Category Archives: Friends

Faith

This morning I started thinking about faith, and what that means to me. I’ll get into how I started thinking about later on, but I figured I’d start with some clarifications.

I don’t have faith in gods, or religion, and I find it somewhat farcical that people do. As an atheist, I just find the idea of trusting in some higher power to come to your aid to be ridiculous – even the worst holy texts usually have some message of “God helps those who help themselves” and religion is supposed to supply a willpower and drive to help one attain their goals, not be a wish-fulfilment strategy.

I work with religious colleagues (which has had its own interesting tales) and what I usually see is that their religion is a background thing, something that supports them without being their drive. I can respect that, and they respect my lack of it, and it works quite well.

But that isn’t what I meant to talk about. What I meant to talk about was that while I don’t have faith in the traditional sense[1], I still hold faith – I have faith in people.

Now, that shouldn’t be taken in a “I have faith in humanity” sense or a “I have faith that people will usually do the right thing” sense because both those statements are to one degree or another, bollocks. It’s very difficult to have faith in someone you don’t know, and that is part of the problem with faith – it’s a “complete trust or confidence” and giving that without knowing someone is difficult.

Particular examples of people I have faith in are some of my friends who are having some trouble right now. One of them is facing various difficulties and is worrying about whether they’ll be able to attain their goals given all of the obstacles that keep coming up along the way. I have faith that they will achieve those goals, and that they’ll be stronger for it (and I’m doing my best to help clear away some of the obstacles); I have faith that they’ll pull through despite the odds and get everything they wanted. The second person is having their own troubles – facing off against difficult health issues that it’s difficult to go through alone, and harder to ask for help with. I have faith that they will get through it, that they’ll overcome the hardships, and that they trust me to help where I can. It’s much more difficult to help in this case, but I have to have faith that they know that they have my support and that they will tell me when they want me to be involved (or I’d go crazy).

And that’s why I wanted to make this post: not to espouse on my religious views (or lack of them), and not to make a statement, but to let them know that I have faith in them and I will continue to support them as best as I can. I have faith in my friends, and sometimes you have to remind them of that.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. While American dictionaries seem to list the religious definition first, I hold to the Oxford Dictionary definition which lists “Complete trust or confidence in someone or something” as the primary meaning of faith

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

So I read two of the books. Then saw the film. That may have been a mistake.

The film does bear a resemblance to the book, but it may well be easier listing what they got right than what they got wrong (Most of the first third was accurate enough). Went to see it with Ailsa, Tara and Suzanne, and Ailsa was immensely unimpressed – but she’s geeking out massively about it; it’s entertaining to watch.

The film was enjoyable, but it doesn’t follow the book plot except in the vaguest sense. They reveal things from the second and third books, and added whole new parts cut whole cloth that weren’t even in the book, as well as redeeming one of the villains.

Still, it wasn’t a bad film – it just wasn’t the book. It’s likely going to be the next Twilight in terms of films (and audience), but has several things up on Twilight. For a start, the main character is actually pretty badass and doesn’t just wilt in the presence of danger and wait for her hero to rescue her. And vampires are mean, like they should be (as well as being beautiful creatures of the night).

I would probably recommend not seeing it with a bunch of impressionable teenage girls – they may shriek at the sight of Jace being badass.

Kick-Ass 2

Otherwise known as “Ass-Kick” or “The Ass-Kicker”. You’ll get it if you’ve seen it.

Went to see it with Sam, Andy, Andy and … I forget. It was a good film, I was entertained and I had quite a lot of fun, though I didn’t manage to see Luke in the big fight scene (I assume he was masked). It was hugely predictable, but that doesn’t matter – not when it’s done well.

There was character growth, and idiocy, and some really dodgy name choices on the part of the bad guys. I mean… yeh…

I don’t really have a lot to say about it, apart from apparently there was something after the credits and I missed it… Argh!

IoD National

So it turns out I’m really bad at updating this regularly. Who’d have thought that? Oh wait, I did.

So let’s try this again. This last weekend, I went down to Buckden for the IoD National. Having found out a few days beforehand that I wasn’t playing any of the games like I thought I had been, I was in a surprisingly good mood.

On the Friday, I co-ST’d/NPC’d Geist, then NPC’d/ST’d Awakening before spending the evening playing board games and drinking cocktails (thank you Matt Sanderson). The games were fun and I met some new people through the process of NPC’ing with them and ST’ing for them. Then there was the Mage soft RP session late at night which had both some surprising IC and OOC results…

Saturday morning, I was back to NPC’ing/ST’ing Awakening which was interesting, followed by the AGM. After that, I had a bit of a breakdown. I’m not entirely sure what caused it. A perceived exclusion, a lot of noise… I just ran out of cope. I held myself together enough to get to the NPC brief for Forsaken and I took longer than I should have to get in character – it was just a lot of effort to get into costume. I’m glad I did though, as I had quite a lot of fun ranting about the unnatural abomination that was my alpha (all in fun, no real-world views given). After that, I didn’t feel like doing much but I got caught by Reb as I went to go get some of my stuff and he convinced me to NPC for him. So glad I did – I haven’t had that much fun with a character in years… Apologies to any Lost players I may have creeped out.

Sunday brought about packing and some vague NPC’ing, but I was mostly just providing some continuity as I didn’t have much I could connect to and I couldn’t bring myself to stay in character for an extended period.

Then the long journey home.

Still, I had more fun that I expected, and I met some lovely people I hadn’t met before and reconnected with some lovely people I hadn’t seen properly in a while. All-in-all, an excellent weekend.

Pacific Rim and Arya

Today, I skipped out on going to the Glasgow Isles of Darkness games to spend the afternoon with Hanna and Arya, who were up visiting. It’s the second time I’ve been around Arya, and the first time I’ve actually spent any time with her, and she is adorable. We had a dance around Cosmos while Hanna got some food and she was an absolute darling.

Well, up until we got into the cinema. We went to see Pacific Rim and Arya objected to this idea not long after it started. Since she wouldn’t quieten down, Hanna took her out, but insisted I stay to watch the film. And it was a good film. I want to see it in IMAX 3D now – just to watch it be even more epic. Yes, the plot is a little straightforward and cliché, but what did you expect from a film that essentially revolves around giant robots fighting giant monsters?

And in the immortal words of the Megas XLR theme: “Who digs giant robots? I dig giant robots! We dig giant robots! Chicks dig giant robots! Nice.”