So, you’ve decided to convert…

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing inherently wrong with faith. Quite to the contrary, studies have repeatedly shown that those who have a belief in a higher power do better in life. On the other hand, it’s not like you were ever an atheist. You’ve always professed some kind of agnostic (perhaps nondenominational? I never asked, or really cared to hear a long monologue on your belief system) aspiration, so this is presumably not a new phenomenon. What is a change is that you’ve decided to become an apostate. I’m really not one to talk about it, given that my primary obstacle with regards to conversion to Islam is a proscription against eating pork. It’s not that I’d make a particularly good Muslim either, but of everything out there, it makes the most sense to me.

A change of faith is something everybody goes through eventually. It is. A conversion to a neo-Pagan religion is not something to be taken lightly, however. Almost all of them are intrinsically linked to a belief in magic, and none that I can think of have a history longer than perhaps 150 years. The particular creed which you’ve chosen to ascribe to was almost certainly founded after the Second World War. That aside, every major ritual endemic to it is based upon the practice of witchcraft. I would hope that your professedly logical mind would find that ridiculous. It seems not to be the case. That aside, given the relative youth of the movement, I’d hope you’d research things a bit more. Given your professed aim to let your hypothetical children choose their own religion, one would think you’d do the same rather than simply ascribing that which the one religious person you know practices. Note, by the way, that it is possibly the least codified system of belief out there. No coherent dogma, large gaps between initiated Wiccans and eclectic (that’d be you and your ignominious tutor), and really scattered in general.

I suppose, though, that it goes along with your willful denial of everything else. Norse background? I’d think neo-Druidism or Asatru. Your last name is clearly Croatian (maybe Serbian), as are your features, but whatever. There are a number of neo-Pagan religions out there which do not revolve around the practice of magic or divination. I assume that because you believe the sole Wiccan you know is somehow psychic that it will be conferred upon you. It, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that she has two children, is much older, and lived out of state for an extended period of time in her adult life. Beyond which, divination in all its forms is inherently subjective. You read into it what you want to see, or what makes sense given your current (limited) knowledge base. It’s generally penultimate hindsight, but will give you very little in the way of useful guidance forward. If you’re content to keep stringing yourself along in the hope that a system of gaming which is not believed to have been used for fortune-telling prior to the 18th century can accurately predict your existence, so be it. Realize, though, that disdainful looks and rolled eyes shall follow you.

Your perpetual Messianic outlook on life belies a belief that you are both Saviour and martyr. Neither is the case. Make your life of it what you will. Fundamentally, empiricism is wrong. There is no ultimate truth or meaning to your life. You go through, day by day, and make of it what you will. There is no guide other than your own experiences, from which you should form some sort of moral guide. That is not to say, though, that you should walk through life with blinders on. You cannot analyze your problems away. The culmination of reality is simply to live. “If I can believe that I am rational and everyone else is rational then I have nothing to fear and no reason to feel anxious about being free,” right? Kierkegaard disagrees. The world is, on a whole, not rational or predictable (nor are you). So long as you what other people think of you and post attention-whore MySpace blogs which completely ignore any sort of objective truth, you allow yourself to be defined and controlled by them.

Some Bertrand Russell quotes which apply to you, and you should try to follow:

• Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
• If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
• It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
• Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
• Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
• The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.
• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
• The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
• There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
• We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.

1 Comment

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  By Missy, October 17, 2007 @ 1:58 pm

  A few things to say here~
  1) We miss you, come visit ;-; And bring Heather.
  2) Blog more.
  3) Ahm.. visit ;-;
  4) Play EQ2 and pwn Shard of Fear with us.
  5) I love you!

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