9 - My faith

I'm Linette and I'm an agnostic.
Why?
Because I think it's pretty conceited to claim we would have the slightest idea of what's going on.
We have the one side:
"But we don't claim anything, we just know in our hearts, we believe..that is faith!"
Then we have the other:
"What are you retarded? Show me proof!"

Does any one of them seem reasonable?

In my mind it goes:
A man in the sky? Really? I'm going with Epicurus on this one:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
And to the other side of the coin:
Stop overestimating your own abilities. Our tiny little brains have no possible way of even being close to comprehend what is really going on. I mean it's the same as "Yeah the world's flat!" I understand the reasoning from the perspective we have today, and I am leaning more towards that, than any almighty God who gave his only son and so on.. But still, chill out, we'll all find out when our time comes.

You're all being unreasonable. The one thing we actually DO know is that we DON'T know..
Don't get me wrong, I don't care what you do. If you wanna spend every Sunday in church or if you wanna give an atheist rant on youtube, knock yourselves out. Just stop shoving your damn beliefs down my throat, I don't care.
"God bless you!" - Yeah, Santa gives his love...? What am I supposed to say? Thank you? I really don't know so I usually go with the very universal.. "uhm, ok."

Anyway, what do I believe?
As stated, I believe we do not know. I believe I am merely a human being, with no possible way of knowing which path is the right one. I can admire some people's conviction.. But what a bummer it would be to die, soul flying around aimlessly without a sight of any pearly gates.. Finally peeking through a window to heaven only to see a bearded man with 72 virgins..
"Oh crap, really, the muslims were right? Damn it..."
Or imagine the horror of expecting heaven and instead being pushed out a lady's vagina?
"Reincarnation? WTF? Ewww!"

I'm going with an open mind here, to avoid any disappointments.

Have I ever prayed? Isn't there any part of me that do believe in God?
Yes and no.

I have indeed prayed. When you feel like there is nowhere else to turn, then yeah.. It's worth a shot. Like I said, I do not know. I am also fully aware that me praying is a product of me growing up in a (somewhat) christian society. Although Sweden is one of the most secularized countries in the world, we still have a culture based largely on christian traditions. Would I have been born in Thailand, I'm pretty sure I would have gone about it differently.
So yes, some people may call me an emergency room christian, I still won't say I believe in God..
(or as my beloved cousin so brilliantly put it "You're a closet-christian!")

And, do I believe in the Bible?

No, absolutely not.
I do not believe in the garden of eden, I do not believe that some crucified dude was a son of this God-fellow.. I do not believe a single word of it actually. I do appreciate some of it. The sermon of the mount is absolutely magnificent. If we all were to take that to heart and really live it, we would have peace, we would have love, we would have mercy.
But we're assholes, so we don't. We may claim to, we may even preach it ourselves.. yet turn our backs to those in need, claim that love that goes against our cultural norm is sinful and we still slaughter each other for crying out loud. I mean wtf?

I also want to separate organized religion from faith. It is a vast difference in my eyes, and I do not care much for the former.

So, do I believe in something?

Yes, yes I kind of do. I have a hard time accepting that this would be it. That we would be it. Cause now THAT would be dissappointing.
Now what would that be? What's out there? What's the point of all this?

Well, that is anybody's best guess.

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8 - In my purse

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7 - This is what I wore today

The same as all the other days...
Real fancy..

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6 - My day

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5 - What is love?

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...
Sorry, but it is a must.. Just like you can't leave the following sentence unfinished;
Now, this is a story all 'bout how my life got flipped, turned upside down and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there:

Eh? You thought it, don't even try!

This was kind of a cheesy one.
What is love..

Well, different for everybody I'd say, and different for each and every individual relationship.
Impossible to generalize.
I love the feeling of familiarity, memories, history.
I love laughter, especially that heartwarming laughter that you share with someone when you laugh at something that is slightly shameful, that probably shouldn't be laughed at.. It is never as funny as then.

I love the feeling of complete and utter trust. Even if people hurt me, that feeling of certainty that it surely wasn't their intention, they'd never want to.
I love the feeling of a warm a soft kitty that's sleeping in my arms like I wouldn't let anything in the world happen to them.
I love when people call me just to say,
"Hey, haven't talked in a while, I miss you, how are you?"
Or when they call specifically to tell me about something going on in their lives.
I love the feeling of fighting with someone, being so angry you think you could rip the persons head off their shoulder but at the same time still loving them.

Is that love? Yeah, to me that's love. And so, so much more than that.

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4 - This is what I ate today

Because I'm just that cool.

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3 - My parents

There were three rules in my house while growing up. Three rules that always applied and that I still to this day try to live by, and still to this day have to remind myself of:

1 - With freedom comes responsibility.
2 - Two wrongs doesn't make a right.
3 - You are not granted the right to be mean or bad just because someone else might be.

My parents have not always been given the gratitude they deserve.
My father worked three jobs at one point to keep us fed and dry while mom did her best to make bricks without straws.
Yet we never lacked. I never noticed. We had everything we could possibly need and probably lots more than that.

My mom was never cheap with what we had. She has taught me to appreciate a simpler life. A life where buying jam or processed food feels like cheating. I've grown up on home grown, home baked, home cooked treats of all kinds. Did I get honey puffs for breakfast I won, cause it was rare. I look at her now, still pickling her home grown veggies, making marmalade and stuff and I poke fun of her for it. "The war is over mom! It was over in -45..you can stop, food rations are no more. You know there are shelves full of jam at the store right?" But I can only wish that one day I will find the energy to actually obtain her knowledge and feed my future children the same healthy, unprocessed meals and not the kind of junk I now shove into my body.
She read to me a lot. And she sang, and nobody can sing a more beautiful lullaby than my mother, I swear.
She's a nurturer. A stubborn and very...rational one but still. Her ability to instinctively know what people need is something she must have inherited from my grandma. I don't have the same ability. Especially when people need it most I feel like I freak out and get stuck and can't think of a single, sensible thing to do.
I believe those two have always had a sixth sense.. "Aha - my student daughter is starving. I just know it.. though I haven't talked to her in a week.. I better swing by with left overs and two grocery bags!"
If she hadn't, all those countless times, I might have very well starved to death..or frozen..or ya know, pitied myself into oblivion.. cause sometimes all you need is your mom at the door saying "Ok enough. Get up, get dressed and get a fucking handle on your situation." Luckily it has been a long time since that horror struck me..

My dad. Oh my dad is Superman. I used to truly believe that.
I thought there wasn't anything in the world that man didn't know or couldn't do. I used to sit up on his shoulders and look out over the world and feel so completely and utterly safe.
He caught criminals for a living, he was an army ranger, a total badass in my innocent blue eyes.
As I got older I realized that my father was more of a normal human being, an incredibly strong and smart one.. but still, there are things in this world that could actually hurt him other than kryptonite.
So he went from army spec op to the police department to being a politician to becoming a university teacher. As if all those things were just another day at the office. Myself, I need three days of psychological preparation to be able to deal with a grocery shopping trip. So, still.. not far from superman. If I actually put on pants on a day off I feel secretly proud of myself for accomplishing that much. Army ranger? Yeah, come see me at the psych ward early morning of day 2, cause that's where you'd find me.
I have always had the ability to find that soft spot in my superman-dads heart. Did I take advantage of that in my rebellious teen years? Would I have been much of a rebellious teenager if I didn't? Or did he simply let me? I will never know. But he is a big bad ass softie though. He did teach me right from wrong, I might not always have listened, but I knew. He went with whatever whim I was going with. Soccer you say? Here's a spot on the team. (once, ONCE did I try and realized it was just like P.E and fuck that!) Stick horse-horse jumping you say? Ok, let me build you a course. And he sat through many, many of my riding lessons with a deep analysis of my developed abilities in the car ride home. He was that kind of dad. And a strong shoulder to cry on with big arms to hide in when the world just got a little too rough.

I remember one time, when a boy had broken my heart. I don't know if it was my loud sniffles or the even louder Lionel Richie album blasting through the house that tipped him off. But it can't always have been easy being a single dad with a 15yr daughter in the house. He knocked on my door, and I asked him in a very 15yr old way to go away.. He didn't, he knocked again.. And I thought, well if I scream even louder he'll obey me.. But he didn't. He didn't knock again, instead I heard a weird clinking noise. My curiosity got the better of me and I opened the door, eyes red from tears that he pretended not to notice. In his hands he held the biggest friggin bowl of ice cream I have ever seen..and a spoon. Handing it over he said;
"I thought you might like it.. Sometimes it helps a little.."
Ok, how cute was that?

Yeah, my parents might have made their fair share of mistakes..
But hey, I prefer that we don't count here, for my own sake.
They probably seem like pretty ordinary people to others, but they are extraordinary to me.
And tell me, aren't they just two extraordinarily beautiful people?

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2 - My first love

How are you supposed to choose one?
What kind of first love does it imply?
I mean I was crushing hard on John Norum (guitarist of Europe) by the age of five, then I moved on to Bruce Boxleitner as Luke Macahan in How The West Was Won. Do they count?


What about dad? Like many other little girls I swore I'd marry him, it's true, I actually very vividly remember it.
I also, just as clearly, remember his answer to my proposal; "Sure honey, I'll remind you when you're older!"

Maybe Prince Carl-Philip? No.

What about little mr.D? The boy whose name I wrote in my diary all through elementary school? We never once held hands even. He broke my little crushing heart on several occasion, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes knowingly so. He was always nicer to me when I had ice cream though, the little whore. No, he doesn't count.

Maybe Marcus? My classmate and play-kiss buddy. (you know, the 10year old version of friends with benefits!) But we were so much on and off we make Ross and Rachel seem like a steady couple.

Hmm.. Maybe Tobias, my first real boyfriend? The first boy I ever introduced to my father? Then the most embarrassing thing happened in my life to that point. My dad shook his hand and introduced himself like a grown up. I wanted to die. I was like "Dude he's 15, not a 45yr old business man!" Come to think of it, that is probably one of the clearest memories I have of our time together, all the 6 weeks. Naturally I handled the situation as any rational person would. I ran and hid in a corner.

What about Erik, hmm.. The guy I stalked for a whole winter with song requests on the local radio? But that feels like more of a one-way kind of relationship.

No, fuck it. I'm gonna go ahead and say Milton. I loved that guy for years and years. I fell asleep with his picture in bed and I daydreamed about hugging him. Long past those days, when Milton finally fell into eternal sleep I actually cried.

Milton - my first love <3

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1 - About me

Really, this is the first one to be thrown at me?
How am I (it sucks that I is always in capital, how are you supposed to raise it then, or you now, underline it.. like THIS?)
Anyway, how am I (raised) to be inspirational when I feel like I wanna dig a hole in a moldy dirt pile and bury myself in it after this week? I feel very much uninspired by myself. I simply cannot put together a post about something so mind numbingly boring right now.

About me: I am the opposite of an inspiration, don't listen to a word I say. Especially not when I am in this state of mind.

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Blog challenge

Ok, I've been working all day, every day this week. Thus I have had no time nor inspiration to blog much. I have not yet committed the blog hara-kiri, still going strong y'all. (seems fitting with a ninja reference and y'all in one sentence somehow)

Anywho, to help me along I shall blog about the following themes the coming month:

Day 1 - About me
Day 2 - My first love
Day 3 - My parents
Day 4 - This is what I ate today
Day 5 - What is love?
Day 6 - My day
Day 7 - This is what I wore today
Day 8 - In my purse
Day 9 - My faith
Day 10 - One moment
Day 11 - My siblings
Day 12 - My best friend
Day 13 - This week
Day 14 - My best birthday
Day 15 - My dreams
Day 16 - My first kiss
Day 17 - My favorite memory
Day 18 - And this is what I wore today
Day 19 - My one regret
Day 20 - This month
Day 21 - Another moment
Day 22 - This upsets me
Day 23 - This makes me feel better
Day 24 - This makes me cry
Day 25 - A first
Day 26 - My fears
Day 27 - My favorite place
Day 28 - Something I miss
Day 29 - My ambitions
Day 30 – One last moment

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