Random D&M Thoughts

headscarves. I feel incredibly intolerant lately. I’m unsure if the way I’m thinking is being intolerant, or if I’m feeling guilty for no reason.
Until recently I had not really come across women who not only wear headscarves, but who then have another covering over their mouths and noses, so they only part of the face that is seen is the eyes. Of course I’ve seen pictures of people wearing such things, but it is different being confronted by such things in person. And I do find it confronting. Every time I see it I shudder.
Am I being intolerant? I don’t know. I don’t have a problem with the muslim religion. But I certainly don’t think that total body covering is required in order to be a good muslim. I think I react so strongly when I see it because it feels like these women are dressing in that way through fear. No man would let anyone tell him to cover all his body! Have these women been led to believe that women are inherently inferior creatures, that they have less rights than men. Why is it that the men can show their faces but the women cannot? Are the men in their families telling these women they are sinfula and evil if they show their face? What motivates it? And how can it be allowed in society today?
I agree with freedom of expression, but I can’t believe that these women are free to express themselves and they choose to cover everything but their eyes. I cannot see freedom in that action.

I consider myself to be in limbo these days. In more ways than one. I am stuck in the middle of cultures, in between jobs, and, most relevant to this post, in confusion about beliefs. I really hate limbo. And I can get out of it in some ways in terms of jobs. I can choose a path and follow it until I can’t anymore. It is the limbo of beliefs that really gets me down.
I can’t help feeling frustrating. I was once someone with strong beliefs. I’m sure that is evident from some of my previous posts. I am not that person anymore. But now I’m stuck in the middle, not quite believing but not quite disbelieving. For some this would not be a problem. But it bothers me. And I am especially bothered because I can’t work out how to choose a side. There are people I could talk to about the problem, but inevitably anyone I talk to will bring their own beliefs into the conversation. Talking to a believer, they are naturally going to feel that God holds the answer to end my confusion. An atheist will naturally bring to the table the conviction that I will feel more certain if I stop living for some imaginary force and start to live for myself.

So here I continue to be; Stuck in the middle and not a clue how to resolve my dilemma.

I had a thought recently. Thinking deeply can be a bit like playing the game Jenga. You know. You have a stack of blocks piled up, each row made up of 3 blocks. The challenge is to remove the blocks one by one and not make the tower fall. For an extra challenge you then have to place each block you remove on the top of the tower. This means that as you go along the tower gets more and more precarious while also getting higher and higher.

So how is this remotely like deep thinking? Well, it is! I’m a deep thinker, always have been. I went to university expecting that I would know more by the end. If you want to come out of university feeling that you know more I recommend that you don’t study philosphy. I find that for me all that happened was that I ended even more confused about what is right and what is wrong. In other words I came out with a whole lot of knowledge all stacked up on top of itself, but it was like in that process I had been eroding the stuff I thought I knew for certain.

For me this was to do with religion, but it is a theory by no means restricted to religion. It has been happening down the ages. People believed that the earth was flat. Then some deep thinkers started to challenge the whole idea and eventually that belief was challenged. People believed that the sun revolved around the earth, and look what happened to that idea. Smashed flat! any time you meet someone with a different way of seeing the world you are potentially pulling another block out of the foundation of the tower of your knowledge and understanding.

So now I have a question. You suddenly realise you are eroding your deeply held belief system. Now what? Is it better  to stop while the beliefs are still standing, no matter that the foundation is precarious, or is it better to let the belief system topple and then take on the scary and uncertain task of rebuilding?

I’m fascinated by the way my body responds to things. In particular the way my body responds to romantic and tender moments in movies or tv shows. I watch something that is romantic or tender and caring between 2 people who love each other and I feel a physical response. My fingers tingle. My heart feels like it jumps.

This physical response is basically instantaneous and is definitely not something I can choose or control. I know I enjoy it somehow, but there’s nothing especially pleasurable about it. How does my body respond to something that is an emotional trigger? And why does my body respond? Is it that I am lonely and crave this sort of moment in my own life? That explains the emotional response but not the physical response. Is it a sexual response? Something that if it continued would lead to sexual arousal? It is believed that sexual arousal in women is in stimulated significantly by emotion, so I suppose it’s possible. I just don’t know.