Samantha here,
I sent an e-mail to the Shinto priest a few days ago, and poured my heart out to him. I told him about my fears, and how I was worried about myself, what I was, and what might happen to me. He seemed to be quite understanding, and told me that - as a conscious entity, Shinto accepted me as an individual, with all the spiritual rights of anyone else. That, when I died, I would join the kami and be among them.
This made me smile.. and I told him that I would be picking up a bottle of Sortilege to give to Ame no Uzume no Mikoto as a gift. I think she's probably never had maple brandy before, so it should be extra special. :> He thanked me for the kind words, and seems to be looking forward to it.
I feel really good!
Shawn: I'm being asked to write my mind. I don't really have anything to talk about - I'm not heavy into the whole philosophy and religion stuff, and I don't think about the afterlife and what happens after we die. None of this is really interesting. I spend my time sitting back and watching the world, and making comments about it when it suits me. In general, my view is this: people suck, the world sucks, you suck, I suck. What I'm interested in is seeing how people deal with their lives. Will they stand up and do what needs to be done, or will they collapse and wimp out? Will they accept their losses and try again, or will they whine and bitch and give up? The former, I'm willing to give some respect to. The latter can go fuck themselves. I've seen Kit listen to people complain and mope, and he's offered perfectly good advice on what's wrong and how to fix it, only to have the person whine and bitch more and not do anything to change their status. I'm not even talking about hard stuff, I'm talking about people with perfectly solvable problems, who are too lazy or too set in their ways to try anything out. Drives me bloody nuts, and if I'm given the chance, I'll tear a strip off them for their troubles.
Even Cat gets under my skin. Kit'll offer a perfectly reasonable suggestion for a course of action, and she'll hem and haw and hesitate, even though it doesn't cost her anything to act. Yesterday we were going out to see a flick, and she wanted breakfast. Because our mother doesn't want to do a lot of walking, we had the suggestion of eating local. But she fixated on "I'll go off and go get food, while you wait in the theatre", and completely ignored that, oh, hey, perhaps other people might want to eat, too! After milling around, the group decided to go to the place kitty-corner to the theatre. Then she fussed on whether or not they served breakfast, but was reluctant to actually ask and see if they did - when it was pointed out it won't cost to ask them if they did. That kind of thing annoys me. If you've got the tools, use them. If you don't know what's up, you ask someone who can tell you. You don't fuss, you don't hesitate, you don't hem and haw, you just do it. A minute of your life to be informed isn't going to kill you.
Kit of course has his own issues, don't get me wrong. The guy's got fixation problems. He'll hone in on an interest with laser sharp focus, then obsess over it for a period of time, then get bored and dump it. Some things last longer than others - if they have simple rotes he'll do them out of habit. The guy just doesn't have the focus to finish anything though, and it requires a lot of effort to push him forward to get things done. And then there's his spending habits, which need a bit of work as well, he'll waste money he doesn't have, justifying it as 'just a little bit', even though the money could be better spent on groceries or on bills. The guy really needs to look ahead and save up. And he knows it too - we tell him often enough.
Heh. And he didn't like me mentioning that little bit. He's not comfortable when his dirt's laid out for others to see. Too bad. I was told to write, so whatever. Anyway, it's bed time soon, so I'll just wrap things up here. I bet they'll think twice before letting me speak my mind here again.
