Episode 1: Welcome to Greenly

Jonas introduces himself, and teaches us all some important lessons about Greenly. 

Guest Star: Michael Spence.  More about Mike can be found at http://michaelspence.us

Excerpt:

February 14th, 2009 - Valentine's Day.

Hi.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to start this Journal.  I considered the poetic "My name is Jonas Waight , and I am Alive." or the scholarly "A dissertation on the rebuilding of society in the presence of the animated dead."  I thought of Ramboesque rallying cries to inspire future generations to fight or quotes from Shelley Poems to set a proper mood of dread for the situation we find ourselves in.  There's something so relevant about:

"'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'"

In my darkest hour I even considered starting with a Webster's dictionary definition.  I'm sure quite a few of my students would have found that a touch hypocritical, if any of them are still alive.  I really used to hate that.  But the majority of my students couldn't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, so it's unlikely that if they're still walking around they're spending much time searching for hypocrisy.  It IS ironic though that it wasn't until death that they actually started to prefer brains over looks.  My apologies for the digression.  That will happen a lot.

The sad truth is that I am a hack.  My major was Religious Studies and my minor was History.  I got a B in English Comp. Nothing I write will be sufficient to address just how grave the situation is that we as a species find ourselves in.

So I settled on "Hi."  It's simple, and it's human.  To me that one common greeting says more about what it is to be a living, breathing person then a thousand well chosen quotes from the best poetry or prose..  The dead don't need greetings, or pleasantries. They don't need ideas or tools, because they do not and will not ever seek to build.  They are strictly destructive creatures, like locusts, or bacteria.  They are selfish, angry things being driven by instincts, and nothing more.  To be crude, they break shit.  To be human is to create, to wonder, and to collaborate.  And cooperation, not intelligence, is why some of us are still alive.  Well, that and a fair amount of luck.

So what's the purpose of this journal?  To be honest, I'm not quite sure yet.  I expect it to be roughly one half log of events, and one half a place to jot down my personal thoughts and experiences.  I may edit future versions, if only to spare the feelings of some of the people I plan to write about.  Frankly, I just felt like I had to write.   There's not a lot to do in town after nightfall, and writing passes the time.  Whether anyone will ever read this is irrelevant to me.