We talk about religion

Not about God this time.

I'll talk about religion. I admit that the discussion with Steven on the other post has activate my curiosity about a term used commonly in all of latin-derived language, at least for what concerns the vocabulary.

"Religion" is a word that doesn't need presentations, even if you reader are spanish, or portuguese, french or even if you know a little english you surely know this word.

Just don't make notice about its official etymology for now, let's take a look on it. What is your answer to this question : what's religion?

I'd answer that we're talking about an ensemble of rules, of habits, of manners, done for a non-material need. And the religion's strength comes from the strong belief that the community has for it. It isn't something proven, is something believed and respected, even if we do not have any proof of it.

So, from my point of view, the real origin (or at least, the properest) is always from latin "re+ligare" which literally means "bind something more and more times". Notice that the word "delegate" has the same root and it can easily means "to bind to someone some responsibilities", it doesn't sounds good maybe, perhaps it's not english at all, but it gives the picture.

And moreover it perfectly gives me the idea of what religion is : a system of rules which binds somehow a concept which can't be easily explained nor understood, a system of rules which is necessary arbitrary due to immeasurability of the subject.

That's why I strongly believe in God but do not believe in a single religion, neither hinduism or buddhism, because believing the concept behind is always the same, as same too are the rules to follow. It'd be useful and wise to study them, I don't deny this, on the contrary, I'm always willing to study and to apprend how the religions work.

But I definitely prefer to find the right way for my own, rather than follow someone else's rules, let's put in a better way : if I really can't avoid to bind God's basic concept into a system of rules, I'd really prefer to create them for my own, spending maybe all my life in this, instead of follow someone else's rules which I'll never completely understand and make a part of me.

Vastness of means

Today i'm going to talk about a certain word which has caught my attention.

Everything has begun because I read on Facebook this question "Do animal waste their time?".

I immediately thought that the first thing which had to be cleared was the meaning of "wasting time". Even if we can easily understand what it means, I think we can't just limit to use the human scale and proportion to Animal World.

I searched through the web for the word's etymology and it seems that the word "waste" comes from the latin's word "vastum", which primarily means "vast, extended, wide, desert" and so on.

And so, from this word naturally comes "devastate" , "to make a place empty/void/desert" because, de + verb" in latin was a prefix normally used to strengten the sense of another certain word.

But the root, "vast" it remained the same as a name in french and italian, in english on the contrary it slowly changed into a verb, which, saw from the literally mean, it perfectly gives the picture of the meaning.

So, "wasting time" is to make the own time "void/empty/deserted". We, as human beings, feel this unpleasant sensation when we're caught in apathy, which, if prolonged for a quite long amount of time, may flows into depression. To avoid this, we work, we do art, we search through the world what amuse us, we set goals to achieve, we explore, we try, we experience. Animals don't. Apparently they don't have any "missing part" in their spirits, they don't feel any lackness about anything.

That's why I don't think animals waste their time, just because we're talking about two different natures, two different ways about how to live.