Figgy's not-so-jolly Christmas post

Dear reader,


I don't understand why all those atheists out there who are so dead-set against Christianity and religion find it permissable to perpetuate the lie that is Santa Claus. I know I've made a similar statement before, but it just boggles my mind. I mean, their whole argument against religion is that it's a backward and illogical fantasy, a fairy tale that was concocted by some poor ignorant people as an explanation for things they didn't fully understand. And yet they don't mind letting the stupid "Santa Claus lives in the North Pole and delivers presents to every well-behaved child" myth to continue.

And when they meet people who actually believe in God, they either get riled up or annoyingly condescending. They teach their children that there is no such thing as God, but find it too heartless to say that Santa doesn't exist. It's just another substitute for religion. You've got this mysterious immortal, bearded being who lives in a distant, seemingly unattainable location, and who possesses supernatural abilities to reward all the good, obedient children around the world, and gives the bad children exactly what they deserve. Sound familiar?

I wonder if they know how inconsistent they're being. They substitute God with science, and religion with evolution. They cling to their Big Bang theory, pushing aside all other contradictory arguments in favour of their own, in the exact same way they accuse Christians of doing.

Perhaps I am being harsh, perhaps I am over-generalizing. Surely not everyone who doesn't believe in God are as narrow-minded as I make them out to be. I'm just frustrated with being called a liar or a fool for believing in a perfectly legitimate explanation for the creation of the Universe. I make it a point to never argue with anyone about religion. You can't--and shouldn't, in fact--try to change a person's convictions to suit your own. I mean, they've made up their minds. Nothing you say to them can change that. People are funny. They sneer and ridicule others for having a different lifestyle than theirs, or for not doing things the way they're supposed to. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, even if you don't agree with it.

Well. Enough of that, dear reader. That's the end of my rampage of a post. Happy holidays.




Yours,

Figgy the Believer

Overlap

Dear reader,



I love long car rides, don't you? I wonder if this is a result of my family's annual pilgrimage to our longhouse each Christmas. Talk about long car rides. It takes about 15 hours by car, give or take a few hours for pit stops and dilly-dallying. And that's only after they fixed up the roads. We used to have to go by the muddy logging roads, quite an experience. One on occasion, one of my uncles was driving us. He insisted on skidding the car sideways on every time the road sloped downhill, causing me and my three siblings to squeal in delight and mock fright. And before there were even any roads connecting the cities to my longhouse, we had to go by express boat. I remember playing with my siblings while we waited for the express to arrive; hopping around in the black river mud pretending to be mudskippers. I loved it when I would hop a particularly large hop, and the suction from the mud would suck my slippers clean off my feet. Well, in a manner of speaking. There was nothing even remotely clean where the mudskipper game was concerned. If you managed to stay clean after a round of mudskipper, you weren't doing it properly.

I just realized how old I sound. "Why, back in my day..." Or perhaps it's just because Sarawak is actually a very young state. We're only about 47 years old, after all. We're a baby compared to other countries and states in the world. In the 19 years I've been alive, we've gone from express boats, to muddy logging roads, to proper tar and cement roads--albeit with gigantic potholes from logging trucks passing through. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Anyway. Back to the topic of long drives. The reason I love car rides is it gives you time to think. To sit down, be quiet, stare off into space, and just think. So I was being driven home one day, by my driving instructor, ironically. In the midst of my sitting and staring and thinking, I happened to look up out the window, and I saw an aeroplane. Or airplane. Whatever. It was flying relatively low, low enough for me to see the details on the underside of it as it passed overhead, but you still had to squint a little to see them clearly. And it got me thinking:

How many people are on that plane?
Are they looking down out of their windows, the same way I was looking up out of mine?
Can they see the car I was riding in, or was it lost in a swarm of other cars, milling about the winding streets like ants in an ant farm?
What were they thinking about as they gazed out of their windows? About the ant-sized people in their ant-sized cars, perhaps?
For every woman on that plane, there is a daughter. A sister. A mother. A wife. A grandmother.
And for every man; a son. A brother. A father. A husband. A grandfather.
For every person; a cousin, an uncle, a lover, a teacher.
Each person; a soul.
A life.
A story to tell.

Then the plane flew over the car, and out of sight.

Honestly. Why is it there are such selfish people in the world? How can someone live their lives in a bubble when every minute of every day, our lives overlap with the lives of the people next to us?

I don't know. This 'lives overlapping' thing seems to be a recurring theme to me. I think about it all the time. It's comforting, I suppose, in a vague way. It means that we're never truly alone in the world. Whatever we've been through, no matter how embarrassing or degrading or seemingly insurmountable it may be, someone else in some other corner of the world has probably gone through far worse at some point in history. The elasticity and endurance of the human spirit, and all that. On the other hand, it's also awesomely humbling. We realize that, in the grand scheme of things, considering the Universe and everything in existence, we're nothing but cosmic ants. Busy, busy, busy living our lives, running here and there, helter-skelter. All the while some higher power--the One who gives and takes away--is watching us, loving us, judging us. Compared to Him, we're nothing but stars in the sky. Grains of sand on the shore. Ashes blowing in the wind.

And...I'm officially out of metaphors.

I should go to bed now, I suppose. I really need to start sleeping like a normal human being again, instead of some nocturnal creature. Til next time, dear reader, I remain...




Yours,


Figgy; Found in Faith, Lost in Thought

All About Me!

Dear Reader,







I realise that up until now I haven't really fulfilled my role as a blogger. Rather than writing about myself, I have been writing about random nonsense that doesn't actually reveal any information about my character, personality or the type of person that I am. The very act of blogging is narcissism itself. We can't have a humble blogger, now can we? What would the world come to? Modesty in a blogger: a sure sign of the Apocalypse.



So, to truly live up to my self-appointed status of 'Blogger', I must blog about myself. I shall begin with a list. A list of my favourite things, people, places, interests, etc, etc. To sum it up, a list of what makes me smile, the part of my day that I can look forward to, and what I think of before I fall asleep, then proceed to dream of until morning. Here we go:-









#1: God



Yes, GOD. And I don't mean the Catholic, almost-cruel God that sends everyone to Hell for lying to their mother or for cheating on their Maths exam. Nor do I mean the strict, religious, over-bearing, distant God, who frowns upon anything remotely resembling fun or happiness. I'm not talking about the pushover God who forgives any and all of your sins, just because you remembered to say 'Gee, sorry', either.



I'm talking about the God who created the World and everything in it. God cannot be contained in a box; He's too big to be described in one phrase, or sentence. All the words in the Universe can't even begin to reveal all of who He is. God is God.



And when I say 'God', I'm also referring to everything pertaining to Him. In other words, everything good and right in this world. If someone asked me to tell them what God means to me, I'd say: 'whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.'



So there.









#2: My Family



Ah, my family. The stories I could tell you about these ones! I know that this comes as a surprise, what with my suave and charming manner and all, but I am actually quite the homebody. I am the only girl I know of who would turn down a shopping trip or a party with friends for a quiet evening at home, with no other company but a good book...and my mother and father, and my two sisters, and younger brother, and cousin, and maid...and 6.5 dogs...and cat. I think it's because I can be myself around them, without wondering about how I look, or what I should or shouldn't say.



It's almost like I have split personalities: one when I'm with my friends, and one when I'm at home. I'm louder and more opinionated when I'm at home, often screaming on the slightest provocation--sometimes, without any provocation at all. And with my friends, I'm quieter and shyer; and I'm not just talking about my behaviour, either. Even my voice gets quieter and harder to hear. I find that I have to repeat myself when I'm talking to my friends, and fight for their attention just to be heard.



Ah. Well. That's life, I suppose.









#3: Music



I absolutely love music. Or, rather, I should say that I absolutely love songs. When I listen to music, I tend to focus more on the lyrics than the instruments being played. I'm too impatient to endure classical music, I think. I mean, a song without words. I'm sorry, but it seems pointless to me. I think it's just because I really, really like words. Like, a lot.



I especially love songs that tell some sort of story. I like to imagine the stories or characters behind the songs, or what would inspire a person to write them. A great song, in my opinion, is one that exercises your imagination; takes it for a walk, so to speak.









#4: Imagination



I-magi-naaa-tion. One of God's greatest gifts to mankind. Before the wheel, or the telephone, or the TV, or the personal computer, or the Internet were invented, they were just ideas in some guy's head. Crazy ideas. Impossible ideas. Imaginative ideas! I really like my imagination. I believe it's my favourite possession.



I have this friend, who shall remain nameless. My nameless friend was born, unfortunately, with a serious deficiency in Imagination. The One Who Shall Not Be Named has no creative talent whatsoever, or, at least, very little of it. Can you believe, dear reader, that The Nameless One actually chose to write factual essays for every exam? Yes, every exam. When I say 'factual essays', I mean the boring, dull, monotonous, hum-drum essays on [gasp!] serious issues, like global warming, or acid rain, or gangsterism, or vandalism, and what we can do to prevent these catastrophes from happening.



Needless to say, I never write factual essays if I can help it. And even if I write about a serious issue, I manage to inject some sort of storyline into it. Despite what you may think, dear reader, it is possible to write essays which are both factual as well as fictional.









#5: Words



Of course. You, no doubt, saw this one coming from a mile away, my ever observant reader. I'll just say this once again, for the record: I love words! The written word: Man's greatest invention!



I even dream about words sometimes, especially after a day of fitful reading. As I begin to drift off to sleep, fragments of sentences and nonsense-words float through my head. It's almost like I'm reading a book written by an architect of the Tower of Babel.



But, there is a downside to my fascination with words. I feel compelled to correct spelling and grammatical errors, all the time, everywhere I see them. I take misspelt words as a personal insult, and either rectify it immediately or, if I can't do anything to fix it, moan and gripe about it all day.









#6: Penguin Popular Classics



My favourite 'brand' of books. Yes, my dear reader, books have brands as well. Not only are they cheap, absolutely free of typos (unlike a certain other company claiming to sell high-quality classic books...), they are, most recently, extremely green! Green, as in environentally friendly. Apparently they're now made completely from recycled materials! Oh, and the cover is green in colour.



The only problem with buying books published by the Penguin Group, of course, is that they're all classic. Think Dickens and Austen and Kipling and the Bronte sisters. Classic. Not a modern book to be had. Though, on the other hand, considering what trash passes for novels these days, it might be better to just stick to good ol' Penguin.









Alrighty then. I'm fresh out of ideas. Another time, another post, dear reader. Til then, I remain...









Yours,



Figgy the [Almost] Humble Blogger