That’s how I try to describe growing up with it when people ask why I don’t to to church or subscribe to any religion.

Aside from the many other aspects of it, even as a child, I couldn’t understand why I was supposed to be so enthusiastically smug that I belonged to this thing that seemed to exist only to impose rules on everything imaginable and that those rules would invariably be against anything even remotely fun or pleasurable. Hell we couldn’t even use most spices; thanks Dr Kellogg.

At age six or so I legitimately perceived it to be sinful to smile or laugh for fear I’d be punished because there would be some arbitrary rule that whatever caused me to smile or laugh was too worldly.

Fuck that. I’ll be miserable and curmudgeonly on my own terms!