Showing posts with label Individuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Individuality. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
My Momma Said...
An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.
One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.'
The old woman smiled, 'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?'
'That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.'
'For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.
Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.'
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.
You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
SO, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Nihilism -- CHAFF 2008
I found a quote on the net somewhere that said nihilism is where you go when you can’t find anything to believe in.
According to Wikipedia it’s “the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value.” It’s often defined as belief in nothing, but from what I’ve read that’s not entirely true... we should say faith in nothing to be more accurate. Faith is a firm belief in something where there isn’t or can’t be any supporting evidence. Nihilists see faith as dangerous because when we’re relying on faith we aren’t using our faculties of common sense, reason and critical analysis. According to Nietzsche (you know him – the “God is dead” guy – life of the party), faith is simply “not wanting to know.”
Not wanting to know? Crazy, right? Well, yeah. But understandable maybe. Who wants to know anyway?? It’s a big scary world out there, it’s hard to understand sometimes, so of course most of us would rather just accept on faith whatever sounds like a fair explanation. It gets exhausting asking questions all the time and never having any certainty, and realistically, nobody’s going to be able to think through absolutely EVERY issue and read EVERY book. Especially in the modern Western nations. I’m not really surprised that in the most technologically advanced and modernized societies, like the USA, Australia and New Zealand, so many people believe in a cosmic zombie who communicates with them each individually by means of telepathy... our lives are a lot more sped up and full of stress and hassle in comparison to the rest of the world. We just don’t have the time to think things through.
Sometimes I think that if any of us could see how complicated the world really is it would be enough to drive us mad. But what the nihilists are getting at is that though it’s comforting to just think we know the answers without having to ask the questions, we’re fooling ourselves, and making things worse for ourselves and others in doing so. How? Well, let’s just pull a random example out of our collective arse, shall we? AIDS is killing thousands of people every day, and causes immeasurable human suffering, all around the world but especially in poorest nations. People get AIDS by becoming infected with HIV, most often through transmission of sexual fluids, and this can be prevented by using condoms during sex. There’s more to it than that, but that’s good enough for our purposes. We could fix the problem and alleviate a lot of the suffering if people wore the damn condoms, but faith has stuck its beak in and convinced a whole lot of those people that the father of the aforementioned cosmic zombie, who lives up in the sky and watches everything they do (the dirty perve) will throw them in a lake of fire to burn forever if they wear condoms when they fuck. And other well-meaning faithful people, mindful of the imperilled souls of those people in the populations where HIV is rampant, are kindly puncturing the condom packets before the poor sods even get them, just to be sure that no latex stands between souls and salvation. Faith makes us do dumb things, so nihilism begins to look like an attractive alternative. It’s the rejection of any belief that relies on faith, whether religious or secular.
Another defining characteristic of nihilism is the rejection of the idea that things have a final purpose. Nihilists believe everything is random, that there is no preordained final destination or revelation. In other words, you’re not going to heaven. It doesn’t exist and what’s more, it’s pointless to live your life in some sort of preparation for it. So go on, masturbate, get drunk, call your mother a herpes-riddled crack-whore... it doesn’t matter. You won’t get punished for it in the hereafter (though your mum might burn all your stuff and kick you out on the street). In a nutshell, nihilists reject the teleological arguments offered by most religions. Teleology is the idea that the universe functions a bit like a machine according to some sort of god-given plan or design, and it’s not restricted to the world of religion either. A common, almost sacred belief among people in the secular West is that you and your significant other were ‘made for each other,’ or if you haven’t got one at the moment, that she or he is out there somewhere waiting for you, that it’s ‘meant to be.’ Well the nihilists have got news for you... there was nothing inevitable about you finding that one particular person, there was no plan, no destiny, it was all just chance, and you only think it’s something magical and special because it feels nice, but you fail to see that you probably would have felt the same about almost anyone else. They might remind you ever so politely (or more likely, somewhat sharply) that everyone else is feeling something pretty similar for their own special-someone, you’re just too blind to see it, so shut the fuck up. Nihilists also reject Marxism, Buddhism, and any other set of beliefs that rely on teleology. There is no destiny, there can be no progress.
Nihilism is virtually synonymous with scepticism. There are two main branches: social or existential nihilism, and political nihilism. Let’s start with the existential variety. It’s passive, influenced by eastern philosophy and mysticism, and concerns itself primarily with isolation, human suffering and the futility and hopelessness of existence. It’s bloody depressing. Most people, when you mention nihilism, will think this is what you mean. In the face of all the meaninglessness and randomness, the only coping mechanism is detachment – just stop giving a shit. Don’t do anything for anyone, don’t bother with worthy causes, just don’t care, because ultimately it’s a waste of time.
Now, don’t confuse existential nihilism with depression, though that certainly follows on from it a lot of the time. Personally I’m inclined toward depression when I’m feeling worthless. When I ask someone out or let them know I’m interested and they say “Fuck no, I need space, I’m not ready for a relationship just now, you’re sweet and everything, let’s just be friends, STOP STALKING ME!!!”, I usually take it to me mean that I’m not tall enough, attractive enough, smart enough etc, and I inevitably begin saying to myself: “What’s the point in trying anyway, I may as well stay in my room, give up my hopes and get used to being by myself.” But kids, that’s not quite full blown existential nihilism, because I’m not saying that there’s no point in anyone trying to get laid, only that there’s no point in me trying. Important difference. Even at my most whiny and self-loathing, I would still agree that most people can and should try to find happiness in the whole love and romance thingy.
Political nihilism, the other main branch of nihilism, is active, revolutionary and at once destructive and creative. It’s about social structures and authority. Political nihilism states that things are in such a bad state that the only real option left to us is to smash them up, and whether or not we can rebuild we will at least have done some good. Being a political nihilist is about being in the here and now... rejecting all religious and philosophical debate and all the metaphysical circular reasoning that it ultimately leads to. It’s about challenging all the assumptions we base our values on, even equality and justice. There’s no future goal that we’re aiming for, no reformed society that’s more tolerant or diverse or equitable or prosperous, or at least no goal that’s more important than the present. It’s about realising there’s no life but this one, and making the most of it. It’s about taking responsibility..... if there’s no higher power then your success or failure is up to you, and you alone. Another nihilism quote I found sums it up nicely... “Each human life has the potential, but unless one strives to be a god, they are only a worm.” We can do anything... it’s up to us whether we repeat the patterns of our forbears, killing and subjugating each other for material gain and dominance and letting our masters profit at our expense, or whether we control our lives and reap the benefits for ourselves.
It’s true that nihilism, like anarchism, is usually equated with violence and terrorism, and there’s certainly historical justification. Nihilists generally reckon that violence is not inherent in their philosophies, but I’m inclined to think that if nihilism is your philosophy you’re more likely to be aggressive. Nihilists say there is nothing above man, there is no objective moral, ethical reality, but is that really the case? The argument can be made that we carry our moral absolutes with us, encoded into our brains. I think it’s genetic, we’ve survived as a species because we know instinctively how to interact with each other. We’re a social species, we have survived because we can cooperate, and we know, each of us, how to do this, how to avoid conflict. Something in our brains, other than fear of repercussions, tells us a behaviour is wrong. Why else, for instance, would all these religions around the world have come up with such basic moral tenets as don’t kill each other? Don’t torture people for fun?? And remember to put the trash out???
Just because there’s no ultimate point to anything, and even though nothing I actually accomplish is going to last forever, that doesn’t mean there’s no sense in doing it anyway, does it? In fact, doesn’t that make human endeavour a more precious and amazing thing? Think about it, out of all the randomness, out of all the meaninglessness, we are able to create something that has meaning for ourselves and others. That meaning might be quite arbitrary, we each might see the same thing quite differently, but isn’t that kind of beautiful in itself? There might not be any reason, in the big scheme of things, for me to get out there and make a noise about discrimination, pollution or the suffering of others, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it. It will mean something to me, I’ll be taking control, making something out of the nothingness, making the world what I want it to be. And maybe, just maybe, someone else will see the world the way I do.
And that’s meaning enough for me.
Danny Rudd
According to Wikipedia it’s “the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value.” It’s often defined as belief in nothing, but from what I’ve read that’s not entirely true... we should say faith in nothing to be more accurate. Faith is a firm belief in something where there isn’t or can’t be any supporting evidence. Nihilists see faith as dangerous because when we’re relying on faith we aren’t using our faculties of common sense, reason and critical analysis. According to Nietzsche (you know him – the “God is dead” guy – life of the party), faith is simply “not wanting to know.”
Not wanting to know? Crazy, right? Well, yeah. But understandable maybe. Who wants to know anyway?? It’s a big scary world out there, it’s hard to understand sometimes, so of course most of us would rather just accept on faith whatever sounds like a fair explanation. It gets exhausting asking questions all the time and never having any certainty, and realistically, nobody’s going to be able to think through absolutely EVERY issue and read EVERY book. Especially in the modern Western nations. I’m not really surprised that in the most technologically advanced and modernized societies, like the USA, Australia and New Zealand, so many people believe in a cosmic zombie who communicates with them each individually by means of telepathy... our lives are a lot more sped up and full of stress and hassle in comparison to the rest of the world. We just don’t have the time to think things through.
Sometimes I think that if any of us could see how complicated the world really is it would be enough to drive us mad. But what the nihilists are getting at is that though it’s comforting to just think we know the answers without having to ask the questions, we’re fooling ourselves, and making things worse for ourselves and others in doing so. How? Well, let’s just pull a random example out of our collective arse, shall we? AIDS is killing thousands of people every day, and causes immeasurable human suffering, all around the world but especially in poorest nations. People get AIDS by becoming infected with HIV, most often through transmission of sexual fluids, and this can be prevented by using condoms during sex. There’s more to it than that, but that’s good enough for our purposes. We could fix the problem and alleviate a lot of the suffering if people wore the damn condoms, but faith has stuck its beak in and convinced a whole lot of those people that the father of the aforementioned cosmic zombie, who lives up in the sky and watches everything they do (the dirty perve) will throw them in a lake of fire to burn forever if they wear condoms when they fuck. And other well-meaning faithful people, mindful of the imperilled souls of those people in the populations where HIV is rampant, are kindly puncturing the condom packets before the poor sods even get them, just to be sure that no latex stands between souls and salvation. Faith makes us do dumb things, so nihilism begins to look like an attractive alternative. It’s the rejection of any belief that relies on faith, whether religious or secular.
Another defining characteristic of nihilism is the rejection of the idea that things have a final purpose. Nihilists believe everything is random, that there is no preordained final destination or revelation. In other words, you’re not going to heaven. It doesn’t exist and what’s more, it’s pointless to live your life in some sort of preparation for it. So go on, masturbate, get drunk, call your mother a herpes-riddled crack-whore... it doesn’t matter. You won’t get punished for it in the hereafter (though your mum might burn all your stuff and kick you out on the street). In a nutshell, nihilists reject the teleological arguments offered by most religions. Teleology is the idea that the universe functions a bit like a machine according to some sort of god-given plan or design, and it’s not restricted to the world of religion either. A common, almost sacred belief among people in the secular West is that you and your significant other were ‘made for each other,’ or if you haven’t got one at the moment, that she or he is out there somewhere waiting for you, that it’s ‘meant to be.’ Well the nihilists have got news for you... there was nothing inevitable about you finding that one particular person, there was no plan, no destiny, it was all just chance, and you only think it’s something magical and special because it feels nice, but you fail to see that you probably would have felt the same about almost anyone else. They might remind you ever so politely (or more likely, somewhat sharply) that everyone else is feeling something pretty similar for their own special-someone, you’re just too blind to see it, so shut the fuck up. Nihilists also reject Marxism, Buddhism, and any other set of beliefs that rely on teleology. There is no destiny, there can be no progress.
Nihilism is virtually synonymous with scepticism. There are two main branches: social or existential nihilism, and political nihilism. Let’s start with the existential variety. It’s passive, influenced by eastern philosophy and mysticism, and concerns itself primarily with isolation, human suffering and the futility and hopelessness of existence. It’s bloody depressing. Most people, when you mention nihilism, will think this is what you mean. In the face of all the meaninglessness and randomness, the only coping mechanism is detachment – just stop giving a shit. Don’t do anything for anyone, don’t bother with worthy causes, just don’t care, because ultimately it’s a waste of time.
Now, don’t confuse existential nihilism with depression, though that certainly follows on from it a lot of the time. Personally I’m inclined toward depression when I’m feeling worthless. When I ask someone out or let them know I’m interested and they say “Fuck no, I need space, I’m not ready for a relationship just now, you’re sweet and everything, let’s just be friends, STOP STALKING ME!!!”, I usually take it to me mean that I’m not tall enough, attractive enough, smart enough etc, and I inevitably begin saying to myself: “What’s the point in trying anyway, I may as well stay in my room, give up my hopes and get used to being by myself.” But kids, that’s not quite full blown existential nihilism, because I’m not saying that there’s no point in anyone trying to get laid, only that there’s no point in me trying. Important difference. Even at my most whiny and self-loathing, I would still agree that most people can and should try to find happiness in the whole love and romance thingy.
Political nihilism, the other main branch of nihilism, is active, revolutionary and at once destructive and creative. It’s about social structures and authority. Political nihilism states that things are in such a bad state that the only real option left to us is to smash them up, and whether or not we can rebuild we will at least have done some good. Being a political nihilist is about being in the here and now... rejecting all religious and philosophical debate and all the metaphysical circular reasoning that it ultimately leads to. It’s about challenging all the assumptions we base our values on, even equality and justice. There’s no future goal that we’re aiming for, no reformed society that’s more tolerant or diverse or equitable or prosperous, or at least no goal that’s more important than the present. It’s about realising there’s no life but this one, and making the most of it. It’s about taking responsibility..... if there’s no higher power then your success or failure is up to you, and you alone. Another nihilism quote I found sums it up nicely... “Each human life has the potential, but unless one strives to be a god, they are only a worm.” We can do anything... it’s up to us whether we repeat the patterns of our forbears, killing and subjugating each other for material gain and dominance and letting our masters profit at our expense, or whether we control our lives and reap the benefits for ourselves.
It’s true that nihilism, like anarchism, is usually equated with violence and terrorism, and there’s certainly historical justification. Nihilists generally reckon that violence is not inherent in their philosophies, but I’m inclined to think that if nihilism is your philosophy you’re more likely to be aggressive. Nihilists say there is nothing above man, there is no objective moral, ethical reality, but is that really the case? The argument can be made that we carry our moral absolutes with us, encoded into our brains. I think it’s genetic, we’ve survived as a species because we know instinctively how to interact with each other. We’re a social species, we have survived because we can cooperate, and we know, each of us, how to do this, how to avoid conflict. Something in our brains, other than fear of repercussions, tells us a behaviour is wrong. Why else, for instance, would all these religions around the world have come up with such basic moral tenets as don’t kill each other? Don’t torture people for fun?? And remember to put the trash out???
Just because there’s no ultimate point to anything, and even though nothing I actually accomplish is going to last forever, that doesn’t mean there’s no sense in doing it anyway, does it? In fact, doesn’t that make human endeavour a more precious and amazing thing? Think about it, out of all the randomness, out of all the meaninglessness, we are able to create something that has meaning for ourselves and others. That meaning might be quite arbitrary, we each might see the same thing quite differently, but isn’t that kind of beautiful in itself? There might not be any reason, in the big scheme of things, for me to get out there and make a noise about discrimination, pollution or the suffering of others, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it. It will mean something to me, I’ll be taking control, making something out of the nothingness, making the world what I want it to be. And maybe, just maybe, someone else will see the world the way I do.
And that’s meaning enough for me.
Danny Rudd
Friday, May 23, 2008
Possibly
Possibly.
We'll have to see.
But you don't know
What's best for me,
You don't know
What's in my head
The dreams that haunt
Me in my bed.
I get scared,
You don't see why
There are feelings
That I hide.
Medicate me,
Numb the pain,
Turn off the lights
Within my brain
Leaving me
In darkness, here
Alone to face
My silent fears.
Leave me to
This 'misery'
Is it wise?
Well,
Possibly.
- DannyR 23/05/08
We'll have to see.
But you don't know
What's best for me,
You don't know
What's in my head
The dreams that haunt
Me in my bed.
I get scared,
You don't see why
There are feelings
That I hide.
Medicate me,
Numb the pain,
Turn off the lights
Within my brain
Leaving me
In darkness, here
Alone to face
My silent fears.
Leave me to
This 'misery'
Is it wise?
Well,
Possibly.
- DannyR 23/05/08
Friday, April 18, 2008
TAGGED!!
First, post the rules:
- Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.
- Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose ten people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
1) The first girl I ever fell head over heels for was the biggest bitch I have ever known. She was stunning, her hair was straight and snow-white blonde (not from a bottle, either), it fell to her waist (she never wore it up) and it bounced and swayed as she walked. She was a dancer, so she moved gracefully and was incredibly slim. She was taller than me, and she had freckles across her nose. Her name was Charity, which was kind of ironic, really, because she was unrelenting in her cruelty. Not that she ever swore at me or anything like that, no she was always smiling, and her voice was like honey. Her evil power was in her unerring ability to detect what people were most insecure about and draw attention to it in front of everyone, again and again, smiling sweetly as she did so. She humiliated me all through my teenage years, by saying things like "What on earth possessed you to wear that, sweetie?" and laughing gently at my stature and... other physical attributes... in front of her friends. And I was so smitten that I stumbled over myself trying not to look silly, and making more of a laughing stock of myself in the process.
2) The last time my dad came to visit me in Wellington (a few years back now) I heard him knock at the door and immediately hid under my bed where he wouldn't see me if he looked through the window. I stayed there for nearly three hours, listening to him banging on the door and swearing, hearing him walk around the house and look in through all the windows. Why didn't I just let him in? Because he annoys the hell out of me, showing up unannounced, talking about me to my flatmates as if I wasn't there, saying what he thinks is 'wrong with' me, insulting his hosts and saying every racist, homophobic, chauvanist thing that comes into his Christ-polluted head. Don't get me wrong, he's not saying these things like an ordinary Christian would... he's ANGRY when he says them, and when he gets angry he scares me half-to-death. Ordinary Christians would be horrified, I think, to hear him talking. And he's a minister. Go figure.
3) I cannot save money for the life of me. It's not even that I spend it on stuff, when I look at my bank statement it all seems to have gone on food, rent, power etc. But there's never any left over, and it doesn't matter how much I'm getting on a weekly basis. I think I eat too much.
4) I often fall asleep fantasizing about not waking up, wondering who would find me, what they would find, how they would go about packing up my stuff and distributing it among my family and friends or disposing of it. I wonder if anyone knows me well enough to work out what sort of commemmoration or service I'd want, and who would show up.
5) I had a secret world as a kid, more in my head than anywhere in my real life exactly. It was modelled on a quiet inner-city park I'd found one time when my mum had taken my little brother and me to visit my aunt Thelma and her husband Roy. It was over their back fence, and screened off on all sides by tall trees (I think they were poplars). In the middle of it was a fallen tree trunk, it was thick, hollow, and crawling with spiders and bugs, but I sat there on it enjoying the sunshine until I heard my mum calling for me an hour or so later. Aunt Thelma moved when Roy died, and I never found the place again, but it's still there in my head, I can picture it perfectly, and I escape there whenever I just want 'me' time.
6) I always wanted to be a writer... I still do. I have, under my bed, a good 300 pages of a couple of stories I've partly written. One of the main ways I waste time instead of doing my study is by typing what I've got so far. I think I'm very good at coming up with ideas, but quite poor at taking them to their conclusion, and so I guess I'll never write a book. I think it's because on some level I feel like it's not 'real work' and it would be selfish of me to pursue it.
7) I'm really ashamed of the fact that I did dance classes as a kid... ballet, tap, contemporary, jazz... and I got high marks in the exams. I absolutely hated it, but I loved being on stage, and I knew it made my mum proud so I kept up with it until I was fourteen and was just getting hassled too much by other kids my age. I got bullied a lot for it in primary school, so all through intermediate and high school I tried to hide the fact that I had done it, but it wasn't much good. I was getting called 'faggot' 'poof' and 'queer' before I even knew what the words meant. Retrospectively, I can't help but wonder if that has something to do with who I actually turned into.
8) I once pretended to have lost my wallet and driver's license at a party at someone's house, just so I could ask the guy who lived there to look for it and get back to me. He was one of the most attractive guys I've ever met, and of course I knew he was WAAAYY out of my league but it didn't stop me from obsessing over him for months.
9) I feel like I've lived enough, in that many different places, as that many different versions of me, that the one thing I want in all the world is rest, to not have to be anyone or anything, to not have to think or care or feel anything anymore. I'm feel exhausted, worn out, "thin, like butter spread over too much bread," to use Bilbo Baggins' expression.
10) If I could crawl inside a story, it would have to be 'The Last Continent' by Terry Pratchett, or in fact any of his Rincewind stories. I'd love to be just swept away in the insanity, it would be something new, vibrant and interesting. Rincewind's world conforms to no rules, nothing has to make sense, the only certainty being that you don't piss off The Luggage, or you get eaten. 'The Last Continent' is, I think, Pratchett's most ridiculous story, and it always makes me laugh my socks off.
- Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.
- Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose ten people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
1) The first girl I ever fell head over heels for was the biggest bitch I have ever known. She was stunning, her hair was straight and snow-white blonde (not from a bottle, either), it fell to her waist (she never wore it up) and it bounced and swayed as she walked. She was a dancer, so she moved gracefully and was incredibly slim. She was taller than me, and she had freckles across her nose. Her name was Charity, which was kind of ironic, really, because she was unrelenting in her cruelty. Not that she ever swore at me or anything like that, no she was always smiling, and her voice was like honey. Her evil power was in her unerring ability to detect what people were most insecure about and draw attention to it in front of everyone, again and again, smiling sweetly as she did so. She humiliated me all through my teenage years, by saying things like "What on earth possessed you to wear that, sweetie?" and laughing gently at my stature and... other physical attributes... in front of her friends. And I was so smitten that I stumbled over myself trying not to look silly, and making more of a laughing stock of myself in the process.
2) The last time my dad came to visit me in Wellington (a few years back now) I heard him knock at the door and immediately hid under my bed where he wouldn't see me if he looked through the window. I stayed there for nearly three hours, listening to him banging on the door and swearing, hearing him walk around the house and look in through all the windows. Why didn't I just let him in? Because he annoys the hell out of me, showing up unannounced, talking about me to my flatmates as if I wasn't there, saying what he thinks is 'wrong with' me, insulting his hosts and saying every racist, homophobic, chauvanist thing that comes into his Christ-polluted head. Don't get me wrong, he's not saying these things like an ordinary Christian would... he's ANGRY when he says them, and when he gets angry he scares me half-to-death. Ordinary Christians would be horrified, I think, to hear him talking. And he's a minister. Go figure.
3) I cannot save money for the life of me. It's not even that I spend it on stuff, when I look at my bank statement it all seems to have gone on food, rent, power etc. But there's never any left over, and it doesn't matter how much I'm getting on a weekly basis. I think I eat too much.
4) I often fall asleep fantasizing about not waking up, wondering who would find me, what they would find, how they would go about packing up my stuff and distributing it among my family and friends or disposing of it. I wonder if anyone knows me well enough to work out what sort of commemmoration or service I'd want, and who would show up.
5) I had a secret world as a kid, more in my head than anywhere in my real life exactly. It was modelled on a quiet inner-city park I'd found one time when my mum had taken my little brother and me to visit my aunt Thelma and her husband Roy. It was over their back fence, and screened off on all sides by tall trees (I think they were poplars). In the middle of it was a fallen tree trunk, it was thick, hollow, and crawling with spiders and bugs, but I sat there on it enjoying the sunshine until I heard my mum calling for me an hour or so later. Aunt Thelma moved when Roy died, and I never found the place again, but it's still there in my head, I can picture it perfectly, and I escape there whenever I just want 'me' time.
6) I always wanted to be a writer... I still do. I have, under my bed, a good 300 pages of a couple of stories I've partly written. One of the main ways I waste time instead of doing my study is by typing what I've got so far. I think I'm very good at coming up with ideas, but quite poor at taking them to their conclusion, and so I guess I'll never write a book. I think it's because on some level I feel like it's not 'real work' and it would be selfish of me to pursue it.
7) I'm really ashamed of the fact that I did dance classes as a kid... ballet, tap, contemporary, jazz... and I got high marks in the exams. I absolutely hated it, but I loved being on stage, and I knew it made my mum proud so I kept up with it until I was fourteen and was just getting hassled too much by other kids my age. I got bullied a lot for it in primary school, so all through intermediate and high school I tried to hide the fact that I had done it, but it wasn't much good. I was getting called 'faggot' 'poof' and 'queer' before I even knew what the words meant. Retrospectively, I can't help but wonder if that has something to do with who I actually turned into.
8) I once pretended to have lost my wallet and driver's license at a party at someone's house, just so I could ask the guy who lived there to look for it and get back to me. He was one of the most attractive guys I've ever met, and of course I knew he was WAAAYY out of my league but it didn't stop me from obsessing over him for months.
9) I feel like I've lived enough, in that many different places, as that many different versions of me, that the one thing I want in all the world is rest, to not have to be anyone or anything, to not have to think or care or feel anything anymore. I'm feel exhausted, worn out, "thin, like butter spread over too much bread," to use Bilbo Baggins' expression.
10) If I could crawl inside a story, it would have to be 'The Last Continent' by Terry Pratchett, or in fact any of his Rincewind stories. I'd love to be just swept away in the insanity, it would be something new, vibrant and interesting. Rincewind's world conforms to no rules, nothing has to make sense, the only certainty being that you don't piss off The Luggage, or you get eaten. 'The Last Continent' is, I think, Pratchett's most ridiculous story, and it always makes me laugh my socks off.
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Science vs Religion
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I guess I just care too much...