I’ve been less than happy about my own writing performance this past month. I could have written a lot more, especially considering how much downtime I’ve had. Unfortunately for you and me, I’m incredibly lazy.
BUT
I’m going to make it up to you. I’ve decided that for the entire month of June, without fail I’m going to post a blog entry EVERY DAY.
Are you excited?
Cause I’m excited.
Dylan Charles
Filed under Writing
Since I’ve got some free time, I think we’re long passed due for an update with bulletpoints. Are you ready for the bulletpoints?
Filed under Everyday Stuff
In light of the impending End of Days, I’ve decided to put together a little primer for all of my readers. Enjoy!
Hello and welcome to The Unbeliever’s Guide to the End of Days! Since you’re reading this, I can only assume that the Apocalypse is rapidly approaching and you’re feeling a bit unprepared for the End of All Things. It’s quite all right to feel nervous. Most people are feeling a little uncertain in these dark times and it’s quite natural to be apprehensive as the Day of Judgment looms ever closer.
Since it’s going to be a hectic time for all involved and the Lord of Hosts will be too busy to answer everyone’s questions about their fates, I have prepared this guide for all unbelievers so that they know what to expect once the skies begin to rain blood and the eternal fires of damnation come roaring up from Hell below.
Now, this is not meant to be a comprehensive guide and this will not fully prepare you for what is to come, but it will help ease you into this often chaotic and disturbing transitional period between Ages. I’ll answer such questions as:
By the end of this pamphlet, you should have a better understanding of why the Christian God wants us all to burn for eternity and how best to ready yourself for The End of All that Is and Ever Was.
“When will the world end?”
It’s important to note that the Apocalypse is only starting on May 21st. After all, Rome didn’t fall in a day and neither will the world. We will experience a great deal of worldly torment before everything goes completely kablooey. The End will come on October 21st. May 21st is just the Beginning of the End. So, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time to finish that book you just started reading and those socks you just started knitting.
May 21st is when the Rapture will take place, along with earthquakes and the like. It is merely the start of the horrors that will befall you and everyone else who was not Raptured away by God’s righteous hand
“What is the Rapture?”
Some Christians believe that when the End of the World takes place, God will whisk away all true believers before the truly awful stuff begins to happen. It’s their reward for…something. I’m not entirely sure who gets Raptured and who stays. Perhaps God works on a point system and Christians earn points throughout their lives (Prayers before Bedtime: 5 Points, Convert a Heathen: 500 Points). If a Christian earns enough points, Rapture; if not, Hellfire and Eternal Damnation.
The only clear thing is that YOU won’t be Raptured and you’ll be stuck cleaning up the mess that they leave when they’re summoned up to the Unending Glory of Heaven. They’ll be leaving behind their pants, dogs and houses filled with valuables. Make use of these resources! They won’t need them anymore and you’ll need creature comforts when the seas turn to blood.
It’s interesting to note that the Rapture is not mentioned in The Book of Revelation, at least, not in the same way that Christians talk about it. There IS talk of 144,000 descendants of the Tribes of Israel being marked with seals so they’re not harmed during the Apocalypse, but that doesn’t sound like what modern day Christians talk about when they mention the Rapture, which is handfuls of Christians being lifted bodily off the planet.
”So why May 21st?”
For thousands of years, people have tried to determine when the End would arrive. Obviously the world was going to end, but it would be nice to know the exact date and time. Religious scholars pored over texts, trying to discern some hidden message behind the words that could let them know the day Judgment would come.
Time and again, they have claimed to hit upon the right combination of secret symbols, mysterious numbers and divine inspiration that lets them unlock the secrets of the Bible. They proudly released their works on the public and announced the time the End will come, right down to the minute. To date, they’ve been wrong every single time and the World has refused to submit to the brilliance of these scholars.
But then came along Harold Camping. He took up the gauntlet that so many others had fumbled in failure. He crunched the numbers and worked up his own formulas and determined the day the world would end: September 1994.
Undaunted, he began again and has come back with a new date: May 21st 2011 is the day that it will all start. The formula he used is a bit complicated and reciting it will put the layperson into a stupor from which they would never recover. Suffice it to say that real math was used and there is no doubt that he is correct this time. Sure, Apocalyptic scholars have gotten it wrong dozens, if not hundreds, of times before, but they were probably using the wrong Bible and bad math before. This time it’s for real.
“What can I expect during the Apocalypse?”
While there isn’t a specific time mentioned for when it will all begin, there will be a few key indicators that it’s about to get Biblical up in here. If you start to notice piles of clothes scattered around with nobody inside them you’re either the victim of a prank or God and His angels has scooped up all the Believers so that they’ll be safe from harm.
Then the moon will turn a blood-red color and the sun will become as black as sackcloth. So there will definitely be strong indicators that there is something afoot. However, a schizophrenic sky and empty clothes are not the worst thing you’ll encounter.
The Book of Revelation is fairly graphic about what is to come. There will be beasts running rampant, there will be angels pouring cups into oceans and seals will be broken. It’s important to remember to STAY CALM. Panicking will only make things worse for the rest of us. After all, the last thing we need is someone shrilly screaming because they saw the Beast with Seven Heads devouring up the oceans. Don’t be THAT person. Be the person who has quietly submitted to their fate in the corner, not bothering anyone.
For much of the End of Days, you’ll be tortured, burned, earthquaked, plagued and tortured some more. Revelation also states that though you’ll long for death, death will run away from you. But do not despair, for that’s only for five months.
Then comes Judgment Day and the zombies.
“Whoa, there’ll be zombies?”
Well, not zombies as you conceive of them. After all the earthquakes, plagues, and Satan, God wants to judge everyone to determine if they’re worthy for eternal life in Paradise. And He wants to judge EVERYONE, living and dead.
So after five months of torment on Earth (which will be October 21st), He’ll call everyone who has ever existed to be judged. While this might, at first, seem like the perfect recipe for the zombie-pocalypse, the dead have not been called to wreak havoc. Instead, everyone will gather into an orderly line and wait while an angel looks up your name in the Book of Life. Instead of a nightmarish landscape where you run around shooting zombies while just trying to survive, it’s a lot more like jury duty. Since there have been about 106 billion people since the beginning of history, it’s going to take a while to get to you. So bring something to read!
If it turns out you’re not in the Book of Life (which you won’t be or you wouldn’t be around to read this), God casts you into the Lake of Fire.
“That sounds like that would hurt. Is the lake of fire painful?”
Oh yes, but don’t worry; after you’re burned away, you’re gone for good, your consciousness eradicated. God is not such a fan of the appeals process. At which point, your part in the End of the World has come to its conclusion.
Thank you for reading this primer and I hope May 21st finds you Raptured. Otherwise, keep this close I guess.
Dylan Charles
Filed under Everyday Stuff
For most of this month, you might have noticed that there wasn’t much word from me. I have three settings when it comes to writing: Off, On, and Batshit Crazed.
Off is what it sounds like and where I’ve been for May. Not only do I not write anything, my desire to write is completely buried. Even thinking about writing is nixed. It’s relegated to the back of my mind; all thoughts dealing with that forbidden topic are shunted off to the side.
Then, one day, I’ll start flipping through some old stories or blog entries and the switch will be flipped. I’ll start remembering what it was like to string more than 140 characters together. That’s when the ideas for blog entries will start clamoring loud and long to be written out. That’s when I’ll start poking around at some halfbaked story idea and hope that it’ll coagulate into something useful. Writing will get done, but at a halting stop and start pace.
But then, one day, that half-baked idea falls into place and I can see the whole of the story from beginning to end and that’s when I enter the far rarer and more interesting Batshit Crazed stage. For a brief shining moment, my attention span stops its restless wandering and comes to bear on that One Thing. At that point, I forget that eating is something people do. I forget that I have friends. And then just…write.
I think…I’m about to enter that third stage after spending almost an entire month in the first stage. I’ve got a whizbanger of an idea is what I’m saying.
Dylan Charles
Filed under Writing
Only a week or two ago, I was writing about how hard it is for me to get emotionally invested and interested in fiction because I was always picking it apart. I can never really get too involved with what’s going on, because I see it as a piece of writing first and a story second.
And yet, so soon after that entry, I found one of those rare books that shut up that part of my brain. It has kept me paying attention to the story being told and not how it’s being told. I started Game of Thrones yesterday and I can’t stop reading it. It’s got pretty much everything I ask for in a book: well written, likeable characters that are also flawed human beings, multiple plotline, each one interesting enough on its own to hold my interest, politics and blood and violence and jaded cynicism and dark undertones and dark overtones. It’s just got everything.
It’s not just a great story, it’s a great story told well. I want to never stop reading it in fact, something that only happens occasionally with books like The Name of the Wind and anything China Mieville writes. I’m embedded in this world that George R.R. Martin has created and I’m glad that I decided to try it out. Now, I need to get back to it.
Dylan Charles
Filed under Books
I’m interested in meditation; specifically in the idea that you could go inside yourself and see what’s lurking inside. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at it. I’m incapable of holding still, both mentally and physically. I’ll sit there or lay there and bombard myself with a thousand uncontrolled thoughts. Generally, I end up darting out of bed and running off to do something.
But I found out an easier way to get my brain to fess up what’s lurking in my subconscious. I read that people can see some interesting things by going into a sensory deprivation chamber. When someone takes away all sensory input, their brains compensate by making stuff up. Now, I don’t have access to a sensory deprivation chamber (a metal coffin filled with a salt water solution), but there is a way to replicate the effect.
All you need are sound cancelling headphones, white noise to pump through the head phones, a ping-pong ball cut in half and a red light. You cover your eyes with the ping-pong ball halves and turn on the red light. Then put on your new headphones and relax. Congratulations, you’ve now just deprived your brain of two of its major senses and it’s about to get bored.
Since I’m both lazy and poor, I decided to half-ass it. I blindfolded myself and put on some white noise on my iPod and lay down. I got ready for some hallucinations that were not the result of illicit pharmaceuticals. I lay there for about ten minutes and then fell asleep.
So I tried again. This time I managed for about half an hour before I got bored and gave up. Apparently there’s a reason why you have to use that specific list of materials and not just things you have lying around the house.
However, it wasn’t a complete loss. I saw exactly two things: A weird snowflake pattern and a flower. A strange flower that twitched. I’m going to try again by golly, but with the right stuff.
Results to be posted here.
Dylan Charles
Filed under Science
