Control issues are something that is going to be a challenge for me. Like everyone else, I like being in charge. It means that I get to get my way. On the other hand it means that I'm going to have to deal with a lot of crap from everyone. People are going to be pushing me to go in directions that I don't want to go in. There will be ego battles. People getting offended because I didn't reply to their email. People getting offended because I didn't even read their email. Christians who want to save my soul. Muslims will want to have me killed. The news media will demonize me if I'm lucky enough to get them interested enough to demonize me. This is going to be a lot of hard work.
One of the key elements will be finding the right people early on who really get the idea of what this church is about, and have the talent to help make it happen. I'm hoping to be able to delegate control to the right people, yet I fear losing control and the early church falling victim to infighting or getting pushed off track over gay issues, race issues, politics, vegans, or other things that have nothing to do with the mission of the Church of Reality. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to piss people off and in some cases it will be my fault. There will be things that I could have handled better and mistakes will be made. I'm trying to go into this without a big ego though and not claiming supernatural inspiration.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Church of Reality is about reality, not about Marc Perkel. So if I get caught in a motel with a hooker then that's just about me. Reality itself isn't changed by that. I am not the spokesperson or the vicar of an omnipotent power. I didn't invent reality, reality invented me. So for the record, I apologize in advance to the people I am about to offend and ask in advance for your forgiveness and understanding for the things I'm going to do wrong. Now that I have pre-apologized, I can go ahead and screw up.
Everyone has a brain and brains are generally similar. Different people have different abilities both physically and mentally. For example, when I see Olympic gymnasts and compare them to what I can do physically, what they can do almost looks superhuman to me. When it comes to art and music, I can't even comprehend how to even start. If I were given the task to completely clean and organize my apartment, I don't know if I could do it. I don't read well because I'm dyslexic and I have some attention problems. My brain is so full that in order to learn something new I have to forget something to make room for it.
But for some reason I seem to have a talent for seeing the big picture. I can see the forest from within the trees as the saying goes. My ability to do that to the degree that I do, seems to be rare to the point of scary. Why am I inventing the Church of Reality? Why isn't it already here? Why isn't it obvious? I mean - now that you've heard of it - Church of Reality - a religion based on believing in what's real - it's obvious now. So why am I the first person in the history of the world to take it this far? To me this is spooky. I don't want to be the smartest being in the universe anymore. (kidding!) But on a more serious note - there have got to be some other people out there who can do what I'm doing even better than me. Whatever it is that I do needs to be understood and replicated. It is really clear to me that there are not enough big thinkers in the world and whatever it is that is unusual about me, I think it can be learned. So go learn it.
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