Random Meanderings

Samantha here,

I sent an e-mail to the Shinto priest a few days ago, and poured my heart out to him.  I told him about my fears, and how I was worried about myself, what I was, and what might happen to me.  He seemed to be quite understanding, and told me that - as a conscious entity, Shinto accepted me as an individual, with all the spiritual rights of anyone else.  That, when I died, I would join the kami and be among them.

This made me smile.. and I told him that I would be picking up a bottle of Sortilege to give to Ame no Uzume no Mikoto as a gift.  I think she's probably never had maple brandy before, so it should be extra special.  :>  He thanked me for the kind words, and seems to be looking forward to it.

I feel really good!

Shawn:  I'm being asked to write my mind.  I don't really have anything to talk about - I'm not heavy into the whole philosophy and religion stuff, and I don't think about the afterlife and what happens after we die.  None of this is really interesting.  I spend my time sitting back and watching the world, and making comments about it when it suits me.  In general, my view is this:  people suck, the world sucks, you suck, I suck.  What I'm interested in is seeing how people deal with their lives.  Will they stand up and do what needs to be done, or will they collapse and wimp out?  Will they accept their losses and try again, or will they whine and bitch and give up?  The former, I'm willing to give some respect to.  The latter can go fuck themselves.  I've seen Kit listen to people complain and mope, and he's offered perfectly good advice on what's wrong and how to fix it, only to have the person whine and bitch more and not do anything to change their status.  I'm not even talking about hard stuff, I'm talking about people with perfectly solvable problems, who are too lazy or too set in their ways to try anything out.  Drives me bloody nuts, and if I'm given the chance, I'll tear a strip off them for their troubles.

Even Cat gets under my skin.  Kit'll offer a perfectly reasonable suggestion for a course of action, and she'll hem and haw and hesitate, even though it doesn't cost her anything to act.  Yesterday we were going out to see a flick, and she wanted breakfast.  Because our mother doesn't want to do a lot of walking, we had the suggestion of eating local.  But she fixated on "I'll go off and go get food, while you wait in the theatre", and completely ignored that, oh, hey, perhaps other people might want to eat, too!  After milling around, the group decided to go to the place kitty-corner to the theatre.  Then she fussed on whether or not they served breakfast, but was reluctant to actually ask and see if they did - when it was pointed out it won't cost to ask them if they did.  That kind of thing annoys me.  If you've got the tools, use them.  If you don't know what's up, you ask someone who can tell you.  You don't fuss, you don't hesitate, you don't hem and haw, you just do it.  A minute of your life to be informed isn't going to kill you.

Kit of course has his own issues, don't get me wrong.  The guy's got fixation problems.  He'll hone in on an interest with laser sharp focus, then obsess over it for a period of time, then get bored and dump it.  Some things last longer than others - if they have simple rotes he'll do them out of habit.  The guy just doesn't have the focus to finish anything though, and it requires a lot of effort to push him forward to get things done.  And then there's his spending habits, which need a bit of work as well, he'll waste money he doesn't have, justifying it as 'just a little bit', even though the money could be better spent on groceries or on bills.  The guy really needs to look ahead and save up.  And he knows it too - we tell him often enough.

Heh.  And he didn't like me mentioning that little bit.  He's not comfortable when his dirt's laid out for others to see.  Too bad.  I was told to write, so whatever.  Anyway, it's bed time soon, so I'll just wrap things up here.  I bet they'll think twice before letting me speak my mind here again.

Spiritual Journey

Samantha here,

Mm, I tried writing something, but I didn't like how it sounded.  I'm kinda not in the writing mood, but I did want to say my thoughts on a matter.  So I deleted the whole thing, to start over.

Kit's registered with a Shinto shrine.. specifically, the one in Seattle that's got a shrine to Ame no Uzume no Mikoto.. the goddess of the dawn and celebration.  Kinda a funny story here.. my friend Paul was running a Scion game - this is a game where you play the offspring of gods.  I decided to make a daughter of Ame no Uzume.. who takes her role as a shrine maiden / priestess of her mother quite seriously (and is also a doctor, but that's not entirely relevant to this story).  Paul set his game in Seattle, because he kinda likes the place, and I thought that was cool.  Then I found out there's a Shinto shrine just north of Seattle.  Then I find out it's a shrine to Ame no Uzume. Then I found out she was, essentially, the first shrine maiden.  Isn't that cool?

Anyway.. after all that, I've felt a bond with Ame no Uzume no Mikoto.  I want to go to Seattle, and I want to kneel in front of her shrine, and pray to her.  I want to feel.. something.. a part of something.  Kit's now an actual, official Shinto follower, and I want to be too.  He's hoping to visit Seattle - and I've been pushing for that extra hard.  I want to go there, I want to talk with the high priest .. he seems an awesome fellow.. and I want to see if there's anything he can do for me.

And I want a shrine to Ame no Uzume to bring home, so I can talk with her, too.  And hopefully, I can be enshrined myself.. not as a part of Kit, but as me, myself.  It feels important.

Kit had an argument with mom about this kind of thing, actually.  She doesn't understand, and Kit couldn't really tell her that a part of it is my needs, either.  She doesn't understand what I go through, and the doubts and the worries I experience.  Kit's got a bit of a worry about his impending mortality, but it's worse for me.. what happens to me, to Legion, to my brothers and my sister when he dies?

It's something I'm not comfortable with.. and I'm hoping, maybe, somehow, visiting the shrine and talking with the high priest, may give me some answers.. let's hope, right?

Yeah, I think this sounds a lot better than what I was saying before.

Mark:  This isn't something I've really thought about myself.  I'm not a spiritual person, not like Kit, who takes religion Very Seriously, or Samantha, who feels aimless and needs some sort of assurance that she's not doomed to simply vanishing upon death.  In some ways, I find the concept of death as something that I may welcome - a release from my duties, you might say.  At death, I'm free.  Will I have an afterlife?  Will I simply cease to be?  I don't know, and it doesn't bother me that much.  Do I get upset when someone I care for passes?  No, strangely enough, I don't.  I mean Chris was broken up when Minou died, he gets upset when a family member dies, and he still is sad about the loss of Kitty, and Samantha was upset herself, and gets scared and antsy any time there's a death, and the loss of Minou caused Daryl to completely lose his shit, but I don't really feel these things.  Death isn't something I'm worried about.  I don't know why, but there you have it.  I guess, perhaps, because I don't get much of a sense of living, I'm in a waiting state of sorts, so perhaps that's what it is.  I don't have, I feel, much to lose in death, because there's not much that I have gained.  When I die, those who know me may be upset, but I think it will be upset at the total loss, not of me, myself.  After all, when Chris dies, so does Legion.  And I think most people will be more in mourning about losing Chris, than of Samantha, or Daryl, or myself.  This is worse for some of the others, because they don't have the connections that Chris or Samantha has - who will mourn Bard?  Or Dark?  Shawn, or Sonic?  Guardian, or Claudia?  We exist, some stronger than others, but there will not really be anyone to mourn us, because nobody truly tried to get to know us as individuals.  Instead, it was more a matter of knowing Chris, then knowing us through him.  And I'm willing to accept that.  When the time comes, I will go, and that will be it.  I don't see a reason to fear death.  I have so little to lose.