A Farewell to S

I just found out another good, brave man has left the battle. It's frightening that people can just suddenly disappear like that, somehow I hold in calculation that the people closest to me might die at any moment from age or disease or accident, but I forget that everyone around us are also mortal. In any case, yesterday was his time. I really liked him, the little I saw of him - in fact I had one of those little-girl-crushes on him and used to spy on him whenever he visited dad - and it feels unfair that those I've liked the most are the ones fading away first. My heart to his family.

Return to the Lifestream, strong one. Our essences might meet again there.

Philosophical corner 942

So here's what I figure happens when you die: see, that moment when you're born, I imagine inside the baby's head is going on something of a panic attack screaming "put me back in right this instant you crazy bastards!", and then we get used to being outside. Well, dying must be like being put back in. Coming home. I believe (I have no scientific proof, any logic reasoning, and need neither) that when people die their "life energy", what some would call "soul" although energy is more appropriate I think, returns to the world. So it must be like a sigh of relief, I imagine. Being dissolved from this limiting form and return to the bigger One Whole (the Mothership!). I imagine it would be like a dolphin swimming with its family in free waters rich of fish, gliding through the universe, or like being a stream in the ocean free of thought or feeling.

So, essentially, to me, death will be good. I'm telling you because this belief might influence what I'll say next: I'm really fucking curious of what death is. I really look forward to dying because I'll find out. Whatever it is, I won't be disappointed, I just really really really want to know. So immortality, not for me, unless I somehow find out without dying that death really sucks, like if there's a psychotic version of hell or something.

And on to the next Philosophical Mumbo Jumbo: I asked myself, if I found out that my life would end tomorrow, what would I do? If I had a week or a month, I'd spend all my money and go see a concert, I'd go find my biological parents, I'd save kittens, I'd tell everyone how exactly I felt about them. But one day? The first ting I thought was: I'd do exactly what I do every day. I'd just keep doing what I'm doing, and then I'd die. And that would be fine. So although I bitch and whine (especially to myself), apparently I'm rather satisfied with my life.

Then I asked myself another question: what would I do if I found out that tomorrow my life will begin? Hm? What would you do?

Baptism

I seem to be writing essays here lately...

Being in churches used to be like visiting other people's homes. It's not your stuff, you're not sure what is expected of you, but you want to show some kind of respect even if the decorations are terrible. It still is when I'm in churches alone, they are for example often great works of architecture and symbols of people's beliefs, along with many other things. Just like it can be fun and relaxing to hang out in other people's homes even if the decorations are terrible. Being in a church when some kind of ceremony - wedding, baptism, funeral - is going on used to be like seeing the family that owns the home interact with it, like having a ritual of who sits where at the dinner table or habits in terms of who uses the shower when. Confusing, sometimes frustrating, a little awkward at times, but in general just another part of life.
It seems with me growing into my own faith, however, the feeling has changed. Being in a church now, listening to the confession or to people singing psalms or praying, gives me an uneasy feeling. The only simile I can think of is if there's someone you really like, love even, but you're not in an outspoken relationship. However anytime you're out or talking to a really handsome person, it feels like you're cheating, even if you're not doing anything incriminating, and even if you did you wouldn't actually be cheating. I've subconsciously put down ground rules for the relationship already; such as don't listen to the heretic blabbering of a smiling dude in white clothes.
And it made me uneasy to see this child being baptized into this church, this belief. Probably like any religious people watching other religions do their thing. I felt like yelling "Hey, little one, they're lying to you, it's all bs! Don't let them do this to you!" but that wouldn't really be respectful. I guess I understand the ones who want to "save my immortal soul" a bit better. Although the thought is a little frightening.

Anyway, little one, I wish you great happiness and success in life. And I know you'll probably listen to the lies, and one day baptize your own children in the same church. If you do, I hope you'll remain blissfully unaware. If you don't, I hope you make a better path on your own. That's the best blessing I can put together right now, and I think it's a pretty damned good one.

Religion and Marriage, horse and carriage?

Peter Jöback and Oscar married this midsummer. I randomly stumbled across the clip from Expressen on YouTube. Since it's YouTube there's the usual homophobia all over, so the comments are just a sad testament to... wait, why the hell are you there watching if gays are so disturbing? I mean, it's YouTube, you had to actively look it up to see it. Now that's disturbing... Anyway, what was funny, was that the ad that came up next to it was one from zoosk.com, a dating site for homosexuals, and right below it in the Recommended Videos was one called Christian Videos Online. Whut?

Christian Videos Online brings me to the WLC, World's Last Chance, homepage.

"WLC strives to follow all Biblical truth. The WLC team has made the shocking discovery from the Bible that the seventh-day Sabbath cannot be found except on the Creator's calendar.

In His calendar, the weekly Sabbath always falls on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of each month.

Since the mark of the beast is received if one does not worship the Creator on His true Sabbath day, and because WLC infinitely cares about our salvation and yours, WLC is offering US$1,000,000 (one million) to anyone who can convincingly demonstrate from the Scriptures that the true seventh-day Sabbath has ever been recorded in the Bible to have fallen on any other dates than those listed above."

At least they're giving away money, not taking it. The one thing I miss out on for having a personal religion rather than a collective-brain-shutdown is the possibility of making grand, insane social schemes like this. I can't exactly go "Woohoo, Lifestream energy! Let's toss 241 apples in the river to show we honor it, because if you write Lifestream in sixteen languages the letters all add up to 241, and apples are, uh, good!" and expect anyone to come along. You should all join my religion because the spiritual losses I make because of this are sure to harm my immortal soul. If such a thing existed.

...

Ah this post is terribly aggressive. "Collective-brain-shutdown" sounds so negative. I should be more politically correct. "A collective agreement to hand over important decisions, personal responsibility and individual thought to an unseen, unknown entity existing only inside the agreement, and claim that a select few within the community selflessly handles these decisions, responsibility and thought for the masses in the name of the entity through different forms of more of less unspecified communication." How's that? Yeah, too long. Collective-brain-shutdown will have to do.

Fanfiction

I just realized the new look makes it kind of look like a fanfiction site...

"He climbed down the cellar stairs and peeked into the darkness. Behind some crates he found the sword, just where his mother's letter had said it would be. It was truly enormous. Impressive, despite the rust and the smell of mold and dust. No normal man would be able to lift it. And these days there was no Mako energy, and the Lifestream had settled back beneath the earth's surface. It all felt like a legend where he stood, the sword so large only half of the blade fit inside the beam of his flashlight.
But if it was a legend, then he was the son of that legend, and with the rising problems he had a legacy to live up to and bring the kind of rescue only legends could produce. Trembling slightly he set the flashlight aside on a crate and gripped the handle of the Buster Sword. This would never work."

Aaanyway. I respect FF7 too much to produce this kind of crap :) I remember I made an attempt long ago, choosing like this to write about their children, because it's damned hard to take someone else's character and try to keep to their personality. But I came to the same conclusion then as I will always adhere to: that FF7 is above all this >.<

So no. This is not a fanfiction site.

I actually take it a step further; I adopt the Lifestream as a model, a representation, of what I actually believe in and present it as my religion. (Yes, I've made FF7 my religion... in a sense.) Thus the Lifestream chronicles is the history of the world, and this blog my perception of it.

This post got a lot longer than I meant... but it was a lot of fun to write :)

Funeral Day

There was a funeral today for someone I somewhat knew. And it's odd, because there's a lot of people I know better than him, but there's also many among them that I wouldn't care this much about on the day of their funeral.

If attention and honors and all that on a funeral day really do earn you kudos in God's big book, then he should have lots. So I'm writing this because while you read it, you did think about him although you don't know who he is, and maybe that earned him at least a little extra kudos.

Peaceful Return to the Lifestream, old man.

Rememberance

I realized it's been almost a year since he returned and that I still do miss him. I can still feel his smell if I try, and there has been times, especially when I'm back home, when I catch the glimpse of something white and spin around, only to remember it's impossible, or when I wake up and hear a sound I misinterpret as his steps and expect him to come into bed with me. And yet, it isn't just my imagination, is it? Even if things return to the Lifestream, they never completely disappear, do they? Maybe he thinks of me, at the same time as I think of him, and somehow we create a link for just the shadow of a moment. His soul is being poured out into new living things as I write this, maybe somewhere in them there is something of him that reverberates through space and reaches me? No. Not maybe. I know there is. And I know as long as I remember him he will be around. So I tell him I'm sorry I couldn't save him. And I promise him I will remember him as long as I live. And I hope he knew all this long before I had any need to say it. No. I know he did.