguing against gay marriage—what is happening is that they are indicating that their beliefs should overrule the law. They are asking the political leaders to make and enact laws based on their religion. They are pushing the government to favor their religion over any other.

In short, they are asking the government to take away the freedom of religion from everyone else.

To say that your religion’s beliefs on gay marriage should dictate the laws of the land is to say that people outside of your religion do not qualify for freedom of religion—or at least, they do not qualify for it as much as the people inside of your religion.

Any way you look at it, this is a violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Any. Way. You. Look. At. It.

If your religion says gay marriage is not okay, but my religion—or my lack of religion—says that it is okay, you cannot require or expect me to abide by your religion over mine. The United States Constitution does not allow for this sort of requirement or expectation or, especially, for this sort of law.

Again, whether or not homosexuality is “sinful,” “natural,” or even “okay” doesn’t concern me. What concerns me is that the United States Constitution is being violated, because:

Based on our Constitution, gay marriage should be a self-evident, freely-granted right, which neither religion, nor even one political party or another, has the ability or the right to take away from the people.

You do not have to believe that gay marriage is “okay.” I am not asking you to believe or to think or to feel this way. You are absolutely entitled to your thoughts and beliefs on the subject—in fact, that’s the beauty and the importance of the First Amendment.

However, whether or not you agree that gay marriage is “okay,” this does not give you the right or the privilege to override or violate the United States Constitution—at least, not without undermining the core of our country’s very definition, intention, and spirit.

In Response to a Query on “Blessings”

A friend of mine recently asked (on Facebook), “Christians (though non-Christians are welcome to be friendly contributors): Do we have any hope while living in this world? That is, does God promise any good while we're here? I understand 'in this world you'll have trouble,' but can we expect God's tangible goodness in the present?”

By the time I got around to this post, he’d already received several responses from some of his friends.

In response to one of those replies, my friend further commented, in part, “I mean, we're here now--we aren't later yet. And God has a plan in the present. Does His present plan include understandable blessings, or are all of His blessings retrospective (i.e. we only recognize them as blessings later)?”

Here, then, is my answer (which, characteristically for me, is MUCH too long for a Facebook comment):

* * *

If you're only looking for blessings in the past, you will find them. But that is all you will find: history. A nice story. Something you can read about and say "Isn't that nice" or “How special.”

Conversely, if you're looking for blessings in the future, you will never find them. This is because blessings aren't there. When you look to the future for blessings, you can't do this without having already decided what those blessings will be. "If I get a raise, that will be a blessing." "Wouldn't it be nice if I started dating a wonderful person." “All I need is that new car…”

Sure, a raise would be nice. And dating a wonderful person is a pretty great thing too. But these are blessings that you've pre-defined.

Isn't the point—at least, the point from a Christian perspective—to let God do the defining?

Since blessings, then, don’t have much to do with the past or with the future, they must be momentary. They must be here and now, now or never.

According to Luke’s writings, Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." He didn't say it was in us (past tense). He didn't say it will be in us someday (future tense). He used the present tense.

The kingdom of God is within us. Right now. As you read these words, the kingdom of God is within you.

Perhaps blessings are the same way. Perhaps all of the blessings of God are already within you right now.

What I mean is that, it seems to me, you choose what is a blessing and what is not.

Is having food on the table a “blessing”? – It is if you look at it that way.

Are having a loving family, a good job, or a roof over your head “blessings”? – They are if you look at them that way.

They say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I’m quite certain that blessings are precisely the same.

In a letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler, dated August 23, 1799, William Blake said, "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

Similarly, some people see a sunset and think about how lovely it is that God put it there for us.

Other people see a sunset and think about how marvelous it is that all of the elements of the universe have coincidentally come together just precisely so, leading up to this moment where a rational human being with a seeing eye is able to be sitting here at all, contemplating this beautiful, happy accident.

Still others can’t be bothered to look at the sunset at all.

Who amongst these is the most blessed?

Feel free to answer differently if you’d like, but my answer is both persons 1 and 2, equally. And it has nothing to do with if one, either, or neither of them is a Christian. It only has to do with that person’s perception.

To take this a step further though—and an important step at that:

I said we “choose what is a blessing and what is not.”

But then again, maybe things are blessings not only if we choose to see them that way, but also perhaps they are only blessings if we treat them like they are.

Is having a wonderful spouse a “blessing”? – It is if you look at it that way, and if you treat him/her that way.

I will give you an example:

I used to very often pick fights with people in my mind. It's no surprise, then, that sometimes I would have tense moments with those people in reality. Of course I did. That’s how it goes. This was true of all my ex-girlfriends as well. You will not be surprised to hear that I used to fight with them constantly (yes, in reality).

When it comes to my wife, however, I make it a very conscious point to NEVER pick fights with her in my head. Never. We have been married for six years, together a total of almost eight. And we've been in maybe five fights. Ever.

I've had girlfriends that I've literally fought with more times in one day, than I've fought with my wife in eight years of a relationship.

Unmistakably, my wife is a blessing. But she is a blessing because I look at her like a blessing, and because I treat her like a blessing.

Does it matter, then, where the blessing came from? Does it matter if God played matchmaker and intentionally put Emily and I in a room together so that our sparks would fly, so that we would fall in love and create our beautiful little family?

How could that possibly be relevant?

For whatever reason—God or not—we were in that room together. For whatever reason—God or not—we started talking. For whatever reason—God or not—we started dating. Then we got married. Then we had our son Emerson.

And now, today—right here, right now—I am blessed.

So it is that no matter how these circumstances came about in the first place, I am blessed.

But remember that we choose what we see as a blessing. And remember that things are only blessings if we treat them that way.

And so, inevitably, the most important thing that’s left to say is this: no matter what is a “blessing” and what isn’t, no matter where—if anywhere—“blessings” come from, it is our job to keep the blessing going.

Godless

I saw a homeless person on my way to the hospital, and another on my way back.

On my way to the hospital, there was a man on the side of the road, in his mid-to-late twenties—my age, in other words, more or less—holding a tiny cardboard sign that was too small to read from the center lane. He was smiling, and almost had a slight spring in his step.

On my way from the hospital, there was a girl. She was in her early twenties at the oldest, and had much less positivity in her demeanor. It was about 8:30 at night; she was standing in the small halo cast by a streetlight. Her cardboard sign was larger, more legible. It read:

Young

mother

godless

This struck me as a very peculiar statement for a homeless person to make while asking for help. A hundred or more thoughts ran through my mind about her story, her situation, about what her motivation could be for deciding to write this bold, uncanny statement.

Was she saying that she had given up hope? That she didn't know what to believe in? That, if there is a god, surely he wouldn't have allowed her to come down so far?

Was she saying something about Christians? Has she been burned by Christians? Had they done this to her? Has her general experiences with Christians left her with the impression that she was more likely to receive help from people who do not identify themselves as Christians?

Or perhaps she wanted to distance herself from other homeless people, wanted everyone who passed by to know that she was different from the others. Maybe she simply wanted to be completely honest. Maybe she was trying to say, “You—whoever you are, whoever your god is—you could end up here too.”

It was not until I passed by, seeing her sign from a slightly different angle, that I noticed her hand had been covering the 'b'. In actuality, her sign read:

Young

mother

godbless

On the one hand, this clarified quite a bit. This was more standard. At least superficially, the one letter can make a world of difference; it gave her humble sign almost the opposite meaning. Most probably, none of those thoughts or questions would have crossed my mind if I had seen the 'b' from the beginning.

Then again, on the other hand, I wonder if this one letter still doesn't tell the whole story.

God or no god, was she giving up hope? What did she believe in? Had she ever imagined herself here?

God or no god, was she being honest? Did she sincerely wish God would bless everyone that passed her by, in all of the ways that she herself was not being blessed?

In the end, I'm not so certain how much the one letter mattered.

'B' or no 'b', she was a young, homeless mother in desperate need of help.

Incidentally, an experiment: in that last statement, replace the letter 'b' with the word 'god'.

'B' or no 'b', she was a young, homeless mother in desperate need of help.

God or no god, she was a young, homeless mother in desperate need of help.

The devil is in the details, they say. But then again, perhaps God is too.

The Things We Deserve

On the one hand, I suppose it would be appropriate to have a blog about Thanksgiving, with it just having happened and all.

On the other hand, I feel like that could be a bit trite.

Hmm…

…oh well. Appropriate, trite, or otherwise, read if you dare.

My mom showed me a meme the other day that said “What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?”

And, quite regardless of one’s thoughts on God (i.e. revolving around the possibility of His/Her/Its/Their/Whatever/??? existence), I think it’s still a very interesting point:

In short: Perhaps we only deserve the things that we are grateful for.

Hmm.

We only deserve the things that we are grateful for.

It’s a very different mindset than we’re used to here in the West. The more typical idea around here is that you either work hard for what you have, or else you just get lucky. And either way, that’s just how it is.

If you just get lucky, then the universe/fate/God/karma/coincidence/??? must have good designs for you, and that’s worth being grateful for, isn’t it?

And if you work hard for what you have, then all the more so; perhaps there is even more room to be grateful: In this case, no, there may not be a specific person or entity that you need to explicitly “thank,” per se, but…I wonder if gratitude is something more than just a simple Thank-you and a smile and a handshake.

Rather, I tend to think that thankfulness is more about acknowledging the journey. People often say things along the lines of “It’s not the destination that matters; it’s the journey.” Most people, I suppose, would say that they agree with this, at least passively. Really though, I think that this idea is all about thankfulness, just as much as it may be about embracing the moment and learning from experience and all the other ideals that people more typically draw out of it.

What I mean is, perhaps we could say: Being thankful is how you make the journey matter more than the destination.

Or else maybe: Being thankful is how you continue to make the journey matter more than the destination, even after you’ve reached the destination.

Maybe this topic is trite to discuss, but I think – at least, I very much hope – that being thankful in our lives will never become cliché.

So then, I have to ask: What if you woke up today with only the things you expressed gratitude for yesterday?

Because maybe those are the only things you deserve.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Aaron

A Paradogs

Emily and I spent this past weekend moving. And you probably know that—as you’re packing & unpacking boxes, lifting light & heavy things, sliding furniture across the floor, driving back and forth from one house to the next—you have a lot of time to think.

At some random point during our move, Emily began to sing the Oscar Meyer song (I suspect either because it appears in an episode of the Simpsons, or else because she was hungry—I’m not sure which). I didn’t pay very close attention to her singing it in the moment, but of course the diddy got stuck in my head.

As I listened to the song playing on loop in my mind, I realized something about the lyrics:

It’s a paradox.

I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener

That is what I’d truly like to be

‘Cause if I were an Oscar Meyer wiener

Everyone would want to be like me

Think about it. Break it down logically:

1) Everyone wants what I want

2) I want X

3) Therefore everyone wants X

Those first three steps are fine so far as they go (aside from the fact that they hint at a rather ego-centric, imaginary-audience issue in the singer), but the song specifically mentions a fourth step that really throws a wrench in the works. The word ‘cause at the beginning of the third line is vital here, and makes the meaning:

4) I only want X because everyone wants X

The question is: If he didn’t want to be an Oscar Meyer wiener, would anyone else want to be one? And, if nobody else wanted to be one, would he want to be one?

It’s a closed loop. A paradox. A chicken-or-egg scenario.

I have to wonder: Did the writer/singer of this song intend to create a paradox, or did he accidentally trip into this cosmic, mind-blowing, paradoxical force simply by having self-esteem issues (ironically coupled with imaginary-audience issues)?

After thinking through the grand paradox that is this song—and realizing that surely I must be one step closer to unlocking the mystery of the universe, all because of a hot dog—Emily kindly informed me that I am remembering the lyrics to the song incorrectly. Rather than the last line being: “Everyone would want to be like me,” rather, I’m told, the line is actually: “Everyone would be in love with me.”

That makes much more sense.

It turns out the writer simply has self-esteem issues.

How disappointing.