#numinosity

Numinus

-Real name: -

-A.k.a.:-

-Publisher: Marvel

-Type: Spirit/ Embodiment of numinosity

-Afilliations: -

This is not a prayer, nor an invocation, though it relates to both those things. It is a courtesy. It is to be said before opening a new book for the first time, before inserting a new game into its console, before a film starts that you have never seen.

The words are these: “Teach me, my cousins; I want to learn.”

Saying the words does not mean you must sweat to see value in muck and hear wisdom from fools. Some books are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Still, even then, you have learned something from them, even if it’s This is how stupid human beings may be.

And sometimes, sometimes-

Say the words and mean the words, and if you do not mean them, do not open the book or play the game or watch the film at all. That is the contract. What kind of person listens to the words of another and hears nothing, feels nothing, lets change nothing?

You are here to learn. To take something away with you.

So ask, to remind yourself of that. And ask politely.

We worship circles wherever we go, whatever we do, without even thinking, without even noticing.

We always return to our roots. We always return to ourselves.

I play video games to learn French. It's actually really tough. My favorite one is Planet Zoo. You know, many people want to be zookeepers I've heard. I can imagine why, it's really fun to work with animals I think, especially exotic animals. You know, last night I was thinking of the numinous. Numinosity is a concept introduced in the Western world of thought in the early 20th century. I believe it is a crucial concept: it points us to the spiritual difference of religion, that pushes us to do stuff like meditation, cryptic philosophy, prayer and reading the Bible. We want to connect with the numinous, and this can actually be a really practical question; religions offer us many ways to do this, like adhering to a particular lifestyle or reading the Bible. You know, I got up early today again, not necessarily to write, but this is my new philosophy: if I get up before eleven I will write my blog in the mornings. It's quite nice because then I can have the rest of the day off. You know, I really get to write nice things all the time, because I have a better process these days, but I still don't really know what to do when writing; you know, I want to do research, you know, to write nice things but I just can't think of anything to research; well, I guess I could study English history, I am interested in that, but it doesn't do me that much and I know a lot about it already. Right now I am listening to a Let's Play by GhazPlays, he is a really good Youtuber, but he doesn't have that many viewers, still, he is really productive; I was listening to an album called Haunted Mountain by a guy called Buck Meek just now, and I kind of liked it, but I find Let's Playing more relaxing; not very much so necessarily, you know, writing is work, mostly, and you can't really relax whilst you're typing you know, but I am thinking later I could just sit in my chair and make a few Sudoku puzzles, that'll probably be relaxing, you know, it's not that hard to get through the day I suppose, when you just stay happy; and that's what religion is for, to allow us to stay happy, although it's hard; I don't know how religion really works, you know, and I don't know what the purpose of religion really is, but it's something with being a guide for life and the numinous, et cetera. You know, I really kind of regret not sleeping out, but that's the thing, I don't really want to stay in bed necessarily, you know, I just got nothing to do, and I usually get up at eleven, you know, I just brave the day anyway, but yeah, recently I started writing in the mornings, you know, and it's kind of harder because you don't get to prepare I'd say, but yeah, whatever.

You know, the point of a day is to have a good time. Sleeping is really pleasant, but writing can be pleasant too, you know; and if you know how to get through the day it ain't so bad; life is very weird, you know, and we do weird things all the time; this is the thing, I start writing at eight or around eight, and then just have a slow day until eleven o'clock; and what happens at eleven o'clock? Nothing, I just find something else to do. I suppose having an eventful morning is all right. I always really liked it when I got down the stairs in my parents' house in the morning when I was young and my mother would be sitting there, listening to the radio. My dad would always get up much later, just like my sister. My mother and I were the early birds. You know, I also really like talking I suppose, but these days I don't really talk so much, I can't think of anything to say. My dad said I was laconic, which is an admirable quality, although maybe he was just teasing me because I say so little. Tomorrow I have to work for the mail again, I feel okay regarding it, I think it will be okay; you know, its actually kind of nice; you know, I don't think I'd mind working in an office, but I can't think of any nice job in an office that I could take, probably since I don't have a very competitive degree. I studied Asian Studies. You know, I still don't know what I really learned there. I used to study history and I got my Bachelor of Arts in that, and I kind of learned how to write there, and kind of how great Dutch history is and all that, you know, random things; but with Asian Studies, I really have no idea what I learned; I didn't learn how to write, you know, I barely felt any of that teacher was saying in the tutorials, and the lectures were all so chaotic and specific; I really don't know what I learned, I suppose I will find out eventually, but it's all not so funny, you know, it's just bad. I did a course on Mongolian history, you know the history of the Mongolian empire, and that was a nice course, but also quite chaotic maybe, and not very companionate. You know, history was just really my thing, I guess, and I shouldn't have switched to Asian Studies; but yeah, I did a specialization that focussed partially on history, so I guess I can just profile myself as a historian; in which case, studying Asian Studies I just learned the glories of Japanese, Chinese and Middle-Eastern history. You know, I sometimes wish I'd have taken the opportunity, after my Bachelors, to study theology. I feel like theology is a much more academic and professional field than history. You know, it's really weird that history is such a big field in academia, considering theology is what university was all about in the beginning; and someone actually called theology history from the inside; you know, history is just a big pile of facts without the religious aspect; you know, we are kind of doubting the Whig version of history nowadays; you know, I did kind of learn something specific at Asian Studies, basically to ask big questions; you know, that's someting we don't do at history, I think; in history, you ask ridiculously small questions and then do a ridiculous amount of (virtual) work to answer it. But yeah, was studying Asian Studies of any practical value? I have asked myself this question a thousand times and I cannot figure it out. I didn't learn to speak Chinese, which would've been a great boon for my curriculum vitae, and I didn't learn how to hold a Confucian sermon or a Buddhist seminar or something like that, which might've given me a direction in life; but I did learn something about how we try to understand a foreign place, and I learned to think hard on historiographical questions. Of course, that ain't a practical value, but yeah, this is the age old question: what do we learn from history? I'd say we learn the most general truths from history, because it is the most general science, but people don't consider it a science, they consider it an art.