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In What Do I Believe?
Nov. 24th, 2012 01:02 amA good question. I wish I had a good answer.
I've cycled through a hell of a lot of beliefs in my life so far. I could not get into Catholicism when I was a boy - it seemed too stuffy. And nowadays, I look on it as a dark cult of nonsense masking institutionalised child abuse and an ancient bigotry, so I'm not going near there.
I'm Catholic enough to think of Anglicanism as being a waste of time, a bunch of men in frocks pretending to be Catholics and not knowing anything because the Imaginary Catholic Friend is not even bothering to listen to them anyway, even if he was not, as stated, imaginary.
At the age of twelve, I entered my rebellious phase. I honestly embraced Chaos long before it was fashionable. Paganism, too. The folks freaked when they saw some of the reading material I'd bought. Dad discreetly burned one of my little grimoires.
(Thanks, Dad. I've since replaced it and bought a thousand even darker books. Dumb prick.)
At the age of 23, I think I Awakened. The world was full of magic and potential. It took me three years to get the tools of the trade - Tarot cards, the runes. But even then I was filtering the bullshit from the genuine books and sources.
In the late Eighties, I flirted with Buddhism, Taoism; even vegetarianism at times. I learned to channel my ki effectively, and developed the beginnings of the personality I have today: tolerant, accepting changes, accepting diversity (no ... embracing diversity; diving deeply into the wellspring of diversity).
Ah, and then the Nineties came, and I picked up some crucial books. Liber Null and Psychonaut; Liber Kaos; The Principia Discordia.
I found the Chaos. And the Chaos found me. It was like coming home.
I never let go of any of the earlier teachings either. Buddhism, Taoism, Tantra, Paganism, Asatru ... they still inform my actions and determine my tastes, some of the time. To that list, you can add Stoicism, too, and secular humanism, and even atheism - oddly enough.
The Nineties also gave me the Code of Ananda, that list of doctrines from the fictional Cult of Ecstasy which I also strive to uphold: "Humour cooleth the blood. Wrath spilleth it," and "Some minds rest best asleep. Stir not those who would waken otherwise."
The 2000s were dark. From 1998, I began to suffer my Long Dark Twilight of the Soul. In time, I did manage to climb out of the gravity well - only to find it still with me, in a way. Everything I've done from about 2001 on has been filtered through a dark lens. Along with the rest of the world, I guess; but they seem to see only the darkness, and it has made the world truly blind all these years.
I picked up Robert Greene's "The 48 Laws of Power" and "The Art of Seduction," both beautiful books which I regularly consult for entertainment and enjoyment. And those books, too, inform my actions in various ways.
I also learned two informative lines to aid in understanding the darkness; "Power Attracts Darkness; Darkness Attracts Power," and "If you do not Serve Yourself, then surely You shall be made to Serve Another; If you do not Master Yourself, then Someone shall surely Master You."
In 2007, I pulled out all the stops and let my brain begin firing on all thrusters, so to speak. I embraced Vedic mathematics and went back to solving the Rubik Cube as a meditation mantra. It usually shocks the hell out of people when they see me solve a cube in a minute. I don't go for records - even if I had that kind of God's Algorithm in my head, I'd still prefer to take time enjoying the process of solving the cube, but seeing it solved so quickly both astonishes and terrifies onlookers: astonishes, because of course they believe it to be insoluble; terrifies, because they see that I am smarter than they give me credit for, and for that reason they fear.
In 2010, the world entered one of its darkest phases yet. We're still in that darkness, and it is only going to get darker before something breaks. But that Chaos is still there, and it is awaiting its chance to change things, which it will do, at the points of greatest stress.
In the midst of all this darkness, I began to realise something devastatingly simple, something that was right in front of my eyes the whole time, yet I could not see it.
The thing I most truly believe in is just one line from Nietzsche, one which epitomises the struggle many people seem to be fighting against and failing.
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye yourself shall become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
And lastly, from 2008, the one line that fits me perfectly comes from The Joker in that Batman movie - "That which does not kill us makes us ... stranger."
My beliefs in a nutshell, I guess. Strangeness, diversity, change, chaos, intelligence, magic, science, knowledge, lore, poetry, darkness, intensity, neural connectivity, intuition, and a profound ability to see the world holistically.
If I have a word for what that makes me, I would not use that word to describe me. I'd leave that to others, except that I know that they would not use that word to describe me, out of fear and - face it - envy.
So I'll leave you to work out what that word might be. And that knowledge, that I think of myself as that word, is what I truly believe in.
I've cycled through a hell of a lot of beliefs in my life so far. I could not get into Catholicism when I was a boy - it seemed too stuffy. And nowadays, I look on it as a dark cult of nonsense masking institutionalised child abuse and an ancient bigotry, so I'm not going near there.
I'm Catholic enough to think of Anglicanism as being a waste of time, a bunch of men in frocks pretending to be Catholics and not knowing anything because the Imaginary Catholic Friend is not even bothering to listen to them anyway, even if he was not, as stated, imaginary.
At the age of twelve, I entered my rebellious phase. I honestly embraced Chaos long before it was fashionable. Paganism, too. The folks freaked when they saw some of the reading material I'd bought. Dad discreetly burned one of my little grimoires.
(Thanks, Dad. I've since replaced it and bought a thousand even darker books. Dumb prick.)
At the age of 23, I think I Awakened. The world was full of magic and potential. It took me three years to get the tools of the trade - Tarot cards, the runes. But even then I was filtering the bullshit from the genuine books and sources.
In the late Eighties, I flirted with Buddhism, Taoism; even vegetarianism at times. I learned to channel my ki effectively, and developed the beginnings of the personality I have today: tolerant, accepting changes, accepting diversity (no ... embracing diversity; diving deeply into the wellspring of diversity).
Ah, and then the Nineties came, and I picked up some crucial books. Liber Null and Psychonaut; Liber Kaos; The Principia Discordia.
I found the Chaos. And the Chaos found me. It was like coming home.
I never let go of any of the earlier teachings either. Buddhism, Taoism, Tantra, Paganism, Asatru ... they still inform my actions and determine my tastes, some of the time. To that list, you can add Stoicism, too, and secular humanism, and even atheism - oddly enough.
The Nineties also gave me the Code of Ananda, that list of doctrines from the fictional Cult of Ecstasy which I also strive to uphold: "Humour cooleth the blood. Wrath spilleth it," and "Some minds rest best asleep. Stir not those who would waken otherwise."
The 2000s were dark. From 1998, I began to suffer my Long Dark Twilight of the Soul. In time, I did manage to climb out of the gravity well - only to find it still with me, in a way. Everything I've done from about 2001 on has been filtered through a dark lens. Along with the rest of the world, I guess; but they seem to see only the darkness, and it has made the world truly blind all these years.
I picked up Robert Greene's "The 48 Laws of Power" and "The Art of Seduction," both beautiful books which I regularly consult for entertainment and enjoyment. And those books, too, inform my actions in various ways.
I also learned two informative lines to aid in understanding the darkness; "Power Attracts Darkness; Darkness Attracts Power," and "If you do not Serve Yourself, then surely You shall be made to Serve Another; If you do not Master Yourself, then Someone shall surely Master You."
In 2007, I pulled out all the stops and let my brain begin firing on all thrusters, so to speak. I embraced Vedic mathematics and went back to solving the Rubik Cube as a meditation mantra. It usually shocks the hell out of people when they see me solve a cube in a minute. I don't go for records - even if I had that kind of God's Algorithm in my head, I'd still prefer to take time enjoying the process of solving the cube, but seeing it solved so quickly both astonishes and terrifies onlookers: astonishes, because of course they believe it to be insoluble; terrifies, because they see that I am smarter than they give me credit for, and for that reason they fear.
In 2010, the world entered one of its darkest phases yet. We're still in that darkness, and it is only going to get darker before something breaks. But that Chaos is still there, and it is awaiting its chance to change things, which it will do, at the points of greatest stress.
In the midst of all this darkness, I began to realise something devastatingly simple, something that was right in front of my eyes the whole time, yet I could not see it.
The thing I most truly believe in is just one line from Nietzsche, one which epitomises the struggle many people seem to be fighting against and failing.
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye yourself shall become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
And lastly, from 2008, the one line that fits me perfectly comes from The Joker in that Batman movie - "That which does not kill us makes us ... stranger."
My beliefs in a nutshell, I guess. Strangeness, diversity, change, chaos, intelligence, magic, science, knowledge, lore, poetry, darkness, intensity, neural connectivity, intuition, and a profound ability to see the world holistically.
If I have a word for what that makes me, I would not use that word to describe me. I'd leave that to others, except that I know that they would not use that word to describe me, out of fear and - face it - envy.
So I'll leave you to work out what that word might be. And that knowledge, that I think of myself as that word, is what I truly believe in.
