Why the hell did I choose him?

Deep down, we all love a good human, and by that I don’t mean good in the benevolent sense. I mean someone who is unique, perfectly flawed, and challenging. Now, that challenge of course is subjective. Look at the beautiful stripes on a tiger for example. Taken alone and at a distant glance you see an indiscernibly pleasing pattern. As you get closer and compare him to other tigers, there are an infinite number of tiny differences. That’s what makes it pleasing. The pattern is what caught the eye. The challenge comes in being the right tiger, or right for you at least. Do you like being stalked with raw intelligence? Do you like the physical chase? Do you like to admire the natural power in him. Do you like that last second when every hair on your body stands up because his teeth and rumble find their place at the back of your neck? If you do end up with a tiger, good luck with the ability to tame, subdue, coax, declaw and even defang if you have to. Some might object to the analogy. I guess I could find a bunch of others in nature, after all, they are animals too. Digging deeper into the human psyche though, the best of the beast is always there even if it is a miniscule dose. You have the beautiful minds, the self made billionaires, the heroes, the saints, the artists, the #1 dads, the superstar actors and sportsman, the philosophers, the rockstar scientists, the Romeo, the Casanova and many more. Oh, I forgot the most common one, that really, really good guy (benevolent and human).Who is mine then? Well, he is sort of Jack. You know, of all that he does. He can be any of those archetypes, at any time. He is also none of them, particularly and unfortunately, when I want him to be, but I’ll get to that much later. His name is Michael which, appropriately to him, is a most common name across many cultures, languages, religions, and countries. I hate that, but whatever, it was his parents’ choice. And going back in his DNA mash up, there were multitudes before him. I do like the fact that his name means, in its earliest version, a most deep rhetorical question. “Quis ut Deus?” in Latin but it is thousands of years older than the Romans and dating back to when cave people realized that they were part of something bigger and certainly not at the center of it. In blunt English, as Michael would say, "who is God?, definitively not me or you!" This reminds me of an argument he had with his brother which he wrote down later. I’m going to use his words and this convention for the entire book, if it pleases you, or not, I do what I like, Michael knows that for sure. In his words:

[Anthony, how can you think we are in a simulation?

“The math points to it being the best probability.”

I get that. But even if that is the case, it would mean someone, or something created the simulation no?

“Yea, it could be me and just turtles all the way down to infinity”.

Infinite regression? Neither physicists nor epistemologists are comfortable with that.

“Whatever, for all I know, I could be God. When I die or go to sleep, you all just go away.”

Perhaps, but that doesn’t pass even the simplest logic test.

“What test is that?”

Close your eyes, go to sleep and see if you don’t wake up when I am punching you.

“That could be me imagining you punching me.”

Ha ha ha. Maybe, but for the rest of your life you’ll be thinking about my fists before you go to sleep. That doesn’t sound like a god.]

This is the kind of mumbo jumbo geek crap I put up with all the time, call it one of his little beasts. I hate it and I don’t. It makes me laugh like seltzer bubbling up when you least expect it.