Dat Christmas spirit.

The wild enthusiasm I displayed for Christmas as a child has slowly petered to a stage where I am awake on Christmas day at 2:22am, perusing various websites related to Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan. A fervent atheist since her days at Catholic school, my sister said it best about what Christmas has to give to us secular folk when she came over today to watch carols, and that is the ability Christmas has to bring families together and spend time with each other. Of course, we shouldn't need a celebration borne from one particular religion in order to make time for our loved ones, but seeing as for the time being that Christian beliefs are so entrenched in Western society, the fact that Christmas is a public holiday does make gathering and reunions a lot easier. If you can't change the status quo overnight, use it to your full advantage.

So why the Dawkins and Sagan? I first came across Dawkins back in 2007 when I read The God Delusion, which he published a year earlier, and he did crop up a fair bit in my history of philosophy and reason subject earlier in the year, but I can't thank Zen Pencils enough (is this probably my... third plug? of the website on this blog) for making me aware of one Carl Sagan, who's enormous amounts of work I am yet to properly browse. Always mildly annoyed that I feel restricted from expressing secular thoughts (as previously written about here) I committed a rather non-confrontational, passive aggressive retaliation to the religious Christmas status updates occasionally peppering my Facebook newsfeed by liking the official Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science page an hour into Christmas. This in turn just got me into thinking about religion in general.

This article from the website is certainly controversial and I do not agree with the way it has been written - sexual abuse is not something I find easily comparable in the sense to say that it is more or less serious than other kinds of abuse. As one commenter rightly pointed out, different forms of abuse will have different effects on children. What stuck with me was the explored impact of what it is like for children to be introduced to concepts of heaven and hell, and that non-believers of their faith are condemned to the latter. This caused my mind to wander back to an msn conversation I had in primary school, with a friend who remains close to me to present day, who also happens to be a devout Christian and let's just say that this friend showed a very persistent... inclusive spirit when were younger, but thankfully has eased up some as we grew up. How ten year olds writing back and forth in pink and purple fonts with an array of emoticons got onto such topics as hell is beyond me, but given that I was not Christian, I remember posing the question to my friend, "So do you think I'm going to hell, then?", that was answered with something like "you're too gawjuz, I lub you" (ironic spelling intended) before the conversation went down another path, but it stuck that the reply I received was neither serious nor direct, so I assumed the answer had to be yes.

In the scope of things, it doesn't really matter to me either way, but what must it feel like going through life knowing that some of the closest people to you are eventually headed for eternal damnation? or is the case as mentioned in the Dawkins article, that they've eased up on the whole hell thing - reinterpreted, or softening the blow for a sticky spot? I'd Google, or better yet ask, but I should rest my mind and body for the yummy Christmas feast storm set to hit my belly in about sixteen hours' time.

Murry Chrustmas, y'all.

do what you wanna do

'I watched my peers, and my friends, and the ones who were older than me and... I watched how miserable some of them were. I'd listen to them telling me that they couldn't envisage a world where they did what they've always wanted to do anymore, because now they had to earn a certain amount every month just to keep where they were. They couldn't do the things that mattered and that they really wanted to do and... that seems as big a tragedy as any problem of failure.'

Neil Gaiman never went to university because it didn't interest him but luckily, possessed the freakish talent and brilliant mind required to succeed in the literary world. Man.

There's a lot I would like to elaborate upon but seeing as I'm two hours and thirty-four minutes away from my functional plan deadline I should hop to it. The real reason I'm posting this here is simply because I'm getting rid of it from my Facebook quotes and want to put it somewhere that I will remember, lul.

The after-thought prelude

Yesterday was the first time I have dialled an ambulance after hearing tyres screech on the bitumen three metres behind me, hearing that collision of metal on flesh and turning around to see a figure sliding off the bonnet of the taxi. A businessman and the driver in a bright turquoise turban stepping out, the latter repeating 'it was a green light? It was a green light!' nervously.

He was running across the road when his iPod fell and he became distracted. His point of contact with the windscreen was his head, at thirty kilometres an hour, but it was the lower back pain he was most concerned with. He was conscious and could feel all four limbs. I feel bad for the taxi driver, nit all should be clear from a legal side of things.

When remembering back to his first words as he rushed out of the vehicle, you can't help but marvel how people automatically do rush at their own defence as if from fear of retribution. Conditioned by society, and reminds me of the story of how so many passed the hit-and-run toddler in China out of the desire not to be implicated legally. Similar stories occur in Vietnam, apparently. It is the musings of how we as westernised Australians of Asian-heritage would fare raised under those circumstances that lead to the below topic, after a fashion... and the most likely outcome is that we wouldn't even know any different. That in itself is so scary. How much of ourselves would we still be and how much would we owe to the external environment? Hence below.

For Christine

When prompted on nature vs. nurture via Facebook chat, with terrible grammar and some attempt at paragraphing:

i think there's enough empirical evidence from an infinite variety of different cases
where growing up in a certain environment or having an event happen to someone has impacted them to act in a particular way. people are born with different levels of potential, but it's like this: http://zenpencils.com/comic/94-the-two-wolves/ as to how they are ultimately shaped.

the empirical evidence isn't what i would base my entire argument on, but i do think each person has their natural inclinations and, as discouraging as it sounds, limitations. However, no matter which is more or less correct at the end of the day, I still think living by the belief that environment can help you realise that potential is the most constructive way to live. person A might never have as high of an IQ as person B, but by always challenging themselves to be better and think differently, at least leads a fulfilling life.

I think that our environments really dominate in this way tweaking and bringing out whatever in our personalities it 'feeds' while other things we have a capacity to be lie dormant. doing my political ideologies subject this semester, especially the essay, made me realise that the very crux of an ideology depends upon what interpretation of human nature people are willing to employ. so for the sake of simplicity, when we limit it down to whether humans are naturally social beings or competitive i.e. collectivist vs. individualist, communism goes to one extreme and liberalism to the other and neither of them are really quite right... altruism can and does exist, as well as the ability to cooperate, but at the same time, competitive interests are equally there and can help spur on progress. it'd be too easy, for example, for a communist to take everything i've said so far and make a case for themselves that if both cooperative AND competitive spirits exist within a human being, then by nurture we can spur on the cooperative side and quash out the competitive... but I highly highly doubt that's possible. it's the attempt of doing so which has brought so many disasters to countries that have attempted to reach the true state of communism.

interpretation is paramount, and it helps keeps your line of argument consistent if you can always come back to what you think a human being is like, and capable of.

"An assertive reaction to bullshit"

I have no patience for people who publish these carefully constructed posts which painstakingly outline an inkling to a thought that they're trying to present as so original, something you couldn't have possibly thought of before. This sounds very mean and snobby, because who am I to scorn the attempts of people trying to be different? We've heard from countless sources in our lives (if we're lucky enough, that is) about how wonderful being creative and original are and these are definitely things I think we should strive to be. I go on and on about how much I love innovation and positive progress, and what do they even mean when people are too afraid to go beyond boundaries?

What I'm more specifically trying to condemn, I suppose, are those who have deep phobias of being the slightest bit 'unoriginal'. This, surely, is what gave rise to hipster, indie, alternative or whatever cultures that avoid 'mainstream' trends and activities at all costs. What are you really trying to achieve by automatic opposition of what is 'popular'?

Again, I don't think I'm quite getting to my point... what's the use of being so intensely fearful that something you think or say has possibly been thought or said before? I find it fascinating that two people from different eras, locations, cultures and circumstances can be linked by nothing whatsoever but their thoughts alone. It's somewhat comforting, these recurring ideas that bind us humannnssszzz. Do I sink into and hide behind ironic speak out of fear? Most likely.

At the very least, as long as you don't allow this attitude to degenerate into a need for validation, it's a more optimistic way to face that disheartenment when your perceived way of 'paving the way forward' has already been established before - marvel at the commonality and at the same time, question it. Find out what's different about yours. What's better of the lot. Swallow your pride and use it. Keep moving.