I'm not making fun of anyone's religion. Seriously. While I've never been one for organized religion myself, I've always been a believer in Karma in a casual sort of way. The Zen Guide gives us this definition.

Karma is intentional action, that is, a deed done deliberately through body, speech or mind. Karma means good and bad volition . Every volitional action is called Karma.

Anyhow, I've decided that I'm putting too much negative Karma into the world with all of this ranting.

In other words, Karma is the law of moral causation. It is action and reaction in the ethical realm. It is natural law that every action produces a certain effect. So if one performs wholesome actions such as donating money to charitable organizations, happiness will ensue. On the other hand, if one performs unwholesome actions, such as killing a living being, the result will be suffering. This is the law of cause and effect at work. In this way, the effect of past karma determines the nature of one's present situation in life.

I can't do much about my past Karma, but I guess I can try to start working on this lifetime's Karma by resisting the temptation to think, or say, the many rude things I think, and say, about fanfiction.

Of course, refusing to write down the bad thoughts is one thing. Refraining from thinking them is going to be trickier.

I'm still working on that bit.

Anyhow, if Typoid Mary (oops) is having fun writing down her fevered fantasies of Daniel drinking an alien potion and morphing into a woman so that he and Jack can celebrate their love openly, who am I to pass judgment? If TM thinks that her idea of removing Chris and Vin from the Old West and putting them on a the first manned spaceship to Mars is a cool one, who am I to say otherwise? If she really does believe that in his spare time, Blair is a practicing sadist.... *Grabs head and starts moaning.*

Okay, I need more practice. I squicked myself out with that one.

You get the point, though. I've been thinking about this because I read torch's LiveJournal again. (I should link to her journal because I do read it. You're supposed to link to the people you like to read yourself, right? I wonder if she'd mind. I don't quite have the hang of the rules of this thing yet.)

ANYhow. I read torch's LJ again and she linked to a really good essay on writing that she wrote. Her basic message is, "whatever you do, make sure it's a conscious choice." I think that's cool. Instead of the rude ranting and raving approach that I generally take to the topic, she's all about, "just think about what you're doing."

She has such an open, accepting approach to these things.

When I stop to consider the many, many writing faults I, myself, possess, I wonder where I get the nerve to keep running around, laying down the law about how things ought to be done, you know? I didn't think about what I was doing when I was doing it. I just wrote stuff down and shoved it onto my website, then moved on to something else.

Sometimes that thought really bothers me, but I tell myself consoling that I never pushed my stories into anyone's face. It's not like I was list-posting half-assed crap or anything. Anyone who wanted to be appalled by my writing had to actually find it first.

Where was I going with all of this when I started?

Oh, yeah. I've decided to link to torch's LiveJournal. I suggest everyone read it instead of this one because she's more articulate than I am and a whole lot nicer.

I'll be over here in the corner, trying to think of something nice to say about something.