Where Procrastination Meets Apathy - I won't care tomorrow.

A friend of mine who I haven’t talked to in over a decade (and I figured had forgotten all about me) sudden popped out of nowhere and started talking to me again.  Past the initial “where have you been?!” surprise phase, we started talking about various things and my beliefs came up.  This is a common question as mine are a little off kilter, so I decided to finally jot down a good dose of what, at this moment, my beliefs are in various fields.

First of all, religion and spirituality.  As everyone who knows me already knows, I’m an atheist.  I have absolutely no belief or faith in a supreme being of any nature.  There is no bearded man in the sky, no noodley monster, no giant space turtle, and no menagerie of gods for every aspect of our lives.

Now, this aside, we have the reasoning behind this.  It’s an absurd notion.  Every tale of a higher power is no more fantastical than another story of fables and myths.  Science has explained an incredible amount and constantly explaining more.  What was once magic and the power of gods is now the power of man and harnessed.  This will continue to be the case

 The other thing where science excels where religion seems impossible to move on is adaptability of principle.  Religion establishes itself and then is done, it doesn’t move from that movement aside from possibly absorbing other religious beliefs to absorb those other religions’ followers.

Science, on the other hand, tests with what it has, attempts to prove itself, and stands by the result.  However, should new information present itself, should new factors or elements prove the idea otherwise, science accepts, revises, and continues on.

I used to be much more militaristic towards religion.  Very aggressively argued against it.  I’ve eased up a little but only as I’ve grown to understand my own feeling towards it: I don’t get it.  I don’t see a reason for it.  Myths, of course, and stories that tell morals or create heroes, but to live your entire existence based on such things doesn’t make any sense.  It’s like looking for answers through Occam’s Razor.  Why does this work?  God did it.  Why does this river flow south?  Because Vishnu wills it.  Why are there waves?  Poseidon makes them.

I can see why it continues, though.  Again, the answers.  People are afraid of the unknown and instead of waiting for the veil to be pulled back they’d rather have a comforting answer.  There’s also the camaraderie around it.  I’m a Shintoist, Tom is a Shintoist, and so’s Jane.  We all hang out together because of our common beliefs.  There’s also the simple matter of one’s upbringing.  Your parents were Jewish, you were raised Jewish, it’s engrained into your mind, so you stick with being Jewish.

I don’t fault anyone for this, there are a multitude of reasons why someone is religious, I just don’t see a point why people would stay with it.  Why, with such a wide variety of information available, with the nature of the world itself, that anyone would stick with being religious.  However there are the inherently bad things with religion that I do, however, find myself appalled at witnessing.

Such things as genocide, hatred, crusades, discrimination, racism, and a disregard for humankind as a whole because of these religious beliefs.  People blowing themselves up in front of crowded restaurants, men gunning down women and children because it’s their Godly duty, people slaughtering entire countries because they’re not Christian.  It’s disgusting, it’s horrific, and it follows along the same line of lack of personal thought and responsibility that gets bred out of this line of thinking.

This does not mean, however, that I’m void of spirituality.  Reincarnation, however, is a strong belief of mine.  Laugh if you will, but my strongest reasoning for this is the Law of Thermodynamics itself.  Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and we all have power within us and when we die, what happens to that energy?  It moves on, it becomes part of another system, whether it be the plants and animals or another life entirely.

Ghost, spirits, demons, phantoms, what have you I have a skeptical view of.  I’ve never seen one, never experienced anything that would be considered supernatural.  However, it could very well be that energy I spoke of earlier simply manifesting itself through whatever bonds have not yet been discovered.  Then again, it could simply be people that want a story and create it themselves.

I believe in the power of humanity, I have faith in my friends and family, and I feel that not much is beyond us if we stop fighting amongst ourselves first.  This could be inexplicably linked to the whole religion thing, but not completely.  Some people are just plain ignorant and angry anyways.  We’re a crowded planet, so someone is bound to rub someone else the wrong way.

 

Some may or may not know this, but I’m polyamorous.  This may be a good reason why some of my beginning relationships didn’t work too well.  I don’t feel comfortable being boxed in, locked down, or restrained and the idea that any one person only has enough devoted love for only one other person is a type of artificial restriction I can’t abide by.

A common misconception of polyamory is that it means the same person is also a swinger.  This is false, especially with me.  I’m not stating that I have enough love for more than one person simply as an excuse to sleep with whoever I like.  For me to consider such things, I need to have a vested emotion and relationship with such a person.  This has become increasingly true as I’ve matured and come to this realization about myself.

At this moment there are two people I feel strongly for, incredibly so.  “In love,” as some would say.  While, yes, I do have a much stronger relationship with one over the other, that doesn’t mean I discount my feelings in any way for the other.  I love them both dearly, would do anything for them, and place their happiness equal to, if not above, my own.

Love is one of those powerful human conditions that is just part of who we are.  As such, there is no reason to restrict it.  Gay people, be gay!  Genetically you are so there’s no point in hiding it.  You love each other, it’s fantastic you have that feeling, relish it.  The very idea that someone would want to stop such things, restrict them or even ban them, is despicable.  No one should have any right to control any other person’s emotions or any say in their private life at all.  If you don’t like it, look the other way.  Avoid places those people frequent and ignore them.  No, they won’t go away, but they won’t be near you.  Trust me; they don’t want to be anywhere near you either so it’s a win-win situation.

I also feel that sex and sexuality is stupidly over-criticized in America.  Sadly, I don’t have any worldly knowledge to honestly compare this to, but I have my own opinion so here it is.  Anyone can go see a movie depicting blood, gore, and all matter of violence.  Yet we hide away films of sexuality, showing nude people, or even (*gasp*) sex it’s heavily restricted, hidden away in windowless stores, and people feel dirty or ashamed if they’re seen with it.

Censorship on this is almost comical to the point of head-shaking sadness.  Women, beware!  Those symbols of your femininity on your chest that provide nourishment to your children, well, don’t you dare let those be seen.  Oh, well, you can show as much of the breast as you like, but heaven forbid anyone sees that nipple!  The very corruption of the youth is at risk if you do.  Oh, and your internal sex organs, the one’s we can’t see, don’t let the entrance be seen either.  True, we all came out of one, but never should he have to look upon it again!

Guys have it easy, all they need to do is make sure their ugly, dangly bits never see the light of day.  I have, personally, no problem with this but of course that’s biased because I have no interest in said bits and think they’re ugly.

You could probably gather at this point that I have no problem with porn.  Enjoy it, actually.  It’s fun, makes stress relief easy, and is usually more funny than anything else, as it should be.  Sex should be fun, playful, loving, and joyful.  If you’ve never laughed at least once during sex then you’re doing it wrong.  Not to say your bedroom should sound like you have a laugh track turned on, but different moods should be welcome.  By all means, though, when the mood strikes, go at it like animals and make no apologies… except if you accidentally hurt someone.  That always ruins the fun.

 

The political nature of the world is another bit that bothers me.  There are a lot of swaying as far as this is concerned on my own part.  A lot of things I can see merit in.  A strong military for defense, but you shouldn’t be knocking down other people’s doors under the false pretense of “defending freedom.”  Social care programs should be in place to catch people when they’re down, but there should be enough regulation and restrictions to make sure people don’t abuse it.  Things along these lines.

                As there are so many various things that can be talked about I’ll try to focus on the big ones what have been in the news or discussed recently.  First, because it popped into my head, is this big bailout that’s being talked about.  Banks, well, they screwed up.  They shouldn’t have been trading mortgages and loans like they’re a commodity.  It’s a lack there of.  Honestly, I think they should fall through the cracks and disappear.  The financial state of the nation needs to move away from private banks anyway to ensure a stable system.

The motor companies, I’m not quite so sure about.  They probably messed up big time as well to be falling into debt so quickly.  However, the motor companies also provide this country with a whole mess of blue and white collar jobs.  Entry level positions and middle-class jobs that this country desperately needs.  As such, I do believe that they should have assistance in getting back on their feet as they rebudget to fix whatever they messed up on to get themselves into such a whole.  Personally, I think whacking a whole digit off of the salaries of the CEOs and Presidents and upper-level mucky mucks would help immensely.  They can all give themselves fat raises that rockets them to over 246 times their average worker’s wage later, after they got their shit together.

Church-State Separation should be a given.  This is a country of many beliefs, many creeds, and many traditions.  As such, the government sponsoring any one religion is just a recipe for discrimination and a distinct lack of equal rights.  This should be true for any nation, I feel.  Religion is a personal matter.  A fine example of how personal it is is my favorite twins.  Both are Christian, both have been raised the same, but both have wildly different ideas of what “Christianity” means and what their core beliefs are.  If sisters who were raised the same, grew up going to the same churches and having the same indoctrinations don’t have the same ideas about their own faith, how could an entire nation of over three hundred million people possibly follow the same ideas?

 

I’ve been typing at this for a while and I think I’ve drained my brain pretty well.  However, I’m also always up for questions.  I love answering questions and if people are truly curious about my beliefs, I’m only more than happy to answer them.  So there we are: a brief rundown.  Enjoy.

They were planning on making a Twilight game for the XBox 360, but during development they discovered that the PS3 was the only system with a VPU powerful enough to handle the complex particle system needed for the SPARKLE!

Took Drea and the kiddos to the Aquarium on Sunday.  They had a diver in the main tank just as you walked in.  Made me sad that it wasn't me.  Or that I hadn't done any diving since September.  Really need to get working on that.  But we're members now, so we can go back any time we want, which I hope to take advantage of as I really do enjoy the aquarium and might need to go by myself sometime so I can go at a much more leisurely pace.

That aside, while we were there I saw a... person... that signified everything that was wrong with America in pure embodiment.  Truly frightening.  It was a clearly obese child of around 10 years old, seeming to generate candy wrappers on to the floor (no, he didn't pick them up), wearing a "Jesus is Lord" or some such t-shirt, and whining to his mom about this thing or the other without just looking and enjoying the wide array of aquatic wonderment that surrounded him in this large dome.  Just wanted to slap the kid and his parents on principle and chew them out for bothering to reproduce.

People like this are the pissers in the gene pool.  Idiocracy, here we come.

So I owe someone a blog post.  Frankly, I'm horrifically overdue.  I'm just terrible at upkeeping these things and I doubt that it'll ever change.  Oh well, might as well do the dirty deed and slap what I got going on up here, so here goes:

Life has taken a very drastic and pleasent turn.  It involves a very dear love of my life, her two kids, and the fact we all live together finally.  That's a big point.  Drea (a letter short of 'dream' and an anagram for 'dear') is finally permanently in my life.  Very good thing.  We're finally the unstoppable team we always knew we could be if we ever got out shit together.  Well guess what, suckahs!  We DID!

Now she's doing the writer thing, gonna be published and all, and I'm doing the paycheck thing.  I work for a website company called Cobalt.  They make website for car dealerships.  Doing very well for themselves, provide their employees with great benefits, have a very open and fun attitude, and quite frankly I'd be content with sticking with them for a good long time.  Especially since they seem keen on the idea of telephony - working remotely.  Since my job entails me making changes to websites and the like and not (see NOT) talking to customers, I could do this from ANYWHERE with a net connection.

Which leads me to my next persuit.  I have not given up on diving.  It's just on hold while I establish my life a little more solidly.  The company I technically work for, Seattle Dive, hasn't called me since February, not even about their website, which is "under construction" until they get me four stinking pictures so I can finish it.  As such, I haven't done any real dive work since September.  This makes me very sad.  I really enjoy commercial diving.  I love being under the water, I love doing manual labor, and I love making things... and destroying them.

My current goal is to stay at Cobalt full time and work remotely when I'm on a dive job, which I'm hoping to get at least two to three weeks every other month.  That would be a good start.  Then I hope to go back to school.  I've really determined that if I'm going to get anywhere I need that stupid piece of paper.  The current endeavor: a masters in hydrological engineering.  I'm pretty sure it exists.  Not terribly interested in hydraulics, but researching and designing new and improved tools for commercial diving.  I have a couple of fantastic ideas that, I feel, will revolutionize the industry... but I don't know how to execute it.  For obvious reasons I shall not share those ideas online.

So there we are.  Life is good, things are going smoothly, and all is well.  Nothing has exploded yet and we're doing okay.  Hopefully I'll work a little harder on keeping this up to date, especially since I have a live-in nag to make sure it gets done.  Cheers all.

What happens when you have a dream where your step-mom looks just like a hotter version of Pamela Anderson, seems interest in you, but instead of exploring that relationship you're instead going on a epic adventure in a world reminiscent of Hyrule to commit excitement much akin to James Bond crossed with Lord of the Rings?  This is the effect of sleep deprivation, I believe.  I really have no clue what to make of it.  It's very confusing.

Seriously, people, thanks for the load of support.  And folks gripe when I don't update.  Eat me.

In other news, "pod slurping" is my new favorite term, and something I plan on practicing more often.  If you must, look it up.  I promise you, though, that your imagination is much more exciting then what it actually is.

August 8^th, at around 8pm, my best friend, little brother of spirit, and compatriot Brandin Johns passed away.  Born with congenital heart disease, he lived 25 years longer then he was supposed to.  Dealt with a bad hand from the beginning of the game; Brandin cheated, bluffed, dared, and starred down death until yesterday.  Finally pulling the Deadman’s Hand of aces and eights (8/8 @ 8) but the odds are always on the house.  His last chip was lost as I watched them slowly shut down his life support.

We made an interesting pair.  Opposites at the surface but inseparable at the core.  His short, lanky frame a comical tangent to my tall, bulky self.  His twisted, sardonic attitude a clash with my warm, jovial demeanor.  He taught me that evil can be entertaining and I taught him that there is good in people despite the thick layers you have to chip through.

He was immensely powerful inside.  Never backing down, never giving up, holding himself bravely over the crashing waves of his own body shutting down and medical doubt of his survival.  Thanks heavily to his beloved Niccy he enjoyed a happy handful of years, taking pleasure in everything he could or that his body would allow him to do.  He was able to go to Hawaii and soak up the sun and surf, he was able to see his childhood dream of the Transformers movie finally coming to the big screen, he was able to play games and enjoy a touch of fantasy.

His spirit was indomitable… but the universe gave him a bad heart to stop him from taking over.

Still trying to get this right.  Didn't realize the audio was crap at the time, sorry.  Will get better as I do this.

Yeah, first one.  Go Me.  I'm sick.  Still trudging along.  Woo.

So I finally got to see Casion Royale.  Left from work and went with one of my co-workers because, dammit, I wanted to see a movie and I hate doing stuff alone.  Thankfully he wanted to see it anyway and didn't have anything else to do so it didn't take much to talk him into it.

Amazing.  I don't know if it was the best Bond flick I've ever seen but it sure as hell ranks up there.  Very clear developement of how Bond became Bond and Daniel Greg did an amazing job as Bond.  I really enjoyed it.  It was a surprisingly long movie but I didn't notice.  Just remember going in, then coming out and blinking at my watch... thing was about two and a half hours long.  Anyway, go see, it's a great flick.  Now I'm off to wash my drysuit.