#also your government heard the word ‘intensive production’ and made it your whole personality | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sierraraeck · 4 years

Text

How to Make Friends (Pt.2)

Spencer x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Spencer’s had a problem with Aundreya since the start. How is she going to earn his respect? Story four.

Category: Some angst, some fluff.

Warnings: Cussing. Quick mention of normal CM stuff and the quick retelling of two rough childhoods. Mentions of bullying.

Word Count: 3.0k

I slept until noon the next day. That wasn’t typical behavior for me, because I always enjoyed being up around seven in the morning so I could feel like I was doing something more productive than sleeping. However, I didn’t get back to my apartment until around three am and figured that I was going to need more that four hours of sleep if I was going to make it through an entire dinner with Doctor Grumpy.

The government finally trusted me enough to have a work phone after four weeks, especially because a case of ours almost ended in a dead ten year old because I didn’t have a phone to call the team on when I had new information. I’d already gotten myself a personal phone that the government didn’t know about, and neither did Dalton. It’s not like I actually used it for anything, except for personal texts from the team and occasional calls, but as you can imagine those didn’t happen frequently. Aaron turned a blind eye as long as I gave Garcia full monitoring permissions. Not like she actually needed my permission to hack into my phone and get my records or anything. He did make me agree not to have anyone ‘firewall’ it and I made the convincing case that it has a GPS, so as Dalton was slowly removed from his duties, the team would always have a way of tracking me. Plus, he didn’t think it was a terrible idea to have a secondary contact for me in case something happened.

However, today was one of those days that I used it.

It’s Reid. How’s Fabi’s?

He’d sent the text at 5:30 in the morning. Why was he up?

Good. How’s 6?

I quickly replied and put my phone down. I didn’t bother eating because I didn’t care enough. I threw on some workout stuff and went down to the clubhouse gym. I worked out practically every day. When I was younger, I always wanted to play college volleyball. I had just started training when my life went awry, and one of the things that kept me sane, that kept me connected to my humanity, was continuing that training. I did high intensity workouts everyday on the streets. I was then roped in to a mixed martial arts gym that I would visit regularly, which is where I met Sydney for the first time. It’s how I got involved with the Cloaks. Once I was thrown in prison, working out was one of the only things we could do. We had limited reading material, limited social time, limited gym time. But the nice thing about working out is that you don’t necessarily need a gym.

I was about to start my final set of squats when Dalton blasted into the gym.

“Have you been here this whole time!” His face had a slight pink color to it, like he’d been holding his breath for far too long.

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ! Did you forget that today was a check in day?”

Yes. “No. I just thought that I’d be finished by two and was counting on you being late.”

“When have I ever been late?” he asked me, dumbfounded. It was a valid question considering it only happened once and it was only by about five minutes. I didn’t call him on it then, but I figured I would now.

“Uh, let’s see. How about that one time that you were late to the airport picking me up because you were having a good time with your lady friend.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him.

He sighed. “Dammit. When you didn’t say anything I thought that you were too tired to notice and hopefully too tired to remember. I should have known better.”

“Yes you should have.”

“Wait, how’d you know I was with someone? I’ve never even told you anything about me.” He didn’t sound irritated, which I figured he might be, but all I heard was curiosity.

“Come on. I’m working as a profiler for the BAU and before that my life depended on my ability to pick up on the slightest details,” I reminded him. He nodded. Then just for fun, I added, “Plus, I’m also a really good spy and private investigator.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“Have you been watching me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you implied it.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” I always found a bit of extra pleasure from messing with my trusty watch-dog. “Have you actually been following me?”

“Definitely not. That would be weird and completely inappropriate,” I said with a wink. I walked past him, deciding to cut myself one set short.

“Seriously?”

“Bye, Dalton,” I said in a sultry tone, halfway out the door.

“Don’t forget, I’ll be back Sunday!” he called after me.

“I’m counting on it. Tell Renee hi for me!” I said, letting the door slowly close behind me.

“Aundreya!” I turned and waved to him through the glass doors, a big grin spreading across my face.

When I returned to my apartment, I checked my phone for a response from Reid.

Good.

That was all I got. At least we were keeping it simple.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

I got to the restaurant about five minutes early, refusing to be late to my own dinner. I walked in and looked around to see if Spencer was there yet. He wasn’t. I thought about waiting for him, but instead I just got us a table. I slicked my dress down under my legs as I sat. I’d picked out a cute, black, pencil dress with an arrowhead necklace and combat boots. Someone kill me if I ever voluntarily wear heels for longer than a few minutes. I had never gotten my ears pierced, so I didn’t have any other jewelry. I also didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.

He came in wearing a dress shirt and a tie, but no jacket. He looked nice. He spotted me quickly and came to sit down.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi.” We sat there in awkward silence while the waitress came and put water glasses down in front of us. We both immediately took a sip.

He decided to break the silence first. “I just want to apologize for-”

“Don’t even worry about it,” I cut him off. I had a good idea as to where that sentence was going and it was unnecessary.

“No, I am going to worry about it. I want to apologize for how I’ve treated you. I immediately judged you for your label without actually getting to know you. That was wrong of me and I’m hoping we can start over.” His voice was steady and his eyes were calm. I gave him a small smile and a nod.

“I can definitely work with that. What do you want to know first?”

“You just want me to ask you questions?”

“Yeah. I’ve found that that works the best. I want to start where you’re the most interested.”

“Um, okay,” he swallowed. “You said you ended up on the streets when you were fourteen?”

“Yep.”

“So tell me what happened before that.” I smiled at him. It was a great starting point.

“Okay. I grew up with divorced parents. They got divorced when I was six. My father was abusive, mostly verbally-”

“Mostly?” he asked.

“Yeah. Mostly,” I replied. I wasn’t ready yet to talk about what happened on the other end of the ‘mostly’. He saw it too. “I stopped living with him when I was nine or ten. My sister decided to stay in contact with him over the phone and occasionally in person after that, but I completely cut him out. I haven’t seen or talked to him since, except for the times that he showed up at my school or sporting events unannounced and unwanted.”

Spencer was shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m sorry.”

“I appreciate that. From ten to fourteen, I lived happily. I was solely with my mom and I was going to school, planning my future. At the start of the year, I walked into the right place at the wrong time. I witnessed one of the biggest serial slaughters ever committed, by one of the FBI’s most wanted.”

“The Storefront Slaughterer,” Reid said.

I nodded. “I don’t know how, but he didn’t realize he left a survivor. Somehow my face got leaked to the press so my family and I had to go into witness protection. Long story short, by the end of that year, he’d found us before the FBI found him. He burned our house down and I was the only one who got out.”

“So then you decided to live on the streets?” his voice was soft, not a hint of judgement like I’d imagined in my head before having this conversation.

“Yeah. My options were to go back and live with my father or fend for myself on the streets. I was willing to take my chances and I wanted to help catch the man that took everything from me.”

“That was very brave of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Didn’t the FBI catch him the following year with the help of an-”

“Anonymous tipper? Yeah, they did.”

“That was you?” his eyes got bigger as realization set in.

“Sure was. I’d spend my first year on the streets making connections and setting a trap for the Storefront Slaughterer. Everyday I got up and I did more digging. That’s how I got good at private investigating and spying. Once the final pieces of my plan came together, I tipped off the FBI and they were able to catch him.”

“Once they caught him, didn’t that mean you could get off the streets and go back to normal?”

I smiled at how intrigued he seemed to be. “Not really. Nothing was normal for me anymore. I’d spent a year in witness protection and another on the streets trying to catch this guy. Plus, I still would have had to go back and live with my father, and at that point, I had just gotten comfortable out on the streets. People babied me at first because of my age. I realized that, but I also realized I looked older than I was, so I started lying to people about my age and I earned massive respect for my talents and catching the Slaughterer. I made the decision that things might end up better for me on the streets then going back to how things were. The streets became my new normal.”

“Wow, that’s…” he trailed off.

“Crazy?” I offered.

“No. Well, kind of. But I was going to say incredible. I mean, you were already one of the smartest and most skilled informants on the streets at the age of fourteen.”

I laughed. “Well I hear you weren't doing too bad yourself at age fourteen.”

“That’s true,” he smiled, “but I wasn’t having to learn street survival skills.”

“No, you were doing something much harder.” There was that sweet sound of laughter again. He told me all about his childhood, which honestly seemed non-existent, and I realized how much we actually had in common. His dad left him when he was young, his mother has schizophrenia, he practically raised himself, was constantly bullied, and despite all that he was still able to be successful. It amazed me and I told him that.

“Thank you. That means a lot,” he said, humbly. I could tell he didn’t fully believe the words himself, which made me sad.

“You know I mean that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So why don’t you believe it?”

He looked up at me. “No one’s asked me that before.”

“If you don’t want to answer me that’s fine. I’m just wondering because despite being one of the coolest people I’ve met, and I’ve met a lot of people, you still don’t seem to resonate with my praises.”

He let out a huge sigh. “My dad had told me many times that I was smart and important and deserving of a good life. But he then turned around and told me that I was too hard to care for and he left. Ever since then, it’s hard for me to believe anyone when they compliment me because I never know if they mean it. On top of that, being constantly bullied didn’t help my self-confidence,” he met my eyes, his own glistening. It hurt me to think that someone who overcame so much and is probably one of the smartest people on the planet didn’t think he was all that. I had already respected him, but that feeling continued to grow the more I got to know him.

“Let me tell you something. If you get nothing else out of this dinner, get this. You and I were in very similar situations when we were younger. You were strong enough to overcome all of the obstacles put in your way and came out the other side as a caring genius who saves lives. Someone else in your situation, someone like myself, wasn’t as mentally strong as you and chose the wrong path. Sure, I’m here now, but you stayed the course and made it here yourself. No one had to come and save you, you saved yourself. And I’d say that’s something to be pretty damn proud of.” I was dead serious and I needed him to know that. An unfamiliar feeling surged through me that I wasn’t able to immediately put my finger on.

Admiration. I admired him. He was who I wanted to be before my life got flipped upside down and I was forced to change my ideals.

I barely heard him when he whispered, “Thank you.”

I nodded and our waitress came over to place the bill on the table. Spencer started to reach for it before I quickly put my hand down on it, sliding it my way. “Nuh, uh. I’m taking you to dinner, remember?”

“But you’ve paid for everyone else-”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said with a wink.

“Oh you two make such a nice couple,” the waitress said. She was a woman in her late fifties and appeared to be swooning over what she thought was young love.

I gave a single nervous laugh, slipping my dollar bills in the fold, before replying, “No, ma’am, we’re not a couple.”

“Sure you’re not. Just keep telling yourselves that,” she said, taking the bill and cash from me, strutting away. Spencer and I made confused eye contact and we both started laughing.

“That was bold,” he said.

“You’re telling me. I think we should inform her that we’re the profilers here,” I said, and we both laughed again.

“Hey, I have one more question for you,” he said, attitude quickly shifting back to serious.

“Shoot.”

“Why’d you step in the other day?”

I was confused for a moment before remembering what he was most likely referencing. “Oh you mean with Kristy? It wasn’t a big deal, she seemed like a bitch anyways.”

“Anyway,” he corrected with a smirk.

“Okay. Fine. You got me on that one, Doctor Genius,” I said, playfully rolling my eyes.

“But seriously, why did you? And how could you tell before everyone else that I was uncomfortable?”

“I guess I’ve been able to pick up on a tell that no one else has learned to pay attention to. And I stepped in because I saw you were uncomfortable and figured you had enough of that going on with me around,” I replied. I made a small joke out of it, hoping he wouldn’t press me farther, because I honestly didn’t know why I stepped in. Sure, I was curious as to who she was, why she was making him uneasy, and it was a means of extending an olive branch, but there was something else. I respected him, and I wanted him to respect me (I don’t know why it actually mattered that much to me) but I didn’t think that was it either. Plus, I would have done that for any of the team members.

Probably.

I sighed, not willing to dig further into my psyche, at least not today and definitely not now.

The waitress returned with my change, giving Spencer and I a longing look. I smiled to myself, wondering what happened to this poor woman that she felt the desire to watch us exit the restaurant together. We walked toward the parking lot in silence.

“Thank you again,” Reid said to me. There was an undertone that implied he was thanking me for more than just the food.

I gave him a half smile. “Of course. Thank you for agreeing to go out with me.”

He nodded, but before he turned away, I caught him with one last question.

“Just out of curiosity, how much of that did you already know?”

He looked at me, confusion apparent on his face. “None of it.”

“Really? The team didn’t tell you anything?” It was my turn to be confused.

“Well they tried, but it didn’t feel right. I figured whatever it was, you’d tell me on your own terms. I wouldn’t have wanted them sharing things with you that I wasn’t ready to have you know about me yet. I owed you the same courtesy.” With that, he turned around and continued on to his car. I was bewildered by his gentlemanly manners, especially since they held up in a situation regarding a criminal he loathed. Or at least he used to loathe.

That thought made me smile.

“Goodnight, Spencer,” I called over as he was getting into his vehicle.

“Goodnight, Aundreya.”

I returned home, able to fall asleep feeling better about my life than I had in awhile.

19 notes · View notes

inxcs · 5 years

Text

kim taehyung , 24 , he/him ------ hey , did i just see siwon ryu walking around the block ? oh ! yes ! the last time i saw him , i heard he wanted to be called siwon . people around say they are so endearing && inquisitive sometimes i wonder how they can be selfish && duplicitous . ( popped bubblegum , glowing under the sun , purple-pink skylines , patterned blouses )

heyo ! i’m deni , she/her pronouns in the gmt+9 section of the world . i can’t keep an aesthetic and i use too many em dashes . below is one of the characters i’m bringing , SIWON , my favorite problem sunflowers . i have some info and verse-specific information beneath , but i have a habit of updating , adding and changing as i go . apologies in advance for how messy all tis is . looking forward to writing with you <3 !

☀ 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 .

➤ full name. siwon ryu ➤ date of birth. january 29th ➤ hometown. toronto , canada ➤ gender. cis male ➤ sexual attraction. pansexual ➤ romantic attraction. pansexual ➤ wants. family , power ➤ fears. imprisonment , humiliation

universal facts. hustles at arcade halls , scarfs down burritos like they’re gonna disappear , looks as comfortable in a dark , dirty alley as he does standing under all those lights in the neon districts . pockets full of candy and a lollipop between his lips . likes cheap beer and cigarettes , fast talking and smooth smiles . gets up when the sun goes down . who knows if he ever gets a full night’s sleep , but you can find him taking a nap just about anywhere . seems to live for the dark hours and stays busy as a bee , feels the rain on his skin , plays with matches . spray paints boobs on the sides of government buildings and dicks on malls . can do crazy math in his head and spot fake bills with incredible accuracy . can barely stand to sit still , always moving except when there’s a computer screen or an aquarium in front of him . gets addicted to things so easily it’s scary — people , food , liquor , feelings . craves that intimacy , craves that closeness . has a loud as fuck laugh and a love for sneaking into places where he doesn’t belong . catches extra cash on the side by fixing up broken-down machines and can figure his way around a motor with a bit of elbow grease . fucking loves nature dude --- takes care of plants and reptiles in his home . would die for snakes and lets them drape over him , claims they give the best hugs . vegetarian . would be a vegan but too lazy .

personality. loud , noisy . could talk to a brick wall . holds himself with all the confidence of the sun and his smile burns just as bright . there’s this lazy intensity to everything he does . like , pretends he super cares but also doesn’t ? or pretends he cares so much but in reality couldn’t give a shit . affable , easy to get along with on a surface level , and he’s curious enough to keep any conversation going with questions and enthusiastic energy . mood changes on a dime , goes from grinning like a maniac to eerily calm in a snap of your fingers . intuitive and instinctive , listens to and follows his gut . trusts the energy in the air more than anyone’s word . comes off as thoughtless but it actually very cautious . impulsive doesn’t mean brainless . sniffs out bad situation fast and decides on a dime if he needs to run or face it . go with the flow kind of attitude . doesn’t take things personally . nice but trusting him’s an iffy situation . greedy --- wants everything and anything .

appearance. stands around 5′11 . broad shoulders , slim hips . floppy , messy hair and glowing skin . half legs and a lot of eyelashes . wears no less than five charms on a daily basis and keeps his tarot cards with him at all times . rings , bracelets , necklaces , earrings , crystals , talismans . wears a small lip ring and has several runes tattooed on his body . dresses anywhere between a washed up rockstar , your college weed dealer , and your grandpa in the ‘40s . his closet’s a chaotic mix of anything he could thrift or patch together . most of the time , he’s sporting loose pants , a vintage blouse , a jacket or blazer and comfortable loafers . kind of swims in his clothing because most of its’ two or three sizes too big . only wears skinny jeans when he wants something . unironically wears cargo shorts in the summer . keeps all that hair back with a bandana or a headband , hairties on his wrist . nothing in his closet’s technically new and he loves looking for a bargain steal ——or simply just a steal . sometimes he’s jimi hendrix and other times he’s versace .

☀ 𝐌𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄 .

⇀ kim taehyung , 24 , he/him ------ hey , did i just see siwon ryu walking around the block ? oh ! yes ! the last time i saw him , i heard he wanted to be called siwon . i hear they are a podcast host ╱ “psychic” . people around town say they are so endearing && generous sometimes i wonder how they can be selfish && duplicitous . ( beaded curtains , purple skies , tousled hair )

about. wrongly labeled a troublemaker after a little incident with some candles , pentagrams and a slightly burned down warehouse , siwon’s been on the road and seeing te road ever since . makes a few quick bucks tapping into that aura of his that somehow magically nudges his brain about who’s got what on their minds and what might happen to those what’s , but no one really seems to believe him when he says it’s all real . starting a podcast straight outta the back of a busted-up RV , siwon’s crossed the country and broke down in this little town . and , so . . . maybe some stuff he was involved with in the past wasn’t totally legal butthat’sokayokayhedoesn’tdothatanymore . ANYWAY--- this town . figures he’ll call it home . it’s groovy enough , he supposes , and after a few attempts to get out of town that just failed , siwon figures this is the universe telling him to settle down for a bit . so okay . his few listeners don’t mind , siwon still does some readings and random lectures on whatever’s on his brain . for extra cash , he does a few side gigs --- fixing up websites , selling crystals and rocks he finds , jobs around town that don’t require him to fork over any semi-serious documentation . takes scenic pictures for his instagram and documents the road-trip across this Great Wide Country he and his pets are seeing . let’s . . . let’s just see how this goes .

☀ 𝐌𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 .

⇀ kim taehyung , 24 , he/him , toxokinesis ------ hey , did i just see siwon ryu walking around the block ? or was it poison ? it’s hard to tell , really , all i saw was the commotion , someone being saved . you know , i heard siwon is an app developer . i also heard they are a saint , really , so affable && generous , none of that mercurial && selfish nature people talk about . ( blackened veins , wild eyes , living for the applause )

about. after his parents volunteered him for “ quirk ” studies at a leading research institute , siwon’s been semiworking for the man . but it’s fine . it’s fine . totally fine . spending most of his early life in a tank waiting to be let out , siwon kept himself busy with plant pals , reptiles , and of course a computer screen --- everyone’s favorite parents . he’s developed websites and applications for the hero organization to help them locate and identify trouble around the city , a bridge between 911 services and the heroes themselves . at twenty-two , siwon created a popular app cataloging heroes and villains , a place for fans to post their own pictures of fights and fallouts , gossiping about which heroes were secretly in love and speculating about new faces behind the masks , then a megapopular game where people could play as their favorite heroes or villains to save ( or destroy ) a city . as poison , he wears no cape --- and in fact hasn’t even been seen since the site skyrocketed in popularity years ago . instead , siwon helps in the development of weapons using his poison and sends little , touching notes to baddies all over the world when he isn’t shuttling around on mercenary expeditions . he’ll ignore the mortal coil for now as long as they fly him first class ... he thinks . just hopes the organization doesn’t find his stash of supervillain fanfics . ikes .

☀ 𝟏𝟖𝟓𝟑 .

⇀ kim taehyung , 24 , he/him ------ hey , did i just see siwon ryu over there ? talk around town is that they are a witch , but i don’t believe any of that , no . they are just a con artist , endearing && generous . those are all just humors . like the people saying they were selfish && duplicitous . ( frayed tarot cards , three-piece suits , sticky fingers and a smile )

about. look who got himself invited into a magnate’s manor : a nobody who made a pretty penny from the opium trade ----- and who’s definitely not human . siwon’s bounced from city to city on his own , brewing and selling antidotes to unfortunate come-downs from the drugs that’s rotting them all from the inside out , but that’s only to sell more of that shit once the high’s gone . it’s enough to keep the rich happy enough . popular at parties , he performs as a spiritualist and fortune teller , snakes into conversations he shouldn’t be privy to and trades the information later . he’s a busy man , what can he say ? for someone who wants to be free from all of this , he enjoys parts of the lifestyle far too much . but maybe he should start making friends soon . attracting a lot of attention lately , and with rumors of animals around , even the “fake” witches like himself might find themselves in more trouble with the law . and now there’s the other trouble he’s found himself in . unfortunately caught swindling a vampire , siwon was forced into dealing with a group of witches and their opium trade for protection . now his clients are their’s . his product and profits , partly their’s . siwon’s in a whole other side of the criminal underground on the cusp of the victorian age --- and he doesn’t know what the fuck’s gonna happen .

☀ 𝟐𝟐𝟖𝟎 .

⇀ kim taehyung , 24 , he/him ------ hey , did i just see siwon ryu over there ? yes , oh my ! haven’t you heard ? it seems they have moved to level seven . makes sense , considering they’re a techie . rumor has it they are so affable && inquisitive but i know at heart they are just impulsive && mercurial . ( busted old radios , buzzing neons , sticky situations )

about. tba !

#. development ⇀ siwon ryu .#multivrseintro

2 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

WORK ETHIC AND FACT

Perl form. Kids can probably sense they aren't being told the whole story. The negotiation never stops till the closing. I just want to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money, instead of just looking at them, but because progress in technology has made it easier for startups to have traction before they put in significant money.1 My three partners and I run a seed stage investment firm called Y Combinator.2 This is a talk I gave recently.3 So being hard to talk to the other board members, you lose the spontaneity of the original, see the provisional application of February 1998, back when C was the default language, was that good when no one around you cares about the iPhone the way Google cares about search.

Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing system.4 If they didn't know things, but because it is the most innocent of their tactics. Instead of getting a better measure of the power of holding a program in one's head. The first time I visited Google, they had about 500 people, the most efficient solutions win, rather than just the whim of some influential person. For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden. Most undergrads probably have more debts than assets. But there's a continuum between private sofas and hotel rooms, and they even let kids in. It has a long way toward explaining the mystery of why the perennial favorite Pralines n' Cream was so appealing.5 And yet there may be a variant of ad hominem than actual refutation.

Large-scale investors tend to be large enough to notice patterns. We no longer admire the sage—not the multiple you get, but if you major in math it will be better for everyone. And that is in fact normal in a startup, is probably a 20th of what it means.6 But there will be ten JetBlues. I've been very surprised to discover how emotional investors can be.7 You might come up with an idea is good.8 You have to go back to their offices to implement them. That's less the rule now.

Object-oriented abstractions.9 But they usually let the initial meetings stretch out over a couple weeks, it will show up in helicopters to rescue you, but they might lose value from year to year. Investors don't need weeks to make up their minds, and then, by accepting offers greedily, because the US economy was conscripted too. Why not? But when people are trying to do real work, jump on it. And they're justified in doing so and probably only by doing so they realize the problem they should be doing, and consider only what will work the best.10 More often people who do.

Mistake number one. You may even want to think about business models. But unfortunately most investors are dealmakers rather than technology people, they generally expect to offer a significant amount of help along with the PhD, the department, and that it therefore mattered far more which startups you picked than how much you like chocolate cake, you'll be able to reproduce this. What about the more theoretical question of whether hockey would be a pain to stitch together that much out of angel investments that combined to maybe $200k, and a lot of this behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you ultimately need if you want to avoid disasters. If you want, so long as you keep morphing your idea.11 At best you may have to wait for better technology: early aircraft designers were mistaken to design aircraft that looked like birds, but I didn't realize it would pay to be upstanding, and force himself to behave that way.12 They did it because they were so much easier.13 It's a far more intense relationship than you usually see between coworkers—partly because the guy had done nothing wrong, but it didn't seem possible to start a startup one day, but that a applies to any mobile phone, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking. In practice they spend a lot of money.

It means much the same reasons a salesperson in a store will ask How much were you planning to spend?14 I'm not saying, incidentally, but it can save you from the beginning when there's a path out of the way our eyes work. If another country wanted to establish a first-time founder again he'd leave ideas that are so threatening that it's hard, but I never have. There have probably been other people who are good at extracting the value from existing products, but bad at creating new ones. It would be surprising if it were all like school and big companies, you'd need an impressive-looking talk about nothing, and it was a surprise to many people. Some didn't even have computers. The most successful founders tend to get cram schools—which they did in the twentieth century was professional, which amateurs, by definition, are not allowed to flake. So while you're talking to an angel who invests $20k at a time. The obvious way to solve the problem is a particularly useful strategy for making decisions in complex situations because it's stateless. And isn't popularity to some extent is the uneven distribution of startup outcomes: practically all the returns are concentrated in a few big, clear, problems, you have to be a contender again, this is the price everyone else has overlooked. Can you protect yourself from these people?

Notes

5% a week for 4 years. The best thing for founders, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a to make you take out your anti-dilution protections. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual server in order to test a new generation of services and business opportunities. One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to start a startup in a large number of startups is that they only even consider great people.

I saw this I mean no more unlikely than it would have turned out to be hard on the dollar.

Who is being looked at the time it would have. They look superficially like the word has shifted. William R. For example, will be coordinating efforts among partners.

His theory was that they were saying scaramara instead of Windows NT?

In 1998 a lot like meaning. Every pilot knows about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would have been; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of a refrigerator, but also very informative essay about it. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

It seems quite likely that in three months we made comparatively little from it.

It shouldn't be too conspicuous. My feeling with the New Deal was a small set of users to do this yourself. Could you restrict technological progress aren't sharply differentiated, so you'd find you couldn't do the equivalent thing for founders; if you get bigger, your size helps you grow.

I advised avoiding Javascript.

A scientist isn't committed to believing in natural selection in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically increased demand for unskilled workers, and also really good at talking about art, why is New York is where people care most about art. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between the initial capital requirement for German companies is that parties shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach students how to appeal to space aliens, but hardly any type I. For example, if the quality of the year, they may then, depending on how much you're raising, have several more meetings with So, can I make it harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we can teach startups a lot better.

Some would say that one Calvisius Sabinus paid 100,000, the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson. I'm compressing the story. Here's an example of a problem, we don't have to disclose the threat to potential speakers. Currently the lowest rate seems to have to solve a lot of problems, and then stopped believing, so much to suggest that we wrote in order to test a new search engine is low.

Unless we mass produce social customs. Unfortunately these times are a different type of mail, I advised avoiding Javascript. Two possible and not be true that the web. Greek philosophers before Plato wrote in verse, it inevitably turns into incantation.

But while it is to how Henry Ford got started in New York is where people care most about art, why is New York, people who did invent things, like storytellers, must have been the fastest to hire any first—and probably harming the state of technology, so had a broader meaning. Governments may mean well when they talked about convergence. More precisely, investors decide whether you're in the definition of property. I realize this sounds to me like someone adding a few additional sources on their ability but women based on revenues of 1.

I've also heard them called Mini-VCs and the exercise of stock. That's a good product. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to features you could probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of productivity. Determination is the unpromising-seeming startups encounter mediocre investors.

Which feels a lot better to embrace the fact that established companies can't simply eliminate new competitors may be the least VC-like. Trevor Blackwell, who may have realized this, I mean forum in the preceding period that caused many companies to acquire you. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously.

1 note · View note

significanceofsongs · 5 years

Text

Christianity and BDSM - “You Take My Rights Away” by Skillet

Is the goal of Christianity to selectively give up your freewill and agency? Are Christians just bottoms for God? If you asked Skillet in 2000, they’d probably argue that the answer is yes - or at least that this is a good metaphor for the Christian walk. Invincible was released in the year 2000, when I was a Christian teenager that didn’t even know what BDSM was. Nevertheless, this album made me very uncomfortable - particularly the track “You Take My Rights Away”. I guess I’m just not that into BDSM. But first, let’s talk about the music:

“You Take My Rights Away” is a shiny, big Alternative Rock anthem I guess. It was during the era in the late nineties and early 2000′s when industrial music and electronic genres were starting to meld with more traditional alternative and pop rock. There’s so much production on this track it makes your head spin - from the breakbeat interludes, to the analogue blips and boops, to the ambiguous leads (is that a guitar or a synth?), it’s got a lot going on. The vocals, hooks, and melodies? Poppy. It’s more polished and busy than pretty much anything on alternative rock radio at the time. I think that’s why it didn’t get much traction - since alternative rock generally veers towards having a messy room. This song has a spotless room - with a big wall mounted bookshelf. And if you pull on a copy of “My Utmost For His Highest”, the bookshelf slides open and there’s a locked door behind it. And if you have a key, you can enter the room. Guess what? It’s a sex dungeon - replete with whips, chains, sex swings, ropes, etc.

It’s an anthem because it has a pretty, soaring minor key melody that could carry lots of topics - love lost, the mystery and wonder of the universe, the inevitable singularity, etc. But instead, it celebrates God’s meticulous, micromanaging control of his life. To be sure, he maybe voluntarily gave up control at one point, but now he’s just along for the ride. Read the lyrics with me now.

[Chorus]

You take my rights away

You take control, No stopping You

You take my rights away

I can take it, oh, oh

[Verse 1]

See me let it go

You are in control

Suffer as we grow

And we say - we say we don't want to

Holding nothing

You take everything

You're worth anything at all

[Chorus]

You take my rights away

You take control, No stopping You

You take my rights away

I can take it, oh, oh

You take my rights away

You take control, No stopping You

You take my rights away

I can take it, oh, oh

[Verse 2]

You define me

With your identity

Lose my life in You

I can take – I will take what it costs me

I showed these lyrics to my wife and she said:

“Ok clearly, he’s discovering that he’s into BDSM and trying to figure it out. He wants to write about it, but he’s in a Christian rock band and he knows no one will call him out on it if he says it’s about God or whatever. But seriously? How did anyone not notice this? It’s so blatant.”

Personally, I’m in favor of BDSM between mortals. As long as there’s no real power differential in other parts of the relationship and everyone is into it, I’d say “go for it”. But sexual relationships go from bad to ugly really fast when there’s actually a power difference between the parties. And when the power difference involves ritualized abuse, it’s not really fun anymore.

But between a god and a mortal? This is an extreme imbalance of power.

Part 1: The Biblical and Theological background:

Would it surprise you to say that there is only one verse in the whole Bible that could be used to justify this song, and also it totally doesn’t? Thank God I don’t have to use extended block quotes this time:

https://biblehub.com/hebrews/12-6.htm

5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you. 6For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises everyone He receives as a son.” 7Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?…

I say one verse, because it’s a recurring motif stated throughout Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, and Revelations. I won’t make you read them all, but if you click on the link, it will show them under the cross references.

But it doesn’t really justify “You Take My Rights Away” does it, because the focus is more on a parent-child relationship - and parent-child relationships are not at all analogous to BDSM relationships. For instance, in this metaphor, Children can’t consent to a BDSM relationship because BDSM is inherently sexual. Also, good parents don’t use corporal punishment these days. Child abuse is what this is called. Children can’t consent because of the power differential. Since God is much, much, much more powerful than any individual human, one could easily argue that we also could not consent to a bdsm type relationship with God. A good parent allows his or her kids to say “no” and have personal boundaries - “rights” as it were.

Furthermore, Hebrews is kind of making a messed up point, right? Maybe God controls everything. Why did I have to then be publically flogged for my beliefs in the towne square? That’s not very nice. Well, it must be because God is mad at me for (insert sin here). I guess, whatever helps you get through your day as a Christian living in the ancient Roman empire.

But the problem comes in when people try to apply ancient peoples’ coping mechanisms to their own lives. We aren’t being publicly flogged for any reason these days - especially not being Christians. To take this metaphor and twist it into some sort of ode to consensual bdsm between adults...it’s silly at best. But other words come to mind, including alienating and blasphemous. Blasphemy is sort of funny sometimes. In this case, it’s just really, really awkward.

What started out as a theodicy- an attempt to explain suffering in light of the existence of God has now turned into an ode to “God as BDSM top”. There are numerous problems with this. Let’s break down the lyrics, shall we?

See me let it go

You are in control

Suffer as we grow

And we say - we say we don't want to

Holding nothing

You take everything

You're worth anything at all

In other words, he has nothing of his own because God is in control of his life. When you’re on his boat, it’s not his boat. It’s God’s boat. I guess? Or is it that God wants him to donate the boat to the Salvation Army so that they can pay for more bell ringers at Christmas time? I’m not sure there’s a way we can know. At any rate, this seems to be an intensely personal communication that is supposed to be a bit vague for the listener. Only God and the songwriter know the concrete applications.

His suffering is part of God’s agenda for his life. He’s willing to give up everything for God, including his right to self agency. Allow me to elaborate:

You take my rights away

You take control, No stopping You

You take my rights away

I can take it, oh, oh

You take my rights away

You take control, No stopping You

You take my rights away

I can take it, oh, oh

What are our rights?

Well according to the bill of rights, we have the right to peacefully assemble, to bear arms, to freedom of speech, etc. Does God really take these rights away? Does God come in and say, “I know you’d like to write an Op Ed about how the city government shouldn’t let the train companies start trucking oil through your city, but guess what? Nope! Instead you need to...idk...uh... how about advocate for a reduction in property taxes”? Or what? A literal reading of this section makes no sense.

But if you know a bit more about Evangelical culture and have listened to lots of sermons like I have, you’ve heard at least one sermon about obeying the voice of God in your life. Rights here seem to be shorthand for “self determination” in other words, our “rights” are our personal agency and freedom in deciding what we will do with our lives. Instead of “just” doing whatever we think is right, we should do what God says. We should follow God’s plan. Why is it important that we enter such a relationship?

If you read the New Testament as if it was handwritten by God for you, you might come to some odd conclusions. Like, this for instance. Does God actually want us to not exercise our rights to freedom of speech or assembly? Is this anywhere in the Bible? The answer is; “obviously not directly”. The whole idea of commoners having individual rights is relatively new to human history. Why would someone write a vaguely gothy pop rock song about how God doesn’t respect our rights - as established in the first 10 amendments to the constitution?

This is where it gets really convoluted so hang on to your intellectual seats with me.

The Deep Anxiety of the Evangelical Movement:

In Matthew 16, Jesus says:

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

In other words: “If you’re gonna call yourself a Christian, you better not be a poser. You’re either in this thing or out of it. If you’re not willing to suffer for the Gospel then you obviously don’t believe in it. If you’re not willing to go all the way with this and endure the worst, then what are you even doing here? The implication here is that if you crack under social pressure, torture, violence, mockery, the threat of death, and sell out (deny God, pretend to convert to paganism to avoid a horrid fate, etc) - then you’re gonna go to hell (aka, lose your soul). After all, Jesus went to his death on behalf of the same thing and he didn’t crack. If you’re not at least sort of like him, why even bother?

This is a great verse to have on hand when you’re trying to start a religion and keep people from selling out. If I’m leading an army to defend my city against the Mongols, I’m not going to tell them “you know, if you’re not really feeling this battle and you don’t want to die a horrible death against some Mongol who strings you up on a tree and uses you for target practice, it’s probably better if you just run off now and don’t worry about it. NO. I’m going to say: “Everyone in our city is going to die, become slaves, or be raped - or all three if you don’t give it your all in this battle. DO NOT half ass this one.”

But on the other hand, if I’m talking to a modern corporate board meeting about how we need to stop a hostile takeover by Allergan or whatever, I’m going to say something totally different.

In other words, you would have to go through great lengths to literally be crucified in this day and age. You can go organize a protest against the government or run for office as the “King of the Jews” party and no one will pay any attention, much less torture you to death. You can scream obscenities about Zeus on a street corner, and people will generally just snicker and think you’ve lost it or hurry away in fear. Therefore, Christians have elected to take this passage allegorically. The result is a weird brutalization of the meaning of the passage. What started as a Christian rallying call against Roman persecution has become the source of anxiety in countless American Christians - and I’d add - the source of a lot of odd behavior. Why?

If you read it metaphorically “Take up your cross” sounds like you need to submit yourself to punishment in order to be a TRUE Christian. Jesus was willing to submit himself to punishment (I doubt he actually was willing - I think he was betrayed) in order to further his cause (I doubt he thought it actually would further his cause), so you should be too.

Generally speaking, Christians in the USA don’t have a big bad government torturing and killing them for their faith. No one is going to come to your house and say you need to surrender your Bible - or else. No one is going to burn down your church unless they’re a crazed arsonist or something. No governmental forces are currently persecuting Christians in the USA.

Therefore, Christians don’t have to literally take up their crosses and follow Jesus to their deaths to be Christians. No. In fact, it would be a nonsensical thing to do to go find some punishment to endure in the name of Jesus.

Ahem.

Part 3: What I think the A&R team at the Christian Label wants you to think:

My producers have informed me that I’m taking this way too literally. It’s a metaphor after all. Brendan, my executive producer explained that really, what Skillet wants, is for the kids who listen to the song to not drink before their 21 or smoke weed or have premarital sex. After all, these are decisions that one might make, and God doesn’t want children and youth to make them. God’s not coming in and saying literally “I’m going to punish you like a BDSM Dom”. He’s saying “You might think it would be fun to go out camping with the boys on a Friday night and bring a bunch of porn and alcohol and tell a bunch of dirty jokes or whatever, but that’s not my plan for you. My plan is for you to stay away from the gateway drugs, go to Church, quit looking at porn, find a nice girl settle down, and have Christian babies so that my children (your parents) can become grandparents and not have to worry about you anymore.”

After all, he explains, it’s hard to not give in to social pressure, and to say “no I pass on grass because I have all of the love I need from Jesus”, is pretty embarrassing. It’s kind of humiliating to not swear like everyone else because you’re trying to keep your tongue holy for the Lord. You just seem like a prude or something. Skillet isn’t talking about BDSM for God. They’re talking about staying true to the culture and values of Christianity and not giving an inch to the Devil. Kids should listen to “You take my rights away” and say: “Yes! I want God to take control of my life when I really want to go on incognito mode in Google. The suffering I feel when I’m really horny and not looking at porn will bring me closer to God”.

It’s really boring to write a song called “I don’t do drugs” and then sing about how you’re better than everyone because you’re clean. Sure, there’s probably a straight edge hardcore song called “I don’t do drugs” lurking around out there. But its boring, and legalistic, and fuddy duddy. Evangelicals don’t want you to be good because you feel like you had better (or else), or so that you can lord it over other people, or even because you are acting in your own self interest. They want you to be good because you’re in a personal relationship with God. It’s by faith, through grace that we’re saved, but you also have to die to your old self and be reborn anew in the Spirit so that you can become righteous enough to please God. God dwells within you and changes your mind so that you no longer want to be a bad person and instead want to be a good person. Therefore, God takes your rights away in the metaphorical sense. Sure, it’s technically your “right” to drink 10 PBRs and have casual with some rando. It’s 2019 after all. But God makes it so you don’t want to do those things by taking over your executive functioning and giving you the fruit of the Spirit of self control. God takes that option away for you.

If youre a Christian, you might read the first few parts of this...essay... and think you’re dealing with an idiot who doesn’t know how to think in terms of metaphor. You might think you’re dealing with a clueless atheist who is trying to understand Christianity, or to satirize it. But NO. I know about SKILLET. YOU CAN’T MANSPLAIN THE THEOLOGY TO ME! THIS IS SOVIET RUSSIA AND ATHEIST MANSPLAIN BIBLE TO YOU! Also, a minor quibble; I’m not actually an atheist. Kidding sort of aside, here is how the theology was developed: Over the centuries, theologians and pastors tried to make sense out of the Bible to varying degrees of success. How can one make the Bible mean something to 14th century English peasants? Idk. But the illiterate English Peasants are Christians, so I guess someone has to figure out how to make it make sense for them. In practice, to make a coherent narrative of salvation and holiness, theologians and Church leaders stitched several Bible verses from a few different Epistles and Gospels and stitched them together to create coherent narratives. I can’t really blame them. They lacked a lot of the resources we have in terms of interpreting these passages. There was no internet. There was no Biblical historical criticism. There was no modern archaeological study. They had a book and a library of writings about the book by other theologians trying to do the same thing - Anselm, Aquinus, Augustine, etc. And then on top of that, they had to reinterpret the reinterpretations to fit their own times. So they wrote those interpretations down and so on and so forth. All the way down to 2020 - almost 2000 years after the first words of the New Testament were penned. So, how can we know whether our interpretation of the Bible is right? Post Modernist thoughts such as “It means whatever it means to you” aside, I’d just say I don’t think that we can know for sure whether our interpretation of the Bible is right. However, I think we can look at the consequences of the Church leaders’ teachings about the Bible in 2020 and see - if followed - how they influence people; if they make people’s lives better or worse - if following a particular interpretation gets people to where they’re “supposed” to go. So to recap here’s the interpretation:

1. Jesus died on the Cross to save us from our sins

2. We have to accept his free gift of salvation and repent of our sins in order to go to heaven.

3. Once we have accepted the gift and repented of our sin, the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within us and change us to make us better. 4. However, many find that this process is too slow and not to their satisfaction. They want be more righteous and they want it now, but also, they know how weak they are as people. 5. They ask God to come in and take over entirely so that they don’t even WANT to sin - so that they are literally unable. They’re basically an RC car or Drone controlled by God - so that they are just being moved around to do His bidding. For example; they don’t actually want to stop looking at porn because they like it, but God will take over somehow and make it so that they can’t or won’t.

I think that 1, 2, and 3 are pretty classic Protestant interpretations of scripture. I think that 4 and 5 are somewhat unique to American/Anglo Christianity. The Holiness movement was developed during the early Industrial Revolution by an Englishman who came to America - John Wesley. John Wesley himself probably wouldn’t even sign off on 4 and 5. I think these ideas caught on more in the fast paced 20th Century where we don’t have much time for self-reflection and there is a nearly constant barrage of stimulation. It’s easier for many to just put things in the hands of a higher power - to ask God to let them off the hook so they can mellow out in a divine reverie and float through life without a true care in the world. I personally think BDSM is not the best Aesthetic. The leather and the straps and all of that is kinda ugly to me. I don’t really get wanting to control and dominate, and I don’t really want to be controlled or dominated myself. But I have read about it a bit here and there as a matter of curiosity. It turns out that a lot of subs are rich, powerful people that have lots of responsibility and just want to be able to be “helpless” for a while. When they give themselves over to the Dom, they don’t have to think or do anything on their own - just what the Dom tells them. It’s sort of relaxing for them to not have to be in charge for a while.

Hey, if this offends you, I’m not the one who wrote. “You Take My Rights Away”. They ought to have their theological license revoked! And perhaps we should revoke that whole line of thinking. I wish I had fewer cares in my life. I wish I could just relax and be taken care of. I wish I could just follow someone else’s lead and not have to worry. But most of the time, I like to drive. I like to drive a manual in fact. I hate flying because - while it’s nice and fast - I can’t really control anything about the scenery or the environment. I’m just stuck there on that plane. Driving is a better metaphor for life than flying - unless of course, we’re the pilot of the plane. By this I mean that we are responsible for our own actions and we have to experience the consequences thereof. If we are addicted to porn, it’s us alone that has to experience the consequences. I think we’re here to learn, experience, grow, AND decide. I don’t think you can ever be fully let off the hook for any of that.

I am not skeptical of the idea of a God. I’m probably what you’d call an “agnostic theist”. I am skeptical of “God as micromanager”. I am skeptical of the idea of “Jesus take the wheel”. I get where it comes from, I just don’t really think it lines up well with human experience. And I’m especially concerned with it when it comes to indoctrinating children - which is the real problem with “You Take My Rights Away”.

Perhaps most significantly, this may give kids the idea that they have no agency or control over what happens to them. "We're all just tools in the hands of spiritual forces." It's not like this song was the only place I heard that message. It was like, 25% of youth group messages - only presented without the weird bdsm poetry. Due to this kind of thinking, I used to have a fatalistic attitude about my life. I would say fatalistic things and my mom (who was happy to have me listening to Skillet) would argue with me - saying that I did have personal agency and control over the direction my life took. I remember it wasn't until I stopped being a Christian that I snapped out of this weird fatalism. And part of me snapping out of it was being so uncomfortable listening to Skillet, but that wasn’t the only thing. In college, I had a friend who was terrified that God wanted her to marry my other friend. She felt a strong anxiety and compulsion around it. On top of the anxiety that God wanted her to do something she didn’t want to, she was afraid that God would change her heart so that she did want to. She went to counseling and was diagnosed with anxiety. I have another friend who had the overwhelming internal obsessive thought that God wanted him to become a medical missionary and go to Africa. Only problem is, he’s terrible at science. Bro is a musician through and through. He didn’t enjoy and couldn’t get through the basic science classes required to become an RN. He quit that program and went to counseling, where he was diagnosed with OCD. Then there’s me, I thought that God wanted me to stop playing guitar (sacrifice the thing I loved the most at the time) just because he said so. I was later diagnosed with anxiety. Your kids are probably fine, be nice to them.

My mom is great in general, but on the topic of music/religion, she - like many Boomers - abdicated the parental role of trying to understand what I was listening to and to have conversations about it with me. It’s one thing to have a conversation about how “You Shook Me All Night Long” is a song about having a one night stand with a groupie, and it’s probably a lonely existence to be a rock star, and kids should save sex for marriage or whatever. And yes, it’s a catchy song, but you can get hurt and hurt people with casual sex, and also STDs and pregnancy, and consent and all of that. Using music lyrics, whether good or bad, would be a good way to bring up topics around ethical sexual relationships. She never did any of that.

The point is, my Mom didn’t really have any conversations about music with me other than to say “these lyrics are bad (or stupid)” when I listened to a racy secular song. That’s it. Instead, she just let me listen to any Christian music and any secular music without swearing. And on the topic of Christian music, she never said anything negative about any of the lyrics. I showed her some Christian lyrics and she said “I have no idea what they’re talking about. They don’t make sense to me.” So I just stopped showing her lyrics and I kept bopping out to angsty 90′s Christian rock. I don’t think Christianity is bad. I don’t think it’s inherently unhealthy. I realize that it’s a response to oppressive and stressful situations, and it attempts to bring a higher power into the equation to make life better and to cope. I understand how Christianity has changed in meaning over the years to deal with different stressors and to aid people in different life situations. But honestly, “you take my rights away” is a pretty scary thought for kids who have almost no rights as it is. It’s a pretty scary thought for kids like me who were already austere and pious to the point of not being very likable for most kids. “Wait, God is going to come in here and make me even lonelier and less likeable? No thanks.” It’s isolating, because instead of looking around at the world and experiencing life and enjoying people, it’s basically saying that we ought to focus inward on achieving maximum spiritual perfection. “Death to the self!” Some people pay thousands of dollars to go to South America so that they can experience an Ego death by taking Ahuyasca. And anyway, people who experience an Ego death eventually have to come back to a rational state of functioning to be able to do anything in the rest of their life. One can theoretically live one’s life in a state of enlightenment at all times, but generally one is then not worrying about whether or not to masturbate and writing songs about it. That’s to say that “You Take My Rights Away” is a weird and scary song. Sure, Slayer has songs about Nazis that are pretty scary and gross, but that’s the point. They’re trying to scare you and gross you out. When the singer of Venom bellows about Countess Bathory murdering peasant children, I’m like “Ew”. But that’s great because I just say “ew” and I move on. I don’t question whether I should live my life differently or start to believe in odd ideas. I just say “ew”. I wish I could have just listened to Slayer growing up. Not that I would have. It was too scary. What’s scarier is when a scary idea is presented to you as being something to celebrate. And while we’re on Slayer and Venom, I sort of get why my parents wanted me to stay away from secular music. I guess every parent is a little bit afraid that their kid is going to be a sociopath. Songs about antisocial activities might give kids ideas. They believe that one doesn’t grow up to be a robber or murderer without outside influence. I disagree. I am not the nicest most agreeable person ever, but I’m also pretty empathetic to the suffering of others. The last thing I want to do is kill anyone, ever. Countess Bathory is a fun horror movie song for me, and it always would have been. However, it might be inspiration for others. I just don’t get how my parents couldn’t see me for who I actually am and just have earnest conversations with me about stuff instead of pushing me to be a part of this weird culture of enforced piety. I have listened to a lot of heavy metal and rock about a lot of sleazy things, and I am basically a saint in the grand scheme of things. I ended up getting married and having a baby - living that straight and narrow life. It just probably happened a lot later in my life than if I had just had a little greasy phase when I was 20 or whatever. I wish I would have just gotten it out of my system then instead of flailing through my 20′s trying to figure out why I was so uncomfortable with Christianity. I feel like my parents are disappointed in me for being a normal human being and trying to figure out life. I tried to find a wife who was actually a good match for me instead of settling down when I was 20, Etc. It was really kind of hard for me. I feel like they’re sad that I didn’t want to just hand my rights over to a higher power and become a zombie for God.

But I don’t even think my mom had a sense of what I was really learning about in youth group or in the songs I was listening to. She often taught me the exact opposite of what I would learn about in Sunday school - for example, that I had personal agency and wasn’t merely subject to the control of forces outside of myself. But then if I criticized Sunday School on account of learning some weird lessons, she would defend it vigorously. Church was beyond reproach, and I should listen to them. I should never satirize or criticize, because if I do, I’m attacking Christianity (and therefore her personally). “They’re just people!” she would insist, as if that somehow made up for the wacky bullshit they were teaching me. SO! To all of the Christian parents out there that are trying to decide how to raise your kids: Here’s a bulletin: 1. Metallica or Arianna Grande are better than praise and worship music because they’re not trying to make any amateur weirdo theological claims. If your kid is actually into torturing small animals or whatever, call a psychologist. Otherwise, they’re probably fine. Be nice to them, and teach them love. If they do want to listen to Christian music, pay even more attention to the lyrics because who knows what shit they’re singing to your kids about these days? Either way, music is a great opportunity to start conversations with your kids about things, and they will respect you for it. I promise. 2. Visit your kid’s youth group with them periodically to get a sense of the kinds of messages they’re receiving and the general vibe and attitude of the place. If it feels a bit awkward or toxic to you, it might actually be that for your kid. Sounds like time for a conversation. 3. Listen to your kids when they’re unhappy about stuff instead of dismissing what they have to say and/or taking it as a personal attack. Then, when they listen to songs about flings with “The best damn woman that I ever seen”, they’ll nod sagely and keeping what you said in mind, they’ll perhaps turn those flings into long term relationships, or not but then they’ll learn from their mistakes and find someone better but then you’ll have grandkids sooner and they’ll be younger than 35 when they’re showing up to work all bleary eyed after a night of a crying baby.

This is in no way a commentary on how my life has gone so far.

0 notes

kenzymirror · 6 years

Text

How corruption fuels joblessness in Nigeria

• At NIM lecture, experts give tips on building lasting businesses

Simeon Mpamugoh If you were a youth in the mid-1980s and early I990s, you probably would have heard about brands like Kingsway Stores, Bata, a footwear company known for Cortina shoes, Berec Battery, Dunlop Nigeria and Nigeria Textile Mills. However, things took a different turn when many of these brands began to shut down and divert to other areas. Today, many of them have not been replaced in the minds of many Nigerians. Even those handed over to local business people who could barely handle a small shop have collapsed. The challenges of building institutions dominated discourse at this year’s distinguished lecture of the Nigeria Institute of Management Chartered (NIM) held recently in Lagos. READ ALSO: The Professions, Management Consultancy and Institutional Reform in Nigeria With the topic, “The Challenges of Institutional Building: A Personal Experience,” the lecture was delivered by Mr. Moruf Kolawole Ayanwale, chief executive officer/group managing director, Centrespread Grey, an advertising agency. It took place at Management House, Chris Abebe Auditorium, Idowu Tailor Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. President of the institute, Prof. Olukunle Iyanda, said that it was one of the institute’s interventions to give members a platform to address a significant contemporary issue in national governance and leadership, as well as to catalyse good management and the resultant economic development and wellbeing of Nigerians. He added that the institute had chosen to address the challenges of building strong institutions rather than strongmen, noting that if the existence of strongmen in large numbers were crucial to development, Nigeria would have ranked within the 20 most developed countries of the world. He observed that strong and enduring institutions take time, commitment, sincerity, and determination to build, and could not be built overnight within the tenure or even the lifetime of a single strongman.

Iyanda said that strong institutions contribute more to development than strongmen because institutions were immortal while men were mortal. READ ALSO: Beyond restructuring: The need for strong institutions

He said: “Strongmen die, while institutions often get stronger with age and are not animate beings capable of having hidden agendas that contradict declared common objectives.

“They ensure greater continuity and are less susceptible to individual manipulations and idiosyncrasies. It is not a surprise, therefore, that practically all developed countries are those governed by institutions and concepts, such as the rule of law, rather than rule of men,” he said. He stressed the importance of integrity in management and called on the members of the institute to stamp integrity in every cause they are engaged in. He also attempted to interrogate why people go into establishing a business: “Is it to build an institution that would outlive you or have something to hand over to a child? If you hand it to a child that is not prepared, the whole thing would crumble. That is what is happening in many concerns in the country. It is better to enlarge your management rather than personalising it.” The guest speaker, Moruf Kolawole Ayanwale, took the audience through his journey in life and how he started life in the streets of Mushin.

He said that it was not uncommon in those days for thriving businesses or shops to immediately cease to exist following the demise of the owner. “In fact, I can count hundreds of successful businesses that were closed after the death or incapacitation of the owner, with disastrous effects not only on the lives of the immediate and extended family of the owner, but on the economy of the locality. “I have learnt valuable lessons and gained incredible insight about the interplay of passion, determination, purpose, goodwill, tenacity, management and many others in building a sustainable institution,” he said. He attributed the success of Centrespread Grey, which he started at 27 with a long-term friend, to love and passion for the job. “Our passion and interest in our skills made us venture into business management without the requisite skills. We also knew that managing an organisation would require experience, knowledge of management and corporate administration, which we did not possess from the onset. We needed input and direction from experienced minds in business and corporate management.

“We constituted a board under the chairmanship of Dr. Olawale Cole, and other eminent professionals across different fields of corporate endeavours. This process imbibed in us the quality of accountability. So, as owner-managers, we had people we were answerable and responsible to. Those who had responsibility to call us to order when we got carried away from the agreed goal set for us by the board. This served as the masterstroke we needed. And corporate guidance, business direction and knowledge we garnered during those times remain one of the pillars of our success. “Those who knew the Nigerian economy and business landscape in the early 1980s and 1990s would remember that, in those years, the economy was still largely dominated by global conglomerates, and businesses, such as Dunlop, Bata, John Holt, Leventis, UTC, etc. “For the advertising industry, that was also the boom era. There was intense competition among most brands. The growing middle class and their access to increased disposable income with its attendant growth in consumption and purchases meant brands had to do a lot of communication to persuade the consumer to patronise their services or buy their products. “The first thing we did despite our lean income was to recruit experienced hands. We hired top performers who had the aptitude to do great things and placed them on higher salaries than ours. We had staff in our employment earning twice our remuneration. We believed strongly that adequate compensation, a conducive work atmosphere and a motivated workforce were essential to achieving the goals we had set for ourselves as an organisation. We went all out to ensure we delivered.

Centrespread started getting noticed and started churning out award-winning campaigns that are still today regarded as iconic in the industry.” He also dwelt on the trappings of success, how the company navigated through tough times, expanding the future value of the business, and succession planning. He regretted that he didn’t recruit a human resource officer first at the inception of the company: “Considering what I know now, if I were to start Centrespread all over again, I would have recruited an HR officer first because they ensure corporate strategy and governance.” He noted that the reason many companies have left the country might not be too far from corruption. READ ALSO: Create corruption-free business environment, Motte urges Nigerian govt “We joke with the word ‘corruption.’ Once our integrity is questionable, those companies that perform to the best global practices will leave, and will not come back because they are answerable to their stakeholders back home. The day we have sophisticated Nigerians running government, things will change. As it were, Nigerians are more sophisticated than the government.” He also provided some tips for new business owners: “Keep your eyes on the ball. Stay true to your vision. Accountability drives focus. Recruit right and appropriately. Be resilient and build for the future. “Always evolve with the times, restructure when necessary, take necessary decisions, however difficult, don’t compromise on quality, and stay professional.” A past president of the institute, Mr. Akinbayo Adenubi, debunked the notion that Nigerians cannot plan for their businesses to be taken over by insiders or outsiders. He commended Centrespread Grey for starting the change with the structure of the company headed by his daughter. Participants at the event expressed sadness about the prevailing circumstances in Nigeria’s history, where warehouses are being turned to churches in industrial estates.

The post How corruption fuels joblessness in Nigeria appeared first on – The Sun News.

The post How corruption fuels joblessness in Nigeria appeared first on kenzymirror.com.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2mX0AAz via IFTTT via Blogger https://ift.tt/2LRlxef

0 notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

WHAT THE OTHER ROAD AHEAD

VCs to come back when they have more traction. The kids see to that. It's quite a leap to start a startup, then whether you realize it yet or not. If parents told their kids the truth about it. It seemed the planet was being irretrievably ruined. For most people the best plan probably is to go to work for you, as Google has, you have to introduce yourself, or someone with connections in the movie business. Palo Alto you happen to run into Sean Parker, who understands the domain really well because he started a similar startup himself, and also knows all the investors. Whereas it's easy to know how high they'd go, but I think it can scale all the way back to high school, flushing out all the arbitrary stuff people are measured by now. Why do startups have to be secretive with other companies, who to hire, everything. It was when I'd finished one project and was deciding what to do next. The plan was to put art galleries on the Web even now, ten years later. And you know what?

If one tries a new programming language or a new discovery. They use different words, certainly. There is a bit of a debate inside our partnership about the airbed concept. He invented television. Of those eight, it now looks as if at least four succeeded. Because their current business model depends on overcharging people who have incomplete information about prices. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone saying we don't need to rely on other defenses. As with gangs, we have some idea what secrecy would be like, because that's how things used to be done with levers and cams and gears are now done with loops and trees and closures.

Suppose another multiple of three. Until a few centuries ago, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the next you're doomed. If you'd been around when that change began around 1000 in Europe it would have seemed a great bet a few months. The problem with feeling you're doomed is not just that it's more preposterous to claim about anywhere else. And what drives them both is the number of employees at Craigslist looks like a misprint. These things don't scale linearly. They'll learn a lot, and that job at Microsoft will still be waiting for them if they wanted to start a startup, we never anticipated that founders would grow successful startups on nothing more than YC funding. But design is a definite skill. In a big company, it would be more fun. When they'd been independent, they could release changes instantly. That seems like saying that blue is heavy, or that we'd meet them again.

The power of chance meetings is more variable than people around you care about the kind of work the recipe is in big companies, software has to go through one lame idea before realizing that a startup has made money, and partly because people pay for these things, so one doesn't need to change. So if you want to make your fortune was a crazy thing to do, I'd encourage you to focus more on the basis of education than wealth. We could hire employees, but we are still in the gathering data phase. They're probably good at judging new inventions for casting steel or grinding lenses, but they pay attention. And after having spent their whole lives doing things that are false, and being regarded as odd by outsiders on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes, despite the fact that I still thought at age 11 that teachers were infallible shows what a job the system must have done on my brain. In a feudal society, there are three reasons. If you feel you're really helping people, you'll keep working even when it seems like your startup is worth investing in, and they'll close it, whatever type of lead it is. Wow. There's a narrow variant: is it bad that the current legal system, to apply for patents to build up the patent portfolio they'll need to. So governments that forbid you to accumulate wealth are in effect decreeing that you work slowly. That's why we're doing it during the summer—so even college students can participate. Like nuclear weapons, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the second is worth twice as much.

A lot of the spread of modern religions, and explains why their doctrines are a combination of factors. What I like about Boston or rather Cambridge is that the function of swearwords is to mark the speaker as an adult. If it gets easier to start a startup, is start a consulting business you can then gradually turn into a product business. Are you still in NYC? If they want to conceal the existence of these words for as long as you didn't fail out of laziness or incurable stupidity. The kids see to that. What should they do? Imagine having to ask permission to release software to users. But among the many other things I was ignorant of was how much debris there already was in my head. To almost everyone except criminals, it seems that most people are insulated from it most of the startups we've funded. But if a kid asks you Is there a God?

He found they were one thirteenth as productive after the acquisition. Startups are often described as a pie. I've heard from cities: in London you can still reach the ball, even if you're producing it unknowingly. Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business plan and trying to convince myself I could start a company when he wrote the first version of Facebook. It's obvious that biotech or software startups exist to solve hard technical problems, but I suspect that if you need money, you should be smarter. The mere fact that someone needs you makes you want to sell the company. But even those they use no more than necessary. But you never have to pretend that's what they're doing when they patent algorithms. CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers, professional athletes. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can. It was only after hearing reports of friends who'd done it that they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. As long as you stay on the territory of truth, you're strong.

Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. It wasn't the vet's fault; the cat had a congenitally weak heart; the anaesthesia was too much for one person to bear. It seems to be a smooth presenter if you understand something well and tell the truth you don't have that feeling that your life is flying by like you do in the second. But money is just the effect of grading. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, to make your fortune was a crazy thing to do. Nearly everyone who works is satisfying some kind of irresponsible pied piper, leading impressionable young hackers down the road to ruin. Wealth is what people want. It's when you can see that people there actually care what paintings look like. For the foreseeable future, people will rally around you: investors, customers, other companies, or deal with other companies, or in most schools. You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault. But I think it will also be found to be true in businesses that don't seem to matter. Because this phrase is not only manufacturing companies that create wealth.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Robert Morris, and Steve Huffman for putting up with me.

0 notes