I Pray Through Monsters

OK Cupid finally paid off, because some guy had this posted on his profile. It's Werner Herzog narrating a beautiful short film about a plastic bag. I know, that sounds very American Beauty, but this is really wonderful. I could listen to Herzog just say the word Monster over and over again for a decade. I love his voice. I don't know if it's the tone itself, or what he says, but it puts me in the same frame of mind as when you first wake up in the morning in bed by yourself and it's spring and warm outside. Remember what his last movie did to me? I just want to be his best friend. Or I only want to be friends with people who love him too.

I thought about God a lot yesterday, after the comedy show. I was hanging out with 2 people who believe in God, which is actually a pretty uncommon occurrence these days, to be with people who want to talk about that, who I like and respect and believe to be good decent people. I am, of course, atheist through and through. But I'm also a storyteller, and I believe in stories, narratives and magic as things people should use to interpret and color their world. So while I may have lots of problems  with religions, and can sound extremely caustic, bitter, and superior when it comes to living your life that way, part of me wants someone intelligent and curious to talk to me about what God means to them. Not in a "I'm going to convert you" sort of way, but in a "Let's exchange stories" way. I am afraid though, of that point which will inevitably come, where I can't hide the fact I think religion is ignorant and ruthless. I am afraid of what religion wants me to be, and how it wants to control my world and my sex. Maybe also they are afraid of the point where they will look at me and think "this person is lost and wrong". Maybe we are all walking around afraid our own judgments. Or is that only the best kind of people? Perhaps not enough people are afraid of their judgments and that's the whole problem.

I said something last night at the table, he asked "Atheist? not Agnostic?" and I replied "Science shows me everyone is equal." Which is true. Also true, science gives me miracles every day, real stories with vivid details and images and consequences. Science gives me all the miracles I need to try and be a better person. It teaches me responsibility, beauty, and objectivity. Gratefulness. Co-Existence. Curiosity. Maybe curiosity was the part missing from church. Science is more human to me than church, because it wants me to learn things. Which is all I really want to do.

I love the word Monster. It applies so many things, and All things, and it carries for me this vast gorgeous feeling of huge mystery and being, it conjures Bravery and Fear and makes my brain stretch. When I say it, it's like a mantra, it focuses my emotion on the idea that you can't know anything really about the thoughts and life of another being, inanimate or organic. Everything you know nothing about is a monster, and therefore Everything is a monster to everyone but the monster itself. Sometimes they are leering bloody nightmare things, war and betrayal and pain, and other times they are passive slow epic beasts moving in herds across plains, or trees the size of skyscrapers, or tiny little cats hunting bugs, or another person's body. The entire universe, oceans trees stars mountains planets, is contained in the word Monster. And that is the Word that makes me feel Love. That's a storyteller's spirituality, using a beast of the imagination to represent the complex beauty of atoms and chemical reactions.

One Last Question for the Week Because I liked this one and wish I knew who it was from

Do you think mystical experiences are possible? Ever had one? I'm not particularly neurotic (or religious, for that matter) but I think I just had one. It's left me at a bit of a crossroads. Do I shrug it off and have a beer, or change my life posture?

I'm not religious. I don't believe in ghosts or fates or curses or all the invisible creepy stuff that goes bump in the night. I don't believe in some higher power that gives our lives meaning or direction. I think we're pretty much on our own, and because some people find that a terrifying thought, our imaginations invent things to help us cope. Myths give us a sense of control, naming what we don't understand. And they're sort of fun because everyone likes fear that isn't mortal. It gives us drama, death and blood and afterlife, good and evil.

I do, however, believe in psychology and the power of the brain. I think the brain is an insanely complicated wonderful tool, and we are just chimps beating it against rocks. Well no, I don't think we're really that primitive, but we aren't even close to understanding how it works. I believe in biology though.

So when someone tells me they have seen a ghost, or have had a religious experience, I don't automatically think they are full of shit. I just think we don't know what electric-chemical cascade caused it. Okay, maybe sometimes I think they are full of shit.

Mystical experience is an open ended term. Is it a chain of coincidences so bizarre you find it hard to believe there isn't a reason behind it? Or did you see something glowing and shadowy? Did you see the word Cat written on a cat? I think the mind has to process a lot of data constantly, and that there are thoughts you are having beneath the thoughts you are consciously aware of. Dreams are sort of like that, your mind cleaning up the debris from the day before, having wild freakouts based on tenuous memories of stress. So I think, and yes this is guesswork, that mystical experiences are the waking equivalents of dreams. Or you had a seizure. Or you have a tumor. Or maybe something just tripped up in your circuitry. OR, in the far more conscious area of our fucked-up-ness, sometimes we see things because we want to see them. I mean, sometimes it's good to glimpse the narrative.

If it pointed you towards god, well, whatever, that's your choice. But I think a desire for god is indicative of a desire for something else in your life, and if you just name it god, then you're missing the real point. I don't know what it is you're missing, or what you're scared of, or what you want. Obviously though , whatever the stimuli was, your brain is trying to make a connection between A and B, and there is no reason to ignore that. But don't just write it off as a mystical unexplainable thing. Find out what it is about yourself that makes you want to interpret the event this way.

As for changing your life posture? Take every opportunity to reevaluate that, whenever possible. Cause most of the time we are wrong about everything. Right now, for instance, I was wrong about trying to make rice and beans without an onion. You just have to move on.

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