Sunday, November 18, 2007

Steering Perception, I Am

So. Why do I call myself The Lost Prophyt? Why did I choose a pen name based on a band who's only song I know is on the Need for Speed Underground soundtrack? Why did I use a Y? Why create the identity at all?

Deserves a bit of rationale, dun'it?

Alright then, here goes. Yes, the band was a bit of an influence. lostprophets rock, no doubt about it. But I've really only ever heard one of their songs, and it's fairly good, but nothing I'd burn onto a CD and jam in the car over and over. Normally, my mood determines if I keep it on the playlist in the game or not. But adding lost to prophet carries much more meaning than just that.

It's well known that I'm something of a Secular Humanist. A Prophet is a figure attached to religion. Because I could see myself as something of a (very, very, very minor) prophet, but for the human race, not for any specific deity. I don't preach the "obey" power trip like Jesus (yes, he was just a prophet) or Mohammad. In fact, I don't really preach at all. I think and speak for all our good, as a collective, IMHO. Slight societal changes, easily implimented, that could actually bring about a more well-thought out world view.

Lost plays in, given my status outside of the "norm" of the religious establishments. I am neither Christian, nor Muslim, nor Bhuddist, nor Satanist, nor Wiccan, nor Jedi, nor Pastafarian. No, to them, I'd be seen as a sort of lost soul, wandering without the love of their own chosen deity, a person to be actively "saved" to the point where you tell your own Aunt to fuck off. Yeah, I've fallen that far from the tree. Oh well. So I'm a lost sheep. Trick is, I ain't no sheep. I'm a human fucking being.

So, lost and outnumbered, I quietly spread the idea that, if we just gave up on the lunacy and corruption of religion, we might stand a chance to grow, develop, and eventually save ourselves as one collective race, not a collection of whack-job factions with delusions of superiority over the others.

Is that so bad?

Look. I don't care what happens after I die. Why should I? I'll be dead! Can't care when you're dead, right? I'm not worried about my "soul" or any such hooey-blah. Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen spelled out my basic philosophy on the silver screen in Peter Jackson's monumental Lord of the Rings Trilogy:

Frodo: I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
So true.

Who cares about what happens after. It's what you do now that counts. So, I am The Lost Prophet. I'm voicing my view, just like everyone else. Whether folks catch on or not, that's up to them. But, in the end, I just can't be silent.

And I guess some of you are reading, whether it's my secular humanistic PoVs, my often-odd video posts, funny little anecdotes from life at large, when I take a side on an important issue, or whatever. Thanks for showing up, and thanks for listening, whether you agree or not. I bid you all welcome...

And hey, a hit from Brazil... Gui, is that you?!?

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