"i think leprechauns are good at poker"

There’s something to be said about a man that will live in the context of the difficult things.

For years I’ve listened to David Bazan’s trying and honest exploration of his religious tradition, and life in general, in light of experience. The product of what must have been (and perhaps still is) a distressing challenge to his identity, Bazan has used his hard-earned wisdom to give a voice to an unrecognized margin: those pursuing Truth and arriving at something painfully near nihilism.

It’s a hard world.

I’m glad to have David Bazan articulate its challenges.

I can only extol the living room tour on which Bazan is currently performing. Sitting there among 30ish other people pressed into a stranger’s living room, all yearning for the catharsis of sorrow expressed, the intimacy of a small audience in close quarters is almost necessary. He willingly experiences the trials of his music alongside us, talking about both trivial and profound things between songs, helping us process what we’re going through with him.

And he maintains contentment throughout.

He is characterized by a humble recognition of the solidarity of humanness.

He is realistic in his understanding of life.

He loves his family

and he is a real human being.

don’t think twice, it’s alright

what if tomorrow I don’t wake up?

this isn’t a morbid or even particularly dark reflection,

but simply recognition that life

is fleeting.

we

are fragile.

sometimes I focus a bit too much on fragility,

on inevitability and the consequent inconsequential-ism.

and this should lead me to release from concern,

but I remain concerned.

and that should lead me to action,

but I’m tired.

so, what if I don’t wake up?

I say, “sleep is good.

and you’ll be fine.”

but you contest,

“fine is the worst,

and sleep isn’t sleep

without dreams.”

fine might be the worst,
but contentment might be
for what we really hope.

and who said I wouldn’t dream?

I dream now,

and metaphor is only animated by loss of logic.

and, to us now, what is death but that:

the animation of our greatest metaphors?

and what is a metaphor but extrapolation

of things seen unto things unseen,

or rather of things understood

unto things not understood,

or rather,

in the case of the problems of consciousness,

of this tangible world

unto that sublime slumber that

draws each of us in:

as our heads nod and our eyes get heavy,

as perception disconnects and emotionalism overcomes (and how),

as the hour grows late and the birds awake

surely we’ll fear not that infinite slumber,

but instead yearn for a cosmic pillow.

and if I don’t wake up,

that’s ok—
I've a decent command of metaphor.

when life became Meta

It strikes me as humorous that humans expend such energy researching the human.

I think back to the dawn of consciousness. I imagine recognizing that I was recognizing.

The exploration of reality from that point has taken place in baby steps. Those baby steps have us now studying the mind in a sort of Meta Meta: we are now awkwardly aware of our existence.

With consciousness came an existential fear: we needed meaning and something after to appease our awareness of death (enter religion). Now, as consciousness itself becomes old news, we settle into a soft nihilism: a shrinking world begot relativity that bred atheism and a lack of significance.

What’s next?

Probably a swing back in the cycle.

We’ll move from an overly objective approach to existence to a romantic understanding of reality, from expansion to contentment, from science to religion, from constructing meaning to… well, constructing meaning.

and I tell myself again, “it is still a beautiful world”

It’s easy to miss where we’ve been.

I think our best defense mechanism is how we romanticize history: I have no doubt that my past was not as marvelous as I remember it to be,

yet I allow the perfection of those days

to inform the perception of these days.

I entertain a stoic sentimentality.

I understand far too well how very distant the past is, but my heart has been hardened to the hints of sadness in nostalgia.

(And I say that with a pit in my stomach.

And I say that knowing my heart still breaks and my heart still bleeds.)

Sometimes, as my mind withdraws from the moment, I find myself feeling nostalgic about what’s to come. Constant regret makes the heart sick.

I’m learning what it means to live in the moment.

to appreciate what I have, when I have it

to be content with the God of my life

to keep peace with my soul

to be cheerful

to understand that though the world is full of sham, drudgery and broken dreams,

it is still beautiful.

(thanks, Max Ehrmann, for giving me perspective)

a disagreeable blessing

a moment of bliss

it’s that time before consciousness of inarticulate awareness

it’s the dawn of self-consciousness,

I only just perceiving it is,

wherein all you understand

is the contented sentiment

of existence

before the spoiler of reflection

profundity is like a great smog,

the reaching ever further into the heavens

to drag them down into our heads,

the very thing which prevents us

from getting our heads 

into the heavens (cf. Chesterton)

as i lay in cool sheets,

the fan encouraging the breeze

to blow over my contented face,

i prolong the nostalgic experience

of existing as my primate ancestors

: a lack of that vile blessing, my mind

this thing called consciousness: on loss

Why do we get so upset about death?

If you’re religious, it’s likely that you hold some sort of belief in an afterlife that is actually an improvement on this one (and faith that you’ll arrive there), or at least some sort of hope (that is probably a reaction to the psychological stress of death awareness). If you’re irreligious, presumably you don’t believe in an afterlife but perhaps more of the pre-birth nonexistence continued post-mortem.

In either case, this trauma is clearly not caused by death. What is it caused by?

It must be caused by some consequence outside of the death.

I suggest it is merely the lack of their continued presence in our lives that causes such distress.

Likely we get so upset because we’re going to miss them. (And how.) But this doesn’t really warrant just how upset we get. I mean, we don’t rend our clothes and shave our heads when our friend moves away (though I suppose that’s because we hold onto hope that they’ll come back… hope sure is persistent, hmm? whether or not we feel it, it’s there in our subconscious, keeping us alive…).

So, really I think it comes down to irrational possessiveness:

we experience terrific suffering because something we have built our life around – our identity, our soul – is no longer there for us. We seemingly feel entitled to their presence, maybe even feel we need it.

Of course these aren’t thoughts we entertain, but rather the subconscious triggers for what we understand as a terrible loss.

I think the same goes for losing most anything we've come to find important, that we've come to attach significance to. Faith, relationships, mementos, items and idols of any sort – we can derive such awful suffering from such arbitrary and even inane things.

This isn’t to discount the emotions we do go through. They are terrible and they are real.

It’s more of an exploration of the consequences of this thing called consciousness.

may Fortune, sublime and capricious, have good things in store

I operate with an understanding that my goals will not be met.

This isn’t bad, I don’t think. I (accurately or not) understand that the things for which I aim now will be quite different in a year, in two years, and so on.

Goals are less destinations than motivations to get up in the morning.

And anyway, “the best laid plans…” right?

There is a difference between this sort of MO and the apathy that underlies the “American dream” (a dream now characterized by a lack of responsibility and the prerogative of egregious consumerism): the former excites at each opportunity, moving toward life; the latter ebbs evermore, putting to rest their vivacity.

While I like to think my verve is generally increasing, I’ll admit I share a hope with the other side: that fortune might arrive anon. I do have great things in my life, though – opportunities, abilities, resources, people – indeed, I live like a king. I am absurdly blessed and yet I still yearn for fortune.

Maybe true fortune would bring perspective on what I have, contentment.

Maybe this is the first thread of light, dawn on a fortune present.

Maybe that’s Providence.

It’s not that Truth is relative, it’s just nuanced… very, very nuanced.

History runs in cycles.

Before a paradigm shift (i.e. when the liberal mindset finds itself to be relatively neutral, and a neutral mindset finds itself to be relatively conservative, which I posit occurs once or twice a lifetime of some 70 or 80 years—note how conservative many senior citizens seem to be, though they picketed when they were in college), polarization increases drastically: if you see increasingly demarcated party lines, it’s just a matter of establishing what the shift will be.

People, conservatives especially, fear this paradigm shift. They fear it as the end of all things, armageddon.

While it certainly isn’t the end of all things (humans are far too adaptive for that), it is the end of a world, though notably not the world. (Interesting that they can reflect on armageddon in retrospect, as Vonnegut did in his anthology of the same name.)

In this new world, we will come to accept and compensate, to grow accustom to and make the best of.

And we will learn to love it (for better or worse).

And this new world will be, fingers crossed, a brave one.

The changing truth between these times isn’t relative. It's changing, hopefully maturing, evolving. In any case, it is nuanced…

Similarly:

I wonder if everyone’s favorite color is exactly the same? That is, the quale of the color is the same despite differing titles (e.g. how I perceive the color orange is actually identical to how you perceive the color blue only I’ve learned to label mine differently; both (this) happen(s) to be our favorite color[s]).

I wonder what the quale of your god is? I wonder if the giant anthropomorphic God you think you believe in is social construct to sociologists or cosmological oddities to astronomers or quantum strangeness to physicists or the sound of one hand clapping to the enlightened?

I wonder, too, what your happiness is? I wonder if it’s American gratification or Asiatic honor or Platonic eudaimonia or utilitarian welfare or if it exists at all?

Truth must be very, very nuanced.

“like ghosts in a fishbowl”

As I run through city-bright streets, I realize I’m chasing something with which I’m entirely unfamiliar (and so it is with dreams when, conscious of your unconsciousness, you realize you don’t know how you came to be where you are).

Aspirations are apparitions of potentiality (and realization is fleeting).

: Striving so hard after something, a context, in which you have not existed before but believe whole-heartedly (or not) that it will be better than now.

(Or believe, anyway, that it is something different than now, something toward which you can move, if only to keep you moving.)

Often I find that my goals, however articulate, are not my dreams:

I dream bigger than the context I hope to realize.

What if, though, we find ourselves with goals met?

Aspirations achieved?

Dreams realized?

I suspect we'd be dead or dying.

[untitled]

I want to hide myself from Nature

(I am not magnificent),

that creature of unmatched sublimity.

And as I remain unseen,

I will remain unseeing.

I have yet to learn how to see:

my heart needs teaching,

my soul yearns for understanding.

I desire such intimacy with her,

so I flee back to my sanctuary,

alone.

There is unbridgeable distance between us.

A terrible desire to be one

with what have become my surroundings.

union,

indwelling,
community

(but with existence itself).

http://vimeo.com/27307766

why playing The Sims is the worst possible use of your time (and why I play The Sims)

“Sitting around watching tiny virtual people succeed in their fabricated lives does not get old,” promised a friend of mine. Indeed, I fear she captured a more profound lesson than she anticipated.

I’m sure it comes down to our obsession with instant gratification—in simulated reality we can grow up, get a career and achieve all of our wildest dreams in one [real] day! None of this working hard or biding time in commitment, instead we watch our skill meters fill up, make passes on the virtual dimes down the street, and, most fantastically, look for interesting and fulfilling career opportunities listed in the paper until we get exactly what we want.

There is nothing beneficial in living this virtual life.

Some games, I would argue (perhaps only to justify my playing them), better some skills. Time management games force you to deal with stress and quickly assess situations (I’m not sure why anyone would play a game in the “time management” genre—sounds like waking up to me). RTS games require quick strategizing, cost-benefit analysis, short- and long-term planning, and so on. RPGs require… not much. Anyway, RTS games can be good to play. The Sims, however, is a series of directions that keep your sim “alive” and doing your every un-actualized desire. It is similar enough to real life that the skills it might develop are ones that, if you don’t already have them (which you realistically might not given that your playing the sims), you might not survive. At the very least you’ll probably smell bad and have a diet that consists of Mountain Dew, Doritos and pizza rolls.

OK, the diet thing doesn’t sound that bad.

And, admittedly, it isn’t that far from my diet.

Still I desire to live a meaningless life in a tiny virtual reality in which I am God.

I can turn free will on and off, give and take away, create and destroy life. I can do anything I want.

It feels good having power.

It’s [emptily] encouraging accomplishing everything.

It makes me happy.

(It's funny that I have an option such as this--I have the time and resources to waste my life. What a blessing...)

And so I go, watching life pass by my virtual self and me (incidentally, both playing computer games).

everyone is wrong about something

We all have opinions and beliefs, knowledge, perceptions of Truth, conceptions of reality and perspectives on metaphysics (however inarticulate). We have learned many things through personal experience, others’ experience, education, tradition, and so on.

At first thought, we don’t think we’re wrong about any of them
(why would we maintain inaccurate positions?).

At second thought, we know we're wrong about something

(we just don’t know what, but we know we don't know everything).

I think this is an interesting dichotomy, one that should make us more humble and open to differing ideas.

Yet it doesn’t.

And so we remain closed off and unvaryingly wrong about something.

why i listen to hip-hop music

There’s something so humorously right about listening to hip-hop while rolling and bouncing in my long, awkward body. A catchy beat supporting a steady flow leaves me no choice but to thoroughly embarrass myself.

I suppose this is cultural self-deception. Trying to be cool, we, while among friends anyway, imitate pop-culture icons by pretending we know what ‘thug’ is and singing along with the challenges of being a pimp. I have to say I don’t know anything about most of the content of hip-hop music, but maybe that’s why it’s so entertaining. I mean, if I actually could relate to the challenges of pimping, I’m guessing I wouldn’t be able to listen to it so casually. Perhaps it is actually profound commentary on life to those who can relate. Suddenly when you hear the plastic body rattling on the low rider rolling past, you have to consider that it might be an intensely reflective time of solitude.

G’s can ruminate on human nature too.

They just like a heavy beat to back it up.

I still want to learn how to dougie.

And while I’m dancing [read: flailing about], maybe I’ll learn a thing or two about the [metaphysical] street.

i awoke next to my lover. i was content.

My waking hours are comprised of striving for so many things. For grand aspirations, careers, lifestyles, habits, relationships, experiences, money, food, shelter. Yet I find that the things after which I strive are only supplemental to that which I really want.

I really want fulfilling relationships.

While fulfillment comes from many things,

and sometimes dreams realized are fulfillment deferred,

there is an ever-progressing satisfaction borne from community.

A feeling based on completion, yet experienced in this active sense:

perhaps we are, as we will be, as we have been—

there are undeniable consequences of being born.

The satisfaction of true and open relationship lays bare the yearnings of my heart and the quiddity of my soul: I exist in relation to others.

i hope for things sometimes.

A giant once ate me.

I had met him on top of a hill near a lake. Apparently he too had seen how close the clouds looked to the ground there. I still want to touch a cloud. And I want it to feel like nothing else (unfortunately I don’t have the imagination to dream of what that cloud might feel like).

Thinking I might be able to finally reach up and touch the clouds, I paddled my little rowboat from the opposite shore of the lake from where I spotted the hill and the clouds. I landed on a rough beach below the hill. I clambered out, pulling the boat a little further up to make sure it didn’t float away, and eagerly traversed the hill. It was far more tiring than I imagined and by the time I got to the top I was dead tired.

Laying in the grass with a cool breeze blowing over you is like nothing else.

As I reclined in the grass, I reflected on how romantic it is to think about laying in the grass but when you actually do it it’s itchier than you remember and you feel a little damp when you get up. That’s the last thing I remember thinking anyway.

The next thing I knew the clouds were gone and there was nothing beyond the sky but sky. No space. No stars. No redshift of fleeing galaxies, and nothing more than what is here and now. It was contentment, but in a fettered way. I wanted there to be something more than this context to aspire to, somewhere to put my head and yet I was comfortable no longer needing to fit that place into my head.

Just then a booming voice announced in shockingly distasteful language a certain disappointment that the clouds were as far away as ever and that there’s still no reason to lift your little hand or mine to try to steal the stars.

The giant was saying this to me.

He realized as I did that we were both hoping for the same thing: what we knew was unreasonable. It was a masochistic pursuit as we anticipated the sure disappointment to follow.

And he realized this, and he recognized that compassion comes in many forms.

First he tried to raise me up as high as he could reach.

Then he tried to throw me (I was actually pretty close).

Finally he suggested I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like, that that is perhaps as close as we will get to realizing such an unreasonable dream. And as I closed my eyes, I felt my hand close around a star and I realized that my dream no longer was to feel that cloud. My dream was to capture that which no longer existed, something beyond experiencing the cloud. I wanted not to touch the cloud and allow it to remain, but I wanted to cage the star.

And as I put the star into my pocket, the giant released me from this captive world in a mighty crunch from his jaws.

And that’s when I woke up, my small boat rocking with the waves as a light wind stroked my face.

I still want to touch the clouds.

And close my hand around a trembling star.

And while I close my eyes and see these things,

still reason takes hold.

But I must allow myself to be released from this captive world

time and again.

But everything must belong somewhere.

a brief change of pace: the TSA and grayscale erotica

I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that airport security has become oddly erotic.

As I stood like a cholo (per the directions on the TSA Advanced Imaging Technology and the chorus of a Chicano rap hit), compromising my morals and sure that whatever was being enjoyed on the other end would end up on the Internet, I reflected on how unprepared I was to be seen in such a compromising position. I mean, if I had known I would be seen in such a state I might have done a few pushups before going through security.

To be fair, I cannot imagine getting mentally prepared for a work day full of viewing the, statistically speaking, undesirably nude masses of Americans going through security. I fear that the bad taste left in my mouth from a majority of the participants in what I’ll call the largest sex scandal deemed not only lawful but actually important would spoil whatever dimes might pass through the grayscale de-sexualizer/de-humanizer.

I also wonder how much the employee sitting behind that desk viewing those images is expected to enjoy his or her job…

While I didn’t mind standing with my elbows up and legs spread, aware that someone judged to be psychologically well enough to view those images was getting to know the crevices of my body, I could certainly understand how some people might feel uncomfortable.

Anyway, I went in and out with a smile.

I also made sure to wink at the camera during the experience—eye contact makes it more personal.

joy.

how can i place
my hands
in His side?

blessed are they
who need not, perhaps.
but blessed are they
who can at all.

this is mercy,
curing doubt.
and this is sin,
being too proud to reach.

and while i never can reach quite far enough,
at least i've been stretching.


doubt is a burden that weighs heavily down
and joy comes with the mourning.
and how I yearn for
appreciation of that tortured soul.

yet still it escapes me.


objectivity is just that,
and reason makes sense.
life is more interesting when paradoxical
and i do mind living.

Perhaps one day,
far away or not,
i'll trust that God is Good
and that God has the last word.

perhaps one day,
far away or not,
i'll trust that God is.

we are all alone together.

The separation of each from others is unbridgeable:

Growing up in Smalltown, Minnesota left me with a naiveté regarding the distance between people. Everyone bears the harsh winter and the sultry summer together. We work toward mosquito genocides exacted on the same evenings, and surprise each other and ourselves by getting out of bed when the wind chill is dangerously cold. It wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles that I realized just how far apart people could be: the proximity belied the distance. Though claustrophobically full of bodies, solitude is hard to escape while difficult to appreciate. Loneliness runs rampant in a city of millions.

our souls are ever inside;

I enjoy hiking quite a lot, and hiking by myself is great (though I suppose not the wisest decision if I don’t want to have to cut my arm off). I love the camaraderie of it. Hiking past someone taking a rest or meeting them at the top of the mountain, there’s a connection there that’s unexpectedly strong.

however, solidarity in solitude encourages appreciation:

I spent a summer in solitude. It changed me – I’m not sure I can return from that place. I am too aware of the fact that others cannot enter into the thoughts of my mind, the motivations of my heart, or the yearnings of my spirit. A sanctuary, my soul, is of stone and mortar. The walls have yet to be breached and the drawbridge is in disrepair. I am also aware, though, that across the river and over the plains is another sanctuary.

And from my tower I see for miles and miles.

And I see endless sanctuaries.

at least we are alone together.

Reality is but a state of consciousness in the Absolute Mind, and we are but fancies of thought.

C.S. Lewis said, “I presume that only God’s attention keeps me (or anything else) in existence at all.”

If the Christian concept of God is veridical, if when we die we find ourselves in front of a giant geriatric magician, then all that can be said about reality is that God is. Everything is in God and God is in everything. God is the context and the content.

Lewis went on to suggest that, “what we call the ‘religions’ are either mere delusions, or, at best, so many porches through which an entrance into transcendent reality can be affected.”

Indeed, Lewis pinpoints the distance faith covers in one epic leap: when delusion becomes transcendent reality. For someone seeing delusion to make the shift to recognizing transcendent reality, however, seems a near impossibility for never will the thought be shaken that faith is the systematic deluding of oneself.

I have found a first step in the approach to his leap. Understanding this “transcendent reality” to refer to elevated (and deified) priorities of a culture rather than a reality that cultures have tried to capture through metaphor and analogy. It’s sort of the difference between a posteriori creation versus a priori recognition. I think this actually comes quite close to the heart of religion without having to admit anything beyond reason (further, I think recognizing the value of religion in this sense is something even the faithfully deluded should work toward as it emphasizes the human aspect of religion, which is often lost in the over-spiritualization of doctrine). I suppose after this first step comes the necessity of relational experience of the aforementioned B.F.G. [read God]. Alas, I have yet to reach this step.

I think Lewis puts it, the understanding of the nature of doctrine, well when he concludes, “for our abstract thinking is itself a tissue of analogies: a continual modeling of spiritual reality in legal or chemical or mechanical terms.” Doctrine, the delineation of to what faith refers, is an interpretation of reality. Be that reality human creativity or a figment of a divine imagination, my hopeful heart yearns for both. The content and context of reality, be it a divine God or a metaphorical god, can only really be engaged through our neighbors.

An appreciation of religion, either as delusion or transcendent reality, ought to lead toward an action manifestation of hope in a better world.

But I suppose if the concept of God is not in line with reality this is all just a whirling cosmos of matter and ultimately nothing is significant at all.

I choose the former.

as loud as hope

I find myself wishing I were more hopeful.

Optimism about future events or the state of things to come is not a natural disposition for me (and perhaps not for anyone). This lack of optimism sometimes immobilizes me. I come to feel as though working toward desirable things will be in vain.

I think the important thing to notice here is the movement:

Hope moves.

Simply desiring something, wishing that _____ would be realized, seems an inherent forfeiture of power. Wishing for something is an appeal to the cosmos to intervene on behalf of a slothful you.

To have hope in something is a much more personal statement than most people realize. It says something about your priorities, your actions, your lifestyle, your heart and your soul. To have hope in something is to expect an outcome. Expectation, to be taken seriously, is an active disposition: expectation begets action.

To wish for something is to long for an outcome. Longing is a passive disposition: longing entails a feeling of loss or lack of something.

Hopefulness is a presence.

Wishful-ness is an absence.

I wish that I had hope that I would be more hopeful.

I hope for a time when I will wish no more.

help Thou mine unbelief

A recent Gallup study (http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx) showed that more people with a “High School or Less” level of education don’t believe in God than those with a “College or More” level.

As I thought about this, realizing that Christians all over the nation silently celebrated solidarity with those more intelligent than themselves, I wondered why we put so much weight on the correlation of intelligence and faith. Frankly, I’m not sure that a higher IQ gives someone the corner on understanding what would be an ineffable reality (or the opposite, to be fair).

The fact is we are all scared.

Self-awareness and an ignorant understanding of mortality cause fear. These in the presence of ambition create a dire situation. I’m wont to say that faith is better understood as this fear, the product of too much capacity for thought but too little capacity for knowledge (even among the best of our brains); however, I don’t desire to live in a world where God is a contrived defense mechanism. I want to live in a world in which God is a reality.

Perhaps what faith I muster is better understood as variations on Pascal’s Wager.

And maybe that faith – faith enough to question, faith in my mind and my heart, faith in community and faith in a God that, if actual, will disbelieve my unbelief and claim me as his own, recognizing that my disbelief is more faithful than mindless adherence – what faith I can muster, maybe that is not faith at all. Perhaps it’s simply the outcome of waking up.

But then, maybe God is as organic as that.

Anyway, it’s clear that my thoughts surpass my knowledge.

It is in the tension of unknowing that we live.

Ah, hell. Mr. Bell is causing problems.

Francis Chan recently published a response to Rob Bell’s book.

Conservative pastors (whether or not they accept the title) everywhere breathed easier.

I’ve heard it claimed that Bell’s perspective is the offensive one. It's allegedly one that presents itself without giving any credit to the opposing viewpoint, and ipso facto deceives people into trusting in it. It should be noted, however, that up until now hell as eternal punishment and heaven as paradise have been the only seriously considered beliefs on the topic in the popular church. Sure there has been and is plenty of dissent surrounding eschatology, but not like this. Rob Bell has finally managed to get the public to take seriously what's been called a heresy.

Note:

People don’t like to admit that heresy defines anew.

Traditional orthodoxy is a myth. (Consider what else has been called traditional stances, especially regarding women, homosexuality, alcohol, etc.) We do not believe what we used to.

Certainly generally held beliefs exist, but those are as fickle as the wind.

People rally against Bell’s thoughts, fearing the disjoint of their comfortable tradition. They have put far too much work into maintaining ignorance to have one man mess it all up by suggesting something different.

So they waited for their pastor – their master and commander, surely the corner on Truth – to tell them that the bad man was wrong. “He’s silly and got himself caught up in an activity that he’s no good at (namely proclaiming truth) and he should leave it to the pastors that aren’t part of this new-fangled emergent church. Orthodoxy is Truth.”

Phew.

A sigh of relief goes up from the crowd as they find out that they don’t have to critically consider anything after all.

The comforted chuckles

Of the ignorant masses

Chastise the vulnerable prophet.

“I don’t mean to tease,”

Said the Pharisee,

Sure that His was the Truth

As he assured all

of his Humility.

Seinfeld: A Commentary

Why do people love Seinfeld?

I don’t understand.

Obituaries. Threnodies. (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the World)

I recalled some memories from high school. (oops)

I thought about good things and good people and about things I did or said. I thought about how different I am now than I was. I thought about how the things that so informed my decisions and gave context to my actions are so much different now. And while what they used to be has certainly shaped me, I know how distant I am from them.

And I wonder how different things would have gone if who am I now

were the me back then.

I wish it were.

(And I think it’s a great thing that I can honestly say I wish it were, though it might be who I was more than who I am.)

What really hit me, though, is that it’s likely everyone else has changed too. Not just because my perspective of them would be different because I’m different, but really legitimately changed.

It’s kind of a sad thought. I mean I lost all of those people.

I miss those people.

Those people don’t really exist anymore; new people have taken their place.

And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing because growth and development are good things, it’s strange no longer knowing those people that were so significant.

So, a threnody for those lost in the tides of time (i.e. most everyone):

There was so much between us

during such good times.

And there was so much between us

when times weren’t as good.

And I think you should know

that I would do it again.

And I think you should know

that I want to.

“And of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you.”

All this is not to say

that there’s nothing to today,

but I like that I like my memories.

People come and go.

They always have and always will.

Thoughts, beliefs,

hope and dreams,

they change too.

The context of your life

is all that you’ve got.

And as that changes,

so shall you

(it would be wrong not to).

So I try evermore to

find contentment,

to learn to stop worrying

and love the world.

The Passion of the Jon (no sacrilege intended)

As I make decisions that will set the course for the rest of my life, I realize that there’s nothing that I’m sure I want to do for the remainder of the time I’m conscious.

I find myself wishing I were obsessed with something.

Or unreasonably exceptional at anything.

Alas! I’m fairly balanced and not passionately committed to any possible trajectories.

This has me wondering what makes something a passion? Is it something that I will retrospectively realize I was passionate about the whole time? Or suddenly come across and will want to spend all my time doing? Or is there not that one thing for everyone? Will I simply have to behave as though I’m passionate about something for the sake of a career?

The requirements for a passion surely can’t be based on time spent doing that thing, because if that were the case it could be said that I’m oddly passionate about washing dishes or testing the quality of kernels of corn (I can assure you, though, that I am not). Time spent must be a result of being passionate. So perhaps after spending enough time doing something it could work its way into your soul to become your passion?

Perhaps passion refers more to how the thing is thought about? If your thoughts cannot escape the thing, and there seems an unexplainable gravity about it, maybe that evinces your passion for it? Does forcing yourself to think about something constantly make it a passion, or aid it in turning into a passion? Does the definition of passion require that you don’t force it?

Do we need to be passionate about anything to live? (Passionate about something in life, I suppose, inasmuch as we don’t end it ourselves.) And I suppose this doesn't even skim the surface of talking about what purpose is.

It's interesting that Jesus got credit for The Passion for suffering and dying.

He evidently figured it out, all this business about passion—the pinnacle of all passions is suffering and death.

I suppose The Passion of the Christ plays out as much as The Passion of the Jon insomuch as being human largely entails suffering this life to die in a sort of teleological ellipsis.

I guess what I want to do for the remainder of the time I’m conscious is to be conscious.

The Passion of the Jon is incidental.

Life is wasted on humanity.

It seems that life has been wasted on humanity.

We were out walking the other day.
We saw two adults hauling a radioflyer behind them as they walked the river trail in downtown Bend, OR.

Perhaps it would be more revealing to suggest that the radioflyer was essentially a regal litter and the parents were the faithful servants (read slaves).

Anyway, atop the vehicle was the infantile emperor [of the household] sucking down a juicebox while simultaneously smashing goldfish into his mouth as fast as his teeny tiny hands allowed.

One of my walking partners keenly noted that we, as humans, are largely unable to appreciate the stages of our own life.

I think that's really true. Children haven’t the trying experiences of life lived to appreciate the ease of their life. Adults tend not to appreciate any of the good things in their life as they struggle toward an undefined and unreachable success, or at least a fleeting contentment, in their career and in their family (difficult things are always most consuming). And the elderly often don’t appreciate, or don’t get a chance to appreciate, the counsel of their years as their bodies slowly fail them.

It also seems that we cannot really change this no matter our efforts just as wisdom isn’t a decision, you don’t know who you are but who you’ve been, and you only see the younger version of yourself in the mirror.

What we can do is spend time with children, adults and the elderly throughout our life in an attempt to appreciate the various stages in which others live. (What really seems to be the case, then, is that we need each other. We need to live with one another because it is only in relationship that we appreciate what we had, what we’ve got and what’s ahead.)

Seek contentment in this pursuit of communal life well lived.

A [Rather Unexpected] Defense of Idealism

What good is it to understand how disappointing humans are, that the changes you hope for in the world probably won’t be realized, or that in the end almost nothing matters as death overtakes everyone anyway?

It’s no good.

None at all.

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world,” says Gandhi. And indeed we must. If the decision is made that things cannot improve, that world is simultaneously realized in the lack of motivation to even hope for improvement. And if that hope, when it is there, isn’t more than a feeling – if it isn’t an action, a movement, a way of life – there is no use for it.

Idealism isn’t simply foolishness or naiveté, but rather commitment to hope. Without such an optimistic outlook on life, the world surely would have killed itself by now. We owe much to the optimistic few.

I will never be an idealist. However, I think it’s realistic to say that the world needs all kinds of people, however impractical their suggestions might seem.

And though realism holds that I recognize the shortcomings of humanity, it also holds that I recognize the strengths.

I think idealism is a strength.

One that I wish I had. 

Freedom to criticize... or not.

What can I write about Independence Day?

It would be easy to decry it as a sad celebration of all that’s wrong with America (gluttony, sloth, wastefulness, excess, etc.). And further, during this worship of our shortcomings our minds are so distant from the reason for the holiday that it becomes an idolization of America and our selves rather than an appreciation of how ridiculously much we’ve been blessed through our independence.

Yet I don’t want to write about that.

I think having an opportunity to relax, spend time with family and friends, enjoy bright, colorful explosions in the sky, and eat loads of food is great. Taking too much time and energy to be critical about everything leads to the death of enjoyment. And while I wouldn’t normally say something like that because our culture is sure to err on the opposite side, uncritically accepting or rejecting everything they come across, I think it’s an important thing for some of us to remember.

While you would be entirely justified in dwelling on your disgust for much of American culture, make sure you don’t forget how to relax, let things go, and enjoy the blessings that so few others in this world have.

"Leave those bad ideas in your troubled head today"

Some borrowed words from talented friends (who don't know their my friends, but surely would be if only we could get to know each other...).

The search for Life is a difficult one.

"And I keep looking for that blindfold faith,
Lighting candles to a cynical saint
Who wants the last laugh at the fly trapped in the windowsill tape.
You can go right out of your mind trying to escape
From the panicked paradox of day to day--
If you can't understand something then it's best to be afraid"¹

Though I think the pursuit of reality should go something more like,

"when you love the truth enough you start to tell it all the time

and when it gets you into trouble you discover you don't mind."²

And when you get frustrated in your search,

when the trivialities of life seem to be all that exists and

everything feels meaningless,

just "hear the chimes,

did you know

that the wind when it blows

it is older than Rome

and our joy

and our sorrow."³

Learn to be content because

this life is all we've got.

And "if no heavy breath blew up these lungs

while dirt and wet spit hung in the air,

well we're still here."⁴

It seems to me that if this is what we've got,

if this life is the frame and

what you see is what you get,

that still there is meaning even if only for itself.

"'Cause everything must belong somewhere."⁵

An anthem to our visit,

a summary of how our lives relate 

to this whole massive universe,
is held well in this:
"In truth, the forest hears each sound,
Each blade of grass as it lies down.
The world requires no audience,

No witnesses, no witnesses."⁵

“No doubt the universe is

unfolding as it should.”⁶

Indeed, I desire to be allowed to exist in my identity

as a "child of the universe, 

no less than the trees and the stars."⁶

I desire to dwell in my identity that exists only in my relation to others, 

but that has been shaped by every

experience, thought, love (left or lost), desire, heartache...

: everything that makes life interesting--

that makes life worth living.

While I still want to pursue progress

(whatever that means),

I would love to "leave the novelist

in his daydream tomb"

or the "scientist

in her Rubik's cube,"

or even "let the true genius

in the padded room remain."⁵

I think contentment is hard to find.

I also think it's important.

Avoid stagnancy,

seek contentment,

strive for excellence.

And in all of that,

"Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy."⁶

¹Classic Cars - Bright Eyes

²People - David Bazan

³Cleanse Song - Bright Eyes

⁴Heavy Breath - David Bazan

⁵I Must Belong Somewhere - Bright Eyes

⁶Desiderata - Max Ehrmann (a poem among songs)

Realpolitik

The other day my brother said,

“War’s not the answer, but neither is love.”

I think that is profoundly accurate.

For all intents and purposes, war is an option.

For all hopes and ideals, love is an option.

To live in the current reality of life, the combination of these, aggression and love, is paramount. However, the combination ends up looking like his statement: neither is an answer.

So what do we do to pursue the shadow of hope in realizing a better world?

I’ve convinced myself that education is one sort of answer, one that responds to the insufficiencies of love and hate. This sort of learning isn’t just the compilation of information or Truth, but rather the constant pursuit of a growing understanding of the world.

Learning information provides opportunity to learn Truth.

Learning Truth cultivates wisdom.

And wisdom avoids wars.

Learning of the humanity of others draws them closer.

Learning about the errancy of your tradition makes you hospitable.

Learning who you are, your own weaknesses and insecurities, makes you humble.

Learning how to serve helps you to lead.

Learning to lead allows you to serve.

After learning to avoid war, to draw others close, to be hospitable, to be humble, to lead and to serve, it is entirely practical to love others.

Strive to show others the importance of learning and perhaps they will learn to love you.

The Bastardization of Olympus: Sex and Sanctification

I read the synopsis for a book that declared that monogamy is unnatural for humans (along with controversial stances on many other things regarding what today’s society deems normal sexuality). Indeed, something to the effect of a small sex commune is closest to the State of Nature.

While I wouldn’t necessarily argue with the authors regarding how unnatural monogamy is, I would suggest that it is the noblest of choices.

The heights of human consciousness separate humanity from animals. The profundity of our self-awareness, reason and emotion distance us from our animal heritage. While we are still animals – we still have all of the basic drives that tie us to our roots – we stood up, thus separating us in a way paramount to the understanding of our existence.

Humanity needs significance in our lives in a way that no other species does. Ambition and the pursuit of meaning are a fundamental difference, one that forces us to reevaluate how close we really are to our ancestors. We have evolved too far to use the “basically animals” excuse any longer (lest you prefer to live outside of civilized society).

At this point, the MO of human life is the creation of significance.

Sacred essentially refers to something set apart, revered through distancing it from normal life, treating it in a way markedly different from the way other things are treated. In this sense, anything can be made sacred. To some extent, American culture has perfected the allotment of this sacredness, however arbitrary, which appears as the loss of anything sacred: with the pervasiveness of sanctity came the bastardization of worship.

Popular culture deified sex, alcohol, money, fame, power, etc. And through the placement of these things on our culture’s Olympus, all things holy have been adulterated.

To regress to our animalistic nature is to embrace this lack of significance.

To treat all things according to their utility runs counter to our yearning for import.

And while I appreciate practicality, I’m not so bold (or hopeless) as to say I seek no significant meaning.

I’ll find my girl, and marry her.

And I won’t convince my buds to swap wives when I get bored.

I’ll raise the act of love in a declaration of my distance from my primate predecessors.

I’ll celebrate the significance evolution has granted.

I’ll allow marriage to be sacred, and find deeper contentment in that than any number of lovers can give.

And anyway, the potential drama of polygamy is infinite--I can hardly handle one relationship at a time.

No thanks.

How I love being in love (and miss it dearly so)

Oh, love.

The tramp and maiden of prose and poetry,

a many-splendored thing,

our only need.

I think of the lyrics,
"how falling in love feels for the very first time,"

and it seems to me that each time ought to be considered a first

because each is so utterly different.

Sometimes it’s adventurous.

Sometimes it’s entirely reasonable.

Sometimes it’s indelible,

and other times fleeting.

Though while I think love is electric,
a brilliant and vivacious animal if ever there was one,
I think Love is essentially commitment.

And how.

It is the understood yet continually surprising showing up.

Love isn’t defined by the excitement to see the other

or thoughts of them floating in the forefront of your mind.

Love is when you know in your gut that,
for better or worse,
you won’t be the one to leave.

This Love is masochistic, sometimes.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

This Love is difficult, every time.

And that’s not to say all the time,

but when it’s tested,

when it’s challenged,

when it matters that it’s there,

it is a worthy trial.

These relationships are so interesting.

So personal.

Personalities all their own,

each as unique as I suppose they ought to be,

and each the offspring of two beings

each greater than their self,

yet transcended through the

lovechild of these selves, made whole: 

the love of two consciousnesses

is fertile,

and often begets one mind,

one heart,

one soul.

Oh, love.

I love love.

I love being in love.

And I don’t care what it does to me.

[y’know, to borrow from the Format]

Recalibrate Your Perspective: Perspectival Context and the Recalibration

On perspective:

Few would argue that they are unbiased, unless they extrapolate Kant’s universal reason to include perception in general.

In which case by “unbiased” I fear they mean “foolish.”

I am quite biased.

I attempt to approach the world from a realistic perspective. I tend to emphasize the reasonable, rational and practical. This is often contrasted with things like optimism, and is frequently confused with cynicism.

(I think naiveté lends itself to confusing realism with cynicism—considering reality to be better than it is, while certainly a noble mistake, holds that any non-optimist must be a cynic.)

I understand myself as realistic as a medium between how I perceive the perspectives of idealists on one side and cynics on the other.

I suppose that everyone needs to recalibrate his or her understanding of perspectives. After realizing that no one subscribes to a philosophy entirely (i.e. there are streaks of other philosophies in everyone’s perspective), you’ve got to establish what is what.

I don’t give people enough credit, but approach life practically, reasonably. Not enough credit isn’t enough to say cynic, though I certainly entertain a fair number of cynical musings.

Oftentimes it seems that anything not lining up with an idealist is cynicism, ergo they fancy themselves realists insomuch as they think that how they perceive reality is realistic.

Or they don’t understand the connection between reality and realistic.

That to demonstrate that perception of reality is relative.

I can only ever consider things through my two eyes.

I have no choice but to interpret reality in my own context and through my own experience. I strive to expand my context and experience in order to objectify my perception, but even my consideration of my own bias is a biased perspective on it.

I say I’m realistic, but some call me cynical.

That bothers me.

It bothers me because I am realistic.

They’re just naïve.

Trust me, I’ve got a corner on reality…

Recalibrate your Perspective: The Premises and Psychological Egoism

While it’s true that I don’t even kind of believe in a basic goodness of humanity, I don’t consider myself cynical.

That sounded awful—utterly depressive and any definition of vain.

Let’s establish the premises:

1) The foundation of human interaction is selfishness.

2) I can only ever see things through my two eyes.

On selfishness:

To begin, humans are animals. We are creatures of the animal kingdom down to our most basic instincts, namely survival. This drive to survive naturally starts at the individual and works its way out (stories of heroic sacrificing are special because of how unnatural or extraordinary the incidents are). We feed us and ours then move on to benefiting the community directly around us, formed for mutual security, which simultaneously improves our chance of survival. (I hope you enjoyed the summary of Hobbes’ social contract theory.)

From this initial formation of societies we have obviously progressed quite far.

We began the slow process of peaking Maslow’s hierarchy some time ago, seeking a god on our side.

(Some suggest this pursuit of a personal deity is on its way out for something presumably more transcendent, which will probably result in the deification of the self. This will lead to a societal devolution, from community to isolation, thereby starting the regression back to the state of nature in a functionally infinite cycle of progress and regress.)

Note that this holds that relationships are a product of psychological egoism. We trade friendship for friendship, the meeting of a psychological need, based on what pleases us. We are friends with people we find attractive, funny and interesting. Finding these positive characteristics in friends has fundamentally nothing to do with any benefit to them, and we’re not closest to those for whom we could be the most beneficial (if so, even that gives us a sense of importance and heroism or something—nothing is safe from selfish motivation). Mutual bettering, that iron-sharpens-iron business, is incidental to the formation of communities. It is a product of our ascending the old pyramid of decreasingly important things [read Maslow’s hierarchy of needs], a self-centered journey.

So, goodness needs to be redefined to leave room for psychological egoism: the quixotic, untainted ‘goodness’ of idealists does not exist save for wishful thinking.

Goodness exists.
It’s just not as Good.

None of this is negative, I should say.

It seems to me that it’s just the way it is.

And what’s more, it’s subconscious (insomuch as we aren’t aware of the most basic aspect of our motivations, not in the quasi-possession by a second self that we’re not aware of and that sometimes controls our minds, cf. Freud).

I’ll get to the perspectival context later.

Character-ing

I want to create a character’s identity so wholly that I cannot help but follow their responses through the situations in a story.

What does this say about me?

I thought of the whole “lack of confidence in my own identity so I create another” thing.

I don’t think that’s it.

But off that,

Is it possible to write a character outside of yourself? Outside of your own bias or perceptions of others? Outside of stereotypes?

Is character writing simply the recycling of memories and experiences of different people? Does that make each character less unique?

Is it possible to create a unique identity at all?

What does this inability to escape personal bias say about people?

I think your identity is largely defined through the delimitation of your interests and understandings through the reaction of social norms with personal experience. At some point, with self-reflection, you become aware of both the pull of social expectations and the pull of personal proclivities and can more objectively recognize the bias of the constructed self. In this less subjective consideration of your self you may consider the influence of your rearing, your bias, on your behavior. It is in a similar place that you might find yourself writing a character of whose bias you are aware, for which perhaps may be thus accounted.

In the end, your identity is a product of your context. So too is a character.
It just so happens that the character's context is a product of your mind.

Remember that story that helped you discover how you think?
Get to know the protagonist:
Get to know yourself.

Half-empty or Half-full?

Your perspective on the world is evinced in how you would end a story.
Or in how satisfied you are with the endings of other people's stories.

I would confidently extrapolate bold statements about a person’s understanding of the world based on whether or not the guy and girl ended up together, the underdogs won, or everyone died.

How you would end a story says everything about what is essential to your perspective of the world.
Is Sunday the “fit conclusion of an ill-spent week”
or the “fresh and brave beginning of a new one” (Walden 78)?
Is humanity basically evil or just faded Good?
Do people eventually disappoint or sometimes satisfy?
Is the glass half empty or half full?

Write a story.
Find out how you think.
Let me know so I can judge you.

Just kidding
...mostly.