Ruminations

Here I will jot my thoughts on life, religion and the state of the universe. To me this is all common sense, since it is my philosophy, for others it will be controversial, and with any luck blasphemous.

Since I already hinted at it I am going to go right ahead and jump into the most controversial of all subjects, religion. I am not religious. I am rational. To me religion is irrational. The one thing I believe in is the danger in believing in things.

Test your assumptions, scrutinize your hypotheses, experiment. These are the tenets I live by and faith doesn't fit well into this world view.

While I don't understand faith, I certainly have nothing against it. That is until it comes into conflict with others. In fact most conflict has to do with beliefs. This is a shame. All religions purport to teach a set of social constructs that include tolerance, but intolerance seem so much more the rule than the exception.

This is of course human nature. We are animals and ones with a strong sense of community. The pack mentality was incredibly important when we needed to pool our resources to fend off competition from other predators, but it has been been a hinderance to interpersonal relationships since the dawn of man.

Our evolution, or the lack of it some might say, is also in evidence in our personal natures. Some of us are cave entrance watchers, like one of my best friends. She prefers to stay awake all night long in a paranoid alertness, only relaxing enough to sleep when the day lightens.

Others are driven by the need to expand our gene pool into always searching over the next hill. My wife Jan and I are like that, although the biological imperative to procreate does not seem to be linked to this traveler's gene, as neither of us have ever had the slightest desire to raise children.

Still others are the nurturers, the athletic hunters, or the soul searching shaman each of which are important to creating a well rounded village. Most of us posses more than one of these traits, as we tend to be more complex than not.

So too gender is a complex subject that often is disguised as an either or situation. Sexuality is not boolean, as Kinsey's scale hinted at so long ago. We each have traits that are more or less associated with the opposing gender, to some degree or another. For myself, I am the straightest gay guy the world has ever known. The original Metrosexual as we are so trendily being called.

I love food and wine, I love to shop, I love fashion. I speak my mind when something is bothering me, and I remember my poor spouses slights forever. I loath watching sports, and would much rather gather in the kitchen and gossip with the others of my ilk.

I also love women. I love they way they look, smell, excite me, and above all else, their sensibilities. It is most men I have trouble understanding. Their motivations are completely alien to me. I would brandish the appellation male lesbian but the first time I mentioned that term to a pair of actual lesbians, they dismissed it as something they had heard too many times to be impressed. We all think we are clever and unique, until we are exposed to others.

So too do I relish the idea that I am smarter than everyone else. This attitude annoys many more than it endears, especially in the work place, but my accomplishments and abilities seem to always reinforce the attitude. I am constantly in search of humility, if you have any extra you can lend to me, I am in dire need of it.

Which brings me to introspection. I realize that I am riddled with flaws. Perhaps I see it more than others do, and certainly more than I act like I do. I have a neurotic need for constant affirmation. My own self doubt is nearly paralyzing and my incessant need to prove myself is a great driving force towards improving my crafts, but does little to reassure me.

On the outside I strive to be Cary Grant but in the inside I am much more akin to Woody Allen. That I have this in common with most people does little to quiet the internal dialog, but there is some refuge in knowing we are all bozos on this bus.

For all that I never stop acting and reminding others around me that I am the smartest one in the room, it is more of an affectation than a dogma. It was only recently that I really understood that I approach decision making in a way that is not all together common. This is not really a result of IQ, it is more the foible of my hard wiring.

I tend to look at things through a lens of skepticism. I examine them and put them through the rigors of logic. I always assumed this was the way that most people viewed the universe, but it turns out that emotion plays a much greater role than I could imagine.

This explains the power of the placebo, advertising, and of course, religion. The same mechanism that makes me read the fine print in all things keeps me from being able to to believe without questioning. This means that I am without the comfort of an afterlife, or being able to blame fate for my circumstances. It also means that there is at least one more way I can simply piss people off just by opening my mouth.