SSS

Sects.

Why people find them so appealing?

I think we're in a very technical era, but human's mystical side can't be silenced that easy.

People use to need something to believe in (I'm looking for/ something to believe in, sang Joey Ramone). Many people use to feel empty in this strange but ridiculously monotonous world; I can't blame them. They're just everyday people, and day after day the world seems to be boring (not all the time, of course).

Then, people think in something different to do, something to give meaning to their lives. Not just to work and go to the supermarket and the shopping center and, pum, buy buy buy. Then some of them meet in "strange" associations. Some of them need to follow a leader (I can't stand it, but it's the truth).

In some way, all sects are religious. They're based on faith, with or without a god (but god can be a politician or a football soccer player). They're not necessarily offensive, sometimes they're just like a child game.

Anyway, the subject of sects is not that simple. Sects have been there since the beginning of the times. Sects don't follow the rules of an "official" or institutional organization. That makes them, sometimes, more interesting. Sects must have a limited number of persons; just like some local fans club. Anyway, it tells us about that something's not working in our society (what a discovery!). Ergo, it's not that sects are a threat to society, it's that society has intrinsic threats to its members.

Unfortunately -I think- most people who joined a sect has nothing new to say. They just need something to cling to.

By the way, Szandor LaVey rules!

(just kidding)

And no, I don't know anyone who joined a sect so far.

My faculty (Faculty of Arts, Las Encinas, Universidad de Chile) is not as good, nor as beautiful as it should be. I'm sorry but it's the truth. The best thing is that we have a nice green place here, but I don't know if it will last long.

Now I'm writing from one of the computers of the Faculty, and it doesn't even work good. Internet is as slow as a snail here. Maybe THEY can start with the improving of this system. Of course, I think they should make a better building: the one which is already look horrible, really depressing. The library is very poor too, and it shouldn't be that way. It's small, dull, the computers really suck and most interesting or necessary books aren't there (actually, they're more "useful" books in the Faculty of Philosophy.

Well, many of this is the result of the decline of education because of the dictatorship's policies (after all, it is supposed to be a PUBLIC university, but actually it isn't, you know, we have to pay a lot for this).

I'm not a very proactive man, I really don't know how to improve all this in a viable way, but I can claim or complain, at least. Not all the things are that bad, of course, but they should be better considering that it's about the "main" university of this country. I don't know if it's actually like that. And I don't know how are other institutions in the rest of Latin America. It's a shame, but it's true. I really want this Faculty to work better, and the same goes for all education in Chile.

But the birds still sing nicely out there. And I'm going to drink some beer.

C-H-I-L-E-A-N

Identity is a complex thing. There are different factors involved in it. But, in conclusion, it's basically a matter of Politics and Economy; the configuration of society, from its beginnings, needed to make networks to produce (to satisfy any kind of necessities) and to protect themselves, and later, to keep heritage. And that is, basically, the way it goes. The birth of the identity issue.

In a larger scale, I'm sure that nations (nation-states) don't involve a kind of substance or essence that makes them . We must know that there's not necessarily a common History (what is it?) between a Nation, nor an Heroic past nor anything like that.

The same goes for the case of Chile "my" country. "We" are not all the same; most of us are "of mixed race" (between native and Spanish), but anyway, we're not Spanish, and most mapuche people don't consider themselves as Chileans (and I agree with them: this Country has stolen their culture and lands). We're kind of orphans, maybe that's our identity all along the territory.

Anyway, I think of a specific term: the "Chile profundo" (deep Chile), which refers to the centre of the territory, between the south of Santiago and the Region VII; it's mostly agricultural,

If I have to choose something like a Chilean identity, I'd like to be this: being in an old bar, drinking chilean wine and eating empanadas, or pork sandwiches, or cazuela, listening to 'canto a lo poeta' (typical music of Central Chile); or being in the shore of the sea in a windy cold night, because Chile isn't a tropical country. Or maybe we just have to know Violeta Parra's life and work.

And don't we hate our neighbours.