Lectures on Love - Lecture #4

After again taking a long break from offering my advice, I once again return to shed light on everyone's insignificant lives. We will continue a related theme from last time.

In my last lecture, we discussed the appropriate ways to handle rejection. This time, we will discuss the aftermath. Oftentimes after a good, solid rejection, the rejectee can maintain painful feelings. Now, some arrogant slobs might tell you something retarded like, "Time heals all wounds," "You can do better," "Plenty of fish in the sea", etc. This is all fine and dandy if you're one of the rare people who just exude animal magnetism (meaning me), but for the average person (meaning you), there isn't that many fish in the sea. I mean, okay, there really are lots of fish, but once you count out the really ugly fish, the really stupid fish, the really fat fish, the really perverted fish, the fish that's missing a fin, etc., that narrows it down quite a bit. And time would heal that wound, except that when you're forced to see the fish who rejected you, it just repeatedly rips open again. What can help in these situations is to settle for one of those weird fish that you normally wouldn't go for and use them to distract yourself. If you're willing to resort to that at this point. And if you are, more power to you.

But for you others who have managed to maintain a vague sense of self-esteem, what do you do with those pent-up feelings of anger and rejection over that one seemingly-good fish that got away? As mentioned in the last lecture, you should have exploded violently at them during the actual rejection. If you failed to do that, you should call them and do that now (even if you haven't spoken to them since then). Will you look and feel like an idiot? Sure you will. Will it make you feel better? Probably not. Will it make you seem really pathetic in the long-run? Most definitely. But it will, initially, give you a selfish, egocentric sense of self-satisfaction. And what could be better than that?

Once you've done the exploding, you can now move on to moving-on [see what I did there?]. As mentioned earlier, settling for an inferior fish can help, and at this point any sense of self-worth should have faded. Having a rebound like that will not only provide a distraction, but it will also raise you're depleted self-confidence. You should pat yourself on the back for finding a lesser fish who would accept you. You might also find it necessary, at this point, to remove all contact and influence from your former rejectee. Lying to them and others so that you can avoid seeing them might help. Deleting them and their close friends on Facebook, deleting their phone number, trashing pictures, creating a doll effigy of them to burn, etc., can all help in the healing process.

Once you've done all of this, reexamine how you feel. It's as if the rejection never happened, right? Of course I'm right. You should have a meaningless significant other to attract your attention and all traces of the rejector should be erased from your life. Congratulations!

The Book of Mormon Facebook Page

Last February, I created a Facebook fan page for The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. That was before the LDS Church had an official presence on social networking sites (they might've had their YouTube page up by then, I can't remember). Either yesterday or Friday, the fan page hit 100,000 fans, with a steady 75-150 new fans every day. We had a good run (seven months?), but now we're in the process of turning primary control of the page over to the Church's media relations team.

Social networking is a great way to help spread the message of the Restoration, as the Church has definitely realized. They now operate multiple official Facebook profiles, Twitter profiles, as well as an extremely successful YouTube channel. With the ability to send information to masses of people with a single click, individuals can also take advantage of missionary opportunities on social networking sites--whether it be through updating a Facebook status, sending a Tweet, starting a blog, or commenting on a YouTube video.

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ on Facebook

A Fight Breaks Out in the Marginal Notes of "No Man Knows My History"

Continuing my research on the young Joseph Smith, I checked out a copy of Fawn Brodie's biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History. Since Brodie's work is considerably outdated, I expected it to be a boring read, but because of its place as one of the first (perhaps the first) major secular biographies of the Prophet I thought I should anyway.

To my surprise, the first couple chapters have actually been pretty entertaining, but not because of Brodie. Some anonymous person (they do identify themselves as a Jew in a note on a blank page in the front matter) scribbled marginal notes throughout the book praising, agreeing, and elaborating on Brodie with a typical antagonistic persona. Another handwriting of someone who checked out the book even later took it upon themselves to offer commentary on the previous notes, pointing out, as he calls it, "their stupidity" and inconsistencies with an amusing hostility. There's also a third person writing who is hard to distinguish from the second. Here's a transcription of the notes in the front matter:

"[Handwriting 1] As a Jew, I never believed Mormonism. This explains why!"
"[Handwriting 2] "Mormonism"? "Jew"? Oh! "Jude verrecke"!
"[Handwriting 3] "cf. Hugh Nibley "No Ma'am, That's Not History" to evaluate Farm's scholarly "explanation".

A History of the LDS Church in Union Parish, Louisiana

In 2003, members of the Farmerville, Louisiana Branch of the LDS (Mormon) Church put together "A History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Union Parish, LA - 1898 to 2003." I had it scanned a few weeks ago. Hopefully by the end of the week, I will post a link to a downloadable PDF version of the 160-page book, and possibly by the end of the month may have an HTML version online for even easier access. Hopefully these online additions will be useful to local historians, genealogists, or any others interested in the history of the LDS Church in the South.