Metal Reviews

Bruce's post about faith and God got me thinking. What do you take solace in life? How do you fill your empty places? Those holes that seem difficult to fill no matter how hard one tries. Is it the darkness or the light? Hope or perdition? Salvation or damnation? Joy or misery? Music or silence? Beauty or pain? Love or hate?

Women or porn?

More seriously - (porn) - it seems I don't, and that's the issue. I hate to sound like a whiny drama queen, but it's like I've been dangerously approaching a cliff without even knowing it all that time, only to realize now that one more step and it's goodbye.

Bah. Fuck that. Thrash metal.

Olivier, I hate to sound like a therapist but you have to confront important things like faith and god. Or let it flow because there will be a time when you will find yourself again. Investigate on things you lean more towards or things that interest you. Immerse yourself.

I spent the day reading the New Testament, articles on Theravada as EBD suggested, and watching today's Tour de France stage. Found out the latter is the religion that suits me the most. I have no faith. None. The only thing I know is there something bigger than me and I never will know what this is. Not that it helps with the wreckage my life is, granted.

And I ran out of beer yesterday. Can't even drink it all away.

edit: I don't even know what interests me. But let's not talk about me. People? Solace, where do you find it?

lol depends on the time of the year. Summer time, it's baseball and beer. Women and friends any other time of the year, though. I care crazy amounts for my friends and I'll drop anything for them and basically but my own concerns aside for them. That helps a lot actually. I'm the same with family, though. Just caring for someone so much makes other things not such a big deal. I can't deal with my own existential angst if I'm running around helping other folks make ends meet.

That's very humane, Trapt. Friends used to be everything for me, too. However, during years I've found that the only person one can rely on is oneself and the family. I've lost some close friends due the small problems that turned out to be big ones for them. Friends that I thought were true, and turned out to be a total lie! I have found a small but intimate circle friends in the past few years which I think will stay with me for a long time. An excuse a close friend of mine made when he didn't want hang out anymore was that "you think too deep and use my brain as a result." The fact of the matter is that I have had friends in all areas. From truck drivers, to street fighters and "good" guys. I still am very much in touch with one of olders friends which has been more than a decade long. I'm Very proud of that.

Hmmmm God,family and music is what drives me.

I tend to find comfort in a lot of different things, depending on the situation. I know I can always turn to my girlfriend and to my best friend. We basically took our first babysteps together and we've been inseparable ever since so he knows me even better than I know myself. Other times I find solace in being on my own, cleansing my mind with music or sometimes I just go to the woods, find a spot not a single person ever walks by, sit down and just enjoy the silence. You don't need religion when you let the pure beauty of nature embrace you.

My imagination is my solace. I want something (or rather, someone) that I can never have so I often delude myself that I do.

And Milan's comments about silence work too.

The difference between enjoying the silence and actually meditating looks pretty thin to me.

When the birds sing, the sound of water flows, the sound of the wind moving the leafs of the trees slowly and the ever-presence of the mountains, who really does needs some sort of false God? Unless, you're someone frightened by the thought of death and hell, those grand ideas of damnation and fire, then you need a savior. Or you could put your trust in Satan .

What absurdities!

Bruce, you were feeling spacey earlier in your music selections: have you ever looked at astronomy? I find thinking about space and stars oddly reassuring; like the geometric elegance to 2001.

There are some differences, obviously, but meditation is actually a great idea. Buddhism as Emperor has mentioned is an excellent and honest source for solace.

Ha, I own many books on the subject, actually. I also find astronomy reassuring, but more because it reminds me how utterly insignificant me and my problems are, and that in the end nothing really matters anyway. Plus, this eternal search of the ultimate understanding of why the fuck everything even exists. Of course.

I learned today there were 2 complementary sorts of meditation, meditating while walking, and sit. Tried the former today, not simple. But I struggle when I walk, so it may not be suited to my case.

There's no reason for existence. Everything purely "is." From light to non-being, everything pure is a state of flux. Being and becoming, eternal conflict and tension. But this tension is always a place to grow and become deeper as a character. The universe is directionless, however, with the power of the intellect and emotion us human beings make it purposeful and full of meaning.

+1 basicly

But that's a gross oversimplifcation of how things are for me.

Solace? As religious person i take solace in my belief that beyond death something better (hopefully) awaits, what that is i don't know...heaven perhaps? I don't know... I keep this hope in my heart because i am a fairly miserable guy and sometimes wishes everything would end and that i could finally be at peace and that there would be no more pain and suffering. Am i foolish to hold on to such a hope? Maybe...But i need some light to sustain me, i've walked in darkness so long and i've grown weary and tired of it. I used to be a staunch atheist but i had some experiences that made me rethink my entire outlook on life...But that's a story for another time i think. Right now my bed is calling my name, good night everybody.

Knowing things.

Books, trees, music, tennis, dancing, sleep, sex.

re: Bruce's original comment... I used to find religion appealing because if there's an omnipotent, benevolent being watching over you, then nothing could go wrong. (See: Stoic philosophy.) But then from talking to religious people I realized that it's not any more helpful in day to day stresses than atheist option (i.e. Buddhism's desire=suffering). Now I agree with EdgeOfForever and see the main appeal of religion as a source of community. Churches are full of happy, helpful people here.