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Losing my religion
Oct. 6th, 2003 04:16 pmThat's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight, updating my journal; trying to keep a view. And I don't know if I can do it... Oh no, I've said too much. I set it up.
So today (for the next 154 minutes) is Yom Kippur. I was in a conversation in the lounge earlier about religion, and it started to make me feel lonely. I don't really have a religion anymore, and in fact I have specifically undertaken to abandon religion, because I have not yet found a system of belief with which I can reconcile my view of the human condition. Even Taoism, which is probably the closest I have, is not really sufficient, and I'm a pretty bad Taoist anyway.
I suppose it's an extension of my natural mode of interaction: always in the middle. I continually try to reconcile different points of view, different groups of friends, different religions....and it's gotten to the point that I don't know what to believe anymore, because anything I believe will abridge the well-considered opinions of perfectly reasonable people. I'd like to be able to say "I'm a Jew", "I'm a Buddhist", "I'm a Muslim", "I'm a Catholic", because then I would be in the crowd, I'd have automatic buddies. But I don't want to fake a religion, and I'd be faking every single religion I can think of. Yes, I'd even be faking the Universal Life Church, because being part of a religion that's too weak to mean anything is straight up faking it; religion has to mean something or else it's a joke (which the ULC is).
(And before you get on me about Taoism being weak, I'll point out that Taoism is really fucking hard to practice.)
I wonder if it might be a good idea to just write my own religion. That would at least be a creative exercise.
So today (for the next 154 minutes) is Yom Kippur. I was in a conversation in the lounge earlier about religion, and it started to make me feel lonely. I don't really have a religion anymore, and in fact I have specifically undertaken to abandon religion, because I have not yet found a system of belief with which I can reconcile my view of the human condition. Even Taoism, which is probably the closest I have, is not really sufficient, and I'm a pretty bad Taoist anyway.
I suppose it's an extension of my natural mode of interaction: always in the middle. I continually try to reconcile different points of view, different groups of friends, different religions....and it's gotten to the point that I don't know what to believe anymore, because anything I believe will abridge the well-considered opinions of perfectly reasonable people. I'd like to be able to say "I'm a Jew", "I'm a Buddhist", "I'm a Muslim", "I'm a Catholic", because then I would be in the crowd, I'd have automatic buddies. But I don't want to fake a religion, and I'd be faking every single religion I can think of. Yes, I'd even be faking the Universal Life Church, because being part of a religion that's too weak to mean anything is straight up faking it; religion has to mean something or else it's a joke (which the ULC is).
(And before you get on me about Taoism being weak, I'll point out that Taoism is really fucking hard to practice.)
I wonder if it might be a good idea to just write my own religion. That would at least be a creative exercise.
