Fear and Understanding.

Phobia:  An extreme or irrational fear of, or aversion to something.

Last night, there was a programme on the BBC called The Magicians.  During the show, a magician swallowed a maggot and described its journey through his sinuses before making it pop out of his eye, with the camera close up so you see the whole eye plus maggot.

Cool trick aside, I didn't think it at the time.  You see, through the whole thing, I was getting more and more disgusted and agitated.  When the trick came to its final climax, I screamed and ran into the kitchen in tears.  Why the reaction?  Since I was a child, I have been terrified of maggots.  I remember the trigger; I was eating an outdoor meal with my family when a maggot came out of my food and crawled up my arm.  I didn't notice it until I felt it on my skin and when I realised, I freaked.  I didn't know what it was at the time - to my child mind, the only thing I associated with wriggling creatures was snakes (we lived in tropical climes).  When I screamed that there was a tiny snake on my arm, my mother took it upon herself to poke and tickle me, declaring she saw more on my body. 

I haven't been able to stand maggots since.  I had learnt about them not long after, but knowing they ate flesh did nothing for my fear.  Now I was even more convinced I didn't want them near me, despite reassurances that they were harmless and only ate rotting flesh.  That's the funny thing about developing a fear, I suppose.  No matter how much you rationalise it, no matter how much you think it's just a silly fear, when you are facing it, all reason flies out of your head. 

I guess I'm at a bit of an advantage with my fear.  Maggots aren't usually common to see around (here anyway - they were everywhere when I was growing up in Brunei), so sometimes I forget how scared I get around them until I see one.  There are times when I can take it better than others.  I enjoy crime dramas like CSI, so seeing a decaying body with a swarm of the creatures gets my hackles up, but not much more.  The difference with The Magicians I think is the fact it was a live studio audience at the time, combined with the extreme stunt.  But it was a stark reminder of how "not okay" I was with them.

In describing this to one of my best friends, she pointed something out to me with some irony.  I should be more understanding towards her and her phobia of spiders as a result.  It was a slap in the face, I have to admit.  I used to tease her about spiders and often cited my sadness and displeasure at her killing them when they were so easy to catch and release outside.  Using my own fear as her example, I realised how cruel I had been to her in suggesting she catches them and release them, because I wouldn't be able to do that with a maggot. 

It's strange how you get hit with a lesson you didn't realise you needed to learn.  I would still encourage her to face her fear, just as I would hope someone would support me if and when I have to see one again.  But maybe now I'd be a little more aware when I laugh when she screams at the sight of a house spider.  I know I don't appreciate being laughed at for screaming at a maggot.

I was expecting to burn since I was little anyway...

The speaker for bigotted British Muslims has reared his head for his pre-Christmas hate speech again this year.  Anjem Choudary is telling Muslims that celebrating Christmas is a pathway to Hell and calls for his fellow bigots to boycott Christmas.

'In the world today many Muslims, especially those residing in Western countries, are exposed to the evil celebration Christmas,' he raged in a sermon broadcast on the internet. 

Many take part in the festival celebrations by having Christmas turkey dinners.  Decorating the house, purchasing Christmas trees or having Christmas turkey meals are completely prohibited by Allah.  Many still practise this corrupt celebration as a remembrance of the birth of Jesus.  How can a Muslim possibly approve or participate in such a practice that bases itself on the notion Allah has an offspring?  The very concept of Christmas contradicts and conflicts with the foundation of Islam.  Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire. 

Protect your Paradise from being taken away - protect yourself and your family from Christmas.'

I wish this guy would shut his trap; it's guys like this who ruin it for others, especially the Muslims who do enjoy this season.  This year, my family's been quite lucky that my mother hasn't descended into her annual tradition of guilt-ridden rants of banning Christmas in our house.  Our tree's up, presents wrapped, Christmas table's been set and we intend to celebrate Christmas as we do every year - with as little religion as possible, because we are gathered together as a family. 

And if celebrating being a family is going to land us in Hell, I will gladly be first in line to face Satan down myself. 

(Nod to Maryam Namazie; sourced from The Citizens Report and The Daily Mail)

Surreal Late Night Conversations with Dad

I adore my Dad, no question about it.  He's always been the stable, reasonable, rational force in my upbringing, even when he wasn't there half the time.  It's thanks to him I had the foundations to be able to think skeptically as a child, in an environment where hard questions were dismissed or silenced.

So sometimes, when it's late at night, there's nothing but pessimism on the news and he's downed a few, I get a bit shocked by what he admits.  Like his belief that the world will end at 2012.  That the police should all be given guns and orders to open fire.  That we should arm ourselves ready for society's collapse.  That he wishes he had sturdier legs to run on when the apocalypse happens. 

There's something surreal in trying to associate those admissions with the man who taught me to always keep an open yet skeptical mind. 

Morals? There's an app for that!

Or at least, a psychological test. 

In browsing through my reading lists, I came across a website called Yourmorals.org, where they have studies and surveys to test your moral thinking and ranking them according to how liberal or conservative you are.  I took the first survey on the list, "Moral Foundation Questionnaire", which was developed by Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt from the University of Virginia.  Their questionnaire relies on five pillars of moral foundation, based on Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect and Purity/Sanctity. 

It doesn't come as too big a surprise that each foundation is ranked differently according to either group, I suppose accounting for those who are more in the middle of the road with their affiliation.  In sense of accuracy and proper surveying, I would have prefered there be more conservatives taking this survey as liberals are very highly represented. 

Anyway, I'll post up my results for comparison and analysis.  The green bars are my results, blue for average liberal result and red for general conservative result.  The scales are based on the 0-5 system, with 0 being a complete rejection of that foundation and 5 being a full endorsement of that foundation and the basis of which you build your morality upon.

Harm/Care (4.3) - I'm not surprised this is my highest score, but what I am surprised with is just how highly it ranked.  I always thought myself empathic towards others and against harming someone intentionally, but I'm not exactly the most gentle person to have existed either.

Fairness (3.7) - Andrew Hall mentioned that this was the "Superhero Virtue"; so I suppose my sense of justice is nicely placed for a small time hero, like a minor mutant in the X-Men Academy.


Loyalty (2.5) - About average, so no real comment here. 

Authority (3.0) - Leaning more towards the conservative thinking here, but again, I'm not surprised.  I had been raised in a very authoritarian home and I do have a certain respect for people in positions of authority (police, military personnel, leaders, parents, teachers, employers etc), but that does mean my expectations of their conduct is high as well. 

Purity (2.5) - Again, slightly surprised with this one, though I suppose my lingering naivety has influenced a lot of this.  There's very few things I would consider "icky" nowadays, but I suppose hat does beg the question of just how "icky" are the things I was considering when filling out the survey ;-)

Man, I love doing things like these.  It fascinates me to actually see in some rudimentary form how I think.

Kudos to Andrew Hall (Laughing in Purgatory) for the link.

Musical Monday (a day late) - Strange choice this time,

It's been a couple of months since I did a Musical Monday post, mostly because I am admittedly a lazy wench, and partially because I couldn't decide on a song to post up.  However, on Sunday, a pang of reminiscence caught me out of the blue and I went searching for a melody that always haunted me in my childhood.

Haunting is the best way to describe this song.  Song is probably not quite the word to use either.  I am referring to the Azaan, or the Islamic call to prayer.  Like I said, odd choice.  Whilst I hold no particular reverence for the religion behind the call to prayer, nor did I ever enjoy the ritual itself, I did always enjoy the sound of it.  I guess it's the talent of the imam to make it sound just so. 

That's something I wondered about religious music.  As humans, we are attracted to certain melodies, chords, rhythms and sounds, so it wouldn't be any wonder why religion would use music as a way to attract followers as well and bring together the communities.  In this case, the Azaan is calling the community to pray together.  I remember the evening calls in particular, mostly because it would just start to turn dark, so the sky would be a heavy mix of pink and purple with dark and white clouds, the air would be cooling down but still carry that hint of humidity and I would have just finished my homework, dangling my feet over my grandparents' balcony as I ate or drank something sweet.  I suppose, ironically, those moments were when I cared least for the call of religious obedience and just revelled in my childhood freedom. 

Of blasphemy and double standards

Personal story time!

I work in a rather enclosed office in a supermarket with five other women, although at most there is only three of us in at a time.  Coversation varies greatly between us all depending on which mix of women are in there.  Today, I was in work with two of them - one of them being the oldest in the office (for ease sake, let's call her Mary).  I was happily going about my work, filling in some forms when I come across something in one of them that made me exclaim in surprise.  Both women turned around in shock and berated me for swearing.

So what did I say?

"BLOODY HELL!"

It was my turn to turn to them in shock - it's barely swearing, I argued.  Worse had been cried out before by people on the shop floor.  Then Mary looked at me quite poigniantly.  I was being told off because I was blaspheming.  I don't know whether I hurt my situation with them at the time by laughing out loud.  Neither of them had ever come across as hugely religious, though Mary had proven herself to be quite conservative in the past.  It got me thinking though; my Dad had raised me to respect language but to also realise that sometimes words are just that.  Words.  At the time, he was trying to teach me that swearing wasn't all that a big deal if used right (humour, anger etc).  As such, I treat a lot of my own speech like that - I try to think about what I say and how I say it (easier written than spoken, I'll admit) but in the end, I'm not going to spilt hairs over how I use words to whomever, relevant censorship and borders applied, of course (I'm not going to openly swear in front of children, for example).

But what really tickled me was when one of the managers came in for their usual checks - mid-conversation, he declared "JESUS CHRIST!"  I immediately turned to Mary and cheekily responded "He used Jesus' name in vain, how come he can get away with blasphemy?"  She was ready for me, with a less than witty comeback. 

"It's unbecoming for a lady to swear."

Well Jesus Christ riding on a pogo stick from the bloodiest pits of Hell.  I guess I'm no longer a lady then.