Thursday, April 18, 2013

Science? Or marketing BS?

my soap and bath bombs
So we sell this product and a few others like it at work, it's a Scientific Explorer Spa "Science" Kit (the quotes around science are mine.) Now I'm a bit conflicted with this, on one hand it's perhaps a way to interest girls in science and chemistry by having them make something they enjoy. On the other it reinforces the idea that if a girl is going to interested in science, it better be the science of making her pretty, because that's really what matters. Now don't get me wrong, you all know I love making stuff like this, recently Jen, Colleen, Jack and I all made our own cold process soap, bath fizzies (which I left in the plastic bag instead of taking them out to finish drying so they all expanded and stuck together which is why they look like blobs, they still work though), and body butters. I bought a bunch of fragrance oils and I made different scents, I love this stuff. But I'm not sure that these kinds of kits are really about science or girls learning science. I even opened one at work to see if there was any actual science inside, and there was, a bit. In the instructional booklet there is a paragraph about how the olfactory system works, not too bad, and a survey the child can fill out about of how the scents affected them, (basically aromatherapy) which is an experiment I guess but seems a bit iffy scientifically to me. Mostly the text went on about yummy smells, pampering, that sort of thing. I read some reviews on amazon and it seems I'm not alone in feeling these toys are in fact sending the wrong message. Most of the other science kits are fairly gender neutral and usually have both a boy and a girl on them doing science-y things, only one bothers me though, it's a chemistry set and the boy on the front is looking into a microscope at a bug (that's sounds like biology not chemistry but whatever) but the girl is looking at some sparkly rainbow pinwheel thing and the caption near her says "It's chemistry! Make beautiful ornaments!" While his caption says "Perform tons of activities and experiments!" Hmmm... Now I don't have any kids but what do you all think about this? Gender bias and weasel marketing or no big deal?

The other product that really bothers me is this Plaid iron on transfer for babies. It reads "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" Really? I mean I realize the babies can't read the damn thing but what disturbs me is that people think it's cute and funny. I don't think is either of these things, is anyone else as disturbed by this kind of thing as I am?

I'm sooo changeable!

I changed my mind on the whole 365 thing, I take photos of things when I think they need to be photographed, trying to take a photo of anything just to make sure I get a photo for the day seems counterproductive. It's not really laziness anyone who knows me knows when I find something to photograph, it gets Photographed. Besides, I want my blog to be more than crappy photos...

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Project365

Green BudsMares Tail 1Fable 3

Project365 , a set on Flickr.
So I am attempting to do Project 365 again, hopefully I will have better luck with a decent camera phone and a newly upgraded Flickr account, than I did last time. I take enough pictures randomly almost every day that this should be a no brainer. We'll see ;) I think I will post a link to my P365 Flickr set maybe once or twice a week, this way my whole blog won't be all pictures all the time.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A fairly important revelation

So after a lot of soul searching, deep thinking, having angry debates with myself, and late night theological discussions with a few trusted friends I have come to a realization:

 I'm not a theist anymore.

I know now that this has been brewing for a while but my mind was rebelling against the idea for a long time, and trying to quell the increasing cognitive dissonance I was experiencing (which was surprisingly very stressful) made me a bit techy on the whole subject so I would shove it away and try not to think about it. Which makes sense really, it's difficult to discard a 20 year old worldview! At first, the thought of no gods made me feel a bit ill and lost and almost panicky in a weird way, but slowly the idea grew a bit and started to make sense. The process was gradual but I think inevitable.

I’ve never really felt the presence of the gods and for a while I thought it was just a matter of finding the right pantheon or something. I admit I’ve never been a very good polytheist, because even though I never disbelieved in them, I wasn’t about to put up with any shitty behavior from any deity either. My rule was the same one I have for pets; if a human can’t get away with it neither can you, and I maintained that if the deity didn’t like it they could sod off and I told them so frequently. But then I realized I wasn’t getting any type of behavior from them, no reaction whatsoever, no cosmic smackdown, no signs or portents, but also no positive changes in my life I could ascribe to the sacrifices and prayers I was offering either.

So naturally I thought it was me, oh everybody else has these deep meaningful relationships with all sort of deities and here I am with nothing maybe I’m not trying hard enough, I don’t give them enough stuff, time, energy, maybe I’m not pious enough.....

Or maybe, a small voice whispered in my mind, they don’t respond because they simply aren’t there. For once this idea didn't send me into panicky irrational anger and I actually thought about it. The few times I thought I had gotten some sort of a sign from a god could be easily explained by coincidence and pareidolia. And the one thing that has always bothered me, if there were gods why didn’t they do more to make themselves known and have more influence in the world, and I mean real, measurable, and objective influence? What was their purpose and why should I bother with them if they didn’t actually do anything? I never assumed they were a sort of cosmic vending machine that just gave you things on demand but I was doing my part, rituals and offerings and got....radio silence. Perhaps, the voice continued, you should put all that time and energy into people and things that need it here and not waste it on invisible sky people and constantly making yourself unhappy looking for something that isn’t there? And as irreverent and blunt as the voice had been, instead of feeling ill and lost I feel like great weight had been lifted off of me and a sense of peace replaced it and I knew in that moment that this was the right thing. If you will pardon me quoting myself here “It's amazing how beautiful the world looks when you stop looking for something that isn't there.” The war was over and my brain stopped trying to split itself in half. If anything I felt a greater sense of awe and numinousness looking at the night sky and the trees and in the feeling of the wind on my cheek because these things were now complete in themselves without any expectations of something I was missing that would somehow make them “better” or “more.” Which is why I still feel the wilds are still numinous to me and I will continue to wander them as always but with a renewed sense of appreciation and a very different perspective.

Now what this means in regards to my paganism remains to be seen. I still have a deep love of nature and can still fit the circle of the year into celebrating the turning of the seasons and how they impact our lives, but aside from that I’m not sure there is anything left for me there. I’m not really interested in the paranormal anymore, I stopped believing in astrology and magick a while back so no loss there, I don’t really even feel like interpreting the gods as archetypes or metaphors, the way many naturalistic or humanistic pagans seem to, I don’t see the point of it to be honest. I will still honor the dead but at this point I am pretty sure it’s their memory I’m honoring and keeping alive rather than having them visit from some afterlife, but that’s not a point I’m going to stress too much over. I still love my Grove but I am unsure exactly how I still fit into it at least theologically (well theologically I don't) but I suppose that will be something to be discussed. That is really the only part of this that really bothers me, that is the loss I will feel most keenly. But everything changes and who knows what the future may bring?