Beauty and the Beast, Existentialism, and Love

I was woken by my cat at 6:15 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. So I brought my bedding into the loft and watched Beauty and the Beast which my brother's wife had left at our house. No not the new remastered edition, the old VHS. I hadn't watched the film since I was a kid when it was released in 1991, and as usual my memory served me quite accurately, though of course some parts were surprises again (I forgot what a douchebag the beast is).



Anyway, the movie while arousing my interest, didn't satisfy my desire to find some deep message. I thought for a while about the admixture of modern pagan and romanticized post-christian humanist values and thought this could only be disney's doing. So I read the original (dubious as any claim to originality a fairy story can have), by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/beauty.html) it was short, but much better than the film. I liked the Thomistic 'moral' of the story

"come and receive the reward of your judicious choice; you have preferred virtue before either wit or beauty, and deserve to find a person in whom all these qualifications are united." -spoken to Beauty after her choice of the Beast and his transformation

It reminded me of the biblical story of Samuel/God choosing David based on the virtue rather than appearance.

"And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD's anointed is before him. But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." - 1 Samuel 16:6-7 (KJV)

Of course to me, there could be two much more interesting tales which I'll outline here:

1. The Handsomest and the Hag - a story about a handsome man who falls in love with an ugly woman. To be fair to the ladies, the story is usually reversed, and women are still seen as having to be attractive. (For a cartoon Belle was pretty hot). Imagine a reversal of what I like to call the King-of-Queens-syndrome, where we always have the fat ugly guy, and the beautiful girl. I don't know how people (myself included) would react to a story like that.

2. A Tale of Two Uglies - a story about two ugly people who remain ugly and learn to love each other even if they aren't attracted to each other. At the end, when they both realize that they still love each other even if they're both ugly, no transformation takes place, and they live average lives.

Although to the credit of the film, the fairy story, and my other ideas, the one transcendent truth coming through each, is the idea that loving something makes it lovable.

For example, there is a girl in one of my classes at Brock, whom upon first glance was rather ugly. Her ears were big and uneven, her voice squeaky, and she had no chest to speak of. But as I got to know her and listen to her ideas and life, suddenly I found myself attracted to her. Admittedly, not overwhelmingly, and certainly not in a true love type way.

In taking an Existentialism class, this is one thing I am appreciating the most. We put meaning on objects we conceive. When I look at a piece of bread, I conceive it as food. When I look at a consecrated Eucharistic host, I conceive it as the Body and Blood of God. Very divergent meanings for empirically the same accidents/appearances.

This is what love I think is most like - no wonder they talk about love potions and spells - it is deceptive, it doesn't follow appearances. And in this post-Christian culture, it is perhaps the only gift of grace that people have certain faith in. This is a beautiful revelation/reminder to the Christian as the apostle tells us that Love is the greatest (1 Corinthians 13).

and now that I think of it, you could make a great WoW version of the movie with a Tauren male and a Human/Blood Elf female.

Idiocy of Human Limitations ; Fall ; Time

Time is a strange thing, in St. Augustine's Confessions he basically envisions walking out onto a plain and imagines that in the open air around him etc is all time (ie. somehow not linear but 3 dimensional). I just butchered that insight.

Anyway, I have a 2000 word essay due tomorrow that I've barely started and I'm a bit worried. I don't WANT to do it, and I have to work today so I'll be up most of the night I'm sure. But still I find comfort in thinking: Time will be defeated, the time will come when I hand in the paper and it's all over, done. Time passes so quickly and sometimes I think my life is just trying to rush through time only to realize that I've lost it.

I wish I could enjoy every moment, especially Fall/Autumn, it's so beautiful. The trees and the corn fields, it's my favourite season. I only got to take 1 or 2 walks and they were awesome, but now I'm noticing too many of the leaves falling and realizing I've wasted another year's chances. I like looking at things from a different perspective, I like laying out on the ground and looking up at the sky and thinking about how big the world is and how stupid all of our human obligations are. For example: Today I have to go to work in 38 minutes, I then have to hand in my history paper in 24 hours 38 minutes. But that's all human responsibility and obligation, biologically, I could just sit here on the couch. My work could call, I could get fired, my prof could email me and say that I failed the course, but that's it....that's it.... I'd still be sitting here at 12:01 on friday and nothing would have physically affected me. In no way would I be in danger or hopeless.

I like remembering that. I wish I could levitate, if I could levitate/fly I would quit school right now. My World of Warcraft priest could levitate where you would hover about 2 feet off the ground and you could jump off cliffs and just slowly float down.



I think it'd be so wonderful to just quit everything and slowly float around on a beautiful October day. I dream of that freedom WoW simulated, to just have endless free time, to be autonomous truly, to only fear about real life dangers not something as synthetic as work or school.

I'd like to cash out everything from my bank account and wander from town to town enjoying every moment, because one day my time will end, and I'll die and that's it. School, work, money, even family, will be nothing. Just my soul, just God. that's it.

(I'd also prefer travelling to WoW cities which are probably much cooler than real towns, case and point:)



To roam and chase after Eudaimonia and to love and to hope, this is what feeds my soul. Not essays about American History and Deli work.

Life, WoW, and More Eudaimonea Cravings

About 3-4 months ago I quit playing World of Warcraft. When I used to play there'd be days where I would run from my car to the computer. I had the coolest system in the world worked out one time my parents went on a trip. I brought in a giant comfy chair and then got blankets and food and had my laptop and my PC set up. It was like Heaven on Earth. The sad thing is, that I'm not exaggerating the emotions I felt. Complete escape. Porn is nothing by comparison. WoW has left a hole in me in a sense. Not in terms of gaming, but something bigger. It's acceptance, friendship, community, entertainment, excitement. All of these things, through a game. No wonder it's so addicting.

After I would get everything done for school and work etc, and then go home, I could play and it would be Eudaimonea/Happiness. I am constantly searching for it, but at times I'm just trying to minimalize pain and gain a few shadow pleasures (to speak in the Republican language of Plato), but tonight I'm craving Eudaimonea. I need to escape from the grim reality, I need a new beginning.

But I'm just going to go to bed instead, and hope for the best, and maybe one day I'll find something else to give me Eudaimonea.

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.

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.

Today and the Serenity Prayer

I've had quite a few weeks of essays and seminar leading, and other school crap, etc. Today I finished my Essay on Obama and Hillary with less than 40 minutes to spare. It was cutting it close, but now I can rest a little.

This morning I woke up and my first thought was 'today is going to suck'. I then sat there thinking for a while. Why would I choose to live if today is going to suck. I decided that I wasn't going to let today suck, sure it was stressful, but I'm just trying to be happy about doing things. I try to remember that life isn't that bad, and that I will have fun again, but most importantly that even if things do go badly, that's ok, life isn't always fun, it isn't always overly joyous, but at the same time, I can be content, I can be optimistic even if things aren't great.

I've been thinking about school and work tonight and possibly buying the WoW expansion tomorrow to start it up again, but I've been trying to think honestly that if nothing else goes right in life, I'm still going to have to find a way to be happy about today, and maybe I should try to be happy without 'quick fixes' like material possessions, video games, food, etc. Maybe I could just be grateful to be alive and enjoy myself as I am right now. All of this sounds extremely trite and simple, but I'm still trying to just live this way, so for me this was all revolutionary.

I'm not an alcoholic but I still love the serenity prayer:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen." -Reinhold Niebuhr

I was going to analyze the lines I like, but I realize that every line is awesome. Today I'm thinking about the line "That I may be reasonably happy in this life". Still finding my daily Eudaimonea...

I'm going to have to memorize this, and read some of Niebuhr's stuff.

Jones-in' it for some WoW again...

Last week in American history seminar a girl next to me started talking about how she was going to play World of Warcraft as soon as she got home and how she was having a LAN with her girlfriends. I felt like I had landed in some gamer's fantasy (girls actually playing WoW - "dry land is not a myth!"). Anyway I proceeded to tell her how long I'd been clean (From world of warcraft) and then my TA joined in saying he quit too, and everyone around the room started to go off about how they had all played WoW and either were still addicted or had cleaned up and moved on. But there's still the faint glimmer in my eye when it's mentioned lol.

I found these screenshots on my computer and I've started to get the old craving again, it's comin' back. I'm also done school in a few weeks and so my grades won't be an issue (my average went from 72 last year when I played WoW to 82). I still have the game Everquest sitting in it's package upstairs - I never even bothered installing it. But these screenshots reminded me of amazing times I had in Azeroth. It's actually kind of strange, because some WoW moments I would almost classify as some of the funnest times of my life. The other day I was thinking about Heaven and then I saw a girl playing WoW infront of me in lecture on her laptop and I thought - it's strange that my view of heaven is that it will be less fun than that game. It's as if I have the Blizzard creators higher than their Creator. So maybe I need to just imagine all the fun and good times I've had and make that sum a glimpse of Heaven.

This picture is from a guild raid that we did on Redrock Ridge where we camped on the roof of this building and I chain lightninged people and NPC's it was absolutely hillarious. Of course, apparently this is now bannable, which is ridiculous, but w/e, just another way blizzard ruins the game.

Aristotle talked about Eudaimonea - fullfillment/happiness, I distinctly remember last summer having put in a hard days work for 8 hours, worked with a friend and had a fun time for most of the day, and then coming home and sitting at the computer desk to play WoW while listening to some classical music. Months later when I read Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics I thought those kind of happy fullfilling moments where nothing is wrong with the world. I also think about sitting looking at the stars, etc. Good ol' Aristotle, I think he'd be a gnome mage. I wonder if I'll start playing again.... Blessed Virgin Mary pray for me!

World of Warcraft

Lately I've been playing WoW again. There are infinitely better things to do with my time, like exercise or ministry or schoolwork. But I just got to the point where I could no longer find happiness in life, I could find joy in Christianity, but not a fun kind of happiness. So I started once more. I've played probably like 5 characters so far, I can never pick just one. I'm tempted on many days to just pick one and delete the rest, even though i've literally spend weeks ingame on some of them. I think my 61 Priest has like 16 days of playtime. I'm now restarting with a blood-elf hunter.

But why would I play Wow? what makes it different. Here are some answers, not all of them are good or healthy, but they're just thoughts.

Escapism - I'm so tired of life and the stresses that I've lived with for so long, that at times I just need to escape. This is the reason many people drink or use drugs, and in many ways those are more socially acceptable, but Mennonite and Baptist backgrounds die hard and I doubt I'll ever use either.

New Reality - The pre-modern man struggled to survive in the world, the modern man discovered and conquered the world, and the post-modern man invents his own world. Given these 3 options I would choose the modern world. I would love to explore and discover things, but i'd like to be in shape as well. My brother Jeremy is to me the hero of this modern period, out in the wilderness and on the edge of civilization, if I had it in me, I'd like to do the same thing.

In WoW I can enjoy the best of Post-Modernity. The world of warcraft is full of new and exciting places to see and things to do, I can find my own friends from all around the world and have a ton of fun living as a brave new explorer in a brave new world.

Pure Fun - at the end of the week, I can usually (this week excluded) just jump on and have a ton of fun. Last night is an example, I just jumped on my Shaman and rode around on my wolf through an Alliance (enemy) area, and I found other low level players and would kill them in one shot and then dance on their corpses and ride away. This is entertainment for me.

I like playing games, and as I said it is a horrifying thought that I have spent this much time in a fake world doing essentially meaningless things, but when faced with the reality of life that to have fun in this world I would have to diet, exercise, face all of my problems, try alot harder, pass my G test (which I'm still ignoring) and go into new and scary situations. OR I could jump on a game and get almost all of the same enjoyment. Sloth is a sin, but it is the reality of my life, and thus I play World of Warcraft.