Latest Blogs May 9, 2021 TV Love Genius April 26, 2021 More Bad Memes April 22, 2021 Overprotective Mom April 6, 2021 Without A Church March 30, 2021 Bad Memes March 1, 2021 Hard Lessons February 26, 2021 Random Thoughts IV January 17, 2021 Bad Idioms					SITE UNDER RECONSTRUCTION A little bit at a time. Check back often. LATEST NEWS February 26, 2021 I will be making all my blogs linkable soon. November 25, 2020 All pages, plus all blogs from November 23 on, are now linkable on social media. email
	7/17/2020	1/14/2021	To be updated	9/1/2020
	6/6/2020	6/14/2020	See left column	Always updated

Recently, I started watching one of my favorite TV shows again, How I Met Your Mother. I'd forgotten how good it is. When it comes to the subject of love, few people have ever had an understanding on the level of who may be the most misunderstood fictional character of all time: The show's main character, Ted Mosby. WARNING: There are major spoilers ahead! MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Ted is described by fans of the show in many different terms: hero, villain, challenger, selfish bastard, genius, idiot, lover, loser, and much more. But the one word I know I've never seen used to describe him is the one word that should be used: antihero. An antihero is someone who does the right things by their own methods. This could be in good or bad ways, such as Marvel's Wolverine using his claws against certain people or Babylon 5's Lyta Alexander starting a resistance movement against the corrupted organization she was inducted into as a child, like most of its members. Ted is caught up in the search for love. He has a string of romances over nine seasons, most notably loveable Stella and looney-tune Jeanette. And in what some consider the most upsetting series finale in television history, once Ted met the woman who would become the mother of his children (to whom he tells the entire nine-year story seventeen years after the series finale and six years after their mother died), we learn through their children that he is still in love with Robin, whom he met in the first episode and remained friends years after they dated. Love is hard to explain if you haven't had such a hard love that its nature hasn't been shoved in your face. That takes experience, an open mind, and the ability to see more deeply into situations than normal. I've talked about love many times, especially in this blog and this one. But in one episode near the end of the series, "Sunrise", Ted is finally confronted about his feelings for Robin, days before Robin's wedding, by Jeanette. It's at this point he finally screams the hard truth that many people only struggle to understand: If you're looking for the word that means caring for someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want, no matter how much it destroys you, it's love. And when you love someone, you just--you don't stop. Ever. Even when people roll their eyes or call you crazy, even then, especially then, you just--you don't give up, because if I could give up--because if I could just, you know, take the whole world's advice and--and move on and find someone else, that wouldn't be love. That would be some other disposable thing that is not worth fighting for. In a subsequent episode, "Gary Blauman", there was more. Speaking to the kids seventeen years in the future, he says, You will be shocked, kids, when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That's why when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it. Love is not disposable. It sticks with us for the rest of our lives, a recurring hunger for a steak and lobster dinner that may be repeatedly fed with a hamburger, chicken fingers, or tacos. If you've read my blog posts about the Girl of My Dreams, you know I tried, and you know that it's more than it sounds like. My desire is to be able to help with anything she has trouble with at a moment's notice. It's not about when I knew her in the past, it's about how it might be for her now, as well as in the future. And if that means I end up destroying myself . . . well, so be it. If you've read my Bad Dad blogs, you know that he only cared about things going his way. It wasn't about me, it was about his worry over things he couldn't control, so he constantly went too far. And since all my parents ever talked about was what not to do, I did things I shouldn't have if they didn't say not to. I know I made myself look like an idiot on too many occassions. Politically, I see a lot of my Dad in the Republican Party. They keep telling their constituency to avoid this and avoid that, and the result is that they don't see the truth. (This started creeping into the Democrats after Hillary Clinton resigned as Secretary of State; I'll talk about this at some point in the future.) Evangelicals scream over anyone who disagrees in the slightest and keep their children away from what they consider Satanic influences--which is, essentially, anyone or anything that doesn't agree with them. And what they all have in common is the key to understanding what's happening: Sonya wouldn't listen to me because she was more focused on how she wanted things to be (see this blog) Dad wouldn't listen to me because he was more focused on how he wanted my life to be Republicans won't listen to anyone else because they've fallen into the trap of being told what they want to hear Evangelicals won't listen to anyone else because they want everything in black and white according to the letter of the law from their Bible Herein lay the problem in today's society. We're so focused on what we want, how we want things to be, that we won't listen to anyone or anything that disagrees. We've become more prone to senseless arguments out of a sense of self-defense than admitting to the mere possibility that we're wrong. How I Met Your Mother is, without doubt, a show dear to my heart because Ted Mosby is the one fictional character I can fully relate to. The key difference is that during the series, he not only had Robin for several months, but they stayed friends. For Ted, it was another twenty-five years before they got back together. I've barely even seen the Girl of My Dreams in the past thirty years. But, I digress. The key points are: Always listen. No matter how little you think of it, there may be air of truth that comes out later. What you want is not a priority. Putting your wants before anyone's needs leads to deception. Cooperation is the key to success. Without it, we get conflict, instead. Lives are wrecked by people who won't listen, cooperate, or put wants aside. And How I Met Your Mother is awwwe-soooome! By the way, to go along with this blog, "need" refers to a requirement to do something, while "want" is for something you can get by without. As I leave, I'm compelled to put a reminder here: You are responsible for anything you do that causes harm to someone else, even if it causes them to do it to themselves. That goes for everyone, from kids to parents to lawyers to legislators. Now, I have someone insisting we go to the mall today to get me some red cowboy boots because he insists on being my wing man. Something about "the dream". I swear, me and my friends have to get some sort of intervention for this guy. His attitude belongs downwind of the sewage treatment plant, being eaten by a goat. At least he's bringing sandwiches. Until next time . . .

Web page designed and maintained by W G Walters.

All information copyright(c)2005-2021 with all rights reserved unless otherwise noted.