Novoreligious rant

Okay, hello again. A little less 'home' talk this time, more pop-philosophy.

In a sense this isn't about writing, but it is certainly the kind of thought that would get expression in something creative. Or, if not expression, it would lie latently but significantly behind the motivation and valuations.

This is 'philosophy' in the non-academic sense of the word. The kind of philosophy that deals not with a view of the world but with the way one approaches the world. The kind of boat that religion gets thrown into (by all sensible non-theists like myself).

Background: non-theism. Happy non-theism, yet occasionally marked with the sense that there could be more, something else. Not necessarily something that is missing - in the sense that one would melodramatically say missing is Love - just not having a good thing.

A good thing? Theism?
Why not?

1. God is fucking awesome.
(Sometimes.)
I just can't make myself have faith in any sort of divine reality. Shame.

2. Theism justifies all sorts of otherwise aberrant yet possibly desireable behaviour. Like all sorts of violence, racism, generally being nasty or negative about people or groups of people. Me? I have no excuse, I have no choice. (Though I do have theoretical freedom, it's hollow freedom - I am in no position to be asocial.)

3. A rich texture of symbolism and semiotics (meaning). Imagine that all of the literary history you treasure was ascribed a (divine!) reality! Imagine its power!
I have a fetish for religious symbolism - a longing desire to be affected by it. Largely unsatisfied and generally marginalised for that reason.

Enough background. I know it doesn't interest you.

The textfile I am looking it is titled 'novoreligion' (pretensious enough without capitalisation I thought).
It excites me. The most exciting part is the thought that it may not be a pipedream.

More history: I decided a month ago that I am rich. (Details unimportant.) Since then I've bought whatever I want. It's great! (Always fresh bread!) The best thing, though, is not the buying, it's the not-thinking about the money. I don't want to think about money. I want to be able to use it, not think about it.

Money is a necessity, it is beautifully functional. It is 'neutral'. But it can promote sickness.

I don't want money-sickness. I don't want to be a person for whom money is important. Those people sicken me and draw my pity. Sometimes it seems like I'm sick, but really I have too little to be sick. It is a sign, though, a sign I need to be careful. I plan my expenditure, and have an annual budget for significant expenses. It's good in that it means I don't need to 'worry' about them. But it can't be extended to spending in general. That promotes sickness.

One of the things I like to do most when I'm rich is spend frivolously. To me, richness isn't about money (I always have money - I know I'm contradicting myself), it's about excess of it.

Frivolous spending is central to novoreligious thought. Frivolous spending is the means to conquering money, to immunisation against money sickness. Right now I'm quite healthy - I lost $100 the other day and I was shocked at how little it bothered me. I had the 'that's a bad thing' idea, but not the sensation. I also lost $300 on Cadel Evans (bastard!), but to be honest I felt better having lost this year's gambling gains than I did making them. There's no pressure in loss, only the aftermath, and as long as you're able to protect your bottom line that's nothing to be afraid of.
Me, I have always been anal, my bottom line will always be fine.

To contextualise, novoreligion was basically born of the idea that we are all filthy, filthy rich. Don't deny it, you're a rich fucking fat cat. Any and all 'necessities' of life are taken as a given. You eat, sleep, breathe, fuck, whatever, essentially without any stress.
I know as well as you do that that is lame consolation: our needs and desires are formed to such a small degree by our biological or other 'necessities' that they deserve to be ignored. And that I am all for.
It's what we do about the other needs and desires that we have that is the object of religion, of philosophy - novoreligion. Novoreligion is about awareness and denial of the 'necessity' of these, particularly the commercial ones.

Pot-smoking 'freethinkers' and anti-commercial types are well and good - I hope they're happy and respect their decisions.

Rejecting commercial and social imperatives is arduous, perilous, impossible. Our reality is constructed of the narratives that we form - and we does not mean you, it means everyone, and those with fat $$$$ shout louder than you or I.

The solution? Not anticommercialism, but hypercommercialism. Novoreligion is the embrace of the excesses of hypercommercialism as a route to superceeding and conquering the attached commercial imperatives.

She works, she spends, she loses, and is freed by her excesses.

Novoreligion. It might be a rant but isn't it nice?