Dinner stories

What is really lovely is that now that Beth is old enough to sit at the table for dinner we almost always eat together now. (Poppy is still in her high chair and goes to bed before we eat.) But the really beautiful thing Beth does is always ask for me to tell her stories. At first she wanted fantastical imaginings. But now it’s true stories she wants to hear. It’s hard to keep on thinking of ones that she hasn’t heard before, but I try, and it’s good because it sort of airs out the memory, gives my brain a bit of a dusting. I love that she is so interested in life and is learning about things through me. It’s wonderful. Lately her favourite story, she has asked me to repeat it a few nights in a row, is the one where I was on a cub camp and hallucinated while inflating my air mattress. I think she is fascinated by how our reality is formed and how it can change. Beth is so clever, and so incredibly kind and loving.

Ok Go

I’ve been waiting for months, waiting for years, waiting for you to change. Aw, but there ain’t much that’s dumber, there ain’t much that’s dumber than pinning your hopes on a change in another. And I, yeah I still need you, but what good’s that gonna do? Needing is one thing, and getting gettings another. So I been sitting around, wasting my time, wondering what you been doing. Aw, and it ain’t real forgiving, it ain’t real forgiving sitting here picturing someone else living. And I, yeah I still need you, but what good’s that gonna do? Needing is one thing, and getting gettings another. I’ve been hoping for months, hoping for years, hoping I might forget. Aw, but it don’t get much dumber, it don’t get much dumber than trying to forget a girl when you love her. And I, yeah I still need you, but what good’s that gonna do? Needing is one thing, and getting gettings another.

Heavenly Hope

People who believe in an afterlife, in salvation, in heaven, are lucky. I think it's too late for me now. Unless some convincing evidence comes along, which I don't have much hope of happening, I will be forever stuck with the certainty that when my body stops functioning then I will enter a state of un-being. I mean, it's not even a state is it? It's just a cessation. I won't know I'm dead, I won't know I was ever alive. There will be no 'I'. So when someone dies, for them, the universe ends. This really sucks. And I envy those who haven't thought hard enough to figure out that religion is a huge pile of steaming, fuzzy logic. If anyone comes to ask me why I don't believe in an afterlife, and I see they do, then I will refuse to tell them. It would be unkind.

Whileaway

Seems that I just mostly wait now. In the morning I wake up, get ready and wait for the bus. Then I sit on the bus and wait till I get to work. Then I wait until lunch time, then I wait until home time. Then I do the whole bus waiting thing again. Then I wait until it's time for the children's dinners and bed times. Then I wait until it's late enough for me to feel comfortable going to bed. Then I wait until I'm sleepy. Obviously, this isn't the best way to go about living.

When you get right down to it.

People are not the same people they were 10 years ago. Even their cells have moved on. Every night we sleep and lose our stream of consciousness. Every birthday we forget a thousand memories that seemed important at the time. People are puddles of ever fading memories, moving through the stream of time next to each other, interacting with each other and believing they are a single discrete entity. Talking to my daughters about growing up, boys, drugs and all those other things that parents worry about is easy for me. I just tell them the truth. What is far, far harder is when they ask about God. At what age should magic end and rational thought begin?

HPMOR

I am reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Is as a fantastic book and everyone I tell about it gives me the equivalent of a blank look.

The only person who would have genuinely appreciated it with me was Mum.

The true human being...is the meaning of the universe. He is a dancing star. He is the exploding singularity pregnant with infinite possibilities.

-Zindell.

Look how they shine.

The other day Luisa's Auntie saw I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt at the bus stop. It was very cold. She said, "aren't you cold?"

Empathy. It reminded me of Mum.

I miss my Mum

I can sort of see the way forward now, but it involves shrugging off a very strong sense of betraying the righteous injustice that has happened to my Mum.

The way forward involves changing my thinking. So that the sentence above becomes:

"a very strong sense of betraying the righteous injustice that has happened to the memory of my Mum.

And, thinking about things such as "Our time together in this world was very good.".

And other such positive things.

But yes, I don't feel that I can quite overcome the sense that by accepting these sorts of logical and healthy minded attitudes I am somehow saying 'it's ok that she died.'

Because it really isn't.

And I also fear, much as Stephen Fry says he did when he was a teen, that future me won't remember this feeling. That he will be different and will forget this feeling of utter unfairness, and be at peace. A blind peace that smacks of uncaring.

I think you could bundle all these thoughts up into a ball and label them stupid. But whatever. This ball sits in my head now, taking up all the room.

I found this amazing list of gameplay videos from a crazy old gamer like me:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7872581F9459C8B7&feature=plcp

And I am falling to pieces right now as the memories come back so strong they hit me with force. I remember so well what it felt like to waste all those hours.

And the thing is I am ASTONISHED by how many games I played. How many games Mum and Dad bought for me. There must have been so many.

I just really REALLY want to say thank you to her again. It hurts that I can't.

Climate

The person who released the private emails of the climate change scientists in order to try to sow doubt left a message at the end of their last missive "''Every day nearly 16,000 children die from hunger and related causes,'' it said." Their point was that research into climate change takes funds away from more worthy causes such as aid for poverty etc.

This shows a complete lack of understanding about the problems associated with climate change. I wish people understood that the dangers of climate change are exactly those this idiot points to - it will mean the poor people of the world will be in an ever worse position, there will be more hunger and displacement than ever before.

It's so upsetting that people can be so unbelievably short sighted and, frankly, so stupid.