Spirituality, the supernatural, belief and me

Why wonder over the supernatural when the natural is a wonder on it's own?
Why believe in forces outside of our reach when all I need is right here, right now?

Over the course of a few years I've been thinking, arguing, theorising and debated questions of religious or spiritual beliefs. But it was not before a discussion I had in the beginning of the winter 2011 that I finally started to shape the reason why even resonable logical people still cling to belief.

Before I go on I want to stress the fact that this is my observation and might be completely off the mark for anyone else our there but me alone. But I put it out here, open for you to read, deconstruct, criticize or wipe your arse with.

Without further delay, here's the rundown.

When I was a kid I always wanted to believe in supernatural things so I was always hunting for them, scouting graveyards, looking up rumors spread amongst friends and in general I was investigating supernatural phenomena. I was even part of a session of mass hysteria. One of the most awesomely frightening moments in my life. Extremely vivid fear that for a while really twisted reality.

I also dreamt about events that would become real later on, every other week or so. This propelled me down a path of sleep and dream research which I have more or less forgot since then.

I grew up with a christian mother and an atheist father. So I got my share of both worlds suffice to say I always kind of liked the good parts that religion wants to bring forward but I've always disliked misdirecting belief in yourself to belive in something superficial.

My irritation with "belief" comes from the notion that people believe that "God" will solve everything for them if they pray. As such I don't really have a problem with "God" himself but with the people turning to him for help when in many cases all they need to do is believe in themselves or actually spend their time doing something productive instead of praying.

That being said let's talk about my own contradictions and how I'm going to defend them. Yes I have a few "beliefs" myself that kind of go against these principles of mine, and yet not really. Ready? ok.

I believe that the earth is my mother. She is my second mother of two. My biologial mother gave birth to me but without the earth we might have been stardust still, hey maybe that wouldn't be so bad? who knows.

I don't believe in an afterlife but I believe giving a moment of your time for people you love. I actually even go to church to light a candle. Effectively, psychologically anchroing the behaviour so that I actually spend time doing this. I'm not christian, but I really, really like the tradition of lighting candles for loved ones who has passed away.

It gives you time to reflect upon memories that helped shaped who you are. As memories shape us everyday, keep reminding yourself about your past. It is the key to unify your very being.

The concept that overshadows these traits can be summarized by the word "safety". I feel safe believing that the earth is my mother. I feel safe in taking time to reflect on the past. This explains supernatural as being a trait of feeling unsafe or even as a lack of knowledge of what is actually going on.

After all lingustically that is what "supernatural" means. It's beyond natural. In that sense anything we don't understand can be categorized as "supernatural". Quite funny, if you think about it.

I don't mean to step on anyones toes but I would like to say that anything you have ever witnessed that you think clearly in your mind is the result of "God" or a "ghost" or anything similar, is actually us, not knowing what is actually going on. Kind of in the same way religious people cite that "God works in mysterious ways".

There's no way for me to disprove of either. But for me there's no purpose believing in the supernatural.
There was never really a way for me to shoot lightning from my hands as a kid, no matter how much I believed I could do it. But today I can, if I believe in my own ability, put some hard effort into it and actually start learning and developing a way. And perhaps through science, reach my goal.

That doesn't mean I'll stop dreaming or stop believing, I'm still that young boy on the inside. Just the means to reach an end has expanded.

Signed, Mireneye

Busy day #01

Got my passport at the police station, then quickly ran off to Vasaplan to catcha buss going towards Strömpilen to pick up the game "Dragons Age 2" from Gamestop.

A "Price" as you may call it from TVSpelsjam 2.

When I got back to town I sat down with a friend at café Station waiting for two other friends to get there so I could join one of them to go eat sushi later and meet up with a third friend.

MAN I seriously need to start coming up with names for people I can blog freely with.

Goshdangit it's hard to write coherently without names :P

Signed, Mireneye

Time theory

This is an early revision, I'm working on a more elaborate one. Wanted to get the idea out there.

A base to my theory:
*In a body of water, pick a drop and put it further upstream. The drop symbolizes you travelling backwards.
*Through an equation you can reverse engineer the universe from that drop. Which then is placed earlier in the stream.
*A body of water is always changing, more or less shapeless it becomes the shape we want it to be.
*The drop would merge with the "past" water, adding/summarising/overwriting it's data.

This avoids the paradox of meeting youself by merging. And it avoids several timelines, it is rather a shapeless timebody.

As such there is no such thing as future or past. Not in a classical sense.

25th Birthday

What a nice birthday present! Blogger changed look so now I have to relearn things, on my birthday.
Freakin' brilliant. It would all be so easy if the world simply conformed to me alone. Sigh.

Today I hit the 25s. Instead of lingering on the very much useless notion that I'm getting older, let's have a look at what I've got going in my life right now.

In May I'm going to travel in the US and it's vicinity and I have a few ideas I want to execute on my trip and a few alternatives to those ideas. One is to meet up with the very talented violinist Lindsey Stirling and film a video, another is to meet up with the electronic music artist extravaganza Kyle Ward and hang out and maybe plan for a little something, something.

When I come home there will be a plethora of games that I crave to play and I think it will be a great time to kickoff my let's play series. I'm really, quite intimidated by the idea because it's such deep waters to wade through. Around the same time, I figure the initial planning for TVSpelsjam 3 will start so I will be really busy juggling all that, poi practice and work.

In the meantime I'm writing my new fantasy setting called Dynasthir. It's shaping up to become my most elaborate world so far and I'm happy I got such talented people working with me.

Last but not least, I have a serious need for my own good to jot down a list of things that I need to buy for myself in the coming months (so that I know my priorities):
*Wacom tablet
*Buy/Setup working sound system in Casa.
*A single bed matress pad.
*New DDR3 Memory for mainframe
*New graphics card and memory sticks for ITG2 Upgrade

Have a great day!
Signed, Mireneye

Midnight tinkering

It has happened again! another one of those nights where I'm not sure what I should do, I feel like I should do lots of things but I don't really feel like doing them alone. I want to talk, interact and have fun with people, watch a movie or play a game.

Tomorrow work begins again, feels like such a long time since last time. Actually it's a kind of a relief, I enjoy having something I have to do. It doesn't quite matter what it is, just, as long as there is something.

I'll see you around the later hours.

Signed, Mireneye

Gaming frustration & me

I always thought I was a bad gamer.

Thinking about it, my parents have told me that when I was very young I had great patience. I could sit with one thing and just wait for however long it took. I was very focused, very into it. It is THE one trait that has followed me into adulthood and has been a real saviour in real life. Actually it has probably saved my life as a gamer as well.

But allow me to get back to my point.

There are so many games I'm bad at. I'm completely irretactical (yes I made that up) and like to rush action ala quake style or bullestorm. Simply fast pace, easy action.

And so for the longest time I believed easy was my difficulty of choice. And that RPGish games that carry a story I can ejoy was my fancy.

And then Demon's Souls came along.

When I began playing Demon's Souls I was beyond horrible. I died so many times but I kept going, for those who do not know this game, the enemies get tougher every time you die. It forced me into a situation I hadn't really faced before.

There was no easy mode.

But I had to have some kind of ground to stand on so I turned to the internet, reserarched the game, the moves and I started to slowly get the hang of it.

Whenever frustration grows a bit to big for me I still cling to the internet for help, or to friends who also played the game. But I try it a few times myself first.

At some point later on I picked up the PC game Leauge of Legends, and as I suspected I was rubbish. However using my newfound ability to analyse and to break down things and with extra dedication I was able to understand the game more and more. I'm far from professional in my gamig but it's looking brighter already.

For the sequel to Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, I invested many hours into pre-researching. And playing Demon's Souls again to recap my skillset. And when it came I was more then ready.

I can't say it was easy, but I had a much harder time beating the first game. Slowly things started to click into place.

It's not the story and it's not the type of game. What get's me boils down to a few simple things: Immersion, Challenge and Competition.

A few hours ago I finished Catherine's single player campaign on normal. Easy was even adviced for people new to the game but I didn't want anything else. Hard would be over the top for me but I might tackle it now that I have beaten the game and gotten used to very many of the mechanics.

For those who do not know, Catherine is a puzzle-platformer survival horror adventure game with a wicked romance story.

It's gameplay reminds me of what would be a hybrid between Q-bert and some block pusher game. Mixed in with some story that mostly takes place in the main characters apartment or at the bar
"The Stray sheep".

It's a strange game, no kidding!

And it can be hard as hell.

I don't think I ever had to retry a section of a level more then maye thirty times (I see that as a win BTW). It's fast and frantic and you will probably be really mad at some points but it keeps you on the edge and you can clearly see your progress all the time.

Block by block you learn how it all fits together and what techniques to use and when to use them. By the end you'll almost start thinking the puzzles in real life, very amusing.

I've picked up the habit (mostly because it's fun). To sometimes when two things connect, say the word "Edge". Like when I put down a glass of water on the table.

It's similar to my habit of telling people a storyline from a game when they ask me what I did today. Something like, "Oh nothing big, I just teamed up with some Ninja turtles and kicked some evil guy's ass back to his own dimension".

Bare with my humor, I find it funny when people don't get it. But the best part is when people do. In both cases you can discuss wherever the idea sprung from. "WHAT! you haven't seen Turtles?" or "Do you remember that episode? ... bla bla".

With that being saind I reccomend Catherine to any gamer who wants a fun challenge. The game can be pretty forgiving if you let it. On normal mode there are places you can basically herd extra lives.

I have very ambivalent feelings about this.

On one side it's great because you don't have to get so frustrated, on the other side if you'r like me you will be tempted to grab it just to avoid frustration. This takes away a lot of the inherent difficulty.

But with a game as chaotic as this I think makes up for it by far.

Catherine
8.5/10

Signed, Mireneye

One flame

Do you happen to be the kind of person who believes in chance? In luck. A person who can work and honestly crave for a goal every day until it has been archived? Are you chaotic, spontaneous, a free soul, happy and good-natured? And do you carry confidence strong enough to know of your own beuty?

These are all things I value in a person, especially in a partner. They hardly represent everything, that would ruin the element of surprise.

But at least these are things I'd like to value, what actually gets to me might be something quite different and unique.

Like the way a certain person smiles, or the way they speak. Maybe their cheekbones or a peculiar and unique way they see things. Not neccesarily classically "intelligent" but at least different is usually enough to catch my attention.

One could go as far as to assume that normal bores me. That assumption is however gravely false. Normal is good, normal is safe and easy. It's calm and constructive. Difference is chaotic, it's not at all as safe and the results are sometimes good and sometimes bad.

But I prefer change, chaos and differance before order, calm and certain results.

I learn more and more every day about juggling the concept of order to survive out there in the world. And it's a scary thing for me, it involves so many things I don't perticularily enjoy. Like stress, dependancy, regularity and control.

If you share my concerns write a comment and explain what's on your mind.
And if you fit the description, maybe we should hook up? ;) Hahah.

Signed, Mireneye