Open the Door

I'm someone else tonight. Someone who is not feverishly going over posted words to ensure they are safe or wise. Have I lost my talent? Had I any talent to begin with? I have all of these goals set up before me and all I literally want to do is read, sleep, and then quietly pass into oblivion. How peaceful. 
But I know there are people who need religion in order to feel at peace with themselves, with the afterlife. I guess a picture of some home in the clouds or 72 virgin wives sounds really nice and all, but it just kind of seems like shutting the door on a scary room. 


Let me explain. 
Its like having a really, really dark room somewhere in your basement-a furnace room maybe that emits this eery hum and contains so many crevices and small spaces that you cringe to go though it during the day, let alone at night. So you make it a point to close the door, and not look inside. You know what's behind the door. People know what is behind the door. You've seen it yourself. Its dark, and convoluted, and complicated, and intimidating. I mean you live alone-you are alone-its understandable. So you close the door. You keep it closed. Because even though you know what's behind the closed door, not seeing it makes you less anxious. Not seeing it allows you to muster up other-less intimidating and less frightening-images. And through this cover up, you feel better, at peace. 


This is the way I understand how religion works for intelligent, educated people. They know it can't be true. They know. They know the evidence, they've seen the records, the contradictions, the vastness of the universe...They know. But everything attached with knowing is way too intimidating. Too frightening to know that people die-there are no souls-there is no afterlife (what an awful waste of all those young boys strapping bombs to their chest and dying in the name of some ghost and his apparently bigot last prophet). Only corpses. It's too depressing-too empty. So what should they do? They close the door. They know what exists, they've seen the proof, but they choose to believe that there is something-anything-else other than this....life. 
Why? 


It's comforting, and I understand that. I myself was once the one pushing that door closed with all my might. But one day, I let it go- I opened it, and at first everything came rushing out like an ambush-I had never felt anxiety so fierce. But then...it was gone. Everything was clear. No superstition. No worry. No rationalization. And my life was still meaningful-I still had all the same goals I had originally-I still loved the same movies, music, the same people. But now I felt free. It was magnificent.


Until next time.
Think heavy.


Todays Tea: Jade snow with mint leaves