P: You are probably one of the toughest and most stoic persons I've ever met.
M: Why thank you. Obviously I will have to suppress any pleasure that statement might have given.
P: And that is exactly why I like you, hahahah
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Tuesday 30 March 2010
Sunday 28 March 2010
On religion
First of all, let me explain my thoughts on religion and spirituality. I don't believe in god(s), I don't believe that there is anything supernatural hovering over us and that we go anywhere after death. I think Richard Dawkins is a complete dick but at least he makes sense. I'm very much against religious institutions, state religion, teaching religion lessons of any sort to children and the molly cuddling of religious people in the society.
Contrary to what many may think, I actually grew up in fairly religious surroundings. My grand dad is a vicar and as I spent a lot of time around him, was obviously subject to a good bit of religious tradition. My mother was a slightly more modern Christian and she never really made me or my brother do anything religious.
I've always been a fairly logical person. When I was younger I remember being scared of monsters when the lights in my room were turned off but I could often reason to myself that as I had never seen monsters and my parents told me there were none, there was a pretty good chance that they didn't exist. When I was around six I decided that this was to be the same about God. When I was a teenager, I learned about other religions but they did not convince me either.
A couple of weeks ago a conversation took place between myself and a couple of other people. Most of these people had previously put forward their anti-religious views. As with myself they disliked religion having such a high status in society but also nearly despised people who were religious. One of them had later changed their mind and recognised some situations (eg. war) in which religion might be beneficial for the welfare of people.
As I stated earlier, religion is really not my cup of tea and IMO should not be of any reasonable person's either. I find it very hard to interact with people who believe in all sorts of toothfairy like creatures with absolutely no unbiased, scientific evidence to support their claims. Would you trust me if I went about believing that leprechauns existed and should be worshipped?
Having said that, I have seen faith change people's lives and make things better for them, not due to some magical power from up above but the fact that they got their life back on track because they had faith even if it was to a non-existent creature(s). I've seen people survive through rough times because they had their faith. I've seen something positive come out of it.
Yeah so that's all nice and dandy for those people. If it works for you, it works for you. One might even say that who am I to tell what people should do to survive or be happy.
What I don't accept in this whole thinking is the fact that it trains people to be weak. If you have to hold on to some sort of supernatural creature you haven't seen (that you can scientifically prove), you have a problem. If you can't handle unhappiness without talking to this creature and not, say, a real person, you have a problem. If you are afraid of dying so much that you sign up for religion, well, that's just a bit pathetic.
The worst part of all this is of course the fact that children all over the world are brought up to trust in the same bs as their parents. No wonder there are so many absolutely useless people out there.
If you are offended by what I've just written, please do not contact me, I really don't care for your religious views and conversion attempts. If you have some sort of interesting point to make about the actual point of this post, feel free to elaborate.
Contrary to what many may think, I actually grew up in fairly religious surroundings. My grand dad is a vicar and as I spent a lot of time around him, was obviously subject to a good bit of religious tradition. My mother was a slightly more modern Christian and she never really made me or my brother do anything religious.
I've always been a fairly logical person. When I was younger I remember being scared of monsters when the lights in my room were turned off but I could often reason to myself that as I had never seen monsters and my parents told me there were none, there was a pretty good chance that they didn't exist. When I was around six I decided that this was to be the same about God. When I was a teenager, I learned about other religions but they did not convince me either.
A couple of weeks ago a conversation took place between myself and a couple of other people. Most of these people had previously put forward their anti-religious views. As with myself they disliked religion having such a high status in society but also nearly despised people who were religious. One of them had later changed their mind and recognised some situations (eg. war) in which religion might be beneficial for the welfare of people.
As I stated earlier, religion is really not my cup of tea and IMO should not be of any reasonable person's either. I find it very hard to interact with people who believe in all sorts of toothfairy like creatures with absolutely no unbiased, scientific evidence to support their claims. Would you trust me if I went about believing that leprechauns existed and should be worshipped?
Having said that, I have seen faith change people's lives and make things better for them, not due to some magical power from up above but the fact that they got their life back on track because they had faith even if it was to a non-existent creature(s). I've seen people survive through rough times because they had their faith. I've seen something positive come out of it.
Yeah so that's all nice and dandy for those people. If it works for you, it works for you. One might even say that who am I to tell what people should do to survive or be happy.
What I don't accept in this whole thinking is the fact that it trains people to be weak. If you have to hold on to some sort of supernatural creature you haven't seen (that you can scientifically prove), you have a problem. If you can't handle unhappiness without talking to this creature and not, say, a real person, you have a problem. If you are afraid of dying so much that you sign up for religion, well, that's just a bit pathetic.
The worst part of all this is of course the fact that children all over the world are brought up to trust in the same bs as their parents. No wonder there are so many absolutely useless people out there.
If you are offended by what I've just written, please do not contact me, I really don't care for your religious views and conversion attempts. If you have some sort of interesting point to make about the actual point of this post, feel free to elaborate.
Saturday 20 March 2010
What I am
Perception can be a bitch. Some days I swear I'd pay good money not to be constantly so aware of things and characteristics of people, not so much because they annoy me but more so because these things make living in my own self so bloody difficult. On other days I'm glad I'm not one of those clueless ones around me.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Most people can attempt to enhance their good sides and work to reduce the effect of the bad ones yet so many are completely unaware of themselves. They have absolutely no clue as to how others perceive them and thus can do nothing about it.
Throughout my life I've seen people who were weak in one way or the other. I was forced to interact with some of these people and as some weaknesses are more profound than others, they had an effect on me. If I was unable to do anything about the situation (ie. go away, force the person to stop etc), I started to act quite the opposite way myself. I decided that I would never be one of those people who argue all the time/burden others with all their worries/talk too much/cling to others etc...
Instead of having just a little voice at the back of my head reminding me not to overdo shit, I completely abandoned the kind of behaviour I loathed so much. I stopped talking about my shit because I hated it when others did it constantly. I stopped asking for help even when I was in a train wreck mode because I hated the way people were so weak and clingy. I stopped letting people near me because I was sick of having to endure the aftermaths of other people's broken relationships.
It wasn't always easy. It still isn't. I am too weak and slip of my master plan every now and then. I sometimes even live through periods of doubt and wonder if I really should dictate my letting emotions out at all. I've even been a happy emotional burden at times.
I always return to my old habits. Sometimes people or situations remind me of the necessity for these precautions, sometimes I just get so ashamed of myself and the way I've started to turn into those people who I can't bare.
Doing this is difficult sometimes. When times are hard I keep reminding myself that I'm the only one who I can really trust and risking shit even if it brought some temporary happiness would eventually lead to some horrible unhappiness and when I count the prize of both scenarios, it's pretty clear which side wins. And anyway, I'm pretty good at all this now, and can get the best of both worlds without people even realising that they know very little about what is actually going on in my head.
So yeah, it's pretty crazy I guess. I guess I'm even crazier as I kind of enjoy all this control. I know that in pretty much any scenario I can undercut the amount of misery when others will fall so hard. That's just what I am.
My weakness is the need to control the amount of information available for people perceiving me. And let me tell you, you don't know shit.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Most people can attempt to enhance their good sides and work to reduce the effect of the bad ones yet so many are completely unaware of themselves. They have absolutely no clue as to how others perceive them and thus can do nothing about it.
Throughout my life I've seen people who were weak in one way or the other. I was forced to interact with some of these people and as some weaknesses are more profound than others, they had an effect on me. If I was unable to do anything about the situation (ie. go away, force the person to stop etc), I started to act quite the opposite way myself. I decided that I would never be one of those people who argue all the time/burden others with all their worries/talk too much/cling to others etc...
Instead of having just a little voice at the back of my head reminding me not to overdo shit, I completely abandoned the kind of behaviour I loathed so much. I stopped talking about my shit because I hated it when others did it constantly. I stopped asking for help even when I was in a train wreck mode because I hated the way people were so weak and clingy. I stopped letting people near me because I was sick of having to endure the aftermaths of other people's broken relationships.
It wasn't always easy. It still isn't. I am too weak and slip of my master plan every now and then. I sometimes even live through periods of doubt and wonder if I really should dictate my letting emotions out at all. I've even been a happy emotional burden at times.
I always return to my old habits. Sometimes people or situations remind me of the necessity for these precautions, sometimes I just get so ashamed of myself and the way I've started to turn into those people who I can't bare.
Doing this is difficult sometimes. When times are hard I keep reminding myself that I'm the only one who I can really trust and risking shit even if it brought some temporary happiness would eventually lead to some horrible unhappiness and when I count the prize of both scenarios, it's pretty clear which side wins. And anyway, I'm pretty good at all this now, and can get the best of both worlds without people even realising that they know very little about what is actually going on in my head.
So yeah, it's pretty crazy I guess. I guess I'm even crazier as I kind of enjoy all this control. I know that in pretty much any scenario I can undercut the amount of misery when others will fall so hard. That's just what I am.
My weakness is the need to control the amount of information available for people perceiving me. And let me tell you, you don't know shit.
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