I would happily get stoned and embrace what I thought was darkness, but suddenly realised I was trying to escape the neon shine of days that were devoid of natural light.
Everything was the fault of a government, an employer, blame could lazily be directed at the feet of women with enough sense to stay away from self-destructive boys disguised as men, and at the ingrown toenails of the priests and vicars I had never heard and refused to listen to.
In 2014, Dawkins made it as clear as an artificial light-polluted sky that nowhere is where we are all heading.
He talked about the mystery of existence like a middle-aged Tory politician might express a love for a band such as Radiohead or Nirvana, or like an American democrat lady who claims to carry a little bottle of hot sauce in her handbag at all times.
I could see through Dawkins’s proclamations of awe for nature unknowable, but I let his flimsy arguments and proclamations be because I wanted so much to believe that there are no afterlife consequences attached to our selfish actions.
Then the Hitch came along, I saw the light. Maybe there is a God or gods, but how dare a higher being to tell me what I should or should not do? It is right to not believe in a universe with purpose, and I can confidently defy the evil dictator in the sky if lack of belief ultimately turns out to be incompatible with unknowable reality.
Anti-theism is for me. 2015
This was when things changed drastically. My mind was slightly less closed to reason. I become obsessed with watching and listening to any Christopher Hitchens video I could find via C-Span, Internet archive or youtube.
I was inspired to read essays by George Orwell, but I was so unused to reading, the easy to understand words just did not compute. Though one word whirled around my mind over and over again — Totalitar…
I desperately wanted to understand modern English politics, I felt that if I could have a basic understanding of Britain since the 1950’s, a lot of the foreign information I was trying to make sense of may become more compatible with my poorly educated brain.
As soon as this mission began I paid more attention to Peter Hitchens. He talked sense on the videos I listened to during nightly Christopher Hitchens fixes.
Next I came across an interview on C-Span about a book called ‘The Abolition of Britain’.
* * *
It was as if thoughts were being expressed that I had already thought. It seemed as if I was reminded of truths I’d kept secret from myself for many years, such subject matter that my grandfather and father argued about from time to time when I was a quiet and shy eavesdropping child.
It was like waking up from being sedated.
I could barely keep my eyelids open, the truth hurt my eyes.
Going back into a dreamless sleep was no longer an option.
What happened next will take quite some time to articulate, and is for another day, month, year or decade.
A lot of the memories on my mind are private and will never see the artificial light of day, but what I intend to publicly share eventually may be of interest to whomever you happen to be.