Faith and Belief

Faith, a big word, not that many letters but it's faith in god that drives the lives of so many in this world, it is religious faith of one kind or another, that is the moral structure behind the societies of so many countries, even the U.K. where people actually going to church is in decline and has been for so many years, personally I was baptised, when I was born and I went to a Church of England school, I sang hymns, I went to harvest festivals, I know the background of the church, a cult in the middle east, spread to the Roman Empire who took a monotheistic religion as their new faith and ran with it, all over the modern world apart from here, because a King, Henry the Eighth wanted to get divorced and it wasn't allowed in the Roman Catholic church, I think most people who live here know that much, which is why we're protestants, the cause of so much struggle and violence in Ireland for so long, the battle between those who would rather be Irish Catholics and those who would rather be Protestant members of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland, and then we have the other faiths around the world and the list goes on as there are so many different stories.

Isn't that what they are, stories though, unless we have a personal relationship with a creator, how could we ever know the truth, feel the truth, feel that we know what will happen when we die, have any faith at all?  Isn't it most important that we treat each other with respect I know for me the morals are the most important aspect of all of these faiths, how we treat each other whatever faith we are or if we are of no faith and believe that we only have this one life.  I don't know the answer, it must be one of the greatest questions in this world.  The one question that has so many answers and yet it is up to each of us as individuals to choose.

Do we die forever and there is nothing after this?

Why should we behave well in this life?

It ought to be obvious that we should treat others well, when we lived in small groups, if you did not treat others well, you would end up with no-one to look out for you, everyone had a role, now the planet has so many people that you can move around and find somewhere new to live, we don't have such strong tribal ties, we can and do move around looking for work, the mass migration that is happening now is only a symptom of the struggle many people find themselves with now to avoid war and violence in their home countries, I guess this sort of thing is boring to many, it's interesting to me to get back to thinking of the world as merely a rock falling through space, rather than the magical mystical things I've been thinking about for so long, getting caught up in a quest for spiritual truth only to find myself lost in my own world of made up lies, feeling as though I were something I am not, realising that whatever I do from now on there are ways to do live that give us a natural high and believe me I've been here before, there's almost nothing worse than an ex smoker, an ex druggie, they're hard to be around, an ex drinker, since I don't drink heavily, it's hard to be around your social group if they drink, do drugs, smoke cigarettes, it smells, they find it hard not to tempt you back into their ways of enjoying themselves, and that is what they are doing, enjoying themselves, unless it's an addiction, they are improving their experience, they are taking something to get past their inhibitions and in many cases, as much as I don't want to put anyone down, they're getting off their faces, literally losing themselves, having many drinks and then drugs which actually puts them in a state where they don't know what they're doing, may not remember much about it afterwards and don't actually know where they are or what's going on, it's a tough one, to be in this situation again, looking down on folks I loved to spend time with and I don't want to do that but it's a fine line between mere enjoyment and improving a good situation, making it even better, and from there to the place where you're just unaware of the world around you.

Inside though they may be having a good time, I don't think I really did it as much as some, I didn't really feel as though I was pushing as hard as many of the folks I've seen, maybe it's a delayed reaction for me, because it's all come on at once, several months after, after not having done anything for weeks and weeks, suddenly all my bad trips come home in one fell swoop and all my romantic fantasies and nightmares, and all the thoughts I would rather not think, and all the most darkest aspects of reality seem to be coming for me.

It's flipping scary he says coming back to the person who is well mannered, says please and thankyou, is trying to work out where I went wrong, looking back at a diary from 1995 and remembering much but also spotting how little I remember of those days, how much more went on than I realised, how different the times, how different I was, I phoned people, i had a huge social life, but I also went from one extreme to the other, I found the winters hard, quiet, the summers frantic, busy, my calendar full, I've seen the difference between my memory and I saw someone describe the past recently as stories we tell ourselves, well my stories were wrong, or at least had very little information in them, I've seen the written accounts and they don't tally with what was in my head, but then it's 21 years since then and I can see why things have changed.

It's a very sobering experience to see why I've been so weak, how I've failed, why I need to be strong from now on, how I can work hard to come back to some semblance of who I was back then only a better me.

That's the hope, that's what's necessary, the fear I have about the ways and things that have caused me to come back to this place and situation, knowing what I've written may scare people, I've managed I hope not to do so in a public way as I did before on at least one occasion, luckily for me, I didn't feel like I should push against my own natural internal safety valve and post things to social media that I knew I shouldn't.