Saying Hi to the Goddess at the End of 2022.

[Scribbly]

Hi guys. Apparently it has been over a decade since I last posted here? Wow.

A lot has happened since then. I have had many jobs. I joined a cult. I left the cult. I almost died 3 times. I admitted to myself I am trans. I started HRT. I admitted to my family I am trans. I gave up on some dreams. I got different ones. I have a career. We'll see if that survives further confessions.

If folks want to hear about some of those stories I'll happily tell them.

But I've been thinking a lot more about my faith recently, and I keep coming back to this place. How formative it was to me when I was a kid, how the lessons I learned have helped steer me through some dark times.

I wrote the below to help myself clarify some things in my own head. I thought you all might like it too.

Saying Hi to the Goddess at the End of 2022.

"I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free."
-Eris, allegedly. Emphasis mine.

I'm not a naturally funny person.

In fact, I've spent most of this year pretty depressed. When I haven't been sad, I've been angry. When I haven't been angry, I've been filled with a ferocious, powerful joy that comes from seizing my identity and demanding to be seen.

What I haven't done much of is laugh. In the past few years it hasn't felt like there's been much worth laughing at. It's all quite serious out there right now.

People say we live in a chaotic age, but to the Discordian that's inaccurate. Chaos is not something which increases or decreases. Chaos is what we build things from. It is more or less synonymous with reality. We are pattern-seeking beings and we impose systems of analysis on the chaos which then tell us whether something is ordered - obeying the system- or disordered - not obeying the system. It is our natural tendency to view order as the preferable state which blinds us to the reality; that all order is limited, all patterns have their exceptions, and that disorder can only be defined in opposition to an expectation.

We're not living in an age of chaos, we're living in an age of disorder. The systems we have lived under, the assumptions we have made, they're all breaking down.

So as we come to the end of 2022 and I lay awake in bed after yet another argument where I found myself completely incapable of understanding even the basic premises that the other person was using, I put in a call to the Goddess and I said, "Hey, babe, what's up?"

And she appeared before me in the brilliant glare of my laptop screen, blinding and searing sleep from my eyes with the words: "Yeah, same as it ever was, you doing good?"

And I said, "Not really. Feels like everything is falling apart. Nobody expects anything to get better. Nothing is certain. Those I love shame me with their ignorance, and refuse even to call me by my name, let alone listen to what I have to say."

"Oh." Said Ερις, and then she tweaked my nose. "There, that should help."

Then she turned into the half a bottle of gin I'd drunk earlier and I ran to the bathroom.

As I pissed out this holy epiphany and rubbed my sore nose I reflected on the hangover that was to come, and I laughed. Then I went to bed.

[altered]

Oh hey, more trans Discordians! Nice.

It's been a hellish decade and change. I'm glad you've apparently done better than I have.

I write queer hate-poems and stare bitterly at the wreckage-strewn future I have to look forward to. There's not many folks around these parts lately, but old hands still drop in from time to time. There's all the room in the world here now, if you want it.

[Scribbly]

Oh hey, more trans Discordians! Nice.

It's been a hellish decade and change. I'm glad you've apparently done better than I have.

I write queer hate-poems and stare bitterly at the wreckage-strewn future I have to look forward to. There's not many folks around these parts lately, but old hands still drop in from time to time. There's all the room in the world here now, if you want it.

I've had ups as well as downs, that's for sure.

Those poems sound awesome. Have you got any you'd recommend to start?

I think I'll at least try and stick around again. Some of my best memories are here. It'd be nice to make new ones.

[altered]

Oh hey, more trans Discordians! Nice.

It's been a hellish decade and change. I'm glad you've apparently done better than I have.

I write queer hate-poems and stare bitterly at the wreckage-strewn future I have to look forward to. There's not many folks around these parts lately, but old hands still drop in from time to time. There's all the room in the world here now, if you want it.

I've had ups as well as downs, that's for sure.

Those poems sound awesome. Have you got any you'd recommend to start?

I think I'll at least try and stick around again. Some of my best memories are here. It'd be nice to make new ones.

They're all in OKM. "There are dreadful things."

I'm semi-active pretty much permanently, so!

[Doktor Howl]

Oh hey, more trans Discordians! Nice.

It's been a hellish decade and change. I'm glad you've apparently done better than I have.

I write queer hate-poems and stare bitterly at the wreckage-strewn future I have to look forward to. There's not many folks around these parts lately, but old hands still drop in from time to time. There's all the room in the world here now, if you want it.

I've had ups as well as downs, that's for sure.

Those poems sound awesome. Have you got any you'd recommend to start?

I think I'll at least try and stick around again. Some of my best memories are here. It'd be nice to make new ones.

It's good to see you back.  Believe it or not, traffic is picking up again, by which I mean "it exists".