I have a story I'd like to tell. I'm never sure how to begin the story. Should I begin in the middle, with some random thought, or with the beginning?
I've made numerous attempts at blogging over the years. Each attempt has failed miserably.
So, here is Post One. A new start. Perhaps, my thoughts will finally make their way through my nervous system, down to my fingers, encoded in digital representations of characters, and be remembered in immutable blockchain technology.
The current landscape of the core, Part One
Over the decades of my life, I have passed through several mes. Each one builds on the previous. Each one does silly and stupid things. We never really grow up so to speak. The recipe of our bodies that is our DNA seems to give way to the recipe of our existence through our absorption of memetic ideas. And those become core values... maybe sounds reasonable, I dunno...
Atheism
I was raised a Catholic, and I was a firm believer in the Church, Heaven, and most especially Hell. The threat of Eternal Fire was most definitely the most frightening thing from my childhood. I guess by the standards of most people on the Planet, my greatest fear was very small indeed. There are plenty of children who are rightfully afraid of the very real danger that surrounds them, everything from actual war to wild dogs eating you in your sleep to contaminated water and starvation. However, I had the good luck to be born into a poor family in a very wealthy country and so only suffered brief bouts of hunger and fear of imaginary supernatural evils.
I escaped from my Catholic upbringing through the breakdown of my first marriage. I married very young, at age 22. The marriage was doomed from the outset. We argued and argued endlessly, had a child together and argued more. Finally, it was too much, and the marriage ended in bitterness and rage.
I was alone. Finally. And lonely. Oh well, what did I expect?
I started to fill my days with reading. I read every single "Forbidden Book" I could find. And I discovered that many of them made total complete sense. It was quite obvious after I put down Richard Dawkins The Ancestor's Tale that humans are indeed a branch of Great Apes. And that left no logical room for an almighty sky god to create humans.
And so, as almost no one does ...seemingly... I discarded my religious upbringing in light of the clear evidence that nature was uncreated. This new core ideal has been cemented by numerous supporting evidence since that time almost 2 decades ago.
However, I now have a new problem: How can I raise my younger children from my second marriage as Atheists?
This is more difficult than it seems. I have discovered that public school systems expect young children to have holiday traditions for Winter and Spring. The schools, meaning to be inclusive, send paperwork home to fill in what those traditions are so as to share them with classmates.
But, there is no checkbox marked: I have no traditions
So, what does one do?
We decided to celebrate a secular Christmas in order to have our children fit in and have something to talk about with their peers. It's all very odd.
To be continued...