Brad Moore At War

Ever have one of those weeks where the same thing just keeps coming up in conversation? And no – I’m not even talking about the weather or the Super Bowl or anything like that; I’m talking about really random stuff. Really weird stuff… like peanut butter. No, seriously: I once found myself inexplicably discussing peanut butter in three totally unrelated conversations spread out over the space of a single week. (Also: I just said “spread out”. GET IT? HUH?)

The weird recurring thing for this last week has not been peanut butter. It’s actually been kind of a loaded question – just as much for me as for anyone who ever had to deal with it. Not only that, but the whole thing first came up (pretty randomly, in fact) in the comments right here on this site. The question is “What are the rules for Christians about hooking up with non-Christian partners?”

And when people have asked my thoughts on this stuff, I’ve been giving them a two-part answer. First: I can’t really speak for anyone else, but I don’t think a relationship with The One True God is much about “following rules” in the first place. Especially in this instance, there are no “rules” how you’re probably thinking of them. (“They’re more like guidelines anyway.”) There’s actually just a paragraph in the Bible where Paul talks about how it doesn’t make much sense to be “unequally yoked with unbelievers”.

Okay, hold that thought. The second part of the answer is that you gotta’ hand it to the guy: he’s totally right. If you get too tied up with anyone who is going someplace where you don’t want to go, that’s a lose-lose situation. It’s not like I’m a pastor or anything… but it doesn’t take a pastor to tell you that two horses can’t pull the same cart if they’re headed in different directions.

As I understand it, the point is that any relationship – whether it’s business or romantic or whatever – is based on common goals, right? And maybe you just met someone, he/she looks awesome, and you get along really well. And that is WICKED… I’m as serious as I can be here: milk it for all it’s worth and have the time of your life. Thing is: if this person has some ultimate goals that are diametrically opposed to your own, then you’d better look to the long run and recognize that something’s gotta’ give.

It doesn’t mean that I as a Christian can’t have amazing, true, lifelong friends who are Bahai or atheist or whatever. But what does it mean? Well, it means that even though you’re falling for this cute guy… he’s ultimately just out to toke and drink and have a fun life; and you’re a temple of the Living God. (Yeah, that’s kind of a big deal.) It means that just being smart about this stuff up front will save you RIDICULOUS amounts of pain further down the line. It also means that everyone in the world may ultimately be focused on taking from others to serve themselves – but that YOU are focused on serving and receiving from God to freely give to yourself and others. (Yeah, also kind of a big deal.)

As for me, I think I’ll avoid marrying a Mormon or starting a business with anyone who happens to be evil.

No offense Mormons. (And evil people.)

Fall in Wellington, New Zealand is actually pretty underwhelming compared to most places in the world. And when I say “Fall”, I mean “Autumn”. You know: that season that would come after Summer if this was not Wellington. Yeahthatsright – I’m an American and I say “Fall” and “aluminum” and “erbs and spices”. Deal with it.

Regardless of what you call this season (if you even call it a season), I’ve been able to snag a few pretty cool shots that more or less do it justice. And when I say “do it justice”, I mean “capture a bit of the weirdness of living in a place where there’s really just a little bit of everything and everyone from all over the world in one place… with the sights / sounds / smells to match.” You know: that thing that happens when you have a tiny island nation in the South Pacific that’s slowly filling with people and plants and food and animals from every continent. And it’s somewhere between Summer and Winter in a place that doesn’t really have much of a Summer or a Winter. Yeah… that.

And as for yours truly? Well, I’ve got it way better than I deserve (as always). I may be a bit sick and sleep-deprived this week in particular, but it’s getting better. Also: we may finally have the makings of a Kiwi-Saffy-Nebraskan amazing everything band! (Sounds tolerable, right?)

On that note, stand by for more news from the musical front. Oh, and hit me up if you’ve got any sweet band-name ideas… I promise I’ll give you some (very) due credit if we choose yours!

Moving:

(A mediocre sonnet. In iambic pentameter. Because I can.)

I wish I would have known before last night
been home in time with garlic naan in hand
I wish a few small things had just gone right
or big ones like a car, a girl, a band

And now it’s two A.M. and I walk slow
carrying some shelves down quietly
to my new room that’s only down below
at least this time I’m not going overseas

And this is one expensive worthless door
the ceiling leaks but I don’t know it yet
I’ve got four fans all pointed at my floor
just let me have what little sleep I’ll get

first world problems, coffee late at night
I’m no one to complain – I’m sweet as, mate

(Mmmhmm, see what I did there?)

Back next week…

“If anyone can show and prove me to be wrong in either thought or deed, then I will gladly change. For I seek only the truth, which has never harmed anyone. Harmed are those who continue in self-deception and ignorance.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

The Williamsburg hipster loves to look down on the rural Arkansas hillbilly. Backward and narrow-minded and old-fashioned. And the rural Arkansas hillbilly loves to look down on the Williamsburg hipster. Cloud-brained and confused and insecure.

The science PhD student looks down her nose at the homeschooled Christian kid. How can anyone stand to be such a brainwashed, mindless product of a system? And the homeschooled Christian kid looks right back down her own nose at the science PhD student. How can anyone stand to be such a brainwashed, mindless product of a system?

And maybe if they both stuck their noses up a bit further, they would finally be forced to notice the sky. With billions upon billions of galaxies. Each galaxy with billions upon billions of stars. Distances and spans and scales that the human mind simply cannot comprehend. And maybe – with any luck – they could just begin to see the big picture.

EVERYONE is backward and narrow-minded and old-fashioned. EVERYONE is cloud-brained and confused and insecure. EVERYONE is a brainwashed, mindless product of a system. Your next door neighbor. Every powerful CEO of any company anywhere. Every world-renowned expert that you’ve ever heard on any subject whatsoever. The President of the United States. Jerry the retarded kid from your class in school. All of us fall into exactly the same boat: human. Dust. Grass that is blown away by the wind.

What’s my point? My point is that you cannot possibly be any better or any worse than another person in this world, because we’re all exactly the same thing at the core of our being. You can judge no one else – and no one else can judge you. All of us are biased. All of us say / think / believe a lot of stupid things for really stupid reasons. All of us – from the greatest to the least – are essentially nothing more than a bunch of raving childish fools infesting a thin film on the surface of a giant, boiling rock.

My point is really that you can lose the attitude. No debate should ever be about winning or losing; it should be about mutual learning. The human race has no need for your pride… but it has a dire need for your willingness to learn and improve yourself. Guys, you can be better men. Ladies, you can be better women.

All of us are inescapably fighting for something. Some are part of the solution; some are part of the problem. Good guys and bad guys. (I swear I’m going to make a song out of this.) You are personally fighting *right now* with planks in your eyes. And if you’ve never even tried to remove them and look around, then how do you know you’re one of the good guys? If you can’t see straight, then how do you know whether you’re fighting on the right side?

And if you don’t know whether you’re fighting on the right side, then how can you possibly stand to live with yourself?

So there’s this place where you’ve probably never been unless you’re a Wellingtonian. In fact, you’ve probably never even heard of it unless you’re from New Zealand. It’s the kind of place that must be from a movie or a game or a dream or something. Like this can’t be real life and you can’t actually be awake and walking around a real location on this planet. Let alone one that’s just a few hours’ drive from the street where you live and the desk where you work and the grocery store where you buy milk and spaghetti sauce. Yeah, this place is real – and it’s called Castlepoint.

I had almost the same reaction to Castlepoint as I did to Piha. You know: stopping every couple minutes just to look around and laugh in disbelief. Here’s this place that’s basically in the middle of nowhere on an almost-completely-deserted stretch of Southern Pacific coastline. It’s far enough from everything else that the bus tours don’t even bother to come out here. Oh sure, there’s a hostel for the surfers… but that’s because this place is not only ridiculously beautiful; it’s also churning with perfect bow-echo surf breaks that you’d really have to see to believe.

I think I might have figured out why nobody from Wellington talks very much about Castlepoint: they don’t want to ruin it. Someday, the secret might get out. Someday, money might speak louder than common sense. Bring the land developers and marinas and overcrowding and pollution. They’ve already ruined far too many amazing spots in New Zealand. But we can all hope that it never happens here.

I also hope I can come back soon with a surf board instead of a camera…

I said pretty much the same thing at about this same time last year, but I’ll repeat it because it’s true: Easter is a big deal in New Zealand. Big enough that the highways heading north from Wellington and Auckland get totally clogged up with traffic for hours on end. Big enough that Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays where most businesses need to stay closed – either from practicality or legal enforcement. I guess it’s just as well: pretty much everyone in the country is going to be MIA anyway.

It all seems a little bit weird to a guy coming from small town Nebraska – but Easter itself is really not the highlight of the weekend at all. The highlight for most New Zealanders is something more like fun in the sun or one last road trip before the weather turns cold. But when you think about it, it really makes sense. March and April really do seem to have some of the most reliable sunny spells of the year (even though that isn’t saying much for Wellington). And I guess this is a country where 100% of the population loves to be outside – and 50% of the population claims no religious affiliation. So yeah: Kiwis tend to be less at church and more on the beach. Most things in the world actually make less sense than that.

This last weekend, I ended up hitting a few beaches myself. In fact, it was just on the afternoon of Good Friday that I was able to visit two places in the far reaches of Wellington where I’ve been wanting to go for a long time now: Eastbourne and Wanuiomata.

Bit of a disclaimer here: a lot of Wellingtonians would actually laugh at that. Wanuiomata has a bit of a rep as one of the bad parts of town. On the other hand – I’m a yankee, okay? I think I’m still allowed to go into tourist mode sometimes. (Mmmhmm. Kinda like BEAST MODE. But different.)

The further south and east you go, the harder it is to believe you’re still in the same metropolitan area as the Botanic Gardens or Courtenay Place. Everything gets suddenly rugged and sparse and harsh and arid. Beautiful place in its own way, though – even if we didn’t feel totally comfortable leaving our car outside the skate park.

And speaking of deserts and things I’ve wanted to do for a long time – you need to check out these night shots I grabbed just a few hours later. Good Friday, the full moon of April, late night in the Desert Garden: creepy and awesome and beautiful. I think I got lucky once or twice and a few shots turned out really well… especially considering that I used my foot instead of a tripod.

Lady Barker pretty much hit the nail on the head way back in 1870: “We have a great deal of disagreeable weather, and a small proportion of bad weather – but in no part of the world does nature so thoroughly understand how to make a fine day as in New Zealand.”

It’s especially true in Wellington. I remember flying in from Auckland a few months ago. The sky over New Zealand was smooth and sunny and blue and green… until we started the descent into Wellington. That’s when the clouds converged and the wind blew from every direction. (Yes, every direction AT ONCE. I don’t even know how it does that. Magical.) Our A320 was jumping and bouncing and tossing from side to side. Somebody a few rows behind me was emptying one stomach into one bag. The people across the aisle were gripping their armrests with white knuckles – playing “let’s imagine” with their eyes closed in some sort of permanent wince. Beaches. Mai tais. Dolphins. Happy thoughts.

And me? I was grinning like an idiot; I love this stuff. It’s like a roller coaster but way cooler because you’re flying. That makes sense, right? (Makes sense to me.) Oh, and I guess you get somewhere pretty quickly, too. (Added bonus.)

So the plane lurched to our right and slammed down like it had just fallen off the edge of a 200-foot table. I exchanged some kind of incredulous smirk / head-shake / rolling eyes with the two passengers next to me, and said out loud what we were all thinking: “Hah – Wellington.” One of them laughed and nodded. The other one just looked greenish grey.

But if you were here over the last few weeks, you’d have no choice but to love this place. Seriously. A walk through the gardens and under the trees on a beautiful, sunny fall day. A buzzing downtown full of cafes / restaurants / clubs / shops / music / birds / buskers / delicious smells / people from every walk of life and every corner of the world. And everywhere on the waterfront has this amazing view of a shimmering blue-green harbour with mountains in the distance. And if that doesn’t convince you, then you can head up to the southern heights to see the mist rolling in off the Makara ranges while the waves crash at Island Bay down below you. Doesn’t even seem real, you know?

Or if you’re fortunate enough to live right by the Botanic Gardens, you could head out your door on random evenings at sunset to see re-imagined, 1920′s-themed Shakespeare or free concerts from New Orleans style jazz bands. (Gotta love the second-line.) So bring some friends and crackers and wine. Spend a beautiful evening hanging out on the lawn at The Dell or the Soundshell and don’t even worry about mosquitoes (because there aren’t any). I promise you: it makes all the wind and rain totally worth it.

They say beauty is only skin-deep. And maybe that’s true… but then it must be equally true that we live in a skin-deep society. Sure, it’s outrageously unfair to judge people based on appearance – but you do it all the time. I do it all the time. We all do. Inevitably. Every time we see another human being. And yes: it’s a crazy, sick, wrong, and stupid way of doing things – but it will never change, so you might as well make it work for you instead of against you.

Sound familiar? Yeah, I guess I’ll probably pick up where I left off with #3 last time. Appearance counts for a lot, doesn’t it? If looks didn’t matter, then we would see Mrs. “8-outta-10″ walking around with Mr. “3-outta-10″ all over the place. African Americans would get better jobs. Sororities wouldn’t be fighting over girls from the same cheerleading squads. The phrase “out of your league” would still apply more to baseball than to supermodels.

And it’s not like that in real life. Good looks are NOT just superficial – exactly because so much of our society IS. We live in a culture of noise and clamor. We live in a culture of Facebook and 4G Wi-Fi and microwave dinner and 15-second TV spots. We live in a culture that is dominated by people who are a mile wide and an inch deep… because it seems like that’s the kind of person you have to be anymore to capture anybody’s attention. Kind of disgusting, but it’s true.

So what’s the big deal? Well, it all makes physical attractiveness into this weird kind of self-enforcing cycle. It’s not even about you and your girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse; it’s more about you and everyone else. It’s more about him/her and everyone else. It really gets down to a complicated dance between your self-image, your partner’s self-image, and the way society treats both of you. Your appearance has an enormous impact on how everyone will react to you, each and every time you step out your door. In any role you play at any time of any day. If you’re comfortable or uncomfortable being you, that’s going to show through to everybody around you. More to the point: for 99.9% of the people you will ever meet, you are nothing more or less than just how you happen to appear to them when they see you. That immediately reflects back upon you and everyone else who is associated with you. And that is a VERY big deal.

So what do you do? I don’t know… I guess it depends. Probably nothing at all. All of us need to decide for ourselves, right? Depends how much you value looking better vs. spending less time in the bathroom each morning. Depends on your own conscious and subconscious motivations and relationship to society. Depends how much you care about different people’s opinions of you. Depends on how old you are, what you’re dealing with, where you work, and only about three million other things.

Are you one of those lucky skunks who just happened to be born with classic good looks? Well, it’s a gift; don’t abuse it. It will fade away sooner or later. And I promise I’m being as serious as I can possibly manage while saying this: use it for good and not evil. It’s easy to find ways if you just look around for them.

On the other hand, got crooked teeth? You can get them fixed any time you want. Big nose? Wearing glasses and/or choosing the right haircut will help a lot. And if it’s still really an issue, better to just get a nose job than to spend years being insecure about it. Overweight? Eat smaller portions with healthier food and try to dress in layers. (Guys, the American cut suit is for you.) Lanky and long-necked? Work on your posture and try to dress more in fitted clothes than bags and blankets. (Guys, collared shirts are for you… not that I would personally happen to know anything about being lanky and long-necked. Hmm? What?)

Odds are that there’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about. Most people won’t even give a second thought to how you come off because they’re all too busy worrying about themselves. But if you can really, honestly tell that people tend to see [insert specific undesirable characteristic] instead of just [insert your name here] – then you might as well just remove the obstacle, right? If people are judging you unfairly based on something shallow and superficial, then it is absolutely NOT vanity for you to want to change that. That’s just practical and smart. And at the same time, realize that you could never stop them from judging you anyway. At some point, we all have to be okay with that. Everyone needs to find their own balance.

The best part is that we all grow out of it anyway. Nobody is a 10 or a 1 for very long, because it’s all relative. We all eventually learn not to be so superficial because we all eventually get old and ugly. And let’s be honest – even while we’re young: confidence / presence / personality / character have always been more attractive than a pretty face. It’s like when you see a cute girl on the sidewalk – but then you notice she’s holding a nasty cigarette and cussing up a storm into her phone and something inside you says “…oh.”

Anyway, it’s like I said before: I’m definitely NOT the ultimate expert on this stuff. It’s not like I’m any kind of image consultant or fashion authority whatsoever… I’m a farm kid from Nebraska, ok? Also: we’re not talking GQ and the Oscars here – just common sense and awareness. You don’t need to tan or go to a gym to look good – just walk tall and figure out what colours / styles work well on you. It’s not about high fashion or a “great new you” or any of that narcissistic fluff. I’m just trying to make the point that in some cases, it’s actually really simple to improve how everyone in the entire world will react to you.

And that kind of knowledge is some of the most practically useful that my 20-something self has ever gained.

You may or may not know this, but I basically live in a closet with a window. It’s an awesome flat for more reasons than I could ever list here, but my room is so small that the moment when I start getting music gear is the moment when I start running out of space. Oh yeah, and that moment is now many months in the past.

To remedy the situation, I decided to get one of those creaky metal loft beds that sways back and forth every time you touch it. You know: something to make my life exciting because of the perceived chance that I’ll wake up one floor lower than where I went to sleep. (Ahh, life’s little mysteries. And untimely demises. And stuff.)

Short story boring: I decided not to just order a bed and have it brought to my house. That really *would* be boring. And expensive. So I did the less-boring, less-expensive thing and drove up to Taranaki to grab a used one. Yes, Taranaki – that’s a 4 hour drive from Wellington. Especially if you happen to be an American driving a giant, lumbering cargo van down the left side of an unfamiliar road. Good thing I found the overdrive button.

The whole Taranaki region seems pretty agricultural and rural. A lot like home… if home was centered around a huge volcano and dotted with things like medieval towers and world-class surfing.

Anyway, the journey made for a whole Saturday on the road – and I really needed that more than I knew. A beautiful drive on a beautiful day… with plenty of real, quality alone time that seems way too hard for me to find as of late. The surf was basically non-existent when I was there, but I couldn’t have timed it very well anyway. Oh yeah, and I guess there was me out under the blue sky on the far side of the world – exploring new parts of this amazing, ridiculously beautiful Land of the Long White Cloud. That was okay, I guess.

Fortunately for you, my dear friends and enemies, the camera was present. And just after I finally saw Mt. Taranaki for the first time, I also got some pretty lucky shots of it. It’s almost like you were right there in the van with me and didn’t even have to endure any of my beatboxing. How cool is that?

So I’m not exactly the world’s greatest cognoscente of cinematic treasures. Yeah, umm… not even close. Glad we’ve got that out of the way. But with that said, hey – I’m a multimedia artist / INTJ / writer / philosopher / PhotoShop geek / professional business intelligence agent. I just sit down and start thinking about movies… aaaaand then I end up with this. What would you really expect? (I’m not even sure how I might answer that question, but I think this came out as something between Infoporn and corporate chic.)

In another not-surprising-at-all move: for about 15 years now, I’ve been working on one really huge / complex / beautiful story arc that takes place in an equally huge / complex / beautiful world. I have no idea if anything will ever actually be produced – but maybe you could see how I can work on the same thing for 15 years and still not even be close to done with it; especially when I tell you that I’m trying to pull off everything on this chart (plus a lot more) within one epic (both literally and figuratively) storyline.

Except for Mel Gibson slaughtering a bunch of English soldiers. He probably wouldn’t go along with it anyway.