Sorry, I was busy listening to an audiobook of Stephen King's Joyland and didn't get around to editing my writing, which will start to appear with the next post, which I guess is some hours away. After that I was running errands with my head completely free associating. Out of the blue, I got a call from "Unknown". I've been getting these calls that are creepy, the person on the other end doesn't say anything, when I use English or Mandarin. Is it an automated message that doesn't kick in until more than 10 seconds have elapsed (I don't have that kind of patience!)? Or, is it someone from the past who had my number?
About a year ago, I was deliriously and foolishly in love. When you're ready to give someone your heart, only to find out that person never meant to be sincere with you, had always planned to withhold information from you, because that person was selfish and didn't really have your interests at heart, it's a betrayal so deep and hurtful that it's practically impossible to forget. Had this been a year ago, I would've been sure that the "Unknown" person calling would have been that person calling me from Europe. Now I can't be sure that it was anyone I know.
Joyland was, in its way, a coming of age story about a summer and fall that had redefined the protagonist's life. I found it more engrossing than Full Dark, No Stars that I read in January earlier this year during my stay in Florida. Joyland was about a young man losing his first love, finding meaning in his summer job, and finding it in himself to love both a dying boy in a wheelchair with a dog and a Jesus kite, and his grieving mother. On another level, it was about a dying "old timer" amusement park in its final days before franchises like Disney and Knott's ran it bankrupt, and the murder that had happened in the "fun"/horror house. The narration and portrayal of the characters was superb, making me feel like they were genuine people whom I knew intimately. What's more, the story had hooked me in a way that I was just as much in the dark as to who had committed the crime as the protagonist, not realizing until just before the end, from where it was pure adrenaline and purely fictitious miracles propelling the reading to the ending.
The boy in the wheelchair flying a Jesus kite on the beach, that's the image King said had been with him for twenty years until he wrote this. Where did he get this? Had he actually seen a boy like that somewhere in his memories, or had it appeared to him in a dream? Anyway, you never get a peak of this image until you're past the halfway point of the novel, and then it kind of sticks out here and there, with that same image overpowering the ending of the novel, which I think was quite beautiful. The book is kind of resonating with my life at the moment, with the theme of moving on from my past relationships, realizing that some lovers are meant to stay apart, and that some invaluable lives are robbed from the young every day via horrible chronic diseases.
Seriously, I read the story on NPR highlighting King and this novel, where King talked about choosing to believe in God. Some people in the commentaries were taking his words so literally. Do those people know how to appreciate true fiction? Why should someone have to be "an expert on religion or science" in order to say something like "you're missing the stars in the sky" if you don't believe in God? He doesn't mean that people can't literally see stars or sunrises or sunsets if they're atheists, just that belief can create or attach additional meaning to some everyday stuff. What constitutes expertise in religion on science, anyway? I don't believe you need a degree to be an expert in either, both are such fundamental parts of philosophy. It's not difficult to understand science, as people are teaching it everywhere. Some people, pure rationalists are finding it perfectly acceptable to see the universe in purely materialistic terms, and some are not, and choose to believe in superstition or whatever they personally believe in.
For me personally, even if religion is a human construct, I find the experience deeply humanizing, edifying. Just because fiction isn't real doesn't mean that it has no value whatsoever. It highlights some of the experiences we have as humans, inspires us to think about our lives, and I think religion acts in much the same way, regardless of whether it's "real" or not, and therefore not worthless.
Now, organized religions have done some serious evil in the history of humanity, no doubt about that, but that's probably another story/topic, since you can argue the same for weapons research. I consider myself an intelligent person, but I don't think that on the topic of science vs religion one side necessarily wins. I just wish everyone can just leave those philosophical sorts of beliefs to themselves and not try to argue or forcibly "prove" which is superior to get everyone to agree. The fact is, it's entirely the individual's choice, as long as your beliefs don't harm other people.
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