Coupland’s Life After God (up to God?)

Published by VirusHead on 24th June 2006

Filed Under Creative, Cultural, Viral

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

I’m out of books to read. I’ve read everything I have, some things two or three times. Today I reread Douglas Coupland’s Life After God. These are the two passages that struck me, compellingly, again.

Our conversations are never easy, but as I — we — get older, we are all finding that our conversations must be spoken. A need burns inside us to share with others what we are feeling. Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic. It is as though the coolness that marked our youth is itself a type of retrovirus that can only leave you feeling empty. Full of holes.

–Douglas Coupland, Life After God (1994), p. 280

You know what people will probably think of when they think of these days a thousand years from now? They’ll look back upon them with awe and wonder. They’ll think of Stacey — or someone like Stacey — driving her convertible down the freeway, her hair flowing back in the wind. She’ll be wearing a bikini and she’ll be eating a birth control pill — and she’ll be on her way to buy real estate. That’s what I think people will remember about these times. The freedom. That there was a beautiful dream of freedom that propelled the life we lived.

–Douglas Coupland, Life After God (1994), p. 340

Thread Tags: birth control, convertible, Douglas Coupland, freedom, insights, Life After God, literature, postmodern, quotations, sincerity

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 24th, 2006 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Creative, Cultural, Viral. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

#1

Posted by Lord Matt on June 25th, 2006 at 9:14 am

I can recomend a new book. Actually it’s an old book that I found in my mothers house in a dusty corner. I thought of you when I found it.

The author is “William J. Schnell” and its ISBN is 0-8010-7933-0

It was published arround the start of 1970’s and it is called “30 Years a watch-tower slave”.

I’ve just stated bt it looks like it could be quite good.
#2

Posted by VirusHead on June 25th, 2006 at 11:01 am

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve already read it – years ago. It’s not bad, and I’ve got it on my list of recommended books for recovering and former JWs. Here’s one of the best bits:

“We had as our goal to capture, brain wash and establish thousands of Kingdom Publishers, making them all think alike, like robots. When in 1938 the Theocracy was decreed, all these fell down in abject submission before this newly erected ‘Image of the Beast’ of the Watchtower religion of ‘buying and selling’ (Rev. 13). All the companies of Jehovah’s Witnesses at that time voted in a resolution declaring that henceforth and always that would accept all instructions and appointments handed down by the Watchtower Society. All shreds of congregational independence was thus given up, together with every semblence of a personal Christian religion. A new world organization based on the concept of robot-like obedience and performance had now been realized and would now expand to become a New World Society. It is described by Jehovah’s Witnesses as God’s Organization or Kingdom. It is in actuality nothing more than a dictatorship of the Faithful and Wise Servant Class in Brooklyn” (p.130).
#3

Posted by dsic on July 20th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

you know wat : still the ideal of
everything being a part of this webdistribution
matrix …. this is wat is a great part of the
things that will make language a virus a very very
destroying one —
if people don´t get a common and unified way to
give resources to people …. your website is a prognosis.
do u want to let this stay and happen like this ??????
#4

Posted by VirusHead on July 20th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Hmmm? I’m not sure what you mean…