Well, hi.

Hmm. Awkward.

I guess this is more diary entry than LJ post here, cause I'm not really expecting anyone to read this. But that's okay. This is partly me solidifying my ideas in writing, and partly my answer to what could be my first post while I'm stalled in fic.

And there will be fic. Jossy fic. But right now I’m all busy (SoTHA judging, avoiding writing fic). And it would be awkward for me to just start posting fic, and I don't have anything to post right now anyways, so I figured I'd say something completely off-topic and random, and kinda personal to me. I don't know whether I'll have anything to say like this on this journal ever again; I get philosophical when the spirit rises within me or whatever. More like when I get a random idea.

So again: this is not really what this journal is about, is going to be about, will be about. At all. I'll mostly be posting fic that will be cross-posted to comms. But I kinda wanted to post this somewhere, cause it’s fun, for me. Maybe I'll even cross-post it a little, who knows. Although, really, to where? Hmm.

Anyways. This is sort of about religion-y things, which is a very touchy topic. So if this ever does get read, and you feel the need to post a comment or speak your piece or whatever, please be civil. I am not attacking anyone here, just sharing my thoughts. I also kind of make some gross generalizations here, so you can disagree with those.



I don’t have definite beliefs. Most people do. For comfort. Because the only thing scarier than not being in control of yourself would be nobody being in control of the world and what goes on in it. We want our free will, but we don’t want things to happen for no reason, for the world truly to be a random Big Bang accident, for there to be no capital-M Master capital-P Plan. We fear chaos and uncontrolled situations and change because we fear the unknown.

So we believe in things. It makes not knowing the future easier, because we think we do know the future, sort of. We put our faith in things we make up, things that we have no evidence of existing. We believe in the afterlife because the idea of our friends and family being tortured in hell is better to us than the idea that they no longer exist. We’d really rather they be suffering than gone. Maybe we wouldn’t say that, but I think it’s true. Which is interesting, to me.

I fear all these things too, the things that make us believe; of course I do. I’m human. I like routine, and I like safety, and I like things to be somewhat predictable because I don’t want bad things to happen in my life. But I don’t feel the need to believe in something when I don’t know whether it exists or not. Or maybe I feel the need, maybe everyone feels the need, but I ignore it for what I think is more real for me. I just can’t really believe in any specific thing, because I’m not really a believer by nature.

I’m not atheist. I’m not agnostic. Because I do believe in something, and I know what I believe.

I believe in possibility.

I don’t believe in aliens or magic or Jesus or nirvana. But I believe in the possibility of them all. I have no idea whether there are supernatural forces or life on other planets—although, really, it’s sort of impossible for there not to be life on other planets. An infinite universe with billions of planets and only one in the entire place has life on it? Please.

But I don’t know whether they exist—and I won’t believe in them without some sort of proof. I’m not looking for proof, I’m not going around looking for which idea is true. That’s just my feeling.

I won’t believe in a thing until I see it, but I won’t say it doesn’t exist just because I don’t or can’t see it.

I also have no idea what happens after I die, and I think it’s rather silly to speculate. Some ideas make more sense to me than others, but I really will never know until I die. I won’t say any one belief is wrong, because I firmly believe in its possibility. But I won’t believe in it either. Why believe in something I’ll always doubt? And why worry about something I can’t change or do anything about? It’s just my nature to doubt these sorts of things, probably because of my Unitarian Universalist upbringing and my generally skeptical, pessimistic, inquisitive nature.

I have a life to live, and however I got it I’m determined to do as much good and have as much fun with it before I die. That’s it. That’s what I’m going to do, and I think that’s the best and most I can do. I think spirituality is one thing, and worrying uselessly over your eternal fate is another.

Do we really need beliefs? Do we need religion to direct our morality? Do we need the promise of heaven to make us do good things, and the threat of hell to keep us from doing bad? We should know better. We should believe in doing good because we know it’s better, and we should avoid doing bad because we know there’s earthly consequences for whatever we consider bad. We should be kind to people because it’s the right thing to do. And we should live our lives well because, for all we know, it’s all we’ve got. Obviously we can’t do that all the time, no one really can, but it’s something we should aspire to.

I won’t tell you you’re stupid for having a belief. Because it’s okay to need a belief, it’s perfectly natural and under slightly different circumstances I’d probably be an incredibly firm believer in some sort of Paganism right now. We really do all need beliefs in one way or another. Whether that’s in the Second Coming or the inherent good in people or gravity not failing, we all have beliefs. We believe our government will protect us, or we believe it will fail us. We believe our friends will be kind to us, or we believe they will be mean to us. We all have beliefs about the world. Without beliefs, life is pretty much meaningless. And why should we have beliefs if our beliefs are not beliefs in a beautiful world? We don’t live in a beautiful world, not really, but it can and should be one.

But that’s all they are. Beliefs. We want them to be true, we think they’re true, but sometimes they’re not totally true. Sometimes they’re not true at all. And not everyone agrees they’re true, even if we think they are. But can’t we all believe in certain moral values? Can’t we all at some point be optimists? I hope we can. I don’t believe we can, because I’m not really an optimist at all. Which makes me something of a hypocrite, I suppose. This whole thing is hypocritical, in a way, because I don’t believe in a beautiful world or optimism or kindness. But I think that’s all possible. I think everything’s possible. And isn’t it a dreary world if we don’t believe anything and everything is possible?

So that’s me. I’m a possiblist. Believing that anything’s possible when it comes to people and the way the world is, and when it comes to religion and spirituality and life after death, and really I guess when it comes to everything. Yeah, I just made that word up. Fun, isn’t it? No capital letter, because it’s more philosophy than religion, not really a definite thing at all, when you get right down to it. It’s not about anything, but the possibility of everything. But possiblism is part of who I am and what I believe. And don’t our beliefs somewhat define us?

I won’t try to convince you to be a possiblist. Because I know that in religious-type areas people believe what they believe pretty passionately, and because I know that possiblism would be soul-crushing and incredibly depressing for a lot of people, because possiblism doesn’t mean that good can happen, it means anything at all can happen. Like Penny of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog says, everything happens. Not for a reason. Just: everything happens.

There’s no possiblist church. No rituals, or traditions, or tenants, or even possiblists beyond me. It’s a hard way to live, without strong beliefs and certainties, but I feel that for me it’s a true one. For me it’s kind of the only one.

Feel free to join me, cause I plan on making it a wild ride.