Extra-physical: numerology

This link takes you to a so-called birthday calculator. Numerology is one of those controversial 'sciences'. Those who have a disposition towards these things sees how it works beautifully with their lives. Others scoff that the location of Pluto at your birth has any effect on your personality. I tend to swing back and forth on the issue, but I do think that the success of numerology, like most things in life, depends heavily on your mindset.

Once I entered a bookstore in Squamish. The owner was into numerology. The wooden floors creaked and books of spirit filled the first shelves leading down the long shop. My friend and I had entered about ten minutes before closing, but Margaret, the owner, let us browse around. When it came time for me to choose between three books, numerology came out. Margaret found the number of each author's name to see if it matched my own. Then she locked us in the warm store and whispered reverently about Elvis Presley's birthday. She told us about personality traits manifesting themselves in our physical bodies. She confided that I had discening eyes and trusted to me the secret of using the 'white light'.

Margaret had been a waitress for many years, had taught herself some people skills that made her a compelling server. Her ability to weave a story and keep you, with a mix of interest and sticky uncertain escape, struck me and stays with me still.

Crackers again...

Reading Myers' blog again, to see if there were any updates. He's had to close at least two posts for commenting because there was too much! And these are thousands of comments!


I think the reason it really bothered me is ithat it was unfounded on the truth. Of course, truth is always a relative term... Myers took it out of context and yes, people wanting to kill a kid for taking the communion wafer are over the line. Yes, those are irrational Catholics. But that doesn't mean that Catholics are irrational, and I suppose that assumption would lead to the second assumption I noted earlier this week, that Myers behaves as though, because he has science on his side, he is reasonable and right and just. However, it doesn't work like that. Life is not a logic equation.

I read a book called Do you think what you think you think?. The whole premise is just to see if your idea of God is logical. It's not trying to reform you or anything, there's no religion-bashing, it's just to get you to think about it. It also has some good tips on logic, and at one point they show that in electoral campaigns, politicians say something like, "Vote for me if you want a better country", which, in our strange human decoding, translates into, "if I don't vote for him it means I don't want a better country". Pretty useful for influencing the masses, but annoying to anyone else who stops to think. Smiling waving politician at the podium isn't saying "if and only if you vote for me do you want a better country", which means that you can want a better country and vote for someone who will do that for you.


Then there are those who are so disgusted with what they see as a phoney suit trying to honey up some votes, and completely disregard everything. That would be the scientist, anti-religion Myers. Just reading some of the comments on this thread, the short-sightedness of some similar types is evidenced (note that short-sightedness goes with a lack of ability to put into context, a general apathy, or a strong desire to be 'insulted' and scientifically (or technically) prove their rightness)


Sometimes I saw replies to comments that quoted part or all of a sentence and proceeded to prove how they are right or the original commenter is wrong - note that one does not necessecarily invoke the other. However, if they stopped being so excited about finding someone wrong, they'd find that the person they are ridiculing has the same point as them. Impatience... sigh. (And yes, I am impatient too.)

To Myers: yes, it is only a cracker. Many people know that, and many Catholic people know that, at a certain point, yes, it is just a piece of bread. Part of religion is belief and importance of values. I wouldn't harken it to make-believe, because it is a couple levels above that. It's like a way to live your life, to find peace, to guide your choices. And if I'm not mistaken, I'm Catholic and I'm not ramming it down anyone's throat. Nevertheless, the Eucharist has a certain importance in the lives of those who follow God in this way, and it does have importance as that role. It's not like you can ignore stock market speculation and buy stocks at cheaper than they are listed - just the fact that it is thought to have importance give it importance - and that's a real thing, influencing the real world.


As far as awakening Catholics to the fact that it is only just a cracker, I think Myers may have just wanted to kind of look like that was what he was trying to do so he'd have some recourse - that with reason on his side he would save the poor backwards peasants.

Questions

Over a week ago I was talking with my friend Nick. The seeming duality of Nick's character, going from one frivolous extreme to the pessimistic who sees doom on his doorstep, is a symptom of his passion in the pursuit of ideas. (And of course, ideas are so much more beautiful when they are hyperbolized)


Thing is, most of his domesday dreams are highly supported by factual evidence, history and economics. People are, after all, very predictable, technology develops further, societies rise and fall... sometimes with huge aftershocks.


Nick has become tired of telling people all about the chaos that will soon disrupt the lives of the wonderbread, and constantly meeting a dead end. It's too bad that he seems to have burnt out so soon into his life, only 19 years this month. Because Nick is not just pessimistic, he's a tired realist. So he quietly retreats into his own future, taking his own advice.


So what happens when the depression is over and the world's condition seems mediocre, if not excellent? Will he be happy and content or will be become relatively radical in a newfound pessimism? Is he just a victim of circumstance? I suppose I wonder - and wish - if Nick would have been any other way in a different time.

But I sincerely think that, for some reason, some person, some action, he was needed in this time.

Thanks

Woohoo! It's so amazing to receive positive feedback! As hard as it is to take negative feedback, at least it offers an area of improvement.


I think it's even harder to go without anything at all. There's a sense of not knowing if you forgot where the line is, suddenly wondering if all this time you thought you were great when, really, you weren't that good at all.


And the past couple of days people have said good things, about my blog and my photos! I just want to give a big shout out to everyone who has encouraged me anywhere along this journey of my blog, and my photography.

I definitely wouldn't be doing this now without that. <3

Part of your future self

I have a tattoo. On the back of my neck, where no one can see it unless I choose to let them. Just the way everyone comments when you dye your hair hot pink with green streaks, people will remark on your tattoo (though usually it is the newly inked who is overeager to share their addition), and it was precisely the repeated superficial comment over and over again from people who barely know me that I wanted to avoid. (especially as an introvert)


Well after catching the tiniest glimpse of it between my hair, a friend of mine got the show-and-tell. About half the people I've showed have said they'd like a tattoo or would be too scared to pain and/or needles. My friend then says he'd like to get a tattoo. Then he said something... baffling and odd.

"Pick a tattoo design for me", he said. My immdeiate response was a potato on his ankle. What an odd request! A tattoo is something you keep for life. Long after your clothes, hair, boss, or hobbies change, you'll still be wearing the same ink. In fact, the tattoo removal industry was more popular than the tattoo business about 8 years ago.

Part of the reason I got a tattoo was so that I could experience the same doubt as I do about what I am doing. But I suppose that's where I missed the point: it added to and changed who I was. And any person who cannot accept changes in self is like a body whose immune system rejects a donor organ; it's not well-suited for survival.

So I suppose when he saw my tattoo he decided I had good taste and just the fact that I actually had a tattoo convinced him that I was for real. But to me (the one with her design hidden) your tattoo is something personal and very important. Why would someone want to carry for a lifetime someone else's taste or thoughts?

On the other hand... why not take advantage of this opportunity to brand someone? Like planting the flag on a new continent.