Well, let me tell you a story. Sobek, dear beloved Father, has been trying in vain to get me into heavy metal for years. It’s never been my thing, or so I thought, so I figured He’d stopped pestering me about it because He had accepted He’d never win me over.

Apparently not. -_-

Now, this story requires some past history, so bear with me. I have this weird instinct where I just *know* if I’ll like a certain band or artist, usually just from hearing a few songs. This instinct has rarely been wrong, so I tend to listen to it when it calls.

Enter silverchair and The Prodigy. I first fell in love with these bands when I was a wee teenager. It was that instinct again, see? But mother was not a fan of this sort of music, and I’m a nice sort of kid, so I didn’t rock the boat. My time would come. And when I did begin buying their albums years later in my 20s? Lo, I did fall in love with them. My instinct was right.

Now, enter Black Sabbath. This requires a little more explanation. I’ve had a flirtation with this band for years. YEARS, people. Now, maybe it was my Christian upbringing, maybe it was because mother would not have approved at all, but I always kept Sabbath at a distance. That instinct of mine was there, but I always said no. Even though Ozzy Osbourne is fucking adorable, I still said no. I think part of me was slightly afraid at how much I would like it, as if it was my ‘dark side’ or something.

Now, enter rage and The Chaser guest progamming for NYE 2007. What did I get out of that epic experience? I fell in love with ELO, of course. And Pink Floyd to a certain extent. It aged my music collection certainly. (In an unrelated note, I also fell in love with of Montreal and The Decemberists, but that’s another story.)

ELO are actually a terrible enabler. The effect they’ve had on my music collection is rather significant, and there are some people I would never have bothered listening to otherwise. Also, Roy Wood? Fucking nuts, and also fucking awesome. <3 …It’s an ‘epic hair’ and a ‘boys in make-up’ thing. XD

(Also, the impact ELO has had on my writing is rather extraordinary and should be discussed at length elsewhere.)

Now, enter rage again their ‘rage gets hairy’ special. Now, I like a bloke with long hair, as I’ve mentioned, bonus points for leather and/or chest pr0n. So, naturally, it’s quite a good special. Twisted Sister come onto my radar and I like what I see and hear. Twisted Sister, of course, have come onto my radar in the past from my love of No Doubt.

I have also recently fallen in love with Led Zeppelin, and not just because of Go! and other assorted coincidences.

I feel there are more than three coincidences here and I ought to have twigged this was leading to some sort of clue-by four. But, of course, I’m somewhat dense to these sorts of things, so naturally, I was left slightly without warning.

Now, when I happened across a charming blog that offered bootlegs recently, and happened to offer ELO bootlegs to boot, well, I couldn’t resist, so I downloaded them. I was not looking for said bootlegs, but I found them. Now, I happened to scroll down to see what other bands they had, and lo, there was Led Zep and Black Sabbath.

How does ELO link to Black Sabbath? Well, quite easily. You see, I remembered from reading Bev Bevan’s blog that he had toured with Black Sabbath in 1983 (which I will point out is the year I was born? XD). (Listening to his radio show for months has also been awesomefuntimes and has kinda made me fall in love with other artists, but that’s another story.) This piece of knowledge had always intrigued me because going from ELO to Black Sabbath sounds so… weirdly awesome, so I checked to see if there were any Sabbath bootlegs from that particular tour. There were. I downloaded them both. I discovered my instinct had been right. Again. XD

Now, the ABC has been showing this ‘Seven Ages of Rock’ series of late. Well done, it’s an awesome series. Cue tonight’s show. Topic? Heavy metal.

So they start with Sabbath, of course, move to Judas Priest and Motley Crue and in between all this I’m hit across the head with a combination of epic hair, leather, and fucking awesome guitar. The whole Birmingham thing doesn’t help either. Cue my instinct popping up and suggesting I might rather like Sabbath and Judas Priest and Motley Crue, if I bothered to listen to them properly.

Now, earlier in the afternoon, I had written a rather pr0ny piece of fiction involving an anthropomorphised Foxtel seducing the fuck out of Charles Firth in a rather kinky and awesome fashion.

After watching ‘Seven Ages of Rock’ tonight, I feel pretty much like Charles did after Foxtel was done with him: like I’d been seduced by a rather enchanting Dom in leather who had left me rather exhausted and desperate for more by the time he was done with me.

Cue Sobek, that smarmy croc God of mine, smirking contentedly. Yes, crocodiles have an infinite amount of patience. He was just waiting for the right moment. I believe He has won this round fair and square.

Okay, I surrender, already, happy now?

I’ve had a thought for quite some time now that I would probably cope quite well if I was a nun. I don’t seem to have the same issues with silence that other people do; in fact, given a choice between a noisy party and a quiet home, I’ll take the quiet home kthnx. Why? I don’t like being in noisy places. I can’t think clearly and it makes me withdraw somewhat.

My favourite time of the day is about 10pm – 2am at night. After the madness of prime time and before the infomercials. I know, TV rules my life, yes? We’ve established this before, I believe. It’s quiet. There’s a stillness about that time of night that I adore. Usually I’m the only one awake, and with that still silence, I can think, I can write, and I can do things I can’t normally do during the day. Most of the artwork I’ve done has been done late at night, with the TV on as background noise.

I’m not really a morning person. It takes me a while to wake up. I’m not the sort who can get up instantly, at least, not very often. Is it possible to be addicted to the night? Because I think that’s what I’ve become. The night is most conducive to my mind, so I tend to embrace it. I’m not as nocturnal as I used to be. I’ve had to compromise my need to be up early enough for work and my need to go to bed after midnight. That hasn’t stopped a few 3am bedtimes though.

Also, rage has become a staple of my Friday and Saturday night. The effect of this has been that a lot of music (and music videos) is just better at night. Some clips only make sense at 2am when you’re half-asleep. XD But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if my interest in triple j wanes (which it has, because I found a better radio station to listen to – sorry, Marieke), rage will always be there to start my weekend.

Perhaps it’s because I spent the first half of my life without the internet, I am somewhat wary of it taking over everything. There are times when I don’t want to be connected to everyone. I just want to shut it all down, and spend some time with myself, and my Gods, if I’m in the mood. There just isn’t enough time for people to do that these days. Everyone rushes about at a hundred miles an hour, and barely has time to think for themselves. We’ve lost the ability to just sit still and think, we’ve always got to have our mobile or laptop or mp3 player or whatever. But these things are not essential. I think we’d all be better off if we could find that silence again, and not be afraid of it, but to fall into its loving embrace, and find ourselves again.

(As an aside, I’m also posting this over at Per Sebek, due to relevance.)

Now, I know religion can be a touchy subject for some, and for those who are Pagan of some sort, it can be a subject they are unwilling to talk about due to a fear of harrassment. I get it. However, I don’t think that can really justify the notion that all these little pagan groups need to cut themselves off from anyone who doesn’t agree with them, as if somehow an alternative experience or view point might be the cause of the apocalypse.

‘They’re just a troll, ignore them’. I find this excuse somewhat pathetic. Sure, some might be genuine trolls, and fair enough, if they’re genuine trolls, so be it. But if it’s more of an issue of someone saying something you don’t like, or maybe expressing a belief that’s not necessarily one you hold, I am not inclined to call troll. I don’t think cutting yourself off from alternative perspectives helps anyone, and I think it gives the perception of a closed community, one that is conformist and not accepting of differing views.

This is something that irritates the shit out of me. Just because they don’t see your God in the same way doesn’t mean their experience is any less valid. It just causes animosity and frustration and the sort of energy that says ‘you should conform to the way we see the Gods’.

As an example, one argument I remember seeing over and over again on a certain pagan forum was the whole Aset/Isis debate about whether They were separate Gods or not. (Don’t get me started on it; I am sick of these kinds of arguments.) I could also lump into this all the other threads about experiences with varying Gods and who It might be and such. There were times when people were told it can’t be X because X doesn’t appear/behave/talk/etc that way (with or without ín my opinion’ disclaimer).

I just… Gods are not so simple. We experience Them in ways that we will understand. It’s a very personal and individual relationship. The face They show me might not be the same face They show another. Who are we to say whose experience is invalid because their experience with a certain God doesn’t add up to the way you see Them? They’re not characters from a TV show. They’re Gods, ffs. Get some perspective. >.<

I also think it’s rather dangerous to immediately dismiss someone who’s had a different experience than you. It can lead to isolationism and a definite fear of Others who think differently. You can say you’re protecting yourself from abuse, but it’s a hollow excuse and I don’t buy it.

Djehuty once told me that wisdom can be found anywhere. I agree with Him, and I appreciate the freedom both He and Sobek have given me to explore my own spirituality wherever I happen to wander to.

Learning about another faith, or even talking to someone who believes different things to you, can teach you shitloads about your own faith, and I think that’s far better than running away or outright ignoring someone because someone says something that doesn’t agree with your view of X.

You can’t grow spiritually if you don’t question your own faith and occasionally hear stuff you don’t like. Spirituality is not supposed to be easy. Challenges build you up and strengthen your character, and your own beliefs. Seeing something in a different light can often be what you need to grow, even if it goes against what you currently believe. If it hurts, so be it. Earn your faith, don’t just accept it and expect it to remain unchanged, as if you’re merely babysitting an electronic pet. Take the hits, deal with the consequences, and perhaps there’d be more understanding between differing groups rather than bitching and animosity.

So says me, apparently channeling Set. >.<

There. I’m done now.

I still remember her telling me once to go home, home meaning the UK. I’ve never forgotten that, and I suppose that’s when I had this dawning sense of being half-English. Okay, if I’m honest, a third Australian, a third British, and a third Welsh. Mum’s mother’s family are Welsh, and Granddad carried a Welsh flag when he used to march with the Normandy vets in the ANZAC Day marches.

I suppose part of my ignorance/apathy towards the British side of my ancestry was that I didn’t particularly see them as vastly different cultures, even though I know intellectually that they are. Okay, so I’ve always had a love of Britain and British things and the UK is somewhere I have wanted to visit for years. Still, I never really saw it as a second ‘home’ like I do now.

It was in this realisation that I figured out where I sat on the republican/monarchist side with regards to Australia, and the British side of me won. In spite of the fact that Australia is rather much like a republic anyway, cutting ties with Britain would, to me, feel really wrong. It’s not a rational, fact-based argument for me. It’s tied in with my identity, and my half-Englishness. Both Britain and Australia are my home.

It’s funny, I remember my mum telling me that my (paternal) gran didn’t like mum because she was too English, and she felt she was bringing up her grandkids to be British rather than Australian. I suppose I was doomed from the beginning. Even later, I felt gran wasn’t as keen on me as much as my brother because I was too like my mum.

You could argue that identification has stuck in my mind and I’ve grown into it over the years. I mean, shit, even I’ve noticed my vowels are becoming more British.

And yet… I have such an attachment to Australia and the places I’ve grown up here that it would be impossible for me to cut ties with Australia. I’m still wholeheartedly and proudly Australian. If you live on the same land long enough, you become part of it. No matter how much I might yearn for other pastures, I grew up on this land and I’ve lived most of my life here. I know the plants, the seasons, the animals, the way the year progresses. I have a connection to this land and cutting ties with that would feel the same as cutting ties with Britain. Both are important to me.

I think the internet has vastly changed the way humans perceive the notion of ‘community’ and ‘nationality’. Nations are not just bound by physical borders; Indeed, I’d argue that a nation is only as big as the people who belong to it, whether by self-identification or by acceptance by the wider community. The internet allows for people to belong to communities or ‘nations’ in a way they might not’ve been able to do before.

I think even more now than before there has become a need to label and identify yourself, to announce/declare to the world who, where and with what you identify. You, as a person, are judged based on your identification before anyone gets to know you. I realise this has always been the case, that people judge before they get to know someone, but my point is the internet makes it stupidly easy to merely list every group or affiliation or identity we hold, and reduce ourselves to a group of words on a profile. I think in doing this we are selling ourselves short, and turning complete people into tiny little bits of information. The different groups we identify with are not seen as smaller parts of the whole, they are seen as separate things, separate sides, and we have to juggle these differeing sides so that one group doesn’t find out about the others.

I’m doing it all the time, juggling my queer, pagan side with my other sides. Every time I join a new group, I’m constantly trying to judge how much and what information to tell them. Which side do I show to them? Which would they be most accepting of? Which groups am I willing for them to know about? Which ones will I hide? I think it causes more fractures than anything.

*sighs* I think I have run out of thoughts. But at least I got this out. I don’t think I can use this for the unit I was thinking of using these thoughts for, but I’ll have to find some sort of angle I can use that I’m interested enough to research. I am not convinced my tutor will be as open to my strange ideas as the tutor I had last semester who allowed me to interpret an essay question in such a way that it allowed me to discuss God, religion, alien/UFO cults and the Mongolian Empire. But we’ll see. I’ve got the week to find some angle that might interest me so I’ll leave it for now and head to bed.

(As an aside, if you haven’t watched Silent Running, you should – it’s… haunting and incredibly sad. It stays with you. Srsly.)

I’m not one who likes writing hard sci-fi. I tend to stick to dystopia. This doesn’t stop me reading hard sci-fi though, and empathising with these AI computers. And it’s this ability to empathise with these AI computers that got me wondering what sort of ethics humans will need to adhere to if/when we get to a point in the future where AI computers are widespread.

Why do I say that we’ll need ethics? They’re just machines, right?

Well, I don’t see it that way. Humans have a bad tendency to personify. It already happens with current technology. People give their gadgets and computers names, and talk about them as if they had distinct personalities. How attached do you think we’ll get when computers not only have names, but can talk and interact with us as if they were alive?

Would we consider them alive? What if they can create, independent of human intervention, like Edgar did? Would we respect their claims for ownership of their creations? Or will we claim they are our creations because they’re just machines and can’t create?

I wonder if we even have a right to give machines human-like intelligence and them claim total control over them, that we have some sort of right to decide if they live or die, insomuch as computers can live or die. If they are similar to sentient beings, if we kill them, does it become murder? Or would we end up justifying it the way we justify euthanasing animals? Could you argue those computers would have a ‘right to life’?

This is where my own opinions about this get muddled. I honestly can’t find a position because I can see all the alternatives and options and ideas and none stand out as being ‘the right choice’.

This is especially true for me with the issue of euthanasia. On the one hand, I can sympathise with wanting to end the misery for someone with a terminal illness who wishes to die. However, I can also see it as murder. I also can’t see why we can justify euthanasing animals as being ‘humane’ and ‘putting them out of their misery’, and yet applying the same thing to humans is somehow wrong. It’s not like the animals can consent to being euthanised. Indeed, there would be some terminal patients who might not be able to consent. There are also patients who do consent and wish to die, and somehow we think we know better than they do in allowing them to live and drawing out their suffering because ending their life is seen as wrong.

I know there’s a counter argument that, well, animals and people are different, but are they really? Animals feel pain. They get sick. They love us. We look after them. They might not have the same intellectual capabilities or ’sentience’ as we do, but I doubt that means they are mindless robots. There are different forms of intelligence and ways to communicate.

Still, we feel we have guardianship over our pets and animals because we feel they can’t make decisions for themselves. We have power of attorney for people who can’t make decisions for themselves. There are people who have ‘do not resuscitate’ things. And yet…

I don’t know. I’m feeling a little morbid today. I might go get some coffee once this is done and do some assignments instead of procrastinating further. I doubt I’ve solved anything in this entry, apart from articulate some thoughts on similar yet different issues. I think I had more to say, but the words aren’t there anymore, so I’ll save them for later when I can think of more to say.

(If I’m being technical, I am Gen X, since I’m the child of baby boomers. But I like my special awesome not part of either classification better. )

Anyway. I’m a rather nostalgic person. I’ve mentioned it before on here. I adore vinyl, old movies, VHS, cassettes, retro games, old consoles, all that awesome stuff I grew up with. At the same time, I’m very at ease with modern technology and the internet. I’ve been using the net since I was in my early teens, around a decade.

(Also, WWII-era code-breaking and computers and Enigma machines are all epic and winsome and Srsly, when I saw CSIRAC at the Melbourne Museum late last year, I was quite possibly the happiest little Alex alive. 8D!)

(AlsoAlso, I want to visit Bletchley Park. Like, really badly. Really, really badly. >.>)

I remember dial-up, DOS games, 14.4k modems, and dot matrix printers. I remember doing assignments and referring to actual physical encyclopaedia volumes in the library. Hell, we even had a set of ~20 year old encyclopaedias at home. They were awesome. XD

I’ve been writing websites since I was 14. That’s when I first learned HTML. I remember the first site I ever made. It had a red background and white text. It was awesome. XD

My parents have always dragged me off to op shops ever since I was a kid. They’re the sort of places where, if you’re nostalgic like me, you fall in love with old stuff. Old stuff with character. Every time I buy something from an op shop, I can’t help wondering who used to own it, why they donated it to the op shop, do they still miss it, those sort of things. I could create characters based on everything I’ve bought based on asking those questions.

(In fact, perhaps I should do that one day. Get a bunch of stuff I’ve bought and make characters based on who might’ve owned them.)

But I digress. I don’t know. I’ve got this love, fascination and adoration for analogue technology. We’ve got a record player at home, a VHS player, I think we even still have a cassette deck somewhere. Also, old stuff smell is intoxicatingly gorgeous. Like, it’s like old book smell, but more awesome. It’s old stuff smell. It’s orgasmic. XD

(Er, sorry for the brackets. My thoughts fail at being linear. XD)

At the same time, I rather like new technology and I’ve grown up with computers and CDs and other awesome things that I possibly couldn’t live without anymore. They’ve become a part of my life and world-view and as much as I adore the past, the internet and the kind of technology we have now is really quite awesome and it’s all good and I really should stop now before I ramble any more. XD

This is possibly not one of my better pieces, but whatever. It’s late, I’m tired and yeah. 8D

I think this is wrong. If anything, the internet only increases the incidents of running into morons. The anonymity the Internet offers makes morons even more intolerable because they have less inhibitions about what they say and many more places to say it without censure.

Also, the article seems to assume that finding groups of people that like the same things you like automatically eliminates idiots. It most certainly does not, and anyone with any Internet experience at all will be able to tell you this firsthand.

And, okay, to be fair, I should probably also stop calling them idiots. I should probably refer to them as people who give you the shits, idiots or otherwise. You are going to run into these people on the Internet. I guarantee it. Just because you share an interest doesn’t mean you’re actually going to like them. I know there are people online in communites I’m a part of who annoy the crap out of me. But that’s part of life. You have to deal with idiots and people who annoy you.

Actually, the trigger for this rant wasn’t the article, it was witnessing the horror of some published work in a rant about the poor state of the English language. That got me ranting about morons. XD

Classes start again tomorrow. The only thing I am dreading is having to deal with people with lower literacy levels than me. These are invariably school leavers, and it makes me cry for the standard of education we’re giving our kids. These kids are our future. What kind of future are we going to have when we have all this wealth and opportunity and they can’t read or write very well? What kind of future is that?

Call me old-fashioned, but I firmly believe in a decent education. You should be able to use the English language in a good manner, be able to express yourself well and not freak out when told to read something. Seriously, if you are at university and it takes you a whole day to read a 14 page short story, I dread to think how you are going to cope with the rest of your tertiary studies with such a reading ability. Especially if you’re a science student.

I really hate this lazy attitude to English, especially online. That it doesn’t matter because it’s the Internet, as if using proper English spelling and grammar is opional unless it’s for some sort of formal occasion. I think this is a dangerous thing to have because it teaches bad habits. It teaches poor communication skills. Is that really what we want to encourage in our children? Have we been reduced to seeing Gen Y as some sort of slave labour, there to work with a basic education and nothing more? I think we’re short-changing them and not tapping into their true potential, and society will be worse off because of it. They are the ones that will be teaching their children. Surely we should care about the knowledge they pass on and how they raise their kids. If we can’t get it right, what hope have they got?

I don’t know, when I look back at my life, so much of it has been shaped by the presence of music. As much as I like my quiet time, I think I would go spare without music.

At the moment, triple j are counting down their Hottest 100 Of All Time (which I dutifully voted in). And, you know what? Save from Jeff Buckley, Kings of Leon, and Coldplay, I actually don’t mind most of what’s been chosen. I’m rather enjoying it, actually. Probably would’ve voted for some of them, if I’d thought of them at the time.

(As an aside, sure, I’m not a Michael Jackson fan, but I will admit to being somewhat partial to Thriller and Bad, and Thriller got in, so awesome. )
I suppose part of it is because triple j and rage have been part of my life for nearly a decade, and the kind of music they play has morphed and inspired the sort of music I like. They’ve shaped my music taste in a way nothing else has. A lot of these songs I remember from rage guest programmers. Others I remember from my teen years.

A list like this is always going to be subjective, people will always disagree, because music taste is a very personal thing. I think what it reflects most is the triple j audience themselves. And sure, just cos I like a lot of old music, I don’t necessarily think age makes a song better or more brilliant than a younger one. Not all old rock was brilliant. There was plenty of shit then, just as there’s plenty of shit now, and I think this will always be the case while the music industry still mostly cares about making money than decent quality music.

And while it might be noble to say the whole illegal music downloading shit is Gen Y being radical and hardcore and sticking it to the man, I don’t think that’s even a thought Gen Y considers when ripping songs off youtube, downloading leaked albums and discographies and other things. I think, at the heart of it, for a generation weaned on the internet, that they merely like getting shit for free, like every other human being on the planet, and if any technology is capable of feeding their habit, it’s the internet.

I’m one of those people who’s not really Gen X or Y. My parents were babyboomers, barely, so technically I’m Gen X, but I also share a lot of characteristics with Gen Y, and I’ve grown up a digital native. I would also challenge the notion that all of Gen Y are computer/internet savvy. I don’t think this is a fair generalisation. Those who are interested in computers and the net enough will be computer literate digital natives. Merely being born in that generation doesn’t mean you’re an instant digital native; you have to actually interact with the technology, grow up with it and use it for that to happen.

But I digress. (An expedition to wiki informs me I’m part of the MTV generation. In spite of never watching MTV evar. XD Then again, depending on which definition you use, I’m either Gen X or Y, so… XD)

I had a thought earlier in the week. How many of the groups around now will still be performing and touring thirty years from now? Forty years from now? Do Gen Y have a different attitude to music? Is it not so much a career thing? Or is that more to do with the increased fickleness of the industry and actually making it? That it’s actually much harder to sustain success now than it used to be?

I suppose any list documenting notable bands worthy of eternal praise and devotion is going to be different for everyone. Because at the end of the day, music is a very personal thing, and what I love and adore and has shaped my life is not the same as someone else’s. Just because I don’t get how apparently brilliant Jeff Buckley was doesn’t mean I am somehow deficient in being able to pick good music. Then again, I adore trashy 80s music and obscure 70s rock, so who am I to complain?

I was completely shocked by the furore that erupted over their ‘Make A Realistic Wish Foundation’ sketch, especially considering all the other potentially offensive material in that particular episode.

Okay, I’m the first to admit I did laugh at that particular sketch. It was wrong on so many levels, but damn did I laugh. Still, I do think it could’ve been executed better. This doesn’t make it an offensive sketch, it makes it one that was just done badly. There’s a difference.I was most angry at the Prime Mininster casting judgement on the sketch without having seen it. It felt like the whole Bill Henson bullshit all over again, with our PM acting like the nation’s moral compass and criticising art as if he’s got a mandate to do so and tell us what’s acceptable because he knows best. Christ, it’s like a Father Knows Best state here.

I, for one, don’t accept that, and I think there are better things for him to be focussing on than a comedy sketch gone wrong.

I was also angry at Amanda Duthie losing her position over this. Nothing said scapegoat more than that, and I was actually ashamed at Media Watch for calling her out on it. One bad decision shouldn’t have been enough to warrant her removal, and I think it was totally unfair to do that, especially when she’s one of their most valuable assets (in my opinion).

In all of this, though, I”m not the sort to defend every Chaser sketch they’ve eber done, just becase I think they’re beyond fault. That isn’t true. There have been things they’ve done that I’ve disliked or hated or not laughed at. Has that changed my love for them? Not really. I think it’s disingenous to say you can’t criticise them as a fan, you have to love and adore them, no matter what.

However, this, just like all the other things that have caused controversy over the last few years, I think a lot of people have completely missed the point and were merely looking for a reason to get angry at The Chaser.

Acknowledging that this is just my opinion and might differ from the way it was supposed to be taken or how others took it, I saw the sketch as a comment on, well, lots of things. Not just the foundation, but the way we lavish all this shit on dying kids and it doesn’t actually solve anything. The pointlessness of it all.

Perhaps this is just my expreince talking, but I suppose because I’m aware the rest of the health system is fucked and the elderly and the mentally ill especially don’t get the same sort of sympathy or funding. I suppose I wish there were better things to do with that money than keep paying for every kid to go to Disneyland because they’re dying.

I think especially with mental illness there’s a certain stigma attached to it, and there’s little compassion for them. I think there’s a certain dismissal of them and their issues and a reaction like ‘get over it’ rather than a genuine concern for their welfare and a desire to help. And I know this is a tangent, but compared to all the sob stories on TV of some kid who’s dying, stories of people with mental illness don’t get the same treatment.

The bloke who was Tasered to death in Queensland recently comes to mind. The attititude of the cop who was describing him didn’t seem to care. There was a certain disdain/dismissal as he talked about him that I thought was completely unnecesary. It was like, he was mental, we were perfectly justified in Tasering him.

Tangent aside, yes, the sketch itself perhaps could’ve been executed better, but I don’t think that just because it was a bad sketch that meant it was made to be offensive. That’s not the same at all and anyone saying so has completely missed the point.

Either way, that’s what I took from it. I’m not trying to be callous, nor am I trying to say that dying kids isn’t bad. I suppose I’m trying to be realistic myself. I just remember all the kids dying of starvation in other countries and wonder why we can’t spare the money to help them.

Perhaps I’m overanalysing or overthinking it. I don’t know. They’re my thoughts on the sketch at any rate. Feel free to disagree.

Humans are stupid creatures who will pick petty fights amongst themselves for no reason at all. Religion turns people into sheep, no matter which one it is. I’m tired of it all. I want out.

I’ve always been a bit individualistic like that, I think. I don’t like being told what to believe, and I can’t stand to be around people who refuse to question their faith, or refuse to rock the boat. It’s not on. Use your fucking minds. God, Netjer, whatever, gave you a bright fucking mind and as much free will as you can cope with. Why must you give it all away and let someone else dictate what you believe?The longer I hang around in the Pagan community, the more I see the same things happening there. They just follow blindly. You’d think they’d have more sense, since they usually come from Christianity with complaints about being told what to believe, but apparently, that doesn’t count when it comes to Pagan faiths, because they’re totally different and so much better anyway.

Please. Tell someone who cares.

This is why I can’t bear to be a part of any religious group. I hate being told what to believe, and I will not be preached to. I have my own beliefs. They’re sufficiently eclectic that I just don’t fit into one place. So excuse me for being different. And it’s not even that my beliefs clash with everyone else’s. It’s more that while my path might converge and run parallel with some groups more than with others, they never meet, nor should they be obliged to.

I don’t even know if the Bawy year is responsible for this sudden influx of agnosticism or  not, or whether it’s just me being weird again. I think I need to be away from Kemetic Orthodoxy (KO) for a while. I need that freedom to work myself out and whether I can abide being affiliated with them again. I meant to do so a while ago, but never got around to it. Perhaps now is the time to step back from my shemsu vows.

Actually no. I’ve changed my mind. I think what I need to do is pull back and work out what being a shemsu actually means for me, not try and be something I’m not. As much as I want to pull back from KO, and I have thought about it for over a year now, I’ve never done anything about it. I think a part of my soul really does want to be KO, so now I have to work out what shemsu means for me, not what it means for everyone else.

A friend and ex-KO once asked me what it means to be a shemsu, and I couldn’t answer her then. I think I need to find an answer to this. Maybe then I’ll feel better about where I am.

Because I embrace many beliefs that aren’t KO and don’t strictly belong to one single other faith system. I am eclectic like that. I embrace bits of discordianism, bits of warrior spirituality, a few things I swiped from Isobelle Carmody, and other things relating to the country I live in. I’m a mongrel of a person. I’ve picked up a few things from learning about Indigenous beliefs as well, especially things relating to country.

I suppose I’m also tired of the politics within specific groups. There is a pressure to conform even if there’s no thing to conform to. The more you’re obsessed with Egypt, the better you are spiritually. Which is utter bullshit to me.

This isn’t one of my better worded essays. More a late-night rant I need to get off my chest. Maybe I’ll collect this into a better worded thing later, but right now, I need to get these words out. So deal with this semi-coherent rant. I need to sleep before I go to work tomorrow.