So this is Christmas

It feels nothing like Christmas this year.

When you realise that most of what you've believed in for a long time is actually untrue, or half-true, you begin to ponder the value of your beliefs. You start to look to the actions that they have inspired and the outcomes of these works. You begin to look to those of others, when your own are lacking.

I am very confused over religion in general. It is convenient to be an atheist, but a great folly as well. They may mock and scorn but the truth is that all of us place blind faith in one thing or another. That atheists should despise people who place blind faith in a god simply shows their arrogance—they are guilty of the very same bigotry they accuse the religious of.

Bashing aside, I have come to many dilemmas over my own religion. It seems the more I search, the more questions surface and the less certainty there is to anything. Personally, I do not believe in blind faith. It is preposterous that a sentient God should shroud Himself in mystery and obscure the minds of His creatures. The will of God must make sense. Yet, often the opposite seems to be true.

So God let our minds evolve(degenerate) into such a state where His will is too big (too foolish) for us to grasp?

The search for the Christian God inevitably leads to the Bible, the supposed Word of God, that is God-breathed and useful for doctrine, reproach, and other important disciplines. This same Bible that we use today was actually decided by a group of men, who chose which books to include in the "Canon" and which not to.

This does not lend further credibility to the circular argument that "God is real (or any adjective here) because the Bible says so" >> "The Bible is real because God said it".

I've learnt recently that the translation of "abomination" in referrence to homosexuals is really something more like "ceremonially unclean". Stuff like eating lobster, menstruating, or shaving makes you ceremonially unclean too.

So I ask myself a very poignant question, " If Christ did not offer us eternal life but just a way of life on Earth, would you still follow Him?"

I feel ashamed to answer.

But Christmastime goes on. I get involved in some cheesy musical that has SAF style management and 3 directors; I shop for Christmas gifts in bulk; and I talk to service staff, who are overtly eager to wish me "Merry Christmas". Often I pause for a second, wondering if I should shoot back if it means anything to them. But it's Christmas... so I let up. Year by year I meet fewer and fewer people. I drift from old friends and new ones alike. The Christmas tree collects more dust in the store and the decorations grow mouldy. We do away with the turkey, forget the wine, and have been reduced to humming carols.

Christmas just isn't the same anymore.

Bashed

MMMMMM-mmmmnsta kill.

I just got bashed with a very scathing critique of my essay. I am rather disgusted despite how I agree with the general conclusion. I have been reminded why I shouldn't, ever, trust acquaintances.

Perhaps it was my fault for suggesting that I wasn't sending my final, most perfect piece. Perhaps I was asking at a bad time. Perhaps I should have been direct and intrusive, like Americans like to be.

None of that justified the warm response I got.

When he asked for comments and suggestions I readily gave mine, trying my best to be constructive, polite, and generous. I believed in his work. It was a good work, helping others to where they dreamed. Indeed, it takes the kindest intentions to disguise the most vehement wolves.

So I think he's someone approachable. I believe in his "keep in touch", that it is something more than a polite end to an email. I believe his invitation. I believed a lie.

I would've been irked, had the roles been reversed, to see a poorly formatted document that was supposed to be a final draft. But I would never have responded with such malice and condescension. Clearly, our perspectives were different, he missed the things I was trying to show, and dissed me for things I tried to give as details, slighting these as "telling".

He predictably enjoyed the bit I stashed in for readers like him and acknowledged it grudgingly. I really doubt that everything should sound like a Readers Digest article. Aren't they said to only amuse the simple?

But sadly, I can't disagree with the conclusion that the event was rather banal. Perhaps I am hiding too much as usual, for fear of sounding too far from the stereotype, for fear of sounding trivial. Maybe there isn't anything so special about me, or at least that isn't the important kind of thing in a Uni app.

Maybe there is. But it is warped every time I try to phase that silver thread into reality.

Nonetheless, try again I must.

Midnight

There is this thrill surrounding midnight.

It is a beautiful time of day; the world turns blue and grey. Silence consumes all but thoughts, which, dance like wisps in silvery moonlight. It is a foxy time, quiet enough for my world to seep out of me and become something real. It is where I write best, think most clearly, and taste vivid emotions too dangerous to try when others are around.

Some people will take issue with my liking, I'm sure. After all, darkness has always been synonymous with evil. Funny how these are the kinds who are actually perpetuating democracy by force, proselytizing salesmen of things they haven't a clue about. Humanity has always feared uncertainty. That is why we fear darkness. Our primary sense—sight—is obscured. And we imagine all sorts of impossible things lurking in that field of possibility: ghosts, the boogeyman, creatures, something we might bump into, and all sorts of paranormal spookies.

It's strange too, how we never imagine angels, fairies or gold in that pitch darkness around us.

We have much more to fear among our peers than in the dark. The darkness only obscures your vision. You fellow man can and will gouge out your eyeballs in the name of democracy, freedom, or God.

But the darkness of sight is nothing like the darkness of mind, being clouded from seeing situations as they should be seen. So many people I meet are this way and often, I can't help but feel sorry for them—people who are systematically kept from becoming something great because of their warped views of reality. They pride themselves in being pragmatic, when they simply won't dare to do something uncomfortable, uncertain, unfamiliar. They always see the impossible, the failed state, the despondent me after it fails. They start of knowing they'll fail.

A pity isn't it? Brilliant lives shrouded in darkness.

Perhaps it is providence, or sheer rebelliousness that has kept me from being shrouded in dense lies. But I reckon it is no coincidence that I only ever dream in dark grey hues.