On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 3/3

When I started re-evaluating my concept of God and what his will was, I went back to basics. I remembered a scripture in the bible of when Jesus was explaining the purpose of what Mosaic law meant. The law given to Moses had hundreds of commandments of what the Jews had to do and not to and when, etc. The purpose of it all was to ensure that the Jews worshipped God in a certain manner and also that they be protected from harm. Then Jesus implied that after his death, Mosaic law was to be abolished and he said that the whole of God's will can be summarized in only two commandments (not the hundreds given to Moses): 1) Love only God as god, and 2) Love each other as God loves you. That was it.

I concluded that God's will had nothing to do with guilt, and guilt was not a virtue to God! Sure, the bible still has those commandments about how to practice his worship and no idolatry, no fornication, etc, but also it tells me that God does not ask of me any more than I can give and that He will be the only one to judge my sins, errors, behaviors etc. I am not God; I have no place trying to judge other's sins or punishing myself for my own. God who knows what is in my heart, my intentions, why I do the things I do, why I desire the things I do, I believe is the only person fit to pass judgement on me. And that is my "new" thinking. That is how I came to stop feeling depressed about having to make religious sacrifice and how I overcame my guilt for just being human. If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I'd pick a different faith, I'd hope I just merely came to this conclusion faster.

So what is my philosophy? As I’ve discussed previously, my personal values are my family, participating in and enjoying life while I am alive, and not making a world a worse place for anyone or anything. I believe in God, but I also believe in humanity. I believe human's greatest quality is our ability to think and reason for ourselves. I sometimes meet with a religious group whose ideology I mostly share and I call myself a Christian because I do believe in the Bible being a holy book and I aim to follow the guidance provided in it by Jesus Christ. I worship God because I am grateful to him for all I believe he has been responsible in my life. I follow the things the Bible says because I believe it is wise and its mandates are for my overall good. I’m not scared of God that he will punish me in any way because the God I believe in is understanding, merciful, forgiving, and not vengeful. I believe he is far too grand to be offended or hurt by the actions, words, or thoughts of one little person as I am. I understand also that my belief in God may be mythical, as real as he feels to me. So I hold nothing back from this life that I may experience it in an afterlife that I am not 100% guaranteed will actually happen. Once upon a time perhaps my faith was stronger, but for now this is the God and the rules and the values I believe in. This is the type of God I respect, and the type of God I want to emulate.

I love God. My God. I love the type of God that lets me love him and not at the exclusion of also loving myself.

On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 2/3

If it weren't because of the lack of contact with other believers and an ever deeper instruction in them, I would have joined a Jewish or Buddhist religious organization. I did wish that Judaism had reached out to me further rather than feeling that it was not a religion that encouraged new members from other cultures/ethnic group. So I delved further into going with what was around me, which was for a long time was only Catholicism. I asked a lot of questions and mostly I was shut down because, I was told, some things I just had to accept and believe rather than understand.

Only one religious group welcomed my questions and actively sought to reason with me using a holy book (the bible), "logical" deduction methodology, and my own knowledge of the world and science, etc. This group's philosophy and people welcomed me and I welcomed all their doctrines into my life too. The fact that I welcomed it too shaped the next few years of my life. Many of these group's ideals had been my pre-existing ideals also so that certainly helped to adopt this new religion. It interpreted the bible's New and Old Testaments largely literally - and it even tried to show with historical and scientific correlation how this text / prophecy was a true document that should inspire my belief and obedience. And I still to this day believe it is so, either in spite of or because of my academic background in science.

I came to believe that the bible was a document worthy of my respect and belief, and I believed then that I must do the things it says that I do and don't do in this life. Obeying bible advice was at times instinctive, but often contradictory to what I wanted and desired. No other aspect I think was more pronounced for me than its concept of "fornication" or sex outside of a traditional marriage. That was certainly not instinctive! Yet for very many years I bared my stake/cross and sacrificed my desire for sexual intimacy for the sake of not displeasing the God I had learnt about in the bible. I still don't feel that this sacrifice was in vain or bear resentment of it, but rather I am still proud (and amazed) that I was capable of such dedication, commitment, and self-control for all those many years.

If you asked my why I joined the religion I did (and I'm not talking about Catholicism, which I inherited and never chose), I would say it was because it was the one that to me seemed to have a concept of God and practice that I thought would most resemble a God that I could respect. This God (and this religion) encouraged my questions and helped me find the answers in a book believed to be inspired by God. He was also a God that had many good qualities, that encouraged new followers, and that gave commandments that were meant to benefit me and not merely fill me with guilt. I liked this God, and I liked what he stood for.

Over time I found myself becoming more and more unhappy, depressed, feeling guilty all the time. This was because I was finding it increasingly harder to do what God asked of me and it was really weighing me down. The more I tried to be a good Christian, the more it hurt. I became depressed. There were many reasons that culminated in my depression, but my spiritual beliefs should have been my saviour not the lead weighing me down further. Then I finally put the pieces together to my inescapable depression: one of the main characteristics of depression is undue guilt; and yet one of the tenets/virtues of Christianity is to feel guilt!

In Christianity it is believed that Adam and Eve were guilty of the the original sin (disobedience) and from them all human beings have inherited both the tendency to sin and guilt for this sin of theirs. Do you know how hard it is to overcome depression when you continue to feel guilty? I can see the futility of my thinking now, but for a long time I had no idea why so many of my other co-worshippers were suffering depression too. Guilt will eat you alive! Now, I'm certainly not saying that all cases of depression are due to undue religious guilt, but taking to this concept of Christianity as passionately as I once did does push you further down into a black hole. Luckily, I did not stop learning or thirsting for more knowledge and wisdom once I had become a full member of my new religion.

On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 1/3

I was baptized as a baby into the Catholic Church. This was not my mum's idea and nor did it actually signify anything as to what my life would be as it was purely done out of cultural and family tradition. Growing up my mum taught my siblings and I to be respectful of others, not hurt them physically or verbally, to be respectful of the law, and basically to treat all human beings as equal and as we wanted to be treated in return. She also taught us about this spiritual being called God that we could never see or hear but that we could talk to in prayer to ask for help and guidance in our lives. She taught us about this book called the bible that had all these stories about God and things he had done for other people who were "good" and others who were "bad". As a result of that I concluded that I wanted to be "good" to please this God being and have his blessing and not upset him and have his punishment in the future, which mostly meant after I was dead. She didn't teach us religious rituals or ritualistic prayers like those practiced in the Catholic Church as she herself did not believe they served any purpose.

When I was seven or eight it was decided that it would be nice for me to get to wear a pretty dress, like other girls in our town did, and partake in Catholic communion. Like my baptism as a baby, it was more about tradition than any religious or spiritual symbolism. A few kids and I met for a few weeks with a very nice and respectable member of the church to learn from an illustrated book about Catholic rituals and a bit more about the stories in the bible about angels, Jesus, his mother Mary, and also about how the communion ceremony would proceed in a few weeks. We rehearsed the ceremony and learnt some Catholic prayers and hymns. My mum had a really pretty white dress prepared for me. I still remember some of the songs we sung and the part of the communion ceremony where I forgot everything we had rehearsed for it, specially of what I was supposed to say to the priest the first time I took the Eucharist and he said something about the "body of Christ". I was completely blank standing in front of him and wondering what I was supposed to say back to him so that he would give me that sticky wafer. I remember he kept asking me over and over again, changing the intonation of his voice to a slightly more angry one, and I couldn't think of anything to say back to him. At one point he inflected his voice to sound like it was a question "body of Christ?" and I thought I had finally figured out the answer. "Yes", I said. No, he repeated it again and then asked if I didn't know how to answer properly. I said, "Yes, please". Finally a child standing behind me in line said to me "you have to say Amen". Finally I said it and the priest gave me the Eucharist, but before I walked away he asked who my communion teacher had been. I can laugh at it now but for years I felt guilty that I had gotten Cesar, my teacher, into trouble by forgetting the word "Amen". (Guilt, mea culpa, and penance were some of the catholic "traditions" of christianity that Cesar had also taught me.) At the end of it all, everyone commented on how pretty I looked in my communion dress, and that to myself and my family is all Catholic communion meant: a chance to wear a pretty dress in front of a lot of people. My baptism had been my grandmother's idea (my mother thought it was a waste of time because I was a baby and I would have had no idea about Christianity), and my communion was town tradition mixed in with vanity.

I completed my Catholic "confirmation" when I was about 10 years old or so. This time it was one my aunt's idea for whatever reason that one my brothers, her son, and I all partake in this ceremony. Again, I had to go to catholic Sunday school for a few weeks. We learnt from another illustrated book about angels, catholic rituals, and Jesus. The book was very colorful and I liked the drawings in it. We also had to go to confession where you'd tell the priest bad stuff you've done and, as if he was some sort of authority, he told you that God would forgive you if you repeated some ritualized prayers so many times. I hated going to it as I had to think for ages on what I could possibly have to feel guilty about at 10 or 11 years old so I could feed to the priest at confession. After some weeks, the communion ceremony was held and we got given little certificates, a little badge with a dove on it, and we took heaps of photos in our nice clothes. Our school principal was at the ceremony and participated in it, which I didn't like because he was very mean to everyone at school and often hit the boys' hands (and once mine also) with a wooden ruler for misbehaving. I thought he was a hypocrite and not a good person, even though he was apparently a good Christian. I knew, though, even at an early age, based on what mum and not any of my Catholic teachers had taught me, that it was not my place to judge him.

After arriving in Australia, I attended a catholic primary school (with the principal I spoke about) and then a catholic high school. High school for me was such a massive change from what I had been in primary school. I finally got over my shyness and I started to form my own ideas about life, etc. As any other teenage kid, I started challenging my superiors and rebelling just for the sake of rebelling. At school I wanted to challenge my religion teacher's doctrine, and at home I wanted to challenge mum's. My mum had started to become involved with a Christian group that went very much against idolatry and religious rituals. I began to wear a crucifix I was given at school as a necklace to irritate her. At school, I would question my religion teacher about some of the scriptures I'd overhead mum learning about at her home bible study and other things I had learn at Catholic Church too. I asked my teacher about worshipping a cross or a manmade icon when God had strictly forbidden such behaviour to the Israelites in what is commonly called "the Ten Commandments", or why I had to call the priest "Father" when Jesus had insisted that not even he (allegedly God's son) be called this let alone any other human being, or why had to talk to the priest to ask for forgiveness and not directly to God if God allegedly loved me and was all-powerful and so should be able to hear my prayer directly, etc. etc. I admit most of the time I was just trying to stir people, my religion teachers or my mum and her friends from her new Christian group, but underneath it all, I guess I was also curious about religion and spirituality. Gradually I started to become more and more interested in theology.

By the time I was 17 I was very much into reading about different religions and theological belief systems. I found Christianity particularly fascinating in that so many hundreds of denominations exist with slightly (or very) different focuses, practices or rituals, and interpretations of what is essentially the same story in one book. The common origin of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity seemed so enthralling to me. The more human-oriented philosophy of Buddhism and Eastern traditions inspired me to wonder more about what is "humanity" in humans. And the polytheist religions both inspired disbelief (because it was so foreign to all I'd ever learnt with only one God) and curiosity as to how models of religion and spirituality are constructed by the minds of human beings. By the end of my schooling and soon after starting university, I was sure I'd one day I'd either join Judaism or Buddhism. I was a lot more preoccupied with religion in my teenage years than in what other teenagers were interested in; yet not completely. Sex interested me. It interested me in the normal way, and it interested me in the way it was so closely related to spirituality in most religions.

On theism

The letter released by Yulia Tymoshenko  from her prison cell reminded me of that common saying that “there are no atheists in fox holes”.  Here’s a link to the letter which is an interesting read if you get the chance. In my case this got me to thinking about theism and why we either believe or don’t believe in God (or Gods).

I believe in God, as in that there is a non-human “thing” that started off the universe and still exists in a metaphysical form with power to intervene in anything that occurs in this universe. That’s how people commonly think of God, right? Then there’s, of course, differences in between what people attribute to God in terms of his powers, things he cares about, his opinion and judgement on human behaviour, things he intervenes in, and how he does so. Can I prove the existence of God or can anyone? No. People may raise certain arguments to support the belief in the existence of God, but there is no definitive proof in the way we commonly think of “proof”.

There are people who deny even the possibility that there may exist this metaphysical being who started off the universe. We call these people atheists. There are very few atheists in this world. I respect an atheist who will live his life according to his belief in the same way I respect a person with a spiritual belief in God who is not ashamed of his belief. There are, however, many people who claim to be atheists who mean only to say they don’t belong to any particular religion. But, then, what exactly is an atheist? It is a person who is self-reliant, who in his time of needs has only himself, his fellow humans, and our physical surroundings to rely on.  What’s wrong with that? Nothing! But what usually happens is when those things fail, most atheists become “believers”.

Why do we believe in God or gods? Because we don’t understand evolutionary theory well enough, because we’re ignorant and uneducated, because we lead empty lives and our spiritual beliefs make us feel like we have a purpose or our actions are relevant, because creationism for some reason makes more sense to us than the alternative, because our parents taught us to believe, because our government dictates we must follow religious doctrine, because believing in God seems right, etc., etc. And why do we not believe in God? Because we’re more than self-reliant – we’re arrogant in believing that we don’t need of anyone or anything , because we’re arrogant in the belief that humanity is the most superior being in the universe and don’t need of an external being or belief in an imaginary creature to survive, because we’ve been blinded and can’t appreciate the benevolence of God, because we’re more intelligent than believing in fairy stories any more, etc., etc. … You would have heard or maybe used any of these statements in the past, no doubt, but who’s right? What’s right?

Does it matter? Knowing whether a person believes in God or not tells you nothing beyond whether a person believes in God or not!  Actions, not beliefs, show our true character.

On logical suicide

I was at an internal medicine grand rounds talk one day when a colleague started speaking about “logical suicide”; as in suicide that does not seem like the irrational choice we all have come to believe it is. Experience, philosophy, or science, have taught us that a human being’s overriding desire in life is to live. If we deviate from this, if a person wants not to live, then that human being must be ill or evil. But are there ever situations when suicide can actually be thought of as logical? It takes a little bit of tearing down of our usual norms to even contemplate this, but I was curious to explore this further.

A life worth living

In medical ethics circles you’ll often hear the terms “a life worth living” and “quality of life” banded around. What is a life worth living? Most of our lives. We have our basic physiological needs met; we have freedom to think, decide, and act accordingly; and we have (most of us, I mean) the physical capabilities to transform our desires into acts. But, then, just what is a life not worth living? You could say that it is a life that lacks those things we spoke about before, but that’s not true. You may lack any, a few, a lot, most, or all of your physical abilities and yet still consider your life worth living. The important thing is that decision on the ‘worthiness’ of your life is made by you, the owner of that life and body.

A life not worth living

The medical profession and some societal groups, though, have decided on certain broad aspects of a human being’s existence which, if lacking, deem that person’s life a “life not worth living”.  Things like if a person’s brain lacks measurable electrophysiological activity, or if the person requires constant support in their nutrition, hydration, breathing, etc. Of course, the problem with a third party deciding which life is worthy and which not worthy of living is a very fearful one. The Nazis, for example, conceived a concept of “a lifeunworthy of life”. Initially, they considered it a socially useful tact to destroy peoples who were brain dead, brain impaired, mentally retarded, or psychiatrically ill to the extent that they could not survive without the assistance of others. It was considered that these people weren’t worthy of life and in fact were unaware of what life meant, therefore, eliminating them from society (by purposely killing them) was totally acceptable. We are now all very aware that the Nazis’ category of “life unworthy of life” eventually extended to some very broad groups of people and resulted in mass killings without a logical rationale. I, am, however, now digressing…

Suicide

Why do people suicide? That is a question psychologists, scientists, doctors, religious people, and a lot of us ask every day! What do people who suicide tell us (in their last writings or after a “near miss”)? That they did it to end to the pain, that they could see no other options in their life, that they no longer wanted the mundanity of life, that they had failed beyond what they considered remediable, that they had succeeded enough that anything further would be a downhill decline which they didn’t want to face, that they had nothing left to live for, that they had more to gain in death and the afterlife, that they didn’t want to be a burden on others around them that supported them in their existence, etc., etc. People’s reasons for dying are as complex as those we live for. And yet, for most of us, living just seems like the right thing to do. Most of us don’t even question it. And when we become ill or our life is threatened in any other way, our instinct is to try to preserve it. Then what is wrong with people who want to die? People will often quote you that up to 95% of people who commit suicide have a mental illness, for example, depression. But I’ve always wondered about the other 5%. OK, OK, 4% didn’t have a diagnosed mental illness but were intoxicated with drugs or alcohol, acted impulsively after a sudden change in life circumstance, or suicided “accidentally”. But what about the remaining 1%?

Logical Suicide

I’ll start by acknowledging that I’m playing devil’s advocate here just to explore this question further. My colleague who spoke of logical suicide was in fact speaking of one of our patients. It’s not that he disliked this patient and wanted him to die, he was just saying that if this patient decided to suicide, it wouldn’t be considered a totally irrational thing to do. Of course, there were a gasps of disbelief in the room and a few chuckles thinking he was purposely trying to bring up a taboo for a few laughs. How could he speak such preposterous ideas? Because he knew the patient was very aware of his own conditions. The patient did not suffer an intellectual impairment and he knew what he had been through with his condition and that it was only going to get much worse for him. He was in constant pain and discomfort. He was still physically able to act so as to procure his own death and he was not depressed or suffering any other mental illness. Would he want to face further suffering and physical deterioration? If he didn’t, would his opinion be irrational? If he suicided, could you consider his decision illogical? What happened in that room with our colleague having raised this, is that the conversation quickly changed topic. It is still taboo to speak of these things, apparently.

Now, consider a person who, like most of us, has set an agenda for his life, something he would like to achieve and this is what motivates him day to day to keep living. For some of us this is doing a particular job, helping others, marrying the person you love, competing in a sporting race, raising your children, making music, self-expression, visiting a particular place on earth, caring for your parents, etc. These are things worth living for, for you, at least. Now, let’s consider, for example, a person whose sole motivating thing in life is to get married and have children. He wants that more than anything else in life, and that would make his life happy and complete. He is not unhappy without it, however, but he is just existing with the purpose of achieving his dream. What if he was born with a physical impairment that meant he was completely dependent on someone else to care for him and as a result wasn’t able to meet any women to have potentially fall in love with him, marry him, or have his children? He reaches 20 and hasn’t met anyone yet, online or in person. He reaches 30 and he is still in the same predicament. He reaches 40 and his parents, who are his only source of real meaningful love (but not of romantic love, which he desires), are becoming elderly and still his predicament hasn’t changed or improved. He isn’t any more likely now to a) become free of his illness, b) prevent his own physical deterioration, c) find a new overwhelming desire/purpose for his life, or d) fulfil his own self-designated mission in life. What is he living for? How does he answer that question to himself if he isn’t a religious man? Is he living to wait for his death one day?... Well, if this man suicides thinking he has nothing of value to him to live for, could you honestly say his suicide was not logical?

Living

When someone speaks of suicide, of contemplating it, we often see ourselves come up in defence of “life”. We tell the person that they should seek treatment for a mental illness, or we “remind” them how wonderful life is, or we tell them how missed they will be and how many people love and care for them, or we say that perhaps soon medical science will come up with a solution to what discourages them from life, or we tell them to think of how much they will hurt others if they go through with what they’re contemplating… We’re actually pretty good advocates for life! However, perhaps what we should be doing instead of telling others how to feel or what to think, is ask some questions of how they’ve reached their conclusions. The person most likely to convince you of something, even living, is yourself. And hearing back your own arguments for life vs. death is perhaps the only way to have a person change their minds on suicide.

Until recently we still spoke a lot on suicide prevention, but that lead to a lot of people (family, friends, religious ministers, health professionals, etc.) feeling guilty. They were feeling guilty because suicide was being discussed as purely “preventable”, which mainly implied that it could and should be prevented, and if a person succeeded in suiciding then it meant that someone (or everyone) had failed this person. The emphasis is now shifting to raising ‘suicide awareness’, to be able to recognise those at risk of suicide. Most of these people can be helped. The others we may not be able to prevent from suiciding, but we can equally help while they’re living. You don’t need to be anyone special or especially-trained to do this, all you have to do is be a human being and engage the attention of another human being. Who knows, they may just help you too.

On courageous conversations

Last week I attended an education session on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural awareness. The intent was to help health professionals engage better with this subset of the Australian population, and as such “close the gap” between the health of non-indigenous and indigenous peoples (who fair terribly worse in morbidity and mortality). The session was run by a man who identified himself as an aboriginal man and he explained various aspects of what is culture from a psychosocial and semantic perspective. It was interesting and he spoke of a thing called “courageous conversations” – you know, all those touchy subjects on elements of our society which if we comment on we’ll be called racist or bigoted or misogynist or otherwise prejudiced. Racism and the history of Australia (or the U.S.A or South Africa or so many other nations) is one of those touchy subjects. So we all listened to the discussion he presented and he played Professor Michael McDaniel’sreconciliation speech and made passing reference to Kevin Rudd’s “Sorry”speech. The things spoken by these two men are along the same vein, but stated quite differently.

On the 13th of February, 2008, Kevin Rudd, the then Prime Minister of Australia gave a speech to acknowledge the past evils that had been afflicted systematically on the indigenous peoples of this nation. The other purpose of the speech was to apologize to aboriginal peoples of past, present, and future who had been (or will be) disadvantaged or hurt as a consequence of the shameful government policies that existed to purposely suppress aboriginal peoples. The speech was symbolic and groundbreaking, intent on paving the way to improving things in future and learning from past mistakes. This very loud gesture was meant to benefit not only the Australian indigenous people who for decades had had their history and rights suppressed, but also of benefit non-indigenous peoples by empowering them with knowledge and freeing them from the guilt of knowing that their ancestors had done something wrong but they now had the chance to right their wrongs. It was by all accounts a very admirable gesture by the leader of a nation.

Professor Michael McDaniel, an aboriginal man who is also Dean of Indigenous education at the University of Western Sydney, also gave a speech related to the reconciliation process that was occurring in Australia. He told one story of a non-indigenous solicitor who met some elders of an indigenous community and tried to tell them that he was aware of the unfairness and mistreatment indigenous peoples had suffered and he had a plan to propose some “reconciliation”, in this case something akin to acknowledging the land rights of the indigenous first occupants of that land. The aboriginal elders when he had finished his courteous and respectful talk, retold him the history of the Aboriginal people. They told him how his ancestors had raped, stolen, killed, desecrated, abused, and hurt their people in previous generations and how the current generation of their people is still suffering because of his people. The young solicitor was taken aback, surprised, and feeling blamed! What do you say to that? You say sorry. And when you say sorry the better man forgives, right? Right. That’s what we do in our culture, but not everyone’s culture is apparently the same in this respect.

Now, I have varying notions of what a sense of responsibility is, but for a while you have to consider yourself in the young solicitor’s shoes also. Prof. McDaniel explains that to the elders they were simply telling their story in their way, that they needed to do this, to vent, if you will. And at that second when the elders meet this young successful non-indigenous man, “For that moment you are Captain Cook. You are Arthur Phillip. You are the Mission Manager. You are the representative of everyone who did those things”. But you may wonder, why should he be designated the “representative of everyone who did these things”? The logic goes that it is because it is as an acknowledgement that the system and society we currently live in was built to ensure the success, exactly as he has, of a non-indigenous person like him and not of an indigenous person like the elders. So is he at fault because he is successful? Prof. McDaniel doesn’t state it quite like this, but he states that the systems that exist are at fault, they’re the “bad” ones. And yet in the middle of all this is a young man trying to do the right thing given what he has. Prof. McDaniel states he just has to “cop it, because it’s part of the healing process”. I know, I was outraged at his logic too. But you know what? Apparently it's hard for us to understand, he says, because (and I am paraphrasing here) ‘as a young non-Indigenous person, we’ve never had a sense of belonging to a society. We’ve never had “a collective sense of responsibility”’.

Honestly, I liked Kevin Rudd’s speech better. I liked it better for two reasons. As a Christian I always remember that scripture in Ezekiel 18:20 that says, “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them”. Acknowledging our ancestors sins is one thing, we can even apologize for them and regret it on their behalf, but as for being “punished” or held accountable for it, I believe is a bit rich. My second reason can be summarised in this quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world”. Guilt is a useless thing unless it motivates forward action. It is honourable to take responsibility for righting wrongs even if they weren’t committed by us. It is not honourable to use punishment unless your aim is for retraining. If your camel is already walking to where you want it to go, it is only cruel to continue to beat it.

On religion and on being open-minded

A tourist attraction - or a place of worship.

One of the criticisms you’ll often here about “religious people” or of “religion” is that these are people that are not very open minded. It’s funny, in a way, to see how religion has become the new Satan, this thing to be despised, to be frowned upon, to be avoided. The other reasons you’ll here as to why religion is the devil is it brainwashes people, its leaders often abuse their power for financial and/or sexual gains, that members are forced into a particular lifestyle, and that religion is the cause of war. The same could be said of almost any social group in this world: a race, a linguistic group, a nation of people, a socioeconomic group, etc. What is the difference? That religious groups are often seen as the perpetrator of all sorts of evils; a social group with almost no positive value to the greater humanity.

But let me come back to the point of how people of religious groups are perceived as not being open-minded, often by people who claim to be open-minded themselves. Firstly, allow me to define a little further what a religious group is. Religion can be thought of a system of belief as to certain ‘spirituality-related topics’ such as the afterlife, the purpose of life, etc. As an extension of this belief system is a system of governance and justice. Often a particular religious denomination has particular rules of what is deemed right and just behaviour and also criteria for things that are considered wrong. Of course, the particulars of each denomination’s spiritual belief and justice systems are different. For example one group of people may believe God has one or another name, another may belief that there are certain foods which must not be eaten, etc. Now, why do people even join religions? Because they either identify with a particular religion’s beliefs (and don’t we all like to gather with like-minded people), or they find a particular religion’s creeds appealing (and usually strive to approximate their behaviour to that which is the groups norm).

The question asked by so many “open-minded” people is not why do people join religions, however, but rather, why are people in religions when: 1) differences in religion beliefs have led to many wars, 2) when science has “disproven” creationism, 3) when religious peoples are hypocrites who don’t practice what they teach (because we all know one or another dissident from his belief), etc. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with any of these questions, except that they are large generalizations of a group of people that are extended to the individuals who belong to this group as if they are and must be true of each and every member. This is called a stereotype. This leads to prejudice and discrimination. This leads to the concept of ‘I am right, and you are wrong’, which is the first step towards the ‘I am right and you are wrong, therefore I have a right to punish you’. This is also what gets wars started. I regret to say that this is not a statement an open-minded person would say.

But a lot, many, perhaps the majority, of wars have been fought between groups of different religions. This is a historic fact, no doubt. But is it really “religion” that is the evil factor here? You could say that, but would you also dare to say that all members of any social group are responsible for the actions of some of its members? Recently you would have heard of extremists in certain religious groups being responsible for armed attacks on members of other groups. There are extremists in every social group. There are people in any group that will convince themselves that their duty is not only to be in the right but to punish others who they believe are in the wrong. Most commonly the fundamental spiritual beliefs of the group to which these extremists belong have mandates against harm to others, etc. What am I trying to get at? Yes, many wars have been fought by people over differences in religious ideologies; but no, that doesn’t make “religion” the culprit. It reminds me of an argument that was common in the early 1980s when AIDS was first documented. Yes, homosexual men were most often affected, but it didn’t mean that “homosexuality” per se was responsible for the disease. Certain beliefs and actions put us at greater risk of being involved in a negative thing (e.g. war or disease), but each individual is only “good” or “bad” based on their individual actions not those of a correlation with the group to which one belongs.

Another reason religion is often frowned upon by the non-religious is because it is perceived to be a belief system formulated by desperate, “empty” people who want to find reason to justify their existence. Or they believe it is outdated as science or some other philosophy has already answered the questions religion was previously thought to answer. There is no scientific evidence to particular religious beliefs or creationism, they’ll tell you. Now, religious people may believe that their purpose on Earth is to please some invisible god and do things so as to please him because gaining his favour will lead to further good things in this lifetime and in the afterlife. What do the rest of us believe is the purpose of human existence? Aren’t they also arbitrary things like creating a better environment for our descendants, to protect or promote one some randomly chosen cause that appeals to us, to enjoy pleasurable things and activities, etc. etc. You could just as easily say we are all empty people killing time until the day of our deaths and a return to the carbon cycle as a corpse. That is true also, and what we choose to do or believe to kill this time should not be up for judgement by anyone else as no-one is born knowing the “true” purpose of life, as if it was one definite thing. Could time be better spent saving endangered animal species than prayer? Maybe, depending on the belief system you elect. You could just as readily believe that movements to protect animal species during this lifetime are redundant, but that certain religious practices will lead you to an eternal wordly kingdom where there will be an abundance of animals that will exist in harmony with all other creatures. They are both equally valid, and albeit arbitrary, ideologies about human life.

I, despite my hatred of labels, will readily identify (and label myself) as Christian. This disclosure has led me to meet a lot of people who express to me their belief that religion is wrong and religious people are not open-minded enough…  Now isn’t this a massive generalization? Sounds not very open-minded to me, but I could be wrong.  I think a key to remaining open-minded is to admit that there is even a minuscule possibility that we are wrong, that the “others” may be right, or maybe even that there is no right or wrong answer.

On "coming out"

One of my favourite quotes in the world is one by Gore Vidal that says “There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses, if not practices”. He also said, “Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people”. Okay, so some of this argument is about semantics, but it is also about labels.

If you know me, you would know that I have a hatred of labels— and so comes this ambivalence about the whole concept of “coming out”. I do understand that the whole movement started as a way to counter discrimination against certain people because of their sexual practices, to claim back the respect and human rights owed to every human being. I understand how it is empowering, especially to individuals who have been oppressed, to claim with pride the person they are and their right to be. I understand that identifying with a group, coming together for camaraderie, is a very human thing and it is often the only way to bring about societal change. I understand how it came about, what I don’t like, however, is the expectation that is now placed on many people to “come out”, to label oneself as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or ‘questioning’.

One reason I don’t like the concept of “coming out” is that I find it biased that a person who has sex with a same-sex individual has to tell people about it, yet there is no expectation that a person who only engages in heterosexual acts do so. There are things about the sexual practices of my friends, my family, acquaintances, celebrities, politicians, and many other people that I don’t know about – and quite frankly couldn’t care less about. How old where they when they first had intercourse? What is their favourite sexual position? Are they multi-orgasmic? Do they prefer shaven or hairy genitals on their partner? Do they use toys? These are extremely personal and intimate questions about a person’s sexuality and we rarely are even bothered to know these things about people, so why should we care to know other intimate things like whether they have sex with men, women, or both. Does it change anything? No, it shouldn’t, especially if they’re your friends or family. Seriously, who would like to know all the sexual details of their friends or family? Not me. So why does there need to be this expectation that if you have sex with someone of your same gender that you have to tell the whole world about it? Quite frankly I have friends who are probably virgins, others that may or may not have had same-sex intercourse before, but I just really don’t care to hear about their sexual exploits one way or another. Sexual expression is a very intimate thing, usually only between two people, and that’s the way I am happy for it to stay.

And the other reason I am passionately against declaring your sexual preference is because of my hatred of labels. See, because once you tell the world you’re “gay” or “bisexual” that is all the world tends to see. You in fact lose a lot of your identity and become just a label, often described by a multitude of stereotypes. You may have sex with same-sex persons, but it’s probably not all you do. Maybe you have a job you’re very good at, maybe you follow a certain spiritual belief system, maybe you play an instrument or have a large family; but the moment you label yourself, that to me is like the death of the rest of you. And imagine being known for and described in terms of the things you like to do sexually! We would meet a lot of people, some of them our friends and family members, that were known as masturbators, others dildo-lovers, others anal-lovers, etc. But this is what some of our friends do and yet we think of them as friends, not as “straight” friends or “dildo-loving” friends, just our friends. The things our friends do and enjoy sexually is a personal matter for them and they aren’t and shouldn’t be expected to tell everyone about it, to “come out” as a dildo-lover or anal-bead enthusiast... So to “coming out” as gay or bisexual or transsexual, I say no (unless you consciencelessly choose to label yourself for whatever reason, for whatever secondary gain). To me, labelling isn’t creating equality. Labelling, putting up a division between “us” and “them”, isn’t creating equality between “us” and “them”, it just perpetuates the myth that people who have sex with same-sex individuals are purely defined by the sexual things they do. For me, to say a person is gay is a denial of everything else they are – and they may just be the best human being I know.

On Travelling

There’s a scene in the movie “Motorcycle Diaries” where the characters of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and his friend are travelling through the Atacama desert in Chile on their way to Peru. They meet a couple of peasants in the middle of the desert and they sit down to share stories and a hot drink over a camp fire. The peasants tell them of how they’ve been forced to leave their homeland because of political unrest and bad working conditions. Then it’s Ernesto and his friend’s turn to share their story. Ernesto tells them how they are travelling “just to travel”. A silence takes over the camp. Ernesto and his friend sit there almost in shame, and the peasants in complete disbelief that people can and do this. Finally the female peasant breaks the silence and in acceptance tells them, “Bless you... Blessed be your travels”.

The reason this scene was so significant to me was that when I was younger I never understood why people enjoyed "travelling" just for travelling. Like the peasants in the movie, I was raised in a very different place, where people only travelled when they had to, usually for work or escaping a physically dangerous situation, so unless your job was an explorer, then it didn't make sense to travel.

I couldn’t understand why people would choose to travel unless they had to. Later I came to almost despise it because a lot of the people I knew then described themselves as “travellers” when they meant to say “tourists”, or when they would try to make me believe that because they had travelled they were somehow more “cultured”, more “experienced”, better than average. Travelling to me in these cases always seemed a luxury, something someone did by choice and not for survival. It seemed redundant and I found it offensive that these travellers acted as if their journeys had been some part of a humanitarian mission. Seeing a pretty place or partying with other tourists or eating local food did not seem particularly special to me.

And then came another time of my life I found it very hard to stay in one place—the anxiety was unbearable—so I started “travelling” too. It took me ages to realise that running away doesn't make your problems disappear, because your problems have a tendency to follow you around.

As I grew up I eventually came to have more tolerance of this travelling business and I came to see some places myself which made me feel blessed because nature can be so breathtakingly beautiful. Yet still, travelling to me is still only escapism. But everything that isn't survival-related is escapism—and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Travel

One day she left to travel. I’ve always believed that those who like to travel are running away from something. For a while it seemed as if everyone was travelling. Maybe everyone was running.
One day I travelled and a lot of things happened, others changed, and the rest remained the same.
She left, but she said it wasn’t because of me. I believed her because, well, why wouldn’t I? One day she called me and asked whether I missed her. I wish I hadn’t said anything, but I said I did. (Sometimes it’s less complicated to say nothing at all.) She said she hoped I wouldn’t forget her, nor the things we had lived. After that, we said nothing at all.
When I realised that there is nothing behind travelling other than self-indulgence, I wanted to humiliate her, myself too, and to just tell everyone “the truth”. We wanted to deny it, but how could we?
She ran away from the truth and left. Me, I keep thinking that those who like to travel are running away from something.

One day I left to travel. It was early on since we’d met, but I missed her as if she had been a part of me for centuries and lives before that. She called me to wish me well. I told her that I missed her and that I loved her deeply. She didn’t know what to tell me so she told me that she had missed me too, and wished me well (again). I don’t know what happened to us since then.
One day, without saying a thing, she travelled to the same place where I had been without her. She never told me about that trip and I can only ask myself, “could it be that she forgot about me in the same place I had gone to forget about her?” The secrets that the mountains must hold.

One day, walking alone through life (or the park), I thought I heard something that sounded like my name. I wanted to cry but I kept quite. Sometimes I can get so lost in the silence that I even forget the name God himself has given me.
Lost in the silence one day, I thought I heard my name. It wasn’t anything. My consciousness was shouting at me to wake up. The vice of nostalgia was crying to tell me to let myself go. The stars tried then to tell me something, but who sees celestial things during daylight? (The faithful ones who never wander?) I got myself lost because I listened to those three things that were screaming things that I heard as my name but in reality were probably saying something closer to “No!”.

One day she tried to embarrass me for speaking of God. Who was I? Who am I? God knows who I am, the rest doesn’t matter.

—2005 (I initially wrote this story in Spanish, but I’ve recently started to think about it again because I’m on holidays – and not travelling.)