For the Record, to Be Genuinely Honest and Productive in This Society is to Be a Crook

What is more honest and productive than considering your self interest (first) as well as considering other people and their self interest (next), nothing. To be honest, straightforward and real is to be a genuine crook. Rationality is a crooked road with a straight reality all the way through. From the beginning, to the middle, to the end. Rationality is a crooked road because it does not have inherent ease and perfection to it. Irrationality and dishonesty almost always seems easier than honesty, because it is an ingenious hiding place for "your fault" or "my fault" without "getting caught at the time you or I are doing it."

So, self interest is not always the easy way out, but, it is the only real and honest way to do things. Sure, considering others in the same way you would consider yourself is never easy, but it is the honest and real way to do things and operate. Sure, I talk like life is one big transaction, and it is I know. But, reality is the coldest enemy or the warmest friend you can have. Depending on your degree of rationality and loyalty to honesty.

I remember when I was a little boy and I asked the "dumbest questions in the world" in Sunday school at church in all earnest seriousness. But I genuinely felt, if we were going to be taught about life and values, I had to honestly ask those questions, get them answered or not live or exist properly at all. A few of those dumb questions, among many, were: Where does God come from? Why is life and existence like it is? Why do the good seem to suffer while the bad have a good time in society? Who made the man in the pulpit the representative of God, exactly before I listen seriously to his advice? I asked those among many others. All I got was thrown out of Sunday school and I broke through the nothing at an early age, by reading, digging and questioning "too much." I could never be satisfied with "later on we will tell you." I wanted to know how it all works and why. All I found out was that the crooks were running the show, while the honest people were getting the shaft for being honest, just like in Sunday school only on a mass level. Even my Dad at the time was going through a horrible disease, lost a limb and all of that kind of thing, and my Mom could only say tripe like "I will explain later, it is for the best." My Dad was more honest about the whole thing, he just screamed that "devils win and angels lose."

Please I am not saying that it is good to be "a crook," I am exploring dichotomies that we try to avoid in life with honesty and forthrightness that our minds definitely go blank on. In this society, it will not change because we are dishonest with ourselves. If we were not, then we would take charge and consciousness over our lives and be straight and honest, starting with ourselves. The only happiness we can have is the happiness we create and take for ourselves in a "crooked" and imperfect way. Natural perfection is for fools who expect it given to them without self work and self honesty. I know, in a way, to most who read this, all this may be a gross sounding message. But it is the reality of the situation. So I will even venture to say this, this is what makes establishment religion and politics themselves dead, God and happiness are alive concepts, but religion and politics are dead. Religion and politics says let "authorities" do it for you, God and happiness says win for yourself in the right way. God is subtle and gave us free will according to almost every established religious text, right? Happiness is achievable by all who want it, right? So in a sense, establishment religion commits suicide on that point of free will, and politics survives through silly wars, election polls, power crazed committees and fearful caucuses trying to make people that politics are needed. Pageants, all of it. Nothing, all of it.

But here is what is something, God and happiness. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Anything that has genuine power is something, and God and happiness have power. So, I ask this "stupid" question, can we make dirt from scratch? I will not answer that, but I ask that rhetorically to say, happiness is the ultimate power. It is not greed, crookedness or corruptible seed. But the power to unite with and control reality as God does. See what I mean by the title of this article, now. I just opened up the forbidden answer and box of Pandora and all of that. What is that answer, the fact that everybody wants to be God with the good parts only of the deal of being God. If you are not crooked with yourself, and you are honest, you will admit that is the reality of the situation. If not, then you have cheated yourself in the ultimate way. Because if you are dishonest with yourself, you are ultimately cheating yourself. Honesty is always a winner, is it not? Because it is the only real game in town and the best job in town that pays the greatest dividends. If I am a "bad guy" for revealing reality, I say the opposite of President Nixon, "I am a crook," proudly.

My name is Joshua Clayton, I am a freelance writer based in Inglewood, California. I also write under a few pen-names and aliases, but Joshua Clayton is my real name, and I write by that for the most part now. I am a philosophical writer and objective thinker and honest action taker.
I also work at a senior center in Gardena, California as my day job, among other things, but primarily I am a writer.