Vivat Libertas

I am sometimes told by people who are older than me (if not necessarily wiser, if I may be so bold) that I should be more at peace with myself and the world. Now, I don't doubt that I should be more at peace with myself - I know first-hand the consequences of being otherwise, and they are not pretty. I venture so far as to say that they are perhaps less pretty than the consequences of other people, more normal, less isolated, a little more pliable and a little less vulnerable than I am, not being at peace with themselves - for few of us are, I think, it's just that most of us are very good at hiding it. Anyway, enough of the regurgitated, exaggerated pseudo-wisdom of a sixteen-year-old who frankly hasn't got a fucking clue what she's talking about half the time...I do think that being more at peace with oneself is a good thing, but being at peace with the world is quite a different matter. You see, this world is a shitty place - don't believe the people who tell y...

Well, as you are all aware, it is Buyshitmas   Jesus-wasn't-born-todaymas  Christmas. Seeing as it's pretty much the most commercialised holiday of the year, maybe you weren't expecting a post at all, or you were expecting one about greed is good, or something like that. Good for me that I'm not a particularly predictable person, then! You see, the message I take away from Christmas isn't the one about our Lord and Saviour being born today (atheist, so no chance of that one), or about how presents are everything (I'm an anti-capitalist, you seriously think I'd be cheering for such consumerism?), but about how we really should be spreading peace and goodwill to everyone, even though we never do because it's too much effort and because peace and goodwill are intangible things that you can't actually buy so therefore few are going to bother with them... ...And how am I going to link peace and goodwill to freedom? Peace is more than just the absence ...