Sunday 11 August 2013

How to be a Humberist

I am often asked, "O great and wise High Priest of Humbert, how may I be a good Humbertist? How will the Way of the Humbert grant me peace and joy and a bigger house?"
And I usually answer, let's take those in reverse order, for the sake of simplicity.
If you want a bigger house, you're in the wrong religion. Try Catholicism, or even the C of E. Humbertism, being in its early days since the Day of the Modest Suggestion (of which more later) is somewhat underfunded as religions go. Incidentally the Church (for want of a better word) of Humbert is always open to suggestions on how to rectify that issue. We're thinking of starting a line of Hairy Humbert© cushions. If anyone wants one we might make a start on that as soon as we have enough advance orders.
As for joy, well sadly Humbertism is all about disentanglement, and joyful things often involve entanglement. Having said that, if your joyful activities involve a great deal of entangling then the process of disentanglement can be proportionately satisfying. Sort of like a big game of Twister. But be aware that in engaging in entanging activities you are impeding Humbert in his Great Swim and delaying his rendezvous at the End Place.
Once again, having said that, remember that there are no articles of faith in Humbertism. Only assumptions. So you are therefore free to assume, for the duration of your entanglement, that the whole thing is nonsense. Of course that means that you are, for the time being, not a Humbertist at all, but that's fine as long as you assume it's all true again once you're done.
As for peace of mind, all that entangling and disentangling and assuming and unassuming probably is not going to help you much, so you're probably lumbered with either joy or peace of mind but not both.
However allow me to put in a word here for the Church of Anti-Humbert, whose basic assumption is that the world will come to an end when Humbert reaches his goal so we must do all we can to prevent it. Therefore the more we entangle the better. Thus you may have both joy and peace of mind, which is quite tempting now that I think about it.
I wouldn't normally publicise the assumptions of a competing Church, but they did offer an advance order of 50 Hairy Humbert© cushions. However I now find that I'm neither joyful nor peaceful, which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.