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I’ve set up a personal rule that all English posts should be posted here rather than in this blog. But I have a ‘Thoughts In English’ category here, so I figured ‘why not’. It’s just so hard to write so eloquently about this matter in my mother tongue, but I don’t really know why I want to post it here.
So the deal is, after my declaration of my newfound love for non-fiction books on I’ve been reading ‘God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything’ by Christopher Hitchens. The book consists of many stuff and references that only scholars know (read: I know shite about these stuff, I bought the book merely because the title is so provocative and the fact that the cover is yellow. Don’t ask further, I have a thing for yellow books). I’m just up to the third chapter, where the author talks about how most religions (including mine, surprisingly) despises pigs, swine, bacon whatever.

The strange (and slightly) scary thing is, so far the stuff this guy talks about, makes sense to me. I don’t consider myself a religious person, but I do believe in God and to me, anything regarding to faith is not to be questioned by anyone.

And now I am so freaking tempted to put the book inside a freezer like Joey from Friends did when he read ‘Little Women’. It’s strange how I want so much to keep on reading, but wanting so much to stop at the same time. I’ve alternated my reading material with Woody Allen’s Side Effects, recently given to me by a good friend. The humor doesn’t seem to kick in enough to shake my preoccupations away.

It is really like standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down, knowing that jumping is stupid but you can’t stop wondering as you swim inside some survivor’s head. This is the thing I don’t like about reading serious stuff (albeit the ‘entertaining’ crap they put on the reviews on the back cover). I am forced to enter the realms of some stranger’s thoughts and it’s not always pleasant. It’s better to swim in a trashy mind, like I did with Eat Pray Love. This guy’s mind… is new untouched grounds for me, yet totally unapologetic.

Some say ‘don’t play with fire’, but some other say ‘live on the edge’. I think I am the latter. With an invisible harness called faith.

I told my friend Mr. J, that I am reading this book, and he said:

“There is absolutely a God, and He is indeed great. The thing is we don’t need anybody telling us HOW to worship Him.”

That’s pretty much what I have in mind for the last 29 years.

Maybe the giddiness I got from reading the book is caused by exactly this. In the midst of my not wanting to be told how to worship, I came across a book telling me bluntly that no worshiping is necessary at all. And it makes me somewhat angry, but I don’t realize that I was angry, and it’s all manifested in a series of confusion.

I am not hating the book like I hated Eat Pray Love. I read the disclaimer before starting to read it, made my peace with it and haven’t finished it yet. All I am saying is, it’s hard to agree nor disagree. The only thing I regret is not sticking by the humor genre. I am so not made for these kind of books. There’s no point flirting with it when I already choose never to act on it anyway.

But again, strangely, the more I say it, the more I delve into it. I guess it’s human nature to play with fire.

Oh well, to avoid getting burned, I’m putting the book in the freezer.

Woody Allen here I come.

PS: And I still think Thou rock, God. Nevermind what some people say about Thee.