We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Information on the Coming Election

Of course, I'm canadian, but I care about american politics. Yes, it's influenced by the need to understand Jon Stewart's/Stephen Colbert's jokes. But it's also because America's politics has impact on our own government and I care about that.

I have come to this conclusion:

If Mitt Romney wins the election

I will lose all faith in the human race.

No joke.

Maybe Obama hasn't been doing a fantastic job, but it wasn't really like he had a lot to work with, thanks to George Bush screwing everything up. Rome wasn't built in a day, and in the same way, you can't rebuild a country in a day. So shut up, people who think Obama's doing an awful job. He's actually not doing half bad, and he's doing better than Romney could ever do. I have hope in Obama. I have nothing but contempt for Romney.

He's so damn rich, how can he possibly think he relates to the common man? What, cause he eats southern food? Good god.

He's a freaking sexist. One cannot have a sexist person as president. A president should represent what the country's citizens wants, and what ALL the country's citizens wants.

He was asked what he would do to help the women of America (or something like that).

He replied that he would make sure women got home in time to cook supper.

Thanks, Romney. Thank you for putting in your input about women's rights, thereby turning it into a fifties stereotype. That's not insulting at all.

He's also homophobic. And you already know my thoughts about that. Again, I say, the president should try to represent what ALL the country's citizens wants. As Greg Proops continuously says, we don't need or want all the rich, stuck up white males deciding things for people they cannot, and will not relate to or understand, such as gay marriage or whether or not abortion should be legal. If someone thinks abortion is unethical, they won't use it for god's sakes. But some people need it, like, I don't know, a fourteen year old girl who was raped. Let the stuck up corporation owners of god do their grumbling, but there is always benefit to things that people will often find unethical. Like a man getting to marry a person he loves who just happens to also be a man. I mean, Jesus Christ. Those guys need to shut up and listen to the citizens, not  their own warped moral compass (even if some citizens have their own warped moral compass).

It's just...... god. Where is the appeal in Romney? There is none, he is stupid, in the debates he would not answer any of the questions, he was very redundant, and he just rambled for ten minutes on about absolutely nothing, things that people already know.

And Obama wasn't much better in that respect. But I have hope in him. He's not homophobic, and he's not sexist, and I like his vision of America a lot more than I like Romney's.

I just had to throw that out there.

And just to make light of it all, an Epic Rap Battle of History - about politics.

UPDATED:

Obama won the election. Thank. God. Or, how about, thank the people of America. Even though I don't believe God is with Romney in what he stands for, it still sounds better to not say it. I believe Obama, now that he's in his second term and has nothing to lose, can really make a difference now. I have faith that that will happen. 

It just feels good to breathe again... I was so relieved, I swear to you. 

And a message to anyone who's upset about how this turned out:

P.S 

A bunch of states have officially legalized gay marriage as well. We were way ahead of you, America, but congratulations for that anyways. Good job guys. We're proud of you. Keep it up.

P.S.S

This could be the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I teared up. I bet you will too.  

WE NOW RETURN TO OUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING: 

Enjoy the rest of your life. *breathes out all the worry I had before*

God Is Not A Magician, And Jesus is Not a Zombie.

If I could be serious for a moment, which I never seem to be on this blog. I do have some serious opinions, but if I mention this to anybody it's really not going to mean anything.

As I've said, I consider myself a fairly religious christian individual, in spite of my regular frustrated cries of "Jesus Christ!" and "God damn!" or "What the hell....?"(these are all flaws that I've been trying to work on, but they're also fairly deepseated habits that I feel bad about everytime it happens).

I believe that God created the world. This is what I believe in. I have no hatred for people who disagree with me, though I do get ruffled feathers if someone shows contempt to my beliefs.

But I need to clear things up for people who think they understand christianity, but don't.

The story is that mankind condemned themselves to death/hell when they ate the apple from the tree of knowledge - the tree God said not to eat from. God said they could eat from any tree except that one. They ate the apple, and before that moment they had no understanding of wrong. Wrong did not exist, they were literally living in a heaven on earth. But when they ate the apple, they saw the possibilities of where wrong could happen. They noticed they were naked and for the first time in their lives, they felt shame. God punished them, but they knew He would. They had condemned themselves, you see, to sin.

Now, the hard part of that piece of the story is that God is eternal. He knew that they would eat from the tree. So, why did he let them? What was the point?

Because, goodness and love, truly committed goodness and love, cannot exist without a knowledge of their opposites.

Mankind condemned themselves to this.

But, God loves the people. He had animals, but he made people with souls, and he loves them because they are his children. So, he told his prophets that he would send a saviour to save people from their sin. And two thousand years later, Jesus, his son, was sent to save us. He taught the people what the church was doing wrong - (ahem, and two thousand years later the church is still discriminating against gay people) and hung out with..... the "wrong crowd" I guess, because God loves EVERYBODY. The sinners and the saints.

And then, as God said he would, Jesus saved mankind, because he died on the cross. The punishment for sin is death. Jesus died. He didn't only die for the people before him, but for everyone who would live for eternity. He felt the weight of every sin that was commited by every person who ever existed or would exist ever. That is why he cries out "God, why have you forsaken me?" Because he felt the separation from God. He took the sins from us and laid it on himself.

Then he rose from the dead and continued to teach three days later. Because God is cool like that.

And it's because Jesus died that we as people are offered eternal life in heaven with God - because heaven is for people without sin. And if Jesus took away our sin, then we can get there, but only if we believe/accept that that did happen.

I'm not stating this as fact, just saying that this is the actual story that christians subscribe to, and this is how it works. Because lots of people seem to get the wrong impression about what christianity is about.

It's about the values. God FORGIVES everyone. God LOVES everyone. Are you seeing a continuation from my philosophy post? It's about believing that there is always someone who loves you, and there is always someone who is there to help you and save you.

It is NOT about discriminating against other people because of their life choices. It is NOT about starting arguments about how the world started, or calling other people idiots or any of that crap that goes on. That is a wrong interpretation of the Bible that for some reason many people recount as truth.

This is what I believe. Again, I'm not saying it as fact, but it's what I believe and I respect you if you believe something different. I have no reason not to.

I mention it because last summer I was experiencing a lot of doubt in my religion. It seemed to me just as hokey and ridiculous as it does to lots of people. But the speaker (Strider) said something that really brought me back to belief.

"If people are just animals, like other animals, then that means that we have no real purpose." And I believe that. If we were not created to be something different, then what is our purpose? We don't have one.

I do believe that every person has a purpose. If you take religion out of this for a second, I still believe that every person has a purpose. We have ambitions and thoughts and talents. We were all meant to become something, but we can decide what that is. We. Are. Meant. To become. SOMETHING. Everyone is. Which is why I feel it is such a waste when people decide to throw themselves and all their potential away. But that's a different thing altogether.

I need to believe everyone has a purpose. I need to believe people have individual purposes. My life has been dedicated to the idea that I have an individual purpose and I need to follow that purpose with all my heart, even before I became religious. THAT is why it struck such a chord with me, and that is why my doubt, while not completely disappearing, did decrease significantly.

And I like to fancifully think that God was telling Strider what to say then. Because it did strike me. Hard. It spoke to me on a much more fundamental level of self. That doesn't happen to me everyday - it hardly happens at all, I think too much and I've usually thought what people are saying before. Not this time. I was actually stunned for a minute. But I agreed immediately.

People think they understand christianity - the ones who sneer at it snidely and say things in a contemptuous tone of voice - but they don't. Heck, I've been christian for at least three years, and I learn things all the time.

And even if it isn't true - even if there is nothing, and we're all random groups of particles floating in a random universe with no purpose at all, even if everything that ever happened in history happened for no reason at all, just by chance, I still prefer to believe in God. Not because of the rules - as I've said, even if I break them, Jesus has taken my sins away. But because it gives me hope. It fills me with love for people. It makes me happy. Religion is supposed to be a source of love, peace, hope, fulfillment. It's a philosophy, surely, but it's also a kind of sanctuary. And the fact that others have gone and butchered this idea, making it a source of hatred and rage, disgusts me. Because that's not what religion is supposed to be about, and they are misinterpreting it in the most idiotic way I can possibly think of. The life lessons christianity teaches are actually valuable. But you need to transpose some of the scripture, especially the angry Old Testament, to modern times, that's all.

What frustrates me is that people see religion in political news and think they understand it. But religion is not supposed to about politics (which is why I don't subscribe to the catholic church - there are a lot of politics involved in who becomes the Pope, who is supposedly the closest one to God, although anyone can be extremely close to God in my opinion). And you need to actually hear what a religion is actually about in order to judge it truly.

I write this because the misinterpretation or christianity frustrates me, and the misunderstanding of it. I'm tired of it.

I'm done now.

Peace.

Not Quite a Philosophy.....?

I said something in a previous post, and it had such a great meaning to me that I had to blog about it separately. I said this:

"...if my life has anything like a philosophy, it would be to do what one loves, do what makes one happy, love, forgive, laugh often."

And the thing about that is that I really want to explain this in depth, because it seems pretty simple, but it can actually be quite difficult at times.

Do what one loves.

That, for me at least, is possibly the simplest part of the whole thing. If I feel passionate about writing, then goshdarnit, I'm going to write. If I feel passionate about film making then goshdarnit, I'm going to make some films. And it sounds like there's nothing to it, and there sort of is, but at the same time, things get in the way, right? People saying that you can't focus on your art form, people never make it there. The doubt. Sometimes there's a feeling of futility that comes into it too. I'm making it sound like a sob story and I'm not trying to, but this is the truth. Sticking to doing what you love is much harder than people give it credit for. But I do my best to do it whenever I can. I write. I make movies. I sing. That's what I do. And I highly doubt that'll really ever change.

Do what makes one happy.

This sounds the same as the first one, and it does kind of tie together, but it's not so focused on passion. This one's just.... in general. If it makes me happy to watch Whose Line obsessively, to listen to music blasting as loud as I can get it, to sing loudly and all the time, to read books about insanity and books about revenge and greed, then yeah, I'm going to do it. This one's not so focused on the idea that of doubt in your passion, but on the idea that if it makes you happy, who really cares what other people think? Yeah, I get that it's perhaps regarded as weird and creepy that I watch all these videos about Whose Line and Colin Mochrie, but it makes me happy, and I've got no real reason to stop. I try not to stoop to give into peer pressure, though it's sometimes difficult. I get that some people think I'm crazy for being in love with the book Misery and The Shining (although that's more based on fascination), or that I really prefer to be comfortable and unfashionable than vice versa. Apparently I'm not normal, and frankly Miss Scarlett, I don't give a damn.

Love.

One of the hardest pieces of this particular philosophy at times, but at the same time it can be really easy.

Actually, it's not so much focused on loving everyone, as hating no one.

I try to find something good in everyone I see. It can be pretty damn difficult at times, but I look for something good to say for everyone. I love my mother, my father, all my friends. I really do love them. But then, and this is going to sound absolutely horrible but I'm coming totally clean right now, there are times when I actually don't think I love my brother. And you're all going to think I should take pity on him because he's younger than me, because he's autistic, but I really don't have any sympathy for the kid. He can get so annoying and it's awful and I have to put up with him constantly and I get so darn sick of it.

But I try to love him. I don't like that I don't, and I really do try to love him. But he makes it really difficult.

And then when we come to previous enemies such as Janine....... well, I don't know if I'll ever really love her, but I no longer feel any hatred for her, which is actually huge growth on my part.

Which comes to the next bit.

Forgive.

Which is probably the hardest part of the whole thing.

All my friends are easily forgiven, my mother and father are forgiven relatively quickly, because love comes into play and lets me. But my brother..... not so easily. Eventually I grow mature enough to forgive him for all the idiotic things he says and does to me, but it takes time. I have actually forgiven my once enemy Janine for hacking my computer and accusing me of being a thief, even though I do feel anger rising in me for thinking of all this, I have forgiven her. Because there comes a time when one needs to move on. Bitterness and hard feelings don't make for a particularly happy life.

But, and this is kind of what I want to get at, the one person who's the hardest to forgive is myself.

People are always harder on themselves than other people are on them, and the same is true for me. Everytime I do something that was not particularly smart, I feel ashamed. And people are disappointed in me. Then they forgive me and forget about it, but it takes sometimes years for me to forgive myself. I used to slap myself whenever I couldn't stand how absolutely stupid I had been. But I've grown, and I forgive myself faster now.

And lastly but certainly not leastly,

Laugh often.

Laughing is good for people. I don't know if it's quite as therapeutic for everyone else as it is for me, but it is actually extremely important to me.

Which, of course, is why I watch Whose Line, but I've talked far too much about that already.

It's also the easiest part. Because laughter isn't necessarily hard to come by, but when it's there it's just fantastic. People always make fun of me because I laugh too hard at something that wasn't THAT funny, but I don't care because I'm not ashamed of laughing. I have no reason to be. Laughter is, should be, and hopefully always will be, a big part of my life. Cause even if jokes get old, laughing doesn't.

That's how I think. Unusual? Maybe. I wouldn't know. Who cares?

And now, music that I've been listening to throughout writing this post.

Quotes to Help With Life: the fifth

True friends say farewell, never goodbye.

- Unknown

One Of a Kind

I'll go back to Whose Line rants soon, but I just had an epiphany and it's going to be hard to explain right, and at first you're going to think "No sh*t, sherlock", but bear with me.

The epiphany I had is this:

Everyone is different.

That would be the "No sh*t, sherlock," moment. But just see me through here.

We all know it in theory. We know in theory that everyone is different. But how well can we really know it if we don't know the personality of every single person on this planet earth? There's somewhere around six billion people in the world, and not a single one is exactly the same as any other.

Are you starting to see the hugeness yet?

In theory, we know that everyone is different. And yet, we still end up saying things like "everyone shops at [insert random store here]" or  "everyone likes [insert musical artist here]." As if we were the odd ones out. But the truth is this: everyone is the odd one out in their own mind because everyone has something different about them.

Let me try explaining it like this:

I often think that I am very different than everyone else, because I'm into old, unpopular shows and old, retro music and I don't like to..... well, to show myself off and so on and so on. And I often say the word "everyone" to show how different I am from "everyone." But to anyone else, I am part of that "everyone". No matter how hard we try to separate ourselves from that "everyone", we will always be part of that "everyone", because we can't possibly get everyone in the world to know my singular personality, and get everyone to know that I am different than the rest of the world.

Because absolutely every person is different.

I'm sure everyone finds some trait about themselves that they think is strange or weird or unusual, or apart from "everyone". But to every other person, they are part of the "everyone" because no one can know everyone well enough to separate them from the "everyone". Does that make any kind of sense?

We like to pretend that we are the only ones in the world that differ from the crowd. But everyone differs from the "everyone" in some way. The "everyone" doesn't actually exist, because if every person is different and are separate from the "everyone" then the "everyone" is nothing.

I'm starting to confuse myself. Is ANYONE understanding what I'm trying to say?

I realized it while I was thinking today. I was on the computer, logging into my Google account. And I suddenly realized:

I am the only one in the world that is exactly like myself. I am the only one in the world with my exact experiences, birthday, obsession with Whose Line, possible mild autism, passion for storytelling...... there is no one else in this world with all of my traits and experiences that make me me.

And absolutely everyone in the world is exactly like that in that they are not exactly alike in any way.

Try to imagine the hugeness of this notion for one minute:

Out of six billion people (or thereabouts), who all have basic human needs, not one of those six billion people are exactly like any other. They ALL have different experiences. They ALL have different interests. They ALL have different insecurities, they ALL have different little quirks. And even if someone shares traits - for example, I share a birthday with a girl in my class, I share a love of Whose Line with a friend of mine, I share possibly autism with many people.... but I am the only one out of all the world with precisely the same COMBINATION of traits, and if I were missing even one of them, I wouldn't be the person who is writing this post right now.

Now think about that.

Now think about that again - but stretch the idea to fit around over six billion people.

It's kind of an amazing idea, isn't it? And it's true. It's totally and completely true.

And it wouldn't be nearly as amazing if it wasn't.

Flaws and Factors

So, I've been thinking. Everyone thinks that they want to be perfect, but what fun would that be? If you're perfect, then you have nothing to laugh at. If you're perfect then you're only pressuring other people to be. And THAT can lead to disasters like eating disorders, depression, and the likes. So I think the world should just accept their Flaws and Factors. For example: me. Well, it's easy for me to see the flaws of myself, but not so easy to see the factors. Well, I guess that I am a bit outspoken, and sometimes can't hold myself back from doing and saying things that I probably shouldn't. I can be a bit TOO sure of myself...... and sometimes I don't have faith in myself the slightest bit. BUT......... I am awesome. Okay, just kidding. But I am easy to be friends with I think, and I am always the LIFE of the party. But I wonder........ is being a "weirdo", so to speak, a flaw or a factor? So many questions....... Anyways, back on task. So everyone has flaws and factors. We're human. And you wouldn't be you if you didn't have those flaws...... and you'd be sad if you failed to appreciate your factors. So live life without regrets and knowing that your flaws aren't failures, they're quirks. Quirks = good. And your factors are open to mostly to everyone but you. You yourself normally have to dig deep to find them in this messed up world we live in. But knowing that everyone else can see them at least gives ME a bit of comfort. :)

The Quest for True Happiness

It makes me wonder. What IS true happiness? People seem plenty happy when they're putting on make up and trying to make themselves look better. But my firm belief is that you cannot become more beautiful than you already are. Because then you just look fake. I think people would be more happy if we all were ourselves. Like me. I don't care what people think of me. I don't. Sure, sometimes people make fun of you every so often. If you're being yourself though, to you it shouldn't matter. If you're being yourself, you realize that this is you and you have a beautiful soul no matter what other people say or what you've done in the past. If you realize this, you also realize that they have no right to make fun of you and that half wit judgments like theirs never impact your life. Maybe it'll seem like a big deal then. Maybe. But it isn't really. So try to keep life in perspective. When you're an old person, looking back on it, you won't break down crying, will you? No. You will laugh and say "Oh, those poor girls." And I believe that is the outcome of a little something I like to call True Happiness. So remember: though the path of individuality seems hard now, it is rewarding if you'd only stick with it.