You know, we in good old Britain complain about the weather, and the biggest complaint is the rain followed by the fact it’s changeable. But in actual fact, we don’t have too much weather at all. We have four well-defined seasons that melt into one another without anything surprising or alarming to distract us.
Until now.
It’s so windy that my house is actually slightly trembling, and the wind has got into the house itself, via one of the ventilation shafts the previous occupants had put in, and is whistling about the pipes in an alarming manner.
You know, it is that windy that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the wind didn’t break today off and send it spinning away into space where it couldn’t come back and resettle for another four years.
WONDERING IF. . .
HOME IS. . .?
It’s funny how you recall and turn over events from memory when you’re about to face a life-changing moment. This up coming remove, with the promise of returning to my old postal code area, has brought back thoughts of long-gone times, sleeping in my brain.
I was brought up in a house which was owned by my parents. It was a two up two down terraced house, and my Dad did a number of alterations, including building a bathroom extension. The front bedroom belonged to the parents, and the back bedroom contained a large bed which I shared with first one and then two sisters.
In fact, I didn’t have a bed of my own till I was nineteen.
When the drink got hold of my Dad and he lived from pub opening to pub opening, he was in a public house and a local businessman, whose ambition was to be a millionaire before he was forty, and was familiar with my Dad’s weakness, ruthlessly negotiated the buying of our home for six and a half thousand pounds, cash in hand. ‘Just imagine how much drink you could buy with that.’ (he had red hair and a stutter so that explains why he hated everyone and therefore could use them for his own convenience).
The first thing my Mum, and I, as eldest and the adult of the three, knew of it was when my Dad came in, shamefaced, and admitted what he’d done.
My Mum is small, very small, and my Dad towered over her, a big man weakened by the input of legalised poisoned. I can see it, just like it happened minutes back, my massive Dad with his big head bowed, crying helplessly as my Mother, who barely came up to his mid-chest, coldly gave him the dressing down of his life. Then ordered him out. And he went, without argument, and disappeared for a while.
Then my Mother and me and my middle sister, who was fifteen then, (My youngest sister was only six, and mostly unaware of what was going on) got together and had a conference and then sent for the businessman and tried to bargain with him, using reasoning, informing him that there were others involved, and we would be losing our home, and this businessman informed us there was nothing any of us could do as he now held the deeds, and owned the roof over our heads. He then said he’d give us a while but not longer than six weeks, to get out of what was now his property.
Then my Mother and me asked him if we could buy the place back. We did a few sums, and it was worked out that if he accepted our combined wages, plus savings, we could scrape enough money for it to be ours again. My middle sister offered to open up and empty her own account to contribute.This man, made of stone as he was, was unmoved. Sorry, but we were now living on his property and he wanted it, to do up, (and he glanced around the room appraising, like it was all nothing but bricks and mortar and not a home, full of love and memories for us all).
Then my middle sister, face red, stood and I honestly thought she would kill him. Of the three of us, she was closest to my Dad, and she hated what he become and mostly hated anyone who took advantage of what he’d become. She told this man that the only reason why he was going to be a millionaire was because he cheated and thieved and lied.
The red haired owner shook his head and stuttered out that it was all legal, that the business was done, the deeds were passed, and there was nothing that could be done, and if my sister insisted on calling him a thief, he would see us in court.
Anyhow. . .
We got a place off the local council. It had hot water on demand in the taps and had three bedrooms, and because I was the oldest I got first pick and my two sisters shared and for the first time I had a bedroom of my own.
Not just a bed. A bedroom.
And it was lovely. I got hold of a chest of drawers with the drawers missing and packed it with books, lay a donated bed against one wall, set up a little office area, with my table and chair and put my typewriter and notepad and pens on it, and put my record player, a big bulky thing, on top of the book case and my cardboard box of records on the floor beside my bed alongside the book case.
I remember I spent hours not working or doing stuff around the house lay on my bed totally alone, not having to move up and make room for the other two. I didn’t have to type in the kitchen, because my typing disturbed my sisters. I didn’t have to fight over which record would be played next. I didn’t have to SHARE anything.
And all was content.
And then I came in from work one day and dumped by work bag on the kitchen table and said hello to my Mum and my Mum told the truth;
“Your Dad’s back.”
“Oh.”
“And he’s got your bedroom.”
“What?”
Anyhow, it turned out my Dad had been living on the mercy of his brother and his wife for a bit, and working on my Mother and combination of pity and affection had her giving in and letting him back. But many things would change. Including sleeping arrangements. My Dad looked around the bedrooms and decided he wanted mine ‘because it was the most comfortable looking.’
No one even asked me if I minded.
I got a few things and shifted into the biggest room with my sisters and we stayed that way until we moved again and my middle sister moved out and then my youngest sister and I got bedrooms of our own. I was heading for twenty-four before I managed to get that same level of pure, selfish aloneness again.
Life-changing events do really scour the old memory-banks and bring forth long-sleeping reminisces.
WELCOME DREAMS AND HAPPY REALITY
I had the craziest dream.
You know ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ film ‘The Lion, The Witch And the Wardrobe’? Well, there’s another in the series coming out soon (‘Prince Caspian’).
Anyhow, I dreamed that the Pevensie children, the four young people from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ were in a band together. The eldest (Peter) Will Moseley played guitar and did most of the lead singing and so did the other, dark haired boy (Ed) Skandar Keynes, only he played his left-handed. The older girl Anna Popplewell (Susan) was on drums and the baby of the family Georgie Henley* (Lucy) played percussion, a tambourine mostly. And they were on this stage with a not dazzling white background and I was watching and listening them.
They played mostly older stuff. ‘Blackberry Way’ and ‘Hold Tight’ and Skandar played the piano in one. They interacted with one another a lot and seemed very happy to be doing this. And it was very satisfying. In fact, when I awoke I lay for a moment disappointed because it was all over, and I’ve kept it alive by thinking of it and have been running it through my head all day.
Ah well, at least no one got murdered. . .
And by the way, I’ve got a place. As soon as the details are sorted out I’m going back home, to the town where I grew up.
*I like little Georgie Henley for a totally silly sentimental reason. She looks just like my middle sister, who is now forty, when she was about nine.
SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON : ‘YOU’RE SIXTEEN’ (RINGO STARR VERSION)
The song to end the weekend on is Ringo Starr singing ‘You’re Sixteen’.
I remember I used to go to a club (nothing over-exciting and convivial. No flashing lights and hammering music and GHB. Just a Friday evening after work club where you could get together and chat) in Town a bit back, and the DJ and me got friendly and she used to play it for me as I told her I liked it. Almost every weekend, she would start with this one when I present.
I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if my favourite then had been Rod Stewart singing ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’ or ‘Payback’ by Slayer. . .?
I know, not exactly after work club material, are they?
Never mind!
Enjoy, and,
a good week, if you’re sixteen and beautiful or just you.
HEADLINES I NEVER EXPECTED
I never expected Steven Wright to be found guilty of the series of murders known as ‘The Suffolk Strangler’ murders.
I have been following the evidence with an amount of care, and it all seemed to be extremely circumstantial, i.e., Mr Wright was seen talking to a woman who later became a victim, or Mr Wright admitted to having sex with four of the women (they were prostitutes, after all, and he hung around the area, so that wasn’t surprising.) And there is the matter of DNA left on them from him and from them on him. But he didn’t deny that he’d been hanging around with them.
Then there is the received wisdom in all the serial (spree?) killer psychology rule books that says that a man in his late forties* does not suddenly go out and kill several people over a matter of a few days without doing anything of this nature previously. A killer has to build up to it. As far as I know, and maybe more information will come out, Mr Wright never killed anyone until he picked up and murdered Gemma Adams, and then four others in ten days.
Given all this, I never ever thought he would be guilty.
And in the darkness just outside the possibility of speculation, hides the chance of some accomplice.
I believe, as an amateur student of such unhealthy rubbish, that we haven’t heard the end of this yet. That more facts will come out, when they are known, or already known and held back by those in the know.
And by the way, less unsavoury information; I know all about our Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion that Sharia( hard line Muslim based on religious writings) law might be acceptable in some parts of Britain, and I have got a massive posting planned, but well, I might be distracted over the next few days. You see, I have the chance of getting another place, more suitable for me. It’s just possible I might be going home, to the town where I grew up. More when it comes in.
*Before you say ‘Eddie Gein of Wisconsin was forty-eight when he pulled the trigger on Mary Hogan in 1954′ yes, but he had the reputation of being an odd-ball loner, and when the law visited his home in November 1957, looking for missing shop owner Bernice Worden, led by a receipt made out to Eddie Gein, they found body parts all over, because he had been digging up women for years, ever since the death of his Mother in 1945. And then there was the mystery of how his big brother Henry died, found unburned in the remains of a forest fire, with a massive wound on his head, in 1944. Nothing like that even hinted at in Steven Wright’s life. He seemed a thoroughly dislikeable man but certainly didn’t make those around him comment on how odd he seemed, sometimes to his face.
THE SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON : ‘RAMBLIN’ ROSE’
This weekend’s song to end the weekend on is the ABSOLUTELY BLOODY BUSINESS.
It’s Nat king Cole singing ‘Ramblin’ Rose’.
(ONE MORE TIME EVERYBODY NOW!)
I’ve no need to add anything else, bar as always,
Enjoy, and,
A good week, even if your own rose insists on rambling, or not.
FROM THE REPOSITORY OF IMAGINATION
I wrote this a bit back, and now after a bit of altering, I present it to you; I call it;
A C A S E O F T R A N S S P E C I E I S M
Tonight, we enter the world of the transspecie. These are creatures who believe they were born in the wrong species, and are another species who just inhabit the body of the species in which they were born. There are very few recorded incidents of transspecieism, but it is a true medical condition and has been acknowledged so by medical science.
Because of the nature of the condition, and beings attitude towards it, it has been difficult to uncover a true example, but after much searching we have managed to uncover the case of the cat who believes that inside she in, in fact, a dog.
Jessica is a perfectly formed and physically healthy cat, with all the known cat traits and responses, but ever since being a kitten, she suspected that she was different from her litter mates.
We managed to gain an interview with Jessica, which is not her real name, on conditions of strict anonymity. So, we are going to alter her appearance and her voice to save any persecution that might come her way if any hint of her real personality is let out.
JESSICA IS PHOTOGRAPHED IN BLURRY SHADOW, SO HEAVY THAT IT’S HARD TO TELL THAT SHE IS A CAT AT ALL. APART FROM THE SLIGHTLY STICKY UP EARS, SHE JUST IS A BLUR.
INTERVIEWER: now, could you tell us how long you suspected that you weren’t all you were meant to be?
JESSICA: (With voice electronically disguised and with all the emotions removed but with a noticeable Mancunian accent.): Well, ever since being a kitten. You know, at home with my family.
I: And what were the first signs that told you?
J: Well, I was born into a large and happy family. My Mother loved us and cared for us. My earliest memories were of laying alongside my Mother and playing with my brothers and sister. But then something happened that made me consider that maybe I wasn’t what I should be.
I: And what was that?
J: Well. . .I woke up one morning and there was another creature in the house.
I: You saw it?
J: No. . .not at first. . .I could smell it, you know, scent it, and my Mother was nervous and my brothers and sister were a bit tense then something odd happened.
I: And that was?
J: I could recognise the smell. . .well, not recognise, but it felt familiar. Right, you know, like? Like it was something that I’d always needed and that had been missing from my life.
I: And how old were you then, approximately?
J: About. . .dunno. . .four, five weeks old.
I: And how did you respond?
J: I went. . .I wanted to get closer to the scent and smell and find out who this was that made me feel like I belonged.
I: You never felt it before?
J: No. There were two legs walking about. You know, humans. They fed my Mother and were there but never interfered and well, it wasn’t that smell. Then the door opened.
I: To the room where you were?
J: Yeah. . .and this creature came in. . .snuffling and grunting and. . .it was like. . .well, my Mother wasn’t my Mother and this was closer to me that any relative I known so far.
I: And what did you do?
J: I went. . .to it. . .over to it. . .and tried to speak to it, and welcome it. I believe I called it ’sister’. Then my Mother got between us and swore violently at this creature and snatched me up, she gripped at the back of my neck to make me go limp, you know, to stop me struggling and lifted me up. Then a two legs arrived and removed it, this creature, this thing which was a dog and a sister and apparently one of the two legs owned it. Chuckles
I: What makes you laugh like that?
J: Well, owned it. . .like it’s possible for one being to own another. And yet. . .unlike my fellows I wasn’t upset or offended, I wasn’t naturally disgusted and. . .cats have a phrase, ‘turned off’ which means it’s something that is totally wrong and alien to cats. And I wasn’t turned off by the idea of being owned by a two legs, rather than just lodging with one till something better came along. It seemed right. . .instead of just lodging, being owned seemed natural to me.
I: How did you Mother respond?
J: At first she was relieved, you know, that the creature, the ‘enemy four-legs’ hadn’t harmed me. Then she gave me a good wash to get rid of the stink and my brothers and sisters came round to us and they started asking me what I was playing at, that that creature was an enemy on four legs, a deadly enemy, that everything it stood for was against everything we cats stood for, and there was me, going up to it, greeting it, and calling it ’sister’.
I: And what was your response?
J: I didn’t know what to say or how to respond or anything. I mean, how are you supposed to react when you feel more natural with someone who is a member of a species who is an enemy of yours? Or even if you feel you ARE a member of that species?
I: And then what happened?
J: Oh well. For a while I never even thought of it. Life was good. Contentment reigned. And then the day came when I went out for my first parade. That’s walk around, exploring, in cat talk. And this day I wandered off on my own.
I: How old were you?
J: About twelve, sixteen weeks. Still very young in my attitude also. Anyhow, I walked off and there was another one, another of the enemy, the four legged enemy. And. . .well, it was like a tugging feeling, in my heart. I wanted to go over to this enemy and lay down beside it and be with it.
I: What was it doing?
J: Oh, just hanging around, you know, how dogs do. Sniffing at something on the ground. So I went up to it and spoke to it and it turned and gave me such a look and then swore at me in it’s own language and ran at me. I ran and ran back to my gate and climbed up it and I was standing at the top of the gate and asking it why it was attacking me when I was the same as it.
I: And then what happened?
J: My Mum was there, and two of my brothers. And they were staring at me in absolute horror. And I got down and managed to convince ‘em it was all a joke. You know, mocking one of them. Well, when I think about it, when I say I managed to convince ‘em, it wasn’t my Mum I convinced. My brothers and sisters, they accepted it, because they behaved in the same way, mischievous, dog baiting. But my Mum kept looking at me and I knew that she knew.
I: She never mentioned anything?
J: No. What could she say? That she knew that her eldest daughter was in fact in heart and soul, a. . .dog.
I: You hesitated a long time before you said the ‘d’ word.
J: I know. Laughter. Even now, all these years later, I find it hard to admit that I am, inside, in reality, not what I seem to be. That I am a dog.
I: And then after this, what?
J: I was taken on by a two legs, a human, and this human was very loving and gentle towards me, let me sleep in her bed with her and never made me do anything I didn’t want to do. But yet although I felt loved and wanted, I never ever felt truly what I outwardly was, a cat.
I: You were saying about when you were with this loving two legs, although you had everything you could want, you felt a bit wrong, like inside the wrong body.
J: Yes, yes, that’s it, exactly. I was a cat outside but a dog inside. And this went on for a while. I felt hurt and rejected, forced to live a life of unhappy compromise. Dogs didn’t accept me because I was a cat outside and cats, well, cats could tell.
I: It must have been a very, lonely, frustrating time.
J: You can’t imagine. For ever such a long time, I felt neither one nor the other. Until I met Eric.
I: Eric?
J: One day, the human I share my life with came in and told me she had a surprise for me and she stood by and in came Eric.(Note:A pseudonym). A dog, a four legs, who wasn’t an enemy. He came into the house. A small, lean thing he was. Not much bigger than me. And he came over to me and it was so natural for us to greet one another with a kiss. And all that night we lay awake and talked about life, and discussed my problem and he explained it wasn’t a problem, it was a recognised condition called transspecieism. And it was like I was released from my prison and I could turn around and see myself for what I was, and I was no longer ashamed or confused.
I: And how is life now?
J: Me and Eric are still together and happy. Our human accepts us, is there when we need her, but mostly leaves us be.
I: What about the rest of your family?
J: I lost contact with ‘em after leaving. I still see a couple of my brothers, and my Mum from time to time. But we never really talk about anything, deep you know.
I: Never talk about feelings and preferences?
J: No, no, never. But, well, I’m happier with Eric than I ever could be with members of my own outward, kind.
I: That’s a lovely story, Jessica. Thank you.
J: Yeah, but not everyone is as happy as we are. There are hundreds of transspecieists out there, trapped and lonely, forced into relationships that are unnatural to them.
I: What advice would you give to those who suspect they have family members who are transspecieists?
J: Be kind with them. Understanding and gentle. It hurts them to know that they are not what they seem to be. Never insult them or drive them away. Accept. And of course, allow them to meet members of the species to which they really belong.
I: What about those who believe they are transspecieists?
J: Well, what you have to remember is there is always someone out there who you belong with. Never let anyone condemn you or criticise you or say you are going through a phase. There is someone for everyone and given enough time, and an understanding two legs, for we all have to rely on the vagaries of the two legs on this planet, we will meet someone, the right one for us. I was four, almost, when I met my Eric. I’m almost nine now, Eric’s a bit older, and we’re as happy as the day we first met. The wait was indeed worth it. And Eric agrees.
I: A lovely tale, Jessica.
J: May I add one more thing?
I: Of course.
J: This is for everyone, transspecieist or not. Remember that we are all species, and share this planet, and to make division amongst us because we are meant not to mix is wrong.
I: Thank very much, Jessica. Thank you for having the courage to be interviewed. And I hope that you and Eric are happy together for many years to come.
J: Thank you for allowing me to express my true self. Thank you from the both of us. Me and Eric, forever.
T H E E N D
THE FORBIDDEN CRITIQUE OF HOLY THINGS
Have you heard the latest in the war of religion v freethought?
A chap named Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP, has put together a short (ten minute) film* in which is shows that the Koran is an inspiration for murder. Now the Iranian justice minister, a one Gholam Hussein Elham has written to Ernst Hirsch Ballin his counterpart in the Netherlands, informing him that to insult the Koran is of Satan, and is mocking belief for the sake of it, and a holy thing such as this should not be treated like everything else. Best of all, Mr Wilders has been advised to leave the country to save himself from harm.
Now, before I say anything else, holy actually means ’set apart’. To make something holy is to give it a special, important position on it’s own beyond the reach of ordinary thoughts and philosophies. And of course, the question to be asked is; Can any writing can be considered off limits to criticism? And of course the answer is, no. Writings are fair game for analysis, critique, and commentary. Just because a group of men reckon a certain set of writings are to be elevated above others, and considered more important than human life, doesn’t make it a truth. In fact, any writing claiming such a profoundly powerful position should be freely examined and checked to see exactly what it contains.
I’ve got a paperback copy of the Koran and I’m having a go at reading it, and so far it seems to be about how Allah doesn’t like this, and Allah doesn’t like this. Even the bunch of Bronze Age fairytales found in the Bible are better written and a more exciting read than this. (Apart from the tedious victory of the lord in every situation. You’d have thought that everyone would have given up rebelling against the lord since he wins every fight, usually by using the ground to swallow up those who disagree, or send death-dealing plagues onto even those who just happen to be alive at a time when he decides the contract made with a king dead two hundred years should be kept. Exciting stuff! Don’t ask why he didn’t mind the people not making the proscribed gestures to appease him for a time then suddenly decided everyone had to suffer for forgetting what their great-ancestors did, without even a reminder from him. And why he isn’t so keen on spiflicating people now for not worshipping properly, even though he hasn’t clearly told us what the proper way is.)
I’m not trying to bring a death sentence on myself, but surely men should engage their god given reason, not be shackled by terror at being burned for eternity, and think. No writing is holy. None.
And if someone who doesn’t believe in the same set of religious writings you do, please don’t make out that their freedom to say ‘I don’t agree’ should be taken away. In their writings, in their lives, in their thoughts.
And please don’t threaten those of us who don’t agree with the death sentence. Killing people for having a different opinion is extremely childish, babyish. Grow up and accept that those of us who live in the boundless avenues of blessed freethought might not appreciate being threatened with harm for looking at things another way. And we might react in ways that you in your closed in little world, held in by the writings of someone dead centuries, might not like what we can do.
That’s all we ask. We don’t want to stop you Islamists living your life according to the writings of an ancient book. We just want the right to do the same, live our lives by our own creed. And if the two worlds meet, there is plenty of room for reasoned debate and intelligent critique from both sides.
And who knows, if you believers in religion show you are able to take criticism, you might engage our attention. There is nothing like a reasoned debate to clear the air and blow away the centuries of accumulated dust and allow in light and fresh ideas and maybe even allow a person to look at what they considered holy, or beyond criticism, from another, less admiring angle.
*Although, to be fair, in this age of YouTube, ten minutes can be a very long time.
PLANS AND HOPES
Next week, I’m going to take time off to go and see the science fantasy picture ‘Jumper’. I saw the trailer clip when I was in the screen room waiting for ‘The Golden Compass’ to begin and was tempted and now it’s come out onto the big screen and if you go before 5pm it’s only £5:00 to get in plus with it being a school day there will be no kids around.
And by the way, I didn’t give into my desire and go next door and kill the noisy bitch inhabiting the building, so don’t think I am sitting with a smashed corpse behind the connecting wall and have decided I am going to live life a bit before I turn myself in.
WISHES AND CURSES
I am of the belief that reading of other people’s woes is brain-cell killing but at the moment am in the situation where I can’t get a suitable remove (a flat with all one on level) until I get rid of my cats and that isn’t going to happen.
AND NOW MY IGNORANT, DRUGGIE, ALCOHOL SWILLING, SMELLY HUMAN BEING NEIGHBOUR WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE MORE ACCEPTABLE THAN MY QUIET, NON SMELLY, INOFFENSIVE CATS, IS PLAYING HER MUSIC SO LOUD THE WALL SEPARATING MY AND HER HOUSE IS VIBRATING AND NO ONE CAN OR WILL DO ANYTHING ABOUT HER.
You know, the way things are, I might just deviate from my ‘killing someone without their permission is the worst thing you can do’ rule and go in and DO HER IN. Shut her music off by hitting her player with her head and then carrying on till her brains spill out onto the plastic covering. And then come back into my house and get a blessed nights sleep before ringing the police around about dinner time later on today.
I have never had experience of such things, but being on remand for murder surely must mean quiet nights.
THOUGHTS ON DARWIN’S DAY
Happy Darwin day all you Freethinkers and Theists out there.
If you want to celebrate the day of this man, who was ready for training to be a minister but took a gap year on the Beagle to the Galapagos Islands, and studied finches and turned the world upside down, then get hold of a copy of ‘the Origin of Species’. (I’ve had my copy for ages, it’s a battered paperback and it cost me the princely sum of £5:99) Then read it. Then take on board what he had to say. That we are here today because at one time one creature on the Savannah was born with the ability to stretch upright, and she was the one who was the original human being.
Evolution is still in action today. That’s why rats are getter harder to poison, because one is born with an immunity to poison, survives, and replicates itself with the same genetic code in-built. It can actually be seen working in the microscopic world of viruses; at one time, antibiotics wiped out almost all the viruses, but those born with a propensity to shrug off the attack bred and now viruses are one step ahead of human attempts to control them.
The beauty of evolution: there is no need for god, for an involved creator. It is based on blind chance, a genetic dance forming a mutation that works for the species’ good. Plus, human beings believe that they can beat evolution and they are trying, but the already mentioned viruses and rats prove they cannot, they will always be one step behind, stumbling in the wake of evolution, as it moves on and ahead and spreads out.
Thanks to Charles Darwin, we can be free to BE, and not worry about some god looking down on us and threatening us with hell unless we behaviour against our nature and believe the unreasonable.
In Darwin’s memory, it’s all the best to all you seekers out there. Keep going. Don’t be held by by anything you think is true, the received wisdom from the works of others. Who knows, you might end up with a day dedicated to you.
One more time; happy Darwin day.
WHAT DO YOU RECKON? (THE TIME IS COMING)
OK then, I’m no longer a Christian. I don’t believe in any kind of involved deity or deities.
So what do I believe? What do I reckon is true?
From the age of sixteen* to forty-one, I believed in the one true god, maker of things seen and unseen, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I walked along the narrow way until reason and logic, things not fitting without ramming them in and forcing them hard into place, got me off the path.
That’s almost a quarter of a century being told what to think and how to think.
Now, almost three years after freeing myself from the self imposed shackles of a pretend truth, I am at last able to form my own ideas and notions, my own philosophy, on things.
I’ll attempt to write it like a creed, instead of a list.
There is no involved god. IF god exists in any form, he is the god of the deist, who set everything up, put together the blueprint that got the universe machine churning out evolution and the working of the seasons, and then went far, far away.
Human beings are not basically good and decent. Never turn your back on one. Human beings are guilty till proven innocent. If you 100% trust one, step back, and have another think.and apply reason as to why you think this.
Reason beats emotion every time.
Imagination is a powerful in-built part of a person that has to be handled with care but can provide a necessary escape hatch at vital times.
The life of a scholar, a reader, the loner life of a private academic driven leaner, is better than the spontaneous, act before thinking, convivial personality.
There is nothing after death. This life is all we have, and we have to make the best of it.
Killing anything for any reason (unless it’s on the request of the killee) is wrong.
We are the superior animal, which means we should use our position to see to it our fellow travellers on this earth are not abused or exploited. There is nothing noble or courageous about using your superior strength to harm or distress. That is bullying.
Don’t interfere with the workings of nature and evolution. Other species have as much right as you to be left alone to get on with it.
No one is going to save us from this earth even if we believe the unbelievable, and act against our nature.
No one is going to condemn us to any form of eternal punishment if we can’t believe the unreasonable and act along with our nature.
We should work to make the streets clean and golden on earth instead of keeping others subservient by promising them streets of gold in some untouchable, un-knowable after-life.
The future lies in free and frank thought, open scientific enquiry, and the past is superstition-driven, unimaginative letter-of-the-law tight-held non-thought.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
We should all, to our ability, think for ourselves, make our own minds up about subjects and matters.
There is no such thing as thought-crime or write-crime. If you imagine something and put that imagination down in words, that should be beyond any possible prosecution.
One size fits all : NO!
The only people who personally have nothing to add to the world are the dead and the comatose.
Everyone should have the right and the chance to make the best of what they have. Some people can’t master reading, others find it almost impossible to handle tools to any degree. They should be trained in what they can do and not in what they can’t.
Down with all borders. Free travel across this earth of ours is the only way we can save the planet and see to it other species have the same freedoms as we have.
Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. If you walk about pushing people to one side, don’t be shocked if you get it back.
Eat when you want, drink, smoke ingest any substance you choose, but don’t do it near me and don’t expect me to clean up the mess.
That’s it for now. I probably haven’t made a full list, and one day I might alter this beyond present recognition. But as for now, this is my personal creed. And part of the fun is striding across a thought-landscape unhindered, picking up ideas and philosophies, trying them on, and deciding if they fit and or comfortable, and then if they do, adopt them as your own, and if they don’t, discard them and move away, thankful you don’t have to carry them about when they don’t suit or are uncomfortable. Someone once said, we are like children on the beach, scratching a few inches below the surface, while a whole ocean of knowledge stretches out unnoticed in front of us. The scratching part is really pleasant and satisfying in itself.
*I started my involvement in the world of Christianity at sixteen in the late Spring of 1980, was seventeen in the August and said the sinner’s prayer, therefore binding myself to Jesus and letting him take over my life, in the December. Therefore although I wasn’t officially a Christian, according to the teaching of the sect I attended, until seventeen, I actually started at the services and was a believer at sixteen. I finally admitted it was all fiction in the Spring of 2005, when I was forty-one.
SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON : ‘LOVE IS A STRANGER’
This weekend’s song to end the weekend on is from Eurythmics and it’s ‘Love Is A Stranger’.
Because Eurythmics and Annie Lennox seem to specialise in composing darker love songs, describing the truth that love is not always wonderful and beautiful and healing and welcoming. Sometimes it can grip you and make you head down roads you would never have thought of, force you into losing control and cause unbelievable hurt and make you dance to tunes that are destructive and agonising and yet;
‘I want you so it’s an obsession’.
Enjoy
And. . .
A good week, even if you’re obsessed with someone or it don’t flaming matter and you realise it isn’t worth the effort.
