If you've read anything I've written this year, you've probably caught at least one of my posts regarding religion. To say the least, this past year hasn't been the most pleasant experience in the world for me, and my experiences have sadly informed my definitions. In the end, I can pretend objectivity, but I can not help but speak from experience and my heart just as much as I do from logical deduction and observation. I imagine anyone reading this could empathize with that assessment.
That said however, I still stand by my observations regarding religion. I've seen it become a blunt instrument to intellectually and emotionally beat people into submission or manipulate others for some sort of gain, whether it be monetary, social or emotional. I still retain my skepticism regarding those in authority of any religious institution, because I have watched power trips that I am confident those on them did not even realize were happening, and I've seen those in power do things to others that I could only attribute to their desire for control. I have also observed the subtle grouping religion creates, so that if you are a certain way, you are not welcome or accepted, and you gain only lip service, without any real connection with other people. The fact that I can count on my hands the lasting friends I've made from the religious institution I attended for five years may have something to do with this. Though I am thankful for the friends I have made, I have lost just as many to rumor, apathy, and straight up rejection, all of which would have been unnecessary if any sort of healthy social environment were in place.
I am hurt by religion, very deeply, and it's taken a lot of things out of me to just deal with it. I've kept my mouth shut, except in writing, for the past year so that I could graduate from the institution I attended without having to deal with the administration demanding to know about my personal life every 4 minutes, and it worked. But I paid a price. I now believe more than ever that most people, despite what they say, could not care less about others' freedoms or what makes them unique. When people that claim love so blatantly violate it when it becomes inconvenient, I have no idea how I am supposed to continue to believe a word that comes out of their lying mouths. This is not even mentioning the emotional violence done to me by some that I had allowed myself to become very close to, naively expecting that I could believe someone, for once. When I am then asked to support my fellow Christians, I can only laugh bitterly and go on doing my own thing, seeking truth through channels that aren't horrific examples of propaganda and intellectual enslavement.
Though I have always tried to seek the truth, I am a prime example of many of these things. I simply choose not to pretend anymore. I do a horrific job of loving, and I have not called myself a Christian for a long time because of that. I told someone last night for the first time in years that I would pray for them, because I actually meant it for once. I've done terrible things to those I claim to love as well, and can only do my best to try to atone. I have no conceptions left of deserving a single thing. When I am rejected socially, religiously, emotionally, or in any way, I simply believe that something I've done has caused me to deserve it, that maybe justice is being done to me in some way for being how I have been. I share this because it is important for the reader to understand that I am not judging Christianity from a high pedestal, I am looking at the devastation in my own heart and brought on all around me by naivette, the best of intentions, stupid idealism, lack of self awareness, and inability to recognize the virus that infects us all, the virus of self-absorption, of death, of "sin," if you will indulge me a moment, spawning horrific religion.
Yes, I am saying that the religious institution I have been associated with for many years is so corrupt that it is a product of the darkness infecting our world. This may offend the few people I have managed not to alienate yet, and if it does, so be it. I can come to no other honest conclusion after my observations. I would ask the offended reader to continue reading however, because I have a nuance to this point later you may be interested in.
In the interest of honesty, I must also share another observation I have made. However, this is not an observation that grieves me, but gives me hope.
There are a few I have met who, for lack of a better description, refuse all attempts of religion to hold them down. I have made it my business to get to know these people, and to cautiously begin to trust them. What I have found are people just as flawed as I am and everyone else, but people that choose to be aware of themselves, that choose honesty instead of comfort, and that do their absolute best to be honorable, respectful, truthful, and to love in a way that respects others. Additionally, to my amazement, these people claim to be religious! "What foolishness is this?!" I ask them, and their answers are always exceedingly simple. Their conviction in Christ as being the true example of humanity, God's fusion with the brokenness that is humanity to show us what it means to live, outweighs the hurt they have been dealt by religious institutions. Sure, they don't all claim to be religious people, but they follow Christianity as a religion, and I finally understand why.
The Christianity these people I admire follow is a friend to other religions rather than an enemy, approaches others with the best of intentions, even while knowing how horrible people can be, is respectful despite the way people disrespect themselves, and is a simple matter of loving something, indeed Someone, so much that it becomes religion.
The religion I've been referring to is different, it is a virus, an infection on humanity, the Christianity that Nietzsche referred to when he pronounced God as dead and the movement whose followers do not cease to be insipid. It is an elitist group of people who are interested in comfort, security, self-gain, superiority, and will do whatever it takes to assure these things.
The religion I've encountered is something I understand by nature of being a passionate person. For the entirety of this post, I have been listening to Nightwish live recordings on Youtube. These are not the highest quality recordings, but I find them to be overwhelmingly beautiful, because they're examples of why I love my favorite band. They're full of passion, rendering the flaws another aspect of these recordings' greatness. Indeed, when I have seen Nightwish the past two times, I have been completely emotionally overwhelmed by what I've seen, by the connection in the crowd of people, all different, that came for one purpose: to see Nightwish, to sing along, to express their love for the band playing and to enjoy it, regardless of how. We may have our differences on favorite band member, what album was the best (obviously Once, come on!), which singer was better, and some may appreciate different parts of the band (I appreciate the vocals the most, some may like guitar, etc.) No one's not actually a Nightwish fan because of these differences, they just have their own opinions.
That is the religion I encounter from this small group of people, these few that are faithful in their own way. These people aren't interested in proving that their religion is better than others', they're not interested in imposing morality on others' or in maintaining some kind of status queue. Sure, they understand it, we all do. We're all broken, we're all damaged, we all understand how the infection works. But the hope is in moving beyond this, the hope is found when we stop giving a damn what other people have to say about what we should be doing in the name of religion and start being more concerned with respecting others, respecting ourselves, doing inconvenient things in the name of being a true human, and generally being the biggest threat the viral strain of religion has ever known.
Another thing that I've learned is that no good act goes unpunished. I am not the only one that's been damaged while trying to do rightly. I've seen it happen over and over, watched as people that claim Christianity act so contrary to the God I know and can not deny knowing, as much as I have sometimes wanted to. There is no reward for our love for God, and we will be rejected by 99% of the people we meet, simply because we've lost our interest in their stupid little power games. Just as doing philosophy to seek truth is foreign to many in this age, so is being religious because we actually think God simply Is to many religious people. You will be punished, rejected, and probably have all sorts of unfortunate things happen to you if you choose this way. However, I think this is what Jesus had in mind when he pointed to another way beyond the dominant religion of his time, and I think this way transcends the power games, the pettiness, and the terrible things done in the name of corporate religion.
To those that have helped me get to this point, to see a way out of the despair I found and hid away in: you know who you are, and thank you. I could not have done it without you.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
On Hipster Christianity
I was amazed to find that my friend and fellow writer Carson had recently posted about "Hipster Christianity" as a movement.
Reference: http://carsontclark.blogspot.com/2010/09/musing-on-hipster-faith.html
I read an article (which I am unable to find) about "Hipster Christianity" a few months ago and proceeded to write a bitter post about it, which I subsequently deleted without posting. What follows is perhaps a more measured set of thoughts regarding this "movement." Perhaps.
I use the word movement loosely for two reasons.
Firstly, the Emerging Church seems to have been the previous "movement" in Christianity, and it lasted perhaps 5 years, if that. Though my exposure to Christian subculture has been to a small community of conservatives for the most part, it seems like most people missed the point entirely of the Emerging Church when it was around. Indeed, when I can read an article citing Rob Bell's book "SexGod" as an example of Hipster Christianity and as shock value, when Bell was previously lumped in with the Emerging Church, it seems like we're talking about nothing of substance, more than people moving from one fashionable thing to another. If I remember correctly, the point of the Emerging Church was for Christians to embrace those around them, to listen instead of reacting and respond with understanding, as opposed to the knee-jerk represented so often in pop-culture that is sadly typical of many religious people. Has this movement died? Has it institutionalized already? I have observed very few people in my time in Christian subculture that responded to Emerging and newer writers that challenged the "status queue" (rather new itself, relatively speaking, even if we're speaking of Luther), and only a few reactions. Some chose to say that Postmodernism is dead and that the Emerging Church is irrelevant to anything, some chose to call the Emerging Church heresy for no good reason that I could find, and still others simply bought it, hook line and sinker, with obviously no understanding of what it is. This third reaction leads me to my second point.
"Hipster Christianity" seems to me to be the logical extension of those that liked the Emerging Church without understanding the Philosophical background and the reason it existed. There are now multiple stereotypes of a hipster Christian, and another subculture within a subculture has formed. This is not a movement, this is a subculture. A movement implies change, a subculture is a binding force with social acceptance at the center. Movements frequently operated counter to social acceptance, and in general are seeking truth in some way.
Hipsters have been around for a while, and it's just a new word for people that enjoy fashionable things. This is fine, let them do what they like. But to call this thing a "movement" seems sadly indicative of the lack of intellectual freedom and critical thought present in not just a lot of Christianity, but in many that choose to throw their support behind things without thinking about it.
I'll not doomsay our culture, for I have no authority to make predictive claims that will put my foot in my mouth later. However, I am understandably dissatisfied with a subculture that would make things that are intended to arouse critical thought, such as the work of Rob Bell, into a mere fashion statement, and denigrate critical thought to the level of merely being contrary. It is understandably frustrating to me, having had my life literally changed by reading the work of Bell and others like him.
In conclusion, I do believe the Emerging Church movement is completely dead, and has been dying a slow death for some time, culminating in this "Hipster Christianity" fad. Or perhaps my age is finally beginning to show. Either way, I can only look to those people that do still practice critical thinking and choose to respond to circumstances rather than reacting without seeing or understanding. Perhaps one day I'll return to church because of those people.
Comment is invited. If you know more than I do about this, please feel free to share.
Reference: http://carsontclark.blogspot.com/2010/09/musing-on-hipster-faith.html
I read an article (which I am unable to find) about "Hipster Christianity" a few months ago and proceeded to write a bitter post about it, which I subsequently deleted without posting. What follows is perhaps a more measured set of thoughts regarding this "movement." Perhaps.
I use the word movement loosely for two reasons.
Firstly, the Emerging Church seems to have been the previous "movement" in Christianity, and it lasted perhaps 5 years, if that. Though my exposure to Christian subculture has been to a small community of conservatives for the most part, it seems like most people missed the point entirely of the Emerging Church when it was around. Indeed, when I can read an article citing Rob Bell's book "SexGod" as an example of Hipster Christianity and as shock value, when Bell was previously lumped in with the Emerging Church, it seems like we're talking about nothing of substance, more than people moving from one fashionable thing to another. If I remember correctly, the point of the Emerging Church was for Christians to embrace those around them, to listen instead of reacting and respond with understanding, as opposed to the knee-jerk represented so often in pop-culture that is sadly typical of many religious people. Has this movement died? Has it institutionalized already? I have observed very few people in my time in Christian subculture that responded to Emerging and newer writers that challenged the "status queue" (rather new itself, relatively speaking, even if we're speaking of Luther), and only a few reactions. Some chose to say that Postmodernism is dead and that the Emerging Church is irrelevant to anything, some chose to call the Emerging Church heresy for no good reason that I could find, and still others simply bought it, hook line and sinker, with obviously no understanding of what it is. This third reaction leads me to my second point.
"Hipster Christianity" seems to me to be the logical extension of those that liked the Emerging Church without understanding the Philosophical background and the reason it existed. There are now multiple stereotypes of a hipster Christian, and another subculture within a subculture has formed. This is not a movement, this is a subculture. A movement implies change, a subculture is a binding force with social acceptance at the center. Movements frequently operated counter to social acceptance, and in general are seeking truth in some way.
Hipsters have been around for a while, and it's just a new word for people that enjoy fashionable things. This is fine, let them do what they like. But to call this thing a "movement" seems sadly indicative of the lack of intellectual freedom and critical thought present in not just a lot of Christianity, but in many that choose to throw their support behind things without thinking about it.
I'll not doomsay our culture, for I have no authority to make predictive claims that will put my foot in my mouth later. However, I am understandably dissatisfied with a subculture that would make things that are intended to arouse critical thought, such as the work of Rob Bell, into a mere fashion statement, and denigrate critical thought to the level of merely being contrary. It is understandably frustrating to me, having had my life literally changed by reading the work of Bell and others like him.
In conclusion, I do believe the Emerging Church movement is completely dead, and has been dying a slow death for some time, culminating in this "Hipster Christianity" fad. Or perhaps my age is finally beginning to show. Either way, I can only look to those people that do still practice critical thinking and choose to respond to circumstances rather than reacting without seeing or understanding. Perhaps one day I'll return to church because of those people.
Comment is invited. If you know more than I do about this, please feel free to share.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Star Trek: Enterprise - A Review
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.
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.
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.
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