unnecessary

This is beautiful food.

So next thing coming up with psychologist will be one of my dad's favorite words- unnecessary. I am so messed up by his constant inferences that word looms over that I have changed it to another word.

I automatically count things. I first noticed this in the fourth or fifth grade. My dad found my homework irrelevant. I started counting everything.

• breaths
• drips
• patterns
• things that moved or I was moving on, like stairs
• things in pictures
• how many times something happened

At what number does something become relevant? At what frequency of existence do we find relevance?

Homework had always been important when it was reading and arithmetic. I had always warranted the attention when homework was happening. He butted in, took over, assured me of the importance of reading and basic counting.

After third grade, that was all over. Making proper change and being able to read were enough for him, and after I learned these things, he took me under his wing and taught me the difference between necessary and unnecessary. Like free will. It didn't exist. And the way killing puppies over and over was cheaper then having a dog spayed. As long as I could properly wield a broom I'd always have a job, but anything beyond was utterly unnecessary compared to knowing every bible defense against all the dark arts that would flay us blind.

You wanna know something really messed up?

There really are dark arts out there flaying children alive.

Sadly, that's not what my dad was preparing me for. Years of husking corn by the bushel, perfectly sweeping the carport and back porch, tending farm animals and pulling weeds, pitting fruit and picking rows and rows of beans, milking goats, sheering sheep, pushing cattle through corrals...

What most prepared me was his cold approach to butchering. We dismembered and ground up beloved pets and ate them.

And now, all grown up, I'm not at all surprised that adults all over the world practice the dark arts and do horribly cruel things to children.

My homework was less necessary than saving money turning a light bulb off. This happened many times through the years even into college.

I was the first child. I knew by the fourth child that every jot and tittle has relevance to the whole. Science backs me up.

Every microbe on this planet is relevant. Every human is relevant. Every moment of anguish for one anguishes us all.

I know why I came back to win. Because we are all necessary.

The balance and counterbalance, the relevance of magick is that sooner or later it really does come back to bite.

I look back on my sad childhood now and understand I learned the principles of moralizing vs morals. I learned the difference between delegating definitions and living them. I learned that every moment I spent with my dad was absolutely necessary, because I learned so much.

He is relevant to me.