Hell and SUVs

Sorry I have been off for a while just recovering from the weekend away with Tumchie and soulmates. This was followed by a hard week at work. In the words of a Libyan philosopher "So much to do... so little time"

I followed the link from Tumchie's site to 'test your level of hell' and when I first tried it I was told that I was due to go to the first level of hell. Having read Dante's Divine Comedy I was surprised that I didn't get sent down further. So I sat the test again.
Much more like it.
Ok so I didn't make it to the last level but you have to have shagged a sheep for that, or at least have fondled one.

So before the muse-ing here are the results...



The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Moderate
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Musing

Ok what is hell - despite my fall from grace and my not being a good little religious boy anymore I am not yet ready to concede that 'Hell is other people'. This may not seem like a problem, particularly if hell doesn't exist.

This is not a claim before extreme fundamentalist start burning flags, or shouting 'behead the infidel' or worse still 'praying for me' it is just a thought.

As a young man I remember asserting with great assurance that 'even if hell doesn't exist I would still live the same way'.

That was without a doubt the biggest pile of bollocks ever capable of being spoken.

I shat myself at the thought of hell.

It would keep me awake, even though I thought that I wasn't going there... "what if I was wrong!"

Worse still the self abuse that filled my thoughts when I was not thinking about hell was sure to take me there!

In short I was fucked.

Hell stopped me from so many things.

Some of these were bad things that would have ruined my life and possibly forced me into a life of politics.

Others weren't. They were, in some cases, neutral, the would have harmed no-one or nothing. But they were WRONG! And why?

Well someone told me they were wrong. Someone older, with less hair than me. Someone who recognised that nature of power and used it. I am not suggesting that they planned this, or that is was malicious. But is was controlling and it did crushed the confidence.

I shout in my job at times. Generally at children who are misbehaving and who are interrupting the education of others. I say this to justify my actions and to make excuse.

The truth is I am good at it.

Having been controlled as a child and young adult by both the church and the education system I understand fear.

The children I shout fear me or my voice and are damaged by my actions. The school is not a better place because of it.

The children I reprove will go out and reprove others, probably in a less controlled way and with more obvious violence. I don't use God or Hell to scare, I use other tools.

Yet it does not change it only controls.

But until there is another mechanism, or until the pupils who should not be in the education system are removed, I will probably continue to control. Ok so it may not be that bad and I don't really shout that much but the issue is true.

Hell is a concept of control. Oh I believe it is real, just not in the traditional way. Hell exists in all of us. It is the place were we can be locked so that we will do as we are told.

Hell is an SUV trapped in a car park looking for a space.

I heard a programme on Radio 4 (BBC) in which some clever chap was talking about the consumer culture. He was saying that the motivator for purchasing was potential. The SUV you buy may only drive from home to work (27 miles in solid traffic) but you have the potential to drive all the way from home to the Sahara. That is the logic of the purchase. The problem is the SUV becomes a private hell, trapped on the M25 in a luxury car with sat nav and all that you could want, but you would be as well with a tractor.

I have become hell from myself and for others. In the words of the Bhagavad-Gita 'I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' Vishnu's words could apply to us all as we unleash the hell of our private thoughts and our self initiated control.
SF