The Simple Joys in Life

Sometimes I'm afraid of posting deeply personal (but non self-incriminatory) thoughts on the web. I feel that if I share it online, it diminishes its value and meaning - doesn't an event/memory/feeling/revelation seem so infintiely special when it stays inside your own head? What I'm saying is that you risk rendering a thought (that you hold dear) useless when you actually put it into words rather than keep it in your heart. For instance, take this piece of dialogue from the movie Gladiator:

MAXIMUS: They fought for YOU and for Rome.

MARCUS: And what is Rome, Maximus?

MAXIMUS: I have seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark. Rome is the light.

MARCUS: Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end he wants to know that there has been some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher, the warrior, the tyrant. Or will I be the Emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome, you could only whisper it. [With a snap of his finger.] Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish. It was so fragile and I fear that it will not survive the winter.

The mind can be such a wondeful place to keep your thoughts in - it has no boundaries or limits in which you can replay it over and over; and it remains forever pure and unscathed from crticism or scrutiny by others.

Here's one of the simple things in life that make me happy: Watching (and singing along to) Dora the Explorer with Pauline beside me and Dan (our precious pudgy bundle of happiness) sitting on my lap.

Resist and Multiply

I always thought that the song Vitamin should have been in the Matrix soundtrack. It's as if the lyrics were about someone who woke up and is speaking to, no, defying the machines:

I'm born
I'm alive
I breathe
In a moment or two I realize,
that the sphere upon which I reside,
is asleep on its feet.

should I go back to sleep?
We orbit the sun
I grow up
my open eyes see...

A zombified, somnambulist society.
Leaving us as vitamins
for the hibernating human animal.

Do you see what I mean?
You stare at me like a vitamin
On the surface you hate,
but you know you need me.

I'll come dressed as any pill you deem fit.
Whatever helps you swallow truth
all the more easily.

And I wonder, will you digest me?
Into the sleep machine I won't plug in,
in fact I'd rather die before I will comply.
To you, my friend,
I write the reason I still live,
'cause in my mind it's set the vitamin is ripe to give

Coming closer to another 2000 years
you and I will pry
the closed eye of the sleep machine

That's me in the corner

You can file this under 'heretic'. If someone would ask me if I believe in god, I would reply 'yes'. But...my faith in that being has rapidly diminished after some events past. Yes, I do believe that there are things in this world that science can't explain, and a supreme, sentient entity maybe one of them. But it doesn't necessarily mean that he/she/it should care about us.

I feel that I need to take it upon myself to make my life work, and not waste time praying, because from what I can see, it hasn't really done anything for me. It's been more apparent that it's nothing but a psychological crutch I can do away with. Anything I've done to improve my life is credited to my own efforts, and not anyone else. Why is it that if something good happens, it's by *his* doing? And when it hits the fan, *he* can wash his hands clean of it? It violates the good samaritan principle by just standing by and watch it go bad for all of us.

It scares me to think that anyone I knew would think less of me after reading this. I'll still be same person, one who chooses to live a moral life and not step on anyone's toes...just like before, but god is out of the picture.

This whole thing reminds of a scene from the film 'Contact':

PALMER:
Dr. Arroway. Would you consider yourself a spiritual person?

ELLIE:
I don't really understand the point of the question. I consider myself a moral person.

CHAIRWOMAN:
I'm sure we all agree that is the case, but I think what Mr. Joss is in fact asking is...

PALMER:
Do you believe in God, Dr. Arroway?

ELLIE:
As a scientist I rely on imperical evidence, and in this matter, I don't believe that there is data either way.

CHAIRWOMAN:
So your answer would in fact be that you don't believe in God?

ELLIE:
I - I just don't understand the relevance of the question.