Atheist Life Hacks: How To Piss Off Godless Mom

If there’s one thing that tastes worse than a frosty glass of orange juice after swishing with Scope, it’s anonymous strangers telling me that they know how to be me better than me.

I get called horrific names, I get death threats, and I get some of the worst shit I’ve ever heard said to me every day, all day long. I don’t give a fuck. It makes you look like a loser, not me. Rolls off my back, I don’t give it a second thought.

What gets to me, is when people who put on an act of well-meaning criticism decide that they know how to be me better than I do. Nothing, fucking nothing gets in my craw faster than that bullshit.

Please, go on, tell me, how do I be me better than I am being me?

I’m all ears

In the past few weeks, I’ve had several persistent trolls who would swear up and down they are not trolls, but just trying to be “helpful” tell me how I can be better at being me. So, I thought I would openly address the things they said. Clear up a bit of nonsense before more Godlessly Momming.

1. Shockingly, this blog is a hobby.

I am not, nor have I ever looked to get famous or rich doing this. I think people who start blogs looking to get rich are more delusional than snake handling priests. I started godlessmom.com because I had shit in my head I had to get out. I would have continued to write it if there were only 4 of you. It just so happens, there are a few thousand of you. I love every last one of you fuckers and even though this has become way more work than I originally set out to take on, I couldn’t stop if you paid me.

2. I’m happy with godlessmom.com the way it is now.

I would have been happy with it if just my Mom read it. This website is about me hitting keys on a keyboard. It’s for me. You all are just a happy, and fucking awesome side-effect.

3. I swear.

I thought we’d covered this. I really did. I swear. I am not afraid to swear. I do it in public and every last motherfucker who’s ever met me adores me. I don’t have enemies, I don’t have people who dislike me and yet, I swear. WTF, right? Maybe it’s just not as bad as you think it is, you stiff, holier-than-thou motherfucker.

4. I can, and do, write without swearing.

I don’t edit myself here because go back to fucking point 1.

5. When I started my first business...

when I was 20 or 21 or some ridiculous age like that, I became well-known in my industry and gave talks and was invited to the launch parties of major brands and asked to write many articles that were published in my industry’s main online publications at the time. Even as the front page headline at times. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of writing for many people and many organizations and done so with unending praise. If you feel the need to come to my hobby blog and tell me how I can have a more successful writing career by changing the way I write on godlessmom.com, well,

6. I did more living in my childhood than most people do in their entire lives.

To assume that because I use cuss words on my blog, I must not be worldly or educated, does only one thing. It makes you look like a fool. I saw Bangkok’s red light district before I was legally allowed to drive. I learned how to say hello from locals while I was visiting their country, in Fijian, Maori, several Australian Aboriginal dialects, Malay, Mandarin, Hawaiian, and Tahitian, before I was 9. Also by nine, I’d taken a dip in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Malacca Strait, the Singapore Strait, Cook’s Bay in Tahiti, the Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay, Tauranga Harbour, The Great Australia Bight, the Southern Ocean, Hanauma Bay and the Koro Sea. Add the Caribbean by 13. Learned to Scuba Dive on Plantation Island, Fiji at 15. I was free-diving the Great Barrier Reef by 15 as well as the Andaman Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the Bali Sea, The Eaton Hotel pool in the middle of Hong Kong, the break waters of two uninhabited Islands, one in Queensland and the other in Thailand, a jungle waterfall in Phuket down the road from some elephants, a beach from which I could see Havana, Cuba, and fucking Carlsbad, California.

Me (fucking topless)  and my brother outside our hut in Fiji, 1986

I sat in the back of a truck driven by agricultural research scientists from Glasgow as it bumped and jostled through a jungle to a mango plantation, avoiding wild boars on the way, when I was just 15. When I was 14, I spent New Year’s Eve watching French teenagers strip naked and set off fireworks while traditional Thai dancers gracefully tickled the hot, sticky air with their golden-tipped fingers and my Dad got drunk with Joe Cocker’s manager. I’ve seen a black Santa arrive in a tropical rainstorm with bare feet and an umbrella in an outrigger canoe. At 15, I witnessed girls younger than me working the streets in Bangkok. At 8, I watched a family of 11 bathe and wash their clothes in a creek pouring into the Ocean off the Island of Moorea.

So, you think I’m unworldly because I say fuck?

k.

7. Another shock to the system for ya:

if you call me names and assume you know all about me based solely on the fact that I don’t believe in God, it’s not going to make me think, “Holy fuck, I need to find out more about this guy’s religion!” Amazingly, calling people names actually makes them want to recoil, not get closer. Wtf, right?

8. Similarly, calling people horrible names...

on a public forum because they have no religion only compounds what I already know about your faith: it’s morally bankrupt.

9. I am a Canadian!

Did you know that there are places in the world that exist that are not America? So, totally, true! Your yank rules don’t affect me outside of my thinking how silly they are. Especially the Pledge. WTF is that about? If anything could ever be described as absurd near as easily as religion, it’s forcing children to stand up every day before they start engaging in a lacklustre education, and swearing allegiance to a few lines drawn in the sand. Y’all fuckin’ nuts, yo.

10. I was dirt-ass poor growing up.

My mom was a teacher and my Dad was a social worker. They saved every penny they had to take us traveling, which ended up being a better education than the Canadian school system could ever offer me and worth every damned cent. We moved from rented townhouse to rented townhouse throughout my life, and had a steady diet of PB&J. I had crappy clothes, beat up cars and we never ate out. You know what though? Everyone I knew had it worse than me, in their perfect cookie-cutter Canadian sheltered suburbia that bred ignorance, closed-mindedness and a complete lack of interest in anything going on outside of Metro Vancouver. They bored me, they still bore me and I have no time for anyone who can’t see past the Coast Mountains.

11. I am not trying to change anyone’s mind about anything!

Well, maybe the death penalty. Outside of that though, this blog is for atheists. This is not my attempt at deconverting you. If I was trying to deconvert you, trust me, there would be no mistaking it. What I do here at godlessmom.com is, I hope, entertaining and chuckle-worthy and every once in a while, a serious look at a serious issue. I’m not trying to change the world here. I am just trying to keep a fun writing project going, so I can exercise my love of writing freely, as myself, the way I am. I don’t need you to like it. I don’t need anyone to like it. I write everyday in physical notebooks, and brain dribblings in Google Docs and rants in Evernote. With or without you, I will still do this. I know, it must come as a shock to you that my world does not and will never revolve around you, but it simply does not. This is not for you. This is for me.

If that makes you uncomfortable, well,

peace.

If you like what I do here and want to support my work, you can chip in here or become a member here.

#humour