This Could Get Messy -- God and Living

I'm really appreciating how young I am instead of feeling like an old bastard (damn you uni). I look at my life and I SO don't have anything together yet. The realisation came however that, that's fine, I'm young. Hell, I look around me and I can't recognise any other people my age who have it together. Not even those whom are married and have kids or are looking to get married and all of that. We all have our things. It is truly amazing. This isn't even a comparison issue either. It doesn't make any difference whether I'm more or less together than you, or him, or her, or them! I think that is my favourite bit. It just stops at, 'I don't have it all together yet'. I don't know if you ever do have it together or perhaps you get it together and lose it again. Honestly none of that matters. I'm fine with not being together now. Some people might say that is living in the moment.

I'm not really sure what living in the moment is. When someone says it I think I know what they are talking about however it is one of those things that so many talk about. People preach the virtues of living in the moment, yet it seems so few do it. Obviously not that great. Or so stupidly difficult that most people can never hope to achieve. I also wonder about the whole YOLO thing, You Only Live Once (or You Obviously Like Owls, thank you Jeph Jacques at Questionable Content). People use it as a justification to do some of the stupidest things. If anything it is a reason to live cautiously.

There are many schools of thought on this. Most of the monotheists believe in some sort of life after death and it will be good, as long as you believe what they tell you to believe. The others more of a reincarnation thing. I mean in each of these you really can do what you like cause they will let you either have another try or you go into the big vast void of paradise. If you are a true atheist however, or refute the concept of after life then you in essence have two options really. It's not really this simple but for ease of concept. You can either go, 'fuck this', eat fuck drink sleep do what you like as long as if fits within that personal code of ethics or live like this is all you ever got and it is your one chance to do something. Generally people slide between the two of those. True atheism the belief in nothing, in nothing but probability and chance scares me. I don't like Karma, people rarely get what they deserve and the monotheistic religions concern me in their exclusivity.

For your information I grew up in a christian household the eldest son of ministers. My folks however are a little unorthodox in their beliefs and that's about all I can tell you about what they believe. I however, am bitter and cynical about churches and the people involved with them. My problem mostly stems from the way they prioritise things according to if I serve church, I am therefore serving God. It is a dangerous way to be. This isn't a conscious thought either. I found that there should be a much greater emphasis on people. Don't go to church or something churchie at the expense of seeing a secular friend. Don't go to a weekly group because that is 'serving God', instead of your friends birthday (yes this did happen). That is where religion has made its greatest mistake I think. The concept that I must put God first and I find God at church or church things or that somehow it is easier to find God there. Particularly for Christianity. This secular idea of God where it is outside of you and your life, so you either do God or you do human, and with the traditional doctrine of original sin you are generally wanting to do things which god does not like, cause you are bad.

I really struggled with that and as such I reject too much. Babies and bathwater you know. Atheism scares the shit out of me and I think the translation and re translation of holy books has been so muddied that true meaning is lost. There are still some truly wonderful and beautiful things in them. The song of Soloman is a fantastic example of erotic literature. I struggle with these things and the champions of their causes. You may read that I like a balance a bit of left and right and I don't think this is any different. The other option is the justification for there being few true believers. Anyway that's a thought for another time this is already really long. I really hope I don't spark some great debate between people or insight too much unfair criticisms of my ideas. They are thoughts ever changing and moving from one moment to the next. I live across all of them and I pick the ones that suit me at the time. I'll talk to you guys soon.

James

Links: Twitter
And something that changed some of the styles of my thinking... God's Debris
P.S. I'm sorry I am not a better writer who is better able to convey and explain ideas which are probably exceptionally confusing.

Bitch -- Angry and Frustrated.

I really love language. It is really a great tool. I find it such a shame that I'm told to dumb down my language so people can half understand what I'm saying. It is so frustrating. I don't go out of my way to be difficult but I choose my words carefully. Mostly for their meaning but sometimes just their sound. To be fair this blog isn't really about the sadness of the depleting vocabulary of society. I'm frustrated and angry. I am furious.

I'm not really furious at anything just frustrated at the world. Could be hormones or stress or whatever. Really though. I just want to rant and rave at someone or something. Give me an excuse, say somethings stupid I dare you. I mean I've been wanting to write about space, about understanding, concepts and how difficult understanding can be but fuck! Just you know grrr. It's my birthday this week. I normally like to make it one day a year rather special. This year I'm not really doing anything about it.

It's weird cause in the past I've made it quite important to me, this year however, I'm not. I have a few suspicions why most of them I don't like though. Maybe I'm just growing up, although I don't think so. I'm scattered tonight guys... can you tell? I know I'm overly tired it's probably whats getting to me more than anything. Today I cannot face the things I need to face tomorrow. Yet I have learnt that despite all things the world keeps spinning and tomorrow will come. I will face what I have to tomorrow but today. Today I am angry and frustrated and in needing of a strong drink.

Goodnight

Learning and Improving -- Compentence or Incompentence?

I'm not sure how we are supposed to take something things. Things happen and then how do we deal with them? What is the next step? What I find more concerning is, 'where I find the answer to that question?'

Do we look to the Internet? Well, maybe for some things but do you think the Internet is the best place for  advice, dating advice or on dealing with that other obscure hypothetical situation that is really happening. Do we look at TV and movies? I sincerely hope people don't look at Hollywood but I would imagine it is a little truer than most of us would care to admit. However in favour of Hollywood it would certainly make life easier to know that one day your prince charming will come or the girl next door will turn out to fall in love with the slightly awkward, smart and you know the drill... Is there redeeming TV? I suppose books might have some answers but I don't think I've really seen lasting self help books. It all sounds well and good but only ever a small amount of it lasts, but you did a lot of reading for seemingly just a small fraction of a change. One sentence different from a book of hundreds of pages that is your life.

However maybe that is how it goes. Maybe it's not all about making changes now about altering my life's course, not dodging the ice burgs rather gently brushing... well maybe that's a bad example. Still small little adjustments one at a time. Does this work? When confronted by something can I kinda go, 'yeah', and stay basically the same just subtly changing; so much so it is hardly noticeable.

My point was mostly that I'm not sure how well this stuff works. I don't know if any of it works if some is better or much really. Where do we get this experience from? I rather like self analysis (in healthy form) however how do you know you're analysing right? This was all sparked by this article I read about whether someone who is truly incompetent can know they are in fact incompetent. It carries on saying how to self evaluate you need to be somewhat competent. So the again how could the incompetent know they are incompetent? In fact it is often shown that people who are incompetent thing they are most defiantly competent. So am I good at knowing how to change myself for the better? Am I a competent human being? Can be a better one? Or am I kidding myself?

I think I'm doing not too bad a job. 

P.S. Article for your perusal, I thought it was interesting.
P.P.S.  Twitter I'm still working on using it.