Fairy Tale Spotlight: God Rested?

After creating the universe in six days, we all know that God apparently rested on the seventh. Now if God is an infinite being, why in the world would he need to do that? The whole idea of being an infinite being is that you are not plagued by the same entropy that we experience. So what gives?

Humans are constantly running low on energy. Whether it is a job or a hobby, we will soon run out of energy and need to build that energy back up. We do this in a number of ways. We eat. We take breaks. We sleep. But at the end of the day, all those things boil down to is one thing: rest. Humans need to rest. We need to rest because we live within a universe that is always sapping us out of our energies. Heck, even if we sit and do nothing all day, we'll still need that rest eventually.

But God is not here. He is outside our system of entropy. He is literally immortal and does not need to concern himself with the very concept of waning energies. If so, why in the world would he actually need to rest. I bet you think I have an answer already prepared, don't you?

Yep.

The truth is that God did not actually need to rest. There was no need for it. His "rest" was merely to take a break and admire his creation. He just wanted to sit and look at it for a bit... and probably smile a little too. He is very much like the painter who spends day after day trying to get every detail correct, and when he finally finished, he just pulls up a chair, sits down, and just stares at what he has done.

God did not rest because he needed to rest. He rested because he wanted to. And amazingly what he did is entirely relatable. We can and should understand why he rested. What he did was more than just creating a standard day for us to go to church. He showed to us that we really are not all that different than he is. After all, we were made in his image. Next time you finish a project and you choose to just sit there, admiring it, understand that that was what God did when he created all of you. We are all human at the end of the day, only one of us happens to be immortal.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: A Strange Spiritual Perspective on Columbo

I grew up watching a lot of detective shows. I enjoyed watching as the various and often flamboyant investigators would solve crimes and capture the perpetrators. Most of these programs would only show you so much of the criminal act so that the detective could figure out what actually happened over the episode. There was one exception to this though: Columbo.

Columbo did something a little different. They would first show the entire crime in full with absolutely all the context you would need to understand it. The titular Lieutenant Columbo often would not even show up until nearly half an hour into the show. We would them spend the rest of the feature length episode watching to see if he would be able to prove what we already know.

Columbo's flamboyancy came from the fact that he played the part of a doddering old gentleman who often seemed like he was not really made out to do this sort of work. It was a clever act he put on that was so convincing that it often fooled the audience itself. He did this so that the criminal would be lured into a false sense of security by, among other things, actually becoming surprisingly endearing to them. I'll get back to that in a bit.

But let's talk about the criminals of Columbo, for they are something I find perhaps the most fascinating of the entire show. As far as I know, they are all murderers, but there is something special about these particular individuals. There are three things that you must absolutely comprehend about the roster of villains in this series, and those three things are as follows:

1. They are supreme geniuses.

2. They are out right sociopaths.

3. The only man in the universe that can best them is Columbo. Period.

Number three is particularly interesting simply because, at the outset, it seems so unlikely. How can someone so big be bested by someone who seems so imperceptibly small. But therein lies some spiritual truths that must be understood.

The villains of Columbo have always come across to me as realistic demons. Not one of them ever seems like they are all that bothered by the murder they commit. They are usually calm and collected throughout. They have an uncanny understanding of the system they live in. They know how to play the game and convince others easily of their innocence. If something goes wrong, they adapt remarkably well. Anything and everything that could happen, they will be prepared for and they will get away with murder... if it were not for only one man.

Columbo is the unsuspecting demon hunter of the series. He would be a good example of what the real thing would be like. He slinks into their presence garnering only a little suspicion, and before they know it, they realize that they have been infiltrated. Yes, the demons are intelligent enough to know what Columbo is early on, but they have not quite realize the existent of his powers. And why would they? These creatures have never met anybody like him.

The fact that they have not met anything like Columbo before actually sparks their curiosity. They begin to want him closer for a while, if only to understand his strangeness. But this is always their mistake. Soon he has infiltrated their minds so heavily that they will soon want only to get rid of him, but by then it is too late. Columbo has learned the truth, and he will not stop until he has them dead to rights.

Because of my perceived spiritual perspective on this show, I have always considered Columbo to be the absolute king of the detective genre. There is not one episode that I did not find gloriously entertaining and powerful to watch. I'm not saying it is the only good detective show. Murder She Wrote is very good, and so is Monk. But I will never be able to shake the near flawless formula of Columbo. It reached a spiritual height that I may never see again in my lifetime. Bravo.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: What is Compassion?

I'll start this blog off with the Webster 1828 definition:

COMPASSION, noun

A suffering with another; painful sympathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration. compassion is a mixed passion, compounded of love and sorrow; at least some portion of love generally attends the pain or regret, or is excited by it. Extreme distress of an enemy even changes enmity into at least temporary affection.

Wow, that was some harsh stuff to read, yeah? I'm still bleeding a little after taking that rather excruciating definition into my head. Even so, it's not wrong. Compassion can often be spurred on by some very negative emotions. We see someone suffering and it causes an empathetic response where we momentarily feel their grief. These feelings cause us to act if there is compassion enough to prompt such an action.

If this definition is true, it is very difficult for us to feel good when acting with compassion. There is a general sense of dread that is shared with the one you are acting on behalf, and this dread often is felt personally as well. If you do not have this feeling then there may be other reasons why you are acting, and it may not be compassion at all. Some people act in this way simply to prop themselves up in the eyes of others. They are not really suffering all that much--just enough to create the necessary image.

Real compassion comes with a sort of dread of one's own sacrifice. We momentarily and sometimes permanently put our happiness away in the name of someone else. While not altogether a bad thing, it can have negative and often lone term consequences. For this reason, I recommend an attempt at self-awareness before engaging in compassion in a large way.

We cannot better help others if we sacrifice too much of ourselves to do it. Furthermore, it can ultimately be detrimental to the ones we are trying to help. Compassion should never be an impulse. It should be a strong and pure drive backed by reason. Jumping off of a cliff to save someone who is already falling will not benefit anyone. The one falling will only have the final moment knowing that someone else had to die too. The actual jump comes across as more of an act on principle with no real benefit but to follow one's own impulses to do it. In the end, everybody dies and the world is a poorer place for it.

Reason can help here. It can help you figure out when to act. Many people in this world is immature. They panic about frivolous things. The smallest negatives can seem like the greatest horrors, when in truth, they will most likely move past these trials with little to no lasting trauma. I've seen this countless times. In a country such as this, many people simply do not have any concept of what true suffering is. So for the compassionate person, it is important to differentiate between those with real suffering and those who are simply crybabies.

I am sorry to say but we are constantly surrounded by a torrent of silly people crying out for silly reasons. Reasons as simple as "Today is not like yesterday." Most of these problems are actually based on aspects of being an infant. Babies tend to freak out when things change or when they have to endure something new that they don't understand. More so, they think that things out of sight have permanently disappeared. Many adults unfortunately carry these sad aspects along with them in life, and it causes them no end of grief. They think they are in a lion's den, but the lion is just on TV.

If you are going to be a compassionate person, do so with maturity in mind. Don't let emotional impulses rule you. Let emotion be balanced by intellectual reason. It is the way we were meant to be. Once we obtain that maturity, we will be better suited to travel this strange and often terrifying journey called life.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest [Video Game Review]

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest is a game for the Super Nintendo by developer Square. It was released in North America in 1992. It is certainly not the worst Final Fantasy ever made, but it is far from the best. Nevertheless, I seem to have an urge to play this game about every 5 years. Maybe it's a sickness. I'm not sure.

The story of Mystic Quest is that an unassuming boy finds out that the crystals of the world have been stolen by monsters, and he has to go on an adventure, fight those monsters, and liberate the crystals to save the day. That's pretty much it! There's no real twists along the way, and you learn that entire story within the first 30 seconds of gameplay. The point of Mystic Quest is not to experience a great, ground-breaking story. Then what is the point? Well... strangely... it's to learn how to play Japanese RPGS.

I'm not joking.

Final Fantasy, Mystic Quest happened because the people at Square thought that Americans would not be capable of handling some of their newest Final Fantasy titles such as Final Fantasy 5 [an amazing game, by the way]. They built Mystic Quest from the ground up to be extremely simplified. There was never a point in the game where I did not felt like hand-holding was happening.

Enemies can be seen before you choose to fight them. Armor is auto-equipped, and you don't have any say on which armor you put on. It just picks whatever will make you the strongest. Your companions are almost always stronger than you, allowing you to level up more easily to be like them later on. Your HP is replaced with a friendly looking bar that drains, although you do have the option to see the numbers if you so dare. [I never did. I think the bar is pretty.]

If you die in battle, the game will ask you if you want to give up. If you say "no," the fight will start over as if nothing ever happened. It will let you try as many times as you want until you win. And it isn't that hard to win. It really isn't. Not really.

From concept to creation, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was made to introduce you to a very simplified JRPG world where all the basic elements exist, and all you have to do is walk the path they laid out for you. No need to explore. It will be obvious what to do.

But why have I played this thing so many times? Well, I do somehow find it just a little bit charming. For one thing, it has one heck of a great soundtrack. I mean... it's nothing by today's standards, but it still makes me smile. The characters you meet along the way are fun despite missing what is most likely a soul.

The way a lot of characters interact feels like they have performed every action in a play so many times over that they know how to do it fast. And so they push me around the board trying to get me on with my adventure so that I can beat my very first JRPG as quickly as possible. Everybody is in a rush! Full conversations last only a few seconds. "What do I need?" "You need to find the crystal of fire!" "Where is it?" "It's over there. You need this bomb! Here! Take it! Bye!" "Okay! I'm going!" BOOM!

I think, perhaps, I may find this rushy writing charming in a comedic way. I always giggle about how frantic and lifeless everyone is. It's like listening to a bunch of toys prattle at each other. There's a story there, and they perform it perfectly every time... but with the fast-forward button on.

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, otherwise known as Baby's First JRPG, is not a bad game. It isn't really a good game either. Do I recommend it? Nah. However, if you are interested in getting into JRPGs but don't understand how they work, this game does perform it's job well on that front. It is entirely designed to be an entry-level game. Just don't expect to get much out of the story... but maybe a few laughs and smiles. For me, I guess I find it relaxing. It's just something I can play every so many years to wind down. I guess that's what it is. It's relaxing. It's a game I play to relax. Sometimes we all need that, yeah?

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Most Dangerous Game [Story Review]

[Spoilers for a famous classic short story.]

"The Most Dangerous Game" is a short story written by Richard Connell and published in 1924. Until about a year ago, I had never heard of this story, but I'm pretty sure I saw adaptations of it throughout my life. The basic concept has to do with the hunting of humans in place of animals. It's a terrifying concept and one that honestly appears to breach out of the realm of fantasy, placing it firmly as a serious possibility.

The movie that peaked my interest into this story was called "Bloodlust!". I happened upon it on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and I really liked the concept. The movie actually follows the plot of "The Most Dangerous Game" very closely with the added horror of the hunter making taxidermy tableaus of his hunted victims. Not a bad addition, if you ask me.

The story exposes a taboo that most people rarely consider, and that is that humans are not to be treated like animals. We may joke and play around with the idea, but, as a whole, we are much more comfortable having the control that being a human being offers us. In "The Most Dangerous Game," that control is snatched away, and you are forced into the role of a beast clamoring for survival. It is clear that we were never intended to be placed in this position.

The villain of the story was a Cossack named Zaroff. He had a giant of a servant called Ivan who was deaf and mute. Ivan reminded me a lot of the Igor type of character found in a lot of Mad Scientist stories. Zaroff was your standard sociopath, but he was a man true to his word.

Everything that Zaroff was had to do with the hunt. He never lied about the hunt. At no point in the story does he ever cheat. Some may think that using his hounds to assist him might be considered cheating, but the use of hounds in a hunt was perfectly acceptable at the time, and even considered sporting. I think my only problem with the adaptation "Bloodlust!" was that the Zaroff character did end up cheating when he saw that he was on the verge of losing. I figure the writers may have opted for that to go out of their way to make the villain as villainous as possible.

After reading "The Most Dangerous Game," I feel like Zaroff was a man of his word, although it was never really fully tested. I suppose the jury may still be out, but that's just how I feel. I saw him as a man who was true to himself. Evil... but true.

This story has been adapted more times than I am willing to bother listing them out. The adaptation list has it's own separate Wikipedia page, and I am fairly certain they missed a few things that I happened to know about. There are a heck of a lot of ways to experience this story.

As I hinted at towards the beginning of this blog, this story feels real because it seems plausible. The idea of elitist people hunting down human beings that are below them can and might have already occurred in some way or another throughout human history. It's not that farfetched! Along with the taboo, I think the plausibility of the story is what makes it so horrific.

"The Most Dangerous Game" comes highly recommended by me. It is well deserving of its classic status. It's very easy to find if you want to read it. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Purple Prince of Oz [Book Review]

[Contains spoilers for a book nobody reads anymore.]

"The Purple Prince of Oz" [published in 1932] is the 26th book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series and the 12th written by author Ruth Plumy Thompson. Although the book does have some fine points, which I will mention, it ultimately falls short of the mark due to some unfortunate habits from the author.

The story follows the adventures of Randy the Gillkin, Kabumbo the Elegant Elephant of Oz, and Jinniky the Red Jinn of Ev on an adventure to save the kingdom of Pumperdink from an evil fairy who wanted to rule it and... just basically be mean to everyone.

Great start, but what happens once these characters begin their journey is pretty much where the book goes extremely stale. Let me tell you about Ruth. She likes to toss her characters into these random situations as they travel around Oz. In the past few books, she kept much of this to a minimum, but this book went a bit too far.

Ruth will chose some random theme and the then make a little pocket-sized kingdom based entirely around that one idea. For example, in "The Purple Prince of Oz" the characters come across a place where all the inhabitants are living torpedoes. And when they talk, they are loud and explosive and hurt the ears of the characters having to listen to them. They are forced to stay there as prisoners, having to put up with the difficulties of being there until they can find a way out.

All the random encounters in Ruth's books happen in this way, and they are never fun for either me or the characters. They are not done in a "horror" sort of way. They tend to be silly but in a manner that come across as annoying, and the majority of this book is unfortunately like this.

The bad portions cover about 75% of the book and then proceed in a fairly acceptable manner, and the entire book really isn't bad. The characters were well represented. Randy, a small Gillkin boy, comes across as calm and brave while still having this quirky childlike aspect to him. Kubumpo the Elegant Elephant is a returning and charming character who has a personality intended to be larger than life [including his ego.] Jinniky the Red Jinn has been briefly mentioned before, but you really get to know him here. He reminds me much of the genie from Disney's Aladdin.

One pleasant surprise [as well as my favorite part] was the introduction of Ozwoz the Wozard. Wizardry is illegal in Oz unless approved by Ozma or Glinda. Ozwoz felt he had found a loophole by calling his magic wozardry, thus allowing him to practice magic. What makes him so amazing is that he is a sociopath who has no qualms about killing people.

He created giant, gun-wielding soldiers and tried to get them to murder the main characters. The Red Jinn had to quickly use his own magic to put up a shield right before the soldiers blasted away with their rifles. It was such a big attack that the large ammunition would have destroyed them utterly, which was the point.

When Ozwoz realized that he had failed to kill them, he became fascinated with his intended victims and quickly wanted to become friends with them. He took them to his place and treated them to food and hospitality. Although rattled by his murderous tendency, the characters soon learned to like him for how charming he was. Ozwoz was easily the most interesting character in the story, but he was only there for a couple of chapters and never mentioned again.

"The Purple Prince of Oz" is not a recommended read. Although its overarching story was decent and the characters were fun, the amount of fluff in this particular book is just inexcusable. I'll be hoping for better in the next one.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Road to Self-Awareness

What is meant by the term "self-awareness?" It seems rather self explanatory, doesn't it? To be aware of oneself. You know who you are. You are aware of what you are. It is perhaps a bit more than this though,

To be self-aware, you have to not only know of your strengths and weaknesses, but you must also acknowledge both. This applies especially to one's weaknesses. One cannot deal with his own weaknesses if he refuses to look at them. This is the particular part of self-awareness that most people struggle the most with. They do not like to see their own flaws.

One mistake commonly made is, when one finds out about their flaws, they will go out of their way to destroy them. They will stomp on their failings utterly. This tactic misses the point of self-awareness and can often lead to the production of new failings in the process. It must here be understood that the journey towards self-awareness comes with the understanding of why you are like you are.

Immaturity, and even prolonged immaturity, happens for a reason. Over time, some of those aspects can linger and become a part of who you are. You are not supposed to just wipe it out. You're only supposed to keep these negative aspects under control. People are made up of a lot of choices, interactions, and time. We're incredible amalgamations that are wonderfully complex. You have to accept everything about yourself without destroying it in the process, unless you want to lose touch with yourself all over again.

As an example, the more I look and listen to myself, I keep finding mistakes I have made in the past that have made me worse off then I was before. I struggle to keep those impulses under control and hammer in better habits and practices without ever dismissing either the positives or negatives that I have discovered. Self-awareness is, at its heart, a difficult balancing act.

The ultimate goal is so that the thoughts that you have are rife with sincerity. If you know yourself, then your own mind cannot work against you. People battle their minds for all of their lives. Most end up losing to it. There is a false notion that we shall always be the slaves of perception. But let me give you a bit of hope: If you can become only slightly self-aware, you will already see the world in a drastically different way. It starts with you though.

The conquering of one's self internally opens one up to the external. Your relationship to God and the universe shall be more clear. You'll be able to deal with things in a more sincere way and making decisions will be less trouble. The road is long and fraught with pitfalls, setbacks, and failures. It also never truly ends, but the rewards come often along the way. Because of this, I regret nothing.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Was the Free Will of the Apostles Violated by God?

Humans are crazy, little, superstitious idiots when it comes down to it. We are ready to put the next supernatural god in charge if only they can prove that they are the real thing. And even so we may end up hating him, but at least we know he is real. Angels could come and show us great power, and we would try and worship them, even if that was not the angel's intention. We are silly creatures after all.

If God would give you ultimate proof of his existence, most of us would believe. Many of us would be jaded though. At the end of the day, we never really had a choice. We never really could choose one thing over another. The power of God is just so massive and great, who could dare stand up against it? But the thing is... God has not really bothered to do that. At least, He did not go so far as to make it blatantly obvious.

God chose the subtler solution. He left all the clues of his existence and expects us each individually to act as investigators. If we dig around enough, we may find God. If we don't bother to... we won't.

But then there was Jesus. He was a man, yet also God in a very real sense. He performed terrific miracles which were witnessed by 12 apostles who had no choice but to be smacked in the face by the very real fact that they were in the presence of their Lord. And here the question must be asked: Did God violate their free will? And once this is asked, you may wonder: What does free will have to do with any of this?

Free will was dealt with in the first part of this blog. Because how sticky human curiosity is, if you just give humans the proof, they have no choice but to accept it. They are given no chance to love it however. It's like being injected with the God drug. There was no choice in the matter. Free will was overridden. This is why God always seems just subtle enough to require actual effort on your part to figure out.

The apostles were not provided such subtlety. They saw Jesus for who and what he was. They could not deny it. Their free will was overridden and, frankly, it ruined their lives. Once presented with the complete truth, they spent the rest of their lives doing absolutely everything counter-culture, or rather in respect to God, so that the world basically flipped out and turned against these weirdos. When you come to realize that there is a true point to human existence, one tends to stand up to the slings and arrows of life and head to that ultimate goal... the house of God.

But knowing there is a God does not mean you'll accept it, but it will bring your ultimate choices to bare. In the case of Judas, he saw his relationship to God as a chance for power. The worst in him was brought entirely out into the open where he acted. He acted with all of his heart as he saw God and hated him. Judas would have been a fan of one of the Fallen Angels who claimed similar providence. The one true God was not the one he was looking for, and in his hatred, he acted against Him and shortly realized that his own existence had become absolutely pointless, and so he acted once more, ending his life. In the end, I don't think he really had much of a choice. The advent of God merely made him out to be who he always was. It might have been better if he had never been born at all.

But to the other apostles, they lost their free will. And here we might ask one more question: Is that a bad thing? No. It isn't. Number 1: God has license to do what he did. And 2: Most other people never really bothered to take notice. Even at the time, people just thought the remaining apostles were nuts. They went out of their way to destroy their lives because there really was no choice. They knew God was real. They knew Heaven was on the other side. They acted entirely on the truth and not by faith. No longer normal human men, but future citizens of Heaven.

But when God took away the free will of these few men, it served as only a subtle hint for the following generations of humanity. It was clearly enough to go on, but nobody was there. Nobody could see it. They had to research it and find out about the truth. People had to bother to find out about this amazing thing that happened. You have to bother.

Human beings were granted free will so that we could investigate these things and figure it all out for ourselves. You have to look before you find anything. If someone just tells you that God is real; that means nothing. Seek and you shall find. Do not seek, and you will find nothing, but you will also have no one else to blame but yourself.

The answers to God, the universe, and everything are out there. Get off your butt and look into it. You aren't an apostle; God's not going to just give it to you like he did them. And honestly, when you think about it, we're all better off that way.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!