Sunday, April 01, 2007

Randomised Dribblings of the Brain

  • Notice what a blatantly ludicrous phrase "you always find things when you're not looking for them" is. Well, wowee! What a revelation! It's an absolute, unquestionable truth - for I seem to find almost everything when I'm not looking for it! That lamp on the desk! That picture frame! The stapler over there! A calculator! A stack of papers! Glory of glories - some wallpaper! Okay, sorry. Had to get that out of my system. Now! To business!
  • It's rather interesting that people turn to religion when they're feeling sad or troubled, yet forget it entirely when they're feeling all right again. So: should religion be reviled and condemned as preying on negativity to perpetuate its legacy, or praised and honoured as a great comfort, a wise counsel to the wretched masses? What's your point of view?
  • The only parable in the Bible that's ever really got on my wick was the Prodigal Son. I shall never understand why the faithful son was cast aside at the last minute for that loathsome black sheep who'd been simultaneously pumping beer and prostitutes downtown on his father's money. Maybe the parable doesn't even have a proper meaning, because it certainly isn't a black-and-white morality tale. How frustrating. The most annoying part of the New Testament also turns out to be the most complex. Would make for an interesting psychological profile, I'm sure.
  • Why does humanity look upon inner sadness as a bad thing? It's a jolly good one in most respects! You certainly wouldn't be able to feel utterly miserable unless you'd been wonderfully happy beforehand. It's merely the great contrast we suffer from. And the fact that that feels like a comfort above a threat to my well being reassures my faith in... something. It's hard to say what exactly.
  • Why do people rebel against stereotyping and generalising? To put it bluntly, these people are obviously freaks. And though these crusaders supposedly fight on the side of truth and justice, there's very little of either in their life philosophy; and that's because it doesn't make any logical sense. So I have to personally meet and greet every single suicide bomber/terrorist in existence to admit that I'd rather not be their bosom pal? An extreme example, but one that reflects the sublime idiocy of political correctness.
  • Can anything approach the beauty of singing as opposed to playing an instrument? You approach a keyboard and know that whenever you hit a D minor, it remains a D minor. Big whoop. It's all very restricted by being a tangible, physical medium - it's difficult in the extreme to endow a work with your personality or vision unless you start writing your own pieces. Singing, on the other hand, opens up a million new avenues and byroads of interpretation and invention entirely unique to the artist. No two performances are the same. The lone instrument seems like a bit of a poor cousin. It can't really compare. Mind you, I'm approaching this from a poetic, idealistic point of view. If you think of music in terms of mathematics and science, I'm sure the solidity of the instrument wins out. Time to elaborate...
  • To my mind, there are three primary types of brain. The sort that is good with words and the sort that is good with numbers, and then the sort that mixes the two (the sort that is good with neither doesn't bear mentioning). Away from that snobbery though, consider which one you are (English or mathematics... or both for the difficult) and fathom how this has altered every single aspect of your life.

Well, that's enough for now. Whether any of this makes sense I cannot say. But I will be satisfied if at least one of these points makes an impression, or instills some deeper level of thought. Thank you for reading down this far. If you survive another few hours, please read down this far again.

2 Comments:

Blogger Mr. X said...

I don’t think that it is necessarily an attempted dedication to religion that causes people to turn towards God in a time of need- it’s sense of desperation. If quite suddenly it were scientifically proven that religion were false- that God were simply a concoction derived from the human mind- that miracles were merely fibs and we were all doomed to the fate sealed before us- there would still be a sense of blind fate swelling within us all. Religion should be praised because it prevents us from loosing hope, otherwise we would all be suffering from a perpetuate depression.

Life would become a living nightmare- an infinite horror with misery lurking in every corner. If hope ceased to exist, our very existence would become a living hell. It’s Pandora’s box all over again- even though all the horrors within the box were released, man still found reason to live because hope still lingered within the box. It’s like what you said- personal misery is wonderful, because the contrast between misery and bliss causes happiness to feel euphoric. Religion becomes the greatest gift in a time of need- it does not matter whether or not one’s loyalties truly lie within God. God is completely out of the question, because it is not God who enables us to survive- it is hope, and this hope is evoked from religion. It is the pursuit of happiness which leads one to think that perhaps there is still a chance- perhaps there’s still a possibilty to overcome this. It gives one a sense of security. Even when a particular conflict is solved- mistakes are learned and this only causes one to grow. After all, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

It’s a sense of unwavering faith that guarantees that no matter what the barrier or how murky a situation may be, there will always be a light radiating at the end of the tunnel. It is the image of triumph- the passion which drives an individual to overcome whatever obstacle he or she may have encountered, which enables one to climb out of the hole they have sunk into. Religion is a necessity in life- even if one turns to infidelity when God is no longer needed- religion should be honored because it enables us to survive. I can go on but I think I’ve made my point.

This is a bit off-topic, but I was reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald- ironically, although hope caused the main character to keep striving for his dream, the luminosity of his fantasy had blinded him. Ultimatley, it was his disillusionment that lead to his downfall.

So I have a question for you: Would you prefer to be ignorant, yet blissful? Or would you rather be completely cognizant of any situation, yet be eternally miserable? So do you pick the red pill or the blue pill?

6:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A rogue spokesman for The Official Monster Raving Loony Party today said the following:

“In order to contribute to the mass hysteria concerning the outbreak of the Black Death in Suffolk, we would like to advise people to do the following:

Close all doors and windows, and seal them up with black tape.

Throw all eggs away, for they are instruments of the Devil. If John Prescott is nearby, throw them at him.

Paint a big red cross on your front door. It won’t do any good, but it looks impressively sinister.

Chant mysterious poems about how eating an apple a day cures pretty much anything. Ring a hand-bell while doing so for full effect.

Finally, we would like to remind everyone that the Black Death only killed about 75 million people in the 1340s. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

Party officials were unavailable for comment.

10:42 PM  

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