You, whom all the other gods fear
Dec. 25th, 2006 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dumblemopStill can't escape this Kemetic thing. Which is funny, because if I were smart, I'd go Heathen and have done with it. On the other hand, if the Aesir just don't want me, and as far as I know none have given indication that they do, I really don't want to mess with them.
Read something today: "The more you are ma'at, the less isfet instrudes in your life..." Ma'at being the Kemetic concept of rightness and order and isfet being the Kemetic concept of chaos and disorder. Which is parallel to something I have recently noticed, that 'the universe rewards me for doing the right thing.'
For example, right after I find out that I kicked ass on my Discrete final (106/100) and might get an A for the semester, I got an email about an opportunity for summer research--at UW, including housing and food, with one of the possible categories being technical Japanese. That is a ridiculous opportunity.
For jobs last summer, I started the Black Hawk application really early, but then I forgot about it. So place after place that I checked, had no positions left. But I still made the effort, and called people up and sent emails and did applications--and it paid off and I got a job.
And I was scared about taking it, and I wasn't sure I'd be good at it, but I threw myself into it as best I could. I surmounted one of my personal doubts, doing something that would be difficult for me--and out of that grew a relationship that works, despite or because of the bits that are more difficult. And it's not always easy, but I try to do my bit there too, and it just keeps getting better.
I really don't know what I want to do about work and school longterm--but I guess if I just keep going, something will turn up.
And of course, all of this could be just lines drawn in the sand; coincidence. But lately I'm finding it harder and harder to believe in coincidence.
Read something today: "The more you are ma'at, the less isfet instrudes in your life..." Ma'at being the Kemetic concept of rightness and order and isfet being the Kemetic concept of chaos and disorder. Which is parallel to something I have recently noticed, that 'the universe rewards me for doing the right thing.'
For example, right after I find out that I kicked ass on my Discrete final (106/100) and might get an A for the semester, I got an email about an opportunity for summer research--at UW, including housing and food, with one of the possible categories being technical Japanese. That is a ridiculous opportunity.
For jobs last summer, I started the Black Hawk application really early, but then I forgot about it. So place after place that I checked, had no positions left. But I still made the effort, and called people up and sent emails and did applications--and it paid off and I got a job.
And I was scared about taking it, and I wasn't sure I'd be good at it, but I threw myself into it as best I could. I surmounted one of my personal doubts, doing something that would be difficult for me--and out of that grew a relationship that works, despite or because of the bits that are more difficult. And it's not always easy, but I try to do my bit there too, and it just keeps getting better.
I really don't know what I want to do about work and school longterm--but I guess if I just keep going, something will turn up.
And of course, all of this could be just lines drawn in the sand; coincidence. But lately I'm finding it harder and harder to believe in coincidence.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-26 08:10 am (UTC)I don't know. Maybe "not upholding ma'at" isn't the same thing as "perpetuating isfet," and therefore ma'at/not-ma'at is the dilemma that humans face, rather than ma'at/isfet. So instead of "if you're not for us, you're against us," it's doing your duty vs. not doing your duty. Which would allow isfet to be an unCreative force not necessarily felt in day-to-day life, something for the Gods to deal with, with the duty of the ordinary person to preserve ma'at for their own realm. Therefore a pharaoh would uphold ma'at by upholding justice in the land; but an ordinary person would not be capable of doing that to the degree the pharaoh would be, and therefore it would not be required of him to uphold ma'at in that way. He would uphold ma'at by not cheating his customers or lying to his wife.
I guess, being ma'at, the point of upholding ma'at regardless would be "because it is ma'at." However, I still feel that for there to be order, there must be disorder, or how would you know order? Before Creation, ma'at, and isfet, there was nun--nothing, the void (big surprise). Ma'at and isfet were co-created at the beginning. To move towards order, one moves away from disorder, or order lacks distinction.
If ma'at is order, isfet is necessary as chaos. If ma'at is truth, an opposing force isn't necessarily needed. But ma'at isn't one or the other, and I'm sure it's many more things as well. Kemetics aren't big on single-layered concepts.
This is confusing. Maybe I'm making it more complicated than it is. xD