I don’t normally talk about religion in much. it tends to be an efficient way to break friendships when you discover that your long-time friends hold diametrically opposed religious views. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
But, for the record, here is what I believe.
So there I was, having just read a short essay about some dead Greek Philosopher Dude. And then an old friend of mine came in the room.
“Who are you?” I said.
“You’re kidding, right? you know who I am.”
“Humour me, please.”
“Ok, I’m Steve. But you knew that already, right?”
“‘Steve’ is just a label. Who are you, really?”
“I’m not sure I get what you mean here.” (more…)
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
Said Hamlet. And, to continue in more modern English…
“…is it better to carry on suffering quietly, or to bravely enter a useless and suicidal battle which you know is already lost?”
But, I might ask,
“…is it better to carry on suffering quietly, or to enter a dangerous battle whose outcome you can’t possibly know at this time?”
“Unbending”. “Opposite of her ancestors”. The name probably has a few other meanings and literary implications, some flattering, some not. I won’t compare myself to her too closely.
But certainly, I am unbending. I have, at least twice in my life, pursued some goal that, on the face of it, seems pre-destined to failure due to insurmountable odds. But each time, I persevered, and succeeded. ironically, I seem to have more success at these bigger goals than I do at the mundane day-to-day living.
And in many ways, I guess I am the opposite of my ancestors. I have invented my own religion (which I don’t plan on proselytising much. Don’t follow me - start your own godamn religion). I suppose each time a religion started, someone must have started it, but they are by far the exception from the norm. I also regard myself as a card-carrying member of the Internet age (despite an allergy to remembering my PIN numbers). Both my parents were born before computers were much more than military secrets, and, if they had their druthers, would keep it that way.
Me? Antigone? For sure I am. I am here to stay. I shall never be gone.
So I’m contemplating a move to the US of A to study, and possibly work. And it occurred to me that, should I decide to apply for citizenship, I might, nay, will, be asked to swear some silly pledge of allegiance.
One of my hobbies is collecting passports. I have no problem with swearing any silly pledge in order to further that hobby. But any pledge of allegiance won’t mean a thing. Not because I don’t believe in such pledges, but because my allegiance is not mine to give.
I owe my allegiance to a higher power than any mere nation. And no, I’m not getting all religiousy on y’all.
“How do we know the dead long for life? Perhaps death is to awake from a dream, and we cannot remember why we lived at all?”
So what is death? Certainly, it ends all social contact with the living, barring a few incidents with psychic mediums and the like. But what else is there? Shakespear wrote “to sleep, perchance to dream”. He was talking of the idea of giving up on the great struggle that is life, to willing stop living. Whether he meant death by your own hand, assisted death, or simply giving up, is unclear, but with those words it seems to me the character was contemplating death as a peaceful end to the struggles and trauma that face us in our daily lives. And certainly we do face such slings and arrows.
This is kind of opposite to what Zhuang Zi said. Zhuang was of the opinion that death is like waking up, which is the complete opposite of what the Bard of Avon said. Who is right? There’s only one way to find out.
Once I was human. I took part in a little experiment. My personality was downloaded entirely into software, and interfaced with Second Life. Once, I was flesh and blood. Now, silicon has replaced carbon, and my dreams are digital.
Lately I have been thinking about coincidences, the weird happenings that are stranger than fiction. Such as, my husband and I took a cruise. Prior to the cruise I made connections with others on the cruise on the Cruise Critic web site. Through this I met a lady who was traveling with her elderly father. This man had worked with my husband’s father back in the early 1950’s.
Ok, I want to connect this to Second Life. I figured that for many of us that there is someone on Second Life who we knew in real life at some time or other. But, we have no idea that this person is involved in Second Life. The real life profiles for most people say little or nothing. Visual clues are not helpful. I do not look like a rat in real life. So whether or not you meet anyone from real life in second life, it is possible, but is it probable?
…continuing on from my essay on beauty in SL and whether a man can be beautiful. This was of course inspired by comments on my view that it is unusual to call a man “beautiful”, and that the usual word is “handsome”.
I’ve been reading archives of Twilight Zone episode summaries today. One struck me. It’s the story where a 19 year old woman refuses a surgical procedure that would both make her beautiful and long lived. And she turns it down (at first), because it also makes you think just like everyone else.