Monday, August 13, 2007

Politics, religion and other things you shouldn't discuss at the dinner table

I'm not a religious person; I would term myself spiritual, but certainly not a God/Jesus-lover, although I do love the church signs in the South that make bold, declaratory statements about the evolution of man, and vague, somewhat sinister threats of what God's gonna do to you if he's disturbed from heaven ("DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!!" being one of my faves) - because as we all know it's SO much easier to be Good if we're being constantly threatened by a omnipresent source of power who we're afraid is going to beat us up at any moment. Sometimes I wonder if this bizarre image of God might cause some battered-woman syndrome in some people...I mean honestly.

That being said, I do believe in something. My way of thinking is that there HAS to be something holding it all together (albeit with pretty thin string).

Sometime I get the feeling that I'm the only one (perhaps because of my egomaniacle way of thinking) that gets totally confused and astounded by the way the world works. Or doesn't work, at times. I mean, honestly, how WEIRD is it that, for example, people waiting for the Metro can stand there, at the edge of the train track, waiting for the train, and NOT be afraid that some random stranger might come up behind them and give them a little nudge, a little shove, and BOOM they sail over the side and into a million little pieces, if you want to quote James Frey, which nobody really does now-a-days, thanks to Oprah and her insanity. Seriously. So trusting! We all stand there in our own little worlds, and I do have to wonder (in amazement) about our civility. At times it drives me mad - the civilized drones that work hard and play easy, our Ikea loving materialistic comforts that have turned us from animals into, what? Yes, I'm verging on some Fight Club territory here, and Chuck Palahniuk annoys the crap out of me normally, so I don't particularly want to continue with this line of thought, but honestly. IT'S WEIRD!!

(Disclaimer: I'm not by any means saying that I would actually want people to start going around shoving each other in front of trains, or driving into oncoming traffic for fun, because anarchy in theory is sort of cool, but in actual practice is pretty damn scary, but merely stating how freaking insane it is that it is considered normal that it doesn't happen.)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Just yesterday afternoon while having brunch with my beau, I thought about how much trust everyone in the restaurant has. How much trust he had in me that I wouldn't pick up my bread knife and slice him right in the eyeball.

How easy it would be to do that. How easy to veer off the road when you're driving and hit someone, to push someone into the subway pit and have them hit that vicious third rail.

Morality? Justice? God? What's holding us back?

I just like people. And I don't want to get pushed. Ha. An easy, glib answer to avoid having to write for 4,224 pages on a blog. Suffice it to say I've thought similar thoughts to yours and like this blog entry.

Anonymous said...

See my comments on "The Adventures of Metrogirl." People can, literally, do anything they want to, but generally walk this invisible line we call civility. Why not just walk up to someone and give them $100? Everyone uses examples that are about stabbing someone, but we could do anything, even good stuff. It's just odd that, for the most part, we're Starbucks zombies listening to iPods while shuffling our feet like the dawn of the dead toward our offices where we'll just go through the motions and never experience much excitement or passion, aside from the time that the kid with the mail falls over, but then it's over in a second and everything's gray again.

Hmm.