THIS BLOG POST MAY NOT BE AS MORBID AS THE TITLE MIGHT SUGGEST. ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT. I SUPPOSE IT COULD DEPEND ON YOUR POINT OF VIEW. I love death. Not the twisted arms and legs, torso cut into pieces, struck down by a heart attack, kind of death, but a particular character in a series of books by a now ( sadly ) deceased author. And if you haven't figured it out, his name was Terry Pratchett. But this isn't really about Sir Pterry, or even Discworld. Its about appropriation. I didn't mean to steal this character, and two others ( The death of Rats, and Quoth the raven he rides on ) for my own nefarious ends. It happened some years ago, sort of by accident. Few people can fail to have encountered those posters who, WRITE IN ALL CAPS, NO MATTER WHAT THE TOPIC. Usually making statements and claims one thinks are, lets say 'odd'. ( Or.. flying mammal poo bonkers ) And I am no exception. And every time I have, the first thought in my head was of Sir Pterr...
OK, I give up, I cannot resit the temptation to write a polemic on Spirit. Many of my regular readers will, by now, have realised I am an atheist. And something of an anti-theist. I am also interested in what we might term 'spirituality'. "Wait!" I hear you cry, "Atheists don't believe in 'spirit', you can't be spiritual! It's against the rules." But is it? I wonder? And now to throw a real cat among the pigeons. The symbolism of 'gods and goddesses'. A quote from Terry Pratchett seems to sum this up nicely. "I ain't against gods and goddesses, in their place. But they've got to be the ones we make ourselves. Then we can take 'em to bits for parts when we don't need 'em any more, see?' Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies. Which seems to me quite one of the most profound statements I can imagine. When we see a boxer fight, we often say he or she fights with spirit. It seems legitimate to me...
John stood quietly and I could tell he was reorganising his thoughts. "Which Ism, do you think they are?" He asked. "I'm, not certain," I paused, "I think whoever they are, they planned to survive 'the day'. In a deliberately constructed and provisioned bunker. They undoubtedly think of themselves as 'the government', and no doubt want to take back what they think is theirs." "What do you think we should do about them? "I'm not sure. I think Lilly would talk about alliances and information gathering. It would certainly be a bad idea to antagonise them at this stage." I turned to John as a thought occurred to me, "Have you asked them about the smokers?" "No, it seemed to me that the more ignorant they thought I was, the more I might learn about them." "I think it would be good to ask them, I imagine they might be the source of the carts that come down from the North. Even th...
Comments
Post a Comment