I grew up watching Star Trek. I know, it's not particularly cool, depending on who you are. But I say it's an excellent set of series'. My dad got me into The Next Generation and showed me the cheesy gloriousness of the 60's era Star Trek. I watched the Wrath of Khan and about lost it at the end. When Voyager came out, I watched the first episode with nothing less than extreme excitement. I even came to love the series most people that like the other 3 already mentioned don't like: Deep Space Nine. It's character development, overarching story throughout the latter half of the series, and continual outstanding mix of sci-fi with solid story telling and development of classic and deep characters captivated me completely.
I love Star Trek for many reasons. I love sci-fi and futuristic technology, I love good storytelling, and I love a universe I can get into, even if it hasn't remained consistent throughout all of its' run. However, the main overriding reason I like Star Trek is that it shows the best parts of how a person can be. It shows people exercising bravery, truly thinking through problems instead of allowing themselves to be overwhelmed, friendships that last and endure through years, and the enduring nature of people, how they will continue to explore, improve upon themselves, and fight for the right things, even if it costs them their lives.
To me, Star Trek is truly great, and everyone should give it a chance.
Having been a fan of the other 4 series' and all of the movies (though Nemesis, I confess, disappointed me greatly), I was deeply frustrated when the fifth series, initially named only Enterprise, launched. It was said that the writers were attempting to rewrite the Original Series, and the continuity violations started there. I'm not talking about simple technological differences, entire aspects of the universe, such as the nature of Vulcans, were being completely rewritten. I watched the first few episodes, and then when I watched one that I thought was particularly silly (male pregnancy wtf?!) I abandoned the series altogether, preferring to say it's not canon.
Recently, I decided to watch the series and give it a fair chance before discounting it, on the advice of a few people. There were some rather painful parts, and a few episodes that I thought were contrived, low level metaphor for contemporary issues. But Star Trek has never been without a few of those episodes in any series. I struggled through those, and I became addicted. I watched all 98 episodes, and I have to say, I not only think that it eventually became a very good canon series due to the way the universe and technological issues were handled, (season 3 and 4 changing the name to Star Trek: Enterprise to reflect the change in tone), but it's reminded me of why I like Star Trek.
The Universe of Star Trek has always been a bit flexible, with the science never being too exact and the plot usually driving the show or movie. What really shines through every series is the philosophy: that exploring and finding something better about ourselves and humanity is a worthwhile endeavor. In Season 3 of Enterprise, Captain Archer and crew are faced with a threat that could entirely destroy Earth. He takes every step, crossing many ethical lines, to make sure that that doesn't happen. What that costs him personally can be summed up as him losing his way. I believe most people can relate to this, at some point they must do what is necessary, including some ugly things, to accomplish a greater goal. Life's not always easy, but change is the essence of who we are. We can move beyond, grow, and become better, or we can change for the worse. Regardless, everything counts, and what separates us from evil is not a simply black and white formula, but our choices, our perspectives, and the way we choose to handle things.
I like Star Trek because it shows me that it is possible for humanity to live for something greater, and for us not to be alone. Star Trek: Enterprise reminded me of that, and I am proud to say I watched and enjoyed it.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Transcending Tragedy
Sometimes, things are simply unfair. As the saying goes, no one ever said life would be fair. Sometimes this works in our favor, and sometimes it does not. Regardless, our world is out of balance. The idealist is disappointed at all times, as his experiences are never a thing corresponding to reality. An ideal is at best a hope for tomorrow, a thing that is desirable for the future.
Life is tragic, and sometimes in the smallest ways. It is tragic when a person is misunderstood to the point of being written off by many that he used to call friend. It is tragic when a person loses who they are in another person, as if that person is in some way superior to them because of what their misplaced admiration tells them. It is tragic when people sacrifice their own personalities, their own uniqueness, to conform to a system out of fear of reprisal. It is tragic when people are lead solely by their emotions and desires, and forget what their head tells them out of some twisted sense of spirituality.
I could go on, but that will more than suffice. I've experienced my share of small tragedy, and I've even experienced the more obvious forms: death of loved ones, people driven nearly to suicide by the lack of caring of others and the total collapse of things held so dear to them. I've even caused my share of tragedy, large and small, and my favorite victim has been myself, a tragedy in itself.
It's all made me very mad. I hate how unfair life is, I hate how petty and ignorant people can willingly be, and how entirely unfair situations end up being because people can not see beyond their selfishness. I can not stand the small tragedies that I and many others are asked to "just deal with" every day for the convenience of others. I hate seeing things I love being used to justify appalling abuses of people.
Being mad has done nothing but make me bitter, and my bitterness has done nothing to change any of the situations or things I can't stand. On the contrary, it has spiraled them further out of my control, whether through others' deliberate manipulation, through a simple lack of desire to engage someone so angry, or the distance I place between myself and others because I have become convinced at times that people are all going to fail me.
But there is a better way, and one does not have to become an idealistic fool to take it. One can only control himself and his own responses to their life. We do not have to respond how our emotions tell us to. We do not have to allow our emotions to make us miserable just because we think, for some reason, that that makes us noble or right. On the contrary, to be so controlled by chemical reactions in the brain is to discard part of what makes us human: our mind.
My mind has come into conflict with much of what I have been told to accept for 24 years lately. I am on the verge of many changes, and leaving many things behind. I don't even know where this will leave me when it comes to things such as the church, friends I've known for years, my family, my alma mater, and life in general as I've known it for the past almost 10 years. It's exciting and necessary change, but terrifying nonetheless, as change often is.
The change of scenery, the newness of routine and the ability to support myself are all parts of this change, but at the core of it is a new refusal to allow myself to be an entirely emotional being any longer.
I've spent a lot of time reacting and not a lot of time thinking when it comes to a lot of things, and that creates problems, no matter who you are. Sentimentality is one thing, but I refuse to allow another person to control me again through emotional manipulation, as I am so prone to do.
When a person feels deeply, they feel the tragic things in their soul. I make no apologies for being disturbed, for criticizing, for lack of reverence that I hope leads toward change in myself and the things I love. However, I will embrace this change, I will transcend tragedy and find hope again.
Life is tragic, and sometimes in the smallest ways. It is tragic when a person is misunderstood to the point of being written off by many that he used to call friend. It is tragic when a person loses who they are in another person, as if that person is in some way superior to them because of what their misplaced admiration tells them. It is tragic when people sacrifice their own personalities, their own uniqueness, to conform to a system out of fear of reprisal. It is tragic when people are lead solely by their emotions and desires, and forget what their head tells them out of some twisted sense of spirituality.
I could go on, but that will more than suffice. I've experienced my share of small tragedy, and I've even experienced the more obvious forms: death of loved ones, people driven nearly to suicide by the lack of caring of others and the total collapse of things held so dear to them. I've even caused my share of tragedy, large and small, and my favorite victim has been myself, a tragedy in itself.
It's all made me very mad. I hate how unfair life is, I hate how petty and ignorant people can willingly be, and how entirely unfair situations end up being because people can not see beyond their selfishness. I can not stand the small tragedies that I and many others are asked to "just deal with" every day for the convenience of others. I hate seeing things I love being used to justify appalling abuses of people.
Being mad has done nothing but make me bitter, and my bitterness has done nothing to change any of the situations or things I can't stand. On the contrary, it has spiraled them further out of my control, whether through others' deliberate manipulation, through a simple lack of desire to engage someone so angry, or the distance I place between myself and others because I have become convinced at times that people are all going to fail me.
But there is a better way, and one does not have to become an idealistic fool to take it. One can only control himself and his own responses to their life. We do not have to respond how our emotions tell us to. We do not have to allow our emotions to make us miserable just because we think, for some reason, that that makes us noble or right. On the contrary, to be so controlled by chemical reactions in the brain is to discard part of what makes us human: our mind.
My mind has come into conflict with much of what I have been told to accept for 24 years lately. I am on the verge of many changes, and leaving many things behind. I don't even know where this will leave me when it comes to things such as the church, friends I've known for years, my family, my alma mater, and life in general as I've known it for the past almost 10 years. It's exciting and necessary change, but terrifying nonetheless, as change often is.
The change of scenery, the newness of routine and the ability to support myself are all parts of this change, but at the core of it is a new refusal to allow myself to be an entirely emotional being any longer.
I've spent a lot of time reacting and not a lot of time thinking when it comes to a lot of things, and that creates problems, no matter who you are. Sentimentality is one thing, but I refuse to allow another person to control me again through emotional manipulation, as I am so prone to do.
When a person feels deeply, they feel the tragic things in their soul. I make no apologies for being disturbed, for criticizing, for lack of reverence that I hope leads toward change in myself and the things I love. However, I will embrace this change, I will transcend tragedy and find hope again.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Emotional Intelligence, Part 1
I just ran into this topic yesterday, and do not know much about it yet, but it already has me interested.
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is sort of like the Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, but seems a little more complicated to measure and manage. It consists of a person's Personal Competence and their Social Competence, and is further divided into Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management (Bradberry, & Greaves, 2009).
Like any multi-pronged, testable psychological measure, there is a degree of subjectivity to the test, but after taking it myself, I found it to be quite accurate, and it comes with strategies for improving one's EQ (which I need).
So what does it all mean?
I can only tell you what I think it means. In academia, value is placed on the ability of a person to recall facts, deductive reasoning, and their raw intelligence. This is how you get grades (ignoring for now whether the grading scale and assignments even accurately measure these things), and how you progress. There is even an accidental measure of motivation built in. You will not do well in academia if you simply do not do the work.
In social situations, people often lack the ability to be effective for many reasons. For example, some people may assume that others think much worse of them than they actually do. Some people may have a built in propensity to fail for their own emotional protection. Sometimes people fear change so much that they maintain the status quo at all costs. Still others have personal desires for themselves or for their lives that are never fulfilled because they are their own worst enemy, or because they can not go beyond their own insecurities, their own sense of being disturbed, or their own upset state to simply make the best of their situation.
It came to my attention recently from a friend that I tend to allow my own wounds to keep me from making progress. I then stumbled on this topic, and I think it may have been a good bit of what he was trying to tell me. Granted, life has been pretty tough for me lately for a few reasons, but when I consider EQ, I am met with an interesting challenge.
All of these things can be a problem if we are not intentional. That is, if we always think and act based on how we feel, then we will not only be unpredictable, we will lose our perspective on life, especially when things do not go well. We are emotional beings by nature. Emotions are, at the base level, a chemical reaction in the brain that precedes any conscious thought. In other words, they set the tone for how we handle things if we allow them to.
Emotional Intelligence, as I understand it, is self-control, awareness, and intentionality in all situations, and it is a choice.
More on this later.
Bradberry, T, & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego: TalentSmart.
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is sort of like the Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, but seems a little more complicated to measure and manage. It consists of a person's Personal Competence and their Social Competence, and is further divided into Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management (Bradberry, & Greaves, 2009).
Like any multi-pronged, testable psychological measure, there is a degree of subjectivity to the test, but after taking it myself, I found it to be quite accurate, and it comes with strategies for improving one's EQ (which I need).
So what does it all mean?
I can only tell you what I think it means. In academia, value is placed on the ability of a person to recall facts, deductive reasoning, and their raw intelligence. This is how you get grades (ignoring for now whether the grading scale and assignments even accurately measure these things), and how you progress. There is even an accidental measure of motivation built in. You will not do well in academia if you simply do not do the work.
In social situations, people often lack the ability to be effective for many reasons. For example, some people may assume that others think much worse of them than they actually do. Some people may have a built in propensity to fail for their own emotional protection. Sometimes people fear change so much that they maintain the status quo at all costs. Still others have personal desires for themselves or for their lives that are never fulfilled because they are their own worst enemy, or because they can not go beyond their own insecurities, their own sense of being disturbed, or their own upset state to simply make the best of their situation.
It came to my attention recently from a friend that I tend to allow my own wounds to keep me from making progress. I then stumbled on this topic, and I think it may have been a good bit of what he was trying to tell me. Granted, life has been pretty tough for me lately for a few reasons, but when I consider EQ, I am met with an interesting challenge.
All of these things can be a problem if we are not intentional. That is, if we always think and act based on how we feel, then we will not only be unpredictable, we will lose our perspective on life, especially when things do not go well. We are emotional beings by nature. Emotions are, at the base level, a chemical reaction in the brain that precedes any conscious thought. In other words, they set the tone for how we handle things if we allow them to.
Emotional Intelligence, as I understand it, is self-control, awareness, and intentionality in all situations, and it is a choice.
Bradberry, T, & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego: TalentSmart.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Laid To Waste
What do you do when your entire life decides to leave you in the dust? What do you do when nothing is left that you can recognize from only a few months ago? Some days you grieve, some days you are so angry you could kill somebody, and some days you just don't care about anything.
But life goes on. Your passions move you away from the direction that many have tried to pigeonhole you into, your eyes fixate on another thing and then another, but nothing gives satisfaction. Because you no longer understand the life you once claimed to know like no one else. You are haunted beyond anything you can think of. Some days you simply laugh at everything that used to seem so important, and some days you think it would be nice to die, just to not have to try to understand anymore, just to have to stop constantly forging your own way forward in a direction that it seems no one else will go.
You doubt yourself, because you could just have a bad case of stubbornness, and you sometimes wonder if you should have settled for the life you could have had if you would simply cease to be so damned contentious and stubborn about everything. You wish, beyond anything, that you could be like the people that seem to have it all figured out, instead of standing in a vacuum where seemingly nothing makes sense.
Yet, at the end of all things, there is the knowledge that you are like no other. There is the knowledge that you have sacrificed so much for something irreplaceable: the pursuit of Truth.
If you can survive the void, if you can survive the nothingness, then you will endure the life ahead of you, beyond all of the ideals you've left behind, all of the comfort of tying one's identity to social acceptance or intellectual movements or to another person's whims.
Being laid to waste is only the first step. Life will go on, and you will endure.
But life goes on. Your passions move you away from the direction that many have tried to pigeonhole you into, your eyes fixate on another thing and then another, but nothing gives satisfaction. Because you no longer understand the life you once claimed to know like no one else. You are haunted beyond anything you can think of. Some days you simply laugh at everything that used to seem so important, and some days you think it would be nice to die, just to not have to try to understand anymore, just to have to stop constantly forging your own way forward in a direction that it seems no one else will go.
You doubt yourself, because you could just have a bad case of stubbornness, and you sometimes wonder if you should have settled for the life you could have had if you would simply cease to be so damned contentious and stubborn about everything. You wish, beyond anything, that you could be like the people that seem to have it all figured out, instead of standing in a vacuum where seemingly nothing makes sense.
Yet, at the end of all things, there is the knowledge that you are like no other. There is the knowledge that you have sacrificed so much for something irreplaceable: the pursuit of Truth.
If you can survive the void, if you can survive the nothingness, then you will endure the life ahead of you, beyond all of the ideals you've left behind, all of the comfort of tying one's identity to social acceptance or intellectual movements or to another person's whims.
Being laid to waste is only the first step. Life will go on, and you will endure.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
On the Utility of Social Relationships
It is no secret to the reader of this blog that I am a highly passionate person, and that my passions can rule me at times. However, that said, I try to keep my writing here as detached and objective as possible, while still retaining a personal touch. In other words, I write from my experiences, but attempt to be logical and reasonable in doing so.
I explain this because my life has recently become very uncertain, and a lot of personal things I've believed for a very long time have been disproven. Unfortunately, this process makes a lot of sense out of some of the difficulty I have been known to have due to my idealism. It is, at best, devestating to have one's beliefs knocked out from under them like this, but I write about this particular belief in the hope that it will make some sense out of things for both myself and anyone that still reads this.
I have believed in love for a long time, and I've had my own particular way of thinking about it. It has been my guiding ideal, the altruistic drive that proves that people are worth my time. I've always believed that love redeems, and that it's something that will make one's life better. I've thought of love as the force of good in the world, something that treats everyone with equal value and creates a sense of balance, of justice. I've even come to view God this way, as the explanation for how He is. Perhaps the only part of this I still believe is that this is His nature: He loves perfectly, and that love is a perfect redemptive force.
I recently had a man come sit by me in the middle of the mall and tell me about Jesus. He asked me and my friend if we knew for sure what would happen to us when we died, and proceeded to articulate an extremely conservative Christian faith. I asked him where he went to church, and he named a Baptist Church. No surprise there, he articulated the Baptist theology to us perfectly. I mentioned to him that I was a jaded Christian, and he said he got that feeling from me when I didn't give him a straight answer right away about where I'd go when I die (I said I hoped I knew).
Those of you that know me probably think that this whole interaction pissed me off. In all honesty, I was appreciative to this man. Don't get me wrong, I threw away the tract he gave me, but I still appreciated that someone would take time out of their day and demonstrate that they care, however misguided they may or may not be. After all, I am no judge of the things he spoke of, I merely have my opinions, most of which change several times a day.
Personally, I was offended by several of his views. I disliked how much he railed against the academic establishment as being liberal, I thought that his tying of reading the Bible and going to Church as being what keeps you strong to be simplistic and legalistic at worst, and his once saved always saved theology is something I highly disagree with. His theological tone was appalling to me, and if he'd put it in writing I would have flamed him to no end.
But he came up to me, and his tone was entirely disarming. I don't know how much he actually cared and how much he merely wanted to grind an axe or how much he felt obligated to do what he did. But socially, he created an advantageous situation for him to articulate his beliefs to us. And it worked. I was polite to him, I listened to him, and I interacted a little bit. And then, when he felt satisfied by the interaction, he walked away. I recommended him a book, one that with his views, he will probably disregard or never read.
The two levels of this interaction, the social and the conceptual, are such an interesting thing to me. If I am friends with a person, those things are the same to me, or at least as close as I possibly can make them. However, I am an oddity in this world because of that habit.
In normal social interactions, people seldom say what they think. I am included in this. When I can tell it is pointless, I merely play the part. This could be because I avoid confrontation, or it could be because I simply do not care. Maybe both, maybe something else entirely. But the point is, when someone becomes my friend, or when they address me personally, I spare them no hint of the truth about me.
Another interesting fact is that I have lost contact with most of the friends and all of the women I have been intimate with over the years. The relationships simply dissolve into thin air. Someone I hadn't talked to in years contacted me the other day and asked me why we hadn't talked in so long and that it was wrong, and I told her that she had blocked me on Facebook until recently. She immediately stopped talking to me. I suppose that conversation didn't call for honesty. My bad.
But I digress. I am here to talk about love and social relationships. I have a few friends that I have been able to have a lasting connection with, regardless of distance and circumstance and despite, seemingly, myself. They are good people that have known me and accept me regardless of my multitude of flaws. They are not critical of me except in ways that are beneficial, and they support me even when they don't necessarily agree with me 100%.
They are the exception. This refers to less than 10 people I have met in my nearly 25 years of life, including my immediate family. In many other cases, I have had so called friends be nice to me to my face and tell others I know things that frustrated them about me. I've had some spread lies about me, and I've had some stop talking to me for no apparent reason. This is their prerogative, but what strikes me as interesting is how much they all emphasize truth and love. They're all religious people, and they all have idealistic beliefs about how to live rightly, and they all believe zealously in absolute truth.
I am no ivory tower of love and altruism, and I am not honest to every person I come across. If I am less than truthful, I try to make it for a beneficial reason, but in general, the more honest I am, the more I am met with distrust and hostility. This applies especially when it comes to religion and philosophy, and I suppose that makes sense. Hot button issues, especially idealistic ones, are more detached from the every day than most things.
"...sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." -Batman: The Dark Knight
Society is profoundly sick with fear. Honesty is a scary and awkward thing, and it's hard to handle most of the time. More people are motivated by fear than anything else. I was evangelized by a well meaning individual who used the fear of death as a way to get into a conversation and convince me of something. I've seen more relationships broken because someone could not handle the truth, more friendships die because people valued their ideals over the people right in front of them. We are not driven by love or truth, we are driven by convenience and fear.
I am often told that the way I approach God and religion is dangerous and scary, and I have to agree. I know very few things for sure, and I merely have hope about everything else. The religion I grew up with has rejected me almost totally, and I'm better off, if not as secure, without it. But what good is false security?
The truth is scary, and we are afraid of it. The truth is, love is the most inconvenient thing you can possibly think of. It means giving up everything that you are for other people. It means challenging yourself constantly to sacrifice more, to give more, and to be invisible. And hopefully, those people will do the same for you. But most of the time, they will not.
Love is not a victory march.
I explain this because my life has recently become very uncertain, and a lot of personal things I've believed for a very long time have been disproven. Unfortunately, this process makes a lot of sense out of some of the difficulty I have been known to have due to my idealism. It is, at best, devestating to have one's beliefs knocked out from under them like this, but I write about this particular belief in the hope that it will make some sense out of things for both myself and anyone that still reads this.
I have believed in love for a long time, and I've had my own particular way of thinking about it. It has been my guiding ideal, the altruistic drive that proves that people are worth my time. I've always believed that love redeems, and that it's something that will make one's life better. I've thought of love as the force of good in the world, something that treats everyone with equal value and creates a sense of balance, of justice. I've even come to view God this way, as the explanation for how He is. Perhaps the only part of this I still believe is that this is His nature: He loves perfectly, and that love is a perfect redemptive force.
I recently had a man come sit by me in the middle of the mall and tell me about Jesus. He asked me and my friend if we knew for sure what would happen to us when we died, and proceeded to articulate an extremely conservative Christian faith. I asked him where he went to church, and he named a Baptist Church. No surprise there, he articulated the Baptist theology to us perfectly. I mentioned to him that I was a jaded Christian, and he said he got that feeling from me when I didn't give him a straight answer right away about where I'd go when I die (I said I hoped I knew).
Those of you that know me probably think that this whole interaction pissed me off. In all honesty, I was appreciative to this man. Don't get me wrong, I threw away the tract he gave me, but I still appreciated that someone would take time out of their day and demonstrate that they care, however misguided they may or may not be. After all, I am no judge of the things he spoke of, I merely have my opinions, most of which change several times a day.
Personally, I was offended by several of his views. I disliked how much he railed against the academic establishment as being liberal, I thought that his tying of reading the Bible and going to Church as being what keeps you strong to be simplistic and legalistic at worst, and his once saved always saved theology is something I highly disagree with. His theological tone was appalling to me, and if he'd put it in writing I would have flamed him to no end.
But he came up to me, and his tone was entirely disarming. I don't know how much he actually cared and how much he merely wanted to grind an axe or how much he felt obligated to do what he did. But socially, he created an advantageous situation for him to articulate his beliefs to us. And it worked. I was polite to him, I listened to him, and I interacted a little bit. And then, when he felt satisfied by the interaction, he walked away. I recommended him a book, one that with his views, he will probably disregard or never read.
The two levels of this interaction, the social and the conceptual, are such an interesting thing to me. If I am friends with a person, those things are the same to me, or at least as close as I possibly can make them. However, I am an oddity in this world because of that habit.
In normal social interactions, people seldom say what they think. I am included in this. When I can tell it is pointless, I merely play the part. This could be because I avoid confrontation, or it could be because I simply do not care. Maybe both, maybe something else entirely. But the point is, when someone becomes my friend, or when they address me personally, I spare them no hint of the truth about me.
Another interesting fact is that I have lost contact with most of the friends and all of the women I have been intimate with over the years. The relationships simply dissolve into thin air. Someone I hadn't talked to in years contacted me the other day and asked me why we hadn't talked in so long and that it was wrong, and I told her that she had blocked me on Facebook until recently. She immediately stopped talking to me. I suppose that conversation didn't call for honesty. My bad.
But I digress. I am here to talk about love and social relationships. I have a few friends that I have been able to have a lasting connection with, regardless of distance and circumstance and despite, seemingly, myself. They are good people that have known me and accept me regardless of my multitude of flaws. They are not critical of me except in ways that are beneficial, and they support me even when they don't necessarily agree with me 100%.
They are the exception. This refers to less than 10 people I have met in my nearly 25 years of life, including my immediate family. In many other cases, I have had so called friends be nice to me to my face and tell others I know things that frustrated them about me. I've had some spread lies about me, and I've had some stop talking to me for no apparent reason. This is their prerogative, but what strikes me as interesting is how much they all emphasize truth and love. They're all religious people, and they all have idealistic beliefs about how to live rightly, and they all believe zealously in absolute truth.
I am no ivory tower of love and altruism, and I am not honest to every person I come across. If I am less than truthful, I try to make it for a beneficial reason, but in general, the more honest I am, the more I am met with distrust and hostility. This applies especially when it comes to religion and philosophy, and I suppose that makes sense. Hot button issues, especially idealistic ones, are more detached from the every day than most things.
"...sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." -Batman: The Dark Knight
Society is profoundly sick with fear. Honesty is a scary and awkward thing, and it's hard to handle most of the time. More people are motivated by fear than anything else. I was evangelized by a well meaning individual who used the fear of death as a way to get into a conversation and convince me of something. I've seen more relationships broken because someone could not handle the truth, more friendships die because people valued their ideals over the people right in front of them. We are not driven by love or truth, we are driven by convenience and fear.
I am often told that the way I approach God and religion is dangerous and scary, and I have to agree. I know very few things for sure, and I merely have hope about everything else. The religion I grew up with has rejected me almost totally, and I'm better off, if not as secure, without it. But what good is false security?
The truth is scary, and we are afraid of it. The truth is, love is the most inconvenient thing you can possibly think of. It means giving up everything that you are for other people. It means challenging yourself constantly to sacrifice more, to give more, and to be invisible. And hopefully, those people will do the same for you. But most of the time, they will not.
Love is not a victory march.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Why I am [Almost] a Relativist
Claims to absolute knowledge are nearly as plentiful as there are people. The religious person is the expert of claiming that there is absolute knowledge, and that they have that knowledge. The latter part of that claim bothers me much more than the former.
There are numerous religions, and numerous factions within every religion. There are numerous people within every religion, and there have been disagreements from the start of the world, precisely because no two people see things the same.
Why then, do we spend our time trying to convince other people that we are correct? Do we believe we have special wisdom no one else has? Do we believe we are God's gift to the world?
I've listened to Christians for years go on about absolute truth and how we have to save people by convincing them to intellectually acknowledge their beliefs, and frankly I'm tired of it. When I say I don't try to convince people to believe in God how I do, I am told it's because I want them to go to Hell. Typically, how I want to respond is "no, I want you to go to Hell." And then, when I explain to them my view of God, I am disagreed with, mostly because I don't find there to be very many imperatives to how God wants us to live.
I don't believe God is pissed off about people having premarital sex or gay marriage. I don't think God wants everyone to be straight, everyone to be a particular brand of religion, or have particular political views. So why do we think that?
The God I know is the only thing keeping me from being a relativist, and I still don't believe in very many absolutes, for one simple reason: I listen to other people and evaluate all of my beliefs as honestly as I can. In doing so, my beliefs have been kicked out from under me far too often, and I am simply tired of blindly committing myself to a set of beliefs and then realizing what kind of a person that's made me, and what exactly I have allowed my mind to be enslaved to.
Morally, I find what does harm to others or to ourselves to be reprehensible, but that tends to vary wildly with very few exceptions. Even killing as an act can be acceptable based on situation. For example, presuming I am married sometime in the future, if I find a man in the process of raping my wife, I will kill him, and I find that to be justified.
That is a far cry from drugs, casual sex, drunkenness, and any other vice that the Christians I've spoken to about morality tend to get uptight about. I find those things to be harmful to me, and I imagine they have more implications for life than a lot of people realize. However, I do not find them to be morally wrong.
People all see God a different way, but the only things I have found common to all people, regardless of how they live and their faith, is that people are of value, and should be treated as such. Even if it is simply in the inner recognition that leads to defending oneself, people do believe this. And I believe that value comes from God, the one that created us, that gives things value.
That does not mean that we must align with a church, tell people how not to go to hell (as if we even know the exact machinations of how God relates to humanity), or push what we believe on others. It means we're free, and it means that respect and love are the right way to treat people, regardless of the specifics.
Morally, religiously, and intellectually, when speaking of specifics, I believe that what is true for me may not be true for you. Even when it comes to larger things like religious affiliation, sex orientation, lifestyle choices, and how you see God, I don't think there is any totally right answer. I believe this precisely because God and reality are larger and more creative than anything we can possibly imagine, and we each have a bit of it in us.
A true relativist doesn't believe in any sort of Truth, and as much as I want to put myself in that camp, I can not do so. However, what I can do is suspend my beliefs at will whenever a conversation happens, for the sake of allowing myself to be wrong. I believe what I believe because I think it is right, but I do not hold myself to be on the high pedestal of knowing absolute truth. It's simply arrogant to do so.
There are numerous religions, and numerous factions within every religion. There are numerous people within every religion, and there have been disagreements from the start of the world, precisely because no two people see things the same.
Why then, do we spend our time trying to convince other people that we are correct? Do we believe we have special wisdom no one else has? Do we believe we are God's gift to the world?
I've listened to Christians for years go on about absolute truth and how we have to save people by convincing them to intellectually acknowledge their beliefs, and frankly I'm tired of it. When I say I don't try to convince people to believe in God how I do, I am told it's because I want them to go to Hell. Typically, how I want to respond is "no, I want you to go to Hell." And then, when I explain to them my view of God, I am disagreed with, mostly because I don't find there to be very many imperatives to how God wants us to live.
I don't believe God is pissed off about people having premarital sex or gay marriage. I don't think God wants everyone to be straight, everyone to be a particular brand of religion, or have particular political views. So why do we think that?
The God I know is the only thing keeping me from being a relativist, and I still don't believe in very many absolutes, for one simple reason: I listen to other people and evaluate all of my beliefs as honestly as I can. In doing so, my beliefs have been kicked out from under me far too often, and I am simply tired of blindly committing myself to a set of beliefs and then realizing what kind of a person that's made me, and what exactly I have allowed my mind to be enslaved to.
Morally, I find what does harm to others or to ourselves to be reprehensible, but that tends to vary wildly with very few exceptions. Even killing as an act can be acceptable based on situation. For example, presuming I am married sometime in the future, if I find a man in the process of raping my wife, I will kill him, and I find that to be justified.
That is a far cry from drugs, casual sex, drunkenness, and any other vice that the Christians I've spoken to about morality tend to get uptight about. I find those things to be harmful to me, and I imagine they have more implications for life than a lot of people realize. However, I do not find them to be morally wrong.
People all see God a different way, but the only things I have found common to all people, regardless of how they live and their faith, is that people are of value, and should be treated as such. Even if it is simply in the inner recognition that leads to defending oneself, people do believe this. And I believe that value comes from God, the one that created us, that gives things value.
That does not mean that we must align with a church, tell people how not to go to hell (as if we even know the exact machinations of how God relates to humanity), or push what we believe on others. It means we're free, and it means that respect and love are the right way to treat people, regardless of the specifics.
Morally, religiously, and intellectually, when speaking of specifics, I believe that what is true for me may not be true for you. Even when it comes to larger things like religious affiliation, sex orientation, lifestyle choices, and how you see God, I don't think there is any totally right answer. I believe this precisely because God and reality are larger and more creative than anything we can possibly imagine, and we each have a bit of it in us.
A true relativist doesn't believe in any sort of Truth, and as much as I want to put myself in that camp, I can not do so. However, what I can do is suspend my beliefs at will whenever a conversation happens, for the sake of allowing myself to be wrong. I believe what I believe because I think it is right, but I do not hold myself to be on the high pedestal of knowing absolute truth. It's simply arrogant to do so.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
This Moment Is Perfect
I sit in my apartment, alone in my consciousness, my roommates dreaming of other things in their lack thereof. I feel disgusting due to attempting to sleep for hours after my body decided it was time to either be awake or have a panic attack after a mere 4 hours of sleep. Through the classical music I am listening to comes violent dissonance from a phone ringtone. I need a shower, and my face is slovenly unshaven. I have assignments due for school this week about things I care about, and I do not care to do them. I have money to live where I am for now, but no job. I am not moving forward in any measurable sense at the moment, I am static, stagnant, and entirely fascinated with being so.
"There is not a thing in this life that does not hold some fascination."
But I am moody. Shortly I will become annoyed with this state of affairs, and I will do something to pull myself out of my mental and emotional slump caused by nearly everything I knew a mere two months ago being torn out from under me. I now attend a different college. I thought I would be getting married in a little over a year and it is now obvious to me that it will be much longer than that, and to a different person. I was excited about my Masters' Degree and now my excitement is entirely detached from my heart, being a mere intellectual interest. I desire a daily routine that will bring in money, but I also enjoy the freedom of not having to do this. However, given the choice at the moment, I would rather work a meaningless job that interacts with people regularly than work in a therapeutic setting and study to move up in the field.
My passions have been burned from me, as seems to always be the case. I am a creature of dissonance, an unpredictable force whose only constant is writing from his head and his heart. And yet it all fascinates me. The moment I am pressured, I rebel, I move away from the things I love. I am a difficult person to keep in any way, and I've left broken relationships behind me, everywhere. Friends lose contact with me gradually, romantic relationships that were such a sure thing simply fall to pieces, acquaintances passively ignore or avoid me. My few constant friends are a source of tremendous joy for me, because it means I am not entirely alone despite my inherently chaotic nature.
What kind of a future is there for a person such as this? Will it really fit into a typical framework with a 9-5 job, 2.5 children, continuing education in a professional field, and honest work? I desire the constant companionship of a wife as I never have before. Not with my emotions, nor with my intellect, but with something deep within me. I am made to integrate with another, and that other must understand me to be uniquely damaged, broken in a way that no other is, one that belongs everywhere and nowhere. Perhaps we'll travel the world, doing random things for people, making friends and moving on in the same breath. Perhaps we'll live with other friends, fitting into a setting uniquely, living a small and satisfying life.
I belong to no religious affiliation. Christianity offends me, deep within my soul, as does anything that dictates what my heart should feel. I am wild, wasteful, amoral, areligious, and religion's attempts to "save" me have felt like nothing but power of other men like me attempting to align me for some purpose. Simultaneously, I know God. That force that runs through me, that mind that contacts mine and hands me wordless concepts, beautiful phrases and paints pictures of the reality that our mundane cultures, religions and social schemas flow from. The Christian God? Allah? Yahweh? It all falls terribly short.
If there is one thing my incurably diseased soul lives for, it's that energy it contacts, the thing that sets me on fire. It's the reason I fit nowhere, and the way in which I flow into every corner I can. I seem to lack the ability to specialize, and if I am subject to any other person it is always by choice. Despite being chaos embodied, my spirit is gentle, and I don't want to hurt other people. Yet, power comes from somewhere and flows through every interaction, and I've learned to act responsibly through destroying others and being destroyed by people that have claimed to love me. I tie others to my will so easily it scares me, and I suppose that means I could manipulate others very easily. Maybe that's why I am still so entirely frightened by every social interaction that I do not completely understand.
Faith in humanity? Give me one good reason to have it. I do despite myself, and for that I hold rage toward my meaningless idealism. It's that thing that keeps me honorable, because it is right, and not for another person's sake. Once, long ago, I knew how to love other people without expecting a thing in return. I think that was burned from me as well, and I mourn its' passing. Perhaps I'll learn it again, in a way that is unkillable, even if I am killed in the process. I suspect this is the journey ahead of me.
You don't understand, and yet you do. Because I am nothing, an alien, and yet I am so very human. This is not even scratching the surface of myself, because what I understand of this person I am is nothing compared to what I do not understand.
This moment is perfect. I am fascinated by it, and yet revolted. Time to move on.
"There is not a thing in this life that does not hold some fascination."
But I am moody. Shortly I will become annoyed with this state of affairs, and I will do something to pull myself out of my mental and emotional slump caused by nearly everything I knew a mere two months ago being torn out from under me. I now attend a different college. I thought I would be getting married in a little over a year and it is now obvious to me that it will be much longer than that, and to a different person. I was excited about my Masters' Degree and now my excitement is entirely detached from my heart, being a mere intellectual interest. I desire a daily routine that will bring in money, but I also enjoy the freedom of not having to do this. However, given the choice at the moment, I would rather work a meaningless job that interacts with people regularly than work in a therapeutic setting and study to move up in the field.
My passions have been burned from me, as seems to always be the case. I am a creature of dissonance, an unpredictable force whose only constant is writing from his head and his heart. And yet it all fascinates me. The moment I am pressured, I rebel, I move away from the things I love. I am a difficult person to keep in any way, and I've left broken relationships behind me, everywhere. Friends lose contact with me gradually, romantic relationships that were such a sure thing simply fall to pieces, acquaintances passively ignore or avoid me. My few constant friends are a source of tremendous joy for me, because it means I am not entirely alone despite my inherently chaotic nature.
What kind of a future is there for a person such as this? Will it really fit into a typical framework with a 9-5 job, 2.5 children, continuing education in a professional field, and honest work? I desire the constant companionship of a wife as I never have before. Not with my emotions, nor with my intellect, but with something deep within me. I am made to integrate with another, and that other must understand me to be uniquely damaged, broken in a way that no other is, one that belongs everywhere and nowhere. Perhaps we'll travel the world, doing random things for people, making friends and moving on in the same breath. Perhaps we'll live with other friends, fitting into a setting uniquely, living a small and satisfying life.
I belong to no religious affiliation. Christianity offends me, deep within my soul, as does anything that dictates what my heart should feel. I am wild, wasteful, amoral, areligious, and religion's attempts to "save" me have felt like nothing but power of other men like me attempting to align me for some purpose. Simultaneously, I know God. That force that runs through me, that mind that contacts mine and hands me wordless concepts, beautiful phrases and paints pictures of the reality that our mundane cultures, religions and social schemas flow from. The Christian God? Allah? Yahweh? It all falls terribly short.
If there is one thing my incurably diseased soul lives for, it's that energy it contacts, the thing that sets me on fire. It's the reason I fit nowhere, and the way in which I flow into every corner I can. I seem to lack the ability to specialize, and if I am subject to any other person it is always by choice. Despite being chaos embodied, my spirit is gentle, and I don't want to hurt other people. Yet, power comes from somewhere and flows through every interaction, and I've learned to act responsibly through destroying others and being destroyed by people that have claimed to love me. I tie others to my will so easily it scares me, and I suppose that means I could manipulate others very easily. Maybe that's why I am still so entirely frightened by every social interaction that I do not completely understand.
Faith in humanity? Give me one good reason to have it. I do despite myself, and for that I hold rage toward my meaningless idealism. It's that thing that keeps me honorable, because it is right, and not for another person's sake. Once, long ago, I knew how to love other people without expecting a thing in return. I think that was burned from me as well, and I mourn its' passing. Perhaps I'll learn it again, in a way that is unkillable, even if I am killed in the process. I suspect this is the journey ahead of me.
You don't understand, and yet you do. Because I am nothing, an alien, and yet I am so very human. This is not even scratching the surface of myself, because what I understand of this person I am is nothing compared to what I do not understand.
This moment is perfect. I am fascinated by it, and yet revolted. Time to move on.
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