Freemasons and Atlantis

So, a while back I came across a video about the true location of the lost city of Atlantis (you can download it here http://visitingatlantis.com/). Out of curiosity, I watched the first half or so of it, just till the part where they tell about the actual location. Apparently, Atlantis isn't under the sea.

SPOILER ALERT!!

It's in Africa, in the middle of a fucking desert.

So, according to these folks, Atlantis is in an area in northern Africa known as Richat. You can actually see it on Google maps.

According to Plato, Atlantis' main city was this round city, consisting of a bunch of circles (one circle land, once circle water, one circle land, etc) so that the whole place looks like a bulls eye. Plato even gave some measurements on the circumference, and the Richat more or less has the same size. All in all, this place looks exactly the same as Plato described it.

But why is it in Africa?

Well, seems that the sea levels 12 000 years ago were a bit different. Most of northern Africa was under water. They say this because according to the website, there are boreholes surrounding Richat that provide salt water, and they found some fishing artifacts in the area.

So perhaps they have a point here?

Which brings me to my second topic, Freemasons.

 I know a few Freemasons personally, and contrary to popular belief, not everything they do is a secret. If you want, you can actually go inside the temple, and they will even tell you about the symbolism in the figures and shapes and everything they have there.

So, one of the main symbols of the Freemasons are the square and compass, also the letter G. And the first thing I noticed when I watched the documentary, are those symbols flying by in the title.

That got me thinking, why would Freemasons make a documentary about Atlantis?

I've been inside the masonic temple a few times, even though I'm not a mason myself. They were kind enough to explain to me the symbolism behind everything in the temple (literally everything inside there has a meaning). So I though back on what I saw inside the temple, as well as what is known about Atlantis.

First thing, Plato describe Atlantis as being south of the Pillars of Hercules. Now, this is actually the Strait of Gibraltar, but I'm going back to the Pillars part.

Inside the masonic temple, there are two pillars, behind the chair of the master. One of them holds up a globe of the earth, another one a globe of the sky. Now, as we all know, in mythology the guy who is supposed to hold up the earth is Atlas, right?

I'll give you one guess to the name of the Mayor of Atlantis... That's right, Atlas!

Atlantis was in it's time one of the greatest powers of the world, the same way the Freemasons are still one of the most powerful organizations Earth.

Plato had a great influence on Freemasonry and the masonic ritual. So, what is the truth behind Atlantis? What is the secret that the Freemasons are hiding?

Well, probably not this. But it's fun to speculate XD

Gender equality

Yesterday I went to the local grocery store and wanted to buy some things. Some chutney, bread, razor blades, doughnuts, soap... I noticed something funny at the soap section. All the bars of soap were, in a way, girly! I mean, if you look at deodorants, you get feminine brands, and you get masculine brands. The same with razors. You get guy razors and you get girl razors. But have you ever seen a masculine soap? Soap meant specifically for men? All I saw on the shelves were soaps with descriptions like "Feel revived and fresh, with mint and chilled cucumber" or "For an enchanting scent blah blah blah" All of them with these cutesy flowers and birds and all this estrogen bullshit.

I want MAN soap!

I don't want to smell like fresh cut daisies and mint cucumber. I want to smell like a MAN, and still be clean. And I want it in my local grocery store!

After some internet searching for manly soaps, I came across ManlyHands.

This, THIS is what I want. I want to smell like bacon and cannabis. I want to walk around smelling like a new car. I want to walk in the office with all the women tailing me, "oh, what is that smell?"

"That's Zombie Repellant, Babe..."

But now, heres my problem: I live in South Africa. And those bars of soap costs 10 times more than our normal, girly soap. If I wanted to import them I would pay even more. So I'm back to square one.

I WANT MANLY FUCKING SOAP!!!

I wonder what Republican smells like...

But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

So I've applied for two car loans the past month. The first one was for a brand new Chevrolet Spark, but unfortunately it got declined. "It's ok," I thought, "maybe I just don't earn enough yet, even though it is a relatively cheap car." So I then decided to go for a second hand Getz for half the price of the spark. I thought I was sure to get approved for this one! But alas, no. I knew I could easily afford the payments, I don't really have anything else that I'm paying off except for my rent, cellphone contract and internet. But that was exactly my problem. The reason they never approved me wasn't because I couldn't afford it, it was because I "had no references"...

They declined me because I do not have enough debt.

Now this goes against everything I have ever learned as a child; "Never fall debt. It's a bad thing and it will only make you poorer. Only make debt when you are buying a car or a house." Well Mom and Dad, I tried buying a car, and I learned that you're wrong on this one. I NEED debt.

But I know where they're coming from. Too much debt can be a bad thing. When the payments take out your whole salary, and you need to get another loan to buy your necessities, that's when you've gone a bit overboard.

But the fact remains, you need debt to make debt.

That sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?

"ENTRY LEVEL POSITION AVAILABLE, 5 YEARS EXPERIENCE MINIMUM REQUIREMENT"

Yeah, I thought so. We've all gone through our first ever job hunt. You need experience to gain experience. But how do you get your initial experience if nobody wants to hire you due to your lack of experience? Sure, there are a few places that would take in trainees, but those are rare.

Your first job hunting experience is usually your hardest (except when you lose your job at 50. Good luck finding another job then as well).

But wait, there's more!

The exact same principle applies in entrepreneurship. In order to make money, you need to have money. You need start-up capital to run your business. The more capital you have, the faster and more efficiently your business will run. The more you invest, the more you get out in the end.

Even if you do not run your own business, merely putting enough money in a savings account or bank investment can make you rich. But to do that, you need enough money in the first place.

And in the end, those of us who do not have enough debt, experience or money, stays stuck in a rut, struggling like a rat in a sewer to get out.

So it's true what they say in the Bible:

Mark 4:25 For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.

Matthew 25:29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

Matthew 13:12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

Life is a circuitboard

We face problems daily in our lives. Some big, some small, some in a personal environment and some in a work environment. And everyone of us handle those problems differently. Especially when they start to gang up on us.

I got in a conversation with an indian guy today and he told me something we all know, but rarely think about when push comes to shove.

When we have a bunch of problems, tasks, or whatever, we tend to start at one end, and work our way through to the end. But what if the first step doesn't work? What if the first thing you have to do, fails? When that happens, we have the habit of becoming so fixated on fixing that problem that we forget about the others. Subconsciously we believe that in order to move on to the next task, we MUST finish the first task first. This causes us to lose a lot of time at the end of the day.

What we should do in cases such as that, is just to move on to the next step anyway, because maybe that step will work. If we go through all the steps and finish the ones that go without a hitch first, and save the problematic ones for later, we have all the time left to spend on those problem tasks, whereas if you have done things in a linear way, you might have wasted all your time on one task, which most likely isn't even the top priority task on the list.

We must remember that our life is connected in parallel, not in series. If one component fails, it's not supposed to bring down the whole circuit. 

A Sad Little Poem

in a sad little town
there lived a sad little boy
and the sad little boy
had but a single little toy

on one very sad day
the little toy broke
and every sad little tear
made the little boy choke

so the sad little boy
took a sad little knife
and on that very sad day
Timmy ended his life.

Communion Wine

I am a Christian, I won't hide that fact. Though whether or not I am a good example of one remains a debatable matter. But let's not digress this early in the story.

One of my very first part time jobs was at a local Christian book store. But having started college that very same year, you could imagine I did not really live as conservative as someone working with Bibles on a daily basis ought to be.

Now, one of the permanent employees there was one of those people that are the reason atheists think Christians are weird (and sometimes possibly scary, or insane). He would mind his own business, packing shelves, working the till, ordering new books, and then he would randomly, without prior warning or notice, bellow out loud PRAISE JESUS!! and then continue with whatever meager task he was busy with as if nothing has happened. Now, the store closed at nine in the evening, so you can imagine my experience when I started working there, it's late, the entire mall is empty, only me and that guy in the mall, sorting through the books in utter silence when all of a sudden I hear from behind me a mighty PRAISE JESUSSSSSSA!! If I ever wanted to know what cardiac arrest feels like, at that time I knew.

I like playing computer games. I'm a huge gamer. One day, Mr Permanent engaged in polite conversation with me, and as such, the matter of my hobbies came up. I told him I like playing games, and one game in particular that came up was Dota. After a stunned silence, he stammered: "But, doesn't it hurt you?" "Why would it hurt me?" "Because true children of the Lord feel physical pain when they are exposed to evils such as that!" When I told him no, I don't feel pain when I play computer games, and that I also believe that people who try to find evil in everything are paranoid, he - get this - made me sit in the corner and watch a religious video on his cellphone for 30 minutes.

At this point I was already busy dictating my resignation letter to myself in my head.

One day my friends decided to go out drinking. Being a student, I, of course, joined in on the festivities. I had to work the next day, but that didn't stop my friends from force feeding me vodka and brandy the whole night.

The next morning, I was in that state where you're not completely sure whether you're hung over, or still, in fact, drunk. When I go to work, one of the first tasks I had to do that day was to stock the shelves with new Bibles. I got the box of Bibles, and started placing them on the bottom shelf. As I bent over to place the first Bible in its place, I came to the conclusion: I am still drunk. How did I realize this? Because I stopped millimeters short of banging my head on the shelf out of pure drunken disorientation. With no small amount of effort to keep upright, the rest of the Bibles got on the shelf. I thought I was finished. But no. You're never finished when you're drunk. My next task was to hang up a new SALE sign in front of the store window. To do that I had to climb a ladder. Not only was I as steady on my feet as a newborn giraffe, I also have a strong fear of heights.

On that day, I prayed like I have never prayed before.

I have only worked there for about two months before getting a job at an IT shop. I happily signed my resignation letter and headed to my new work. There, for the first time in two months, I heard actual, real-life swearing. I heard people talk about the girls in the skimpy dresses walking by the shop. I heard people making dirty jokes. I was between my own kind...

#Hashtags...

I have never been a huge twitter fan. I already have facebook, and if I want any updates from a famous person or business, I like their page on facebook and get all my updates there. Thus, I never really saw the point in twitter. It's like facebook, except anybody can follow you, not like facebook where they need to add you as a friend first.

Shortly after Twitter, Instagram followed, which made even less sense to me. There is a quote from 2 Broke Girls I read on the internet once (though I never even watched the show) which states “Twitter is stupid and Instagram is Twitter for people who can’t read.”
I agree with that statement 100%...

One thing that Twitter was famous for is the hashtag function. Though I see the use of hashtags in the right context, #there #are #some #stupid #people #who #doesn't #seem #to #know #what #they're #supposed #to #fucking #use #it #for. Instagram later decided to join the hype.

In the end, Facebook stood out like the lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse in the hashtag frenzy of the social media circles. Hashtags invaded, used continuously by stupid people who got so engrossed in the Hashtag frenzy that they now do it out of habit, even though hashtags are utterly useless on facebook and do nothing more than irritate other people with IQ's higher than Nelson Mandela's current sperm count.

But this story does not have a happy ending...

One jolly day I came home after a long day's work, and decided to log into my facebook to check out the normal everyday hubbub. I scroll down through the posts of friends getting engaged or pregnant (yes, I'm at that age where everyone around you starts getting married and I'm just sitting in my flat watching Adventure Time), down past the Instagrammed pictures of Scottish Terriers and sunsets, past the Like if you love Jesus chain mail messages posted by your everyday hypocrite, past the normal Hashtagging idiot... But then I had to scroll back up. There was something different about this hashtag. Was it supposed to be blue? But- but- blue is supposed to represent a link? What kind of sick joke is this? With my heart beating in my throat I clicked the link, hoping for it to be a cleverly disguised link to a facebook page or something. But no. What I saw was what I feared. Hundreds upon hundreds of posts all containing the said hashtag I clicked on.

The last hero in the hashtag zombe apocalypse has fallen...