5/17/2004 05:22:35 PM|||Amy|||I'm not actually doing any work today. Wait. I take that back. I looked up one fact, entered some information into a database, and told someone else that I would call another person about an issue that has apparently been festering for about a month now and I'm thinking, what's one more day?

Instead of working, I walked over to south campus, I ate lunch with my co-workers in celebration of the day of my birth, I read other people's blogs, and I attempted to write an entry for my own blog, but ran out of creative steam one paragraph in. I also registered for the Katy Trail run on Thursday, sent you a couple of emails, and am now sending you at least one more.

I am considering setting small work related goals for myself so that I can get through the next couple of hours without getting bored or feeling guilty. Are there any Judeo-Christian, Greek, Roman or Celtic myths about the birth of guilt? I would like to understand its perniciousness.

We *should* go see Troy sometime. I have to admit that wanting to see Troy because I heard it was a good movie is not the reason why I want to see it. It might be a terrible movie, but neither does one drink because it's good for the brain.
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It's good that you didn't work too hard on your birthday and I don't think you should feel guilty about
it. The only guilt related stories I can think of are from Christianity. Adam and Eve, crucifixion and probably others I never
learned properly.
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Huh. I never really thought of the crucifixion and garden of eden stories as being guilt related, but you're right - they're rife with it. I was thinking more obvious ones, such as pandora's box. In fact, religion mostly is based on guilt, isn't it? This is one reason why religion can be destructive - in that, guilt works well as a motivator, but a very non-constructive one. Maybe I should just leave bear's religious education to his father, and I'll rely on basic ethical tenets and science to keep him grounded. One issue that occurs to me immediately when I think about doing that though, is that religion assumes an almost magical quality in all that leaping faith and without it - bear will have to find other ways to load up on imagination. I think that my central problem lies within finding ways to build his creative blocks without using hard core examples such as "ascensions to God" etc. While I don't want to encourage magical thinking on his part, I also would like for him to not be completely reliant on hard facts which would then lead him into assessing situations in his life without gradients between black and white. As you were talking about the magic of biology, I would like to encourage him to be able to see that there is wonderment in the processes of life and then encourage that to bleed over to the ways in which he interprets his perceptions. I guess I'm trying to figure out how not to feel guilty if I don't take him to church. I think if I'm going to sign him up for Sunday school, I have to do it soon and then there is the issue of making a reasonable commitment to making sure he attends. Am I denying him a rite of passage if I don't bother to follow through with all of the catholic rituals of first communion and whatever else? Am I being untrue to my own fundamental philosophies if I send him to church, and then have to somehow support in our discussions at home what he's told while he's there? I believe in mythical interpretation of religion, not in factual presentation. I'm afraid his Sunday school teachers will think I'm some kind of heathen.|||108483303393177614|||This (email exchange) is How I Have Spent a Significant Portion of My Workday/ Birthday