Fear

I went and spent a whole weekend with horses a few weeks ago. I had a really great time.

I did a lot of things with horses. One of them had me falling from one. He almost stepped on me (because there was a print of his hoof on my stomach) but he was kind and alert enough to not let it happen. It didn't hurt (except where my chin bump into his hoof), I suppose the amount of falling and bumping into hard things in my life has made me immuned to that sort of thing. But I guess it's also because I thought of falling and I wasn't really afraid of the idea. So when it really happens, I wasn't really... shaken or anything (not that I expect that to happen).

If I were scared to fall from the horse, to get wet from the rain, to be dirty from all the mud--I wouldn't be able to learn nor do things with these horses. If I were scared of risk of me doing things, I wouldn't be able to do anything.

But I guess that's what has been holding people back from doing things. Fear. Mostly fear of getting hurt.

I suppose it's fair: most people don't like to feel pain. So when people don't want to pet puppies because they're afraid of being bitten, or play rugby because they're afraid of being squashed, or fall in love because they're afraid of heartbreaks, or doing bad deeds because they're afraid of getting thrown into a pit of everlasting fire... it makes sense, because people don't like pain.

I don't think fear is bad though. They're great. Fear is what keeping people alive. It makes sure we don't get into things that can be the death of us. So I don't think people should stop being afraid. I think people should stop letting fears prevent them from doing things all the time.

It's cool for people to be afraid of getting hurt, but I think people should risk it if it has certain advantages that worth getting hurt for. Like, I'd risk myself of getting clawed in the face, because I want to bond with my cat and getting clawed in the face is worth my cat knowing that I never meant him any harm. But I totally won't risk me got bitten by a venomous snake since I don't particularly get anything from it. It's also cool for people to be afraid of not doing things the right way, but I also think they should do it if they can be a better person by doing so. I guess it comes to rational assessment--knowing which fear to listen to, and which one to put aside. But fear and rationality aren't really a match from heaven, so a lot of people find it hard to think straight when it comes to things they're afraid of. That doesn't mean they can't try, though. Knowing why you're afraid of one and not another, knowing why you choose to indulge in one or face the other--it's a power on it's own.

What I'm trying to say is that it's ok to be afraid, and it's ok not doing things because you're afraid, but to be mindful that there are things that you're missing from not doing things because of fear. And to be mindful that facing your fears doesn't always make you the wisest person in the room.

Bravery is not mutually exclusive with stupidity.

Random Life Updates (sort of)

A lot of things happened recently. Sort of. My weekends are eaten by activities that... are... not I really expected to happen on weekends. Because my weekends usually consist of me lazing around. (Will still continue hopefully till next week).

But I guess that one weekend where my foot was sprained fulfill my usual weekend agenda (it was not very pleasant though).

But lately I'm a little bit disoriented. I'm confused, but I don't know about what. I want to talk to several people, but they're busy. I want my plush to be dry-cleaned, haven't done it (can't rely on other people, really). I want to go to toy stores and bookstores, but I'm too lazy to go anywhere else but home. I'm hungry most of the time, but I can't eat in each and every of those time. (I don't use to get hungry this often). The last one frustrates me the most.

It's weird because at one time, I'm disoriented, but not long afterwards, after putting it into words and draw something that has nothing to do with it, I don't feel so disoriented anymore. Seeing my awkward drawings I realize I really need to practice more often. The last time I was drawing very seriously and consistently were the time when I made a picture book. This is one of my favorite pages:

(I didn't color that well either)

I tried to give pictures of dreams that I have in my dream journal too, but I have dreams to write but not a lot of time to draw so I neglected that one too. I want to play tennis again, haven't been playing for so long. When I was in junior high, I played every week. After a load of work in high school, I put it to rest. Same as piano. Though with piano, the lesson every week was stressful. I cried in class a lot. Still played at home afterwards, but too lazy to practice in recent years. It's not very easy, to see what you like and what you want to do with your life. I tried music and sports and art and studying and although I enjoy doing it (and able to do it, some I did--like sports and studying--pretty well) none I found so interesting that I passionately want to be very good at it, or enjoy it enough to do it every other day (or at least regularly). But I guess that's ok, I have long made peace with myself about this kind of things. Guess it's still trial and error for me.

Maybe I'll draw some more for my dream journal.

(Later.)

Irang

(Her appearance isn't depicted in a very obvious way, here is what I imagine.)

Read her story here.

p.s. she's not mine, and by no means this visualization is even close to her actual design

Sexuality, Marriage, and Islam

Disclaimer: This is a personal interpretation and deduction from what I've learnt from living. I wanna say religion instead of Islam but I can't because I have no real reference in other religion. And by 'Islam', it actually really meant 'Islam in my perspective' and if there's any inaccuracy in things I said about it, feel free to say so, but please be mindful it's not intended as it's merely a fruit of deduction from whatever I learnt so far (which is, to tell the truth, not a lot).

I am cutting the case really short: I don't believe that it is wrong to love anyone or anything. It's a very natural thing to have a feeling of affection to anyone (or anything really). I always believe that it has never wrong to have feelings, however nasty they are, as long as they are not actualized in actions (x).

And with that saying, I think it's perfectly fine for people from the same sex to like each other.

I also don't believe that it's forbidden by my religion. Which is Islam.


Before getting to how the heck I come to that conclusion, there are a few things that have to be explained first.

That is, Sex and Marriage in Islam.

Sex, like every other aspect of life, is regulated in Islam. Sex, as I understand, is only permitted in two conditions:
1. It is reproductive sex
2. It is done by people who are married

It has to be reproductive sex, as non-reproductive sex is banned and seen as perverted. From what I get, the purpose of sex in Islam is strictly reproducing. Non-reproductive sex is an act of sin. Even when it is done by man and woman. But it has second condition: it has to be done by people who are married, so people who did reproductive sex but aren't married are also sinful.

But marriage itself, seen from my very simplistic point of view, is an institution that are legitimated by Islam to (1) track bloodlines and preserving species, and (2) socialize and perpetuate Islamic traditions and values. (But really, it's not just 'marriage' and 'Islamic norms and values', people use the unity of people through any institution for any norms and values).

I guess there are other purposes as well but I see these two as the most fundamental. Why? Because reason (1) is the reason why people who can marry are only people that can engage in reproductive sex, which is man and woman. To put it simply, if they can't reproduce, then the purpose of marriage is DEFEATED. Why such strong word? Because in Islam, you really CAN (and to some extent, encourage to?) have another marriage if you can't have children from the one you previously have.

Without children, you can't make little people who are supposed to be internalized with the previous value you have (in this case, Islam) which is actually the reason (2). I am saying so because preserving and spreading Truth in Islam is compulsory for muslims, and the easiest thing to do that is to build a family. How? Through marriage.

So that's how I deduce the purpose of marriage in Islam into two.

Which is kind of what leads me to think that the problem in Sodom and Gomorrah is probably not because men are loving men and women are loving women: but because they're engaged in non-reproductive sex.

As I said, non-reproductive sex is banned in Islam. And there's no way for two people from the same sex to have a reproductive sex, that's why sexual engagement between them is prohibited. (And that's why they can't get married, because they can't fulfill the purpose of marriage.)

But it doesn't mean that loving people or anything other than people from different sex are banned. We are encourage to love and spread love. There are even phrases like "I love you because of God" exactly because we can love anyone or anything based on a very basic thing like principle-differences be damned, as long as we have something important in the core of ourselves that we share together. Islam encourage its believers to be kind and full of love; the Prophet himself is depicted in a very loving, affectionate, and kind figure. And he doesn't really do that strictly to woman. Or muslims. He did so to every living being on earth that he encounters.

So no.

Feelings of affection towards anyone is not wrong. Or prohibited. (It shouldn't even be seen as one.)

What is prohibited (or "wrong" in its sense), I believe, is unregulated sex.

Which we have to admit, implies that homosexual people who are romantically involved cannot ever have sex (according to Islam). But that is totally doesn't mean that they can't love each other anyway.

(And it also implies that, the "act of sin" that is mentioned ever so often is not exclusively done by homosexuals or the like.)





And that's how I come to that.

(I'm very open to discussion.)



note: I prepared the similar notion for speech in class back when I was in 10th grade, arguing that not just that it's not forbidden in religion and not a mental illness, bullying and discrimination againts it shouldn't be happening. But I was thrown for a fact that apparently (despite what I was explaining) homosexuality is rejected in every religion. I guess it was my fault because my initial purpose was to argue not to bully LGBTIQ, so I didn't explain the RELIGION part very thoroughly (though I was pretty sure I'm convincing enough in "mental illness" department)-and she doesn't really care about my point (anti-bullying) but more to the fact that I accept homosexuality even though I'm a person with religion. I learnt my lesson, so here it is: an argument why me accepting homosexuality isn't betraying the fact that I'm a believer.


(x) This is also supported by the fact that in Islam, bad intentions are not sinful until it's done, albeit good intentions are already counted as good deeds, so when it's actually done you kinda get two times the rewards (if you don't then you already get a reward from your intentions alone).

They (Don't) Deserve It

I don't like the fact that human thinks really highly of themselves. I loathed it, even. It's not that I don't recognize technological advances or whatever humanity achievements that they have now, I just think that it's used as an excuse to perform, I don't know, mean things.

I always think that sense of superiority is the issue of a lot of things that are evil. Racism, sexism, chauvinism, homophobia, misogyny, misandry, and whatever else evil--in summary they all come from a feeling that one is better than the other sometimes to the point that the other shouldn't exist or that it's others' nature to be bullied/slaved/raped/not accepted/that they deserve all the bad things that come upon them. And that is pretty bad, considering they're all the same: human being. Yet even among themselves they cannot see that they're essentially equal.

That, I don't like.

But my dislike doesn't stop there, because nowadays those kind of views are perceived as a bad thing. Which is true: it is a bad thing! And those who have those sentiments are seen as evil. Not.. all, it seemed, but at least it's improving. And it's a good thing. It's a good thing that people realized that those values are evil. And even if they don't stop doing evil, at least they know that what they do is evil so what they did are purely done not because of misconceptions or the feeling of it's the right thing to do but purely because they want to do that form of evil: they want to do so because it feels right for them, beneficial for them, or because they're just plain evil. Because the worst thing about doing evil is THINKING THAT IT'S NOT EVIL.

Or at least that's what I believe.

Anyway.

Yeah. So as seeing that there are forms of discrimination or feeling of superiority among humans themselves, it's granted that they (of course) think really highly of themselves compared to other living creatures. Like animals. Or plants.

And I think it's way worst. And I loathed it even more. Why? Because people don't even think it's a bad thing. They really think that it's animals' or plants' nature to serve the humanity. They really think that whatever they do to them, it is their right to do so simply because it seemed that humans are better than they are in every way.

(Some religions even established that fact but for the sake of argument I am not taking that to account.)

...what?

The thing is, the fact that one is better than the other shouldn't be a justification for doing things that are bad. It shouldn't be a reason to demean others. To belittle others. And even then, I don't really think that the fact we are better than they are means that we're not equal in essence. (And I don't even think that we're all that better than they are either. I personally think a lot of people are worse than dirt.)

Okay, now let me get this straight first. By bad, I don't mean like eating them or whatnot. I like eating meat. I love eating meat. Meat is tasty. But so do tigers. They eat meat. So do lions. And crocodiles and T-rex. They eat meat. My cat loves fish. I love fish. I eat fish. I don't feel bad eating fish because it's not bad to eat them, you know? It's our nature to eat each other. To hunt. To survive. So no, it's not bad. Even if you for some reason, think it's bad, at least you know that you're doing it for a reason and it's more appealing than the consequences which you perceived as, say, more bad. Like dying out of hunger.

So yeah, survival of the fittest. Fine.

But it doesn't give you the right to enslave them to death, to confiscate their habitat, to kill them for fun, to do whatever people are doing right now to animals that are totally not okay if it's done to other people.

Animal domestication, for example. Some may say that it's a form of modern slavery: but I personally think that if there's a form care and appropriate treatment or if that it has mutual benefits for both parties, it should be fine. Say a pet is giving a sense of companionship or entertainment for people; they got food, shelter, and to some extent the same sense of companionship and love in return. So does a farm: if it's done in a non exploiting manner (which sounds like a load of bullshit but I believe that given the right method and enough knowledge it can happen) it should be ok. Even if they have to be "used", at the very least they're given an amount of incentive on their part. We have to coexist with them. It's like a job, you know? People are enslaved too, but they gain what they think they need in return so they're fine that way. So I think it should be obvious that animals too, even when we can't really guess what kind of perceived benefits they had in mind, the least we can do are not exploiting them until death. I can go on and on about how not being mean to animals (as if it's not obvious already but then SOMEHOW IT'S NOT huft) but that's not the point.

The point is that we have no reason to be mean. We really don't. (Unless you want to be mean or you're evil. Then yeah, you kinda have a reason.) You and your fellows of the same sex or race or ethnicity or being can be better in ways you want to believe you do, but it doesn't give you the right to be mean or violate others. And no, they don't deserved it. Same as women don't deserve rape. Same as colored people don't deserve slavery. Animals don't have their lives taken away because they 'deserve' it.

People are just evil, most of the time. 

(p.s. Whew. This is like the third installment of my Don't be Mean posts. Turns out I'm very concerned about people being mean.)