And why shouldn't I be? Do you read the New York Post, or at least look at their headlines? Do you listen to talk radio constantly, or watch Fox News, or EWTN? Do you even know what EWTN is? Do your parents scoff at terms like "heterosexism" or such ludicrous left-leaning media outlets as... The New York Times? Does your whole extended family find nothing wrong with fundamentalists brainwashing little children into thinking their bodies are immoral vessels worthy only of contempt, except as baby-making apparatuses over which they have no right to control? Is your whole rational worldview persistently under siege by pestering about imperfections in the scientific method? Do you know what it feels like to be religiously proselytized by your own mother? Have you ever had your mind under constant siege from all of this bullshit at the same time for as long as a month or more?
Is it any wonder that I'm the psychological mess that I am today?
Goddamn, everything in this house seems like an insult both to my intelligence and to humanity at large. Think about what right-wing media does for a sec, and don't bother listing examples of left-wing bias either because all they ever do is highlight the icing on this shit sundae that is the religious right, and any way you put it they don't even stack up to what "Fox and Friends" do alone. Right-wing media is essentially telling America that half of Americans are irredeemable assholes who know nothing about anything and want to destroy America. Half. Anyone with a progressive or non-conservative idea in their head is presented as some kind of hippie/socialist/satanist. And that probably includes you, if you're reading this. How does it feel to have yourself collectively condemned with half of the nation for not being religious or nationalistic enough?
Do you realize what this means? It means that these media asshats are antagonizing conservative Americans into hating half of the nation's population, disregarding everything that half says and needs, and enforcing some loose form of authoritarian corporate theocracy. You may think that's an extreme take on the situation, but what the hell do you think the people who support this kind of garbage want? They want some idyllic perfection of the American dream, like some ultra-orthodox status quo middle class 1950's suburbia with not a tolerant or deviant thought in anyone's head. And since that Dream is impossible since half of Americans don't fit the standards to make that happen, the Right's failures will be continuously blamed on liberals until the right people are elected into office to implement enough of the right kind of control over people's lives so that the right people will be happy and the wrong people - people who, say, might think the idea of global warming might have some merit - are nicely marginalized into socioeconomic oblivion.
You don't fit the ideal? Into the loony bin you go. Because if you even think for a second that maybe gay people should be allowed to marry the person of their choice and adopt some kids, you're automatically lumped into the same category as pedophiles and incestuous devil-worshippers. (And where the hell are these secret enemies-of-the-state, these supposed gay atheist cultists who do nothing but devour fetuses and rape children so that they instantly become homosexuals? Do fundamentalists still believe that Dungeons & Dragons groups actually engage in witchcraft? And I have to wonder, where do these witches and sorcerers get their magical powers? From Satan? I didn't even know God let him give human beings any kind of powers, but that's theology for you.)
And I have to say here that the Right is very much concerned with controlling your life in particular ways. You can't get or provide an abortion, you can't get contraceptives, you can't be taught evolution without being told it has as much merit as 4000-year-old fair tales, you can't have any reasonable control over what substances go into your body, you can't trust scientists, you can't demand things of your government, you can't depend on anyone for food and shelter since that would perpetuate a "welfare state", you can't have dependable access to healthcare, you can't bring any charges against white-collar criminal pricks, you can't get married to the person of your choice, you can't adopt a child without the church's say-so, you can't demand better standards of living, and you can't care for the rest of the planet in any way whatsoever. But you can enlist in the army and fight wars nobody but a select group of people have interests in. You can mercilessly beat your children and force them to think the way you want them to think. And you can choose between a select range of expensive healthcare plans, low-income housing developments, and unhealthy fast food diets which a few big names in business and industry will be happy to oblige. And you're perfectly free to have no resources or choices or expression or freedoms of your own, as so many of our 3.5 million homeless do now.
But what can you do if the people closest to you since childhood (literally close in this case) actually believe this kind of bile that spews forth from the radio every minute of every day? What are you supposed to do? You can't very well get a new family, and you can't make a stand if you have to live under the same roof. But that's my situation, and it becomes more difficult to ignore all the time.
You know, it's not so much the ideological conflict that gets to me as it is the sheer offensiveness of the things being said. I can't help it if there's no reason to believe in God, so why am I condemned as if I'm some kind of anarchistic terrorist? I'm just a college student who's trying to find his own way in life, I can't be crammed into this picturesque world of religious devotion and political fervor. Hell, I don't ask the same thing of anyone else. I don't tell religious people to stay at home and not let me know what they believe, and I don't expect people to join the Communist Party or anything. I don't even expect anyone to like gay people. I just want to be left the hell alone, without having my ideas put into a forbidden category. I want people to coexist without fighting over the survival of their ideologies, as if their lives and their prospects at happiness depend on it. I'd rather people would learn how to manage their lives better and look at things a little more rationally and have more compassion for people who are just different and do no real harm.
I mean, seriously, it's the ideas that are corrosive and stupid. Not everyone who clings to them is stupid or intends evil on anybody. But I just get so fucking pissed off when someone says something so hateful and harmful, something that flies in the face of all established forms of logic, and so many people nod their heads and acknowledge their willingness to act on this kind of idiocy. Are you out of your fucking minds?
The New Jersey senate just said no to gay marriage. Why? Why? Why? What reason is there for denying people of the same gender to marry one another? Do they present any special threat to each other by nature of their relationship? No. Do they present any special threat to any children they intent to adopt? No. Do they present any special threat to the justice system or society at large? NO. Just NO. Okay? There is no social anarchy or "sexual madness" about homosexuality. How would allowing gay marriage lead to the breakdown of American society? Because Timmy will have two mommies?? No kind of marriage between two willing persons of different families could lead inherently to any level of social unrest. EVER. But who are we kidding here? It has nothing to do with what legalizing gay marriage will do to American law or the relationship between church and state (since churches can't be required to give anybody a marriage, and frankly I wouldn't want a religious wedding anyway.) It's just that certain people don't like homosexuals. Don't bullshit me with "It's not what they are, it's what they do". That's like saying "It's not that I hate you personally, I just hate the fact that you exist."
Okay, let's get more explicit about what we're talking about here. A man and a woman may hold, kiss, and have sexual relations with each other as they see fit. Well, okay, maybe they don't have that much freedom since some would say that the only kind of sexual contact allowed is conventional heterosexual intercourse within the context of marriage without the use of contraceptives. Ignoring for a minute the... utter strangeness of that level of authoritarian orthodoxy (don't pull any cultural relativist bullshit on me, it has nothing to do with what people should be allowed to do in reality), take a look at what is considered appropriate. A man can put his penis into a woman's vagina, and rub it anywhere around that general area, and in many contexts is allowed to put it (along with his fingers, tongue, etc) anywhere else on the woman as he pleases, and the woman is likewise allowed to fondle the man in any way that seems suitable to her.
Now, what isn't appropriate is for two men to put their penises anywhere on each other for the purposes of sexual stimulation, ever. They're not even allowed to use their hands, tongues, etc, for these purposes with one another. For some reason the act of placing the penis within another man's anus is seen as abhorrent, and I have to doubt it's for sanitary issues. And women are likewise expected to not couple with one another and stimulate each other's clitorises or vaginae for these same purposes. Even kissing and caressing man-to-man or woman-to-woman for the general purposes of romantic stimulation and expression is too much for some minds to bear. Why? There's nothing in biology that says you can't do that, since it's obviously possible to do it regardless of other people's discomfort at the idea. Religious texts hold no water on this issue since they elsewhere have no moral bearing on anything (unless you want to know how long a person may be kept as a slave), and saying "God says so" likewise has nothing to do with whether or not doing something to somebody is nice. Do conservatives simply not like thinking about homosexual intercourse? THEN DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! Nobody's holding you down and forcing you to watch people have sex, even if done in public! What does it say about social conservativism in general if the main driving argument is that homosexuality is icky? "Eww" should be the paraphrasing for any argument anyone makes against same-sex marriage.
What the hell am I still doing in Jersey? I don't want to be here, I want to be back at school learning shit and spending my time with people I care about. Dammit, don't you just get so fucking pissed off, just so fucking pissed off, that you can't even think straight anymore? Any semblance of daily life become impossible around this level of bullshit. Every day I'm wandering around going "It would be nice if this semester- FUCK, THAT'S STUPID!" God... you'd think that with all the time and energy that it takes to write something down and get it revised and get it produced and get it prepared to be put on the air, that a person would think to themselves "Wow... What I'm saying is really fucking stupid!" Somebody has to know! Somebody has to realize what's been happening with all this mass pandering to stereotypes and misconceptions and myths, all over the country. It's got nothing to do with people anymore, people are just treated as vessels for ideals, harbingers of American values, effigies of unpatriotic evil. And when people are acknowledged, the world is suddenly full of saints and demons, and it's okay to sling mud at one another like we're in a fucking zoo exhibit. Why don't we just pass out white hats and black hats and sort out who has to wear which hat so we know who's on which side? "Me? Oh, I'm against the death penalty, so I'll be over here with the abortionists, Wiccans, and necrophiles, thanks."
Doesn't anybody get that I'm not on anybody's "side"? There are no "sides", if there were there'd be 7 billion different sides right now, since nobody knows anything about what they stand for anymore. I'm either on everybody's side or I'm on my own side. I like to think I'm on my own side, and my side stands for helping everybody all at once. I don't care what they think about my methods, I'm just trying to accommodate everybody's needs and dreams. It makes no sense, since it's an impossible task, but none of this makes a lick of goddamn sense in the first place. Everything's screwed up, but some things work out, and that makes it worth trying.
Somehow that's part of the definition of doodlemastery. But that's just something that exploded into existence in my head one day.
I miss you <3
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The most meaningless term in the world
Okay, maybe next to "doodlemastery".
But "faith" is the most empty and uninspiring concept I've ever had to confront.
When I was younger, this word meant everything to me ("faith", not "doodlemastery" you twit, keep your head in the game). Of course, remaining a Catholic would have been an unwise career decision for the 17-year-old I was when I finally came to the age of reason. So now the word has even less meaning for me than "tacorific".
That's a great word, by the way, I wish I had more use for it.
Every time the word is used it means something different, because everybody uses it in a personal way that reflects their beliefs. And everybody's beliefs are different by at least a small amount, even in a supposedly monolithic religion. Take God as an example. Some people think he's an invisible sky man, or woman. Or three people. Or several more. Some believe that he's the universe, or completely outside of it, or both (the hell does that mean?). Others will tell you that God is a sort of abstract concept encompassing the core nature of existence or morality. And others will try to snag you with the idea that God is anything that a person holds in their heart as being greater than themselves. One person on Penn&Teller's Bullshit! tried to imply that for an atheist, "God" could be a rock. So what, would an atheist be someone who believes that the rock doesn't exist?
Arockist. There's a new meaningless term for you. But still more substantive than faith.
So what does one mean by "faith"? Let's just say for the sake of argument that in a casual conversation mentioning the scientific theory of the expanding universe, your devout mother inappropriately posits that you need to accept that kind of belief based on faith.
Let's just say.
Well clearly in this case faith would be defined as something related specifically to belief itself. But it can't possibly be the same as belief, can it? I doubt that every little thing you accept to be true or probable would be considered by a religious individual to be an "act of faith". Although when you get in a prolonged conversation with just the right kind of rationally desperate mind, you'll find yourself confronted with the assertion that you believe the earth is round in the exact same way that they believe an invisible person sends hurricanes to collectively punish residents for housing those who wear feather boas and use nipple clamps.
So let us distinguish just what we mean when we say we believe things to be true. Yes, we are all the same in that belief means any one thing any one of us acknowledges as part of their personal worldview, something we really think of as part of reality. No, we do not believe in science and sandwiches in the same way as others believe in gods and ghost phalli, precisely because of the reasons we believe them. I'd wager that most of us believe most of the things we do for reasons in of themselves. Explanations, elaborations, facts, tidbits, data, hints, clues, signals, signs, patterns, consistencies, conclusions, necessities, and logic. This isn't just cold scientific shit either. I believe my girlfriend exists and cares for me since I can see and hear and feel her, and all my past experiences and all of the consistencies and logical conclusions in life would lead me to believe she's a person who cares for me. And she can use the same facts about me to realize that I'm a person who cares for her too. If I began to discount my senses (not question or doubt them, I do those all the time and I still get quite good results, thank you) then as far as I know I could be spinning ass-over-teakettle in a vat of tar, with no girlfriend and no sense of direction or reason.
Do people believe in the supernatural for reasons too? Well... yes... kinda... a lot of the time, I would hope. Although the reasons for religious and spiritual belief tend to be murky and vague at best and often using mixed data, if not precisely contrary to all available data. The belief in a creator God could be attributed to the rational conclusion that everything requires a beginning and an end, but this leads to the logical problem of where God came from and when he intends to end his existence. Where exactly do you leave a divine suicide note? Ah, but this problem was solved long ago, since we all know that God is beyond our rational laws of logic and so he can have no beginning or end. Then how can we conclude that anything else must have a beginning or an end? Why then does the universe need a beginning, and even if it had a beginning couldn't it also forgo the logic of requiring a creator?
How? Why? Because God says so, that's how and why. And who says God says so? Lots of people say God says so, including God, purportedly. And we all know how reliable the clergy and religiously orthodox are.
I'm not a big fan of the "just because" explanations, myself. I much prefer an individual to say "I don't know". I do it all the time. Does it mean I'm wrong, that I give up my beliefs? No, it means I'm not asserting anything for anyone else to believe and therefore am not the one who has to account for himself, so shut the fuck up, would you kindly.
So clearly faith is not synonymous with all belief. What is it then? Some beliefs? What is it about the belief in an expanding universe (a scientific fact) and the belief in a Jewish demigod (a not-so-scientific fact) that could lump both of them in the same category as beliefs taken on faith? Perhaps our purely hypothetical mother was implying that we don't personally know very much about either of these belief systems and therefore assume them both to be true for convenience's sake.
Before we get into just how belittling it is for religious people to be told their heartfelt beliefs about God are just an assumption, let's compare religious and secular assumptions, shall we? Of course we will, because it's my blog and my rules.
A layman can have a reasonable amount of confidence in scientific theories because science is a very rigorous process of eliminating erroneous notions in light of new data. Bullshit ideas are not highly publicized in scientific journals, and when they are they're quite open to review and revision. The same process of observation, controlled interpretation, experimentation, and calculation that tells you the universe is most likely expanding at an accelerating rate is the same one that's given you little things like medicine, atomic energy, modern engineering, information technology, fuel-efficient cars (well maybe not in America...), and ice cream. (Ice cream! Yay!)Science has an impressive track record and can only be improved with better science. You can't very well go about disproving scientific notions with half-baked ideas, random-ass guesswork, or "revealed knowledge". I have not yet seen a hypothesis being supported by the scientific method, then be disproved by some paranormal sort of gnosis. You'd think that someone could tap into the source of that knowledge and set everything straight, but apparently the money isn't good enough to convince "real" psychics and prophets to see daylight.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is assumed because of the overall weakness of the believer's original worldview. Do you honestly think it's a sign of strength for theism if it's just a convenient assumption? I'm sure that most religious believers would rather be certain that they have reasons for thinking there is a God. You know, like any other sane person. But if you just assume there is a God and then base your worldview on that, you've made your entire worldview completely fucking arbitrary. There's nothing to argue about or test with religious belief if that belief is already formed from an arbitrary baseless assumption. In science you can get things wrong, you can be disproved, unless you decide to forgo logic in favor of "faith". Isn't it beginning to sound like a vapid, insulting word already? Faith. "I don't need reasons, I have faith." Nobody wants to admit that they're stupid, but that statement comes close.
Maybe I'm being too harsh here and there's some other meaning to faith other than belief itself or assumed belief. Something more personal and heartfelt, like trust. Could that be what it means to have faith in something, to have trust in it? Possibly, sounds like a good match doesn't it? Aren't we faithful to our loved ones, and have faith in each other? We often mean it in the same way that we mean trust, personal trust. Which makes more sense, I suppose. After all, the devout are more likely to identify with a religion where you feel like you can trust whoever is on the other side of reality. Okay, so there's quite a bit that's still assumed in this relationship, like that the people on the other side (not to mention the other side itself) actually exist. But still, at least we have a definition that unites religious and secular worldviews, right?
There's only one problem. It doesn't work beyond that personal level of trust. Remember that in this case we're talking about the theory of the expanding universe, and by that connection the scientific method itself. Science has no personal identity, not even the scientists. What, is it implied that we have personal trust in the scientists collectively? I guess, but science isn't about authority, it's about facts and logic. If an idea has no reflection or base in reality, all of the scientific authority in the world couldn't make any more sense out of it. That's why science is so open to revision, so that nobody gets to declare a monopoly on truth, and bad ideas can be exposed and deconstructed and taunted, sometimes with pointed fingers and laughter. Creationists are still new to this sort of thing, so they think they're under selective treatment. But they're not, they're selectively intruding on science with no idea how it works, and accordingly they're surprised when they're ridiculed and their ideas are discounted as nonsensical nonsense.
Besides, there's one definition of faith that our not-at-all-real-life mother has neglected to consider, and this one's going to be a dandy when trying to apply it to "faith" in the expanding universe. When I was in high school, I was told by my Christian Ethics teacher that faith was a personal relationship that one had with God. Specifically this is referring to love. Thus it was explained to me the difference between knowing about somebody, and knowing somebody, biblically (Eww). Look, the universe and I have been through a lot together, we're virtually inseparable (what with me being made of matter and all), and it will continue to mean literally everything to me, but... I'm just not up for that kind of commitment on a cosmic level. And... there's someone else, a human girl I've been seeing for a few months. She means so much to me, and it may not seem fair, but I'm just not really into infinitely vast stretches of time and space. I'm really more interested in cute peeps, at a personal level at least. So this isn't goodbye to the universe, but I think that it would be best if the universe and I were just good friends.
And thanks, Bible, for making even the word "know" an inneundo.
"I knew it... three times."
The problem I always had with this definition of faith is that it's not exactly healthy to love someone you don't even know. Marriage arrangements on internet chat rooms are not encouraged, so why should anyone be expected to give unconditional love to some hyped-up ancient celebrity, a battered, bearded, tripped-out zombie man with an intellect from before the Dark Ages who no sane person has ever even met before? Unless you count rituals where celibate men in robes say some magic words over breakfast cereal and claim it's become the flesh of said zombie celebrity. Damn, this is some weird kind of kink. I'm not sure how eating one's flesh is an expression of love, but it's pretty sick, divine or not. You'd think that if a god wanted his "substance" - and I don't even want to know what the hell that is - to be put into a human being he would just will it, and not have to bother with this disturbing imagery. But then, that would make too much sense, and we've got a lot of irrational bullshit to accommodate. And the first time I heard this illogical definition of faith as love, I told my teacher "But I can only know a person if I at least know that they exist."
I never got a good reply to that. If I was manic enough, I'm sure I could think of something.
There's only one other definition of faith I can think of, and it's the one thing a religious mind would be holding onto at this point: hope. Faith defined as hope for something you cannot see. And it's at this point that the self-degrading of faith as a concept gets to truly pitiful levels. It's essentially admitting that there's no reason to believe in anything you claim to have faith in, so one can only hope that maybe everything will turn out alright in the end. This is stupid because if you have no rough guesses of the chances or the odds in your head, then you have no hope, it's all just completely random. If you have some idea of what your chances are, then you have that much hope to go on. None of this of course has anything to do with whether things will turn out the way you want them. This isn't Oprah, people. Hoping things will become so will not under any circumstances make it more likely to become a reality. You have to act if you want things to happen, and if everything in your mind tells you it's impossible, then you're just being stupid. I've heard of people acting with good reason while everyone else thinks they're crazy, but believing something you don't think you have good reason for? That's wishful thinking in a nutshell, and there is no genie in that nutshell. You get zero wishes. Divide those wishes by the chances that you're right and you get FUCK.
If a person is left without real chances of success, if they have nowhere to go, and things aren't likely to work out, then that's just sad. Can we accept that? Terminally ill patients, people under oppression, and people with very serious life-altering ailments are under unfortunate, often terrible circumstances, and that sucks. It's awful that bad things happen to good people, so can we just acknowledge that little fact? It's probably one of the more important things you'll ever learn, so don't pray for people, don't hope that Jesus will descend from the clouds and make everything picture perfect, DO SOMETHING. The only morally reasonable options are a) do something to give people hope b) if you have no hope, either try to fight all the way anyway or come to terms with it or c) cope. Being in a circumstance where you have no hope and can't do anything about it and can't even come to terms with it is probably the saddest thing conceivable, and you can only do what you can to get by until your suffering can be alleviated. But that is not how people who can act for the better ought to be thinking. Don't try to cope with the fact that there's no justice, no peace, no loving God in sight. Accept reality for what it is and work for the better.
So no, clearly-not-my-actual-mother, I don't have faith in the expanding universe, or anything else for that matter. I don't assume, trust, or hope that it is so. I'm what I call "reasonably certain with some degree of falsifiability". I'm also reasonably certain that regardless of the baseless, broad, insulting, stupid, offensive, demented, illogical, arrogant, authoritarian, high-minded, pseudo-philosophical, self-proclaimed to be "humble" bullshit claims that you have, that you're also reasonably certain about most things in life too.
I therefore have no use for the word faith, except to define that meaningless quality in certain religious contexts in which so many are still so intellectually preoccupied and so overly emotionally-invested. Belief, assumption, trust, love, and hope are all fine concepts all on their own. Faith has nothing to do with any of them.
Fuck faith.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain
But "faith" is the most empty and uninspiring concept I've ever had to confront.
When I was younger, this word meant everything to me ("faith", not "doodlemastery" you twit, keep your head in the game). Of course, remaining a Catholic would have been an unwise career decision for the 17-year-old I was when I finally came to the age of reason. So now the word has even less meaning for me than "tacorific".
That's a great word, by the way, I wish I had more use for it.
Every time the word is used it means something different, because everybody uses it in a personal way that reflects their beliefs. And everybody's beliefs are different by at least a small amount, even in a supposedly monolithic religion. Take God as an example. Some people think he's an invisible sky man, or woman. Or three people. Or several more. Some believe that he's the universe, or completely outside of it, or both (the hell does that mean?). Others will tell you that God is a sort of abstract concept encompassing the core nature of existence or morality. And others will try to snag you with the idea that God is anything that a person holds in their heart as being greater than themselves. One person on Penn&Teller's Bullshit! tried to imply that for an atheist, "God" could be a rock. So what, would an atheist be someone who believes that the rock doesn't exist?
Arockist. There's a new meaningless term for you. But still more substantive than faith.
So what does one mean by "faith"? Let's just say for the sake of argument that in a casual conversation mentioning the scientific theory of the expanding universe, your devout mother inappropriately posits that you need to accept that kind of belief based on faith.
Let's just say.
Well clearly in this case faith would be defined as something related specifically to belief itself. But it can't possibly be the same as belief, can it? I doubt that every little thing you accept to be true or probable would be considered by a religious individual to be an "act of faith". Although when you get in a prolonged conversation with just the right kind of rationally desperate mind, you'll find yourself confronted with the assertion that you believe the earth is round in the exact same way that they believe an invisible person sends hurricanes to collectively punish residents for housing those who wear feather boas and use nipple clamps.
So let us distinguish just what we mean when we say we believe things to be true. Yes, we are all the same in that belief means any one thing any one of us acknowledges as part of their personal worldview, something we really think of as part of reality. No, we do not believe in science and sandwiches in the same way as others believe in gods and ghost phalli, precisely because of the reasons we believe them. I'd wager that most of us believe most of the things we do for reasons in of themselves. Explanations, elaborations, facts, tidbits, data, hints, clues, signals, signs, patterns, consistencies, conclusions, necessities, and logic. This isn't just cold scientific shit either. I believe my girlfriend exists and cares for me since I can see and hear and feel her, and all my past experiences and all of the consistencies and logical conclusions in life would lead me to believe she's a person who cares for me. And she can use the same facts about me to realize that I'm a person who cares for her too. If I began to discount my senses (not question or doubt them, I do those all the time and I still get quite good results, thank you) then as far as I know I could be spinning ass-over-teakettle in a vat of tar, with no girlfriend and no sense of direction or reason.
Do people believe in the supernatural for reasons too? Well... yes... kinda... a lot of the time, I would hope. Although the reasons for religious and spiritual belief tend to be murky and vague at best and often using mixed data, if not precisely contrary to all available data. The belief in a creator God could be attributed to the rational conclusion that everything requires a beginning and an end, but this leads to the logical problem of where God came from and when he intends to end his existence. Where exactly do you leave a divine suicide note? Ah, but this problem was solved long ago, since we all know that God is beyond our rational laws of logic and so he can have no beginning or end. Then how can we conclude that anything else must have a beginning or an end? Why then does the universe need a beginning, and even if it had a beginning couldn't it also forgo the logic of requiring a creator?
How? Why? Because God says so, that's how and why. And who says God says so? Lots of people say God says so, including God, purportedly. And we all know how reliable the clergy and religiously orthodox are.
I'm not a big fan of the "just because" explanations, myself. I much prefer an individual to say "I don't know". I do it all the time. Does it mean I'm wrong, that I give up my beliefs? No, it means I'm not asserting anything for anyone else to believe and therefore am not the one who has to account for himself, so shut the fuck up, would you kindly.
So clearly faith is not synonymous with all belief. What is it then? Some beliefs? What is it about the belief in an expanding universe (a scientific fact) and the belief in a Jewish demigod (a not-so-scientific fact) that could lump both of them in the same category as beliefs taken on faith? Perhaps our purely hypothetical mother was implying that we don't personally know very much about either of these belief systems and therefore assume them both to be true for convenience's sake.
Before we get into just how belittling it is for religious people to be told their heartfelt beliefs about God are just an assumption, let's compare religious and secular assumptions, shall we? Of course we will, because it's my blog and my rules.
A layman can have a reasonable amount of confidence in scientific theories because science is a very rigorous process of eliminating erroneous notions in light of new data. Bullshit ideas are not highly publicized in scientific journals, and when they are they're quite open to review and revision. The same process of observation, controlled interpretation, experimentation, and calculation that tells you the universe is most likely expanding at an accelerating rate is the same one that's given you little things like medicine, atomic energy, modern engineering, information technology, fuel-efficient cars (well maybe not in America...), and ice cream. (Ice cream! Yay!)Science has an impressive track record and can only be improved with better science. You can't very well go about disproving scientific notions with half-baked ideas, random-ass guesswork, or "revealed knowledge". I have not yet seen a hypothesis being supported by the scientific method, then be disproved by some paranormal sort of gnosis. You'd think that someone could tap into the source of that knowledge and set everything straight, but apparently the money isn't good enough to convince "real" psychics and prophets to see daylight.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is assumed because of the overall weakness of the believer's original worldview. Do you honestly think it's a sign of strength for theism if it's just a convenient assumption? I'm sure that most religious believers would rather be certain that they have reasons for thinking there is a God. You know, like any other sane person. But if you just assume there is a God and then base your worldview on that, you've made your entire worldview completely fucking arbitrary. There's nothing to argue about or test with religious belief if that belief is already formed from an arbitrary baseless assumption. In science you can get things wrong, you can be disproved, unless you decide to forgo logic in favor of "faith". Isn't it beginning to sound like a vapid, insulting word already? Faith. "I don't need reasons, I have faith." Nobody wants to admit that they're stupid, but that statement comes close.
Maybe I'm being too harsh here and there's some other meaning to faith other than belief itself or assumed belief. Something more personal and heartfelt, like trust. Could that be what it means to have faith in something, to have trust in it? Possibly, sounds like a good match doesn't it? Aren't we faithful to our loved ones, and have faith in each other? We often mean it in the same way that we mean trust, personal trust. Which makes more sense, I suppose. After all, the devout are more likely to identify with a religion where you feel like you can trust whoever is on the other side of reality. Okay, so there's quite a bit that's still assumed in this relationship, like that the people on the other side (not to mention the other side itself) actually exist. But still, at least we have a definition that unites religious and secular worldviews, right?
There's only one problem. It doesn't work beyond that personal level of trust. Remember that in this case we're talking about the theory of the expanding universe, and by that connection the scientific method itself. Science has no personal identity, not even the scientists. What, is it implied that we have personal trust in the scientists collectively? I guess, but science isn't about authority, it's about facts and logic. If an idea has no reflection or base in reality, all of the scientific authority in the world couldn't make any more sense out of it. That's why science is so open to revision, so that nobody gets to declare a monopoly on truth, and bad ideas can be exposed and deconstructed and taunted, sometimes with pointed fingers and laughter. Creationists are still new to this sort of thing, so they think they're under selective treatment. But they're not, they're selectively intruding on science with no idea how it works, and accordingly they're surprised when they're ridiculed and their ideas are discounted as nonsensical nonsense.
Besides, there's one definition of faith that our not-at-all-real-life mother has neglected to consider, and this one's going to be a dandy when trying to apply it to "faith" in the expanding universe. When I was in high school, I was told by my Christian Ethics teacher that faith was a personal relationship that one had with God. Specifically this is referring to love. Thus it was explained to me the difference between knowing about somebody, and knowing somebody, biblically (Eww). Look, the universe and I have been through a lot together, we're virtually inseparable (what with me being made of matter and all), and it will continue to mean literally everything to me, but... I'm just not up for that kind of commitment on a cosmic level. And... there's someone else, a human girl I've been seeing for a few months. She means so much to me, and it may not seem fair, but I'm just not really into infinitely vast stretches of time and space. I'm really more interested in cute peeps, at a personal level at least. So this isn't goodbye to the universe, but I think that it would be best if the universe and I were just good friends.
And thanks, Bible, for making even the word "know" an inneundo.
"I knew it... three times."
The problem I always had with this definition of faith is that it's not exactly healthy to love someone you don't even know. Marriage arrangements on internet chat rooms are not encouraged, so why should anyone be expected to give unconditional love to some hyped-up ancient celebrity, a battered, bearded, tripped-out zombie man with an intellect from before the Dark Ages who no sane person has ever even met before? Unless you count rituals where celibate men in robes say some magic words over breakfast cereal and claim it's become the flesh of said zombie celebrity. Damn, this is some weird kind of kink. I'm not sure how eating one's flesh is an expression of love, but it's pretty sick, divine or not. You'd think that if a god wanted his "substance" - and I don't even want to know what the hell that is - to be put into a human being he would just will it, and not have to bother with this disturbing imagery. But then, that would make too much sense, and we've got a lot of irrational bullshit to accommodate. And the first time I heard this illogical definition of faith as love, I told my teacher "But I can only know a person if I at least know that they exist."
I never got a good reply to that. If I was manic enough, I'm sure I could think of something.
There's only one other definition of faith I can think of, and it's the one thing a religious mind would be holding onto at this point: hope. Faith defined as hope for something you cannot see. And it's at this point that the self-degrading of faith as a concept gets to truly pitiful levels. It's essentially admitting that there's no reason to believe in anything you claim to have faith in, so one can only hope that maybe everything will turn out alright in the end. This is stupid because if you have no rough guesses of the chances or the odds in your head, then you have no hope, it's all just completely random. If you have some idea of what your chances are, then you have that much hope to go on. None of this of course has anything to do with whether things will turn out the way you want them. This isn't Oprah, people. Hoping things will become so will not under any circumstances make it more likely to become a reality. You have to act if you want things to happen, and if everything in your mind tells you it's impossible, then you're just being stupid. I've heard of people acting with good reason while everyone else thinks they're crazy, but believing something you don't think you have good reason for? That's wishful thinking in a nutshell, and there is no genie in that nutshell. You get zero wishes. Divide those wishes by the chances that you're right and you get FUCK.
If a person is left without real chances of success, if they have nowhere to go, and things aren't likely to work out, then that's just sad. Can we accept that? Terminally ill patients, people under oppression, and people with very serious life-altering ailments are under unfortunate, often terrible circumstances, and that sucks. It's awful that bad things happen to good people, so can we just acknowledge that little fact? It's probably one of the more important things you'll ever learn, so don't pray for people, don't hope that Jesus will descend from the clouds and make everything picture perfect, DO SOMETHING. The only morally reasonable options are a) do something to give people hope b) if you have no hope, either try to fight all the way anyway or come to terms with it or c) cope. Being in a circumstance where you have no hope and can't do anything about it and can't even come to terms with it is probably the saddest thing conceivable, and you can only do what you can to get by until your suffering can be alleviated. But that is not how people who can act for the better ought to be thinking. Don't try to cope with the fact that there's no justice, no peace, no loving God in sight. Accept reality for what it is and work for the better.
So no, clearly-not-my-actual-mother, I don't have faith in the expanding universe, or anything else for that matter. I don't assume, trust, or hope that it is so. I'm what I call "reasonably certain with some degree of falsifiability". I'm also reasonably certain that regardless of the baseless, broad, insulting, stupid, offensive, demented, illogical, arrogant, authoritarian, high-minded, pseudo-philosophical, self-proclaimed to be "humble" bullshit claims that you have, that you're also reasonably certain about most things in life too.
I therefore have no use for the word faith, except to define that meaningless quality in certain religious contexts in which so many are still so intellectually preoccupied and so overly emotionally-invested. Belief, assumption, trust, love, and hope are all fine concepts all on their own. Faith has nothing to do with any of them.
Fuck faith.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Atonement and learning
I don't know what I can say to begin to atone for what I've done, the things I've said, how thoughtless I've been. I didn't realize how badly you hurt, all because of me. You don't have any reason to believe me when I say I never wanted to hurt you. You may never forgive me for what I said that night, when I didn't realize what I was saying. It was so thoughtless it doesn't matter if I meant it or not, the injury was all the same. And everything prior to that, when you already had enough of my insubstantial troubles, when I was so neglecting your feelings by pining for someone else, while you were right there, all along. Your patience and forgiveness have been pushed to their limits, and it's far more than I could have ever asked for.
And even now as you show your kindness yet again, I begin to doubt that I can ever truly forgive myself. I'm trying. I'm trying to move on. I'm trying to leave her be, in life and in mind, trying to appreciate what I have now. The fact that I so badly jeopardized what we had, and was so oblivious to your pain... I know you hate promises, so I'll try instead. I can never make it up to you, but I'll try. I'm not even sure I can say I'm a good person, but I'm trying.
I just can't believe I didn't know all this before. I can't believe I actually had to learn it, and now of all times. I am learning though. I may be a complete idiot, but I can still learn. How could I not after all I've put you through? After having it hammered home so thoroughly, there's no more illusions, no more fantasies, no more games. I'm trying to appreciate what we really have, here, now. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I've said that before, but it's more pressing than ever, to the point where every waking moment I fear that I've lost you. This will be bearing down on me for some time, no matter what happens, I imagine. Oh God... I'm sorry.
It's only been a few days, but I miss you more than ever. I want to see you again. I'm not sure I can hold back the tears when that happens. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I don't want to lose you.
You're my best friend, Xiaohuan.
I love you.
:*
And even now as you show your kindness yet again, I begin to doubt that I can ever truly forgive myself. I'm trying. I'm trying to move on. I'm trying to leave her be, in life and in mind, trying to appreciate what I have now. The fact that I so badly jeopardized what we had, and was so oblivious to your pain... I know you hate promises, so I'll try instead. I can never make it up to you, but I'll try. I'm not even sure I can say I'm a good person, but I'm trying.
I just can't believe I didn't know all this before. I can't believe I actually had to learn it, and now of all times. I am learning though. I may be a complete idiot, but I can still learn. How could I not after all I've put you through? After having it hammered home so thoroughly, there's no more illusions, no more fantasies, no more games. I'm trying to appreciate what we really have, here, now. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I've said that before, but it's more pressing than ever, to the point where every waking moment I fear that I've lost you. This will be bearing down on me for some time, no matter what happens, I imagine. Oh God... I'm sorry.
It's only been a few days, but I miss you more than ever. I want to see you again. I'm not sure I can hold back the tears when that happens. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I don't want to lose you.
You're my best friend, Xiaohuan.
I love you.
:*
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Cthulhu fhtagn
He may be a fictional entity, but the Great Priest Cthulhu still has a far-reaching hold on many in the gaming culture. The nerdier you are, the more likely you are to know who Cthulhu and Yog-sothoth and Dagon are. Which is pretty much the reason I know all about them.
In case you didn't know, I have the habit of maintaining an obsession over a particular subject or activity which leads to me knowing it inside and out, before I lose interest and promptly drop it for something else, while retaining some encyclopedic knowledge. When I was a kid these things would include the Marx Brothers, dinosaurs, the Titanic, and Monty Python. More recently I've been fixated on Halo, zombies, Fable, and currently the Cthulhu Mythos. That's why just about every other thing I've had in my mind for the past week or so has in some way been Cthulhu-related.
For those fortunate enough to be ignorant of the mind-twisting horror of the Mythos, Cthulhu is a fictitious ancient alien creature locked away in a city at the bottom of the ocean, psychically influencing humans on the surface to do his bidding and hasten his return so that he may bring about his reign of madness on the earth. Maybe you've seen depictions of his distinctive appearance: a colossal humanoid creature with a scale-coated body, talons, giant non-functional wings, and a head resembling an octopus. He's mentioned in many of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories, and is the subject of the story "The Call of Cthulhu". Lovecraft's work is typically classified as "cosmic horror", a genre of horror that focuses on sources of terror on a universal scale. The basic idea is that the universe itself is alien and apathetic, humanity is insignificant in light of this, and there are creatures greater than ourselves in both knowledge and power whose scope, scale, and form would drive any of us insane if we were to catch a glimpse of them. Essentially there is nothing anyone could do when confronted by this truth except try to maintain one's composure, since human science and abilities pale in comparison to the awesome power of these alien horrors. It's a genuinely unsettling notion and makes for some great fiction.
Although Lovecraft's stories in of themselves may not be for everyone. At first I had a great deal of trouble trying to follow what he was even saying. His writing style is dense and almost archaic, and he spends a great deal of time on detailing the environment. This would be fine if Lovecraft did not have a thing for describing New England architecture in very extensive detail. I'm still not exactly sure what's supposed to be horrifying about urban decay or the insanity of the dreaded Cyclopean masonry. How exactly is an angle maddening? The stories themselves are almost always the same, too. A bourgeois, aristocratic, rational, Anglo-Saxon man is traveling through New England for completely mundane reasons, such as collecting an inheritance or sightseeing (architecture of course); the man then comes across a terrible, dark, and ancient truth underlying the whole of human existence; thus he goes insane. That's it. I dunno, it still works oftentimes.
Oh, and Lovecraft himself was a racist. Yeah, it's kind of obvious in his work too. For instance, Lovecraft describes the mad cultists in "The Call of Cthulhu" as "men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type", since being half-black is somehow supposed to be a mental detriment in this case. And in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" many characters attribute the horrible biological degeneration of the Innsmouth townsfolk as being the result of mixed blood from Asia or the South Pacific. He also had antisemitic beliefs, which is odd considering he married a woman of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry. His racial hatred dimmed somewhat as he became more well-rounded in his travels interacting with people of different ethnic backgrounds, but he was still a bastard.
Anyway, the themes that lend to his horror stories still have a great deal of influence to the point where many consider Lovecraft to be the most influential horror writer of the 20th century, which is probably justified. I'd recommend anyone to give it a look. The fear of the unknown and unknowable is certainly more effective and memorable than the excuses for "horror" that are modern slasher films. And some of the creatures portrayed in Lovecraft's stories are in of themselves genuinely terrifying. Ever hear tell of a shoggoth?
These are the kinds of themes I keep in mind when trying (or trying to try) to write my own stories, although not necessarily featuring alien monsters. But the kind of maltheism that appears in his work still intrigues me, which is a main theme in the series I'm working on, if I ever get around to doing it.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, gaming. Somehow the Cthulhu Mythos managed to gain a footing in the world of role-playing, since there actually is a Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, which I intend to get, if the gaming company that makes it will get around to accepting my orders. I've even gone so far as to get specially crafted glow-in-the-dark Cthulhu Mythos polyhedral dice, complete with an Elder Sign on one side of each die. That's right. Cthulhu d20. I went there.
For the time being though, I've been fixated on this one bit of Cthulhu gaming which has been taking up more of my time than it ought to, and that is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, for the Xbox. As far as I know, this is the first and only attempt at an adaptation of Cthulhu literature into a video game. In case it wasn't obvious, it plays like a survival horror game, with limited puzzle-solving and shooter gameplay elements. Despite the title, it's more of an adaptation of "The Shadow over Innsmouth" than anything, although it makes references to several other works, including "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Shadow Out of Time", and "The Rats in the Walls". The fact that it's Cthulhu-inspired is reason enough to get a hold of a copy, and it's not really that bad. It certainly has kept my attention, hasn't it?
But I do have problems with it, and more than the common bugs and glitches associated with playing an old Xbox game on a 360 (I should get one of the original consoles for these purposes). I guess the game would have been better if there were more resources put into it. It was made by a small company called Headfirst Productions that went bankrupt while it was still working on the second in a planned trilogy of Cthulhu games. It's actually pretty ambitious for such a small company to try something like this, an M-rated survival-horror with profanity and a great deal of blood and gore, and a lot of people were probably hoping this would be a really good game. I'd support any kind of effort to make another Lovecraftian video game adaptation a reality.
As for Dark Corners, I've been thinking of reviewing it, since I have yet to find a satisfactory review or playthrough of it. Sure, there are videos of how to play through the basics, but nothing very amusing for someone like me who thrives on video entertainment, especially when related to games. I'd definitely like to review it in the form of a video, but I don't know how to record video game footage and I'm not sure I'd have the resources to record and edit a lengthy video review of the entire game. But it's something I'd really like to do if anyone could point me in the right direction. If I can't do that, I could always do a text review. Not that I'd find that satisfactory. I think this little niche of gaming deserves something more substantial and entertaining.
In the meantime I'll wait for those damn dice.
I'a Cthulhu! I'a Dagon!
In case you didn't know, I have the habit of maintaining an obsession over a particular subject or activity which leads to me knowing it inside and out, before I lose interest and promptly drop it for something else, while retaining some encyclopedic knowledge. When I was a kid these things would include the Marx Brothers, dinosaurs, the Titanic, and Monty Python. More recently I've been fixated on Halo, zombies, Fable, and currently the Cthulhu Mythos. That's why just about every other thing I've had in my mind for the past week or so has in some way been Cthulhu-related.
For those fortunate enough to be ignorant of the mind-twisting horror of the Mythos, Cthulhu is a fictitious ancient alien creature locked away in a city at the bottom of the ocean, psychically influencing humans on the surface to do his bidding and hasten his return so that he may bring about his reign of madness on the earth. Maybe you've seen depictions of his distinctive appearance: a colossal humanoid creature with a scale-coated body, talons, giant non-functional wings, and a head resembling an octopus. He's mentioned in many of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories, and is the subject of the story "The Call of Cthulhu". Lovecraft's work is typically classified as "cosmic horror", a genre of horror that focuses on sources of terror on a universal scale. The basic idea is that the universe itself is alien and apathetic, humanity is insignificant in light of this, and there are creatures greater than ourselves in both knowledge and power whose scope, scale, and form would drive any of us insane if we were to catch a glimpse of them. Essentially there is nothing anyone could do when confronted by this truth except try to maintain one's composure, since human science and abilities pale in comparison to the awesome power of these alien horrors. It's a genuinely unsettling notion and makes for some great fiction.
Although Lovecraft's stories in of themselves may not be for everyone. At first I had a great deal of trouble trying to follow what he was even saying. His writing style is dense and almost archaic, and he spends a great deal of time on detailing the environment. This would be fine if Lovecraft did not have a thing for describing New England architecture in very extensive detail. I'm still not exactly sure what's supposed to be horrifying about urban decay or the insanity of the dreaded Cyclopean masonry. How exactly is an angle maddening? The stories themselves are almost always the same, too. A bourgeois, aristocratic, rational, Anglo-Saxon man is traveling through New England for completely mundane reasons, such as collecting an inheritance or sightseeing (architecture of course); the man then comes across a terrible, dark, and ancient truth underlying the whole of human existence; thus he goes insane. That's it. I dunno, it still works oftentimes.
Oh, and Lovecraft himself was a racist. Yeah, it's kind of obvious in his work too. For instance, Lovecraft describes the mad cultists in "The Call of Cthulhu" as "men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type", since being half-black is somehow supposed to be a mental detriment in this case. And in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" many characters attribute the horrible biological degeneration of the Innsmouth townsfolk as being the result of mixed blood from Asia or the South Pacific. He also had antisemitic beliefs, which is odd considering he married a woman of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry. His racial hatred dimmed somewhat as he became more well-rounded in his travels interacting with people of different ethnic backgrounds, but he was still a bastard.
Anyway, the themes that lend to his horror stories still have a great deal of influence to the point where many consider Lovecraft to be the most influential horror writer of the 20th century, which is probably justified. I'd recommend anyone to give it a look. The fear of the unknown and unknowable is certainly more effective and memorable than the excuses for "horror" that are modern slasher films. And some of the creatures portrayed in Lovecraft's stories are in of themselves genuinely terrifying. Ever hear tell of a shoggoth?
These are the kinds of themes I keep in mind when trying (or trying to try) to write my own stories, although not necessarily featuring alien monsters. But the kind of maltheism that appears in his work still intrigues me, which is a main theme in the series I'm working on, if I ever get around to doing it.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, gaming. Somehow the Cthulhu Mythos managed to gain a footing in the world of role-playing, since there actually is a Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, which I intend to get, if the gaming company that makes it will get around to accepting my orders. I've even gone so far as to get specially crafted glow-in-the-dark Cthulhu Mythos polyhedral dice, complete with an Elder Sign on one side of each die. That's right. Cthulhu d20. I went there.
For the time being though, I've been fixated on this one bit of Cthulhu gaming which has been taking up more of my time than it ought to, and that is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, for the Xbox. As far as I know, this is the first and only attempt at an adaptation of Cthulhu literature into a video game. In case it wasn't obvious, it plays like a survival horror game, with limited puzzle-solving and shooter gameplay elements. Despite the title, it's more of an adaptation of "The Shadow over Innsmouth" than anything, although it makes references to several other works, including "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Shadow Out of Time", and "The Rats in the Walls". The fact that it's Cthulhu-inspired is reason enough to get a hold of a copy, and it's not really that bad. It certainly has kept my attention, hasn't it?
But I do have problems with it, and more than the common bugs and glitches associated with playing an old Xbox game on a 360 (I should get one of the original consoles for these purposes). I guess the game would have been better if there were more resources put into it. It was made by a small company called Headfirst Productions that went bankrupt while it was still working on the second in a planned trilogy of Cthulhu games. It's actually pretty ambitious for such a small company to try something like this, an M-rated survival-horror with profanity and a great deal of blood and gore, and a lot of people were probably hoping this would be a really good game. I'd support any kind of effort to make another Lovecraftian video game adaptation a reality.
As for Dark Corners, I've been thinking of reviewing it, since I have yet to find a satisfactory review or playthrough of it. Sure, there are videos of how to play through the basics, but nothing very amusing for someone like me who thrives on video entertainment, especially when related to games. I'd definitely like to review it in the form of a video, but I don't know how to record video game footage and I'm not sure I'd have the resources to record and edit a lengthy video review of the entire game. But it's something I'd really like to do if anyone could point me in the right direction. If I can't do that, I could always do a text review. Not that I'd find that satisfactory. I think this little niche of gaming deserves something more substantial and entertaining.
In the meantime I'll wait for those damn dice.
I'a Cthulhu! I'a Dagon!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Is it possible?
Could it be that I've been overstating my faults and keeping myself down needlessly? Do I really have some kind of personal appeal? To be honest I seriously have to ask myself this since the concept of actually being likable is fairly new to me. Ever since all that bullshit I went through in high school I felt like the same factors were making any semblance of contentment impossible. But now it seems like I might have a shot at what in my mind is a "normal life".
From what I can tell, I should be accepting the quirks and problems that I've developed in my social life and making them more of a part of my personality, which oddly enough is not necessarily incompatible with making and keeping friends. I'm still unbelievably awkward and fairly oblivious to what would be considered appropriate when trying to engage in social activity (even for things like talking), but I'm amazed to find there are actually people who are willing to accept that as part of who I am. It's hard a lot of the time, but I shouldn't be so pessimistic or neurotic.
I just have to try and take more chances. Evidently it's not as risky as I thought.
From what I can tell, I should be accepting the quirks and problems that I've developed in my social life and making them more of a part of my personality, which oddly enough is not necessarily incompatible with making and keeping friends. I'm still unbelievably awkward and fairly oblivious to what would be considered appropriate when trying to engage in social activity (even for things like talking), but I'm amazed to find there are actually people who are willing to accept that as part of who I am. It's hard a lot of the time, but I shouldn't be so pessimistic or neurotic.
I just have to try and take more chances. Evidently it's not as risky as I thought.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Possible blog redemption
Obviously enough this blog has kind of fallen over the edge of the earth in terms of the amount of time and energy I put into it. Even now I'm too busy to be writing anything of length, and this post in of itself is distracting me from something I need to be doing right now.
But after that I might be able to put some more time into writing my thoughts and ideas here, since a lack of expression in of itself has been terminating any meaningful thought and making it harder to think of things in a positive light.
So among the things I'm thinking of doing once I have time, there's the Doodlemastery Bible School (Christ, we're not even past the third chapter, are we?), some text reviews of either a couple video games or that dvd I mentioned in late August (I think), and some ideas for stories I've been turning about it my head. Being Lovecraftian horror stories, they may not be what people would like to read or think about, but whatever.
In the meantime I'll be doing my best not to lose my damn mind. It's bad enough that I have to write a paper by the end of the week, but adding on that social problems, both perceived and actual, it becomes neigh unbearable. I'm hardly making any progress overcoming my social anxieties and improving my social skills. I almost feel as if I ought to ask for one of those service programs for the mentally challenged, not as a volunteer but as one of those people who need help. If I don't seem like that kind of person, you have no idea.
Why couldn't we have gone on talking about TV shows forever?
But after that I might be able to put some more time into writing my thoughts and ideas here, since a lack of expression in of itself has been terminating any meaningful thought and making it harder to think of things in a positive light.
So among the things I'm thinking of doing once I have time, there's the Doodlemastery Bible School (Christ, we're not even past the third chapter, are we?), some text reviews of either a couple video games or that dvd I mentioned in late August (I think), and some ideas for stories I've been turning about it my head. Being Lovecraftian horror stories, they may not be what people would like to read or think about, but whatever.
In the meantime I'll be doing my best not to lose my damn mind. It's bad enough that I have to write a paper by the end of the week, but adding on that social problems, both perceived and actual, it becomes neigh unbearable. I'm hardly making any progress overcoming my social anxieties and improving my social skills. I almost feel as if I ought to ask for one of those service programs for the mentally challenged, not as a volunteer but as one of those people who need help. If I don't seem like that kind of person, you have no idea.
Why couldn't we have gone on talking about TV shows forever?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
I'm confused, and I'm still a slacker.
Why do I have to be so infatuated? It's been going through my mind for over a year now, and I haven't made any real progress one way or the other. I guess I'm just not cut out for this sort of thing. Everything is too complicated for me to manage well. I don't even know what I really want anymore. Maybe I should have been true to my word and focused on academics. But then academics don't occupy my thoughts every other minute of every day. I almost hate to admit to being so tethered to it, but I can't avoid it if it's so persistent in my life. I'm in love and I don't know what to do about it.
I can't even begin to write how much this has affected me, so I'm just going to drown those thoughts in homework and Youtube videos for several hours. I might be too awkward to say it any other way, but I wish you the best.
I can't even begin to write how much this has affected me, so I'm just going to drown those thoughts in homework and Youtube videos for several hours. I might be too awkward to say it any other way, but I wish you the best.
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