actually, he is really playing the keyboard. It sorta sounds like hockey intermission in my living room.

Wish I could be there to sneak in with Matt!

Aimee, you sound so happy. Tired, but happy, and centered, and dealing well. I wish you and MM all kinds of couple-ness, aside from parent-ness. Emeline couldn't have better folks to teach her how to be a good human.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I'm proud to share the date with Kat and lori and Benno.

It's incredibly late, and I've had an attention-seeking husband much of the day. I caught up when he went to bed early, but before I could post, he got up and wanted company watching a movie, so we did that, and I've forgotten much of what I wanted to say. He's returned to bed now, so I'll try.

Except, I understand that people are curious about others' beliefs, and that some of us want to share what's so important to us about what we believe. But it seems like we're having this discussion more frequently here. I wonder what that says about this thread in particular, and the b at large.

I started out with a default belief in God and Christianity, given it by parents who made sure we were at church every time the doors opened. Every activity I was encouraged to participate in was church-sponsored, or church-oriented. Church parents went out of their way to provide facilities, transportation and supervision, in a vain attempt to keep children and teenagers from finding interests elsewhere.

It's almost always a vain attempt, because it's the nature of humans to want to know what's over the next hill, who are those people over there, and why do they do things differently. If we manage to keep the other innate trait, fear of the unknown, at bay, we manage to not automatically label "different from our way" as "wrong." Unfortunately, at this moment in history, fear is by far the strongest motivator, of Christians, and of the population in general. I think fear drives a lot of people to seek solace and salvation in the church. And I think fear keeps a lot of people blind to the possibility that other cultures have religious and philosophical practices and beliefs which evolved in their societies the way Christianity has done in European and USian societies.

From an observational point of view it seems clear to me that humans share a need for a greater being than themselves, to serve as both a protector and a guarantee that, in some form, each human will continue after death. That another life, another plane of existence, another consciousness will provide the fulfillment a person may fail to achieve in this life. That we will meet again with those we've lost, that things that went wrong here on earth will be put right in the afterlife, or the next life, that some justice, some fairness, will be reached. I think it's natural for humans to long for fairness, to recognise the briefness of existence, and to expect a reward for enduring pain, privation, and suffering here on earth. And I think it's natural for humans to fear their expectations may be wrong, which is why every society builds myths and theologies, to give their people heart and hope.

Events in my life have led me to believe that any higher being who may have had a hand in creation has, as P-C and Hec? I believe? said, since gotten bored and wandered away. If there was ever such a being at all. I do believe in a life force which drives the planet. The Buddhist theory that erika described comes closest to what I believe, that life is the same, and precious, no matter the size of the container, and that when a butterfly or a redwood or a human dies, the animating spark returns to the collective energy that powers life, to be portioned out in new containers as need. The concsiousness, the id, the self, doesn't continue, and I'm okay with that.

I know many people who cling fiercely to this life, to this experience, because they are so afraid of whatever comes next. Most of them profess a belief in the Christian afterlife, but rather than rushing toward it in joy, they back away from it in dread and paralyzing fear. It's a hampered way to live.

Because I (continued...)

( continues...) believe this is all I'll ever have in this container, this consciousness, this identity, everything I do matters. There is so much pain in the word, that I add to it with a harsh word or a thoughtless or careless dead gives me pain. That humans thoughtlessly, even willfully, do harm to others for personal gain or advancement fills me with sadness, and with helpless frustration. And by others I don't just mean other humans. I include a reckless disregard for other species--the fishing to extinction of food species, the destruction of habitat for farmland to support a burgeoning human population, factory farms and slaughterhouses, the bulldozing of acres of old-growth forest for human housing and shopping plazas. This is the reason why the present administration has me in such despair, because it actively promotes and rewards these practices, in the name of commerce, of "progress" and, in some cases I believe, in the fervor to hasten Armageddon and the Second Coming.

This is going on far too long, and I apologize. Let me finish by saying that death, since I've been an adult, has held no terror for me. I have always been by nature a fatalist, and at times suicidal. Death has beckoned, sweet oblivion, peace, and rest at last. So take my personal philosophy with a grain of salt.

I do not fear going into darkness unremembered and unremarked. My children will remember me, and I will continue as long as they live. The lives I've touched retain the memory of me, as long as those people live, and if I've done any good at all, their touch will carry a bit of me onward as well. And in another generation or two, if humankind still lives on this planet, if we as a species survive, someone may tell a story their grandmother told them, and I will be remembered.

Of course the guy I cut off in traffic will remember me, too, and tell stories about the aggressive bitch driver, so, it all evens out in the end.

Count me among those touched by Beverly. I popped in for a moment to take a break from the last couple hours of trying to make asp/xml/mdb/too manyletters cooperate with me. We see things in the same light so often!

I have enjoyed skimming reading the conversations on the various belief systems. I am in the "raised Catholic" group. I don't regret the education I received from the nuns and priests. I appreciate the influence that the church and my parents may have contributed to my moral being. The rituals of the Catholic church lost meaning for me several decades ago. The Buddhist thought feels right to me now. Religion and faith does not have a day to day importance in my life. I have never had a fear of death and don't require or seek explanations or answers on spiritual mattes.

At my core I feel that there is surely a universal force of some description, but most times I don't feel at odds with it so it's all good.

Ugh, my process is done, so back to work.

Peace

From Hec's link:

On one magic day boating here, I saw an estimated 20 blue whales, the largest air-breathing creature ever to inhabit the Earth.

Holy. Crap. No way! I get the chills just from the footage of the one on Blue Planet. I don't know that I could even conceive of seeing 20 at one place.

I like this. I disappear for ages, and when I come back people have links for me.

Jen doesn't need God because she's high on life!

Life? Life is freakin' cool. Nothing else comes close.

That's what Pete said on the phone, just a few minutes ago.

Jilli! I played D&D today, and went through the host's Magic deck, to see if any of Pete's cards were in there. (They weren't. He needs to get hisself better cards. He does, however, have a very cute and chatty two-year-old girl, who thought the behir miniature was a thing of beauty.)

Yeah. But so are we all, really.

t checks self for hissy fits

Huh. Well, there you go.

It sure does; I have a really hard time dealing with the death of a loved one because I believe they're completely gone.

Y'know, this is basically my belief, but so far I'm coping better with my mother's death than I ever thought I would. Part of it, I suspect, is that I just haven't been able to find the time to go through it all properly (I got about twenty seconds alone with my dad after the wake and before my older brother crashed the house gathering). But part of it too, I think, is that I went back to the hospital with D after everyone else went home. M was in such obvious anguish. This is what's really stuck with me. She told me, months ago, that she was ready, and was largely sticking around for the other people in her life. She held on until I came home. She made it to Christmas. In the hospital that night, I saw how much it cost her.

It's easy to say, I'd give anything for her to still be here. But it's not true. To want her here at the cost of her own suffering, that I couldn't live with. She would, though. She did. A couple of months before I came home, I saw something worse than my marriage ending. The night M died, I saw something worse than that too.

Of course, my computer just played Giles and Tara singing about wishing they could stay, and none of the above helped any. Ah well.

Timelies.

Another day of painting awaits. I'm glad I stopped when I did last night. I actually feel like I'm looking forward to getting this done. Plus, rescheduling the on-the-market date gives me another couple of days to work, which makes me feel so much less stressed.

All I have left to do is:

* Kitchen: Halfway done.
* Living Room/Dining Room (OTP!!!): Trim. It's all taped out, and the crown molding is done, so no more ladder work. Then I have to re-paint the bits that were drippy and had to be scraped and sanded.
* Bedroom: The whole thing. That's going to be the biggest project. I'm going to get it prepped today and maybe get the ceiling done.
* Upstairs: Some trim needs to be done, but most of it looks okay as-is.
* Stairwell: There's some wallpaper that needs to be removed and a small section that needs to be painted.

After that, there's a fair amount of cleanup, but that won't be so bad. Plus, I'll be alternating cleanup and painting.

Obviously, productivity~ma would be greatly appreciated.

It's morning here. I didn't sleep well, because I kept waking up wanting to perfect the paper. Jeez. Let me sleep! So, I finally got up about an hour ago to take a look at the comments my dad had sent me. I've revised the paper for a second time, and I think it is a lot stronger.

Morning, Anne! Sending you much productivity~ma!

Thanks! I've done a bit of prep work already, and right now, I'm taking a few minutes to select some work music for the morning.

There is leftover chinese food in the fridge for lunch. This makes me happy.

Also, vw, I'm so excited for you on all the progress you've made. Way to knock out those incompletes!

Sounds perfect, Anne (the music and the leftover Chinese food...I'm jealous).

And thank you. I'm really excited too. In some ways, I wish I didn't have to wait till Wednesday to get this paper turned in. I want these out of my hair.