Themes
10/10
Belief, Faith, and Imagination
Belief and Faith and how those things are important in shaping our own personal world. Believing in things like Santa and the Easter Bunny is essential in being able to believe in bigger things like religion or just having faith in yourself. It made me stop and question how I was able to believe in things like Tarot or things that could not be as easily explained or seen. I’ve always had faith or belief in the unknown. I believe in the untangible. Why do I believe? I feel as though I have seen in forces in action in my life. I have seen their impact. I believe in those things like I believe that the sun is always going to set in the west and rise in the east. I see it everyday, therefore I believe. It’s consistent and it’s fact. My faith and belief in the systems that I have are not blind. I have learned to not completely abandon all that I’ve learned. Using discernment is always important. You have your own mind and experiences, those things should not be thrown away when faced with belief and faith, however I do know that that it can make it harder to keep those things in your life. What happens when you are faced with things that you have never experienced? It’s belief and faith that will help you in those moments. To help ease your journey with encountering the intangible and unknown.
I think it’s good for kids or anyone to keep trying to believe in the unknown. The things in their mind can be real if they wish it.
It helps build imagination. I feel as though when we get older we lose a lot of that magic and whimsy that made it easy to hold on to that little bit of blind faith. There’s nothing wrong with getting new information about something and letting it shape your world but does it have to chip away at the childlike innocence one has if they even have any left? Why is it that we get older and find out that Santa isn’t real that we have to stop believing in those types of things? Was there a rule that was in the adult book that you get when you turn a certain age? I feel like the world would be a much better place if there wasn’t such a stigma on things labelled as childish. Is it harmful to be 24 and still believe in Santa? There have been way bigger hills that people could die on over something like that. Why do we have to put away childish things when it makes us forget why we were put on this earth? I would give anything to experience pure childlike wonder again. It seems the world is dead set on making us so jaded that we can give away our power.
Belief and faith have always been one of our most powerful tools. It powers the systems that we operate our world on and run our lives. Yet people take this for granted. Many people live a life without belief because they are so busy letting others believe for them. There seems to be a belief/faith shortage. We can kind of see the power that these practices have when we witness the creation of new ideas being born. All because someone believes it is true, it is suddenly real. The book makes it seem that simple, but it really is that simple. Your belief shapes your reality, that isn’t anything groundbreaking but many people seem to forget this. It is okay to believe. To believe means to hope. Allow yourself to hope and you’ll find the world may be a little sweeter to you. Beliefs can change, as it is only a thought that you think is real, it is also allowed to change. Many people seem to be scared of this change, they hold on so tightly to thought. But that just means to me that they lack faith.
Faith is more concrete than belief. A lot of people are looking for something truly stable in their lives but lack faith. Belief is not enough to sustain an idea or world view. There is power in belief but if you are looking for unwavering devotion, that is where faith lives. Faith is a beautiful thing to have. I think many people take it for granted. I empathize for the people who cannot have faith or find it hard to hold. I too have struggled to make space for all the things I believe and hope for and give it a home. All of those ideas and intense feelings that you hold so dearly have to go somewhere, why not keep it in the most guarded place? Faith gives your hope a solid place to fall. It’s the pep talk you give yourself before doing something that causes you unease. It’s where you find your whimsy, your determination/fight, your spirit, and the ability to find joy in difficult moments. It’s why churches and the government want this from you. They want it undivided so that they can corrupt it and shape it into what they believe it should be to control you. People who have had their faith misused and lost are right to be cynical about it to a degree.
Pratchett reminds us just how powerful and magical imagination can be. Sometimes, it feels unsafe to imagine. I don’t want to get my hopes up by believing in something that lives in my mind. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but when did we become scared of the power of our minds? When did we become scared to believe in what we think? Why can we not believe in the impossible anymore. Believing in those things helped some of those things come true, so why can we not do that now? When did we all become so cynical? I’m probably beating the dead horse about everyone becoming so jaded but I think Pratchett understood what we were becoming as well.
I wouldn’t want this jadedness for our youth. I hate it for adults too but with kids, they learn that from us. From interacting with the world and its people and its unfairness, but we should never let those interactions take away their imagination, their faith, and belief in the unknown.
You can already see what the lack of imagination and believing in things while forgetting what you previously knew in our lives real time.
I definitely believe that certain groups of people continue to carry forth imagination without boundaries but in a dangerous way. They are too quick to believe in certain things. I feel as though I am onto something but I can’t quite put my thoughts into proper words so bear with me. Letting your imagination run wild is good and should be encouraged in healthy ways, however, too much of a good thing can be bad. Reality is a combination of whatever we make it out to be and facts that we collect. What happens when the facts that we learn are incorrect and we feed that to our imagination?
If we look at the current state of the world and American politics we can see the impact of that.
For example, say we have a group of people who have learned incorrect information even though there is hard proof suggesting otherwise and another group of people who have little to some actual factual information but have no imagination left.
I know that spectrum is a little extreme but you’ll hopefully get the point that I’m trying to make.
I envy the first group a bit, it’s hard to just believe whatever a someone is telling you point blank. However, this is incredibly dangerous. Their reality is deeply rooted in something that isn’t the facts that they know or see, it is rooted in information that helps their own interests and insecurities. I could say the sky is blue but if they’ll tell me it’s red because they were taught that they’ll gain something or be something that would help them. Those people are the real sheep. Their mind is not their own. They can’t conjure up a world of their own so they have to have someone tell them what it’s supposed to look like or be like. If you listen to them talk close enough, you can hear exactly where/who their reality or belief stems from. You can hear that with anyone, but with these types of people, they never have the passion that stems from real true belief. They sound robotic. They usually lack passion and life in their lives. They are all imagination and latch onto anything that will confirm whatever they’ve been taught. It feels like a sad existence.
The ladder isn’t any better either. Information is amazing. It should be cherished. It’s the people who put too much belief/stock in information that it can be detrimental.
When we don’t have all the information, it sucks. We do almost anything to obtain or gain that knowledge. I have seen the lengths that people go and I am not exempt. I like to know things. I go crazy when I don’t have the information. But I don’t like having all the information either. How else are we supposed to use our imagination? My mind will grow weak if I had all the answers. I feel as though it may stop some people from seeing the possibility of different outcomes if they are so focused on fact. They can’t imagine another outcome if it doesn’t align with the facts. And if it doesn’t align, it’s immediately not true or wrong. I can admit that I am like this sometimes. I find these types of people to be a bit more critical and a little bit stiff. There is little whimsy and passion or they struggle to embrace or act upon in their lives. These types of people take information and knowledge for granted. They have no idea how to give things up to God, or chance, or even take risks. I almost feel like it might be a control thing but that might be a conversation for a different day. It feels like an exhausting life to be skeptical and critical of everything you hear.
I feel like too much or too little imagination can lead to some type of egotism. I’m not sure if I’m making any sense but I feel like if you have too little then you take what you say as fact all time and let that carry your mind and if you have too much you’re delusional mouthpiece about what you think you know. The latter may not the case all the time but the people that I have seen and met who I described the first group, they’re usually very full of themselves and believe they are the the people who have all the right information.
I definitely see myself towards the spectrum of valuing information too much. I am a product of my generation after all. I have vasts amounts of information at my disposal and fingertips yet think the world is ending when I have to wait to hear more information. There are some things that we aren’t supposed to know right away. Why can’t be we let our brain fill in the blanks with our imagination like we are supposed to?
I think that is what I was trying to hit at when I was talking about myself earlier and my belief in myself. I let the information that I do know carry my mind too much. I don’t let it breathe by using my imagination. I don’t allow myself to wonder as much as I used to. I spend far too much overthinking. I could spend more time picturing things. It would help a lot with the creative blocks I experience. But I am learning to be okay with the information that I have when the situation calls for it. In due time I will figure out the rest at the right time.
Altruism and Intentions
This section took me a while to write about. It’s something that I feel very strongly about. I’ve met too many performative people in my life and seen many performative actions. Also it just brings up questions of my own activism and my intentions and if I’m living up to my ideal of someone who truly wants to do good in this world and those around them.
Helping others has always been an integral part to who I am. It feels almost instinctual. To see someone in need makes me feel the deepest compassion I’ve ever felt. Whether you believe in a purpose or not, it is hard ignore the instinct to help someone. When you’re not concerned with optics or money or yourself, it’s easier to feel that thing called empathy. When someone truly loves people and understands what is to be human, I feel like it’s only natural to want to soothe. Especially if you’ve experienced the feeling of needing something.
Everyone on this earth has felt lack before. The lack drives us to do things, make us desperate, outside of ourselves, insecure, anger, freedom for some.
To feel lacking is the most life changing thing you can feel right under falling in love. Maybe I’m being dramatic but if you have ever felt lack then you know how it changes you. Just like you can remember falling in love with something for the first time, you can remember the first time you felt you were without something. It can make you cynical, jaded, and othered.
There are some people who never moved passed or learned how to properly deal with the feelings that come about not having or being something. They become mega losers who never help make anything happen for anyone but they can’t stand that it’s not them. They will never be happy for anyone until it happens to them and even then they still wouldn’t be happy because you didn’t wait as long as them or work as hard as them before they got it. Okay so they don’t always turn out like this but they do have a hard time helping people out.
The people we encounter in this book don’t help from the goodness of their heart. When people feel lack, they see opportunity. They’re only helping because they know they should or they get their kicks out of watching and/or contributing to the suffering of others. Those people, they cannot feel the weight of true human compassion. They refuse to remember what it was like be live and be without. That they are above needing something from someone. That they’re only put on this earth to take, never to extend in kindness and earnest because that was never shown to them when they needed something. They seek to spread the misery they feel every time they are reminded of the shame of not having something. They don’t need to be rich but the rich are usually the most soulless. When you need an example of people forgetting the what it means to struggle to get what you need, look to the top 1%. You are nothing but sims with dollar signs icon to them. They make you dance for your money and things that you need because it’s fun for them. You are beneath them. And they know that we as a collective can’t imagine a world where we didn’t just stick to the status quo. They have made sure that we as a society are too busy to dream or create. They have devalued art and defiled its process. They have made sure that we see helping others as bothersome.
There are many kinds of people who exist in this world. So much so that selfish people can look like anyone. You think you know someone until they happen upon hard times or encounters someone going through hard times. You can tell in those moments when someone being performative. The fake eyes that only penetrate skin layer. Their kindness has only extended past a kiss on their fingers when they get a cut. They suck. You can always tell when someone is helping you for their own interests. Pratchett gives us examples of people who call themselves helping but are vile and selfish in reality.
You should never become so rich that you look down on those that are suffering, and you should never allow yourself to be so jaded that you ignore the known suffering of others. You are no better than the rich man helping for his own personal gain.
I really enjoyed this piece of work more than I expected. It was thought provoking and funny and fantastical. I would read more of his works in the future.
The Abode 