Good evening. (though this will be posted tomorrow) If you’ve read any of my earlier posts, you will know that I’ve been catching up on missed writing days.
If you’ve read the title, then you know this has got to be a weird round of reasoning, but stick around because oh my sweet lawd, I need to write more. I would, however, like to preface this with a full disclosure I’m a few beers deep and a lightweight.
I have allowed myself equal allotments of healthy and questionable coping mechanisms because I am a Libra. But I hate scrolling through recipe stories, so let’s get to my Dionysian points. Seriously, he drank wine and babbled and people said he was great.
This is like… the fundamental crux of my ass itching if you will.
If you read me occasionally, you might know I’m not a super huge fan of organized anything – my life, government, religion, anything besides my cabinets – it’s like a fucking grocery store with facing – facing I tell you.
Would Jesus even be monetized nowadays? I think about this shit constantly. Followers. Look how important it is nowadays to have followers, you’re nobody if you don’t have enough followers.
The word Followers, religion, God, Jesus, how this whole thing works. Jesus’ (at the time, revolutionary, crazy, blasphemous) shit worked because a lot of people dug him and followed him – either literally wherever he went, or by his teachings, words, etc.
I, for one, am convinced there is some sort of Contra cheat code in this shit, and I just will be like 1000 monkeys typing Shakespeare, and I’ll hit that code someday.(I also think I’m supposed to write the shit I think is too crazy to write because that’s the cheat code) (numbnuts). I generally think Jesus and a lot of other folks figured out the cheat code, except it isn’t a cheat code, it’s actually simply how to play the game.
How to play what game?
Anybody I could quote generally keeps saying shit like be yourself, or do your thing, honor your gifts, etc. And why do I know their names?
Followers.
Think about how many followers people have. Dead people, alive people, people people. Everything is about followers. Anything is basically a matter of people believing you, digging your shit, following you around, and doing nice things for you.
They did this with Isis in Egypt, all the way through Jenny from the block and beyond.
I will not Google this, I’ll get distracted and forget to finish this post. Just insert a name of relative prominence and how many followers they had or have. It is generally massive numbers of people – Jesus didn’t pull those numbers back in the day, and I’d be willing to bet there are more than a few that have more followers than some or even many religions.
We all wonder how the Jonestowns, Waco’s, and Hale Bop folks get sucked into these things, I’ll not mention the other obvious one, I’ve heard they’re pretty sue happy. But if they had the same number of followers as someone like Cardi B. or like Christ, or probably Guy Fieri. From a sheer numbers perspective, any of these fine folks could (or have) start a religion or cult or whatever. They simply have lots of followers. If the number of people following either of the two completely randomly picked celebrities did anything like Jonestown or whatever: it would just, it would be a lot of people who did it so…
Inquisitions, Crusades, Genocides, and the Holocaust all had followers, a lot of people just did what somebody told them to. Supporters. People who liked what someone had to say, or how they made them feel, or you name it., so they did what was suggested. Horrible oversimplification, but generally how it happened. A bunch of people – enough people – just followed somebody.
They are all generally trying to get anybody to do something. Whether it’s loving your neighbors or buying my album, it’s just a person with a bunch of followers…
And like, clearly, I’m being hyperbolic, Guy is telling us to tune in to Triple D not overthrow the Brazilian government. But, I’m just saying if he wanted to turn Brazil into Flavortown, he could reach a lot of people with that suggestion. Ya know?
Followers. Followers spreading the word, and how accurately that word gets passed along. We’ve been poorly playing telephone with a dude who hasn’t been around in over 2k years. A lot of generally important dudes that haven’t been around in millennia actually. Why stay Christnocentric?
And it’s not going well, and look how quickly everything travels nowadays. Jesus had mules. Maybe pigeons? We generally have what somebody said about him. The Bible is comprised of stuff somebody said and only whatever somebody else decided was okay for you to read. That’s pretty old too. The metaphors, the words, the concepts, they don’t relate now. We argue over whether or not dudes forming the Constitution could have envisioned AR-15s, do you truly think anybody writing any gospels meticulously by hand imagined an iPhone? This doesn’t seem to be argued as much as it must be. But, I think on some level, we are predisposition to assume if enough people believe it, it’s gotta have something about it.
I think about how much bigger the world is now versus then. Have you ever thought – legitimately, sincerely, if Jesus’s follower count was like 10k or something, it would barely blip on the radar. The corn kid on TikTok would have blown Jesus out of the water he was walking on. He’d barely be monetized. What was the loaves and fishes – 2k? I have more followers on my blog. Psshh.
Would he even have a plaque unboxing for YouTube? Could he even go live on TikTok? I mean, there are lots of followers now, but everybody gets bigger posthumously you know? Look at Poe or how Nightmare Before Christmas’ massive resurgence post-theatre release.
But I mean, even if you adjust for inflation, I’m pretty sure Mr. Beast would beat Jesus. I think Rap God would still have more views than A(not the) son of God if you think about it. Numbers keep dwindling in many churches as more and more people question everything and anything, and why wouldn’t they? Shit is fucked, and I find more solace in someone screaming about their pain lyrically than somebody listing off all the reasons why I’m going to hell because of their notion of god loves me but not really.
And maybe you’re normal and you haven’t wondered this kind of shit, but I think about this shit a lot. Like, the more successful religions just have higher follower counts, but I’m pretty sure anymore like… Instagram, Facebook, whatever, there are absolutely humans that have way bigger follower counts than some religions.
And then I have to wonder – because this isn’t fucked up enough – so like, do we just really don’t understand words and history? Like we think of all of these people as all holy and whatever, but what’s the difference? These folks have legions of people that throw money and whatever else at them, how is that different than the older school understandings of gods and religions?
John Cena performs miracles all the time, I’m just saying.
I don’t know if Jesus with water and wine would have made it past the pilot in today’s society. Criss Angel still has a career, so maybe he’s got a shot, I don’t know.
We’re a little jaded, methinks. I don’t think we understand what God or miracles or Jesus meant. Hell, Doctors and random people on the street administering Narcan bring people back from the dead all the time, is Lazarus that much of a one-off?
Am I belittling or pointing out obvious facts we are willfully blind to because we seem to prefer to kill people that say nice things.
Like, how many Gods were just successful whatever the hell they were good at?
I think anybody who makes the music I hear is a god. I don’t see how they’re not. They do all the shit religion sells. They heal me, they help me understand me, they give me faith, hope, love, even. What’s the difference?
Most of my bands would probably have higher follower counts than Jesus, not to make this a pissing contest.
Maybe they weren’t born in a manger, but damn there are a lotta people who have been through shit to get to where they were, not just for a couple nights at the inn, ya know? I’m just saying – Jesus was a dude. He was very upfront that he was just a dude, and he said a son of god, thereby implying we’re all sons of gods and just dudes/chicks/people who don’t give a fuck.
So everybody knows Jesus’ name because a lot of people liked what he had to say, but Kanye has a church too you know?
So doesn’t that all just mean we are all capable of doing shit like a god? What else could be “like god” than making dreams reality and helping others along the way? Creation – whether it’s a painting or a planet, weren’t we just here to create? Isn’t being like Jesus just… being so attuned with who you are and what you are meant to do, you get others to see it in themselves and they flock to you? They say stuff like you helped me save my life, you did this, you did that… what’s the difference between playing a song and praying in a church? And isn’t it the irony that all these people practically worship all of these other people who keep saying, “hey man, you can totally do this too” just like Jesus did. And that was blasphemy then, it’s music and lyrics, movies, all sorts of art showing our innate superhuman – divine – God-like qualities. Just like basically anybody who has been worshipped at any time in history.
To me, you didn’t ask, the only truly religion, the only way I can fathom god, is music. I am devoutly religious. I’ve found, in my case, when I really do listen to myself and follow inspiration and whatever else… I get on a really cool path and I feel connected to something, and when I don’t, I go fucking insane. It’s very black and white for me. I call all that god because I just kind of think everything is god since we’re all part of the same big thing. How can we be separate if the air in my lungs is the air in yours? How can anything be not part of everything?
Christ didn’t worship Christ, he worshipped the connection he had to all that is. God is such a goddamn persnickety word. But if you really think about it, he was just saying that he came from human beings and the divine. I have curly hair from my dad, I have this gift of writing, life, my weird fucking perspectives, all are gifts from god, all that is, art, beauty, music, love – bestowed upon each of us in the physical with the job of making our imagination so…
I think we’re all supposed to be waking each other up to that and reminding each other of that. I don’t know, in just a lot of ways, I feel like if more people had a better understanding of god, we’d stop fighting about him so much. We’d just do what we were supposed to, “God became man that man might become god” I don’t see why it’s gotta be so serious. I don’t see the difference between how many are doted upon now and how gods were doted upon back in the day. Except they have a higher follower count now.
Everybody people actually follow and really do worship, all they’ve really done is open a window of their gift and let others see it’s there for them too. They simply imagined and created, as he did. Their dreams made a heaven on earth. Jesus tried to say all share the gifts and love of their creator, however, it’s understood, who gives a shit.
Jesus was not worshipping Jesus, or if he was, it was the Self – the indivisible part within each of us, our divine spark, whatever lights us up. When you can fall deeply, madly in love with life, like he did how can it not create heaven on earth? We worship for what others do when we all can do it too.
That’s basically what Jesus said. This is basically what a lot of wonderfully talented and wise people with a higher follower count than he does say. I just wonder when the follower count of people not being ministers of the word rises. But it starts with me, writing inane shit that makes mah butt itch.
I really just think so much shit has to be taken so much less seriously if we are ever to get anywhere, first and foremost ourselves, our belief systems, and our problems.
My understanding is Jesus died to show us that we’re all children of god, capable of doing God-type shit. He showed death wasn’t even real. So how is there all this fear and bullshit? I feel like we’ve just all misunderstood God again. Noah, Moses, hell the apostles went into hiding. And I’m just sticking to names I’m familiar with. We as a species have proven time and time again that we do not get these messages well. We’re like shitty secretaries that only have the job because their Dad doesn’t have the heart to fire them – yet.
That’s basically what Jesus was saying and his ass got canceled.
Not enough followers, big guy. Better luck next time.
Thank you (or I’m sorry) for coming along.
Mah Butt Itches 