I figured I should put something up that wasn't depressing.
Yesterday night I went to see Night at the Museum 2 because my mom forced me to go with her, but to my amazement, it was actually really good. Amy Adams captured the historical amelia very well. Ben Stiller was very Jewish and quite funny. It had alot of funny things in it and history.
Then today I had a delicious cookie. I think it was the best cookie I've ever had in my life, it was an existential experience filled with meaning I can no yet fully comprehend. It was chocolate chip.
I'm now sitting anxiously writing down a list of my sins as I do an examination of conscience. I haven't been to confession for 6 weeks. I'm hoping I am absolved without a hitch - I know I will be - but still there's always the anxiety coupled with exhilaration when you experience the sacrament of Penance, like the prodigal son, I go with no expectations, hoping the father will forgive me, and then experience the joy of absolution (hopefully - unless i've committed a very serious sin which then has to go to Rome to be dealt with - yes they actually do that >.< ). After all this I'm going to dinner at my brothers, and right now I'm passing time reading St. Thomas More's Utopia which I'm finding quite Socialistic to my enjoyment.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Remembering I'm A Creature
It's amazing how life works. I had just written in a previous blog post that I was super depressed and lonely as a human, and that I wished to be like God, and to be removed from relationships and just have peace in solitude. Little did I know what I would be shown next....
So I've been waiting for hours for a phone call, so I decided that in my depression I would pick up a theology book. I started reading one of my favourite authors thoughts on the Garden of Eden and Original Sin and the Human Condition.
"at the very heart of sin lies human beings' denial of their creatureliness, inasmuch as they refuse to accept the standard and limitations that are implicit in it [ie. Moral Law]. They do not want to be creatures, do not want to be subject to a standard, do not want to be dependent. They consider their dependence on God's creative love to be an imposition from without. But that is what slavery is, and from slavery one must free oneself. Thus human beings themselves want to be God."
This perfectly summarized my situation psychologically, strangely enough he had me pinned. But wait there's more!
"Human beings who consider dependence on the highest love as slaver and who try to deny the truth about themselves, which is their creatureliness, do not free themselves; they destroy truth and love. They do not make themselves gods, which, in fact, they cannot do, but rather caricatures, pseudogods, slaves of their own abilities, which then drag them down. ... sin is, in its essence, a renunciation of the truth."
It's the Christian thesis that man is man, not God, cannot be God and will always be at unease while he is trying it. Real peace comes from submission to God which is submission to truth. We want to be alone and independent and autonomous, but the theologian goes on to show how original sin makes this impossible.
"all the sins of history are interlinked....no human being is closed in upon himself or herself and that no one can live of or for himself or herself alone. We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without - from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us. Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are present. Human beings are relational, and they possess their lives - themselves - only by way of relationship. I alone am not myself, but only in and with you am I myself. To be truly a human being means to be related in love, to be of and for. But sin means the damaging or destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god."
So in short he's saying that since Eden, humans have wanted to be independent, masters of their fate, gods, but that it is impossible, and that human beings are actually not fulfilling their purpose in such endeavours, and that on the contrary, to be relational is to be human. This goes against all of our Western Individualism.
He then summarizes our experience of original sin by saying that:
"At the very moment when a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin-damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt...Sin pursuess the human being, and he or she capitulates to it."
So our whole lives we experience this relational damage and we develop around it (capitulate to it).
"But from this it is also clear that human beings alone cannot save themselves. Their innate error is precisely that they want to do this by themselves. We can only be saved - that is, be free and true - when we stop wanting to be God and renounce the madness of autonomy and self-sufficiency. We can only be saved - that is, become ourselves - when we engage in the proper relationship. But our interpersonal relationships occur in the context of our utter creatureliness, and it is there that the damage lies. Since the relationship with Creation has been damaged, only the Creator himself can be our savior. We can be saved only when he from whom we have cut ourselves off takes the initiative with us and stretches out his hand to us. Only being loved is being saved, and only God's love can purify damaged human love and radically re-establish the network of relationships that have suffered from alienation."
So basically, we have to go back to our original purpose, to be slaves to God as it were, to be dependent on our Creator. But the constant effects of sin make us want to be alone, do things our own way, by ourselves. Even society - Liberalism - is built on the proposition of human freedom and autonomy.
He then moves on to describe Christ:
"Jesus Christ goes Adam's route, but in reverse. In contrast to Adam he is really "like God". But this being like God, this similarity to God, is being a Son, and hence it is totally relational. "I do nothing on my own authority" (Jn 8:28). Therefore the one who is truly like God does not hold graspingly to his autonomy, to the limitlessness of his ability and his willing. He does the contrary: he becomes completely dependent; he becomes a slave. Because he does not go the route of power but that of love...The cross, the place of his obedience, is the true tree of life. Christ is the antitype of the serpent...The cross is the tree of life, now approachable. By his Passion, Christ, as it were, removed the fiery sword, passed through the fire, and erected the cross as the true pole of the earth, by which it is itself once more set aright. Therefore the Eucharist, as the presence of the cross, is the abiding tree of life, which is ever in our midst and ever invites us to take the fruit of true life. This means that the Eucharist can never merely be a kind of community builder. To receive it, to eat of the tree of life, means to receive the crucified Lord and consequently to accept the parameters of his life, his obedience, his "yes", the standard of our creatureliness. It means to accept the love of God, which is our truth - that dependeence on God which is no more an imposition from without than is the Son's sonship. It is precisely this dependence that is freedom, because it is truth and love.
May this Lent help us to free ourselves from our refusals and our doubt concerning God's covenant, from our rejection of our limitations and from the lie of our autonomy. May it direct us to the tree of life, which is our standard and our hope."
- Pope Benedict XVI "Sin and Salvation"
Yes it was the Pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who wrote these words. To me it was absolutely amazing a Godsend. I hope you can get it, and that some of the wonder I feel about it all, reaches you as well.
May you be dependent on God.
So I've been waiting for hours for a phone call, so I decided that in my depression I would pick up a theology book. I started reading one of my favourite authors thoughts on the Garden of Eden and Original Sin and the Human Condition.
"at the very heart of sin lies human beings' denial of their creatureliness, inasmuch as they refuse to accept the standard and limitations that are implicit in it [ie. Moral Law]. They do not want to be creatures, do not want to be subject to a standard, do not want to be dependent. They consider their dependence on God's creative love to be an imposition from without. But that is what slavery is, and from slavery one must free oneself. Thus human beings themselves want to be God."
This perfectly summarized my situation psychologically, strangely enough he had me pinned. But wait there's more!
"Human beings who consider dependence on the highest love as slaver and who try to deny the truth about themselves, which is their creatureliness, do not free themselves; they destroy truth and love. They do not make themselves gods, which, in fact, they cannot do, but rather caricatures, pseudogods, slaves of their own abilities, which then drag them down. ... sin is, in its essence, a renunciation of the truth."
It's the Christian thesis that man is man, not God, cannot be God and will always be at unease while he is trying it. Real peace comes from submission to God which is submission to truth. We want to be alone and independent and autonomous, but the theologian goes on to show how original sin makes this impossible.
"all the sins of history are interlinked....no human being is closed in upon himself or herself and that no one can live of or for himself or herself alone. We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without - from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us. Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are present. Human beings are relational, and they possess their lives - themselves - only by way of relationship. I alone am not myself, but only in and with you am I myself. To be truly a human being means to be related in love, to be of and for. But sin means the damaging or destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god."
So in short he's saying that since Eden, humans have wanted to be independent, masters of their fate, gods, but that it is impossible, and that human beings are actually not fulfilling their purpose in such endeavours, and that on the contrary, to be relational is to be human. This goes against all of our Western Individualism.
He then summarizes our experience of original sin by saying that:
"At the very moment when a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin-damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt...Sin pursuess the human being, and he or she capitulates to it."
So our whole lives we experience this relational damage and we develop around it (capitulate to it).
"But from this it is also clear that human beings alone cannot save themselves. Their innate error is precisely that they want to do this by themselves. We can only be saved - that is, be free and true - when we stop wanting to be God and renounce the madness of autonomy and self-sufficiency. We can only be saved - that is, become ourselves - when we engage in the proper relationship. But our interpersonal relationships occur in the context of our utter creatureliness, and it is there that the damage lies. Since the relationship with Creation has been damaged, only the Creator himself can be our savior. We can be saved only when he from whom we have cut ourselves off takes the initiative with us and stretches out his hand to us. Only being loved is being saved, and only God's love can purify damaged human love and radically re-establish the network of relationships that have suffered from alienation."
So basically, we have to go back to our original purpose, to be slaves to God as it were, to be dependent on our Creator. But the constant effects of sin make us want to be alone, do things our own way, by ourselves. Even society - Liberalism - is built on the proposition of human freedom and autonomy.
He then moves on to describe Christ:
"Jesus Christ goes Adam's route, but in reverse. In contrast to Adam he is really "like God". But this being like God, this similarity to God, is being a Son, and hence it is totally relational. "I do nothing on my own authority" (Jn 8:28). Therefore the one who is truly like God does not hold graspingly to his autonomy, to the limitlessness of his ability and his willing. He does the contrary: he becomes completely dependent; he becomes a slave. Because he does not go the route of power but that of love...The cross, the place of his obedience, is the true tree of life. Christ is the antitype of the serpent...The cross is the tree of life, now approachable. By his Passion, Christ, as it were, removed the fiery sword, passed through the fire, and erected the cross as the true pole of the earth, by which it is itself once more set aright. Therefore the Eucharist, as the presence of the cross, is the abiding tree of life, which is ever in our midst and ever invites us to take the fruit of true life. This means that the Eucharist can never merely be a kind of community builder. To receive it, to eat of the tree of life, means to receive the crucified Lord and consequently to accept the parameters of his life, his obedience, his "yes", the standard of our creatureliness. It means to accept the love of God, which is our truth - that dependeence on God which is no more an imposition from without than is the Son's sonship. It is precisely this dependence that is freedom, because it is truth and love.
May this Lent help us to free ourselves from our refusals and our doubt concerning God's covenant, from our rejection of our limitations and from the lie of our autonomy. May it direct us to the tree of life, which is our standard and our hope."
- Pope Benedict XVI "Sin and Salvation"
Yes it was the Pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who wrote these words. To me it was absolutely amazing a Godsend. I hope you can get it, and that some of the wonder I feel about it all, reaches you as well.
May you be dependent on God.
Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness.
^that's an album by Smashing Pumpkins that my brother lent me in high school, but it was too depressing for me so I only listened to it like twice.
The last few weeks have felt like nothing but a long line of people yelling at me, and a long line of of opportunities that I've had completely failed. I feel like an extra in my own life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_(actor). Or like the villain at least.
In the movie Star Trek, Spock's dad says to him as a child 'you're perfectly capable of determining your own destiny. The question you face is, will you be the hero of your own story' and I sometimes wonder if I'm the hero of my own life, I don't think I am. Maybe if Leonard Cohen wrote my life story I would be (he's an ecentric, depressing author).
I find it interesting how beauty is so fleeting. As Canadian rockers, Our Lady Peace once said immortally, "happiness is a fish you can't catch". That's it! I feel like I'm in an Our Lady Peace Song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8HcIu1z2OE&feature=fvst ....well at least I've figured that out.
I'm just ranting and complaining again because I have to do something, I feel like life is so infinitely sad that I can't even handle it. I mean, it's just contrasted really. It's infinitely beautiful as well. There are some moments that are so amazing that it makes the darkness around it seem so bad. If life was just constantly sad then we wouldn't even feel sad, we'd just feel normal. The "problem" is that it can be so good.
When everything is good, who has the time to write blogs!? you're too busy enjoying the goodness. I guess life has to be so dramatically up and down, that's a comfort. I bet it's the only way we wouldn't go crazy. I guess some days I just wish to be God then. Not in the power hungry, totalitarian way, just the being at peace with existence way. I'm constantly diseased. DIS EASED, dis-eased, un-ease, dis-ease, Ease meaning comfort, normalcy, etc.
Anyway, right now I miss my gradeschool friends, I hate myself for not keeping in touch with them, I miss my capernwray friends, I hate myself for not keeping in touch with them, and at the same time I don't want to be in touch with anyone, I just want to lay in the grass forever and be at peace, or drift in a boat in the ocean. Solitude can mean peace sometimes. But so can friendship.
The last few weeks have felt like nothing but a long line of people yelling at me, and a long line of of opportunities that I've had completely failed. I feel like an extra in my own life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_(actor). Or like the villain at least.
In the movie Star Trek, Spock's dad says to him as a child 'you're perfectly capable of determining your own destiny. The question you face is, will you be the hero of your own story' and I sometimes wonder if I'm the hero of my own life, I don't think I am. Maybe if Leonard Cohen wrote my life story I would be (he's an ecentric, depressing author).
I find it interesting how beauty is so fleeting. As Canadian rockers, Our Lady Peace once said immortally, "happiness is a fish you can't catch". That's it! I feel like I'm in an Our Lady Peace Song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8HcIu1z2OE&feature=fvst ....well at least I've figured that out.
I'm just ranting and complaining again because I have to do something, I feel like life is so infinitely sad that I can't even handle it. I mean, it's just contrasted really. It's infinitely beautiful as well. There are some moments that are so amazing that it makes the darkness around it seem so bad. If life was just constantly sad then we wouldn't even feel sad, we'd just feel normal. The "problem" is that it can be so good.
When everything is good, who has the time to write blogs!? you're too busy enjoying the goodness. I guess life has to be so dramatically up and down, that's a comfort. I bet it's the only way we wouldn't go crazy. I guess some days I just wish to be God then. Not in the power hungry, totalitarian way, just the being at peace with existence way. I'm constantly diseased. DIS EASED, dis-eased, un-ease, dis-ease, Ease meaning comfort, normalcy, etc.
Anyway, right now I miss my gradeschool friends, I hate myself for not keeping in touch with them, I miss my capernwray friends, I hate myself for not keeping in touch with them, and at the same time I don't want to be in touch with anyone, I just want to lay in the grass forever and be at peace, or drift in a boat in the ocean. Solitude can mean peace sometimes. But so can friendship.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Everyday
"God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man's grave is his Sabbath." -John Donne
People always ask me what's "new and exciting" - as a student of History and Theology, they should ask me "what's old and exciting" but I doubt they'll ever start that, modern man is obsessed with the Via Moderna, and I'm choosing to blame Luther for that. Anyway, as I thought about my life I thought I might as well just write down an archetypal day of my life /Platonic Form of Andrew's life, and then it will be easy to imagine what I do, in case anyone is wondering.
Waking:
Normally I wake up immediately worrying about, or complaining about, something. But I've noticed that in a strange way it comes from optimism, I'm always looking for something to hope for, something to move onto. Then I'm struck by the harsh reality of the present, the most difficult of places for me to reside in. I find I innately put all the faillures of the past and all the worries of the future onto all the iniquities of the present. I wake up each day I stumble over to the mirror, I feel frustrated, as if I was put at the end of a starting line in the race of life. The only way I move on is to remember that everyone is running a meaningless race, and I don't have to win, I don't even have to compete, I can just walk. So I force myself to remember thoughts like:
'Andrew you don't seem to think you are good enough today, not thin enough, too lustful, etc. On the day that you die, you will not be good enough. So get over it. You may die today, so calm down and just start walking. "death smiles at us all, all man can do is smile back" (Gladiator). Live in the realm of today, slowly practice the virtues, fear God, experience Eudaimonea'
'none of the affairs of man are large enough for great anxiety' - Plato's Republic
or Psalm 139
or some Aristotle about being virtuous
Then I can move onto the rest of the day.
Work:
I always pray before work because as they say there are no atheists in foxholes, so I feel about work. I've always hated and feared work, and anytime someone mentions jobs, employment, or work, I think of the line "Imagine a Boot Stomping on a Human Face Forever" from Orwell's 1984. I hope that changes someday. Anyway, I just try to survive at work.
Peace/Shalom:
Usually on the drive home as I listen to a piece of classical music, or have my hand out the window, or see a really green tree or flower, I feel at peace. The tender reassurance that I am not that important, that I will end, and flowers and music and breezes will continue and overshadow all the dark schemes of human work which destroy every natural bliss.
Friends:
If I have the emotional stamina after the rest of the day, I'll call my friends, or check my email. Recently it's been really hard for me to be able to get through everything, so I've been neglecting this area. My friend is getting married in a week, I haven't bought him anything, I haven't sent him anythign, just told him I can't fly out for his wedding. I just can't deal with it right now, I love and support him, but I have a low emotional tolerance or something.
Reading/Tolkien/World of Warcraft:
This is the part of the day I yearn for most because I can't be at shalom all the time, if I could, I would yearn for that, but such is the reality of life. These activities are the escape from the rest of existence and yet in them I feel more alive than in anything else during morning or work. I can be somewhere else for these precious hours, one day work and mornings will consume all of this time and I'll be forced to live merely for the temporary daily moments of peace and Church.
Church/Mass:
This is the 3rd best time of the day/week - Sorry God - where I arrive early in the large Cathedral and feel all my guilt build up from over the week as I look at the crucifix and remember that God's most defining moment was pain and death and that this was the path he chose for us, and in that truth, I too can live and die. I haven't been able to take the Eucharist recently because I can't get to confession (I work saturdays and priests seem to only allow confessions on saturdays in our diocese), but when I do take communion, it's always an awesome experience. I enjoy the Mass because it reminds me that whatever goodness I have comes not from me as an individual but from me as a member of Christ's body, from the group, the Church of Christ (Now confusingly monikered the Roman Catholic Church - it's a long story). I usually find the same peace here, in prayer, on my knees before the mysteriously present God, the Mysterium Tremendum. But then the idiotic priest or the uneducated Catholic says something dumb and gets me angry for the rest of the day.
Evening:
When I get to my room at night I'll cross myself and pray the Pater Noster (Our Father), Ave Maria (Hail Mary), and the Jesus Prayer (Domine Iesu Christe) in latin and then read some Harry Potter and go to sleep. I usually have nightmares, and in the last month I've woken up screaming twice.
Then the whole thing starts over again.
"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money'. Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin." - Epistle of St. James, Chapter 4, Verses 13 to 17
I love this passage, it reminds me that I have to live today, without boasting, remember that I am but a mist, and to do the right thing, this is the path to fulfillment and life everlasting.
People always ask me what's "new and exciting" - as a student of History and Theology, they should ask me "what's old and exciting" but I doubt they'll ever start that, modern man is obsessed with the Via Moderna, and I'm choosing to blame Luther for that. Anyway, as I thought about my life I thought I might as well just write down an archetypal day of my life /Platonic Form of Andrew's life, and then it will be easy to imagine what I do, in case anyone is wondering.
Waking:
Normally I wake up immediately worrying about, or complaining about, something. But I've noticed that in a strange way it comes from optimism, I'm always looking for something to hope for, something to move onto. Then I'm struck by the harsh reality of the present, the most difficult of places for me to reside in. I find I innately put all the faillures of the past and all the worries of the future onto all the iniquities of the present. I wake up each day I stumble over to the mirror, I feel frustrated, as if I was put at the end of a starting line in the race of life. The only way I move on is to remember that everyone is running a meaningless race, and I don't have to win, I don't even have to compete, I can just walk. So I force myself to remember thoughts like:
'Andrew you don't seem to think you are good enough today, not thin enough, too lustful, etc. On the day that you die, you will not be good enough. So get over it. You may die today, so calm down and just start walking. "death smiles at us all, all man can do is smile back" (Gladiator). Live in the realm of today, slowly practice the virtues, fear God, experience Eudaimonea'
'none of the affairs of man are large enough for great anxiety' - Plato's Republic
or Psalm 139
or some Aristotle about being virtuous
Then I can move onto the rest of the day.
Work:
I always pray before work because as they say there are no atheists in foxholes, so I feel about work. I've always hated and feared work, and anytime someone mentions jobs, employment, or work, I think of the line "Imagine a Boot Stomping on a Human Face Forever" from Orwell's 1984. I hope that changes someday. Anyway, I just try to survive at work.
Peace/Shalom:
Usually on the drive home as I listen to a piece of classical music, or have my hand out the window, or see a really green tree or flower, I feel at peace. The tender reassurance that I am not that important, that I will end, and flowers and music and breezes will continue and overshadow all the dark schemes of human work which destroy every natural bliss.
Friends:
If I have the emotional stamina after the rest of the day, I'll call my friends, or check my email. Recently it's been really hard for me to be able to get through everything, so I've been neglecting this area. My friend is getting married in a week, I haven't bought him anything, I haven't sent him anythign, just told him I can't fly out for his wedding. I just can't deal with it right now, I love and support him, but I have a low emotional tolerance or something.
Reading/Tolkien/World of Warcraft:
This is the part of the day I yearn for most because I can't be at shalom all the time, if I could, I would yearn for that, but such is the reality of life. These activities are the escape from the rest of existence and yet in them I feel more alive than in anything else during morning or work. I can be somewhere else for these precious hours, one day work and mornings will consume all of this time and I'll be forced to live merely for the temporary daily moments of peace and Church.
Church/Mass:
This is the 3rd best time of the day/week - Sorry God - where I arrive early in the large Cathedral and feel all my guilt build up from over the week as I look at the crucifix and remember that God's most defining moment was pain and death and that this was the path he chose for us, and in that truth, I too can live and die. I haven't been able to take the Eucharist recently because I can't get to confession (I work saturdays and priests seem to only allow confessions on saturdays in our diocese), but when I do take communion, it's always an awesome experience. I enjoy the Mass because it reminds me that whatever goodness I have comes not from me as an individual but from me as a member of Christ's body, from the group, the Church of Christ (Now confusingly monikered the Roman Catholic Church - it's a long story). I usually find the same peace here, in prayer, on my knees before the mysteriously present God, the Mysterium Tremendum. But then the idiotic priest or the uneducated Catholic says something dumb and gets me angry for the rest of the day.
Evening:
When I get to my room at night I'll cross myself and pray the Pater Noster (Our Father), Ave Maria (Hail Mary), and the Jesus Prayer (Domine Iesu Christe) in latin and then read some Harry Potter and go to sleep. I usually have nightmares, and in the last month I've woken up screaming twice.
Then the whole thing starts over again.
"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money'. Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin." - Epistle of St. James, Chapter 4, Verses 13 to 17
I love this passage, it reminds me that I have to live today, without boasting, remember that I am but a mist, and to do the right thing, this is the path to fulfillment and life everlasting.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Who Should You Be?
I once watched a movie with the famed rapist and actor James Dean, it was called "Rebel Without A Cause". The plot revolved around a stylish high school rebel who ironically was not much of a rebel. He wore a leather jacket but was morally rather Puritanical. He semi-killed a guy and then wanted to confess to the police, but his parents said he shouldn't. His friend was nicknamed Plato. So basically he was an emotional teenage Socrates in a leather jacket. I forget how it ended, I think an innocent member of a visible minority got shot and 1950s American society was restored to it's natural equilibrium. But as I sit here 'wallowing in my own obesity' (a phrase I used alot in high school) I wonder how rebelious James Dean was in said film. He was fairly rebellious to stand up for some kind of Aristotelian virtue ethics in a Utilitarian world. Anyway, I was thinking, who are we 'supposed to be', according to our culture.
I think there's two simple answers to this much asked question:
1. the american dream - young, healthy, optimistic, attractive, successful - be all those things, live in suburbia, etc.
2. the anti-american dream - young, healthy, rebellious, attractive, independent. - this would be the "Into the Wild" type of thing where the young man goes off on his motorcycle and fights "the man" and "society".
Those are the people you "Should" be.
But what kind of a person "Shouldn't" you be? Here's my list
-Ugly and/or Fat and content with it
-Disabled
-Opinionated
-Pessimistic
-Lazy
-Awkward
-Insane
Imagine Louis Anderson in a wheelchair with the multiple personalities of Rush Limbaugh, Whoopie Goldberg, and the Wrestler Goldberg.
and you could add Jewish to the list, because apparently everyone I know (except me) hates Jews.
And then I looked in the mirror and realized that i'm alot of the things nobody likes. So I was thinking I should start a club or something of unwanted hated people. But they'd all hate each other so much that it'd be problematic. But it could be called like "The Corpulant Fraternity of Lost Souls" and we could wear capes and stuff, and wallow in our numerous faillures and social flaws.
CFLS wants You!
I think there's two simple answers to this much asked question:
1. the american dream - young, healthy, optimistic, attractive, successful - be all those things, live in suburbia, etc.
2. the anti-american dream - young, healthy, rebellious, attractive, independent. - this would be the "Into the Wild" type of thing where the young man goes off on his motorcycle and fights "the man" and "society".
Those are the people you "Should" be.
But what kind of a person "Shouldn't" you be? Here's my list
-Ugly and/or Fat and content with it
-Disabled
-Opinionated
-Pessimistic
-Lazy
-Awkward
-Insane
Imagine Louis Anderson in a wheelchair with the multiple personalities of Rush Limbaugh, Whoopie Goldberg, and the Wrestler Goldberg.
and you could add Jewish to the list, because apparently everyone I know (except me) hates Jews.
And then I looked in the mirror and realized that i'm alot of the things nobody likes. So I was thinking I should start a club or something of unwanted hated people. But they'd all hate each other so much that it'd be problematic. But it could be called like "The Corpulant Fraternity of Lost Souls" and we could wear capes and stuff, and wallow in our numerous faillures and social flaws.
CFLS wants You!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Star Trek Thoughts
Last night a friend and I went to see the new Star Trek movie. At first I thought it was going to suck because I'd always associated the words Star Trek with all the things I hate about nerds/gaming community/ppl who are higher levels than me in Warcraft. But I was absolutely amazed at how good a movie it was, I highly recommend it. I think I liked it for entirely different reasons than most people though.
My favourite scenes were on the planet Vulcan where Spok grew up. It shows his education as a child and a few glimpses of their society. They're a society completely based on logic and not emotion. There's shots of kids reciting math equations - to which I told Teresa "If there's that much math in the future, count me out" - right next to kids answering questions on moral philosophy. Each of them is kind of being tutored. Apparently on Vulcan as in the Corruscant Jedi Council there is still enough tax dollars going into higher education for people to be trained personally. (maybe that's why they're more advanced than Earth!)
I liked seeing the statues they had built and the culture that was fairly believable. If other planets have people devoted to Western/Logical Philosophy and Reason, that gives me hope for Earth's philosophical relativism, and Nietzschean Barbarism.
So ya, that's where Star Trek led me heh. Also the guy from Harold and Kumar (Harold/Asian guy) was in it, and the guy from Shaun of the Dead. I recommend seeing it. Live long and prosper.
My favourite scenes were on the planet Vulcan where Spok grew up. It shows his education as a child and a few glimpses of their society. They're a society completely based on logic and not emotion. There's shots of kids reciting math equations - to which I told Teresa "If there's that much math in the future, count me out" - right next to kids answering questions on moral philosophy. Each of them is kind of being tutored. Apparently on Vulcan as in the Corruscant Jedi Council there is still enough tax dollars going into higher education for people to be trained personally. (maybe that's why they're more advanced than Earth!)
I liked seeing the statues they had built and the culture that was fairly believable. If other planets have people devoted to Western/Logical Philosophy and Reason, that gives me hope for Earth's philosophical relativism, and Nietzschean Barbarism.
So ya, that's where Star Trek led me heh. Also the guy from Harold and Kumar (Harold/Asian guy) was in it, and the guy from Shaun of the Dead. I recommend seeing it. Live long and prosper.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Filling the Void with Rum, Porn, and Warcraft
lol I thought that blog title would grab your attention, yes both of you reading this.
I just realized that I haven't had a girlfriend since August, it's coming up to a year now, but I've tried not to think about my utter loneliness. I've enjoyed the bachelor life and I'm enjoying it now by serving only myself - one of my favourite things to do. But I've been noticing more and more often how much of a void there's been in my life.
First of all, to get it out of the way, I've always been told that everyone has a God-Shaped hole in their heart which only Jesus can fill, well I've filled that with Jesus and his Eucharistic presence. So if there's a check list for my life, God could be checked off. But Aristotle taught me something else, that life is really about finding Eudaimonea - Happiness - Fulfillment, and while I'm obligated to say God is enough, blah, etc, in all honesty, sometimes he isn't. Leonard Cohen once said he believed two things about God - 1) that he is alwasy imminently and transcendently present in every moment of your life, and 2) that we become so used to this that sometimes we feel an incomprehensible chasm between us and God. I agree with his Zen Judaism there.
But back to the main theme. Just a warning that this is probably the most embarrassing thing i've put on my blog, and if my co-workers read this, please don't think less of me. But I work with beautiful, young, girls, who would never spend evenings with me unless obligated by the job and money, etc. Anyway, we ran out of paper towels tonight so they started using my back to wipe their hands on. It was basically a derogatory thing which was pretty simple and non-sexual, just like someone giving you a back rub. The creepy thing was how good it felt. Feel free to leave the blog now if you're grossed out at the thought of this, just click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfH-pzXWHw
The weird thing was just that a girl talking to me tonight and rubbing my back made me feel like a human again, it was like some kind of relational/human void was being filled. If you're struggling to get what i mean just think of every book Donald Miller ever wrote. That's what I mean.
As I've been going to a Protestant Counselor for a while now trying to sort out my addictions and I'm amazed at how many things I try to fill the voids in my life with. I feel like a junkie trying to go from one high to the next. I've been doing phenomenally better recently with all these things, but at the same time it makes it worse when it all comes back.
So tonight, now that i'm home I don't know what to do, there's one person I call whenever I get depressed (it's the last person I kissed as well) but I don't know if she feels like dealing with me tonight. So I'm just going to finish my rum and coke, and play some world of warcraft. I wish I were in the middle ages so that I could go to Vespers and take the Eucharist. But I'll have to wait till sunday. I hate that I can't go to confession except on saturdays either, and I work saturdays. Christ's Church sucks at times, but is still really awesome.
Shalom to you, may the correct things fill the voids in your life.
I just realized that I haven't had a girlfriend since August, it's coming up to a year now, but I've tried not to think about my utter loneliness. I've enjoyed the bachelor life and I'm enjoying it now by serving only myself - one of my favourite things to do. But I've been noticing more and more often how much of a void there's been in my life.
First of all, to get it out of the way, I've always been told that everyone has a God-Shaped hole in their heart which only Jesus can fill, well I've filled that with Jesus and his Eucharistic presence. So if there's a check list for my life, God could be checked off. But Aristotle taught me something else, that life is really about finding Eudaimonea - Happiness - Fulfillment, and while I'm obligated to say God is enough, blah, etc, in all honesty, sometimes he isn't. Leonard Cohen once said he believed two things about God - 1) that he is alwasy imminently and transcendently present in every moment of your life, and 2) that we become so used to this that sometimes we feel an incomprehensible chasm between us and God. I agree with his Zen Judaism there.
But back to the main theme. Just a warning that this is probably the most embarrassing thing i've put on my blog, and if my co-workers read this, please don't think less of me. But I work with beautiful, young, girls, who would never spend evenings with me unless obligated by the job and money, etc. Anyway, we ran out of paper towels tonight so they started using my back to wipe their hands on. It was basically a derogatory thing which was pretty simple and non-sexual, just like someone giving you a back rub. The creepy thing was how good it felt. Feel free to leave the blog now if you're grossed out at the thought of this, just click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfH-pzXWHw
The weird thing was just that a girl talking to me tonight and rubbing my back made me feel like a human again, it was like some kind of relational/human void was being filled. If you're struggling to get what i mean just think of every book Donald Miller ever wrote. That's what I mean.
As I've been going to a Protestant Counselor for a while now trying to sort out my addictions and I'm amazed at how many things I try to fill the voids in my life with. I feel like a junkie trying to go from one high to the next. I've been doing phenomenally better recently with all these things, but at the same time it makes it worse when it all comes back.
So tonight, now that i'm home I don't know what to do, there's one person I call whenever I get depressed (it's the last person I kissed as well) but I don't know if she feels like dealing with me tonight. So I'm just going to finish my rum and coke, and play some world of warcraft. I wish I were in the middle ages so that I could go to Vespers and take the Eucharist. But I'll have to wait till sunday. I hate that I can't go to confession except on saturdays either, and I work saturdays. Christ's Church sucks at times, but is still really awesome.
Shalom to you, may the correct things fill the voids in your life.
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