Book of D: Family History

As my spouse and I were navigating through today's "to list," we decided to stop at one of our local 'Goodwill' stores. Neither one of us had anything in particular to scour for, so we each went separate ways. I found myself in the household area; there's a poster I designed for our beloved, late cat Caty, and I decided to look for a wooden frame that would do the poster justice. That is when these coffee mugs caught my eye.

It made me sad to see them on the shelf at this second-hand store because the cups must have meant something to the person who created them for their family reunion. It reminded me of the family blog I created for my family way before Mom passed away. It's been a long time since I have updated the blog; several babies have been born into the family, but the death of my dear Mama seems to be the catalyst for my unmotivated prowess these last few years, which is why the blog has gone without much updating. The lowly mug at the moth-smelling Goodwill was yet another reminder of the day's earlier discussion with my spouse about how as we get older, we tend to get wiser, maybe even cynical, regarding things and people and how it makes us less wanton as we mature to want to be around others or to go out of our way for the benefit of others when we know nothing really benefits anyone. So, in summation, what does anything we do even matter if we're just going to be an afterthought - like the family reunion mugs at Goodwill.

Book of D: A Crisis of Faith & Octopus Aliens

The title of today's post stems from the title of season 2, episode 3 of Young Sheldon. In this episode, Sheldon's mom, Mary, is really shaken over the sudden death of her friend's 16-year-old daughter who dies in a car accident. Mary's faith is immensely rattled; after all, the abrupt demise of someone so young is cause for deep consternation to most people. As Mary starts to doubt her faith, which is extremely important to her – as we fans of the "Sheldon" series (or The Big Bang Theory) are quite aware of, she goes slightly over-the-edge and goes on a drinking binge.

Let's back-up a little to the start of the episode, which has the minister of the church the Cooper family attends spewing the daily homily. The minister is preaching about G-d and how much He loved the earth that He gave His only son . . . blah, blah, blah, blah, blah (I sound like Greta Thunberg with all those "blahs" lol). Sheldon being Sheldon starts to question the minister's sermon (semantics), i.e. earth, universe, soul-saving beliefs, faith, etcetera. I won't go into the banal details of the entire episode, the point I'm trying to make relates to how humans grossly second-guess their belief systems (way too much) without so much as just questioning the faith, religion, and religious authority that is often the root of bereft existentialism. Why aren't people more like this Sheldon character . . . asking those difficult yet important questions (rhet.). Anyway, as for the theme of the episode, it took Sheldon's love of his mom, Mary, to help Mary overcome the "funk" she was in as she questioned G-d and her faith. Although the minister provided some semblance of guidance to Mary, he merely provided Mary a way in which to overlook or ignore the issue at hand (G-d, death, and religion). It was actually Sheldon who provided Mary with existential meaning of her life by simply reminding her how lucky he was to have her as his mom. Sheldon said, "Well, there are 5 billion people on this planet and you're the perfect mom for me." And, voila . . . Sheldon restores Mary's faith in G-d. It seems simple, but you know what, maybe humans need to start being more simple instead of complicating shit so damn much. As I've alluded to before, one of my favorite mantras should be used more often: K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). Over and out. But first, thanks "Shelly."