Special Seaweed

I always wanted a cool Fellowship nickname, one bestowed in awe and gratitude by my adoring admirers.  You know - Big Book Seaweed or Serenity Seaweed.  An honorific.  A degree from an institution of higher learning bestowed despite the fact I hadn't attained any of the knowledge or done any of the work.

Instead I get Half-Measures Seaweed - as in: a dude looking for all available loopholes - or, my favorite, Special Seaweed - as in: I don't have to obey the rules because I'm special or this painful thing shouldn't happen to me because I'm special.  

Sometimes I expect the universe to treat me like the mama's boy that I am.

Some Step Two stuff . . . 

This one wonders if we mayhaps aren't looking too closely at ourselves when we're criticizing other the faith of other people . . . 

"Self-righteousness, the very thing we had contemptuously condemned in others, became our own besetting evil.  This phony form of respectability . . . "

For those of us who think we have some kind of powerfully effective faith but can't manage to quit drinking . . . 

Defy: To refuse to obey.  (Ed. Note: Short and sweet and unambiguous.)

"No man, we saw, could believe in god and defy him, too.  Belief meant reliance, not defiance."

And The Rooms are full of the tragically brilliant . . . 

"Knowledge was all-powerful.  Intellect could conquer nature.  Since we were brighter than most folks (so we thought) we could float above other people on our intellect alone."

Who wants to look closely at their own defects when time is much better spent investigating the defects of someone else?

"In belaboring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them.  Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings."

Summing it all up . . . 

"The minute I stopped fighting or arguing, I could begin to see and feel.  Right there, Step Two gently and gradually began to infiltrate my life.  I had only to stop fighting and practice the rest of The Steps as enthusiastically as I could."

Fight:  To try to overpower; to fiercely counteract.

Them's fightin' words.