Sunday, April 24, 2011
Christianity:
The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magically tree. Makes perfect sense.
I don't care for religion, any religion. Religion in general is a cult, a club that survives through its never-ending cycle of brainwashing. Think about it - if you are religious, have a specific religion - did you choose it yourself? More likely this religion is yours because your parents chose it for you, as their parents did them and so on. Or perhaps your spouse had an ingrained religion and now that is your religion and the religion of your children. It's pretty rare for a person to go out and seek a religion and make a personal choice - sure, it happens, but not enough.
I believe a club is something you choose to be part of, not something you participate in because your parents did (if your parents were in a polka club would you be? If your parents jumped off a bridge would you?).
I consider myself fortunate to have not been brainwashed into a religion growing up - the fact that my parents came from different religious upbringings meant that we essentially had no religion in our house. My brother and I are not baptized or christened. I'm pretty sure I only went to church once on Easter Sunday and once on Christmas Eve, any other appearances at church were for weddings or funerals. My summer camp was a Christian non-denominational camp, and we attended "chapel" twice a day and they gave us Bibles and tried to convince us to let Jesus into our hearts. I refused to be brainwashed, though I did like singing the songs, and camp was fun and it was what my mom could afford, so we put up with the religion. I do remember there was one counselor who told us dinosaurs did not exist and were made up by scientists - which, even at 12 I thought was hilarious/crazy-town.
If you feel you need religion to get through the day, to feel better about yourself, to purge yourself of your so-called sins, that's fine, that's your choice, even if it wasn't initially your choice. But if you have children, is it fair to make that choice for them? Baptizing or christening your child as a baby is the first step in taking choices away from them. Do you want them to grow up feeling obligated to the religion you chose for them, or do you want them to grow up feeling free to make their own choices?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Work. What would I do without it?
Well, we'd be poor and I'd be very bored, and when I'm bored I spend money - but that wouldn't work because we'd be poor...and the circle of life continues.
I like my job. I am a different person at work. I am certain, authoritative, people think I know what I am talking about. People listen when I speak (and maybe sometimes it's because I'm loud). I like knowing what I am talking about, I like that people use me as a resource of information because they trust me to know the answer, or to find the answer if I don't know it. I like telling people what to do. I like process and order. Not that you can tell that from my desk, which is usually an explosion of paper. My desk is the only think that is like I am when not at work - scattered, messy - ordered only to me as I know what's where and why. My brain is wired differently than most people, I think differently, I see things from a different perspective, and sometimes that makes me the black sheep or the odd one out (after all, I am an INTJ aka Mastermind), luckily, in my current work, this usually helps me and (I think) mostly my crazy brain goes unnoticed. Mostly, though I think my outrageous nail polish (really? who knew nail polish could be considered inappropriate by some?), my odd jewelry choices, tattoos and clothes are noticed more than my craziness.
My work defines me as a person to an extent, but as I've noted before, you can't just put me in a box and call me Project Coordinator or Document Controller, because I won't let you. These words are too small to actually define me.
Just like Teacher, Banker, Secretary, Manager, Vet, Stay-at-Home-Mom or Housewife (etc, etc.) might be things that you are, things that you do, but they are not you as a whole - you need to remember that - and don't let them put you in a box with a neat little label on it - there is no label that can describe you as a human being, we are novels of words, not post-it notes.
(now I feel I must say "Nobody puts Baby in a corner")
Friday, April 8, 2011
My memory is quite horrible when it comes to events, to things I did. I remember specific dates (birthdays, anniversaries, deaths), but not much else. It's always been this way with me. Older generations will remember when James Dean or Elvis died. I remember when River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain died (and for some reason when Brandon Lee died). It's been 17 years since Cobain's body was found. I was in 11th grade, on a field trip to visit a local university. It was before Twitter, it was before texting - you still heard news on the radio or television or by word of mouth. News travelled fast but not at light speed. You could hear something and still doubt it until it was confirmed by a newscast of some sort - you did not rush home and Google it only to find 10,000 stories had already hit the web confirming it. That's all I actually remember though - I think, because we were on a field trip and therefore "out of touch" for most of the day, we did not get an inkling that our Kurt was dead until the big yellow bus ride home, and even then, it was word of mouth to be doubted, it was unbelievable and needed to be confirmed, it had to be a bad joke.
Of course, it was real, it was confirmed. I know I cried, I know I wrote overdramatic why why why poems. I know I wore all black for at least a week, but no one noticed because I generally wore a lot of black anyway. I know my heart wrenched when Courtney broadcast his note on TV a few days later. Already dark, depressed, disillusioned and at sea, this event impacted me. I was not a crazy Cobain fan, but Nirvana was one of my favourite bands at the time (but I've always preferred Eddie and Pearl Jam), I suppose a big part of it was I was just 17 and Kurt was ours and grunge was ours and it was dead and bad things happen.
Would he still be making music now had he lived? I don't know, but I do know I fucking cringe when I hear the Foo Fighters on the radio. What is is and can't be changed (at least not in this universe), his music and self impacted my life and it's been 17 years and it still makes me sad if I think about it.
It's been 17 years, and the 25 year old who sits next to me at work does not know what Nirvana is or who Kurt was and doesn't care.
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