I was going to write about some big ideas yesterday or the day before, but got distracted and demotivated. Now I wrote this instead.
These days, I'm having to face myself. I haven't been doing the best in the sense that I'm not living up to my own standards. I'm not producing much for the amount of energy that I spend, and I haven't really been trying. I have my paints, I have my books, I have empty pages, I have people around me and through the internet, oh and I have the internet. So I've spent my time reading inane, pop-interest articles, web-comics, and watching Youtube videos--and also playing TF2, and similar mind-numbing fun.
In this time I haven't gotten a job, or made any noticeable intellectual progress in my reading, writing or artistic production. Maybe just a few baby steps is all. This leads to my feeling like an ineffectual, savings-spending parasite of society. I'm kind of just hanging on--and not even for dear life, either. But having some savings to dig out of, the only pressure I feel to change is from the people who care about me, who believe I can do good things and want me to succeed--or in the least that I have the duty to do so.
My first reaction is just to wait it out, wait for an opportunity to come and jump on that train when it gets here. (Only I don't know if I'm at the right station for a train that can get me there before long, if that makes sense.) On second thought, though, I can't let myself feel good from not doing anything. This past weekend a pastor at Park Street Church reminded me that self-gratifying behavior and the pursuit of easy happiness (which, he didn't note, also points to the impression of cheap grace) is not the healthiest way for a Christian to live. We need to live for God's purpose and we will be duly rewarded in His time--even if that means only when we get to Heaven. And even that sounds shady to me, because it sounds like people are still egotistically looking for the best reward they can get. But I digress. My point is that rewards, including feeling good about myself or just plain feeling good or content, need to come from good things--good effort, a job well done, and working to the right purpose, and so forth.
It confuses me (not in an entirely conscious way, I suppose) when I don't do my best or don't work hard but still get good things. In an immediate sense, I do have good things, but in another, broader sense I can see how others have it better.
Hard work always pays off, and I can demonstrate that by looking at a few resumes. Besides my actual studies at Houghton, the one things I've put a significant amount of time toward has been the SGA. While I definitely developed skills and connections through that, it helps me most in the mark it puts on my resume: it shows I'm involved and have been singled out in some way by my peers to act as a leader on their behalf. It says something, but not everything. Other things I've put time into in the past year have been Halo (2, 3, ODST, Reach, mapbuilding), riding my bike up a steep hill, and making passable meals. These are life skills, in a way, and I suppose the latter two are fruitful to my well-being. They're time investments.
A friend of mine has multiple blogs that he reads constantly, for information and entertainment, plays more games than I do, and writes way more than I do. This is good for him, because he is pursuing a career in the realm of writing. He spends time on imgur and other general interest sites, too. But he manages to do so in a way that he profits from it. Sifting through mounds upon mounds of information, gimmicks, and entertainment daily, he still manages to produce. During this past year, he wrote/drew for, edited and published a weekly comic magazine at our college, passed his classes--which also involved reading and writing components--, wrote occasional articles for the student newspaper and kept up a blog or two while he was at it. The funny thing is, he doesn't have a full job for the summer either, and spends lots of time in a basement with his thoughts and video games. Ok, it's not funny, he's in a similar boat that I am. But I feel like he has more to show for it.
I've been thinking about the alternative ways that people get along in this new day and age. Somehow, people manage to make a living with webcomics, blogs and YouTube. I'm not considering that myself, really. It'd take too much to have the renown and rapport to make a living from it. Incidentally I have the same opinion of art, although I constantly repress it. To me, it's just a hobby, a highly valued one (just not financially so).
Still, what I'm beginning to realize is all I need right now is a desire to keep going. Actually, to get going. And to fuel that, I have a vague sense of self-efficacy--left over from what I have achieved, despite how I've failed to do so of late--and I have the respect and support of my loved ones. The way I see it, that oughta be enough to get my life going here. Oh, all that and the hope Paul talks about in 2 Cor. 3:12. Yeah, that's important, too.
[Post-weekend reflection: Matt. 6:25ff especially v. 26, 30, 31. I have spoken/written as a "man of little faith" and was wrong in doing so. God has spoken to me this weekend, and I know that he has definite plans for my life, whether I ever fully understand them or not. That is not up to me--I have only to trust in Him, and seek Him; to do the opposite of what seems natural--to give up my life that I might keep it; to find joy by carrying my cross with Jesus.]
01 July 2011
24 June 2011
just another Zero to Hero . . .
Zero from Zealous Creative on Vimeo.
This is a short film by director Christopher Zekelos, an Australian, which has a tasteful visual landscape and style, and is marvelously put together--as visuals go. The story details a social outcast who, it turns out, [spoilers] is just an artist, and can make awesome babies,with two heads, at that. It has won awards at various festivals, and you can see why. (further reading: go here and here ). As far as animation goes, I have to agree: it's pretty great.However, as much as this is your typical rags to, well, fame and acclaim story, it does so in a peculiar way that doesn't sit well with me. And here's why.
First, there's the premise that all people have an ascribed value at birth--it is a value you are born with, can't change, everyone knows exactly what it is from the outset, and it sets the course of your whole life. The story uses this to create the constant feeling of "No, but that's not how things work--when will he break the mould?!?" on the tip of every conscientious Western citizen's mind throughout the whole film. The shortoftheweek.com review notes that this is a Huxleyan reference to a controlled society that no one really wants a part of. The problem is, the film doesn't defame that kind of society in any way. Rather it upholds it, saying that's the way things are, so that sometimes we have awesome conjoined twins of infinity that can save the world. The zeros are still zeros, but their spawn is amazing--the necessary epilogue is that the child, Infinity, (if it survives its first trimester) goes on to hate his own parents and lock them up in the basement of his pan-dimensional castle so people will get off his case about coming from such a lowly origin. The film states that the only thing society had wrong is that the zeros shouldn't reproduce: they're still not good for anything else (or maybe, it's saying, if they only had a chance, they could, but I think that's a stretch, too). I mean, sure the guy is an artist, which is an unfortunate (albeit humble) way for the writer/director/whoever made that call to tip their hat to themselves (or if you look at it another way, mourn their low position in society). There is still no call for equality or seeing the value in everyone. The ascribed value still stands true. It's so far from reality in that way that it's cheezy, and hard to actually relate to.
Second, there's the problem of everyone who has numeric value--and thereby social value (the argument follows that this value is actually understood in reverse in our society: social value defines numeric value, whereby "she's a ten" is a valid phrase)--is made of pink yarn, whereas only zeros have mixed-color yarn. WHOA, right?! I mean even at my middle-of-nowhere college, we have a handful of Asians and Africans, and even a few Latinos (ethnically speaking). So what the film implies, whether it was trying to or not, is that the only fitting place in society for mixed-race people is among the outcast. Actually, the outcast class is entirely mixed-race. Clearly, they were born to pink people--they're the only other people we see, and zeros are forbidden from reproducing, so that conclusion follows naturally--but don't belong among them. Further, besides discolored twine, they are also unevenly wound. In a sense, they are physically deformed, like many socially outcast in the past and present. We can pride ourselves today for not throwing these babies down the well, in the way of the Spartans (maybe it was off the cliff, I don't remember). And many parents will struggle through life and social pressure to keep, care for and love their children who don't fit societies scientific standards of normality. But if one looks closely, one can always find value in a child with Asperger's Syndrome or with a debilitating handicap. They have a brilliant mind, or a huge heart or something.
Now I could go on, but I think my main point is that I don't believe there is such a thing as a Zero, or that there could be. The problem is, there will always be the "low man on the totem pole", but I'd have to argue, reluctantly, he is on the totem pole. Everyone has value, everyone plays a part in society, in humanity.
I think it stems from my belief that God loves everyone, and wants everyone to be in the body of the Church, of which Christ is the head. Paul writes many ways that the Church is like a body with many parts, and that everyone has a unique role in making the body work--no matter what. I quote 1 Corinthians 12: 14-26 [ESV].
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.This follows of course, as a part of my educational philosophy, that every student deserves fair treatment in the classroom and the educational system. If I may return to the film, in the classroom scene, it is not obvious that the teacher deliberately puts the zero student down--she is taken advantage of by the whole class. However, it does stand that she is telling them that zeros are the least valuable members of society, and have no privileges. Thus even the lowest of the valued must look to someone below them who they can scream at (like in Barney Stinson's chain of screaming [halfway down, starts with "Barney tells Marshall that the moral of the story is . . ."]). And thus bullying, etc. Further, the teacher believes her whole class, and the isolated student has no chance to stand up for himself. What's implied is that student already has a history of misdemeanors or at least of being punished, and the teacher doesn't think twice about who might have done it. Frankly that's bad practise on the teacher's part, but she dug her own hole. That system breeds brats and outcasts, and is what the modern system should try to avoid with classification, labeling, etc.The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
In short, the film tried to point out hope, but in doing so only managed to construct a flawed view of society. In the least, one can hope that the creators intended to illustrate a dystopia in which the only chance for a failed man to do anything of worth is through his offspring or whatever. Maybe I just disagree with them too hard. Maybe I'm missing the point. I know that it's no how things are or should be, is all. It's not the world I know.
17 April 2011
Re: Atheism (TL;DR)
http://adapadapa.tumblr.com/post/4487131173/atheism-tl-dr
My housemate recently brought his atheism, in a sense, out of the closet--well, out of the shadows, really. There was plenty there to relate with--a struggle with faith and doubt, the reality and relevance of the church and common practice. And I, too, have grappled with it, neglected it, and let it worry at and guilt me.
I've felt that distance from God--when you know you've drifted and pushed him away just enough so that you don't let him convict you anymore. When you've cushioned yourself in sin and determination; I know that deciding to outright deny God is an effective way to rid oneself of guilt, responsibility and doubt that comes from living in between.
This is when people like to cite Revelation. "Don't be lukewarm..." and all that. "Yeah," they'll say, "if you're not gonna live it up, I guess you're aloud to straight up give it up." And I suppose there could be a point in that. You might as well line up your mentality with your behavior, your learned instinct.
By thus turning, you do feel invigorated: you're no longer swimming against the current. (Figure 1) http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/gallery/stickman/2007-07-16-whistl_in_the_wind.jpg
One point Gareth brought up that I've been slowly learning, too, is that atheism does not beg amorality. This is a personal struggle of mine, in that I'd say, "Man, if I weren't a Christian--if I didn't have this upbringing and this standard for myself--I'd so be living it up. Like at some secular school, drinking, sleeping around, doing whatever the . . ." yeah not really. That's only reflective of a person looking for trouble, or excitement or what have you.
Living in a generally Christian community most of my life, I've developed this "Us and Them" kind of thing. You can tell someone is one of "them" because they don't follow our rules; ergo if you don't follow the rules you're one of them--and so on.
But I'm beginning to understand how it's not about the rules--it never has been. I'm trying to take all I've learned in fact and idea, and apply it to actuality. People talk about a relationship with God, with Christ, and through him, that fills you up, that heals you, that gives you company, a hope and a future. Some like to dichotomize Religion/osity and Christianity/-following, etc. And I'm digressing into Christian in-fighting, and that's not the point.
I've become accustomed to a slightly deterministic outlook--if something happens/ed, it was meant to be, even if you don't get why (God knows it, who cares if you get it). If it makes you sad, that's fine; it's part of becoming a better person: dealing with pain--mayhaps a result of sin (yours or humanity's). People change, of their own volition, of God's. He shows us things or he doesn't. Things just are the way they are and who are we to think that we matter, in the scheme of humanity or history or existence. You could be wrong or right in the way you think or understand something, but it doesn't matter--someone else could be wrong or right, but it doesn't matter either.
What is knowledge but material for debate and discussion? What is fact but an idea that can be skewed by the way you portray it? Chad Anderson used to always say, "Nothing happens in a vacuum," in English or Bible class, alike. Everyone has a context that they can argue from, and it postmodernity teaches us that you can choose to acknowledge that or not. A thought might mean something more to me in how I understand it from my experience; I like to deconstruct and pick out the differences in thought. I see it this way, but from a 17th century scholar's perspective, this language implies this, and modern psychology shows us that the scholar was actually referring to pent up desires, not inherent truth, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinity.
On the other hand, I've recently learned that my background and upbringing leads me to be more relationally oriented. I don't have a geographical point or social ideology or theology that I can particularly adhere to or call my own. What I've learned is that I can use others' and toy with them--pick them out, organize them on the table top and make connections, give it a person's name and move on to the next problem set. I've anchored my life in relationships, and even then it's tough because they keep moving, and changing.
Once again I digress. I suppose my point is, from a Third Culture perspective, God makes more sense from a relational perspective, and I don't expect other people to agree--you can't say that it's not true to me, either. I can't associate God with a right way of doing things, because no one does things the same way, which would alienate everyone from that way. Are we meant to build from/on what we have in common?
I'll pick on love, and see where it takes me (because it's what I can cling to). Going back, what I can see is that atheists can demonstrate (have, show) what we call "Christian love". There will be pragmatists who say there's not such thing as an unselfish love, or an unerotic love--that it all has tones of one or the other. When I choose not to question God's love, I see it as first, in reference to which all other loves are constructed--all other relationships. If I take a humanist perspective, deity is constructed from all human relationships--idealized from the best in each, to create a hope that we need to plod on. What can I do when a person chooses one or the other? All I've learned how is to love them, and know that God has a discreet plan for them either way. No matter what I do, it is not my will toward a person that will change or affect them at all. Love has power, but I'm not trying to use it thus. I'm just trying to get by as best I can.
What that means, practically, though, is that I don't always remember the best way to live. I don't always love or show love. Ask any of the guys I've lived with, or anyone I've dated. I can be sharp, snappy, rispid, malicious, cruel, unfeeling. Yet, deep down, what I want and need is to love. My problem is that I still love myself the most--and, yes, I see that as a problem in myself. I know that I live best when I live for others. Out of self love, you might say, I need to love others more.
How does God play into that love? For one, he's stronger than my conscience. Further, it is only through his love that I can love myself, which is more than I deserve. We, Him and I, know how bad I am and can be. It hurts the most when I try to keep things that way, and pretend they're not. I only become stronger when I accept that I am not strong, but I can gain strength through Him. With love, I don't see it as such a clear cut, deliberate process, but I do believe there's a connection.
God's love can be something to compare myself to, but I believe that at times, it is in me, and it may flow out to others. This is when I'm the best I can be. This is what I hope for most.
I have a faith in Christ, the Father's love and provision. I have a hope for what he promised us, but the greatest of these is His love, which is all that I can live for.
My housemate recently brought his atheism, in a sense, out of the closet--well, out of the shadows, really. There was plenty there to relate with--a struggle with faith and doubt, the reality and relevance of the church and common practice. And I, too, have grappled with it, neglected it, and let it worry at and guilt me.
I've felt that distance from God--when you know you've drifted and pushed him away just enough so that you don't let him convict you anymore. When you've cushioned yourself in sin and determination; I know that deciding to outright deny God is an effective way to rid oneself of guilt, responsibility and doubt that comes from living in between.
This is when people like to cite Revelation. "Don't be lukewarm..." and all that. "Yeah," they'll say, "if you're not gonna live it up, I guess you're aloud to straight up give it up." And I suppose there could be a point in that. You might as well line up your mentality with your behavior, your learned instinct.
By thus turning, you do feel invigorated: you're no longer swimming against the current. (Figure 1) http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/gallery/stickman/2007-07-16-whistl_in_the_wind.jpg
One point Gareth brought up that I've been slowly learning, too, is that atheism does not beg amorality. This is a personal struggle of mine, in that I'd say, "Man, if I weren't a Christian--if I didn't have this upbringing and this standard for myself--I'd so be living it up. Like at some secular school, drinking, sleeping around, doing whatever the . . ." yeah not really. That's only reflective of a person looking for trouble, or excitement or what have you.
Living in a generally Christian community most of my life, I've developed this "Us and Them" kind of thing. You can tell someone is one of "them" because they don't follow our rules; ergo if you don't follow the rules you're one of them--and so on.
But I'm beginning to understand how it's not about the rules--it never has been. I'm trying to take all I've learned in fact and idea, and apply it to actuality. People talk about a relationship with God, with Christ, and through him, that fills you up, that heals you, that gives you company, a hope and a future. Some like to dichotomize Religion/osity and Christianity/-following, etc. And I'm digressing into Christian in-fighting, and that's not the point.
I've become accustomed to a slightly deterministic outlook--if something happens/ed, it was meant to be, even if you don't get why (God knows it, who cares if you get it). If it makes you sad, that's fine; it's part of becoming a better person: dealing with pain--mayhaps a result of sin (yours or humanity's). People change, of their own volition, of God's. He shows us things or he doesn't. Things just are the way they are and who are we to think that we matter, in the scheme of humanity or history or existence. You could be wrong or right in the way you think or understand something, but it doesn't matter--someone else could be wrong or right, but it doesn't matter either.
What is knowledge but material for debate and discussion? What is fact but an idea that can be skewed by the way you portray it? Chad Anderson used to always say, "Nothing happens in a vacuum," in English or Bible class, alike. Everyone has a context that they can argue from, and it postmodernity teaches us that you can choose to acknowledge that or not. A thought might mean something more to me in how I understand it from my experience; I like to deconstruct and pick out the differences in thought. I see it this way, but from a 17th century scholar's perspective, this language implies this, and modern psychology shows us that the scholar was actually referring to pent up desires, not inherent truth, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinity.
On the other hand, I've recently learned that my background and upbringing leads me to be more relationally oriented. I don't have a geographical point or social ideology or theology that I can particularly adhere to or call my own. What I've learned is that I can use others' and toy with them--pick them out, organize them on the table top and make connections, give it a person's name and move on to the next problem set. I've anchored my life in relationships, and even then it's tough because they keep moving, and changing.
Once again I digress. I suppose my point is, from a Third Culture perspective, God makes more sense from a relational perspective, and I don't expect other people to agree--you can't say that it's not true to me, either. I can't associate God with a right way of doing things, because no one does things the same way, which would alienate everyone from that way. Are we meant to build from/on what we have in common?
I'll pick on love, and see where it takes me (because it's what I can cling to). Going back, what I can see is that atheists can demonstrate (have, show) what we call "Christian love". There will be pragmatists who say there's not such thing as an unselfish love, or an unerotic love--that it all has tones of one or the other. When I choose not to question God's love, I see it as first, in reference to which all other loves are constructed--all other relationships. If I take a humanist perspective, deity is constructed from all human relationships--idealized from the best in each, to create a hope that we need to plod on. What can I do when a person chooses one or the other? All I've learned how is to love them, and know that God has a discreet plan for them either way. No matter what I do, it is not my will toward a person that will change or affect them at all. Love has power, but I'm not trying to use it thus. I'm just trying to get by as best I can.
What that means, practically, though, is that I don't always remember the best way to live. I don't always love or show love. Ask any of the guys I've lived with, or anyone I've dated. I can be sharp, snappy, rispid, malicious, cruel, unfeeling. Yet, deep down, what I want and need is to love. My problem is that I still love myself the most--and, yes, I see that as a problem in myself. I know that I live best when I live for others. Out of self love, you might say, I need to love others more.
How does God play into that love? For one, he's stronger than my conscience. Further, it is only through his love that I can love myself, which is more than I deserve. We, Him and I, know how bad I am and can be. It hurts the most when I try to keep things that way, and pretend they're not. I only become stronger when I accept that I am not strong, but I can gain strength through Him. With love, I don't see it as such a clear cut, deliberate process, but I do believe there's a connection.
God's love can be something to compare myself to, but I believe that at times, it is in me, and it may flow out to others. This is when I'm the best I can be. This is what I hope for most.
I have a faith in Christ, the Father's love and provision. I have a hope for what he promised us, but the greatest of these is His love, which is all that I can live for.
21 July 2010
Shattering Glass with my Face.
On my way home on my bike at night, I'm often nervous around cars. Here in Cambridge cyclists have it easy, with designated lanes and enough of a population to keep drivers wary, but having been in one accident last year, I too am always wary of cars. I suppose it's a healthy fear, and it makes me look twice or three times if I'm not sure. I maintain a certain level of tension somewhere in my gut as I coast down Beacon St in Sommerville and I start to tighten my grip on the brake ever so slightly as cars go by only slightly faster than I'm going. I am effectually bracing myself for impact.
Sometimes, though, I brace myself mentally. I can picture the car pulling out and not seeing me or turning to the right when I'm in its blind spot--it's not a still, it's a moving picture. My bike crashes into the wheel as I begin to flip forwards over the hood or it catches me from the right side and my head jerks as the bike flies out from under me or my head smashes through the window as the bike crumbles under the big SUV wheels. I see it happening, and I brace myself for something else. I'm preparing for what it seems to me is some sort of relief or release: it's not as if I love death or anything, because I don't think such a crash would kill me right away, but it seems that from such an accident I expect my life to be put into someone else's hands. It's as if I expect suddenly to be taken care of, and I won't need to worry about details anymore.
This of course is not true: upon surviving I would need to worry about getting out of the road, stopping blood loss, immobilizing broken limbs, telling the ambulance crew the right things, calling the right people, keeping track of pending responsibilities and appointments, not to mention the eventual payment for treatment and dealing with whoever caused the accident.
Then again, if I did die, I would not have any of those worries (someone else would). I would be at rest in the fathers arms--or wherever it is, specifically, that you go first in heaven. I would no longer have to care about my work schedule, making any sort of payments, meeting deadlines or expectations; it's all said and done. I'm definitely joyful that I have that sort of confidence, that I'm so sure of my salvation, but it definitely sounds freaky.
I suppose there's a lot of tension right now that I've been avoiding or biking away from, and in stead of dealing with it right away, I'm half heartedly (or half mindedly) expecting some sort of Deus ex machina to relieve me of it all. I really need to just face it.
Sometimes, though, I brace myself mentally. I can picture the car pulling out and not seeing me or turning to the right when I'm in its blind spot--it's not a still, it's a moving picture. My bike crashes into the wheel as I begin to flip forwards over the hood or it catches me from the right side and my head jerks as the bike flies out from under me or my head smashes through the window as the bike crumbles under the big SUV wheels. I see it happening, and I brace myself for something else. I'm preparing for what it seems to me is some sort of relief or release: it's not as if I love death or anything, because I don't think such a crash would kill me right away, but it seems that from such an accident I expect my life to be put into someone else's hands. It's as if I expect suddenly to be taken care of, and I won't need to worry about details anymore.
This of course is not true: upon surviving I would need to worry about getting out of the road, stopping blood loss, immobilizing broken limbs, telling the ambulance crew the right things, calling the right people, keeping track of pending responsibilities and appointments, not to mention the eventual payment for treatment and dealing with whoever caused the accident.
Then again, if I did die, I would not have any of those worries (someone else would). I would be at rest in the fathers arms--or wherever it is, specifically, that you go first in heaven. I would no longer have to care about my work schedule, making any sort of payments, meeting deadlines or expectations; it's all said and done. I'm definitely joyful that I have that sort of confidence, that I'm so sure of my salvation, but it definitely sounds freaky.
I suppose there's a lot of tension right now that I've been avoiding or biking away from, and in stead of dealing with it right away, I'm half heartedly (or half mindedly) expecting some sort of Deus ex machina to relieve me of it all. I really need to just face it.
26 April 2010
Is this a new kind of morality that i've invented?
I've come upon a new struggle over the past month or so, that I've really been dealing with my whole life. People talk about different things being right and wrong, and different factors influencing that. What matters is what you do. What matters is what you meant to do. What matters is the journey; what matters most is why you're doing it. And, well it's a combination of all of these and more, of course.
After reading and thinking Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, I could finally put my finger on something that I've always taken into consideration. I've used this to consider the nobility and redemption of tragic heroes, and to evaluate whether to turn right or left. At the same time, I've cultivated a suspicion of my own gut reactions and first impressions at the same time as I over-value them.
The word that struck me, while this brings it sharply out of context, was "easily." Part III of Jarman's book of poetry dialogues the struggle of being alive in this world, in the face of Christ's resurrection, still often forgetting it. It's about the struggle. The saints struggled with sin; they struggled with men and devils; they died painful deaths. Life is meant to be painful and hard. Paul says so, too. We need those trials to get that perseverance and faith and all that other jazzy stuff. The hard-working wise man gets his grub, and the sluggard's field is full of thistles.
I've been caught between this perfection of living, the triumph of going the hard way and still getting it, and the inclination to just lay back and let it all wash over and over.
Any time I think about things, my conclusion is that the easy way must be the worse way. There has to be something immoral about it. I suppose it comes partly from my delight in a good challenge--although too big of a challenge will bring about despair. It's more fun to do things the hard way, not the accepted way. You learn, figure things out. It's partly a stubbornly blind independence, I guess. If I'm in a specific situation, I don't want to cop out. I don't want to give up; that's about as low as you can go. You're weak. If you give it a shot, you tried.
I digress.
I suppose the easiest (see, there it is again...oh man) way to explain this is by an aspect of my decision making that I've discovered recently and has landed me where I am at Houghton. I'm an English and Education major. Sure, I picked that because, although I like math and science, I could communicate life-important ideas to kids by teaching English, like people did for me. I could do that. I enjoyed the challenge that numbers and theories gave me, but I think the amount of work it promised in college intimidated me. I guess I thought I was taking an easier route.
Here's what I've realised. I love the theory of literature, and the wonderful ideas it brings up and faces people with, but I struggle with language. I don't know if I always have, but I do now. I was a pretty good reader the second time I did Kindergarten, but I guess it's cuz all the other kids hadn't really done it enough before. I remember having the hardest time reading things. Becoming bored or frustrated because I could stick with it. Did I have an attention problem? Retention? Memory? I think my developmental psych tells me I was just different. Is that a cop out?
So I still have a hard time reading. I know it. The result: sometimes I don't even read, cause I just assume I won't finish and it's not worth it. Now that's a cop out. So I have to work harder. Keep at it. Stop saying I can't; say I can to everything--cause that's what Christ can give me, right? In him I can do anything?
Right. So the many times that I'm not in his will, I can't do anything. That's simple enough.
Where do draw the line? That's not the only criterion! There is the Bible, I know that--but people still get tattoos, eat pork. Other people are doing it? That must be the easy way: take Frost's "road less traveled by;" make all the difference.
Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, takes the straight and narrow. It's the hard way. He didn't lay down on the downy grass. He didn't run away from the great dragon. He kept walking; he fought and won. He died and was taken to heaven, never having ceased his struggle.
Clearly there are other factors, but this is what stands out to me now. There is a right way of doing things--sometimes it's a bit harder, like washing the dishes well or sorting laundry. It makes things easier, but it's harder or takes more energy [I don't think I've ever accounted for time spent. just saying].
It is immediately, in a sort of pragmatic sense, easier to stay here after I graduate. To follow the natural course of tradition, and wallow through student teaching, get a job out of college, start my grad school, and settle down here in the US so I can pay off my debts--oh then I buy a house and a car...
It's harder to go somewhere else--I have to do research, travel, arrange documents, adapt/re-adapt to culture and expectations. It's harder to quit school and look for something else to do. I've never done that. It's harder to leave Houghton and do college in Brazil. Or just do Grad school there. It's unfriendly ground, who knows what kind of support I'll get. I have support systems in place here.
It's easier to keep dating and avoid the pain of a breakup. It's harder to stay together and work out the problems from thousands of miles away. It's easier to break up and turn away, take on someone new.
It's easier to tickle my brain and try to get some of this down than to write my paper. It's easier to stay up late than to wake up early. Or sleep early.
After reading and thinking Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, I could finally put my finger on something that I've always taken into consideration. I've used this to consider the nobility and redemption of tragic heroes, and to evaluate whether to turn right or left. At the same time, I've cultivated a suspicion of my own gut reactions and first impressions at the same time as I over-value them.
The word that struck me, while this brings it sharply out of context, was "easily." Part III of Jarman's book of poetry dialogues the struggle of being alive in this world, in the face of Christ's resurrection, still often forgetting it. It's about the struggle. The saints struggled with sin; they struggled with men and devils; they died painful deaths. Life is meant to be painful and hard. Paul says so, too. We need those trials to get that perseverance and faith and all that other jazzy stuff. The hard-working wise man gets his grub, and the sluggard's field is full of thistles.
I've been caught between this perfection of living, the triumph of going the hard way and still getting it, and the inclination to just lay back and let it all wash over and over.
Any time I think about things, my conclusion is that the easy way must be the worse way. There has to be something immoral about it. I suppose it comes partly from my delight in a good challenge--although too big of a challenge will bring about despair. It's more fun to do things the hard way, not the accepted way. You learn, figure things out. It's partly a stubbornly blind independence, I guess. If I'm in a specific situation, I don't want to cop out. I don't want to give up; that's about as low as you can go. You're weak. If you give it a shot, you tried.
I digress.
I suppose the easiest (see, there it is again...oh man) way to explain this is by an aspect of my decision making that I've discovered recently and has landed me where I am at Houghton. I'm an English and Education major. Sure, I picked that because, although I like math and science, I could communicate life-important ideas to kids by teaching English, like people did for me. I could do that. I enjoyed the challenge that numbers and theories gave me, but I think the amount of work it promised in college intimidated me. I guess I thought I was taking an easier route.
Here's what I've realised. I love the theory of literature, and the wonderful ideas it brings up and faces people with, but I struggle with language. I don't know if I always have, but I do now. I was a pretty good reader the second time I did Kindergarten, but I guess it's cuz all the other kids hadn't really done it enough before. I remember having the hardest time reading things. Becoming bored or frustrated because I could stick with it. Did I have an attention problem? Retention? Memory? I think my developmental psych tells me I was just different. Is that a cop out?
So I still have a hard time reading. I know it. The result: sometimes I don't even read, cause I just assume I won't finish and it's not worth it. Now that's a cop out. So I have to work harder. Keep at it. Stop saying I can't; say I can to everything--cause that's what Christ can give me, right? In him I can do anything?
Right. So the many times that I'm not in his will, I can't do anything. That's simple enough.
Where do draw the line? That's not the only criterion! There is the Bible, I know that--but people still get tattoos, eat pork. Other people are doing it? That must be the easy way: take Frost's "road less traveled by;" make all the difference.
Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, takes the straight and narrow. It's the hard way. He didn't lay down on the downy grass. He didn't run away from the great dragon. He kept walking; he fought and won. He died and was taken to heaven, never having ceased his struggle.
Clearly there are other factors, but this is what stands out to me now. There is a right way of doing things--sometimes it's a bit harder, like washing the dishes well or sorting laundry. It makes things easier, but it's harder or takes more energy [I don't think I've ever accounted for time spent. just saying].
It is immediately, in a sort of pragmatic sense, easier to stay here after I graduate. To follow the natural course of tradition, and wallow through student teaching, get a job out of college, start my grad school, and settle down here in the US so I can pay off my debts--oh then I buy a house and a car...
It's harder to go somewhere else--I have to do research, travel, arrange documents, adapt/re-adapt to culture and expectations. It's harder to quit school and look for something else to do. I've never done that. It's harder to leave Houghton and do college in Brazil. Or just do Grad school there. It's unfriendly ground, who knows what kind of support I'll get. I have support systems in place here.
It's easier to keep dating and avoid the pain of a breakup. It's harder to stay together and work out the problems from thousands of miles away. It's easier to break up and turn away, take on someone new.
It's easier to tickle my brain and try to get some of this down than to write my paper. It's easier to stay up late than to wake up early. Or sleep early.
28 August 2009
space time and the mind
if i were planning to go into psych, this would be my thing. i would study, for my own benefit, the psychological implications of modern travel. people today travel so much and so far and transit between social groups and societies so much that we are developing new strategies for it. we don't have that kind of "evolutionary experience"--this is a novel phenomenon brought on by the revolutions in communication and transportation.
over the past year i have not lived in one place for more than four months. i have traveled thousands of miles, been surrounded by vastly different languages, cultures, atmospheric pressures and geographic features--oceans, waterfalls, rivers, forests, cities, trains, highways, aircrafts, cars, and so much more. i've lived in houses, a dorm, a guesthouse, a students' house and an apartment. varying routines, supervision, expectations.
can a person create and duly respond to the social construction of reality when it is constantly in flux?? surely, there are some who can--perhaps not well--, but there are many who can't. what separates them?? what can we do to help people through such a lifestyle, or need it be obliterated from society?
i believe that so much in life relies on permanence. in order for relationships to persist, you need to maintain the social context of that relationship, and when it is in a parallel construct, it takes more work. in one mind there must be a running, changing conception of the place that mind came from as well as sensing and reacting to the mind's present environment.
anyways, that's what im suffering right now. i just came from brazil, and boston before that. now im with my sister before heading to middle-of-nowhereville, NY. im finally returning to a world i'd left behind, leaving so many other worlds behind. im conscious of upcoming psychological turmoil, but i don't know what to do with it now.
over the past year i have not lived in one place for more than four months. i have traveled thousands of miles, been surrounded by vastly different languages, cultures, atmospheric pressures and geographic features--oceans, waterfalls, rivers, forests, cities, trains, highways, aircrafts, cars, and so much more. i've lived in houses, a dorm, a guesthouse, a students' house and an apartment. varying routines, supervision, expectations.
can a person create and duly respond to the social construction of reality when it is constantly in flux?? surely, there are some who can--perhaps not well--, but there are many who can't. what separates them?? what can we do to help people through such a lifestyle, or need it be obliterated from society?
i believe that so much in life relies on permanence. in order for relationships to persist, you need to maintain the social context of that relationship, and when it is in a parallel construct, it takes more work. in one mind there must be a running, changing conception of the place that mind came from as well as sensing and reacting to the mind's present environment.
anyways, that's what im suffering right now. i just came from brazil, and boston before that. now im with my sister before heading to middle-of-nowhereville, NY. im finally returning to a world i'd left behind, leaving so many other worlds behind. im conscious of upcoming psychological turmoil, but i don't know what to do with it now.
13 August 2009
when God speaks, there's no doubt about it
these days, my life has been a storm, an utter whirl-wind upon earthquake, and god's voice was in them. the hubbub kept me busy and spinning, but god broke through like a truck to a deer on a forest road; his still, small voice has been with me ever since. he has showed me his wonders and his mighty power; how he orchestrates all of creation--time and space together--to his purpose. this is not to say that i have stuck with him all of the way. at times i recognized myself pulling a jonah, going exactly where god said not to, but called me persistently back. he spoke through me and to me. he has used his beautiful, broken body, the church, to speak to me. he has used books and circumstances. and he has given me the desire of my heart. i believe that my going to brazil is god's desire as well as mine--for what specific purpose i will only discover afterward--and only by seeking his kingdom first was i granted this wonderful oportunity to return to the place i call home closest to my heart. i suppose the last lesson i have to learn is that my home is not here, or there or at the ends of the earth, but in god's kingdom--and the when and wheres of that kingdom are only dimly seen today.
soon we will see face to face
soon we will see face to face
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