Sunday, January 30, 2011
Like a wave you keep pulling me under
How I'll ever get out of this I don't know
I just know that there's no way to fight it
I think I have found a topic to blog about!
Because I was suddenly reminded of it while thinking about trainfire and our game of truth or dare on the way back, and because we can't do dares on the bus, we just asked each other, uhm,
insightful (?) questions. And I remember asking Priya about whether she believed in destiny.
Then when I went home and thought about it, I found it quite strange that I believed in true judgement (which I guess would be better... thought of as
Ma'at, which is basically the Egyptian concept of truth, justice, and balance. Go read more if you want to know) and yet believed in fate and destiny. Which actually is quite contradictory, if you think about it, because in Egyptian mythology, Ma'at is the goddess of justice, truth, harmony and balance. It's also a concept. Confusing much? Also, after death, a person gets judged by Anubis who weighs the person's heart against the feather of Ma'at, and that determines whether the person gets to pass on to the afterlife or has their soul eaten by Ammit (or Ammut, whatever) the devourer. Anyway, I do feel the need to justify myself, even if no one reading this actually cares, but still.
Because, you see, I think destiny is something that you cannot change. It is what lies in store for us
at the end and you can have a road set for you. You can choose to take that road, but there're many other pathways and you can choose to take those pathways. And
that, is what Ma'at judges you for at the end. The path you take, and the choices you make on that journey. As for fate? I don't know, really. To me, fate is like... wait, I don't know, let me try to think of a way to phrase this. Uhm. It's like the paths that are made available to you. (Yes, those are the words I was looking for!) Destiny gives you an end. Fate gives you the means to reach that end. Destiny gives you a goal, or an end, and fate makes only some options available to you. And the choices you make on that journey, the choices that fate gives you, decided how you will be judged. Which is Ma'at.
Which basically means that I have justified myself, even though it was totally unnecessary. But I have a new blog post, so yay.
Also, on Friday on my way home, ruitong called me when I was about five minutes away from home and told me there was Freestyle. And I totally died on the bus. Yes.
I also find Egyptian, Norse, and Greek mythology perfectly interesting and entertaining, but people are going to give me weird looks for this. Also, mythology is perfectly fascinating. It tells you a lot about culture. Okay, damn, I can't find the term to describe what I was looking for but once I find it again I'll trash it in somewhere
I promise. Cultural arts are fascinating. Oh, and I remember hearing Yambe-Akka (who is part of Finnish mythology!) before but I don't remember where! OHNOES. Also, I just realized that the terms 'hermaphrodite' comes from Greek mythology, or more specifically, Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite (and he has
such and original name, really), who got jumped by a nymph and after some time, merged. So now they're both male and female, which is kind of creepy and strange if you think about it.
AND YES I FOUND THE TERM IT'S HENOTHEISM. I think the concept of a monotheistic society is strange, because most of the time within a society you can have different religions, and even if every one was of the same religion there may not be only one god. Or even if there is only one, the god may have different personalities, consciousness, and different consciousness suggest different people. Or in this case, gods. Of course, there are monotheistic religions, such as Judaism, but you know most religions have more. So there.
Posted at 11:33 AM
