Are you happy?

I love this question. It is always asked by someone who thinks they have the answer to this question. It's always a trap...that I love falling for, only for the sake of the argument that follows. Religion is the typical solution offered. But little does the poor soul know that I have an extensive background in the subject. I try to disguise my excitement and slowly reel them in with a series of awesome questions.

I am depressed...I feel like I'm missing something.

Can this give me eternal peace and happiness?

So, you are happy???

It's funny to me...the answers they give. Sure, religion offers peace and happiness, but it doesn't exempt you from depression or sadness or pain. Nowhere does it say that...much like those Al Queda and their 30 virgins the only real promises they can make involve nothing they can prove. It's all fairy tales and unicorns.

Well...I never said you'd ALWAYS be happy.

God wouldn't let that happen to you...unless he WANTED to, plus He only gives you what you can handle. Ya...up to the point of death, so there is no limit just feel good promises.

I don't say all this out of spite for being burned by religion..ok, I PARTLY say that out of spite but I do like to think I'm partially objective (maybe I'm blinded just like I think my religious counterparts are blinded). I just can't stand the lures used and then the reality that's given after by these people. Just follow your religion and be honest about it...or does that make it too difficult to sell?

Quick thought

I'll pitch this as a "program" with no defined form of media at this point.

Said program would entail a few people revisiting the same topic of conversation over time. Reflecting on what they felt about the topic at different times in their life all the way up to now and what caused them to have those viewpoints.

Example types of people:
World War II Generation
Baby Boomer Generation
Generation X
Generation Y
Geneartion (Emo?)
Homeless
Rich

Example topics:
Having a Black President
Technology
Trust of our Government
Foreign Viewpoints
Drugs
Economy
Music
Religion

Just dabbling with ideas right now...I have always been intrigued with peoples viewpoints on certain subjects and trying to understand why they think the way they do. Why does my grandfather hate interracial relationships? I hear the answer, "it's a generational thing" but he is all for equality and against racism so what's the big deal? I would love to heare HIS answer and compare it to someone of say my generation give their viewpoint.

Marriage

The more I think about marriage the more I think it is so backwards I just don't understand it. And I don't say that because divorce rates are so high...I say it because I can't see myself being married before the age of 40, if ever. I don't have a problem with commitment, I have a problem with how naive people are towards commitment. Christians are probably the worst, driven by youthful lust they get married and wake up from a haze years later only to realize that they might have made a mistake, but now stuck because of their faith, they duke it out for years and it may turn out all right but they end up asking "What if?". Or those that think they are in love with someone and get married, because that's what you do when you are in love only to find out that they married a piece of garbage of a person and now have to go through the pains of divorce.

Marriage is supposed to be forever and yet most people choose someone while they are still getting an education or not long after they just started working. On average, most people get married right after the first quarter of their life. They have just gone through some of the most drastic changes in their life and they are deciding on who they want to spend the other three quarters of their life with? That, to me, is absurd. It's such a crap shoot that I don't want to even think about it. I am still trying to figure out who I am and what I like, how am I going to know what kind of person I want to spend the rest of my life with? Even when I think I do find that person I am going to take a long time in making that final step...I think marriage should be a celebration of a long standing commitment, not a promise of future commitment. What if, after twenty years with someone you finally got married? You finally celebrated this commitment to one another. You finally went on a honeymoon. To me, that is more beautiful than a traditional marriage.

I guess that's my definition of what kind of girl I'm looking for...one that understands what this post means to me.

Perception

If perception is reality then what is real to one person is not real to someone else. Whose reality is the true reality,and is there anyway to measure it? Even if you can measure a person's perceived reality as being false and show them the results, getting them to acknowledge that everything they had believed is not the true reality would be extremely difficult. What if that reality isn't a physical reality but a belief...you can't measure a belief and so you can't prove it.

At the purest fundamental aspect of religion, a person ultimately chooses to believe in a religion and make it their reality. Maybe they made that choice because it was the same choice as their parents. Maybe it's because it is their nations religion. But it always comes down to a choice, a choice that is influenced by their "reality", which is purely a perception of what is actually real.

This is not a logic flow to show that religion isn't real, I am just trying to say that maybe believing in a religion limits how much of reality we can actually see. What if believing in religion limits how much one sees of reality? Maybe I'm wrong because of my perception...maybe I am the one that has limited sight of what is actually real because I choose not to believe in any religion. Everyone's belief or lack thereof alters their perception on what is actually real...and in the end I'm not sure anyone has ever seen the world as it is...without an altered perception. There is no base line.

Location

If one were to compare where they lived to women I would say Minnesota is the hot girl you see at the bar that turns out to be a complete bitch.

Seriously, this place looks amazing but it treats you like shit. It's way too cold and it snows way too much, but it sure is pretty to look at. It's great for a one night stand but I wouldn't want to make a life here. When you can't scrape your windshield off without your privates shrinking to the size of a stack of pennies worth ten cents you need to move along to someplace warmer. It may look nice, but it isn't worth the trouble long term...global warming my ass, it's COLD!

Creation

I remember hearing a sermon from a well respected pastor who made the comment along the lines of "do you think it's an accident that god made the year exactly 365 days and the day exactly 24 hours long?" to which I reply, "no, because those are false statements". The solar calendar AND the lunar calendar are not perfect. The number of days it takes to revolve around the sun is not a perfect number and so we have to use a leap year and a bunch of other crazy calculations to keep our calendar in synch with the seasons otherwise eventually our summer will be winter. So, what's the reason behind that, biblically? Why the imperfection, what does that symbolize? I feel it points to yet another thing Christians will chalk up to "you can't understand God, he is unfathomable" and this will go unanswered. I, on the other hand, think it points to how imperfect our earth really is. Maybe there isn't a master planner behind all of this, maybe we just "are" and all we have is "now".

I love that speech, if you haven't heard it you should listen sometime, for now I'll quote it.

"Spirituality is a particular term which actually means dealing with intuition.In the theistic tradition there is a notion of clinging into a word.A certain act is regarded as displeasing to a divine principles. A certain act is regarded as pleasing for the divine … whatever.In the tradition of non-theoism, however, it is very direct — that the case history are not particularly important. What is actually important is here and now. Now is definitely now. We try to experience what is available there, on the spot. There is no point in thinking that a past did exist that we could have now. This is now. This very moment. Nothing mystical, just now, very simple, straight forward. And from that nowness, however, arises a sense of intelligence always that you are constantly interacting with reality one by one. Spot by spot. Constantly. We actually experience fantastic precision, always.But we are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future. Paying attention to the materials that exist in our life — such rich life that we lead — all these choices takes place all the time, but none of them regarded as bad or good per say — everything we experience are unconditional experience. They don’t come along with a label saying ‘this is regarded as bad’, ‘this is good’. But we experience them but we don’t actually pay heed to them properly. We don’t actually regard that we are going somewhere. We regard that as a hassle. Waiting to be dead.That is a problem. That is not trusting the nowness properly that what is the actual experience now possesses a lot of powerful things. It is so powerful that we can’t face it. Therefore, we have to borrow from the past and invite the future all the time.Maybe that’s why we seek religion. Maybe that’s why we march in the street. Maybe that’s why we complain to society. Maybe that’s why we vote for the presidents.It is quite ironic. Very funny indeed." - Chögyam Trungpa

Sometime I'll break this down and really explain what I like about this speech/quote, mainly the stuff I have highlighted.

The big step

I did it. As I post this I am sitting in a room in a house in Superior, Wisconsin. It's a small town just on the other side of Lake Superior from Duluth, Minnesota. I start a new job tomorrow. Once I get entrenched with this new company I will make the second move to Chicago which I will be calling home for a while, maybe permanently while working from home remotely.

It was time to spread my wings, no I'm not going to get a tattoo of wings on my back to symbolize the start of this new journey...well, at least not yet. I am interested to see where this takes me though. The new people, the new places, the new opportunities. Cheers!