Que Sera Sera

When I hear things that remind me of something, I see the thing I remember. Like when I hear the preamble to The Constitution, I see the manuscript. When I imagine something, the imagination is always visual. Quite often I think of abstract concepts, like relationships between data or the steps in a process as a picture. When I remember an event, especially one that was very short, I see the image. I don't remember the words that were said, just the visions I saw.

I think in pictures. I only use words to descibe the picture I see in my mind. So if I say, "I see", you can be sure that I understand.

A storm is arriving as I write. It was overcast all morning and the wind is just coming up now. I like to watch the rain. It makes all of the petty man-made problems of the world seem even more so inconseqential. It reminds me that I am just another humble being on the planet, just like all the other people, no more or less important than each other.

Lately I think that the only purpose of religion is to make people artificially unhappy. I know that for billions of people religion gives them solace in their very difficult existence. I know that it gives people a structured sense of right and wrong that they didn't have to create and maintain themselves; something they can point to for validation when things go very wrong.

But lately I see deep wounds in people; wounds borne of hatred and intolerance. I think to myself that these wounds are all the result of people's fantasies about how we got here and the supernatural rulers that they imagine. Then I see people killed in terrible violent ways in the name of religion. I see hatred instilled in the innocent children who are told from birth that the group that they belong to is superior to the other groups that are hated; hated for having a different creation fantasy, a different supernatural ruler, a different book.

Ultimately the people who are killed were someone's sweet innocent helpless newborn. Someone whose mother and father loved and held them. Their mother and father gathered food and provided shelter from the rain and the wild beasts. Their mother and father taught them to speak, to dress themselves, and to do all the things needed to sustain their life.

Why don't these people see the obvious? That each one of us is a humble being on the planet, no more or less important than the next. That we all begin and end in the same way, and that we all get wet in the rain.

It seems that religion is taking over everything in the political sphere and I see that globally. I think that literally terrible; that is, it induces terror. I would like to see religion remain within the person, and that politics and government remain secular. I don't think I ever will, even if I live a very long time.