I don't actually know what to call this one. Something to do with 'Religion' and 'Faith', I guess.

Religion has to be one of the most interesting fields of inquiry in an ocean of interesting fields. I say this because a lot of those fields, such as engineering, biology and cosmology, run on sound scientific principles. Religion does not - at the very least in the mind of scientists. In large part the idea of faith has inspired the mystique of non-scientific religion, even embodied it. This annoys logical people. Which means that they don't often take a good look at religion, when it really is something that does need a good long objective look.
There are certain great benefits to having a religion. For starters, it puts one in touch with like-minded individuals. This is probably why marriage has for the course of human history been primarily a religious institution - because you are most likely to bond with someone who holds the same world views as you do. This factor of religion extends to several other human needs too - counselling for those who need a second mind to help them think in a different way to their own, financial and emotional support from informed investors (described at its best, though at its worst, charity), a 'think tank' to face events that effect a wide population, and a gathering point for people to share experience and knowledge. On the last, it is interesting to note that churches were an equivalent to market places in The Middle Ages - a meeting place for guilds, traders, to watch plays and store goods. Prostitution was even practiced in churches up until the 13th century.

As for non-communal benefits, religion offers a degree of stability that is lacking in a mind that simply renounces existentialities rather than finding one to uphold. We all look for meaning in life (even nihilists, while alive, have reason to live), but science alone does not provide it. What science provides is an understanding of the principles on which life is based, how individual lives connect and how truly versatile meaning becomes in being applied to different topics. It is not an answer to an abstract, but provides concrete examples of how an abstract is realised. Religion bypasses the process of this investigation by putting faith in another entity’s answer. Science bypasses the attainment of an answer by accumulating all the data relevant to the question. Without some degree of faith, without acting on the understanding that all the data will not coalesce in one place, science will never provide answers about morality, or death, or the scope of the universe. Having a mind open on all sides is like having a box made of lids – nothing ever stays inside it. This is why science operates on a collection of ‘theories’. It admits that facts are fluid, often changing from generation to generation the more we discover.

I’ve come to understand that in life I crave the stability that science alone cannot offer. I need rules. I need a programmable solution to every situation I am presented with. Clear, moral goals. I am not a pure observer, nor am I a raw functionary of another’s arbitrary will, be it instinct or religion. So I require something else. There’s this sort of inner code of behaviour I follow, based on deeply rooted facts (Code) and more fleeting instances of working theory (Coda). They unite to form what is to me a self-evolved religion, which I call Librarianism, for a librarian is what I am at my most ordered moments, when the code runs clean.

What seems to me to separate one human being from another is our function – not our tastes or hobbies or the company we keep, but our work. There are very few animals in this world that actually specialise their labour, and lack this distinct means of individual coding. But for humans, it’s practically a requirement. It’s why above anything I’m interested in what people do. I believe when people have found a career path that means everything to them, it reflects their inner response systems for dealing with all physical permutations of that career. Metaphysically speaking a library is a place where the librarian pairs up the client with the experience of the most value to them. A virologist studies and seeks cures for infections, both biological and emotional. A teacher is more clearly illustrated without metaphor, because teaching need not be restricted to the classroom, and can extend to every interaction.

These, it seems to me, are what shall become the new religions of the 21^st century. The ‘meaning of life’ they provide is in the service of a function. Their ‘morality’ is in the attainment of efficiency and productivity. Their response to death? Simply to live. To know that the work that one has done held havoc in check, and left an immortal mark on the course of history.

*

That said, I am a Librarian. Between my other projects (of which there are numerous and unending, left unfinished in the style of Da Vinci: charming but tragically incomplete) I take moments to consider the full capacity of a librarian’s existence. To me, these are no more perfectly stated than through the attainment of four characteristics: Logic, Memory, Focus, and Initiative.

It’s quite right to say that these four are not restricted to the field of the archivist. If anything, they are attributes of a brilliant mind. The intention is that these attributes of mind are to be used in concert with the purpose to which they need be put, by which their contemplation draws out certain truths about the morality of a librarian. How does a librarian use their memory? Quite simply by not remembering everything in existence, and instead creating an index through which information can be quickly recovered from their archive. How does a librarian apply initiative? By reading. Reading lets a librarian become aware of all situations that may arise, and act in their confrontation as they have learned from their holy charges.

My religion is one that strives for the perfection of these four attributes. When I pray, it is not to the best within the universe, but the best within myself. I’ll leave theologists to their own devices in considering whether or not that is heresy.

Why did I name the previous post 'Protocol'?

Firstly, because I really like the word. I like several unusual words - and unfortunately many very long ones - like, 'inchoate', 'indigestible', 'demographic' and 'visceral'. This is officially termed a 'lexicon' (another favourite) which means a series of words a specific writer commonly uses. Now I know what you're thinking; inchoate is a easy enough word to slip into a conversation, (ha ha, you so weren't thinking that) but generally people would have trouble with 'visceral' outside of an insult or a romantic confession (I really dare you to tell your boyfriend he invokes a visceral reaction in you). Somehow, I manage it. People don't tend to talk to me for more than a few seconds after I explete the first pernicious conglomerate of striking syllables, probably because it's an intimidating habit. I also suffer the opposite; when I'm not so loose-lipped I transform into a grunting troglodyte who oozes vibes that could make Bambi cry.

Plegh. Enough of my self pity for now.

I'm pretty sure that when I named the post 'Protocol' I was thinking "the standard thing to do right now is to say who I am and give an idea of what this blogs about and (water) just be honest really thats what this is all about so make people feel at home and make them like you stop caring if no one will read this is you make just one person happy it will be worth a million words"
You will have noticed two things from the above:

• I do not punctuate my thoughts. There is just a long rambling line of stuff that crashes around the infinity between my eyebrows and my scalp. If there could be any punctuation mark I could inject it would be the ellipsis (...) because the ellipsis never signifies an end, simply a... continuation of thought with a random pause. Hmm... I wonder what really fills the space above those three dots in my mind?
• I think in very small words. Most of the time, anyway, and only in passive thought. Active thoughts demand I slow down, extrapolate my verbosity, enunciate and punctuate every neuron. I guess that I should find some way to think at a comfortable median, and if any Buddhas are reading this blog, I invite you to tell me how.

I guess that in this instance 'Protocol' simply meant I was doing what I believed I should do to make a blog that seems blog-like. Critics will say, "No true art follows protocol", to which I will reply either, "GRUNT," or "I understand. You mean to proclaim that all artistic endeavor springs from an individual mind that cannot be inhibited by external viewpoints. I disagree, as art relies on perception, and perception will always hold an infinite number of diverse external viewpoints. Individual thought, under consideration, does not exist in a boundless universe. There is only Idea, and art is a manifestation of Idea."

(Slipping into a readable debate format)

Critic: Yes, naturally all art is centred around Idea, but it is the individual take on an Idea that makes the art art. Two men see a cow differently, but the Idea is still a cow. Picasso and Dali could both paint a cow, but their work would not be considered identical.

Avatar (You're really going to love this): I concede, description is the root of all individuality, but you must also consider the nature of the subject. A cow, by common description, is a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped. This is the Idea; the rule on which all variations of the cow spread. Picasso then says that the cow's dimensions are flat, desecrating one of the fundamental attributes of the Idea. Dali paints the cow with a curly moustache, annihilating another sacred tenet of Cow. Individuality demands the alteration of the original Idea.

Now I'm going to revert to my old friend philosophy to ask a personally variant question. What says that Cow as a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped was the original Idea?

Critic: A bloody wellspring of religious warfare lay claim to the answer. By common terms, the thing that names the Idea of cow as a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped is none other than God.

Avatar: Pass the man a banana! The answer is indeed the shimmering protector of Earth, or if it pleases you, giant lizards, machines, The Force, and the heroes of other argumentative religious factions. Or science, for the god damned atheists.

So this Creator invented the basis for all interpretations of his Idea, but we have to admit that his Idea of a cow as a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped is immutably his interpretation of his own thoughts. The only thing that makes people insist that he did not colour the cow with his own fancy is that he created the Idea of Cow rather than corrupting it.

Next I have to point out that God did not make a cow with a moustache. Dali is the creator of the mustachioed cow, just as Picasso is the creator of the flat cow. Their Idea of cow is di

Sweet bleating platypus, I've forgotten the point I was trying to make.

(Sometime later)

Their Idea of cow is based on what God said a cow was, in a fancier term, God's PROTOCOL is the SCIENTIFIC cow. To draw any variation of original cow is to adapt from protocol. My point is that protocol is required. Rules, laws and regulations are required. In the words of the rattiest whiskey-swilling scoundrel known to man, "Rules are made to be broken." In art, this is true.

Every human being has the Creator's Ideas thrust in his face from the moment of her/his birth. We can't help but look. What we can do is adapt. We can break the laws through artwork. Perhaps Art, as a defiance of God's law, should be seen as sin.

(Dialogue over)

To the creator of this Blog site, you have formed a method of creating further Art. That is an art in itself. Your protocol is a suggestion of a certain beginning to one's blog which I think I've kind of stuck to. It is orderly, it makes sense, and it promotes the welfare of the Idea you created. In order to use the instrument you have wrought I followed the given protocol. Beyond that protocol and past the Idea of what a blog should be - that is up to me. Thank you. You are a liberal creator.

I think that's enough fatooting for now. I understand my discourse was circular, and that there was no true victor, but it is through such investigations that I learn. Personally, I see all Ideas as original so long as there is any kind of variation. A cow is not a cow with a hernia is not a cow with a moustache, so to speak.

There was more fatooting after the fatoot comment, so I'll put another fatoot comment at the very end so that it actually makes sense.

I think that's enough fatooting for now.