And then God wept over the fate of his creation. Unfortunately, that just made things worse.

The story of the great flood in the Bible is one of the core concepts of the Abrahamic faiths. Enraged by the despicable acts he witnesses upon Earth, God commands the rain to fall for forty days and forty nights. The wicked people upon Earth who have turned their backs on their creator are drowned and only one righteous man and his family are left alive. Of all the people on Earth, only Noah was wise enough to heed the commands of his Lord and build an ark on which his family and the innocent animals of Earth could survive the flood. For the entirety of the rains, the ark stayed strong and, when the rains finally ceased, Noah released a single dove to search for land. It returned with a branch not long after, signaling the fact that it had found dry land. Noah, his family, and the animals eventually landed and began life anew in ways that were more in line with the commands of God.

It is an interesting story to say the least and a powerful morality tale about the dangers of ignoring God’s word. It is not, however, unique or even the first of its kind.

The flood tale has been seen seen in cultures around the globe and throughout all of history. The story of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian epic from the 7th century BC tells a similar story about a man named Utnapishtim who survives a great flood with his wife Ea sent by the Gods after they have determined that mankind is not worthy of the gift of life. Even the elements of the boat, the dove, and the twig from a tree are found within the text. Going back even further (specifically to about 1460 BCE), the Greeks were telling the story of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, survivors of a great flood sent by Zeus after witnessing the wicked acts of men like Lycaon on Earth. Only with the assistance of Prometheus, that great savior of men, did they survive in a chest (box, boat) as the rains came down night after night.

So what does it all mean? It’s hard to say, really. It seems likely that there was, at some point, an incredible flood in the ancient cradle of civilization. It’s possible that the memory of the flood was handed down through stories that have been changed and transformed through time to suit the needs of the people telling the tale. It’s equally possible that it is pure fiction, a powerful story with the ability to transcend time and warn humanity about the dangers of excess pride.

Either way, it’s hard to deny the power of the tale. Floods and natural disasters happen every day and if you believe in a supreme deity, it can be hard to reconcile the tragic loss of human life when God is supposed to be watching over you. These stories offer up the concept of a divine plan, that there is always a reason, even if it isn’t clear to human eyes. That’s much more palatable for most people than a ruthless and chaotic world where tragedy simply strikes without reason.

If there is a God of this nature out there, I suppose it’s entirely possible that he is simply accident prone. A being of such indescribable power would likely have trouble performing even small tasks without setting the orbits of planets spinning out of control or the laws of physics into disarray.

Or maybe he just knocks over his glass of water and causes a flood for forty days and forty nights.

If you’d like to read about more flood myths from around the world, there’s a nice website that has plenty!

Things can’t be very exciting for Poseidon under the ocean. A fella has to keep busy somehow!

On first (and maybe even second) glance, Poseidon appears to the modern reader to be a secondary deity, one who couldn’t possibly have had much influence on mortal affairs. When the world was divided into its various spheres of influence among the gods (after being freed by Zeus from the belly of Cronus) the sky fell to Zeus, the oceans to Poseidon, and the underworld to Hades. Growing up, it was easy to draw parallels between the mighty Zeus, lord of the Sky and of thunder, to the Christian God. It was easy to see the Sky deity and chief of the gods as being infinitely more important than his counterparts. It was also easy to see Hades as being important somehow, his closest Christian opposite being the Devil (though the two are not at all similar, in reality). Poseidon, for someone growing up in a Christian society, just didn’t seem to fit. What was that guy’s deal? It’s not like the seas are terribly important, right?

Maybe you’d pray to him if you wanted a nice day at the beach.

To the people living along the banks of the ancient Mediterranean, the seas couldn’t possibly be more important. The waters were literally the waters of life for many communities. They provided fish for food and a source of travel and thus, trade. Without the sea, these people would have lead entirely different lives, ones that would have been quite a bit less comfortable. Their respect for the seas and ocean was mirrored by their respect for the deity presiding over them. There is evidence that Poseidon, not Zeus, was a major deity and the patron god of many Greek cities. In Homer’s “Odyssey”, it is Poseidon, not Zeus, that is the primary deity of concern and the one responsible for shaping the events in play.

Poseidon, much like the seas he ruled, was seen as a stormy and unknowable god, his moods were unpredictable and his wrath was terrible if offended. Sailors prayed to him for safe passage over his waters and whole communities worshiped him in the hopes that their cities along the sea would be safe from terrible storms and destructive waves. The lord of the sea did, however, have a positive side.

During his off-hours, when he was tired of wrath, he was seen as bringing new islands into existence and of calming the stormy seas for the faithful. If you were on his good side, Poseidon could smooth over rough seas and facilitate trade and communication between cities along the Mediterranean.

So if you’re ever at sea and feeling a little nervous or queasy, maybe ask Poseidon for a little help. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?

The worst he can do is sink your ship.

…Or maybe put it in a bottle for display purposes.

It’s difficult buying birthday gifts for practicing Buddhists, nevermind the Buddha himself. That is, it’s tough unless you get creative with it. And by creative, what I really mean is cheap.

Or, in Lil K’s case, weirdly lucky.

It isn’t the Buddha’s birthday today (that is usually celebrated between April and May, sorry I missed it!), but it WAS my mother’s birthday a few days ago. She happens to be a Buddhist and a very difficult person to buy gifts for. I wanted to do something nice for her so this comic is dedicated to her.

When I was just a wee lad, my parents got divorced. It was kind of tough for all of us early on, but it was obviously the right thing to do as the two of them couldn’t possibly be more incompatible. What this meant was that I grew up between two houses and two families with two very different sets of ideals and beliefs. My father, a Christian, brought my brothers and I to Church a couple of Sundays a month and had us attend Sunday School while we were young. My mother, on the other hand, grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, left home and the religion at 18, and ended up settling into Buddhism when I was about 10 years old. She’s stuck with it all this time, meditating frequently, and going on retreats. It’s from her that I learned the basic ideas of Buddhism that sparked my curiosity in other religions and, eventually, my interest in mythology.

Between my two families I had two religions that I didn’t have much interest in being a part of, but which I found immensely fascinating from a scholarly perspective.

The figures of Jesus and Buddha had so many similarities and some terribly interesting stories that got me thinking about the stories of other people around the world.

The Buddha (to me anyway, and I realize this is subjective) seemed to be offering a much more complicated message than the prophets and founders of other major religions, though it isn’t wholly unfamiliar. The Buddha preached, first and foremost, the concept of mindfulness; the idea that one should strive to always be aware of the things they are doing at any given moment, that one should consider their actions and the consequences of those actions. Along with mindfulness comes freeing oneself from desire, letting go of the things you don’t need and paying attention to what is actually important (like in today’s comic!). Finally, compassion for all living things and an awareness of the suffering every creature goes through over the course of its life is immensely important to cultivate in oneself to the practicing Buddhist.

Obviously, there’s some overlap here with Jesus’s teachings. The idea of compassion for others, of giving up material goods, and the fact that they were both reforming religions that came before are all traits common to both figures. It’s interesting to note that it has been said that Buddhism is less a religion and more a philosophy and way of life. There are some people that practice both Buddhism and Christianity or Islam or whatever.

Of course, Buddhism is far more complicated than a paragraph or two can convey (as all religions are) but it’s one that seems to resonate with a great many people all around the world. Though I may not adhere to it as a practitioner, it has taught me a great deal about myself and others and for that, I’m thankful.

So to the Buddha, I say thanks for helping me find my interest in world religions and mythology, and to my mother I say thanks for helping me find the Buddha in everyone.

Happy birthday, mom. I offer you Mettā.

And to you, dear reader, I do the same.

I’m convinced Birthdays are just god’s way of counting down how much longer we have to live. Each one is a step closer to our chilly graves.

I’m kidding! Birthdays are totally rad!

Tomorrow is my birthday! How exciting! It also happens to be Lil K’s birthday by some strange coincidence. How did that happen? I have no idea.

Personally, I made past 18 and I like to think that Lil K will too. Sometimes Cat God is a little hard on him, but it’s probably just to toughen him up. Clearly they have a strange relationship

Anyway, I’m keeping this blog post short as I plan to relax as much as I can this weekend!

BIRTHDAY TIME!

*Oh cool I just noticed as I was uploading this that this is the 200th comic! Neato!*

In the beginning, God created man. Man, in a fit of productivity, goes on to domesticate beasts and plants, create civilization, and invent alcohol and baseball. Not content with several thousand years of such things, man decides that it is time to do as his creator did. Unfortunately, early versions of man’s own attempt at life are creepy as hell.

It gets me thinking…maybe God wasn’t too happy with what he made either. Maybe it’s more subtle than sheer abject horror, maybe, like artists everywhere, God looks back on us and thinks “Man I can’t believe I did something like THAT back in the day.” and gives himself a little pat on the back for improving so much. “If only they could check out my new stuff,” he thinks, and shakes his head.

Have you seen the robots I’m talking about? They make me feel ill to look at.

Every time I read about people wanting to create human-like robots, I hear about how these dudes want to create something they can share the joy of life with. As if consciousness and the human experience were this wholly perfect thing that was nothing but goodness and love and compassion. It’s always about the wonderful qualities the human race possesses to these guys, but what they seem to forget is that the human race is as fucked up as it is beautiful. You go creating robots that are just like us and you’re going to create some really pleasant things and you’re also going to unleash robot murderers on the world. Think of how much more efficient robots are than humans at almost anything. Now think about a robot capable of and willing to murder human beings.

That’s one place where you WANT someone slacking off.

The strange thing about all this sharing the human condition thing is that the human condition isn’t easy. Life is definitely a beautiful thing but it comes with its ups and downs. Plenty of people on this planet are miserable and frightened and angry for most of their lives. Why, exactly, do we want to create things like us that would take part in that nonsense? Shouldn’t we maybe sort our own shit out first before we begin bringing brand new creatures into the mix? I guess it’s true what they say, misery does love company.

Maybe if we can create robots that are kind of like us and treat them horribly it will make our lives look better by comparison. Bummed about losing your job? Hey, at least you’re not one of those ROBOTS.

The fact of the matter is that these creations would have their own positives and negatives. Creating artificial intelligence and synthetic humanoids would really move the human race forward on its quest for godhood and its quest for science. Understanding robots could help us understand a lot more about ourselves and a lot more about consciousness. There’s a lot to look forward to there and I can sort of see the appeal and the passion of people working on these projects. It’s still baffling that they don’t seem to care much about the problems that might arise from it.

It’s like when a guy thinks he’s going to be a great dad and doesn’t stop to consider the cost and the effort it’s going to take. He just wants a kid, he doesn’t care how it’s going to work out.

Usually it doesn’t.

I mean, take a look at God. He’s ineffable and he created us, right? If a being of such perfection as God can’t magic up a creature that isn’t constantly on the brink of blowing itself up or, at the very least, descending into absolute chaos, what chance have we got for creating happy and compassionate life ourselves?

At least there is one up side to making progress on this issue: if we get those robots looking right, I can stop being so utterly creeped out by them. That would be something to look forward to.

All men (and women) are not created equally attractive. As unfortunate as it is to admit that, I think we all know it to be true. There are whole industries that surround the concept that some people are just naturally better looking than others. Lucky for those of us unable to attain super model status, clothing is there to help.

Being an artist, I’ve had to get used to the idea (both theoretical and practical) of the nude human figure. At first, seeing a naked old man sitting in front of a class of 18 year olds was a bit disturbing, but I’ve since grown accustomed to it, probably in the same way a doctor or a budding necromancer grows used to human corpses. Shame, it seems pretty obvious, is a cultural concept. There are an awful lot of ideas that we take as being natural law that, when examined, end up being learned concepts. Anyone familiar with anthropology will understand this. There are places where clothing (and therefore shame of this variety) is nearly non existent and the social fabric hasn’t broken down. So what is it that causes us to embrace and relish the idea of shame? It’s hard to find a legitimate practical purpose behind simply feeling bad about yourself, so it’s clear we need to look elsewhere for the culprit.

Say…in a particular book, to a particular deity.

There are people (Ex-christian atheists, mostly) that like to look at the Bible and to God as though they were these overbearing parents with too many rules. “Don’t eat shellfish, don’t eat pork, wear clothes, make babies,” says God. “Why?” responds the atheist, looking for logical reasons behind any of this stuff and finding it lacking. “…” replies God (seeing as he’s been pretty quiet these last few centuries). Many of these people go on to ignore the majority of these rules (most practicing Christians and Jews do, as well) and don’t really question them further but they’re still influenced. The idea of shame, especially, has a hold over people. But why? Why clothe ourselves? Why spend the money, the time, and the brain power on picking out clothing?

I’ll tell you why.

Clothing may be uncomfortable at times or unnecessary in certain places (I’m looking at you, tropical regions) but it always serves at least one crucial function:

Shielding our carapaces from each others’ gazes.

Whether you’re an idealist who thinks we should all give up clothing and be free of their constraints or a super practical person that sees clothing as an extravagant accessory when we have perfectly good skin, you can’t deny the fact that there are some people out there you just don’t want to see in the buff. That, right there is all the reason I need to put on pants in the morning.

After all, I can’t claim super model status for myself. I’m sure my own nigh-translucent membrane would be displeasing to many eyes. Clothing, for me, is a gesture of good will to the world. “Greetings, I know you may not find my nude form appealing. Please enjoy this jacket and these pants instead.”

For me, it’s not about feeling bad about myself, about feeling powerful negative shame about how I look. It is, simply, a realistic recognition of the fact that not everyone is attractive to everyone else.

On the plus side, not only does clothing have the power of shielding our forms from each others’ eyes, it has the added benefit of being a buffer zone between human flesh and places to sit down in public transportation vehicles.

And for that, I thank god every day.

Accidents in writing and creativity happen to the best of us. Sometimes you write something and someone’s already done it, sometimes you accidentally include some wording or concept from a book you read a long time ago or a cartoon you don’t entirely remember. Anyone that tells you this has never happened to them is a liar. Unfortunately for the G-man, it is statistically improbable that the Bible’s overlaps with previous myths and folktales are mere coincidence. They say everything that can be done has already been done before, I guess that was true even several thousand years ago.

First let me start by giving proper credit where it is due. The quotes used in this comic are from the following sources: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Ozymandias by Percy Bisshe Shelly, George Bernard Shaw, and finally Dick & Jane by William S Gray and Zerna Sharp. Whew…

Reading Gilgamesh, I was struck by the incredible similarities between the story of the Great Flood it tells. In it, a man named Utnapishtim, a king and a pretty swell guy, hears (with divine aid) the plan the gods come up with to destroy mankind for their sins. These gods plan to send a great flood to wash the land clean. With the help of Ea, one of the gods sympathetic to mankind, Utnapishtim manages to build a huge square boat, fill it with two of every animal and some friends and family, and seal the thing up before the rains arrive. For six days, it rains and the land is covered with water. Eventually, the ship runs aground on top of a mountain and they send a dove out to see if the land is dry. The dove wings back to the ship, a twig in its beak, and thus the people know their ordeal is over.

Does any of this sound familiar? It did to me. There are a lot of other instances in the Bible of myths being reused and recycled and even more examples in general Christian culture. The devil, for instance, is a strange amalgamation of ideas for various pagan gods in Europe and the original Hebrew idea of a divine persecutor. That whole thing with the snake in the garden of Eden? Snakes had been seen as tricksters, tempters, and liars around the world for thousands of years before Judaism came around. Even Jesus falls into some of the same pitfalls. The stories of Jesus and Dionysus, for example, share some key elements such as resurrection, wine, baptism, and transubstantiation. There’s been a lot of discussion about Jesus being a carbon copy of Horus from Egyptian myth but this is, largely, a fallacy. There are a few overlaps there, but, as with Dionysus, Jesus’s story isn’t a direct copy of anything else. Rather, it shares elements of many stories, much like the Bible itself.

There are a couple of ways to look at all of this. Either the Bible is built on the foundations of the past, utilizing elements of stories from previous times to tell something more relevant to the people of its time, OR it is simply coincidental and a brilliant example of humanity’s archetypal style storytelling. There are, after all, examples of stories (read Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces) spread across the world between cultures that had no contact with each other utilizing the same archetypes in their myths. The trickster, the earth mother, the dying and resurrected hero, and so on and so forth. These are popular and useful devices that we find at the roots of many many myths. The thing that catches ME up is the sheer volume of key concepts that seem to be taken and reused from older myths.

I guess this is just the way that humanity works. We’re always building on the past, erecting an ever taller, ever larger monument to ourselves. We take this archetype, these story elements, these character traits, and these memes and we turn them into something different that speaks to who we’ve become to keep them current and meaningful. Writing, art, and culture in general are about inspiration and we are, and always have, been inspired by those that have come before us whether we recognize it or not. The people of the past were not as different from us today as we like to think. They, like us, rejoiced in stories and they recognized that life is just that, a story we tell ourselves. Every life has plot points, character development, strange events unfolding, and a dash of madness thrown in. And like every story, every life shares many of the same qualities as other, seemingly disparate lives.

I like to think that if there is a god, that this is the sort of thing he’d do to influence us to think in more positive ways. He’d write this crazy book about wars, murder, laws, a savior, and most of it would be totally ripped off from a bunch of stuff from the past. People would later read it and realize the rather obvious plagiarism, draw parallels between storytelling and the lives of humans, and then tell other people about it. They’d read it, maybe come to the same conclusions, and feel better about the world and their place in it and share the idea with friends and so on and so forth.

Though I guess that would probably be a silly thing to do.

I feel like I’ve heard something like that before anyway.

I was thinking about these characters I’ve created and adapted for the comic and when I thought about how hard it was to get gifts for some people I know, I realized that Lil K has it far worse. I mean, what, exactly, do you get or make for an elusive, forest dwelling monster and a God that likes to take the form of a cat? That’s a tough call. Prayers are a bit too theoretical and besides, the guy gets them all the time. He doesn’t need material things, seeing as how he can just magick up whatever the hell he wants. No…this Christmas gift requires research. It requires…finesse.

By finesse, I’m talking about sacrifices, known in some parts of the world as murder.

It’s a bit surprising that some enterprising company hasn’t come up with holiday gifts for the deity of your choice. There’s a market just waiting to be tapped there. Have your kids order a sacrificial beanie baby and we’ll throw in a fruit cake for free!

I think there’s something wrong with me at this time of the year. My holiday comics tend to be full of cussin’ and murder. I must have suffered some serious Christmas trauma at a young age that I’ve somehow suppressed. This is the second holiday comic for this year and we’re two for two on murder, or at the very least, implied murder.

This time of year is a bit strange, from a religious point of view. It’s a time originally intended by folks for worship and recognition of dark days filled with the light of religion, family, and friends. Those people were pagans. Zing, Christianity! Take that! But in all seriousness, Christians, having co-opted the Yule festivities, took with them many of the core principles of the holiday season. Worship has been featured heavily for hundreds of years and only recently, with the coming of the great Lord Capitalism, and his trusted ally, Commercial Culture, has it taken on a more consumerist tone. What’s a God to do in times like these? Not being a God, I can’t really say for sure, but I imagine these are dark days. Where people once chanted your name and prayed for whatever, things must be a lot more quiet now. Parts of the world are still deeply devout and that’s almost certainly a bittersweet experience for the G-man. It’s like an echo of times gone by, a scent that reminds you of the glory days, or a snippet of a song that takes you back to when you were a god-kid.

The memories come flooding back and it’s pleasant, but you know you can never have them again. You sigh, a world-weary godly sigh. Ahhh…

I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. To the Christians, I hope the season is a good one and that you remember your deity. To everyone, I hope you enjoy your family and friends and remember the people you wouldn’t normally be concerned with. Everyone deserves a little cheer and kindness every day, but if you can’t manage that, at least give it a shot for a few weeks. To people working retail: you have my sympathies. If you desire, you may put it in your will that you’d like me to come speak at your funeral should you perish in these dark times. Include travel expenses and I will gladly show up, much to the bewilderment of family and friends alike. Incomprehensible tales about the heroic feats you never performed will be heard.

Merry Christmas, folks. <3

They say death isn’t funny. It isn’t, unless you’re God.

I was talking to Liz the other day and we realized that there hadn’t been a strip yet about Lil K asking God about what lies after death. I found that strange, so we came up with a comic to remedy that situation.

There are some serious questions when it comes to death and dying, all of which seem to stem from the fact that life and consciousness are pretty sweet. They are so sweet, in fact, that we just don’t want to give them up. It’s a scary thing, the thought of losing them, so we wonder about what it means to pass away. Unfortunately, as a student of mythology and art, I haven’t got a lot of answers. Nobody really seems to.

My personal opinion has always been to try to let go of the negative, clingy feelings. I’ve lost family members, I’ve lost friends, but there’s no sense in focusing on the loss part of the equation. Instead, I try to think of all the awesome experiences I had dealing with those individuals. I make it a point to think of all the shitty experiences as well, because it’s not just the good that defines our relationships.

There’s no sense in sugar coating our memories.

It’s tough to take a less grief focused approach to death, especially when it’s the social norm to cry and moan and make other people miserable when you lose someone. I understand those feelings and I really do feel for people that suffer the loss of someone close. It’s not easy to get past that, but would the person you lost really want that for you? I find that hard to believe.

As for me, I hope people have a totally bitchin’ party when I’m gone. Hopefully not celebrating my demise, but rather, celebrating the life I lived.

Though I suppose they could celebrate my demise if I were hit by a flaming bus driven by Sasquatch playing Iron Maiden at maximum volume.

That would be awesome.

SITE UPDATE: Over this week you may have noticed some weird stuff going on with the site. The databases were apparently corrupted by a combination of random events and my own ineptitude. I’ve got stuff mostly working again though there are a few random issues. I’m trying to get the buy a print button working properly while I’m at it. Sorry for the issues and the missing strip, I’ll try to make it up to you somehow.

RANDOM UPDATE: Oh yeah today is my birthday. Wooo!

People are curious. Many of us are always on the look out for some new fascinating fact about ourselves, as if simple self reflection weren’t enough. Our conscious minds aren’t good enough for this sort of thing so where do we look? Those wild ridiculous things called dreams hold all the answers. But what do these random things made up of seemingly disparate elements tell us? If you’re like Lil K (and I suspect you are, you maniac!) they don’t say anything good.

Oh hey look, it’s Morpheus. He’s finally got around to being in a comic. Cool!

There’s been some interest in dream interpretation for quite a long time; longer than you might imagine, even. It’s been something like forever. Dreams are strange things, deeply personal yet entirely alien. They reflect our daily lives and yet are unlike anything we know in waking life. While cognitive sciences have made strides toward helping us understand what consciousness is, it hasn’t yet adequately worked out what dreams are or what they are for. We know they’re necessary to humans and likely most other animals, but the exact nature and purpose of them eludes us. It seems pretty astounding that something everybody does has yet to be properly worked out. It’s really an incredible thing to study, it seems. If I were diligent enough for a career in science, it’s something I’d love to look into.

Dreams were absolutely fascinating to the Greeks and Egyptians and writings still exist today about the ways in which dreams were experienced and interpreted. It seems as if there have been dream movements over the years and across cultures. Different cultures and periods experience different types of dreams. Egyptians (at least what we have recorded) reportedly experienced a great many dreams involving their gods, as did the Greeks (who inherited a lot of ideas about dreams from the Egyptians) while later European cultures in the Middle Ages viewed dreams as evil visitations from the Devil. Human beings, being social animals with minds largely made up by the cultures in which they live, seem to give way pretty easily to pressure, even when it comes to their dreams.

It’s all a bit difficult to study dreams, as not everyone can remember all or even most of them. What we experience as large chunks of time passing in our dreams can actually be the firing of synapses in the space of just a few moments. It’s kind of amazing to think about.

As for good ol’ Morpheus, the fellow seems to have been a rather minor deity in the scheme of things, at least when it comes to the grand tales of Greek Myth. Not many stories refer to him and when they do he isn’t a stand out character. Even Ovid’s Metamorpheses doesn’t have much to say about him, though that’s technically Roman literature.

Types of dreams come and go and our understanding of what they are and what they’re for marches ever onward. As for me, I rarely remember my dreams, if I have them at all. I like to think that I get my dreams out on paper in this comic and on sketchpads. When I do remember my dreams, they are almost always terrible nightmares. The funny thing about nightmares is that they make waking life seem even more pleasant. Not a bad trade-off.

Until we work out exactly what dreams are all about, I suspect people will continue to search dream interpretation books and therapists about the stories their minds tell themselves at night. Whether it’s a valid process or not is still up in the air, but I suppose it can’t hurt to try to figure it out.

That is unless you have super hot dreams about unicorns.

Then you should probably just keep your mouth shut.