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Bill McCormick

Bible Study, Hippo Style

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I would beg to differ.
The Bible is, if I may use this word, an evolving text. Discoveries have been made that have forced scholars and lay people alike to reconsider what it all means. If we ignore the many politicized revisions of the King James Bible we have a pretty good starting point to base any discoveries on. The same holds true for the Talmud, which was edited and revised to become the Old Testament in the Christian Bible. The Holy Qu’Ran is a different animal. It was, according to Islamic tradition, dictated directly to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Jibril (Gabriel in western cultures) and was formalized by Caliph Uthman barely twenty years after Muhammad ascended into heaven. Also, unlike the Talmud or the Bible, Caliph Uthman had thousands of copies made at the same time so there would be no historical discrepancies. But the other two books have constantly been challenged by one finding or another through the years. Some, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, enhanced our view of the history of the two earliest western religions but didn’t challenge much in the way of beliefs. Others, such as Nag Hammadi Library challenge the most closely held beliefs and seem to fly in the face of historical record.

What gets lost in the tumult is that all three books are historical records as well as religious texts. Kings, which underpins all three western religions, tells the story of how Israel became a reality and how the Jews finally found a home. The fact that it depicts some incredibly violent moments and some of the most duplicitous behavior in history doesn’t make it any less valid. Quite honestly, if you were to modernize the characters in Kings and keep the plot it would read more like the Godfather than any spiritual journey. But you have to keep in mind the times when it occurred. If everyone wants you dead you either kill them first or fade from view.

However, as I noted, these are historical texts. So, when evidence comes along that says history might have missed something it needs to be addressed. The Gospel of Mark in the New Testament is one example of scholarly dispute. According to a letter, which may or may not have been a forgery, there is a Secret Gospel of Mark.

The “Secret” gospel depicts a moment wherein Jesus befriends a young man and teaches him the wonders and secrets of his ministry. A marvel he shared with only a select few. Many scholars believe that young man was Mark himself. That would make sense since we know that Mark didn’t write his gospel until he was commanded to do so so that Romans could understand the teachings of Peter. Since Mark was barely 40 when he did that one can easily assume that he was around 9 or 10 when he was a disciple of Jesus’. Certainly he refers to himself as a boy, which would mean he had not attained 13 years of age and become a man in accordance with Jewish tradition.

Of course the yahoo brigade read this new text and immediately claimed Jesus was a homosexual. Having never belonged to a club they would be woefully ignorant about the rites of initiation. If their claim had any validity then everyone from Rotarions to Boy Scouts would be involved in homosexual rituals.

In other words, feel free to dismiss them and move on with your life.

But the one book that has had scholars and anyone else who’s read it completely baffled is the Book of Revelations. According to Catholic tradition it was written by St. John the Divine. Most likely while he was in prison. The problem with Revelations, besides it’s use of epic allegory, is the fact that it makes the teachings of Jesus insanely violent. Far from “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” it’s more akin to “do unto others BEFORE they do unto you.” Almost all the violent Christian sects cite it as proof of their beliefs.

But – and you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you? – the document used in the Bible has long been known to be a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy and so on. Archaeologists have recently unearthed a much older version of Revelations and realized quickly that there may have been some tiny errors in the multiple translations.

Take the Number of the Beast, they now know it to be 616 and not 666. It has prompted some interesting articles, such as this one from Religion News.

Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.

Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil’s prime number.

“This is a very nice piece to find,” Dr. Aitken said. “Scholars have argued for a long time over this, and it now seems that 616 was the original number of the beast.”

The tiny fragment of 1,500-year-old papyrus is written in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, and contains a key passage from the Book of Revelation.

Where more conventional versions of the Bible give 666 as the “number of the beast,” or the sign of the anti-Christ whose coming is predicted in the book’s apocalyptic verses, the older version uses the Greek letters signifying 616.

“This is very early confirmation of that number, earlier than any other text we’ve found of that passage,” Dr. Aitken said. “It’s probably about 100 years before any other version.”

The fragment was part of a hoard of previously illegible manuscripts discovered in an ancient garbage dump outside the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. Although the papyrus was first excavated in 1895, it was badly discoloured and damaged. Classics scholars at Oxford University were only recently able to read it using new advanced imaging techniques.

Elijah Dann, a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Toronto, said the new number is unlikely to make a dent in the popularity of 666.

“Otherwise, a lot of sermons would have to be changed and a lot of movies rewritten,” he said with a laugh. “There’s always someone with an active imagination who can put another interpretation on it.

“It just shows you that when you study something as cryptic and mystic as the Book of Revelation there’s an almost unlimited number of interpretations.”

The book is thought to have been written by the disciple John and according to the King James Bible, the traditional translation of the passage reads: “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

But Dr. Aitken said that translation was drawn from much later versions of the New Testament than the fragment found in Oxyrhynchus. “When we’re talking about the early biblical texts, we’re always talking about copies and they are copies made, at best, 150 to 200 years after [the original] was written,” she said.

“They can have mistakes in the copying, changes for political or theological reasons … it’s like a detective story piecing it all together.”

Dr. Aitken said, however, that scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone’s name, she said.

“It’s a number puzzle — the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero.”

Revelation was actually a thinly disguised political tract, with the names of those being criticized changed to numbers to protect the authors and early Christians from reprisals. “It’s a very political document,” Dr. Aitken said. “It’s a critique of the politics and society of the Roman empire, but it’s written in coded language and riddles.”

Of course that last little tid bit also means that Revelations is no more prophecy than I am a ballet dancer.

Ooops.

Nevertheless, I’m sure, as time progresses, other documents will surface to help us understand more fully what everyone was thinking at the time.


Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

The Real UFO Conspiracy (redux)

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Earth ball, corner pocket.
Earth ball, corner pocket.
This is a repost from April 22, 2011 from NudeHippo.com (currently under construction). It recently was reviewed by, award winning author and NASA astrophysicist, David Brin, who called it “Fun and informative” and then went on to note how much the ancient aliens crowd irritated him as well. Since it seems to have taken on a life of its own since the original posting I figured I’d toss it back up and let those who missed it give it a gander.
**********
Before I get into this mess today, there are a couple of things that need to be dealt with first. Let’s start with the Ancient Aliens crowd. They believe that humanity could not have developed much beyond the wheel and fire, and they have doubts about that, without guidance from an advanced culture. To hear them tell it, and they do every freaking day on the History Channel – which should be renamed the Crackpot Theories Channel – all of the Hindu gods were really aliens and that’s why they look so different. Moreover, these people claim that said aliens dropped atomic bombs in India and on Sodom and Gomorrah. Because, well – you know, there’s a reason in there somewhere. Ignoring logic and facts for a moment, what’s their motivation? If the idea of a couple of isolated atomic strikes was to cow us into submission, then why didn’t they come down and force us to submit? If the idea was to show us that they hold a very high moral code, then why not bomb Egypt or Greece? In their day they made the antics of Sodom seem like a pre-school. And, since both were major powers, people would have paid attention to that little message. There are those who argue that the aliens are being subtle. To which I ask; what the heck’s so subtle about an atomic bomb?

Despite specious evidence and wild conjecture, these people continue on with their varied, for lack of a better term, hypotheses as though they were written in stone instead of water.

“Aha,” they cry when they realize you’re not buying any of this, “what about batteries?” What about them? Crude batteries were manufactured in Egypt almost 3,000 years ago. The devices could store, and then retransmit, an electrical charge. Egypt housed some of the finest minds in the world in its heyday and those minds would have been curious about many things, including conductivity (see lightning strikes for reason #1). If it was a gift from aliens, it was a truly worthless one. Without an electrical infrastructure there was no use for the contraption. It quickly faded as a novelty and never saw wide use. Later cultures, including the Greeks at their peak, made the same discovery with the same results. It wasn’t until Ben Franklin rediscovered the concept of the battery that it began to make headway into public use. And, even then, it took more than a century for it to have widespread practical value.

Then there’s the story of Thomas Fowler, who invented a terrnary computer in 1840. Well, then, it was called a calculating machine and not a computer and there were tons of those around. It was also built out of wood and not any alien metals. Even so, it would be a quantum leap above anything we have now. Instead of a circuit being either on or off, it would allow the circuit to also be both on AND off. Instead of a binary system, it would use trinary. Right now, due to existing infrastructure, it’s still just a novelty but does that mean that Tom had alien professors?

Doubtful. Even college students would notice something like that.

For the moment let’s follow the prudent course and quote Bertrand Russell. He offered what he called “a form of Occam’s Razor” which was “Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.” Do that and your ancient alien activities turn to mist.

Simply put, I feel safe in dismissing these people and their wild eyed hunches in the aggregate and moving on to the fun stories that have been falling out of the FBI’s secret vault. Well, it’s not really a secret since it’s been open to the public since 1970 and it’s not much of a vault either. But it sounds cooler to say it is so I’ll play along.

For all the voluminous UFO related documents that have come to the fore, they are all based on one simple statement; between 1935 and 1941, 3 UFOs crashed on Earth. Specifically in Germany, the United States and in Russia. Allegedly all 3 were 50 feet in diameter and each contained 3 dead aliens.

Before we go any further, let’s talk about those ships. About 15% of the ship could be usable space, and I’m being generous with that assessment. Anything in the spinning part of the disk would be crushed by gravity. Remember that the disk has to spin fast enough to counter gravity. It would be like living in a centrifuge. So, in the tiny remainder of the ship, a space about 7 1/2 feet in diameter, there’s the engines, living quarters, pilot’s area and some form of on-board computer. Unless those aliens are about 6 inches tall, that’s going to be hopelessly cramped.

Now, let’s take a look at the crashes. The first one supposedly occurred in Germany. When you consider that, the rest become irrelevant.

Adolph Hitler’s rise to power surrounded him with some very driven people. Xenophobes, racists, psychopaths and so on, all wishing for power and control over the world. Hitler’s great claim to power, the famous Beer Hall Putsch, was actually a dismal failure. It was deemed a success when Hitler’s cronies hastily reformed the facts to fit their needs. This was PR spin on an epic scale. In other words, when reality didn’t fit their needs, they lied. That would be an ongoing theme for the Nazi Party.

Fast forward to 1935 when Germany was supposed to have discovered the downed UFO. Germany was bound by the onerous Treaty of Versailles. Their military and their economy were both gutted by it. In retrospect, it was about as short sighted as a treaty could be. Germany was trying frantically to get out from under its many oppressions. Hitler had the military working in secret and was aided by the fact that the terms of the treaty were being enforced by a buffoon. Neville Chamberlain was more interested in being popular than being good at his job. For example, when the Nazis claimed to be honoring the treaty by keeping the total tonnage of their navy less than that of Britain’s even if they had many more ships, he agreed. That allowed Germany to build many more boats which were faster and deadlier than anything in the British navy. The ships in the British fleet were mammoth. The German navy was built on speed and killing power. It was a mistake that could easily have been avoided had he done something wild like, I don’t know, gone and seen for himself.

Hitler also did something else that no one else in the world was doing. He poured all of his available resources into military and scientific research. Scientists were given free reign to look into any possibility, no matter how irrational, if it could be used to increase Germany’s strength. And that’s exactly what they did.

Rocket technology, despite claims contrariwise from UFO enthusiasts, had existed in basic form for almost 3,000 years. It was invented by the Chinese to make fireworks and some crude weapons. Theoretical advances in different propulsion systems had been made around the turn of the 20th century. Hitler’s scientists started with those and, thanks to unlimited funding and manpower, made tremendous leaps forward.

Jet engines, far from being super secret high tech whims of fancy, had been invented prior to 1930 by Dr. Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle. Neither knew of the other’s work and Sir Whittle applied for a patent in 1930 when his research was complete.

So much for aliens. All Hitler did was steal existing, human, technology and throw a lot of resources at it.

Anyway, back to our crashed UFO in Germany.

Just FYI, these must be the most incompetent space-farers in the universe to have crashed into the same planet three times in such a short span.

Nevertheless, it’s well known that Hitler was fascinated by the unexplained, he even hired psychics to guide him, and he was surrounded by excellent liars and sycophants. Add in the fact that he was being pestered by the WWI allies (excluding Chamberlain who seemed content to watch cricket and sip tea) to explain where all this tech was coming from, as the rest of the world was fighting through a depression, and you have a recipe for what followed.

Hitler and his scientists obviously hashed out a rough idea of what an alien space ship would look like and created forged documents to claim they’d found one. Of course, super secret documents that would scare the pants off of high ranking officials the world over are useless unless they aren’t all that secret. So, SURPRISE! SURPRISE!, these highly classified documents quickly ended up in the hands of western spies.

Within 5 years American and Russian documents made their way back to Germany showing that these countries had, amazingly enough, captured their own downed UFOs. Unfortunately they did so without the advantage of garnering any new technologies. Both the American and Russian armies were built with conventional weapons and tactics.

But, HEY!, somewhere somehow they still held to their claim that they each had a shiny UFO.

Oy vey.

After that, the rest is obvious. Since no side could admit the fallacy, and no side had any true advantage, the ruse continued on. Yes, the Nazi military was the best in the world in its time and, yes, they probably would have won the war had not Hitler been a military moron. But none of those facts require alien technology to be explained. A simple combination of resources and hubris covers all the bases.

Does all of this mean that aliens don’t exist? Of course not. The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of there being life on other planets. But does that mean that our backwoods planet is the crossroad of the universe? Not bloody likely.

So, when you hear people like Professor Bill Wickersham calling for a Congressional study of UFO phenomena, feel free to send him this link.

It’ll save the world a lot of time and money.


Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!
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Thank God for Men and Beer!

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The solution, and cause, of all life's problems.
The solution, and cause, of all life's problems.
When the Bible talks about Jesus drinking wine, it conveniently leaves out that it’s not talking about some wimpy Chablis or pinot noir. 2,000 years ago wine was just fermented fruit and not processed. If you try to make it at home you’ll come up with a drink that’s closer to grain alcohol than anything you’ll get on shelves today. Not that I’m claiming Jesus was a drunkard, far from it, I’m just pointing out that there was strong drink available back then and, at least at the wedding at Cana, people weren’t afraid to pour it. Ancient Egypt had those huge granaries. After making all the breads and cakes you could possibly eat, you needed something with which to wash them down. As they quickly discovered, excess grains make great booze. Mostly beers, but they had a nice variety going after a while.

Great wonders of science have come from men and beer. In 1796 Dr. Edward Jenner discovered a cure for smallpox. Was this done in a lab? Of course not. He figured it out by kicking back and watching milk maids.

“No, really honey, it’s science. Grab me another beer on your way back to the laundry, will you?”

That wonderfully healthy pasteurized milk you drink? Happy accident. Louis Pasteur was looking for a way to keep beer from spoiling. I can imagine no nobler quest.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Thanks to men and beer civilization has flourished and gotten healthier. Oh sure, the more picayune among you may point out that the Third Reich got started in a bar, but I feel safe in pointing out that history shows that was an aberration and not the norm.

Now, Ben Muessig of AOL News reports that the greatest idea in the history of history is headed to a bar near you.

California entrepreneur Sam Sparks has created a sport dubbed “Knokkers” — but he insists it’s not a whole new ballgame.

“Everyone has seen pool and everyone has seen bowling — and everyone has probably played both,” Sparks told AOL News. “There is a familiarity that is inviting. People don’t have much of an aversion to it, even though it’s new.”

For the most part, Knokkers is just like billiards, only bigger. Much bigger.

Players don’t hit the cue ball with a stick. They use their hands. And they don’t eye their next shot while walking around the table. They pick their angles while walking on it.

It’s a merger between pool and bowling, and in a single word, it’s massive.

The game is played on a 15-foot by 30-foot table with bowling ball-sized projectiles. Unlike pool, players don’t “scratch” if they move the cue ball before taking a shot.

“The rule in the game of Knokkers is that once you touch the cue ball you have to keep at least one of your feet stationary — like a pivot foot in basketball,” he said. “You can stretch and totally change the geometry of your shot. It makes for fewer difficult shots.”

That leads to an easier, faster game that Sparks believes will appeal to both children and adults.

Plans for large-scale billiard games aren’t exactly new — in fact, one inventor in the 1970s even patented a game that would mix pool, bowling and disco aesthetics by allowing players to walk on the table but forcing them to wear tall platform shoes “for safety purposes.”

According to Knokkers lore, this massive pool iteration is the brainchild of Steve Wienecke, Sparks’ cousin, who says he dreamed up a big pool game in the 1980s. He didn’t get around to building a table until three years ago when he finally managed to lay a concrete slab in his Missouri backyard. Since then the game has taken off.

“We had a party, and we couldn’t get the kids off of it — so I thought, ‘Let’s commercialize this thing — let’s build this for real,’ ” Sparks told AOL News.

Sparks and his cousin began building table prototypes from construction materials, such as railroad ties, indoor/outdoor carpet and recycled tires, and painting bowling balls so they looked like billiards balls.

Through trial and error they say they eventually came out with a table that has the same responsiveness as a standard pool table.

“It has the exact action as a pool table — you can make a three- or a four-rail shot.”

They also realized that normal bowling balls can’t withstand the wear and tear of the game, so Sparks used his background in the plastics industry to design 6-pound Knokkers balls from polyurethane.

Standing on a table and dodging those ricocheting balls isn’t as dangerous as it sounds, according to Sparks.

“We haven’t had anybody hit with a ball,” he said. “Because the balls are only 6 pounds, if you were to be hit with one it would be more of a nuisance. It might hurt, but it wouldn’t injure you.”

Sparks is ready to manufacture tables for interested buyers, and in the next few weeks, he hopes to open the first public Knokkers court at a bowling center in Southern California.

In the next 10 years, Sparks hopes to construct 1,000 tables worldwide. His business is starting out offering two kinds of tables — permanent fixtures intended for bowling alleys, sports bars and the backyards of the most dedicated players (starting at $39,000), and portable tables that can be quickly installed at fairs, festivals and sporting events.

By showing off Knokkers in public places, he hopes the game will win fans.

“It has a real captivating presence. It pulls people in, kind of like moths to light.”

Though he says the game is popular with his kids as well as his mother, Sparks plans to market the game to a demographic between the ages of 21 and 35 — particularly bar and bowling alley patrons.

That’s not very surprising considering the not-so-subtle double entendre in the game’s name and logo.

In fact, Knokkers can serve as an icebreaker for singles looking to hook up at bars and bowling alleys, according to Sparks.

“A girl can say, ‘Hey, look at my Knokkers!’ and get away with it,” he explained.

Beyond the risque jokes, Sparks sees Knokkers as liberating.

“When you’re standing on the felt, it’s kind of taboo. You feel like you’re getting away with something when you’re playing a game.”

“Hey, look at my Knokkers!” is the kind of command that can make a grown man weep with joy.

I know I’m a bit misty.

If you want to see just how much fun it can be for consenting adults to play with their Knokkers, just watch the video.

In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Martin Luther King
He had more than a dream, he had a plan.
Today is the day set aside to celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A day when people can reflect on the fact that, no, we’re not there yet. Even so, I’ve always been more of a Malcolm X kind of guy. When I first stumbled across his autobiography when I was 17, I was stunned. While everyone was aware of the good works of Dr. King, the majority of white America either ignored, or was ignorant of, Malcolm X. I fell into the latter category. His life story of a man who went from street hustling loser to scion of racial divisionism to finally finding out that Allah (God) truly is love and holds no man above another resonated with me deeply. It was the modern version of the story of Saul who became Paul. And while my personal faith may have taken many strange turns through the years, my admiration for him remained constant.

Nevertheless, today is about Dr. King.

Much of the media focus today will be on three short snippets from his life; the bus boycott, the “I have a dream speech” and his assassination, but there was much more to him than that.

If Malcolm X was the modern allegory of the Apostle Paul, then Dr. King was the modern messiah illuminating the road to Damascus. His biography shows that he too suffered at the hands of the world. His family home was bombed, he was arrested numerous times and his followers were endlessly harassed. Yet he held himself above the fray once famously saying to an angry mob, “We must learn to meet hate with love.”

I’m not sure I have that level of self control, but it’s nice to know that it can be attained.

Another thing many people forget about Dr. King is that he was a practical man who espoused real world virtues, not just visionary hopes, to his followers. One speech of his, often relegated to history’s dust bin, is called The Drum Major Instinct. I’m only going to post an excerpt here, but I hope you will take the time to read it all. It clearly shows a man who had a grasp of the world around him as well as the world he wished to be.

Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are “joiners.” You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it’s really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the “Grand Patron,” and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the “Most Worthy of the Most Worthy” of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.

Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. (Yes) That’s the way the advertisers do it.

I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, “Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say.” Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it. [laughter]

But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. (Yes) And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. (Make it plain) It’s nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income? (Amen) [laughter] You’ve seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don’t earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. (Make it plain) But it feeds a repressed ego.

You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn’t cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That’s just good economics. And if it’s a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it’s often inconvenient. But so often, haven’t you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That’s a fact.

Now the economists also say that your house shouldn’t cost—if you’re buying a house, it shouldn’t cost more than twice your income. That’s based on the economy and how you would make ends meet. So, if you have an income of five thousand dollars, it’s kind of difficult in this society. But say it’s a family with an income of ten thousand dollars, the house shouldn’t cost much more than twenty thousand. Well, I’ve seen folk making ten thousand dollars, living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar house. And you know they just barely make it. They get a check every month somewhere, and they owe all of that out before it comes in. Never have anything to put away for rainy days.

But now the problem is, it is the drum major instinct. And you know, you see people over and over again with the drum major instinct taking them over. And they just live their lives trying to outdo the Joneses. (Amen) They got to get this coat because this particular coat is a little better and a little better-looking than Mary’s coat. And I got to drive this car because it’s something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor’s car. (Amen) I know a man who used to live in a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house. And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house. And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar house. And I don’t know where he’s going to end up if he’s going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses.

There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. (Make it plain) And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn’t harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I’m sure you’ve met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. (Amen) And they just boast and boast and boast, and that’s the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct.

There’s nothing I can add to that so I’ll leave you to your thoughts.