"Jim -- Did you catch that show last night?
Pam -- No, I don't watch TV. I have a life.
Jim -- Really? What's that like?
Pam -- It's nice. You should get one.
Jim -- But then who will watch my television?
"
- the NBC sitcom "The Office"
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a ninja. I’m out. I remain committed to martial arts as always but not to being “ninja” or to being part of ninja stuff. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile,disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years,... I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
Trackbacks:
Trackback URL: http://thinklings.org/bloo.trackback.php/6090.
1. JesusWire
- 08/12/2010 7:28 pm CDT
Why would you ever quit something so cool? Pirates must be behind it....
Comments on "I Quit":
2. Dave
- 08/11/2010 10:40 pm CDT
Thank you so much for your willingness to be lovingly confrontative. You have made me so ashamed of my small minded ninjaness. I'm realizing suddenly that I have been trapped in a world of fundaninjalist prejudice and empty ningalese rhetoric and ninjoistic platitudes that do nothing truly meaningful for this sad little world. I too shall seek a non ninja lifestyle that will conform to my every preconditional whim.
4. Daniel Ross
- 08/12/2010 8:15 am CDT
You're so cool to so many other ninjas. My fellow ninjas are so lame that we drove out such a popular ninja such as yourself. Is one of your children living an un-ninja lifestyle?
6. Debby Sherman
- 08/12/2010 9:48 am CDT
As I am only one who lurks, perhaps I must first admit that I have not contributed here. I would sup and go.....for about five years. Alas, I am not a Samurai, wondering why this blog took such a turn anyway. Perhaps I am too old to appreciate the point. However, I will say that just Tuesday I wanted to write and say "Is it perhaps time to let things go?" To everything there is a season. Thank you all for your wonderful, often insightful, sometimes hysterical writings on faith and life. I would like to continue to check in and read. I hope you will not choose to take the site down as I use it for reference and appreciate so many good links all here together. Blessings to you and may your burden be lifted.
7. Jared
- 08/12/2010 10:28 am CDT
Debby, nobody is quitting the blog or anything like that. This post is just my weird parody of novelist Anne Rice's recent statement about leaving Christianity. If you click on the word "quit" in the post, it links to an article about that.
Sorry for the confusion.
8. Dave
- 08/12/2010 2:08 pm CDT
The stealthily furtive surreptitiousness of the ninja can be confusing at times.
10. Martin
- 08/12/2010 5:34 pm CDT
Hey, I'm a lurker too, and I appreciated the post! Where's that facebook 'like' button when you need it...
11. ruben
- 08/12/2010 6:07 pm CDT
Very funny, love the responses too. I think I understand Anne Rice a bit, there are times when there are too many voices, and the voices are drowning out your faith. Especially with the internet, the pressure to conform and group each other is too strong that it gets to be suffocating. Sounds to me that she is still a believer, just jaded by the church. Pretty much like me, I guess.
12. Milly
- 08/12/2010 6:26 pm CDT
My son, the ninja, will be sorry to hear that you have given up. He broke his hip at the age of fifteen doing his ninja moves and refused to give up. But if that's it for you because of a person who is messed up then fine go ahead.
13. Dave
- 08/12/2010 8:44 pm CDT
No disrespect intended, but I would humbly disagree that Anne Rice is jaded by the church. It seems to me that she is jaded by the culture.
14. Bill
- 08/12/2010 8:52 pm CDT
Funny post, Jared - I too was thinking this was some subtle way of resigning before I clicked on the "I Quit" link.
About being committed to Christ but being out of fellowship with His people (jaded by the church, etc). How long can one go on like that?
I don't believe Christ gave us the choice of having Him but forsaking His followers.
Now, of course, caveats must apply here. Perhaps your church is not a church at all, and is full of weeds rather than wheat. I don't know. But I don't think Christ and His followers can be separated. I think that's one reason the metaphor of the Body is used.
Just my thoughts. For those of you jaded by the church (and for Anne Rice) I encourage you to find a body that you can live with and then live with it.
Don't be a victim.
15. Bill
- 08/12/2010 8:55 pm CDT
Also, I never was a Ninja.
I'm a Shogun.
The Shogun are the Gandalf to the Ninjas Dumbledore. In other words, there's no contest, suckahs.
17. Justin
- 08/13/2010 1:38 am CDT
Yet another celebrity ninja is out.
This will make that endorsed copy of "Simply Ninja" I have look awkward on the bookshelf in a few years.
18. Bill
- 08/13/2010 6:47 am CDT
Sigh. Time to throw my copy of Slow Ninja Coming on the turntable and reminisce.
21. Dave
- 08/13/2010 4:31 pm CDT
Perhaps we can finally look forward to pre trip, mid trip, and post trip ninjas, as well as ninjalists, post ninjalists and amininjalists joining together in this exodus to show a rare but much needed unity among the ninja elite.
22. Manders
- 08/13/2010 9:46 pm CDT
You should come hang out with us younger, more accepting ninjas. We think the old combative style is outdated, irrelevant, and, quite frankly, antithetical to the true teachings of the ninja masters. We even get together with some forward-thinking pirates on occasion and work for ninja-pirate reconciliation.
25. Milly
- 08/16/2010 8:12 pm CDT
Ninjas be trippin'.
Is Jared making fun of my son? Breaking your hip at the age of 15 while doing your Ninja moves isn't funny.
26. Milly
- 08/16/2010 8:12 pm CDT
Ninjas be trippin'.
Is Jared making fun of my son? Breaking your hip at the age of 15 while doing your Ninja moves isn't funny.
Leave a Comment:
It is incumbent upon the ninja community, especially the conservative, "fundamentalist" ninjas, to examine themselves to determine why such a wonderful and promising person such as yourself would leave.