The Truth

What’s the truth?


There’s a question for the ages. The meaning of life? The reason we’re all here? The grand design? The point of it all?

What is the POINT?

I’ll be honest; I’ve never cared to find out. I pride myself on having found philosophical and existential balance pretty early in life. I was 17 years old, pacing around my apartment, worrying what I should do about my failing grades, my future college career and my life beyond, and I had this sudden, calming epiphany that it didn’t matter. All the shit crushing in on me… didn’t matter. I thrust my arms out to the side with the force and conviction of a shepherd parting waves and I said, “It doesn’t fucking matter.”

And it didn’t.

I didn’t do too well in school. My brain didn’t jibe with that establishment -- which shouldn’t be mistaken for a generic, punk-poseur aversion to “The Establishment” -- I’m just saying the way things were done there -- the energies involved -- the vibe -- wasn’t me. I didn’t like the idea of worrying myself into a nervous breakdown because my own desires, inspirations and meditations didn’t fit into the structure of a future I’d built for myself based on society’s blueprint.

Does that make sense?

It was MY blueprint. MY life. I was who I was and I did what I did and I enjoyed myself. Probably not to the degree that I might have liked; I still feel like I missed out on a lot of my youth when I was young. But at least I clung to those inspirations. Three years later, I would introduce myself to a table of creative professionals by giving my name and adding, “and I wouldn’t be here today if I was a good student in school.”

That moment -- the one with the "F" word, I mean -- shaped my view on life. It’s the sort of clarity a person gains when they’re riding a malfunctioning plane into the Atlantic and they realize, “Fuck… I can’t do anything to stop this. I am not in control of this. I preside over myself alone and the rest of the world is just a ride.”

Except, instead, I was 17 years old and worried about meeting the expectations of imaginary people I realized I didn’t give a shit about. I’ve always been sort of an early psychological bloomer. I think I hit my mid-life crisis around 20.

So, it didn’t fucking matter, and from that sprung an entire philosophy on life, molded around the idea of being productively selfish. Do what makes you happy. Get what you want. Contribute to a more positive world by not walking around with a cloud over your head all the time. I couldn’t always follow this philosophy, but who among us can? Even Christians have confession.

One major part of that philosophy was the willingness to not care. People struggle their entire lives with questions of religion and faith and purpose and meaning, and I refused to. God was whatever I chose to believe he was. A mixture of all the good stuff and none of the bad. Did I believe in the devil and hell? Nope. Great storytelling concept, though. Was I interested in others thrusting their beliefs upon me? Hell no. Stop distracting me. Was I eager to share these beliefs and seek out others who felt the same? Not really. I cared more about what other people thought of the comics, movies, and music that I loved. THAT was the shit that mattered to me, because THAT’s what made me happy. Creativity was my religion, and I would wage war on the non-believers with the fury of a thousand angry nerds. But the god stuff just didn’t bother me. I figured, when the time came, I’d learn. Until then, I was gonna do right by me.

This didn’t mean I wasn’t curious… of course I was. I’m a problem-solver by nature, and the only thing worse for me than not knowing something is KNOWING that I don’t know. But the scope of this particular problem was beyond my ability to decypher, at least while still doing everything else in my life that I wanted to. So, like a person who’s resigned themselves to withholding judgement until the end of the movie, I just decided to sit back and enjoy the story. No spoilers would be sought.

I always had an ear out for them, though. Every philosophical discussion or passionate rant I was party to, I paid close attention and listened for the ring of truth. Not judging, not rejecting, but accepting everything, comforted by the notion that I didn’t really need to know.

Still, certain things -- the things that really resonated -- found their way into my daily life. I believe in the power of positive thinking, not because my father would drill this stuff into my head relentlessly when I was younger, but because through my own path, I found that thinking more positively made me feel better. And that made the people I interacted with feel better. And those people in turn made others feel better. And when people feel good, they make less mistakes. And when less mistakes are made, things don’t go wrong as often. Like a stone dropped into a pond, each of us creates ripples, and those are the ripples I want to create.

(As it happens, this is exactly what my father had been trying to explain to me all those years ago, just in his own way and his own words, which weren’t the ones I needed at the time. Or maybe all I needed was time.)

Have I gotten off topic…? Not really. Because it all leads back to the title of this post. The truth.

I’ve never looked for the truth. But I have kept my mind open enough to discover bits and pieces of it along the way. Part of that is corroborating reports. When two people say the same thing, it can be a coincidence. When three or four or five people say the same thing, it could be intentional. When several people, separated by years, with no reason to interact or even pay attention to each other start saying the same weird things in different words… well now that’s something of interest.

It’s the “in different words” part that makes it true for me. You know the belief that all messianic figures throughout the world’s religions may actually be differing accounts of the same person? I believe that. The similarities in structure, if not detail, are too apparent, and the storytellers have no interest in each other. Somewhere between conflict and indifference lies truth.

So, what is truth?

Y’know what? It doesn’t fucking matter… but the problem has a shape now. It has a perceivable scope. I can see both ends of it and I’m curious.

The truth lies hidden in the words and works of Alan Moore, where all time is simultaneous, art is true magic, and society is becoming steam.

The truth lies hidden in the life and mind of Grant Morrison, where magic is a proven act of sheer will, and the next level of consciousness means releasing your personal identity to merge into something communal.

The truth lies hidden in the often angry, sometimes cynical, always passionate words of Bill Hicks, in which “all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, and we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.”

The truth lies hidden in the experiences of Stephen Tobolowsky, who tells a story of a time in his life when he could hear “tones,” like voices (music?) from another (farther?) room, which told him things he couldn’t possibly know about the pasts of random people.

Listen for yourself.

The truth lies hidden in the life of my own family member, who has been telling me these things, in different words, since I was a child, and who put his money where his mouth was last year by quitting his medications and curing himself of a debilitating disease through the power of sheer will and belief.

These aren’t the words of Joseph Campbell or Carlos Castaneda or Michio Kaku or Seth. These aren’t studies I’ve pursued. These are snippets from the lives of artists. These are tiny shards of truth that have stuck in my mind unintentionally. If Creativity is my religion (and it is), these people are my prophets.

Somewhere in their experiences, and the experiences of many others who have not yet crossed my path, lies the truth.

It’s not a truth I’m going to seek out. I have other things to focus on. Stories yet to tell. This is just one of them. And just because I’ve written it doesn’t mean I’m going to become one of those armchair philosophers, tirelessly sussing out the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I’m perfectly content with “42” and everyone else can rest happily in their own beliefs.



Ultimately, this is just a blog post. A collection of words and links. Its only meaning is what you invest in it.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

Post-Modern American Cooking: Hotdog Surprise Soup

Here begins a series of articles I'll be doing from time to time detailing the various kitchen creations that keep my wife and I fed on my more... creative nights. As this is the auspicious first installment, I've chosen to share with you a beloved dish from my childhood: Hotdog Surprise Soup.

(unfortunately, due to a complete lack of foreplanning on my part, I have no images prepared to post with this entry. Instead, I'll be using the closest approximations I can find with Google Image search)

HDSS, as I decided to call it just now, was originally conceived by my father sometime in the early-to-mid-80's. Pop was a former military man and professional musician, so had quite a knack for keeping himself fed when there wasn't a lot to work with.

One night (I remember it well), Pop took it upon himself to make dinner for the family, but because grocery stores had not been invented yet, he could only use what we had in the fridge. An unopened package of hotdogs caught his eye... and a legend was born.

Now, the recipe I'm about to share is slightly altered from the one my father begat all those years ago, but it was borne from the same spirit of laziness and MacGyver-like ingenuity.


Let's get to it, then, shall we?

~*~*~*~

The bowl before you contains a steaming, barf-brown liquid filled with little green specks of broccoli offal, and diced hotdogs surrounded by pale, jerry-curled spaghetti.

You approach it with your spoon steady, wary of whatever dangers may lurk beneath its murky surface. You plunge the utensil in, waiting... waiting.... When nothing yanks it out of your hand, you are somewhat heartened. You lift a spoonful of the steaming sludge to your mouth, close your eyes, and taste...

OW! You burn your mouth. You should have waited for it to cool off first. I TOLD you it was hot! I even used the word "steaming" TWICE! You lose two HP.


INGREDIENTS:


4 Hotdogs (5 if they're short)



8 cups of Water



4 packages of Beef Flavor Oodles of Noodles

(if you don't have Oodles of Noodles, you'll need 3 Beef Bouillon Cubes instead, along with the noodles of your choice -- but I'm going to assume that, if you're even considering making this, you're likely to have some Oodles of Noodles lying around)




1 cube of Vegetable Flavor Soup Seasoning





1 package of Frozen Vegetable Soup Mix

1 package of Frozen Asian Vegetable Mix
(or Stir Fry Vegetable Mix)
(or any two packages of frozen vegetables you want, really)


Creole Seasoning
(if you don't have creole seasoning, shoot yourself)

Yeah, that'll do.

~*~*~*~

STEP 1
Fill a medium saucepan up about 2/3rds with water and set it on the stove. Drop the hotdogs in.

If the hotdogs were already thawed, bring the water to a boil, then take them out.

If they were frozen, bring the water to a boil, wait 5 minutes, then take them out.

Dice the hotdogs into whatever shape diced hotdogs make, eating no more than three of the resulting pieces under the auspice of "quality assurance."


STEP 2
Fill a bigass soup pot...

...with 8 cups of water. Set the stove heat to about 7 (Med Hi). Bring to a boil.


STEP 3

While the water heats up, open the Oodles of Noodles packages. Remove the four packets of Beef Flavor seasoning, place them on the side. Also set aside two of the noodle bricks (broken up or intact, your choice).

Take the other two noodle bricks, place them in Ziplock bags, and put them away; you won't be using those this time around.


STEP 4
When you see bubbles forming along the bottom of the pot, but before the water is actually boiling, because you're impatient, drop the frozen vegetables in. Bring to a boil.


STEP 5

Yeah, right. A couple minutes after you put the vegetables in, you start wondering if you should add the seasoning in now while they're still cooking. Nah, you should probly wai-- fuck it, you add the beef seasoning; all four packets of it (be sure to shake the packets out first so that the powder is all packed to one side and doesn't explode all over you when you rip it open).

(it already happened, didn't it?)

At this time, you might as well also add the vegetable cube.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The vegetable (and beef, if you didn't have the Oodles of Noodles) bouillon cubes are incredibly hard and painful to crumble in your fingers. You may want to hammer them into submission first before adding to the soup...

Stir everything up until you're sure no more solid fragments of the cruel bouillon cube remains.





STEP 6
Drink a Gatorade. You're doing hard work.






STEP 7
Let the soup heat up. No, seriously, let it heat up. That shit's gotta cook.

STEP 8
You're hopeless. It's been two minutes. Dump the hotdogs in. Wait a couple more minutes.

At this point, your soup should look nothing like this.

STEP 9
Remember how it says on the outside of the Oodles of Noodles package...

?

That's why we saved the noodles for last. The soup should be close to boiling by now. If it's not, turn the heat up, you haven't got all day. Once it starts to boil, drop the noodles in. Then lower the heat to 5 (Med), cover the pot (if it doesn't have a lid, use tin foil).

Let it cook for about 5 minutes, or until you're tired of waiting.

STEP 10 (Optional)
If the Oodles of Noodles packets didn't season it enough for you, try adding some Creole Seasoning. Not a lot -- you've already got plenty of salt in there. Just enough to get some of that spicy flavor.

Taste your soup to make sure it tastes right.

You burned your mouth again, didn't you?

Dumbass.


AFTERMATH
Remember those two noodle bricks you Ziplocked? Here's the deal... You're gonna love this soup. No, I'm serious, it's like crack. Even my wife agrees. Right honey?



"Yes, dear."





So, when you're ready to make the soup again, instead of picking up more Oodles of Noodles from the grocery store (you have no excuse -- they exist now!), just pick up the beef bouillon cubes to use with the leftover noodles.

Ta daa!


ORIGINAL RECIPE
If you want to do things the old fashioned way, all you really need to do is omit the extra Veggie seasoning cube (which I use because I like the flavor it brings), replace the noodles with frozen french fries (Pop really was a pioneer), and just use a straight frozen veggie soup mix. Oh, and he didn't use the Creole Seasoning. Disgraceful.


Happy cooking!