I should be cleaning and I suppose I will be now that I have the energy. It’s amazing the mess that gathers around when you haven’t been able to clean for a couple months. I’ll just clean as my train of thought eludes me. Some people extensively plan out what they’re going to write, but not me. If I have a theme, I just write until I’m done and then go back and edit. I might add a few sentences here and there, but mainly what I write stays exactly as I typed it. Most of my writing is an exercise in free-writing. Whatever pops into my head makes its way to the page. Who am I to stem the tide? Sometimes I go back and read things I wrote years ago, and it’s as if someone else wrote them. I don’t remember writing these things. Is there someone else in me writing these things? When I write am I channeling or something? It’s a bit unsettling to go back over something I can’t remember writing, knowing that no one else could have done it, so it must have been me.

Sometimes it’s the same with things I say. I open my mouth and the strangest things come out. When I was a little girl my mother said that I lacked tact. Now people (friends, acquaintances, strangers…) ask my opinion on some trouble they’re having, and I listen to what they say and then blurt the first thing that comes into my head. And these aren’t just common troubles. Some people ask me my opinion on their sex lives which is really bizarre as I’m a very public asexual. But I’m seldom wrong. I know when they’re lying too, even if only to themselves, and I call them on it. Sometimes I tell people what I think and they get angry, then they’ll come back a few days later, admit I was right, and thank me. This is what I sometimes think it means to be an empath. People come to you out of the blue, unload their life’s story on you, and await judgement. Perfect strangers come up to me in the store, I help them find a book, and then they spend the next half hour to hour telling me why they need the book. It’s maddening and embarrassing and flattering and exhausting.

I’m an empath and have been since I was very young. It used to cause me so much trouble. People may say they want someone, anyone, just to understand them completely, but they don’t mean it. I’ve discovered that most people want to be anonymous. They want to be unknown. They don’t want their reasons and whyfors known. They don’t want others to know what motivates their actions. They don’t want their charities to be known as selfish or selfless, sometimes it’s as much of one as the other. They don’t want people to know how vulnerable they really are. As often as I’ve wished everyone was an empath, I do wonder if that wouldn’t mean chaos and destruction for the human race. An empath’s life is tumultuous, especially during childhood. I mean, what doesn’t get screwed up in our minds thanks to other people gets screwed up thanks to all those pesky little hormones turning us inside out and upside down. Personally I could have done without growing up. My mother was calling me grandma when I was only nine. I hardly think growing up physically in addition to emotionally was entirely necessary. On the other hand, if everyone was an empath, I might have had the emotional support and psychical protection anyone in that situation needs at such a vulnerable age.

And now it seems this post has found its focus… empathy. I don’t think too many people understand what that is, what it means. An empath feels what other people feel as if it were their own. People make the word empath synonymous with compassion, and empaths can be some of the most compassionate people you’ll ever meet, if their sensitivity doesn’t drive them mad first. I couldn’t tell you how many times I thought I was completely bonzo loco as a kid, how often I entertained the idea of suicide. I actually thought I might be the antichrist at one point. I had some pretty funny reasoning on that one. It’s a good thing I gave up trying to be a Christian when I was about eleven years old, and the belief that I was intrinsically evil for not being like everyone else with it. Once I stopped trying to conform and just accepted my idiosyncracies, everything else began falling into place. I’m not evil; I’m just a empath. I’m as human as anyone; I just have more responsibilities.

But back to feeling, I don’t think words are really adequate to explain what it’s like to be bombarded with emotions that are not your own. Hard enough just to share one person’s emotions, let alone be in a school environment, trapped in the perceptions of your peers. It’s no wonder that I felt like I was crazy when I was feeling everyone’s emotions at the same time… I mean, how can one person possibly be happy, sad, angry, bored, and indifferent all at the same time. You can’t, but it begins to give you some inkling that this isn’t coming from you, it’s coming from outside. Once I stopped worrying about being crazy (or evil), and I realized that I only got this way when I was in a crowd, I began to experiment with my environment. I realized that the only time I was truly at peace was when I was as alone as I could be…. off in the middle of the woods. It was about this time that my mother started calling me a hermit because I was either always alone in my room reading or out alone in the woods. (Incidentally, she told me years later that she thought I’d either grow up to be a hermit or a nun, and here I am, an asexual misanthrope who spends most of her time hiding in her room.) I never had any friends. There were some people I sat with at lunch, but that was about it. I really did try to be friends, but they didn’t want me around, never asked me to join them, and eventually I stopped including myself in their activities. My mother was the closest thing I had to a friend, and really it was better she wasn’t around either. She had me too young, and then my sister a year and a half later, and then my brother eight years after that. We were all accidents and she loves us, but she also resents us and I know it. It’s awful to know something like that, especially when you’re a kid.

I’m a really strong empath because I can sense the emotions of plants and animals. Most people think that plants can’t feel because they haven’t got a nervous system or a brain. That’s just sensation, not emotion. Plants feel, as do animals. They just have a somewhat alien emotional life compared to us. Humans have a reasoning and emotional intellect, heavy on the reasoning. Animals also have a reasoning and emotional intellect, but heavy on the emotion. Plants don’t reason, or at least not in the way ambulatory life forms do (cause and effect), but they feel, strongly. They love unconditionally. And I’d say they need love nearly as much as they need earth, water, or sun. They soak up everything we feel as easily as a sponge. In the wild, they support each other with that love. They don’t need us there so much, but houseplants need more care and support. As an empath, the more plants you have, the better. They help buffer out the world. They support each other with their love, and they support me. I can’t get out into the woods as often as I’d like anymore, but I can have as many plants in my room as my windows will support. And if I have my books to read and my plants surrounding me, it can almost block out the rest of the world as well as the woods might.

Plants are really my main way of unwinding. If I can go somewhere where there are plants, I can disgorge all the emotions that have bombarded me throughout the day and just Be. If I can just Be, just for a few moments, I can go back and continue until I can get away for real. If I could, I’d fill every spare space in the store with plants. The general manager told me that when the store first opened, they had a contract with a company which brought in and maintained potted plants. I wish they still did. I wish she’d tell me to bring in some of my plants. But space is a commodity when they want just about everything at the front of the store to ambush the customers as they enter. I can ground myself and shield with the best of them, but without that botanical outlet, I’d still not have any release for the daily pressures of “herd” living.

I don’t know where these abilities come from. Empathy is not my only ability, but it’s the strongest, I think. It may be, as some have theorized, that as we transition to a more spiritual lifestyle, more people will find they have these powers. Much is made of 2012 and the end of the Venus cycle. The Hindus say we are in Kali Yuga, the last and most wicked age of men. I think it is telling that the Venus cycle ends in 2012 with Venus in the aspect of the goddess of war. But will we go out with a bang or a sigh? I’d like to think that by 2012, there will be enough of us to ease things along. They say there was a major influx of “indigo children” in the 70s and that it’s only been increasing since then. One of the major attributes of indigos is empathy. But as many new empaths as I meet, most of them are children… will there be enough of us to save our race if things go terribly wrong in five year’s time? I like to think that my negativity and worries about the fate of our race and planet is a bit of holdover from my childhood indoctrination into the cult of Christianity… the whole apocalypse thing, but the myth of ”end of the world” is to be found in many cultures (Hindu, Norse, Mayan), and besides, I’ve seen how people still treat one another, especially when they don’t know someone can see them. People make me sad and I think that if things do go horribly wrong, I’d like to come back as a tree in my next life or not at all.

Stupidity vs. Intelligence

I always say I don’t like stupidity. A few months ago, the Island had a challenge about “mistakes”. We all make them. But we aren’t all stupid, are we? I consider myself intelligent, but I’ve made some “stupid” decisions. In fact, I made a real stupid move just last week. (Which inspired this post!) This time out, the subject for discussion is “Stupidity/Intelligence”. From the sublime to the ridiculous, we will be offering up our ideas, observations, and recollections of the best and the worst our minds have dictated to us.

29.1: “What a stupid thing I did!” Have you ever done anything “stupid” ? Blog about the absolutely “stupidest” act you’ve performed, words you’ve blurted out, or anything else that proves you aren’t as smart as you thought you were.

hmmm… I try not to do stupid things. Stupidity is a huge pet peeve of mine. Stupid mistakes, I’ve made a few. Call them temporary lapses in judgement. I’m happy that I rarely make truly stupid mistakes. Stupid mistakes are the ones that make you look at yourself like an alien. Like what the h*** was I just thinking… oh yeah, I wasn’t. I think that the less “in the moment” you are, the easier it is to make stupid mistakes, but only people who are never in the moment, never paying attention to what is going on around them, are stupid in my book.

The last truly stupid thing I did was on vacation a couple years ago. As I was driving home on a highway which was having construction issues (as in there was evidence of construction, but no evidence of any workers), I ran my car over a huge boulder in the road. Granted I was surrounded by cars and two semi-trucks, and there was no shoulder to swerve around the rock, but I still feel that there must have been a way to avoid the “collision” that I did not take into account. If I had only had the presence of mind to slow down, I might have been able to force the other cars on the road to give me room to avoid the rock that cost me a couple thousand dollars in repair and a higher interest rate on my insurance.

29.2: “Stupid is as Stupid Does”. Are there degrees of “stupidity”? Can one be “less stupid” than another and still be stupid?

Well, judging in a stupid contest would be like trying to split hairs. If were were talking about hares, it might be possible, but unless we’re comparing President Bush to the common man on the street… well, there’s just no comparison. It may be that the only way to say someone is dumber than the next guy is by looking at how much attention they receive because of their stupidity. The more people think you’re stupid, the more stupid you must be. When we look at stupidity, we are most often seeing not only their IQ , but their EQ as well. If a person is stupid, it’s okay… they’re just not the brightest bulb in the box. But if someone is socially inept as well, then they are REALLY stupid, and the world throws up its hands in disgust.

29.3: “I’m With Stupid” Remember that old Tee Shirt declaration? There was usually an arrow pointing to the person standing next to the person wearing the Tee. Here’s a chance to write a real deep rant about the stupidest person in your life.

Funny you should mention this. I just saw the cover of Mad magazine the other day and the cover had Alfred E. Neuman with one of those shirts on, standing next to George Bush. I think George Bush is the stupidest person in all of our lives. I’ve never met the man, and I never hope to. But there is no denying he influences us all. What a loathsome specimen of humanity he is. It’s scarcely conceivable that he is human. Sometimes I think he’s channeling his inner ape and will start flinging poo at the nearest camera lens. And what’s really scary is, sometimes I wonder if maybe it’s all an act. Can anyone really be as stupid as he appears to be and still hold such an important job? Sometimes I think he is really politically savvy and just morally stupid. Maybe he is a kind of idiot savant or has barely functional autism… gotta go to Iraq, definitely, definitely, BOOM! BOOM! gotta save the heathens, gotta go to heaven….

There are really no words to adequately describe how much I loathe (p)resident (evil) Bush, the first zombie-American in the White House.

29.4: I recently saw a film called “Idiocracy”  (2006) starring Luke Wilson and directed by Mike Judge (who created cartoon characters Beavis and Butthead). The movie takes place in a future where the President of the U.S. is a professional wrestler, and the IQ’s of everyone in the nation have sunk to an incredible low. I read that we live in an “age of information”. But is America, or the world in general, gaining knowledge, or in fact getting stupider?

This sounds like a really good movie, and by good, I mean entertaining. The idea of having a professional wrestler in the house is imminently scary. Did you ever see the cartoon the Oblongs? Their mayor was a professional wrestler too. The show made fun of stupidity as well as social conformity and a host of other societal illnesses.

There was supposedly a study done that shows internet usage causes a decrease in intelligence. I don’t know if I can fully get behind the findings, BUT it is possible that the computer is the new “boob-tube.” Aside from those of us who blog or make extensive, well edited, grammatically correct postings online, the internet really is full of idiocy. From net-speak and willful misspellings to general ignorance, the internet might well be dumbing-down its users. Sadly, America seems to value ignorance over intelligence, stupid belligerence over well-reasoned action. There is no effort put forward by most Americans, and those of us who do aspire to intellectual greatness are looked down upon as crackpots and weirdos. There is no reward for great thinkers. Quite the opposite. It seems to be a national pastime to keep your head down, your mouth shut, and your hands where everyone can see them. Don’t even attempt to nudge people into a thinking mood unless you want to be publicly ridiculed.

It’s sad how our nation, founded on religious and intellectual freedoms, has come full circle. We are now free to criticize everyone and be as dumb as we like. In fact, the more you conform to intellectual mediocrity, the more socially acceptable your peers will find you. People at the top of the intellectual bell curve are as rare as supermodels. Both are freaks of nature when compared to what is “normal.” While I don’t think we need more rail-thin supermodels, I wouldn’t mind a few more finely honed intellectuals.

29.5: The opposite of “stupidity” is “intelligence.” If you don’t wish to remark about how stupid you are or someone you know is, then let’s hear about your intelligence, or the intelligence of someone you know.

I consider myself intelligent because I try to be intelligent. I don’t sit back on the things I’ve done, well satisfied that I accomplished something in the past and therefore do not need to try in the future. I want to continue to accomplish things. They speak of people creating their opus. I don’t want to reach a pinnacle and stop. Stopping is like saying that you give up. You’re settling for mediocrity even if you’re only comparing yourself to yourself. I’m proud of my intelligence. If not for my intelligence, I would never have been able to pull myself out of the pit of low self-esteem that adolescence dug for me. Beyond my intelligence, I don’t feel that I have much going for me. Throughout my childhood, my so-called peers harassed me mercilessly. I even considered killing myself at one point. It was only when I got angry and realized where my strengths lay, that I was able to find the strength to go on. Why should I kill myself when I am better than most people. I may not be gorgeous. I may not be supermodel thin. In all ways but my intelligence, I am average. But it is my intelligence that sets me apart. It is my ability to reason and think that makes me a better person than the people who tormented me in school. Looks fade, labors are washed away by the auspices of time, but intellectual ramblings in the form of print or other expressions of intellect are recorded for posterity. Even if something I say or think only becomes a meme, it will never die. It will percolate and procreate in people’s minds for generation, the viral progeny of my mind, if not my body.

29.6: Here’s the ‘serious’ subtopic. There is a lot of debate among proponents of “Intelligent Design” and “Evolution”. The concept of Intelligent Design is based on the Biblical recounting of God creating the world in six days, with man appearing late in the week to start messing things up. (last part of the sentence is my own observation). Evolution is a scientific theory proposed first by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book “Origin of the Species”. The evolutionists decry “creationism” and the creationists maintain that evolution has never been scientifically proven, which is a fact. I’d like to hear from you about which “theory” you believe is true. The reason why I’m including this in a topic about stupidity is because there is an actual museum you can visit which shows dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. For some reason, this seems stupid to me. What about you?

Yes, dinosaurs on the ark is completely stupid to me too. There have been scientific studies which show how the “primordial goop” could have been sparked into a semblance of life through electrical discharge. Inorganic compounds are formed in nature all the time. In the dim recesses of our planet’s past, electrical storms and electrical discharge from volcanic activity could have caused these compounds to form organic organisms. Or bacteria and virus could have been brought to earth via meteorites in ice. Extremophile organisms surrounding volcanic vents in the depths of the ocean or in the icy reaches of our north and south poles make this a strong possibility too. Whether or not you believe that single celled organisms evolved to form the complex life you see today, there’s no denying that inorganic compounds can form life-like “organism” under the proper conditions. If scientists can create “life” in a lab, what is so strange about the idea of evolution? The Bible is all propaganda anyway. If you’ve read it, it has a couple genesis stories, not just one. It’s a compilation of folktales and dogma, nothing more. People who stick to what they’re told will never be anything more than robots.

29.7: This next question/topic comes from a blog entry I read on Islander  Emily’s (BoureeMusique) site: What do YOU think is the purpose of education in America… or wherever you call home? Also I’d like to know if “Education” is broken and needs fixing (see 29.4) or are we riding down the educational path to enlightenment?

In theory, the purpose of education in America has always been to create an informed populace to support the idea of democracy. Without an informed, intelligent populace, there can be no democracy. A populace which has no idea what is going on and can only do what it is told is more apt to be a republic or a dictatorship.

OOPS! We are a republic and some might argue that we are currently under the control of a dictatorship (whether they mean Pres. Bush by that or the bureaucracy which leads our governmental branches around by their respective noses). The true purpose of education in America has become indoctrination. Those children most successful in school are the ones who can turn off their ability to think for themselves. Those children who buck the system are also the losers. Because they reject everything, they don’t get the education necessary to fight the system when they grow up. Most of them drop out. Many of them end up on drugs or in trouble with the law. They were so busy rebeling against a system which supports lies and propaganda that they didn’t avail themselves of the actual benefits of free schooling.

I won’t say that the only way for children to get a good education in our school system is to take their education into their own hands, but without self-motivated interest in education or parents who take the time to get involved in the education of their child, most children lose out in our system. It is not designed for excellence. It is designed for mediocrity. Children are not inspired to excel or even rewarded for it, unless it is in the venues which meet with the approval of the administrators. Any child which is even the least bit original or different is severely sanctioned by their peers and mostly ignored by their teachers. Our system is not one designed to create excellence in our citizenry. It is one designed only to churn out little robots for the continuation and support of a system of self-serving bureaucrats and bloodsuckers.

A fix for the public education system would require more money than our government currently dedicates to it. If you ask me, our military spending and our education spending should be swapped. In addition, they should revamp the “IQ” test to take into account the various types of learning styles. Much is made of IQ tests pigeonholing children, but if the test was used to assess personality and styles of learning over finding a person’s overall learning quotient, the benefits to children would be untold. Instead of pigeonholing a child’s potential, it would give educators some idea of how to teach specific children. On the one hand, it would make education much more complex than it is now, but on the other hand, it would allow children to reach their full potential by catering to their strengths rather than penalizing them for their limitations. I think that it would be worth it.

I’m sitting at my desk binge eating twizzlers.  This time of year, I eat continuously. Not because I’m hungry, but because my ears and throat itch and the only thing that helps is eating. The chewing helps the itching in my ears, and the swallowing helps scratch my throat. I can’t wait for the first frost to kill off all the ragweed. That’s probably the worst of the pollinators, though my allergies would still be obnoxious without that nasty weed. The allergy medicine can only block so much…

But I put on so much weight this time of year. I was down to 185lbs at the beginning of the year, and now I’m back over 200lbs again. So I joined a gym.  I’ve never been a member of a gym before. It was a good deal, price-wise, and it’s virtually right next to where I work. The only thing is, as part of being a member, I get one free hour-long meeting with a “personal trainer”… if I can track one down. I went in on Wednesday morning and no one was even available to talk to about rates. I left my name and number for someone to call me. No one did. So I went back Thursday afternoon, and luckily someone was there and I ended up signing up. I should have signed up to talk to a trainer then, but silly me, I wanted to wait for my schedule. So I went back Friday, and the receptionist type person said I could leave my name and number and a trainer would get back to me. Having already tried that once I told her I’d rather just make an appointment since I now knew my schedule. But no, this is not how they do it. The trainers have no set schedule, and I basically have to wait on them to get back to me or actually catch one of them when they’re around. I told the receptionist that this was a really bass ackwards system, but since leaving my name and number seems not to be an option (since I’m not going to sit around waiting for a call), that I would just come back Monday morning when she said someone “should” be there. We’ll see. If I don’t talk to a trainer or set up an appointment, I’m just going to wing it in terms of what excercises I think will help my “problem areas.” It’s not like I don’t run around enough at work, so I already know I don’t need any of the leg-type machine thingies. It’s basically everything else, but my legs, that needs the work.

I had my mid-year review at work yersterday. The General Manager went over it with me, though the review itself was the work of the evil Micro-manager (she’s on a two-day sick streak this week, maybe today too). Apparently I am doing well, BUT I have a communication issue? I don’t communicate enough, and sometimes I’m guilty of TMI in my emails….? Apparently, I said some things about how the other employees feel about Mr. Ignorant co-worker a couple weeks ago and that was a no-no…. But the thing is, the evil Micro-manager never said word one to me about what I said, and my General Manager was under the impression that she had or would. So basically, it comes out that I am Not the one who is Not communicating! It’s the evil Micro-Manager who is not interacting with me, or anyone else for that matter. My General Manager even let slip that one of my fellow supervisors has some issues with her as well (as in, they don’t/won’t talk to each other if they’re scheduled together). And as for the TMI issue, since only supers and mgrs see the emails, I felt that the they should all know if there’s a storewide issue brewing because of one coworker. My General Manager told me just to send her emails of that nature from now on. Additionally, my evil Micro-Manager feels that I do not look at the Monthly Merch packet enough and don’t keep track of tasks (even though I “consistently finish my tasks well ahead of schedule,” so which is it ). So I’m going to buy a calendar-planner and start writing things in there to keep better track of sales beginning and ending. Keeping track of the tasks is made much more difficult by the fact that she raids my weekly merch papers whenever I make the mistake of not hiding them and gives them to her “boy-friend.” Then when the papers have “mysteriously” disappeared, I’m left wondering what exactly got done and so is she. She also recently sent an email “yelling” at people about leaving merch papers at the Information desk, but the thing is, only supers and mgrs have access to emails, and we’re not the people doing it. Duh! It’s her “boy-friend” and people that She is giving the papers to, since I tell all of the people that I give the papers to, to put them in my mailbox when they’re finished with them. Not that I give many people papers at all. I do most of the Merch work myself, as she well knows.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOMEONE NEEDS A REALITY CHECK!

Anyway, all Borders stores will be having a Halloween party this year , which is extremely unusual. They don’t usually let us celebrate or acknowledge ANY holidays for fear they’ll offend someone. Personally I think selling items to do with holidays (books, foods, doodads, etc), but not in anyway acknowledging them, is tacky. I think ALL holidays should be acknowledged. It lets people know that you are taking the time to not only be aware of their needs, but also aware of the things they value. But I guess Halloween is secular enough that they’ve finally decided to yield on this holiday at least. Hah! Wouldn’t they freak if I used the “Halloween” party to educate people on Pagan traditions? Of course, then I’d probably be looking for a new job shortly thereafter.

Supposedly it will be run like the Harry Potter night was. I’ve taken charge of it since the girl who usually organizes festivities in the store will be trekking to a new store in New Jersey to help them set up. They gave us a spreadsheet of suggested activities, which are mostly really lame, and they want us to hand out candy, but they only gave us a budget of $15?! Cheap! They even want us to give out a prize for best costume… well there goes the budget! But my General Manager has authorized $40, so later today I’m running over to the Dollar Tree to buy some cheapy candy for which I’ll be reimbursed. I also spent most of yesterday online, looking up better crafts and activities for the party.  I’m forming a committee at work to discuss and create decorations, but it won’t be paid time, and I don’t think I’m going to get many people aside from the Halloween fans like myself. But it’s going to be ooky spooky fun!  So basically, Borders has authorized a store-wide, nation-wide party which they don’t feel like paying for and don’t care enough about to put any effort into beyond telling us to do it. Nice. I love working for a corporate entity.

yeth, mathsters……

So………………..anyone planning on winning the lottery at any point in the near future or have a rich uncle who’s recently deceased and you’re looking to spend some money? I’d love to open my own bookstore if you want to help a girl out.

What is one quote that best describes your views on life?

“When I get a little money, I buy books. If there is any left, I buy food.” -Erasmus 

I didn’t answer yesterday’s question, but this quote answers both really. I am a bibliophile, to the extent that I work in a bookstore, probably have close to a thousand books in my bedroom alone, one of my screen names is the Bibliophile, and if I ever got to go on that “Who wants to be a superhero?” tvshow, I would bill myself as the Bibliophile.

When I was a kid, I missed a lot of school. This was mostly because I was getting a lot of abuse from my peers, and it affected my health. But also, I was addicted to books even back then. Despite all that missed school, my grades were excellent… one of the reasons they couldn’t kick me out for not attending, though they tried. I was a library haunt. I was better read than some my teachers… that remained true even once I got to college.

Once I made the decision to stay home from school, I would usually begin to feel better. The headache or stomach ache that had prompted the decision might disappear a few hours later, and I’d spend the rest of the day reading. I’d often skip meals if the book was exceptional. Sometimes I wouldn’t even sleep if I wanted to finish the book I was reading. In which case, I might not go to school the next day either because I’d have a sleep deprivation, low blood sugar headache to contend with.

It seems my childhood was punctuated by headaches to the extent that my family would just assume I had one and sometimes leave without even telling me where they’d gone or when they’d be back. That used to hurt me a lot, and I mostly don’t ask my family for anything requiring their time or attention any more. Mostly I don’t ask them for anything at all if I can help it. I’m the only child in my family who has never borrow money from siblings or parents, and only once from my grandmother, paying her back within a month. I’m thankful my headaches don’t plague me as much now though. I still get quite a few, but I’m used to the pain. I can work through it.

I spend a significant portion of my paycheck on books. Thank goodness I get a reasonable discount or I really wouldn’t have any money left for food. It’s a really good thing I’m a vegetarian too. Most of my food is cheaper than you poor meat-eaters have to worry about. I belong to eight libraries, though now that I work in a bookstore, I don’t visit them so much. I either buy or borrow any book I like from work, usually ending up buying the book I borrowed anyway. Books and words are my raison d’etra. I read and when I’m not reading, I write, which should be obvious to anyone who reads my blog. lol I am nearly as mad about writing as I am about reading.   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

How do you define yourself? How does your opinion compare to what others think of you?

Me, Myself, and I: I like to define myself by my actions, and I think my actions usually speak for themselves. When others ask, I define myself as Pagan and Witch, Pantheist and scholar. I am female, human, and a socialist. I am sentient, honorable, and compassionate. I am frugal. I am an asexual. I define myself as someone who will stand up for others even if I won’t always stand up for myself. I am self-aware but not too self-conscious or self-absorbed. I am self-contained. I am lonely and sad. I am disappointed in people. I am tired and impatient. I am ready for this to be my last incarnation.

The public Me they See: I am a non-conformist and a free spirit. I am a “happy goth.” I do what needs to be done when no one else will. I am happy and gregarious. One of my coworkers told me I am the smartest person she knows. People who know me think I am silly. I like to play with words and turn what people say around to be funny. People know when I like them because I cook for them. I am observant and meddlesome with advice. I tell people what I see because people ask me to tell them the truth about themselves and their situations. I have been told that I take too much to heart. Another coworker says I “cannot think outside the box” because I will not let him have his own way. Everyone laughs at him behind his back because he is what he thinks I am. I am firm, but fair.  I am aloof and “out there.” I am strange and maybe mentally deranged. I am fat and pushy.

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I called off from work. No matter how badly I feel before I call off, I always feel doubly so afterwards. It doesn’t matter that I have a legitimate reason. Just the thought of people having to cover for me because I’m not there makes me feel ashamed. I know lots of people call off without having a legitimate excuse and feel nothing, but I’m not one of those people.

Right now I have my foot on ice. Thursday night I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, I stepped on the prongs of a power-plug. I drove the prongs into the box and broke it, I stepped on it so hard. It was unplugged because I only have one outlet in my room, and I needed it for something else a couple days ago. Suffice it to say, I have a hole in my foot. It’s right in the arch and hurts every time I put my foot flat on the floor. I worked yesterday, which I probably should not have done. The sneakers, with the sweat and pressure, only made it worse. It might not have been so bad if I hadn’t had to close with my micromanaging manager. She must have paged me four times after my break (while I was counting the safe, when I was changing the security tapes, while I was back in the music section helping two different people, while I was in kids straightening and helping a teacher find pirate books), but you think she could be bothered to actually do the job she was scheduled for? No. It is ironic that when it comes to my job, she’s all over it, but her job… couldn’t be bothered. I limped around the store all night, covering her floor time and putting up with being called Gimpy whenever she did make an appearance. On the other end of the spectrum, I had Mr. Ignorant co-worker making me an honorary “jar-head” since I was working injured. I wish he would just not talk to me at all, and I could pretend he doesn’t exist. I know he meant nothing by it, but just the sound of his voice is like being swarmed by a cloud of gnats.

I still might have gone into work today. The GM told me I could wear sandals today, even though open toed shoes are usually a no-no. You know…. in case of falling books. But I tried wearing sandals to the grocery store this morning and my foot still hurt. I think it needs a day to seal.

There’s also the fact that I have a tremedous headache this morning and had a nose bleed about an hour ago. I didn’t mention that to my GM when I called in… it just seemed like overkill. Sometimes it’s not so much that there’s something wrong, but that there’s layers of discomfort that make the idea of going into work just seem a ridiculous prospect. But whenever I call in, the more I explain my reasons, the more I feel like I’m talking myself into it, you know? Making excuses that sound hollow and contrived. So I just told her my foot still hurt. She already knew about it from yesterday.

Still I feel bad about it. And embarrassed. And ashamed that others will have to cover for me.

very little…

I was looking for quarters to trade in for tokens or tickets of some kind at an arcade. I found nickels and various other change scattered around on the ground near a change machine. I figured someone else’s loss was my gain even if they were only nickels, but when I picked them up, they became half dollars.

I really kind of hope this is a prophetic dream, at least in so far as it means an increase in money.

Maybe I should play the lottery.

….unless something really strikes my fancy.

My allergies are killing me by inches. My eyes feel like they’re going to fall out of my head. I can barely stay awake well enough to drive to and from work (due to my allergy meds). I will probably not be around too much until the breath of winter kills every pollinating thing dead.

This is the worst allergy season I’ve had in years.

Soooooooooooooo tired.

Socrates Cafe

1. Many modern Religions attempt to control all or most of the aspects of member’s lives and often attempt to impinge on the lives of non-members using obscure parts of their Dogma as justification. Is this phenomena growing? Why? What is the moral justification for this?

_______________________________

I believe what is meant here by “modern religions” is actually organized religion. Organization equates to control because organization creates rules for governing itself. The less control an organization perceives itself to have over its members, the more it will try to assert control through rules. This is true of any organization or bureaucracy, the only difference being to what extent an organization authorizes its own members to police its numbers and spread its words.

Because most organized religions extol their own virtues and denigrate other religions….

Because many organized religions encourage their members to convert others as part of their everyday practice….

Because many members of organized religion are afraid to voice their doubts for fear of being censured by their peers….

Because many people in organized religions have the sinking feeling that IF there are other religions, the mere fact that others exist casts unconscious doubts upon their own religious beliefs, because If there are other religions, how can they be sure that theirs is the right one….

Because certain age-old organized religions seem to see their earthly power over their constituents slipping as a process of cultural evolution….

Yes, the phenomena is growing. Fear feeds aggression, and as the organizations begin to lose their perceived power, they transfer that fear to their members, the members begin to believe that they are being persecuted and so make a stronger push to convert or remove those elements which their organization disapproves of.

The organization tries to moralize the issue… for instance, the War on Terror is a moralized attack on Muslims. But their religious affiliations are also an excuse for simple greed. Greed inspired the Crusades, though they were supposedly holy wars, and greed also inspires the war on terror.

There is never a simple answer to why anyone does anything. At any moment an action is undertaken, there is always more than one reason for it. Some are admitted to others, some are admitted to oneself, and some are never admitted. That doesn’t make them less real.

The problem of organized religions is a complex sociological issue with many divergent strands. They are difficult to untangle, especially in an issue as emotionally charged as religion. Religion represents the unknown and the unknowable and to call it into question calls up man’s most primal fears. Are we alone? Are we responsible for our own actions? Do we create the future or is it preordained? What happens when we die? When religious issues come into conflict, people are thrown off balances by their own need for security. The less sure a person is of their own understanding, the more they will fall back on dogma and the teachings of their organization. In this way, organized religion not only creates a certain “mob mentality,” it encourages it, allowing wicked men to control vast numbers of peoples and even pervert any positive message a religion may have originally had.

Individual morality and responsibility does not exist within a mob. When the mob disperses, its members often do not feel any responsibility for what the mob has done. Consider Nazi Germany, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials…. virtually any religious or social persecution is the result of mob mentality and very rarely will anyone take responsibility for what they have done as part of the mob. There is no morality to mob action. Any information to the contrary is a lie, and organized religions become little more than bureaucratic mobs when examined without sentiment.