Hergest Ridge

Few people manage to defy logic as often and as spectacular as Limbaugh does.

… I learned early on that most debates on this question are vapid or worse, since what we are discussing is not a form of sex, or not only a form of sex, but a form of love. As such, it must command respect.
– Christopher Hitchens

Claire: There may be life somewhere else
Justine: But there isn’t.”

While the pace of the film felt at times sluggish, I got into it in the second part. I think the characters needed more background – for the first half I wasn’t personally interested in them.

One thing I found to be life-like is how Justine, Claire and John betrayed their own personal characters in the end, and accepted their fate in ways so different than one might have expected them to.

The swan song of Melancholia nearing had a strangely calming effect, perhaps akin to the Titanic orchestra that played well into the end 100 years ago today. The Atlantic ocean took back from humanity that which humanity vainly harvested deep from under its skin torn and ripped greedily. Melancholia took everything else, leaving no one to lament or bemoan its fate.

Justine: The earth is evil. We don’t need to grieve for it.
Claire: What?
Justine: Nobody will miss it.

I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years past been working to undo the botched job your God has made. – Emma Goldman

This is from 1898, which is both encouraging and disheartening. Encouraging in that some could see through God so long ago. Disheartening in that many generations later so many still believe in and worship these cruel inventions of our desperate, mortal minds.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Hitch: Try looking that up in a “modern” version of the New Testament (Philippians 4:8) and see what a ration of bland doggerel you get. I shall never understand how the keepers and trustees of the King James Version threw away such a treasure.

The way I see it, there’s only room for two in a relationship.
No Gods allowed.

I was repulsed double the other day. First, at myself – for following a woman to see where she might go, where I might find chance to strike up a conversation. She was dressed rather conservative, but in a kind of radiating way.

Lead she did, straight into a church. This was, of course, a bad omen. I find it impossible to admire churches beyond their architectural merit. I hoped that architecture and art was her motivation for stepping in to the wretched House of Lord. (Sometimes churches have nice art, but most of the time, it’s sort of a masochistic sacrifice fest that’s quite repulsive.)

And so I followed in – it happens to be a very nice church which I’ve visited before.

This brings me to another part of my past, and a girl that used to send me SMSs on occasion that stated “I’m sitting in a pew at the church. Imagine that, a woman brought up Muslim. I find the place serene.” She didn’t attend service, but just went there for the silence. I guess.

So part of me perhaps imagined this woman I followed, sitting in a pew, contemplating life. A world with perhaps an afterlife, but no God – or maybe a universe with a God, but no afterlife. Imagine that. Yes, I could converse with a woman as such until day break.

I think it’s times like these where my inner optimist shines. And as you’ve heard before, light shining from a mountain top will inevitably attract darkness.

Anyway, there I found her, alone – looking at the ground beneath her feet, kneeling at the cross – praying to the sick bastard above.

There you have it. This happened months ago – I time-shift my tales. It’s to protect those I know, and to give me a bit of breathing room as I try to live in a house of glass. I came to the conclusion I’m shit at fiction, so I’ve to share more of myself than I am comfortable with. The tales are often true, but the order is all out of whack.

In an adjacent realm, here’s a theory I’ve grown to like: an interesting life is better than a good life. Good is often predictable, and without surprise. We all know what our own good looks and smells like. We can taste it.

The whole realisation of interesting above good is again not my own idea – well, at least not its conception. It all became obvious to me as I wished a happy new year to a fellow human being, and the swift answer that came “thanks, but I’d really rather have an interesting year than good. Interesting-bad, it’s better than just vanilla good.”

Mr. Cohen is coming to a draw, and I’ve a class at the crack of dawn. Perhaps it’s time to again act the role of a responsible individual and try sleeping – how awfully dull.

The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on – only henceforth in my absence. (It’s the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.

Hitch 22 Excerpt, Christopher Hitchens
Photo credit: New Statesman

Had a squabble with a priest today, right on church ground. I’m certain he never did recover from the shock of my not addressing him as father, and was slightly disappointed he did not try and call me “my child,” for which instance I’ve prepared words of condemnation ahead of time. (These terms are much more common in the Polish language than the English.)

The polish RC church does not follow Vatican protocol and demands witnesses for apostasy. I knew that ahead of time, and was well prepared. The priest however mumbled something about needing to bring in a higher priest from out of the city.

“All this difficulty? It was easy getting in, wasn’t it? Why do you put barriers up on exit?” (The universal answer being “it’s a money and greed thing.”)

“It wasn’t easy getting in” he replied.

“Getting me signed up in here was someone else’s mistake, one I’m here to rectify.”

Thursday I am going back, with two options for the church:

You cross me out of your evil book of baptisms, and confirm my apostasy, and I let you be – I don’t believe in God, in none. If however you continue with the guerilla tactics on my apostasy, here is a message for you:

I’ve the means to take this all the way up the EU courts. Your filthy behaviour in trying to discourage people from leaving your sick organisation will cost you significantly more than you are getting on my account from Poland’s corrupt Government. I speak fluent German, English and Polish – I will take care of everything with greater agility than that with which your organisation robs people.

Let me leave now, don’t make me come back here again to serve you with papers of much more inconvenient nature. And just to be clear, at this point I will be happy with what ever path you choose. I will be happy forgetting about you and your kind with the signing of my apostasy, but just as eager for you to give me that one last reason to take you on full force and pave the way for others less determined to leave here for good. So help you your sick, sick God, amen.

“We thought of life by analogy with a journey, with
a pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end
and the thing was to get to that end. But we missed
the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing
and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the
music was being played.”

~ Alan Watt