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What started with ears transmuted into a fascination with communication. A fascination because at the root of communication we uncover the interpretations of our perceived reality. Communication is to convey perception.  Perception, which controls how we interface with our day to day surroundings, is merely that, Perception, a convoluted projection which tries to make sense of where there is none.  But how are these projections conjured?  They are not simply formed from nebulous, not consciously anyway. And even if they were. Why does it seem that, generally, we operate with an understanding that what I experience is comparative to what you experience?  Experience here meaning something more like feel. Which to me seems to be the answer. Our perception is driven largely by emotion, what we feel. We build our worlds and situate ourselves within them based, at its core, simply on what we like and what we don't.  And as far as I can tell, the most enrapturing emotions in which we base our perception, derive from feelings rooted in religion. 85% of earth's population consider themselves religious. Everything from global warfare to fast food restaurants have been tainted with the odor of theology. Because in the dimly lit, distorted unreality of existence, religion offers unassailable light, a beacon by which to be led. But those offering promises of truth understand humans' thirst for definitive clarity reveals a tenderness which allows us to be pulled in directions never intended. This tenderness creates room to water ideas which grow weed like until what was once fruitful soil becomes nitrogen deprived muck. Tabula Rasa. Clean slate. The mind is now free to be stretched and twisted, rearranged and stitched together, until what emerges is a lens to forge perception. A lens that is never to be taken off, for if it is, eternal damnation awaits. The truth we so urgently lusted for is caked in a de facto divinity too sweet to confront its blatant negation of the answers we first sought out. What acts as a complex resolution for humanitarian perception is in truth a facade for something flat, something shallow, for a boisterous thing that is, in all actuality, timid and frail.   Be advised, the previous statement is not a sentiment that reads “if you are religious, you are bad”. Religion, in theory, is a set of principles by which to base your life, in an effort to contribute to individual psychic growth and humanitarian betterment. Sounds great! However, it is not until karmic wrongdoers fulfill the roles of clergy, theologians, and prophets that the purity religion promises becomes compromised. If individuals seeking spiritual clarity through religious exploration are ash trees, then the bad faith “truth” sayers are the emerald ash borer feeding off the trees underbark until it becomes a decrepit, lifeless stump.