One day back in undergrad, I was peacefully watching Adult Swim in the dorm lounge, working on some electronics homework, when Stevie entered and declared me to be one of the Indigo Children.

I closed my book, to give my undivided attention to stopping the rape of reason that was to follow.

I’ll go into details later, but she’d read in a book that there were these people, “the Indigo Children,” who were “rebellious, purposeful, highly intelligent; creative, intuitive, frustrated with authorities and bureaucracy; and psychically powerful” people with “big “wise” eyes.”

I don’t see how my eyes are “wise” though; all they do is record the light reflected from objects and give cool squinty-action hero stares to scare off popped-collars at bars, while WD40-ing women’s nether-regions.

Stevie argued that since I met all criterion for being an Indigo, I had to be one. I explained to her that I had no psychic superpowers, and that I was “…just a man and his will to survive.”

Her eyes lit up.

“See? You’re rebelling against the labels that people give you! That’s such an Indigo thing!”

She was spared my wrath only because she was a friend, and I wanted to commit egregious acts of carnality upon her person.

I was no stranger to this argument. As a youth I was enthralled by NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries, and tales of UFO’s, Area 51, and the like. The conspiracy theorists were notorious for creating logic traps. They would use loaded statements as the basis for an argument, so that the outcome would be what they wanted to hear, guaranteed. For the sake of argument, let us ask if the US government has covered up the fact it’s hiding a crashed UFO in Area 51. If the government admits there is a UFO, then we know it exists. If the government denies the UFO, then they acknowledge the cover up, and the fact the UFO exits. This argument is and was the core of UFO documentaries, and is a textbook logical fallacy.

This is bifurcation, commonly known as the black-and-white fallacy, the either/or fallacy, or the false dilemma fallacy. Assume that we are given three things, p, q, and r. We must choose between p, or q. Now if p is also r, and q is also r, we would then select r regardless of our choice of p or q. I have illustrated this point in Table 1. This is all a fancy-pants way of saying that “I want you to be something, therefore, you are.”

Stephen Colbert would later go on to make this a running gag that he used on damn near everyone. The use of loaded questions is a tried-and-true method for generating responses which, though meaningless, can appear convincing as long as the audience doesn’t think about what is being said.

I explained to her why she was wrong, even drawing the truth table, but this was only further proof by her reasoning. Undaunted, Stevie referred me to a website, which I read. I knew she was too good to be true.

I knew what had to be done.

I, for one, am constantly sickened by hucksters and their feel-good bullshit, demanding all of your time, money, and only receive doublethink in return. Besides, I was Christian at the time, so I already chock-full of doublethink. I couldn’t possibly take on any more.

That is why, I, Ryan Coons, as part of my never-ending crusade of justice, and as part of my required duties as the Purveyor of Truth, will expose, torment, and mock the people behind the Indigo Cult. I just want them to feel bad about themselves, and make their world a darker, bleaker, place, until they collectively acknowledge that they have done this to me, and make amends. I am fully aware that this will not happen. This is similar to the Planck problem, that:

“An important scientific innovation rarely makes it ways by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.” — Max Planck, from The Philosophy of Physics (1936).

Though I cannot cure Indigoism, I can hopefully contain it and prevent it from spreading. Those currently infected with this thinking will eventually die off naturally, and their hopes and dreams will go with them.

Hey, it seems to be working on the Shakers.

_____________________________________

Not Awesome: an Indigo/Crystal/Rainbow Child

Awesome: a Wild Child

No, seriously.

He called me the other day, and told me to get the movie JCVD from Netflix. He went off for about three minutes about how great of a movie it was. In Darren‘s defense, JCVD really is a good movie, and you really ought to check it out. It’s a well-written, well-executed movie, and easily the best thing that Van Damme has put out since Universal Soldier. However, this isn’t a blog about the movie. I can’t do that — that’s Joe’s job. This is a blog about Darren‘s reaction to the movie, which led me to conclude that August has no penis.

When he was telling me about the movie, he told me “I cried. Tears were flowing down my face. It’s…ooogh…”

At this point I felt a terrible pain eating at me. My friend was in dire need of help, and I was hundreds of miles away.

“I only have one request Coons,” he tells me.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Watch it alone.”

“Okaaaaaaay…” I tell him with hesitation.

So I added it to my queue, and watched it. It made Darren cry. I invite the reader to take a bite of sherbet, like a pretentious rich person, to cleanse their pallet and swish that last sentence around in their mouths to savor its many flavors.

Darren cried during a Van Damme movie.

I haven’t cried since 1996, when Rob Liefeld was granted complete creative control of Captain America. I’ve had a lump in my throat a few times since then, like during my dad’s funeral, when I used to tell this one story you haven’t earned yet, and at the end of A.I. However, the next morning, I woke up, looked out the window and said “Space aliens? Really?” and never thought of that movie again.

Holy shit, Darren cried during a Van Damme movie. He has no penis. He must have a Lee Press-On Schlong that he bought at the Halloween store, which he affixes to his nether-region with spirit gum in order to service his wife.

I’m trying to assemble the events of the night in question in my head.

After having a good long cry, he must have went to the bathroom and meticulously lit three hundred candles, making the place look like some lame adult contemporary music video, and used $60 worth of scented soaps and oils to take a four hour-long bubble bath. In this time, he then consumed a bottle of red wine, and masturbated with the detachable shower head.

After his bath, Darren then put on flannel pajamas, sat in front of the mirror in his bedroom, and brushed what precious little remains of his natural, living, breathing hair one hundred times with a stiff-bristled brush. Then, Darren climbed under his 186,000 blankets and fell fast asleep.

This had to have been what happened.

Crying during a Van Damme movie! Fuck! This is a serious misstep — he must atone, and I can’t help him because I don’t know any Level 5 Clerics.