Literalism vs Allegory

This simple issue keeps coming up again and again with regards to the holy books. "The Bible/Torah/Koran aren't meant to be interpreted literally,"

What kinds of books are meant to be interpreted literally? Instruction manuals, science textbooks and history books.

What kinds of books are meant to be interpreted allegorically? Nursery rhymes, myths, poetry and fiction.

I think it matters a big deal if the holy book is literal or allegorical.

If you are religious and you consider your holy book to be allegorical then congratulations: you're almost an atheist because you've just tacitly admitted that your religious book isn't to be taken any more seriously than a work of fiction.

If you think that your holy book is literal then you really need to answer all of the historical, moral and scientific failings of your holy book.

I'm fascinated by how there are still Christians around at all today. The theory of evolution, the fossil record, the molecular biological data and the geological record all agree with each other: Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, never existed. If they never existed then they could never have eaten the fruit of all knowledge of good and evil, and therefore there can be no original sin for Jesus to have died for. The end, Christianity has been debunked as a fraud.

If you are still Christian is it because you don't understand the sheer weight of scientific evidence against your religion and/or you do not even know what your religion is about? If there are other reasons for believing in Christianity consider that the religion is ultimately worthless to you if it isn't real/correct.

The situation is similar in Islam except whereas Christianity claims to be 'true', Islam puts more emphasis on being 'correct'. However, like the Bible is full of myth and superstition the Koran is full of horrors and crimes against humanity. The acts of Mohammed are morally indefensible and generally quite sick and degrading. If you wouldn't vote for the Nazis then why are you voting for Mohammed? There really isn't a big difference between those two ideologies.

A New Secular Movement

NB: This post is a work in progress

Recently I've been spending a lot of time promoting atheism in my own way using my Facebook profile by posting a few choice tidbits from the world of religion. I've gotten quite a bit of attention from theists and atheists alike but what has boggled me immensely is the shear lack of understanding on both sides of theistic divide.

Theists who know nothing credible about their own religions versus atheists who don't understand even the most basic aspects of epistemology much less of the extent of religious violence in the world.

The biggest point of confusion is the belief that atheism somehow has an agenda and that's what they're expecting from atheism because they equate it as being a religion. Even atheists seem to think that atheism and religion are somehow one and the same. At first I thought it was because they simply didn't understand what atheism was but I now think they simply don't understand what religion is.

If they don't understand what religion is, how can they understand atheism?

Speaking of which my interest in religion has moved from believers to cult leaders and prophets onto sociopaths and dictators. Cult leaders, prophets, sociopaths and dictators all appear to be difference species of the same genus.

It has occurred to me that same nonchalant ignorance we have of the two dozen or so monsters (dictators) in the world and the heinous crimes they commit against humanity is the same nonchalant ignorance most non-religious 'religious' (and pro-religious non-religious) people have toward the crimes committed by the world's various religions.

For example, Kim Jong Il (put into the popular consciousness thanks to "Team America World Police,") jails hundreds of thousands of his starving people for 'hoarding' food... in country where it has to be rationed out and the average 7 year old is 8 inches shorter than their south Korean counter part. Why are the people starving? Because he spends all of North Korea's money on building missiles, nuclear weapons, warships and maintaining a massive offensive army while he lives a life unfettered luxury.

Such monsters are an insult to human dignity. Over 20 million suffer needlessly every day because of this man but does anyone care? Not many, certainly not the general public. Simply because no one thinks about North Korean long enough to form an opinion. For example, I have heard people talk about dictators and they've talked about Kim Jong Il as one of those funny crazy dictators that makes people laugh with the silly things they get up to. This used to make me feel ill being around people talking like this because they almost sounded like they like and respected the guy. But on reflection I don't think it is because they lack compassion for the plight of the North Korean people... rather they just haven't thought about it as deeply as I have.

I believe (no evidence yet) that if most people spent as much time as I thinking about these matters they'd reach the same conclusion as I would. That dictators like Kim Jong Il are a bleeding festering wound on human dignity and should be removed from power at the earliest opportunity. They might also consider that personality cult surrounding Kim Jong Il's father has a creepy simularity to how a new religion is generated.

Religion and politics do indeed appear to blend together very naturally in a dictatorship. Religion and fascism have the greatest in common: pro-natal policies, supreme imfallible leaders, unquestioning obedience to authority, paranoia about the loyalty of the faithful, believe they have the authority to tell people how to live their lives, don't care for the feelings of the people their destroy and highly dogmatic and resistant to scientific ideas and challenges. I know some people will bring up Nazi Germany as an example of a scientifically advanced fascist state, but keep in mind that the Nazis kicked out a third of Germany's intellectual before the war started and dumbed down the education system so that any future generations of Germany would be scientifically challenged if Nazism had survived.

What is needed to challenge this religofascism? I mean, we defeated the nazis and the fascists and the Stalinists... but just as Herman Goering predicted we are neck deep in Islamofascists, neostalinists, zionists and Christian fundamentalists in politics. It almosts seems as though the history of enlightened civilisation is about brief epochs of rebellion and aggression against religofascism only to fall back into generations of intellectual and spiritual laziness just expecting the forces of totalitarianism will just go away by themselves... all the time forgetting the blood shed in the name of freedom.

Brave men and women fought and died to bring about political and religious freedom. If we cannot honour and respect their sacrifices do we deserve to continue to enjoy the securities and liberties they worked so hard for us to have? Of course we don't... but our memory is poor and we all forget the reasons and sacrifices of generations long before us.

Once upon a time people used to talk about slavery like they would the weather. There was no feeling at all that slavery was in any way immoral or wrong. When some people started to question slavery and pressure people to abolish it... I rather imagine that people had the same kinds of reactions to my fellow irreligionists. What's wrong with slavery? Can't you see it is natural? Look, you're just upsetting people. Keep your opinions to yourself and stop trying to push them onto other people.

I imagine it was the same with equality, homosexuality and racism... can't you see the natural order of things? Women are inferior, stop making trouble! Homosexuals are unnatural, they're sick, they don't deserve our respect! All races only think about their own self interests, it is impossible to have a functional society made up of individuals from all sorts of different races, stop trying to upturn society!

In every case: abolition, equality, tolerance, multi-ethnicity, religious freedom etc... the general population's living standards and happiness improved. We need to stop object to agitators of change with a reactionary response but engage them in a free, fair and open debate. Then we need to be willing to either concede to them gracefully if they are right or to crack down hard on them if they are wrong.

And I mean crack down hard on people because multiculturalism is not the same as multethnicism and the while I completely support the latter and believe the former is a recipe for civil unrest. A nation should have only one set of laws from which no one is exempt, especially politicians and other people in high office.

Where is all of this speculation heading?

I'm still not entirely sure but one thing is certain, we need a formalise the ideas of the enlightenment movement into a political movement that crosses all borders and divisions. One that unites all of the people of Earth and looks to minimise the amount of suffering and harm caused to the greatest number of people. One that does not blindly think of the present but also considers the future and the needs of those who will come over us. One that is firm against dictators, religionists and sociopaths. One that is proscience for the treatment of humanities and world's ills.

I had thought that such a project would be too idealistic and unattainable. But rather I'm convinced we can improve on the previous ideologies of utilitarianism.

Instead of working for the greatest good or achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people we should be working to eliminate harmful and destructive elements: we should leave individuals to seek happiness for themselves but collectively work to remove sources of misery.

We should tell our scientists to focus not on enhancing humanity but instead on removing all of the weaknesses: cancer, heart-disease, paralysis, skin disease, every form of genetic and physical malady. Then let individuals choose for themselves if they want to explore being more than human.

Secular Mysteries: rage

I'm been thinking about the kind of topics a spiritual atheist would find enlightening. Time and time again my thoughts come back to the study of the arts and emotion. Truly can there be a better topic for an enlightened creature than to understand his or her self? Let us start with emotion.

Consider the eight primary emotions already considered on this blog: rage, vigilance, ecstacy, admiration, terror, amazement, grief and loathing. These are the most intense manifestations of these emotions, not the typical every day manifestations.

Just on that point, the fact that we consider it unusual to experience these 8 emotions on a daily basis is indeed interesting as it implies that frequently expressing intense emotions is somehow pathological. Actually it is... but not necessarily for the person expressing them but for the ones who have to endure such projections of emotions from these people which is very tiring.

I digress into topics I've already covered!

Anyway, consider the emotion of rage (anger, and coincidentally shares 4 of the same letters as 'rage'). Many people are immediately put off by an angry person. And anger person is percieved to be dangerous or unstable. While I don't doubt that there is some wisdom in such a conclusion it nonetheless runs the risk of missing the wonderfully positive effects of rage.

I was speaking to a man at the Parliament of the World's Religions who was bullied and abused as a child by teachers. He said he felt intensely angry as a child and this had prevented his spiritual growth and he felt guilty for harbouring such feelings of rage. Just as a suggestion I pointed out to him that maybe his rage had acted as a protective mechanism saving him from worse psychological damage as a child and how allowed him to be sufficiently intact to make a success of his career later in life. At this suggestion the man had an epifany and appeared to feel as though he could release much guilt he had been unnecessarily holding onto. I was quite chuffed with being an atheist and giving someone else a spiritual insight... :)

But apart from that it is hard to imagine Martin Luther King being such a great orator and inspiration if her were not full of rage. Admittedly, King had mastered his rage and turned it into a tremendous power for good. But that's the whole point. Anger is a powerful emotion, it is the emotion of power but it is morality neutral by itself. Anger is not the problem, the problem is the master whom anger serves.

If you meet an angry man in a bar perhaps it is worth considering whether he is angry at other people because he feels victimised and wants to take from others what he feels entitled to... or is his rage directed towards real injustices in the world and desire to use it to end the suffering of other people and not just his own?

For this reason I feel that everyone should take each emotion, for this example I have used rage, and really sit down and consider what makes them anger and why. Is it fair to be angry for such reasons? Are there more important things to be angry about? How much anger is too much? What limits should I put on the expression of my anger or what creative and good ways can I direct my anger towards? How can I use my anger to make me an inspiring and exciting presence in the world. One that doesn't do harm or upset other people?

Remember sometimes there are good circumstances to be angry: when someone steals something from you, when someone mistreats, when someone in anyway violates you. But as well as these good circumstances there are also good and poor ways to express ones anger that need to be moulded to suit the context.

Also, something more of personal issue... I often feel ashamed for being angry, I feel like I have to be perfect all of the time and so when I inevitably fail to live by these high expectations I turn my anger against myself. This self loathing is the equivalent of turning two powerful magnets of opposite polarity against each other. The effect is a powerful vice that can exert no force for useful work. Anger is spiritual power, it is the ability to reshape the world inside and outside of you... but it should never be used like a broadsword like this. It should best be directed at specific problems: like my self-loathing instead of myself! A focussed rage is a wise rage that can end slavery, liberate women and push personal development... and the better we can discern the best targets for our rage the better we can use it to make the world a better place.

Evilution

One of the most common misunderstandings of the theory of evolution is that all adaptations are somehow beneficial. I hear people say that those animals or that technology is more or less evolved. However, evolution doesn't work like that and machines don't strictly speaking 'evolve' at all. Evolution is a blind process that produces more problems than solutions. Think of all of the genetic diseases in the world, this is not good evidence of increasingly highly evolved people.

However, there is adaptation and some species can be more or less adapted to a specific environment but being very well adapted to ocean life is a huge set back if you live on land most of the time. But even with adaptation there can be some surprising complexities in its interaction.

I bring this topic up because people often assume that just because we have religion it must serve some purpose. This line of thinking goes along the lines of "we have eyes to see, nose to smell and hands to manipulate objects: everything we've inherited seems to have some useful function,"

While yes, everything we've evolved does serve a useful purpose but only for passing on our genes, not for making our lives better. Religion is like this. It has evolved along side us although it doesn't serve any useful purpose other than to reproduce itself. Please keep in mind that I distinguish between religion and spirituality so when I'm talking religion I'm talking dogma, irrational social-rules and harmful moral prejudices, and not creativity, altruism, self-knowledge etc...

But if religion is harmful why does it exist? Surely harmful things are selected out by nature. Actually, both yes and no.

Consider jealousy and greed (bullying). These are socially harmful emotions that no species wants to have but on an individual level though they are helpful for individual reproduction.

Consider two primitive men go out hunting: one man is fast, agile, strong and clever while the other is slow, clumsy, sickly and dim. He brings back food for the tribe but the weaker hunter can't catch anything. The strong hunter gets lots of attention from the women who want his genetics for their offspring. However, this attention makes the weaker hunter jealous... the weaker hunter then decides to kill the stronger hunter by striking the unsuspecting hunter when his back is turned. Now the women have no choice but to pass on the weaker hunter's genetics because jealousy increased his fertility.

Greed is common in most species, generally it manifests when a sibling will beat up and steal attention and food from another sibling. This bullying greatly increases the strength and size of these individuals, increasing their chances of reproducing.

But there's a problem here... if the weaker members of a species all wipe out the stronger members then that species is in serious trouble because soon the whole species will no longer be sufficiently adapted to survive at all! Also, a society full of bullies will fall apart as bullying is about breaking the rules and society can't function without at least partial observance of the rules essential for maintaining group cohesion and solidarity.

With these qualities of jealousy and greed which help individuals increase their fertility but overall harm their entire species there exists a balance. If too many individuals in a species are overcome with jealousy and greed then the species will either select against these qualities or go extinct.

Thus religion is like this. It is greedy, it wants the power, resources and attention of the people it infects and is jealous of other religions which could be better than it. But can't get too powerful otherwise it will wipe itself out. Consider what would happen if the Catholic Church was successful at removing every man with high intelligence from the gene pool by putting them into the priesthood during the middle ages? Or if muslims strictly only married within their families? Or if no Christians used condoms in spite of an HIV epidemic? Or if scientific progress had been successfully suppressed instead of just slowed down?

Consider the Zorastrians, they won't take converts and can't marry outside their group... the one time super religion has wiped itself out.

Religions are their own worst enemies, killing the very societies that keep them alive. But fortunately a society that resists complete domination by a religion is still able to grow and indeed when the Church went too far the people fought back and pushed through religious reforms to make their religion more tolerable and less harmful. Until we get a point today when the Catholic Church is no longer able to declare wars, conduct genocides, witchhunts and brainwash children en masse... at least not in the west.

Despite how harmful religions are to society as a whole they are very good at motivating people to protect and nurture them. This is the most curious thing. There is something very noble in human nature, humans appear to be most courageous, most motivated and passionate when fighting for something greater then themselves: a love, an identity, a principle or a dogma. Religion exploits this human nobility and perverts it.

I believe the purpose of spiritual thinking is to replace religion and revitalise our ideas of things greater than us by pushing individuals to create their own inspirations and to continuously refine and develop the principles that they would get up and fight for. Because if it isn't a conscious choice to decide what you believe is worth dying for then you're simply living as a slave to somebody else's prejudices.

Own your prejudices and make the future the way you believe it ought to be. If you speak up, you will never be alone.

The Evolution of Prejudice

The other day I was voicing strong criticism of the muslim hijab. This lead to a discussion of "but forcing them not to wear it is as bad as them being forced to wear it," this lead to a ridiculous situation where both sides were using the same argument: prejudice is wrong, regardless of the message. Therefore we can't criticise people from other cultures because that's prejudice and prejudice is wrong.

This is actually a very important issue. One that Sam Harris has already brought up. People who are prejudice against prejudice like to think that they are occupying a strong moral high ground because it can not easily be attacked.

Wrong.

Fristly, prejudice is part of human nature. Everyone has prejudices. If you don't think you're prejudiced then consider that without them your sense of self must be by definition be so tenuous that you simply don't matter because you have no opinions, dreams, goals or will of your own.

Secondly, not all prejudices are bad: I hate lies. I hate liars. I hate laziness. I hate disease. I hate death. I hate religion. I hate manipulators. I hate insecurities. I hate ignorance. I hate cowardice. I hate poverty. I hate greed. I hate inequalities. I hate bullies. I hate injustice. I hate impatience. I hate intolerance. I hate defeatism. I hate disrespect. I hate stupidity.

Thirdly, prejudices could conceviably be positive (Prejudice, n, Any preconceived opinion or feeling, whether positive or negative): I like life. I like people. I like Australia. I like honesty. I like self-control. I like courage. I like determination. I like kindness. I like understanding. I like independance. I like action. I like creativity.

Fourthly, prejudice is the foundation of morality. One person's prejudice is another's moral code. We can have conflicting moral feelings and that's very common. We can argue about the reasons why we have our different likes and hates. But you cannot attack me simply for having those feelings.

for example:

Person A: I hate foreigners who don't conform to our ways and culture.
Person B: You're a racist bigot.
Person C: Really? It doesn't upset me that much. Why does it upset you when foreigners don't conform to our ways and culture?

Who is more moral, person B or C?

Answer: none, they are all moral entities - one is either moral or not moral, there is no spectrum here.

Who is the more wise, person B or C?

I would argue that person C is the most wise because they have responded respectfully and honestly, while I would argue that person B is applying a very simplistic category-based system of morality because they have attacked another person for simply expressing an opinion.

I think one should consider the type of morality one has:

Is it category based? (Good guys and bad guys)
Is it value based? (Honesty, consistency, kindness etc...)
Is it reason based? (Because X = Y and then Y = Z this person should be treated like that even though usually when Y = Z we treat them like this)

If you are threatened by other people's opinions (as opposed by their actions) then remember that what a person thinks and what a person does are completely different things. If someone has opinions that upset you remember that logically you must have opinions that upset them. I suggest that we don't worry about getting upset about what other people's opinions, we just focus on getting upset with their actions.

Some food for thought:

If you don't like racism simply because it is wrong... can you still be a racist?
If you like your culture more than others are you being racist?
Can you like one thing and not hate its opposite?

Atheists Versus Atheists

The recent Atheist meeting in Melbourne brought up quite a lot of conversation and controversy. Interestingly many articles in the opinion columns of newspapers weren't theists attacking atheists... but atheists attacking atheists.

Atheist attacking atheists? This usually happens very often but is, perhap surprisingly, not as complex an issue as it might appear.

On the surface it is quite straight forward, there are two camps of atheists: militant atheists and hippy atheists. Of course neither group would approve of being called either of those terms because those are the names the oposing group calls the other. Which I use here because it actually tells you exactly where the disagreement is coming from:

Militant atheists consider the threat from theists to be so serious that one should guard against them and work to actively thwart their expansion at every opportunity otherwise they could seize control of the country and unleash a reign of terror.

Hippy atheists consider theists to be generally very little threat and believe that that through better education the theists will disappear like an aspirin in water.

In other words: the argument is about "how dangerous are religious people?"

This is a very interesting question... when I think of all of the theists I know I am forced to say well... most of them are really harmless. Even the ones in the clergy are hardly extreme or authoritarian.

When I think of the theists in Iran, a country I know a great deal about, I'm forced to say that they are extremely dangerous to human wellbeing, dignity and world peace.

When I think about the theists in history I'm just going to repeat what I said about Iran.

So... I would consider myself in the militant atheist group because even though I know dozens, if not hundreds of theists who are gentle, wise, kind and just... those are all people from my culture. A culture that emphasises equality, respect, kindness, compassion, fairness and freedom of speech ahead of religious dogma. Theists from outside my culture are just pure destruction (spiritually, academically and physically) in human form.

So... I'm actually also quite sympathetic with the hippy atheists as well because all they have to do is say, "Look around you, do you see any evil theists?" well, while there are lots of annoying and bad theists in Australia, the evil theists are nonetheless so rare I can see why they wouldn't consider them a threat.

But here's the thing... I used to be a hippy atheist...

September 11, End of Faith and the events in Iran over the last 31 years have all convinced me to go militant.

But at the end of that day, this whole disagreement between two groups of atheists doesn't upset me at all. Simply because atheists don't kill, maim, rape or destroy in the name of atheism and these two groups of atheists are never going to exchange more then heated words with each other and well... that is the society we want after all: where everyone is free to voice their opinion without fear of being brutally silenced.

I believe that if a theist group attempted to seize power in Australia then all of the hippy atheists would jump to the militant atheist camp. I also believe that once theism is routed the militant theists will start pouring into the hippy theist camp en masse.

Transference: The Good, The Bad and The Spiritual

One of the most exciting developments in neuroscience recently has been the discovery of mirror neurons. Admittedly, our level of understanding of what these neurons actually do it mostly speculative. But such speculation is greatly intriging for those who are interested in the Philosophy of Mind. But for me personally, I believe that these brain circuits are an essential component in explaining where spirituality comes from.

I'm particularly interested in how these concepts might explain the psychological phenomenon called 'transference' which has many definitions. My personal definition is: "the transferal from one person to another of their emotions, complexes and experiences to another person." That might sound suspiciuously like telepathy. Well in a sense it is, but it isn't supernatural, it happens every day and is one of the wonders of being a human being.

Today I'm going to highlight three experiences I've had with transference and hopefully convince some people that this is a worthwhile thought experiment to investigate.

The Good:

The other week I was feeling deeply insecure and afraid. I have a series of maxims and comforting words I tell myself when I feel like this to soothe myself like soothing a distressed child. I find that when there is just one crisis in my life I am easily able to soothe my troubled heart... but when there are multiple crises after I have soothed one another one needs my attention and then the next and so on until I'm too tired to hold back the deluge of misery.

It is in times like this that a like spirit can offer considerable psychological aid. When you walk down the street and you see someone laughing or smiling and it makes you laugh or smile this is transference. It isn't usually that intense with a stranger... but with someone whom you understand well it can be quite intense. If they are willing and courageous enough to take the risk to open themselves up to transference.

The other day a like spirit shared with me some of her peace of mind(/heart?) which helped me enormously to regain my peace of mind. It was a beautiful gift because when someone opens themselves up for transference like this there is always the risk that they will take on your anxieties, worries and complexes... which would be a borrowing someone's car and then returning it covered in mud and no petrol.

The thing with transference is that the better you know someone the better it works... although the experience isn't always such a pleasant one of peace and love shared with a like spirit. It can actually be quite disturbing.

The Bad:

Two days ago I experienced a violent assault on my psyche. I was being beaten up emotionally with the intention of overpowering me through my sympathies and guilt. In short I had the peace of mind and power to soothe that another person wanted so they sought to take these from me by using guilt, they intented to coerce me to give them care and love at my own psychological expense. They were basically throwing their emotional turmoil at me to make it my problem too with the hope that I could drag them up when I dealt with their issues for them. Of course, I have enough issues right now and the resulting conflict only dragged me down into their pit of woe, despair and anguish with them.

The whole ordeal left me feeling angry, miserable, exhausted and deeply conflicted. Even as I write this I'm still tense and uncomfortable. As I mentioned earlier, when I'm upset I have a repertoire of maxims which I use to soothe and calm myself down... but these had been usurped by the traumas and complexes of the other person who had thrown them at me. This were unfamiliar problems for me... I just don't have these insecurities and so I find that my maxims are just inadequate to deal with them. I find myself stewing over these kinds of unsettling transferences for days as I have to mull over and wrench each issue from my mind to restore my inner peace. Just as a friend was able to transmit some of her inner peace to me this person was transmitting their inner chaos to me. Giving me fears and anxieties that I don't normal worry about.

I believe that there is an etiquet regarding these kinds of things and most of us learn it unconsciously during our lives: when retelling an emotional event to a person don't be intense and theatrical! If a person tells you a story calmly versus if they were to tell it intensely it has a very different affect on the listener. Poets and story tellers have been using this technique for thousands of years to draw their audience into the story. So when someone is always being melodramatic whenever they relate a story be wary that they could be trying to overwhelm you emotionally and use to for manipulative purposes.

Simply put, a person who plays up their emotions is subconciously saying "listen to me, my emotions are important" which is ok if they are considerate with what emotions they choose to share such as joy, wonder, awe and peace of mind. But when they won't let you have the space and time to share your emotions with them they are saying, "listen to me, my emotion are more important than yours!" This is psychological abuse and it is harmful.

The Spiritual:

Since my father's death I've been dealing with the unfortunate circumstances of his departing. He only just started to open up to me but in the 45 minutes we had alone together in his final days we had only just started to redefine our rocky relationship. There were a lot matters left undiscussed, unresolved and unsaid.

Fortunately for me I have a psychological memory of my father. Not just memories of his existence by a 'living' memory of his fears, feelings, complexes and attitudes. In a sense part of him still lives inside of me. This is only possible via tranference because it has allowed me to keep part of my father alive passed his death. I actually have an extensive 'library' of people, friends and relatives that I've built up throughout my life.

I suppose that I am perceived as quite an intense person for this reason: When I meet new friends I'm eager to 'get inside' their minds and figure them out. I greedily devour my every moment with them taking in their thoughts, feelings, reflections and mannerisms. I like to cultivate an environment of peace and total security if I can manage it for them because it helps them to share with me these precious parts of their psyche. I find this experience very rewarding because it helps me to form new maxims and enhance my own psychological resilience to trauma... also it gives me new interests and hobbies which increase my interest and enjoyment of life. It also provides me with endless challenges and creative inspiration. Although recently I've also come to realise that it comforts me when they are gone... either because they have died or because they don't want to be my friend anymore. When I'm writing stories I like to take elements from people I know and blend them into new personalities to write into my stories.

But sometimes when I'm feeling intense sadness, joy or awe my ability to readily accept transference starts to behave in rather unusual ways. For example, it stops applying just to other people but to things. Take a drop of water for example. The molecules of water cling to each other but not to other things. The molecules themselves actually have a very complicated atomic relationship with each other and during these intensely emotional moments just observing a drop of water can feel sublime. It is as though all the rules and laws of the world I've learned to live and interact in have been forgotten and this drop of water is the one law that explains the universe and everything within it. The great mass of humanity is suddenly percieved as a great psychological pool of water and we're all interconnected to each other in complex and unconcious ways. It is usually a very moving and visual experience with little linguistic content.

In a sense, to borrow a Neitzche idea, while we peer out into the universe around us, through transference, the universe is able to peer into us. I'm not going to make any grand claims that this is where we come in contact with the fabric of reality because I just can't see how human beings could ever know reality. But there is a peace in this state of mind that dulls the fear of death and this is certainly worthy of investigation by thought experiment.