Celestina

Yes, yes it does stare back into you.

Staring Into The Abyss

Sticky

For some people, it is simply a culmination of small things, over the years, and it is impossible to pinpoint the one that tipped us over. However we get there, most people, sooner or later, find themselves staring into the abyss. It is a black, bottomless space, without any assurance that there is anything more real than this. You realize that everything you ever had to believe in, everything you counted on as a foundation, was an illusion. You realize that the symbols and trappings of your life are just that: symbols and trappings, nothing more. There is no guarantee that there is a reason, a pattern, a loving creator who will some day tell you why all this was necessary. There are no certainties that “it will all work out OK”, no promises that your loved ones will always be there, not even the comfort of thinking that you, at least, will always try to do the right thing. You are weak, the world is quite possibly a random collection of events, and you know with complete certainty that you are truly and finally alone.

How we deal with this experience has a great deal to do with the people we become. Continue reading

Eight Things You Just Can’t Say In The U.S.

In thinking about taboos recently, it occurred to me that while some of them are obvious (no peeing in public, for example), some of the cultural standards with the deepest impact are the ones which are hardest to see: those dealing with ideas. Here in the United States, we champion our freedom, and get into heated debates over the limits of freedom of speech. Usually, those arguments center around saying things which could be damaging in some way to another (libelous or slanderous), and occasionally we get caught up in whether or not it is wrong to be “disrespectful”. Rarely do we consider, however, that there are some ideas and beliefs which are completely socially unacceptable, to the extent that even sounding like you might be about to say them is cause for a full-blown attack from anyone in the vicinity. Continue reading