My Blind Spot

This was originally intended to be a private post for my partner, on the blog I share only with him, since we have had this discussion multiple times. But then I decided - why do I have a blog if I don't write about personal decisions and matters?

This post is not meant to incite anything. I do not judge anyone else for their beliefs; this is just where the series of events in my life has led me, and I just wanted to put it down somewhere.

This is going to deal with a rather sensitive subject - that of religion. Which is why I had that disclaimer.

I wasn't really raised with anything resembling a religion. My parents went to church, but only occasionally. We usually went on Christmas. (In fact, the last time I remember going to a church for a real service was on Christmas when I was somewhere around six. I just remember my grandpa singing "The shepherds wash their smelly socks" during the songs. Oh, let's not talk about that; gotta wait for A Walk to Remember to have a good cry!) I went with a good friend to a few services at her Kingdom Hall, and those experiences gave me the pleasant result of not hating Jehovah's Witnesses on sight, and I do not insult or mock them. I have NEVER encountered a pushy person in that faith - the entire congregation was very welcoming and a happy bunch, and I was allowed to go even though I was not remotely thinking of converting to that, since I was quite young. So I really just don't get that whole hate for them; it really is all about the people you meet.

Anyway.

My grandmother on my dad's side still goes to church more regularly than anything else and we always used to say grace at Thanksgiving and Easter and such. (Now we mostly just sing Johnny Appleseed. Well, everyone else sings it; I don't, for reasons this post as a whole will make clear.) So it's not like I never had the chance, or my parents were violent atheists, or anything. I had great parents who didn't force us to do anything. (Except soccer; even if they say I wanted to play, I maintain I was forced. I really didn't like playing soccer.)

But my feelings on religion and spirituality for myself are very clear to me. Scratch that; they've only become very clear to me over the last few years. I do not like the idea of organised religion, even with my family belonging to the United Church. (Which is a very laidback group, when compared to other groups.) I just really...dislike it, and I am not a fan. I just cannot believe in the concept of having to follow this set of rules that some unseen, unknowable being set down. I don't like having to go somewhere to hear those rules. I like the idea of church as a community, but as a rule for me, organised religion is not something I like. (And this is coming from someone who has never once had a bad experience with any kind of organised religion; I've only met nice people! Unless you count the Westboro Baptist Church, but believe me, they are not what I base this on. I have felt this way since before I knew who they were.) And that turned out to be a lot harder to explain than I thought it would. I just don't like the idea.

I've considered so many religions. I have researched MANY. My family's, Jehovah's Witness, even Scientology! (Yes, seriously.) I have attended other people's meetings and churches. In short, I have tried to gather as much information as I could about these kinds of things. And what did I end up with? None of them made sense for me. And I TRIED to make them make sense; I felt lost for a really long time, felt that I had to belong to some religion. But I just didn't get it.

I guess you could say it's my blind spot. Maybe because I tried so hard to find a religion that worked for me, I'm beyond done, and I never want to try to find another one. It's not that I'm not open to it for others; practise whatever you want, that is so important, to have freedom to believe what you want. Of course! But for me, religion is my blind spot. I don't want it. Am I afraid of being taken over, of having to give up too much? Of not keeping any of me? (This is an idea I read today in Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air.) Maybe. I don't really know. All I do know is that it's important to me not to engage in any kind of belief system; after all, I don't want to be a hypocrite.

Now, this will sound lame, but when I watched DONNIE DARKO, that changed. I have the director's cut (meaning it is significantly longer, and has deleted scenes included) and when I watched it, there is a discussion between Donnie and his therapist about whether he is an agnostic or an atheist.

"Donnie. An atheist is someone who denies altogether the existence of God. You're
an agnostic. An agnostic is someone who believes that there can be no proof of the
existence of God, but does not deny a possibility that God exists."

I used to take this as an example of what I was, without doubt. I was agnostic. But in the past couple of years, as I've moved away from the idea of one God, that doesn't seem as true. However, it is still true at its core; I believe there is something, some kind of something (yeah, really specific, but this is what not being sure does to me) "up there" or out there. However, I do not believe there can ever be proof, and I cannot do blind faith. I can't just believe; I'm not a scientist, but I need some kind of proof before I can leave my life in something else's hands. (I just can't believe that there's this one "supreme being" who kills whenever it wants. Death does fine as its own force without bringing someone's "plan" into it, to me.) So if that fits the agnostic definition, then that works for me. However, I've recently come to think, "Hey. I don't need a label." And I don't. I don't go for any kind of organised religion, and I believe there could be a separate power working out there, but there is no proof, and because I just can't blindly believe in any kind of supreme being, then I'm just my own person. I don't know what happens, if there's an afterlife, if it's a reincarnation, if it's anything, I'll find out when I get there.

There are some things that have resulted from this. Now, I get uncomfortable when there's any mention of God or Lord or anything like that. (If someone says God bless you, I stammer and just kind of walk away. I can't even say bless you when people sneeze.) There certainly won't be any mention of God or any other type of religious figure or figures at my wedding or in my vows. (Not even as a joke or reference to literature.) I've already decided that if I have kids (I want kids, but you never know if your body will cooperate until you try, and I certainly haven't tried yet) they won't be christened. Is any of this bad? I don't know; I never talk about religion unless I am very close to the person. But this is a core part of me; THIS is my core belief, rather than a belief in some kind of figure I don't truly understand. And this is about me and my comfort. I'm more comfortable not believing in the tenets of a religion. I'm more comfortable this way, and if I learned anything in my last two years of university, it was that me being comfortable in my own skin made my life infinitely better than trying to please or obey other people.

So there you go, Greg.

Review: How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Jameson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I wonder how many people judged me for reading this. There's a very stereotyped view of "porn stars." And Jenna Jameson is, at least to me right now, the most famous (maybe infamous?) porn star. But she is also one of the most successful, and hey, she has her own COMPANY. She's not just a girl on camera anymore.

I really loved this book. I found the hardcover for about $8, and after reading, I probably would have paid full price. (Or at least more than $8.) I know that Jenna wrote it with someone (Neil Strauss, who I have sort of heard of before), so I don't know how much of the writing was actually her own. But it was WONDERFULLY written; it was so incredibly engaging, as evidenced by the fact that I read this quite long book in a day. (I was sick in bed but still, a day.) Engaging, and addicting, and set out so clearly. There were a lot of things happening, as her life was quite full (of both good and bad events), in different years, but I was able to follow the timeline with little trouble. (And this is way more important than you would think; I hate when I have to go back every few pages to figure out which year we're in.)

Jenna Jameson's life was really hard (and she addresses the fact that people always ask her if it was, because they literally can't rationalize another reason that she would pick the career she did if she wasn't abused as a child, for some reason) but the book is funny and straightforward. She embraces her life, and her mistakes, and as a result, herself. It's an empowering book, as she empowered herself for most of her career; she got what she wanted, and I think it's an important book to read. It doesn't matter that she's in porn; I might be biased, because to me, there is nothing wrong with her choice of career (people have this horrible conception of it that I do not share; it is safe and that's most important), but even if you feel uncomfortable about it, this is not a story about someone who has sex for a living; this is a story about a woman who fought her way to the top of the industry of her choice, by herself (for the most part, but also with the support of female friends), and she left the jerks behind. I was inspired and simply enjoyed this book.

And for all of you nervous about it, there is not THAT much mention of sex in the book. Obviously, there's a fair amount, but it's tastefully written and again, straightforward, which is the best way to handle it. There are also lots of pictures, but again, I see nothing wrong with them. In the end, this is a great book, about a strong woman, and I really liked it.



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Review: Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This book was probably the hardest history book I have had to get through - not including some Canadian history textbooks - and I'm still unsure as to the absolutely exact reason why. I think it may have been the writing style; at the same time as it was very, VERY dry and very textbook (and you know something's dry when they're talking about sexual scandal in what feels like a monotone voice), there were also many, many typos and run-on sentences that really bothered me. I just felt there were better ways to construct sentences, and I don't know if it was meant to be a stylistic choice - as the writing at the time, such as the writing that Georgiana composed herself, wasn't in keeping with modern grammar rules - or if there were just a lot of unfinished thoughts. Foreman also seemed, to me, to be a contradictory writer. She seemed to go from judging Georgiana very harshly to lifting her up onto a pedestal. The end of the book had this happen very intensely, when Foreman talked about how we cannot apply modern heterosexual or homosexual ideas to these eighteenth century relationships - yet the main focus of your book WAS applying those ideas to those relationships. (At least that's what seemed to be happening for the majority of the book for me; that and talking about how women shouldn't have gone near politics, yet applauding Georgiana for standing out, and then judging her again for retreating after she was shamed for it repeatedly.) There seemed to be a lot of flipping back and forth, and Foreman didn't seem to make a real decision on how she viewed Georgiana.

There was one lucid observation that was interesting to me: "The propensity of women's historians to ignore high politics, and of political historians to ignore women, has resulted in a profound misunderstanding of one of the most sexually integrated periods of British history." I really loved this, because it is really true. I haven't delved as deeply into women's history as I would like - in university history courses, you tend to focus on more well known accounts, and I never did get to take a really good gender in history course - but I feel, from what I've read, that this is true. Despite women in politics being a real thing - just because they didn't sit in the House did not mean they weren't present and working harder than the men in Parliament - it's rarely discussed, and I thought that was a great point to include. I do just wish she had been as decisive about the rest of her views on the rest of Georgiana's relationships. I think there's more to Georgiana's life than I learned here - since the majority focused on her life as it related to men and really painted her as completely idiotic with money and then occasionally painted her as a heroine in politics, which was very confusing - and though I didn't entirely enjoy this, I think I'll be seeking more information elsewhere.



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