Intoxicated Faith

My first Reunification Celebration Day (Oct 3), or my second one. Auf jeden Fall, don't have much memories of the first one -- besides the fact I took a Taxi to my Internship -- what a luxury.

It was a long weekend, we headed for the Turkish Veggie Market on Friday but there was none. It'd be so much easier to go grocery shopping with someone who cooks: because I don't, thus I have neither idea what to buy nor the price range. Since the market was on holiday too, we decided to take a stroll in the quarter. Not many people on the street, despite the extremely rare good weather. We stopped in a bar for some coffee, it was nearly noon. Some random drunk invited himself at our table -- the only occupied one, and tried to start a senseless conversation. He was so drunk that he could not even open his beer (when you are hammered enough to unable to open your bottle, it means now the fucking time to stop). I felt unease, but I was not alone, and I sensed the ire rose in me, something triggered it, that pictured looked familiar, suddenly I had the urge to take the bottle and smashed it at his face. But I did nothing, we finished out coffee and left. Everyone's got their own way to celebrate a holiday.

We walked passed bus stops, in which party animals or homeless drunks murmured to themselves, beer bottles were everywhere on the street, shattered or not. The whole city was ethanol-saturated, was it illegal to be sober?

After living in a somewhat prestiged family, I understand the important role that alcohol plays in every culture. I lived through it, despite it, and decided to leave it. Sure, one can always find excuses for their intoxication: it is part of the culture, there is social pressure, peer pressure, and it has been existing for thousands of years... let me think what else has long existence and being misused most of the time --- religions!

Ethanol is something you think you cannot live without, it is a legal hard drug, it is over rated in every culture, it is what Jesus turned water into, it is "holy and grant".

Especially here, I find officialism is overwhelmingly pronounced, moreover, there are "certified alcoholic" who can receive more financial aids from the government (probably only in Germany) whilst making no effort to improve their lives. "Oh, I have problems in my family" "The world has done me wrong." "My business partner puts a gun at my head and I am impelled to be drunk."... (Some people are alive right now it is simply because it is illegal to kill them.) If this were the productive things to go, more than half of the Africa and Asia would be dead, including me.

And yet, many continue to allow such intoxicated faith to take over them, to practice a constant prayer to their God(s).