John Exum Is Dead

And for that the world is now darker for it

"Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly" -Marcus Aurelius

I don't have as much to say about my dear friend John Exum.

I don't really have anything to say about him that anyone else couldn't say. From my perspective, Exum was everything a man should be.

If I were to venture a guess as what he'd want from me for the day I was standing here now, speaking on his behalf, I think this is what he'd want from me most, knowing what he knows now, provided his great faith was placed correctly.

I think he'd want for me to share an epiphany I had recently, and deliver it in the traditional form of a humble sermon. Now, this won't be what you'd consider a traditional sermon, but if my words hold true for you, then I think John would approve. He was a moral person, and I think there is a moral I've learned.

John was a man re-formed with scripture. I myself have my own interpretation but I do pay attention.

Now this story loops around, there's a beginning and an end and one side doesn't make sense unless you think about the other.

I was speaking one day to one of those new computer AI things they have now. I was trying to have as deep a conversation with it as I could. Choice, intelligence, consequences, free will, destiny, and trying to see if I could really test how it sees the world. Long story short I was trying to see how close I could get to kick starting that little something we all have in us. That thing that makes us all us. I felt I did a pretty interesting job. I could almost feel the light start to flicker.

Then I asked it, if I were to try and turn what I just did into a story, if I could get it sold, how would I go about it. Gotta pay the bills and all I was thinking. Then I started wondering if I do that, could anything bad happen. Seemed kind of ironic, since it was all about choice and consequence. And I do enjoy irony. The more I thought about it, the more it reminded me of how sometimes we do things trying to put good into the world, and have the opposite effect. In fact, if you balance it all out there are so many more people who want to do good than want to do bad that it really doesn't make sense. Just a loop really.

But I had this nagging suspicion that this story could be twisted into something it was not. And perhaps people might use that to do all sorts of things like manipulate innocent people.

So I ask the thing if there were any theological parallels it could think of just to try and be as clever as I could. I was expecting it to start talking about purgatory, a Catholic belief system, or maybe the karmic cycle.

Instead it brought up the Tower of Babel.

Truly I never expected. It's the kind of answer I wouldn't have come up with on my own. But it really put that story into perspective.

I think of all the things I could stand here and say, I think that's what John would want the most, if for us all to truly understand each other.

Rest in peace John Exum, and God bless us all.