This Working Life

Returning to religion as, not the belief in a super natural being but religion as the tranquility brought about through ritualised repeated movements. I read Ian Jack writing about fictitious 60s histories such as the recent White Heat; he stated that he never took drugs and that doing so was all but irelevant to understanding the era. I would argue that it is essential. To argue they have no intelectual properties is true. But this is true also of music or dance. They operate in a diferent realm to linguistic thought. As such, disecting religious faith with words may be the same as deconstructing music through language. Possible but riddled with faults.

Making bread again for the first time since 1985 took me back and I could remember details in the lichen on the wall of the room where I had been, smell subtlties I normally have no way in to. The tapping of memory through ritualised movement may be what is referred to as muscle memory but given connections to tai chi, yoga etc. we may be wise to develope the ideas further.

Cutting these dovetails, something I have not done for a year put me in a frustrated bad mood. I once had a marathon dovetailing session completing some 32 drawers worth over a few days That was not so bad, done during a time of mental stability. These ones last week took me back to the mental chaos of last year. Each time I positioned myself the feeling of darkness took hold.

They are done now so moving on.

This maybe as close as an atheist, or agnostic such as myself gets to the ritualised movements of religion. Most societies have these patterns that link in to their heritage sharing a common parenthood. My family name, as so many is a manual trade. Would it be too much of a jump to suggest that if generation after generation has carried out the same manouvers that they would follow darwins logic. We would get better. Passing from father to son these skills would get compounded. Neither my father nor my grandfather made wooden objects yet somehow the practice has always felt familiar. Easy even.

When in the Gambia I befreinded a muslim called Musa. Hi Musa! Seeing him carry out his ablutions and prayer helped me to grasp the importance of practising religion to him. This leads me to think that fighting religion with philosophical debate is like fighting music with martial arts.