My seven (ig)noble truths

Ah yes, lacking proper footwear and anything useful to say to the world are two salient traits of mine. The others, perhaps only slightly less noticeable; like the fact that I am a sucker for silly surveys that claim to determine some sort of (surprising!) truth about ourselves that we hadn't previously pondered.

No, I haven't taken any trashy women's mag-type surveys, not since I was 12 and the greatest pleasure was to sneak around with my girlfriends and read the sex Q&A section in Cosmopolitan. Side note of no consequence: I still remember being both horrified and fascinated by the woman who wrote about her lover's penis being so large that it hurt her as it slammed against her cervical wall, of course now, if I were the sex columnist I wouldn't recommend different positions (per se -though it helps in some cases, I suppose) I would ask her if she were really that turned on before beginning the sex-act, and suggest that perhaps they try some more exotic foreplay (including massage and visual stimulation among others), because as we all know a woman's cervix actually opens up and moves back when she is in a heightened state of sexual arousal. Ah yes, but I diverge from my original path.

I was feeling alone, (by golly, that seems to happen a lot!) and nobody (least of all those I most want to read) had posted anything since last I checked, so I branched out and began perusing blogs of their friends, and friends of friends... You see where this is going don't you? I feel terribly guilty because there are so many interesting things being written out there even as we speak, but lacking the proper emotional investment in the people that are writing them, well, I'm not particularly a voyeur (exhibitionist, maybe, voyeur, not so much). Not to say I don't like, um, watching... but it is generally my preference to participate, to dig in and get my hands dirty, to feel things myself, to lick them, smell them savor them. (I am wont to generalize but I don't think I am the only woman who is drawn to the tactile). My... literary (yeah, that's the ticket!)... response is prompted by an interaction, be it ever so slim, a trickle of tangential thoughts, that orgiastic rub of words across miles of silicon conduits...
Yes, I said, I was alone again tonight. Clearly my mind is exerting its own will on my fingers.
So then the guilt sets in, you see, because in order to feel like a good (cyber)friend, I need to feel like I have the emotional energy to invest in being a regular reader... I can't bring myself to sprinkle random comments over peoples lives for no reason, with no intention of ever returning, I need to feel like I can reciprocate in some deeper way, and though you might not believe this, I am not quick to trust, not quick to hand myself over to others (except in the few bizarre cases of people who seem to know me inside out almost instantaneously). I am careful to choose people in whom to invest my precious hours, I am a cat, not a dog, not needing just any attention, but the right kind of attention, the proper manner of stroking, the appropriate fingers under the chin to elicit the purr that lies within. Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to my point for this evening.

I stumbled upon a survey about what Religion would suit you, in the Quinto Jinete's journal, and I was compelled to complete the survey, just like I have taken ones on psychological defects, depression, and political beliefs (among others) and unlike in previous cases, where I had no one with whom to share the results and no way to do so anyhow, here I felt like I couldn't comment because, well, what does he care what my results are, after all, I was a transient, passing in the night, and I felt silly, and then I felt silly for being so stilted in my ability to relate to others, but well, this is about my truths for the night, so I may as well be honest with myself and the world, right? So despite the fact that none of us (well almost none of us) really know eachother in "reality", I hate imposing myself on others, stepping on people's toes, invading their personal space, or being where I haven't been explicitly invited. Some might argue that a public forum implies an invitation, but the (really and truly I have one) shy part of me just can't make that extra step... I almost always wait for people to come to me, and generally they do. Anyway, to end this metaconversation with myself, here is the funny part:

I am not a religious person, I was raised in a faith (or in such a way) that is more about a cultural identity than a religious one, and I have always had a problem with authority. I believe in learning, and enlightenment and the human spirit. I believe that people are often good, and that through kindness, teaching and tolerance we can work towards being better, as individuals and as a group. I was a renegade at Hebrew School, all the acting out that I never did in "real" school I did at the synagogue. I remember Devorah who was a kind and lovely lady, with no patience nor pedagogical approach to speak of, who would literally tear out her hair with our devious stunts. I remember Shmuel, recently arrived from Israel who tried to force military propaganda down our throats and who would banish me from class on a daily basis for asking, ad nauseum, "Why?" Why should I support a military just because you say that I should identify with it? (I was 11 - I made his blood boil) Why should we be donating money to support the collection of weapons? Why should I celebrate the victories of wars, and marching soldierlets, and waving flags just because you say so? Why are we supposed to be so special? It was usually at this point that he would shake an angry fist at the door with one solitary finger pointing accusationally and scream, "Out! Out! Out!" It wasn't that I was opposed to believing in these things, I just wanted him to give me some good explanation, an explanation that I could wrap my brain around, so I could understand the thing, instead of just blindly following his words without any sort of critical examination, but I also have to admit, that it was a secret pleasure to watch him grow impatient and then furious, like clockwork, every time. There was some satisfaction in the repetitive action, and of course, I could then go and have long philosophical discussions with Rabbi Rick in his office, instead of watching movies on the Six-Day-War, or on the Holocaust. Don't get me wrong, if it weren't for my Hebrew School education I wouldn't be who I am today, I wouldn't have been forced to confront and question human's inhumanity to itself until much later in life, and I believe that this has made me side with the underdog, and condemn violence towards other human beings in all of its manifestations (which doesn't mean that I hold myself above it, perhaps I condemn my own violent tendencies the most, precisely because of this.)
In any case, I always question insitutions that claim to posess the ultimate truth, or the last word, at the expense of others.

So this little survey that I took made me laugh because my top three religious choices were: Buddhism (71% match) Paganism (58%) and Satanism (40%). Is life suffering? I don't know, I certainly seem to enjoy it, revelling in my personal pain and misery on a regular basis. But K. and I were having a big laugh the other day about these so-called California Buddhists, you know the kind, the ones who live on eternal retreat from the real world, and eat only macrobiotics, and meditate for 12 hours a day while subscribing to beliefs of presumed transcendence. The joke is, of course, that "they are so fucking attached to being unattached!" Yes, when your whole identity hinges on being untouched by material wants and needs, well, it turns you into a slave in a prison of your own making (comercialization of "non-commercial products" anyone?). That aside, I believe that buddhist thought has quite a bit to offer our hurting society (licking its wounds of war, materialism, mass-produced crass comercialism), but I just wanted to point out that any philosophy taken to extremes is ultimately as binding as any other, which is exactly why fascist and communist totalitarian regimes (including ones that are "democratically elected") look almost exactly the same despite absolutely convergent ideologies.
And those, my dears, are my truths as I see them, tonight.