A short History of Personal Problems - Savage Chickens

I rant for a entire blog post about this modern problem and still don't come to a conclusion.

Doug Savage, as ever, sums it up in a single post-it-note.

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I am Completely Different

I think a lot of my quest for spirituality stems from needing a reason, a logos, for living. This is something I've always had, a desperate need to feel I am here for a reason. Like the Apollo Astronauts I want to leave my footprints behind me, for a long, long time after I am gone.

I used to think I knew how to do that, but right now I'm having to rethink, and without knowing my logos I'm feeling, almost void, it whatever it is you would call the soul. I'm having to remind myself what it is like to feel real emotion.

And so I was pleased to pick up an old book of poetry from my shelf and find the following poem, by Kuroda Saburo, which brought tears to my eyes, even if just for a second.

I Am Completely Different

I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same tie as yesterday,

am as poor as yesterday,

as good for nothing as yesterday,

today

I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same clothes,

am as drunk as yesterday,

living as clumsily as yesterday, nevertheless

today

I am completely different.

Ah ...

I patiently close my eyes

on all the grins and smirks

on all the twisted smiles and horse laughs---

and glimpse then, inside me

one beautiful white butterfly

fluttering towards tomorrow.

- Kuroad Saburo

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"Most of us aren't special" - Finding a Purpose

I'm not sure whether it's a blessing or a curse to be part of Generation X. Certainly no other generation before us had such a good life expectancy, such excellent living conditions, and such massive amounts of opportunity. But then, on the other hand, no other generation had such high expectations as well.

We've been hit by more self help seminars, more life coaching books, and more self-made success TV shows that it could cope with. Nowadays it is no longer a choice to be sensational, it is an obligation. And any one who is unable to stand out from the crowd has failed to live a life worth living.

This never used to be the norm. Not so long ago you were happy enough to have a job to do, or a family to support. We didn't feel the need to have any purpose higher than that, because we never really knew such a purpose existed. Now, with so many of our other basic needs filled, with lives so much more generally satisfying, we have time to look towards greater goals. And most of the time, our greater goals are too great for us to hit.

I'm feeling this a lot myself recently. Due to some tragic realisations last year, my goals, or at least the way my goals were envisioned, are no longer possible, and I'm having to rethink my whole life. I'm not doing a very good job at it. Trying to find a new purpose in life is like trying to understand the Holy Trinity. People may pretend that they can do it, but ask them for the details, and suddenly they go all quiet.

Right now my mind has gone all quiet.

I remember, when I was in church, such thoughts didn't really occur to me. Back then I had a definite purpose in life, even though I didn't know what it was. The church, and my faith, guaranteed a purpose. God had something in mind for me. All I had to do was wait, and it would be revealed.

That was a long time ago, and I was still very young when I left the church. Maybe, as a christian now, I would no longer feel the same way, but in my memory at least, the Church gave me a purpose and direction for my life.

Now, thanks to last years reality check, and the simple, scary fact ,that we live in an uncaring universe, I don't know in slightest what I'm meant to be doing anymore.

I'm not trying to be all Avenue Q here. I don't believe that all of us have a grand purpose, that all of us are destined to change the world, but I would like to have some kind of aim in life, something worth achieving.

As a Generation X'er I've been told time and again that I can achieve anything I put my mind too, but time and again, from the lives around me, from history, and from my own story, I've seen that that's not true, but I still can't shake the feeling that I should be doing something worthwhile. That I should be striving towards some greater good.

So right now, I'm on a mission to find meaning to this silly little, highly unimportant spec of a thing, called my life, just 1 of 6 billion, on a tiny blue dot, in a tiny galaxy, in an infinite universe that doesn't even know I exist.

As you might be able to tell, it's not the easiest thing to get to grips with.

And so I wonder, what's your reason for living? What drives you on everyday? What is the one thing that keeps you going?

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A Little Help From My Friends

I don't make friends all that easily. I'm fussy, and tend to put potential friends through a series of tests first. Are the capable of holding an opinion? Can they defend their stance? Do they have the ability to question things? Do they ask lots of pointless highly judgemental questions?

Mostly I just want to see if they'll willing to let me into their mind. If they are, they are rarely dull. I'm pretty sure my tests scare many people away. Apparently most people don't like being asked probing questions about their childhood within half an hour of being introduced. I've never been sure what's so wrong about it. I mean how else do you get to know someone? But whatever it is I do, not many people stick around.

But that means the few friends I do have are extra special to me. They're people who've let me explore their inner psyche. People who aren't afraid to be themselves with me, and who I can be myself around. People who are happy to share some of their darkest thoughts with me. A friend like that is fascinating. And they help me learn more about myself, about life, and about spirituality than anything else I can imagine.

For example, every Thursday I meet up with a group of friends for a 'writer's group.' We call it a writers group but it's really an excuse to spend time together, although we may briefly discuss someones last short story if we run out of other things to talk about. And it's probably the best night of my week. For a few hours I can forget about being work Simon, or husband Simon, I can forget about trying to be clever, or being the IT geek, or even about trying to be sociable. For a few hours I'm with people who accept me as just Simon. These are people who've let in the actual Simon, and not any particular version of him. It doesn't matter If I'm tired, stressed out, or halfway through a bottle of wine, they are my friends and they'd be happy to see me. And as osly true friends can, they'd also be happy to help wake me up, cheer me up, or prise the wine bottle out of my hand.

For a few hours I can be myself and be with others feeling the same. Together, in our most natural state, we achieve more in the way of spiritual development than can be found in a whole month of church services. In those few hours we become that little bit more entwined. As we share our stories, drink our wine, and, most importantly, eat our cake, we learn a little bit more about ourselves, and about the world around us.

It's hard to feel more connected to others than where you're sat around a table so enjoying each other's company that you forget the world around you. That little circle of people becomes the world for a while.

And no matter I go home Thursday night, that little bit more energised and that little bit more aware than I was before the night began.

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Can this blog be a 'personal blog'?

If you've been paying attention to this blog, then you've probably noticed that I'm not very good at updating it regularly. In fact if you're being paying attention to this blog then you're already doing a better job than me. This is normal for the average new blog, I know. Most people create blogs and abandon them after only a few weeks. But it's a record for me. Normally I manage to let my blogs survive for at least a year before abandoning them.

The problem with this blog is that I've made it a little too specialised. By trying to write only about spiritual atheism experiences I have, I think it's fair to say written myself into something of a corner. Sure there are lots of things an Atheist can do to experience spirituality. The difficulty is finding something I want to write about at the moment!

And then I realised. This blog is meant to be about me, and my quest to be a spiritual atheist. So it makes sense every now and then to maybe write a little about me, or my life, or what I'm actually going through. That way I can update more regularly, keep getting my practice in, and still be able to deliver great Spiritual Atheist themed posts without worrying about letting the blog die in the interim.

I'm not talking about turning this blog into a journal, or anything like that, but it will start to become a bit more personal. Hopefully that will make it that bit more interesting.

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Fall out with your Lover

I hate it when my partner and I fight. I know some couples get off on arguing and fight as a way to pass the time. But when we fight, something breaks inside me.

There's a feeling you get when your lover's mad at you. Or at least there's a feeling that I get. It's a feeling that sits deep inside me. It's an emptiness that needs to be filled. An emotion that needs to be expressed. A guilt that must be confessed to.

When I'm excluded from his touch, excluded from his love, it feels as if I've been cut off from life itself for a while. And I feel it all through me. Every part of me wrong. Every inch of me feel confused when I know that he's mad at me.

And I know, of course, from experience that with in a few hours, it will be gone, and life will go on as normal, still during those few hours my heart trembles. I feel like I want to shout, or scream, or punch something just because it's the only way I can begin to ease the feeling of loss that I get whenever that love goes away, whenever that love leaves me for a minute or for a day.

Maybe it's just me, it probably is. I'm good at over-reacting. But to me, losing that love, is like losing part of myself. It's like tearing a chunk out of my soul.

And it's a shame that the time I most realise how I feel about him, and how deeply connected I am to him, is a few seconds after the fight is over.

Sometimes having a spirit can hurt too.

But then, later on, you get to make up.

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Ghosts are a spiritiual phenomena

The existence of Ghosts proves the existence of the human spirit.

Nope, I haven't gone to the woo side. Bare with me.

Humans fear death, although how we deal with it changes as we age. Heading into late 20's, I largely deal with death by ignoring it. As I age my attitude to death may slowly change. One day I expect to have a sudden crushing realisation that I will die one day. I already know that death is inevitable of course, I have no illusions of immortality, but death still feels far away, or unlikely - as likely to happen to me anytime soon as winning the lottery. I have not yet changed the world, I have not yet left my footprint in history. I have not yet even written a will, i can't possibly die yet. One day, having still not changed the world, left my footprint in history or written a will I'll probably suddenly realise that I am running out of time and decide to buy a motorbike.

We're not wired to understand death. If we did we would never attempt to do anything. What would be the point? Instead we see ourselves as separate from our body. It is not my brain telling my hand what to write, it is me. I am not my mind, I exist separate from my body, but also in it. Of course, logically I know there outside of my body and my brain there is no me. And yet everyday I act as if there is something else. And so do you. This is the way our brains have learnt to program us. It is the most effective way for us to cope with existence. It is also completely a lie.

But having created a lie the brain must validate it. And this, I believe is where ghosts come into it.

We all want to believe. We may scoff at Most Haunted or Ghost Hunters but there is something comforting in the idea of ghosts. They are proof that the spirit exists beyond this mortal coil. The existence of ghosts proves the conceit the brain has constructed. And for this reason I wonder if we are predisposed to see them.

The brain constructs wonderful stories from feelings and sightings from the corner of the eye. Rather than dismissing them, we call these ghosts. We create elaborate stories about ghosts to tell others who agree with us and tell us their own. Almost everyone has some sighting to share, the smell of their grandfathers cigarettes at his funeral, their deceased mothers voice in their ear, the feel of their child's hand holding onto theirs. The stories bond us, and convince us that the spirit will live forever.

This is the brain at it's most amazing. It has not only created an illusion of the spirit, it even seeks evidence of it. We are so keen to avoid death that we seek proof of the afterlife in everything. The brain allows us to create elaborate stories, based on a shadow in the corner, or a smell in a room, and use it to convince ourselves that we are immortal. And with this reassurance, they can carry on in the world. No matter what happens we will live forever.

How incredible is a brain that can do this? Next time someone tells me a ghost story, instead of fighting them I'll respect them instead. They may be mistaken, almost certainly they are, but they simply can't help it. Their story is evidence of brain that needs us to believe we exist outside of our body. And will go to phenomenal extents to make that seem true.

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