This week I'm writing more on Spook as I've spent my long weekend immersed in magazines and trashy teen novels (don't judge me). I did make some progress on the book and just finished a chapter on the author enrolling in a school for psychic readings.
Her verdict is that both the psychic and the reader only believe that what is being said is true. It's not that the supposed fortune-teller is trying to deceive people; they honestly believe that they have a gift. This belief in themselves, in turn, stems from the receivers willingness to accept that the broad fortune that they were told is true. It reminds me of that one picture where a hand is drawing itself on a piece of paper. Let's see if I can attach that with my blog post to liven it up a little bit.
The only problem with this idea is that it applies to pretty much everything. We believe things because other people tell it to us, and since we accept them, they keep pushing the idea. The separation between a belief in the supernatural and the laws of gravity is scientific evidence, but people can slap "scientific proof" on everything. Every other month studies come out either denouncing soy milk or saying it has the same effect as skim milk (not that this concerns me since soy milk just plain tastes bad...) but you get my point. There are some absolute truths in which I whole-heartedly accept the scientific proofs, like the way the earth turns and the way a seed turns into a tree, but how much does this help us in our everyday lives? Actually, a good bit... With the knowledge that comes from things that are indisputably proven we can grow food, make shelters, stay warm, in essence, we can live. It's those things that concern our vanity, our curiosity, our boredom, and our lust that can't be proven.
Ok, that was an unorganized paragraph since it was just a train of thought, but this blog is just a series of things that I think after reading something, so I'm leaving it that way.
To continue with my mishmash of semi-epiphanies...
Should the knowledge that our materialistic existences has no solid reason or basis according to the way the world works stop us from pursuing them or is this another reason to? Is wearing the ridiculous concoctions passed off to us by designers just plain stupid or is it in fact a brilliant escape from life? Do we need to escape from life? Is it all that bad? Since food, shelter, and warmth is all set for spoiled littler suburban girls like me, is it wrong of me to decide that it's absolutely necessary to buy gold eye-shadow or is that what adds imperative hunting and triumph to my life?
Ok, I think I've reached my conclusion: Humans have an animal instinct to seek something, they want to find something, but that something has become hollow and useless since we are have everything that we need. We are the product of people who have thought everything out for us before. Unless we are brilliant enough to rise to a new level of thought (a quality only geniuses have, the rest of us just memorize what's spoon-fed to us) our existences are basically hollow. I don't know yet if I like living a pleasent and useless existence. I'm still weighing its pros and cons, I guess...
Now, how in the world did I get to this from reading Spook.....
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