The northlondonhippy

Like the title says, I’ve been think­ing about the ques­tions that will never have answers; I’ve been pon­der­ing the imponderable.

What do I mean, exactly?

What I mean is sim­ple: I’ve been think­ing about the stuff that we, and I mean humans, earth­lings, what­ever you would like to call us in the col­lec­tive “we”, will never ever know the answers to such sim­ple ques­tions as:

“Why are we here?”

“Where did the uni­verse come from?”

And more importantly…

“Do good hip­pies from north Lon­don go to heaven?”

Ok, I can answer that third ques­tion myself.

Hip­pies from north Lon­don, just like every other liv­ing crea­ture, just cease to exist when we die.

There is no heaven.

Any­one who claims oth­er­wise is quite frankly, full of shit.

Any­one who claims to the know the answers to the first two ques­tions is, espe­cially if they answer them with some sort of reli­gious mumbo-jumbo, also full of the same shit.

I’m smarter than all of those believ­ers, because I know that I will never know the answers to those first 2 ques­tions and fur­ther more, I’m very cer­tain that no one who is alive today or any­one that is born in the future will be able to answer them either.

That’s one of the things that makes me smarter than many peo­ple; I know there’s a lot more that I don’t know, than I do. No mat­ter how old I get, that will always be true.

I don’t know why we’re here, not for sure. No one ever really could.
If pushed for an answer, I would sur­mise that we’re here for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son, we just are. I take com­fort in that rather bleak assess­ment, because it is so lib­er­at­ingly honest.

I’m point­less; we all are.

We, the col­lec­tive we again, don’t serve a sin­gle pur­pose, unless the rap­ing and pil­lag­ing of the planet, and each other is our pur­pose, in which case we are kick­ing some seri­ous ass!

We add noth­ing to the uni­verse at large.

We may do things that enrich the lives of oth­ers, or our­selves, but that doesn’t ben­e­fit all of exis­tence, does it?

I can appre­ci­ate a Van Gogh paint­ing as much as the next guy, or a great song or a well-made film, but so what? Our lives and the lives of even the impor­tant, tal­ented and cel­e­brated of our species don’t mean shit in the con­text of the universe.

Life on our planet has only been around for a blink of an eye in cos­mo­log­i­cal terms. Intel­li­gent life has been around for a frac­tion of a frac­tion of that blink.

And by “intel­li­gent life”, I mean us and yes, I am using the term very loosely in this context.

In the scheme of the uni­verse, we are all noth­ing but flot­sam and jet­sam, or as Kansas once put it so suc­cinctly; “We are all just dust in the wind.”

How does it feel, hav­ing me tell you that you don’t mat­ter; that no one mat­ters? Do you hate me for speak­ing the truth so plainly?

If Jesus’s mes­sage were bleak as mine, would any­one still be fol­low­ing him today?

Where’s the hope, hippy? Where’s the hope?

I’m com­ing to that, because of course, my mes­sage actu­ally is, one of hope.

As I sit at my desk, in the mid­dle of the night, strug­gling to keep my eyes open and my brain engaged, I think about these things. I don’t know why we are here and it dri­ves me insane that I will never have the answers I seek.

I could seek them in reli­gion, for many peo­ple find com­fort in the fairy sto­ries offered by the major and minor reli­gions of our world.

But I won’t, I can’t; I’m not will­ing to accept the delu­sions of oth­ers mas­querad­ing as fact.

Think about your reli­gion if you have one, then apply some sim­ple log­i­cal think­ing to it and then ask your­self this ques­tion: Does it sound like some­thing made up by peo­ple for peo­ple, or by a god for people.

Every­thing I know about reli­gion smacks of man. Men invented all of the fables we are sold as fact. And I’m being very gen­der spe­cific in this ref­er­ence, because men are respon­si­ble for most, if not all that is fucked with our earthly existence.

Reli­gion, all reli­gion, was invented to keep peo­ple in line. If you don’t do what the bible says, god’s gonna get ya! He’s gonna get you but good!

Bull­shit!

Look up to the heav­ens right now and say the fol­low­ing out loud:

“Hey, god. Yes, you god. It’s me, the hippy (use your own name, dummy). You know, the one from north Lon­don (and use your own loca­tion!). You know what I think, god? You wanna know what I think?

I think you are a right fuck­ing cunt.”

Don’t worry; I’ve done this myself. Many times; often with an audience.

Actu­ally, it’s always bet­ter with an audi­ence and my dream is to one day be on a stage, deliv­er­ing a lec­ture or speech (upon accept­ing my sec­ond Pulitzer prize I hope), when I utter those offen­sive words, shout them really loud.

And then I sud­denly drop dead of a heart attack, live on stage!

Wouldn’t that just put the fear of our imag­i­nary god into everyone!

Hey, if I’m wrong and there is a god, I bet I get that sec­ond Pulitzer. He’ll do it just to show he’s got a sense of humour.

The point of this lit­tle oral exer­cise is a sim­ple one, to prove that god, whether he exists or not, doesn’t give a shit what you say or do.

Peo­ple do really get away with mur­der in this world and there never is divine retribution.

There is no god in my opin­ion, but if there were, he would be noth­ing like the way you pic­ture him. You couldn’t ever pic­ture him, because his form, shape, being, what­ever you would want to call it, is beyond the capa­bil­i­ties of the tiny lit­tle meat-based com­puter in your head.

Here’s the thing, if I’m telling you we won’t know the answers to any of these ques­tions, ever, then how can I be so sure there is no heaven? Isn’t that a hubris­tic contradiction?

Nope. Guess again.

There is no heaven. Heaven is an inven­tion of men; it doesn’t exist; it couldn’t pos­si­bly. You need to ask the right question.

Is there an afterlife?

Maybe, but I highly doubt it. It’s awfully unlikely, don’t you think?

Has any­one seen one shred of gen­uine evi­dence that our minds con­tinue on after our bod­ies die?

Notice I didn’t say “spirit” or “soul” because again, these are false con­cepts cre­ated by men.

I would love for some­one to prove that there is some form of life after death, but I think I have a bet­ter chance of those super-duper boffins com­ing up with a way to down­load my mind into a supercomputer.

And by the way, where can I sign up for that? I’d love to be hard­ware based, as long as I had a vir­tual tongue and cock, I’d be all set for eter­nity! And bring on the vir­tual spliffs!

Believ­ing in any of this requires some­thing I decid­edly lack and that’s faith. I have no faith, not in god, not in any­one else, not even in myself. Hey ho.

But where’s the hope?

I’m get­ting to it right now. Hope comes from free choice and free will.

You have the choice between being a decent per­son and being a bas­tard or bitch. You have the choice on how you view the world and how it views you. You alone have the abil­ity, the con­trol to choose a direc­tion for your existence.

We all do.

It doesn’t mat­ter who you are or where you are on the face of this planet, you can choose to do good and be good in every­thing you do.

I don’t care if you are the rich­est or the poor­est, the tallest or the short­est; the colour of your skin doesn’t mat­ter either; nor does the shape of your gen­i­tals, it all makes no dif­fer­ence.
In your own way, in your own life, you can choose to be a force of good.

Ok, tell me that is not hope­ful. Tell me that’s not life affirming!

Think about it; let it sink in, really deep.

In your every thought, your every action, you can strive to bring some­thing pos­i­tive to this world for the sim­ple, sat­is­fy­ing rea­son that it’s your choice to make!

Imag­ine if this was the “Ser­mon on the Mount” or if we could replace the “Ten Com­mand­ments” with this sim­ple approach.

Imag­ine if you heard this sim­ple mes­sage every day from when you were young. Imag­ine if we all did. What a won­der­ful world this would be and yes, Sam Cooke said that first.

Threats from god don’t stop peo­ple from lying, cheat­ing, steal­ing, killing or cov­et­ing thy neighbour’s wife, but my phi­los­o­phy might.

Do “good” because you can. Choose “good”, because there is really is no other choice; be good because it’s the right thing to do!

Imag­ine if every­one thought this way. We might actu­ally be able to turn things around before it’s too late.

We might be able to reverse global warm­ing, sort out all inter­na­tional con­flicts, ban­ish poverty, famine, dis­ease, small-mindedness and the stu­pid, point­less pro­hi­bi­tion on weed!

A hippy can dream.

So you see, I know it took some time, but we reached the hope­ful bit. Now, the rest is up to all of you.

Believe in your­selves, even if you have no faith.

Know that you are just as val­ued in the uni­verse as any­one else on the planet, no more and more impor­tantly, no less. Live your life as if oth­ers mat­ter; we share this planet.

In every­thing you say, every­thing you do, strive for there to be a ben­e­fit. Give more than you take, always.

Choose to be good, choose to do “good”, because the choice is yours alone to make. It’s what really sep­a­rates from the animals.

You see, that tagline at the top of your browser isn’t an idle boast. I truly am a mes­siah for the new millennium.

I think I’m ready for a spliff. I’ve earned it! Catch ya next time!