it's not like you killed someone.

when i argue a point of religion with my mother, we usually get nowhere because she's the kind of person who doesn't argue to the specifics of the issue at hand. instead of this:

our arguments always, without question, end up like this:

and i can't help but wonder to myself whether it's just the inner troll in me which keeps the argument going, for the sake of arguing. often, the subject of religion is not the point of the original argument, but a slice of the problematic cake that is my existence in her life. an odd metaphor, no? allow me to break it down for you:

our knowledge about this problem is that it's going to be one or more slices of this here cake of my apparent abundance of personality flaws:

however, my mother has this frustrating tendency to serve me up the entire cake when it comes to my attempts to reason with her and calmly explain why she is in fact entirely wrong. illustrated example.


and so all of my other apparent flaws somehow make me wrong for choosing to seek a more self-directed existence. "you're atheist and you're fat! look how fat you are! no wonder you have no friends!" and so we move away from point a, enter point b, and make our way around the whole alphabet until we both come to the conclusion that this argument will have no resolution because one side cannot listen and the other's opinion simply doesn't matter enough to be listened to.

wow, did i seriously just spend an hour talking about argument cakes?

so once i've had enough of the arguing, i'm left to contemplate silently my utter confusion surrounding how on earth this woman, let alone anyone out there with access to the global information database, could live a life without questioning the existence of and eventually moving forward from this profoundly stupid, dull lifestyle scam. ricky gervais said it best: 'do unto others' is a great rule of thumb. you won't burn in hell for all eternity, but be nice anyway. so that about sums up my thoughts at 5am monday morning. my father is on the phone to his work colleagues. it's a great time for those working in emergency management. so if you don't hear from me again before cyclone yasi annihilates us all: viva la disbelievers! yvette out!