Written A Year Apart. What looks to me like growth.

A blog in two parts.

Part 1. (Written Fall 2013)

Let’s talk about Halloween, because I’m annoyed by the phrase “I don’t celebrate/do Halloween, I’m Christian”. And it’s only been this year (last year) that I have actually taken notice of this, though I’m sure that I have been exposed to this phrase or some variation of it before. It could be that now I have a job that is big into Halloween, or that I am listening better, or something else that I haven’t thought of.

I’ve never understood why there are certain things that some (not all) Christians abstain from where as other embrace those same things. Now I say abstain, and it could be assumed that I am talking about sex, alcohol, and specific foods, because that makes sense with biblical law. What I’m talking about in some ways is Christian parents pushing their personal brand of beliefs onto their children. This once again brings me back to Halloween, (or for another example I’ve experienced, modern rock music, regardless of whether or not it is a Christian musician/group or not) because though it does derive it’s origin from the belief that it was the one day of the year that the spirits of the dead return to the mortal realm, or something else ridiculous like that. But now it’s origin, though not forgotten, no stock is put in it, or at least not in common place, and yet there are those who question Halloween and stick to thinking that it was inherently bad and thus forcing this belief on their children being excluded from the average practices surrounding Halloween. The days has now been reclaimed by Western Society as a reason to put on costumes, get or give out candy or even just be someone else for a few hours.

Now if this was a universal practice among Christians I don’t think I would find this to be so irritating. But the disdain for Halloween is only a personal choice or at least that’s what I’ve always thought, seen, and believed. I’ve known pastors who dress up for Halloween, and members of their congregation refuse to even consider that western society’s reclamation removed the paganism from the thing.

Part 2. (Written Fall 2014)

Rereading to the point above I am realizing that almost around a year after writing it what I am doing is bashing how people have taken to making their beliefs their own. I am not saying that I understand why they don’t celebrate it I am saying that I am not angry about it anymore, and that I understand where the lack of uniformity is coming from. Because they’re just doing what I’m doing, in that I myself am making my beliefs my own, and I think more people need to do that, or take a critical look at what they believe including the “rules” that are imposed by their beliefs’ central supposed authority or text.

My only issue now is one that I touched on in part 1 and that is if their beliefs are dictated by what their parents believe and thus just what they did while growing up. Because blindly following your parents’ beliefs are still not making them your own. Blind belief is not a good thing; logically you should know what you believe and why you believe it. Now this might seem like it contradicts the commonly quoted Bible verse “walk by faith, not by sight”, but it is my opinion that belief and faith are two different things. Belief is “an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists”, whereas Faith is “belief that is not based on proof”. So the way I see it the verse is closely related to the Switchfoot lyric “Doubt your doubts, and believe your beliefs”.

And that could be the overall message behind this post, or at least one of them. One of the others is being related to learning about your beliefs and not just going with whatever your parents tell you to.

So this was a post written in two parts a year apart from each other. Starting out as a rant about people not celebrating Halloween, and it turned into me going on about how people should not blindly believe things and how people should make their beliefs their own.

Post Script: As always there is probably more that I could add, and more to learn to add, if I come across it I will share it maybe by a new post or by updating this one. Either way if there is more for me to share I will share it. Also I hope that I will have other posts written before this one besides my one on feminism because I am scheduling this one for the week of Halloween.

My Journey In Feminism

I feel like I should preface this with the statement that I am human and with that it comes with the stunning surprise that I am not wrong, ever. And I hope the sarcasm was clear in that statement above. I would also hope that you don’t hold what I’m about to say against me, I’m going to talk about my journey into feminism.

I guess a good place to start would be with some definitions.

Dictionary definition: The Doctrine advocating social political and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

Definition when I asked a feminist: A movement towards gender equality, but now it's evolved and become intersectional meaning it also includes discussions of race, sexuality, class, etc. Essentially a movementtowards equality of all kinds.

Ignorant definition: Man hating female superiority.

And I won’t lie, I’ve thought each of those definitions were true at different times in my life. And currently, the feminists’ definition is the closest to something I believe in.

See, besides the government oppressing people’s rights, I do see music and other forms of media as one of the biggest blocks to the equality movement. I mean if you listen to a lot of the quote unquote popular music women are perceived as being either stupid or only useful for sex, not to mention how racial stereotypes are perpetuated in all sorts of media. Now I am not sure if a quote from this person is the best choice but it does fit in context.

“I feel like hip hop used to be a voice for the voiceless, and now it’s become at least in the mainstream; A symbol of misogyny, gay panic, fiscal irresponsibility.” – Bo Burnham

Though is does not provide any usable advice for how we could change things but it does bring to light one of the many problems that seems to just go widely accepted in society. Now saying that, there was that one song by Robin Thicke, which I can’t even quote or even properly use as an example because I cannot be bothered to listen to or Google the lyrics based on the unanimous hatred for the song. But eliminating hate speech, and actions in the media would only do so much. What we really need is a massive change in peoples thinking. To be precise, we need to change what people joke about, because I know this is crap, but if something is laughed at it is all people need to believe that something is acceptable to do. This means no sammich jokes, wide based generalizations, and even making light or the stereotypical gender roll definitions. Because it is just as okay for the men to be single or stay at home parents just as it is for women, there is no job that I can think of that a man can do better than a woman; I do believe that women can do anything and everything just as good as a man can. Women can raise children without there being a man involved just as well as if there was and the same thing goes for men. And that is the major problem with people making objections to same sex couples having or adopting children and their objections are absolutely ridiculous.

 So there are a couple problems with my above statements, which I found while typing this up. One, being I was using gender binary terms where I did not mean to exclude non gender binary peoples. Two, I primarily focused on binary gender issues I didn’t even go too far into issues around race, non-binary genders, and so many more things that feminism is about. Three, the true problem with people is not their physical appearance. When the real problems are with people’s personalities, we need to treat people based on who they are not what they look like or who they are romantically or sexually interested in.

Okay so society is all about progress right? Living longer, being better, having a better understanding of the universe. If we didn’t strive for progress then why are there constantly technological and medical advancements? Now what we really need to do if we really wish to be a truly progressive society is one word, Equality. And some people will say that we already do lie in an equal society, but pardon my French that is Bullshit. The white man is still figuratively king, women and non-binary gendered people are not given adequate or even proper recognition, and people with any skin tone besides white get judged far too often, quickly, and stereotyped even further from there. Okay and you know what love is? Love is an energy, it cannot be created or destroyed, and comes in many forms. If more people understood this it wouldn’t really matter what people looked like, who people were or whomever they liked, they would treat each other as if they were just people. We all share the same planet and that should be good enough to treat each other well and properly.

Post Script: I once again need to reiterate that I am no expert in this field, and I am still learning and going forward in this journey. Because I cannot change the mind of anyone else until my own mind is good. I also figured that after a couple posts aside from last weeks on the primary physical, a deeper post was needed.

Boxes

I'd like to preface this by saying that I usually first write this out before I type it here to edit myself. But I feel like this is something that shouldn't be edited and should just come straight out. (Also Josh this isn't the blog post I mentioned in my e-mail.)

I don't like boxes. I'm not talking about those physical boxes, but the immaterial boxes that we put people in, that we even put ourselves in. I don't fit in most literal boxes and if I do I overflow. Because trying to fit someone into being one single thing just doesn't work. And even if you can fit someone into a single box, who says this box is the same from one person to another. And for this same reason I don't think that you could properly even Venn diagram a person. Now this is because not only are people more than one thing, but people are just more, more than the sum of their parts. Now in saying all this I am reminded of the movie The Breakfast Club but in particular this quote "You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain ...and an athlete... and a basket case... a princess... and a criminal... Does that answer your question?" Now this just shows that this is not a new or an original idea and yet people are still doing it. 

Now, I'd like to explain what is bringing me to talk about this. And because I can only guess that my Twitter may get passed around due to me now having it in a way linked to a university club I am part of. 

So here's the situation. Me plus three other people sitting in a Tim Hortons around 10:30-ish and being election time in the United States, the topic of politics came up. So being Canadian, we were discussing which of the presidential candidates we'd vote for. Now in saying this we only limited this to Dems and Repubs, we left out Green and Libs, so it was Romney vs Obama. But unsurprisingly we all agreed that Obama should win, but that's not the part that sparked this but it was one of the post discussion comment made by one of the other people there. "Only I just think he's a little too pro-choice" paraphrased of course because what the exact words were. What I took away from it was that even though we share a religion, our beliefs are different, we are in the same box, but different boxes at the same time. At that time I mentally was curious to know what they would think if they found out that I am pro-choice, or that I am pro allowing gay marriage to happen.  I said "mentally curious" because I did not actually mention any of this. I have a problem discussing in person what my beliefs are with people that I'm not like super close with. This is because I can actually handle the internet trolls and criticism more than irl trolls and criticism. My mom and my close friends know more of the specifics of my beliefs, and that's just fine with me.

Post Script: A question: If you are American who do you plan on voting for, if you aren't who would you vote for? Leave your answers in comments below.

Post-Post Script: It appears that I have made just over $1.00 in AdSense money in September, so thank you. I will be posting more so I can get that up to $100 so Google will actually send me that money.

Let Me Give You A Gift.

So it being around that time of year, I think we should talk about Christmas. I'd like to talk about gift giving to be specific. Now, I am of the mindset that gift giving for any occasion does not have to be expensive, but should also be meaningful as well possibly either useful or necessary for improving the quality of life. Now in saying all of this it actually isn't the quality of the gift but the quality of the heart in which it is given.

I am also of the belief that giving yourself a gift is normal, if I dare say necessary. Now I should explain the "necessity". Now I know that giving gift at Christmas is not necessary, required, or even always possible at Christmas, not to mention that giving yourself a gift is not considered normal. But if possible I think of gift giving as a sign of love or at least great care for someone. Because I feel like gift giving is a sacrifice, this is of course true of both well thought gift giving as well as gifting without thought: You are either sacrificing time or money. Now what I mean by "gifting without thought" is exactly what it seems, it is the kind of gift giving you'd do for like work gift exchanges or like your parents did when you would get invited to birthday parties in elementary/primary school. Thinking about it, it could also be attributed to the kind of gift giving you see around Valentine's Day. Now back on to the topic of self gifting. I see it as a symbol of self-love, but as well with the inclusion of delayed gratification that comes with gift giving, not to mention that who knows what you need or want more than yourself? I'm not trying to say that you can give yourself the best gift in the world, because some of the best gifts are not bought in stores, or are not anything that you can expect to be given. Also I find that this is a great opportunity for you to get yourself something that you really want. It could very well be the cheapest, yet most well thought out gift you give this coming holiday season.

So in conclusion I hope that you, if you can, give yourselves a gift to remind yourself that you care. I know that I will be.

Post Script: I find it quite frustrating that this past weekend my mom came to town and with me there she bought my main Christmas gift, I held it for around a minute before she took it from me. It's just arg.