explorer1357: This is absolutely MIND BLOWING!!!

There was a subreddit call dimensional jumping or something like that where redditors post experiences of jumping through similar ‘alternates’ with slight differences in outcomes. They even have the universe ‘number’ posted on the sidebar so you can know if you in the same ‘ship’

Maybe they’re just all Mandela Effects… But… Maybe, who knows??

reptiliandude: Now do you understand why I don’t go “on tour.”

Real informers don’t charge people $40 a plate to go on stage and say bullshit like, “I have to be very careful here because if they find out I’ll be…”

These gifts got stronger and stronger the more I kept them to myself, so that keeping their possession a secret took on an almost decadent sensuality of sorts.

To explain: put yourself in the situation of a man who has the most beautiful sister on the face of the Earth—a head-turner that cant even go outside because she actually causes auto accidents.

Men miss flights and trains to try and get her digits and they leave gifts at the front gate in large wooden crates.

They’re arrested climbing the wall to get to her, and some have even killed each other to try and eliminate “competition” for her favors, even though she’s never met with any of them and indeed, one as stunning as her hasn’t lived in a thousand years.

One day it occurs to you how strange that is that she never dates and has maintained her virginity like some kind of a saint of sorts.

And she always looks at you sadly.

You ask her what the problem is, and she says that she never dated because the person she’s truly in love with isn’t allowed to love her back because the whole world will hate him.

Being a somewhat innocent and naive fellow, you ask what sort of person could be so lucky and yet so unfortunate at the same time…

She answers, “That person is you.”

And so is the dilemma.

Because, although both could keep such a relationship secret from the world at large, neither one knows what the child of such a union would be like.

Thus, such things are forbidden.

And while this tale may offend some because of its incestuous nature, that is exactly what it is like.

I possess something which I am “forbidden” to have.

These gifts are like a beautiful creature that has known me since birth and grown up beside me and lived every experience with me.

For her continued love, she requires commitment and discretion.

Why would I share that love with the filthy and the reprehensible?

It would be like pimping her or something.

And that is how I see this relationship that has enabled me to be a ghost within my own machine.

When you’ve got the real deal… It takes on the qualities of something immensely desirable and personal.

No man who truly and deeply loves a woman willingly pimps her off to strangers.

So it is that one should say unto such a wisdom, “You are my sister.”

And to such insight, “You are my first cousin.”

“For if such a Love cannot be contained, let us commit ourselves to each other and so hide our actions from the world.”

“For such a society would never understand.”

“Your jealous suitors would call you a whore and then destroy you as if you were a witch.”

“And if any sought to honor us by imitation, it would only would lead to their own destruction, as so many children would be born in vain.”

Do you see the parallel?

And again, no man who truly loves a woman pimps her off to strangers.

So, it is that I’ve kept these “gifts” to myself all of my life, and shall continue to do so.

For to share such gifts is to dishonor them, and to set a certain path for others to only fall into a madness that shall cause them to destroy themselves and others.

emperorbma: From the parables of Jesus: The man who found a treasure and buried it. (EDIT: I was pressed for time and unclear. I meant the one where the man sold all he had for a “pearl of great price” not the servant who buried the talent and was cast out. My mistake if you drew the wrong implication…)

But where does the idea of not putting a light under the bushel come in? It seems to him whom much is given much shall be expected. I wonder what the distinction between this is. For much like His “whoever is not against me is for me” and “whoever is not for me is against me” there’s a subtle nuance here that is difficult to discern.

reptiliandude: I’m not the Christ and I’m not Spider-Man.

I’m helping here and there.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m eventually required to open the up the entire pantry to crackheads and hobos.

emperorbma: I agree. I think we sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between those who are trying to follow the way and those who are willfully not on the way. I don’t mean to imply that you aren’t trying. I was just curious what your take was on that. Thank you.

EDIT: what I am gearing at is how to rebuke nonsense of the people who cannot make the distinction between these two things… coughe.g. christian socialists cough)

P.S. it also occurred to me “pearls before swine” works too. Not to imply the Kayeen “star waste” meme but the fact that not everyone really “gets it” and we’re not that dissimilar from swine anatomically.

lelekfalo: I see you as more of a John the Baptist.

ACuriousHumanBeing: I see it like you can chain that sentence to be: whoever is not against me is for me, whoever is against me is not for me. In this sense, Jesus is like a stone. If you are not standing against this stone, you are implicitly for it moving. But it you are against it, you are for it.

Interesting to me, because it means you don’t have to be pushing Jesus to be for him, so much as simply not push against him or his message. Let him ride his ass, and you are not against it, but stop him, and you are.

Its the ultimate, live and let live.

emperorbma: I agree. Here is how I usually explain it:

The context of “not against me” is people using Jesus’s Name but not being His disciple. He’s obviously ok with that. This part is why I don’t think the door to door salesman approach is good. Share. Don’t meddle.

The context of “not for me” is the Pharisees’ response to His Message: trying to overcome and slay Him. This is also how we identify insincerity and lip service.

explorer1357: Damn.

That was pretty deep

garbotalk: So much more the honor for those of us you make the effort to help.

ACuriousHumanBeing: I heard this recently. It made me think of you here.

“The ultimate strength, however, is strong in a way they can’t even fathom. It can’t be put into words, and no one can analyze it. Only those who have attained that level of strength know its secret. Therein lies the godlike strength that inspires masses and makes the crowd go wild.”

Daigo Umehara: The Will to Keep Winning

lovegrug: This’ll sound like a poor excuse for Alzheimer’s however I think a strong memory of an event likely reduces the possibility of divergence from that timeline unless if you’re familiar with “letting go”. Your experience may vary, and I agree that the toll on sanity can be existent if one feels lied to by the ghosts of their past, or the Gremlins who toy with timeliens 😉