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Saturday, May 05, 2007
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 ANY WAY YOU CUT IT, I'M FUCKED: SIKHISM AND skippy
Believe it or not, there are people out there who think I'm really smart. You, my long-time readers and international fan club, know this to be utter nonsense. I'm actually with you on this.
I'm convinced that intelligence is inborn. There are people like my friend, the great Dr. Reverend, who are born fucking brilliant. I'm hardly one of those people. I wasn't born with a huge intellectual capacity, or anything. I'm just really curious. I'm sure that everyone is familiar with three-year-olds and how annoying they are with their constant questioning of everything. Anything you tell the degenerate little curs is always answered with "why?" This is but one reason that children are evil and should but stopped soon. But I'm getting off point, aren't I?
The fact is that I'm not much different than your average three-year-old. There are very few differences between myself and your average toddler. I'm much taller, can speak in complete sentances, am capable of orally satisfying a woman for hours at a time, and I can finish a meal without getting food everywhere. The differences pretty much stop there.
Much like your average idiot kid, I have this sickening habit of saying "why?" all the time. This is mostly because I don't like people very much, but I'm not yet satisfied that I have a complete list of reasons of why I don't. However, I do have a pretty complete list of reasons why I hate myself, and this dopey blog is little more than a four year exercise in documenting that list for the ages.
One of my major charcter flaws is that I don't get merely interested in a topic, I get obsessed with it. Once something catches my interest, I have to learn everything there is to know about it. If any of you were still wondering why I know so much about Richard Nixon and the Rolling Stones, now you know. I found myself interested in all three as a child, and I've read hundreds of books on them. Why do I know so much about the law and constitutional theory? Because Nixon was nearly impeached for High Crimes and Misdemeanors and Keith Richards got busted a lot. Because I love women so much, I'm one of only twelve currently living men who can locate the clitoris and can properly attend to its biological needs. I'm not so much smart as I am mentally ill. Also, I have virtually no penis. Now you know my secret.
Lately I've found myself interested in Sikhism. Yes, this is because of a girl, but I won't say anymore than that. To do so would only make the nicest person I know and the most beautiful woman I've ever met uncomfortable.
Toronto has a truly massive Indian population. Accordingly, some of the nicest, most interesting people I've known have been from the sub-contenient. From those folks, I've developed a deep and abiding lifelong interest in Indian culture.
And if you think that American politics is interesting, I seriously suggest that you read up on India and Pakistan. Anyone who thinks that the Middle East or the Koreas is "the most dangerous place on Earth" is powerfully dumb. India and Pakistan have fought four major wars in the last sixty years. Since both detonated nuclear devices in 1998-99, they have come close to atomic exchanges twice. There is a disgusting theory of "apocalypse theology" in certain Republican circles that suggests that the biblical "end-times" will come from the Middle East. I'm certain that such people are idiots. I couldn't be more convinced that the end of man will begin in Kashmir.
North Korea accomplished the nuclear equivilet of fart last fall, and everyone went into a titanic tizzy about Kim Jong Il's fashion choices. Both India and Pakistan have modern atomic arsenals and reasonably reliable delivery systems and nobody notices. This yet another reason that I hate pretty much everyone.
 I'd also be less than fully honest if I didn't note that the sub-continent produces some of the most stunningly beautiful women on the planet. When Indian women are beautiful, they are beyond gorgeous - they are hauntingly beautiful in ways that keep me up at night figuring out how to be a better man.
Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way, but that would only serve to prove that everyone else is wrong. I defy any of you to prove that Aishwarya Rai isn't only the most beautiful woman alive, but God herself. I can't think of a greater human tragedy than the fact that just two weeks ago she married a guy who's only about as good-looking as I am, which is to say not very. Can't we overlook tsunamis and civil wars for just a minute? Those happen all the time. But divorce is incredibly rare in Indian society, so Aishwarya is probably stuck with a schmo for life. The fact that the dude is like a Hindu Elvis only mitigates matters, but doesn't change the basic facts.
But I was supposed to be telling you teenagers about my explorations in Sikhism, wasn't I? Amazingly, I got sidetracked again.
For the three people who may have stupidly come across this blog after I stopped writing regularly, I should tell you that I'm an Irish Canadian who was raised Roman Catholic. I went to Catholic school for 11 years and I was an altar boy for two years when I was a child. And I wasn't ever sexually assaulted. Not even once! It should go without saying that this dramatically damaged my self-esteem and made me a violently outrageous anti-papist. Consequently, I still don't feel pretty. But I am thin, and that's all that's important.
The psychic and sexual damage of not being felt up as a child aside, I was never able to overlook that the fact that a person's religion and culture upbringing informs what that person will grow up to be. Unless you were a Catholic schoolgirl, which is to say a virtural suck and fuck machine, the odds are that your faith dictates what kind of person you are.
Like most non-Indians, I had a nasty habit of breaking sectarism in the sub-continent down to Hindu and Muslim. And, to be fair, I can tell you how Islam rose in India - some 180 million people (or some six Canadas) - and how that related to the Hindu caste system. But since it won't get me laid, I won't.
Sikhism, however, was a total mystery to me. Other than the turbans and ceremonial daggers that drove the RCMP so crazy, I really didn't know anything about the faith. So I decided to learn. I know, I'm funny that way.
 Because I'm fantastically lazy, I went to the One True Source of Things That Could Actually be True, Wikipedia,
to do some research. And what I learned impressed me greatly.
According to Sikh belief, God is everywhere. The Higher Power is unnamed and has no specific gender. Furthermore, God has no political agenda, a concept very foreign to a Catholic. There is also no political hierarchy in the faith, as there is in Catholicism. True, the faith is based on the teachings of the Ten Gurus, but the last of those, Guru Gobind Singh died in 1708. For any recovering Catholic, a religion without a Head Mortal is very important. Catholocism is alone among the world's major faiths in having a Top Guy. The minor league religions that try that are branded "cults", usually by the Catholic Church. I wonder why that is?
Needless to say, I was entanced by this. This was so much better than stupid religions like Budhisim, given as it is to its adhearents stalking their ex-girlfriends and posting pictures of my penis on the Internet. But we all knew Budhists were strange and bent folks, didn't we?
I was really getting behind Sikhism until I came across this.
Māyā—defined as illusion or "unreality"—is one of the core deviations from the pursuit of God and salvation - people are distracted from devotion by worldly attractions which give only illusive satisfaction. However, Nanak emphasised māyā as not a reference to the unreality of the world, but of its values. In Sikhism, the influences of ego, anger, greed, attachment and lust—known as the Five Evils—are to be particularly pernicious. The fate of people vulnerable to the Five Evils is separation from God, and the situation may be remedied only after intensive and relentless devotion.[9] Fuck.
I was really starting to think that I build a healthy, long-lasting relastionship with Sikhism. I was starting to become honsting committed. Then the Five Evils came along and ruined everything.
It isn't that that I think that this is unfair. Sikhism has been around a whole lot longer than I have, so I guess that I can't blame the faith. But I'm rejected yet again, and that's wounds me.
This wouldn't be a problem if ego, anger, greed, attachment and lust weren't the five things that defined me as a human being. Surely, ego isn't a big part of my life, but anger and lust are 97.3% of what I am. I had it scientifically measured, just to be sure. And keep in mind that those are the parts of me that I like! Who knows what the faith would have to say about the things about me that I loathe.
The fact that my very existance is an insult to a given faith shouldn't mean that that it should reject me outright. I'm willing to adapt to any religion that isn't Catholicism, but those religions don't seem to be willing to adapt to me, regardless of how much I'd like them too. I too am a lover of truth, and some truths cannot be avoided.
And that's why no one - let alone The Most Beautiful Woman I've Ever Met - will ever love me.
Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) By: Randy Newman From: Sail Away
PermalinkLabels: Life With skippy, The Interfaith Dental Clinic
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