_"My name is the Philosopher-King"
10:00 PM. Post-Powderpuff 2015. A long, fun night filled with salty seniors and smack-talking juniors. I could care less. We all went to T-POP to hang out, then a few of us went to McDonalds to hang out.
I walk into McDonalds, get myself some lemonade with Dominic, and sit down with my friends in the back corner of the store.
If you know anything there is to know about Mira Mesa, its got its fair share of hobos and crazy people. McDonalds in Mira Mesa at 10PM was not subject to exception. There was this guy who knocked down someone's bike. This someone decided to blame me and my friends and sort of yell at us for it.
(Okay, lets just call this guy Paul. He was around 5'4", darker-skinned, bald, light facial hair with a backpack. Seemed a little on the older side of the age spectrum. He spoke with a slight stutter every few words, but clearly well-spoken)
We claim it wasn't us, and then Paul quickly steers the subject away from the bike to the face-paintings we donned for Powderpuff. He continues on about his skin problems and what not, saying that he uses skin ointment to treat his problems and was asking us if it looked weird. The people at my table try to ignore him, but I pay attention to what he said. I don't like it when people ignore me, so I give him my time out of respect for myself.
He goes away, and then I happen to pass him by for a refill of lemonade. Paul stops me before I get my refill and asks me this insanely deep question:
(Conversation is paraphrased)
Would you tell someone that there's something wrong with their face? If they had something on it?
I answer. "Well, no because I assume they know of it and I don't want to bother them."
"What if it was like, uh, boogers on their nose, or something?"
"Then, yes I would tell them."
"I see, I see. Yeah, I would tell them to be kind. But we're all perfect, you know?"
Woah, woah, woah, I thought. No one is perfect. God Himself said that. Heck, even Hannah Montana said that. Absolutely no one is perfect compared to God's laws and character (Romans 6:23). I asked him to elaborate on this audacious statement.
"Well, everyone and everything is made up of energy. Energy just changes form over time. Also, everyone is different, and you cannot compare one person to another. So everyone is perfect in their own way. There is no God. I am God, you are God, everybody is God."
"Well, then," I asked, "how is that so?"
"Okay, okay. Think about an apple and an orange, hm? Can you say that one is better than the other?"
"Well, no, because they're two different things."
"Exactly! Its also how you can't really compare a dog to a human too. They're two different sets of animals."
But humans can be compared to humans. Humans still do bad things to themselves and each other.
Instead, to get a better grasp around what Paul is arguing, I bring back the idea of a sovereign God in the Universe.
"So, then, do you believe that there is a universal standard of what is good and bad. Like 'you cannot murder' or 'you cannot steal'?" (Exodus 20:14-15)
"Yes, I do believe that there is a standard of good and evil in the world."
"So then how can you say that all people are perfect compared to this standard?"
"Yes, yes, I only said that we are all perfect in our own way. You are perfect, I am perfect. We may do bad things, but we are perfect."
"Okay, but there is a God out there that has this standard of good and evil."
"See, we all have this imagination, and that we have this God in our minds."
He goes on to explain his crazy theories of the Universe and how we all are the centers of our own lives. Despite his incoherency, this encourages me that even a crazed-out guy like Paul can still fathom the existence of a God in the Universe. A mind, tainted by its own thought, can still imagine the reality of a sovereign majesty (Romans 1:20-21).
He even brought out this Daoist book of a million-and-a-half proverbs (which I think he stole) and showed me a few of them. They are honestly a few of the weirder but thought-provoking things a person will read in their life.
"I lost my mind, you know. Just reading this stuff you know? I've read this book like a hundred times, and it just changed my mind and my thinking. I'm crazy, man." He then continues about his loss of love for material things and how he doesn't give a *bleep* about anything in his life anymore, even if he gets hurt on his bike (the only thing he actually cares about. He said he "treats it like a real animal, like a horse).
He shifts gear, from hitting stuff up about the Universe to this:
"You know, you're smarter and more intelligent than your friends over there."
I'm caught a little off-guard by that comment, and a little flattered, to be honest. "Oh, uh, haha I think they're not open to random discussion like I am," as I gesture towards mis amigos. "I like having impromptu discussions about random things with random people."
Only Ian would do something like this, other than myself, I thought.
We move off the subject (again) and go to his background. He explains his life and reveals a small part of his past to me. He was plagued by colon cancer and had to have a bag attached to the outside of his stomach (after being hospitalized for an operation). He had some pretty nasty stories about it too, like how it spilled all over him one time while he was sleeping, and how hard it was from him to adapt to the changes (he said he was a clean freak, so being covered in the nasty wasn't the most fun thing for him to experience).
He sort of tops off the whole colon cancer story with an episode in the middle of the night when he "bites the bullet" and takes excruciating poops at the same time.
After some more discussion about his life, I say that I still want a refill of lemonade. Then he says:
"Reach out your hand. I want to shake it."
So we shake hands but we both hold it in place for a few seconds.
"My name is the Philosopher King. It was nice meeting and talking with you."
"And my name is Zach. It was nice talking with you too." This man needs Jesus.
I let go, walk away and refill my lemonade, and pass the throne of the Philosopher King once again; a ruined King of an empty kingdom, ravaged by his own thought.
And here we were, in McDonalds at 10:56 PM.
