So many great insights in this piece, Matt. Food for thought, being a life-long left-coaster who has explored many "spiritual" paths to help me deal with life and find my own ground of belief. How much have I been simply subject to marketing? In the early 90s, one friend described new age religion as "Christianity Lite,' which always struck me as funny and true. I do not trust religion, but I sometimes find the framings or rituals or trappings to be helpful and/or beautiful. And I wonder about the evolved need in humans for some kind of religion. The music so often draws us in. Amazing Grace can make me weep and is beyond Christianity or dogma in some profound way I have witnessed again and again in my work with elders. It is deeply human. We want to grab onto something, and as you write about here so well, the market is right there to sell us the icons, the creeds, the holy days. I wrote a song many years ago called Graven Images about the human need to find meaning and even love through artifacts ranging from a "GI Joe with flowers around his neck" to pagan goddess figurines to old movie icons. I come back again and again to thinking the way out of religion and how much it harms us is through direct contact with nature. So many of the PITT parents have found that to be helpful with their gender-confused kids.
Another excellent article, many thanks. So much to think about, as usual. This beautifully written passage of yours says it all really, so much in it about the sad truth of our modern lives: "This bland beer has Dylan Mulvaney’s face on it, that’s how you know you are drinking an inclusive brand of beer. Drink it and pretend to like it and you will feel better about living in country that has endless cheap beer while the climate changes and kids dig up the rare earth metals for your cell phone using their bare hands in a toxic mudhole."
So many great insights in this piece, Matt. Food for thought, being a life-long left-coaster who has explored many "spiritual" paths to help me deal with life and find my own ground of belief. How much have I been simply subject to marketing? In the early 90s, one friend described new age religion as "Christianity Lite,' which always struck me as funny and true. I do not trust religion, but I sometimes find the framings or rituals or trappings to be helpful and/or beautiful. And I wonder about the evolved need in humans for some kind of religion. The music so often draws us in. Amazing Grace can make me weep and is beyond Christianity or dogma in some profound way I have witnessed again and again in my work with elders. It is deeply human. We want to grab onto something, and as you write about here so well, the market is right there to sell us the icons, the creeds, the holy days. I wrote a song many years ago called Graven Images about the human need to find meaning and even love through artifacts ranging from a "GI Joe with flowers around his neck" to pagan goddess figurines to old movie icons. I come back again and again to thinking the way out of religion and how much it harms us is through direct contact with nature. So many of the PITT parents have found that to be helpful with their gender-confused kids.
Another excellent article, many thanks. So much to think about, as usual. This beautifully written passage of yours says it all really, so much in it about the sad truth of our modern lives: "This bland beer has Dylan Mulvaney’s face on it, that’s how you know you are drinking an inclusive brand of beer. Drink it and pretend to like it and you will feel better about living in country that has endless cheap beer while the climate changes and kids dig up the rare earth metals for your cell phone using their bare hands in a toxic mudhole."