I am afraid that I am losing my mind. That is a disingenuous way to phrase it, I am not actually afraid at all, mildly excited actually, but it is a colloquial saying and, I think, not a terrible way to start any recollection of a less than usual day. I tried getting this down a few days ago, but I was at home with my parents and siblings, and the combined noise of questions, answers, and Madagascar 2 made it impossible to concentrate, even with earplugs in. Wearing earplugs in the living room was strange, but I had started off the day, the day I feel like recalling, strangely and saw no reason to alter my course. Perhaps stranger still is that not one of the eight others in the room said anything about them. Right now a French movie is playing, but I am too far away to read the screen. The sound is soothing enough, distraction is nearly impossible, so it seems the perfect opportunity has presented itself.
Anyway, I have been reading a lot of JD Salinger lately, actually all of his works that have been collected in books, in under a week and a half, and it has most probably contributed to my strange frame of mind. I've certainly taken a similar meandering tone, at least to some of his works, but I am not certain I wasn't a word-waster before. Salinger is a deeply religious man. Every story is, at heart, a religious story, or, more precisely, quest, and I am of the mind that every religious quest is something very like a matter of life and death--certainly both are impacted, at the very least. I like Salinger. We share a desire for a higher level of consciousness and a love for the far east, at least an idealized, philosophical far east. If you haven't done so already, this is probably where you want to stop reading.
Being at home with my family this summer has definitely been a blessing. I love my brother, my sisters, my mom and dad, but I am starting to feel slightly contained, like everything I do has to take place within definite parameters. But that's not entirely true. I really don't mind staying at home or just sitting around, but when I start trying to think of things to do just to pass the time, I suddenly have trouble justifying normal things that I would usually enjoy doing on a daily basis. I'd rather kill myself than watch television for hours just because I have nothing else to do. I'm trying to decide if that is why I was feeling so strange the other day. I'm not sure it is. I couldn't find my glasses or contacts. That always makes me feel sort of crazy. I didn't even do anything that crazy or out of the ordinary. I just left the house. I drove around for a little while, and ended up at Kmart, of all places, really.
I hadn't been to Kmart in three or four years. I think the last time I went there was to see if they had any Nintendo Wiis. It was my junior year in high school. Timo was still here on exchange. So it's been a while. Once I got there, I didn't really know what to do. The only section I remembered was the toy section. They didn't have any decent water guns, so I didn't spend much time there. Mostly, I just wandered around the store. I walked past each section at least three times. I didn't really have any money I could afford to spend, still don't really, and there wasn't anything I actually needed, but, for some reason, I really didn't feel like leaving at all, like there was something in that store that I absolutely needed, that would snap me out of my seeming stupor and bring me back to normal, or something like that, anyway. I spent over an hour in there, searching for nothing in particular. I think what I really wanted was to find a Japanese futon there, so I could throw away all of my furniture and spend the rest of my life sitting and sleeping on the floor. For some reason, Kmart did not have any, not that I could afford it anyway.
There are a lot of curious things at Kmart, more curious because I was one of probably ten customers at any given moment and empty aisles themselves look strange under flourescent lights. The first thing that really drew my attention was the 'God Bless America' section, Independence Day leftovers. Flags are expensive, and I am curious as to the intent of the phrase 'God Bless America'. Is it a request, or exultation, or maybe somewhere between hope an a promise? To me, it usually sounds like some kind of bragging, that America is 'God's country', but I can't really find that meaning in the phrase itself. Maybe the original meaning is lost to the sentiment of a time that can admit no mistakes. I'd like to maybe switch some words around, maybe add a word or two. I would definitely add punctuation, at least, just to clear things up.
I also spent some time at the Catholic candles. From what I saw, there are two competing brands, which I thought interesting. I somehow never realized that each candle actually represented a prayer, to some personality of Jesus or a saint or Mary, who seems to be somewhere in between. I don't know, never been much into icons. Aside from the borderline idle worship, I actually really love the idea of prayer candles, if that is actually how they are supposed to be used. They sell blank candles, and, although I am not sure they are meant to be used in this way, I decided to buy one, maybe make my own prayer candle. I left it in the car, accidentally. I hope it doesn't melt into the upolstery!
There is more, but I am sure it is all boring to anyone who reads it and I don't have the heart to add more. I think it is kind of funny to end on an exclamation point, anyway. I realized that there was someone that I knew working in Kmart and I had walked past them probably seven times without so much as acknowledging them, and left rather quickly. Not have contacts in shrinks my world to about nine square feet. I went home and put in earplugs, because I couldnt deal with so many sources of information.
I don't think I've really manage to capture exactly how strange I felt/still sort of feel, but at least I've managed to amuse myself while this terrible movie played. Never watch some stupid French show called Angel A. Seriously.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
still learning.
It is difficult for me to admit that there may be things that I still need to learn, areas in which I still need to mature. I look around and wonder what these people could possible know that I don't. Oftentimes, I am not convinced there is anything, or, if there is, how I could ever access it.
But I have been learning. The difficult thing in admitting this is pride, sadly enough. And even though this may just be in keeping with pride, I would like to clarify--these are not things that a person learns from other people. I don't think that each person follows the same path as every other, or even that they work towards the same conclusions, necessarily.
Here are some things that I strongly believe.
Faith, ideology, belief. I believe these things are very personal, subjective. I believe that a person's relationship with God and others is explicitly their own and does not necessarily involve other people. Some might argue that faith is essentially social, that a person must act if they are truly to be considered a believer. While this may often be the case--more often than not, likely--I believe the statement itself to be inherently flawed. First, practically, this formulation would exclude the rich monastic tradition that every system of belief contains in its rich heritage. Second, I think it errs seriously when it comes to the fundamental relationship between belief, or faith, and the agent of belief. I truly believe that it all takes place in the heart or mind of the individual, or between a person and God. It has been often said that, reflecting the changed or motivated heart, a person must act if they truly believe. While I might agree with the causal relationship between changed person and external action, I would gently caution whoever makes this claim. There are 7 billion other people in this world, and many times more than that preceding them. If you think it is possible to formulate a general claim like that pertaining to all of them, you may be mistaken.
I believe that the bible is not incorrigible, or--to word this negatively--I don't think that every word of the bible is infallible. I might even go so far as to say that none of it is beyond doubt. The arguable exception of this would be the 10 commandments, but the original was destroyed and a man-made version was retained, if I remember the story correctly, so perhaps not even that is indubitable. I think that the bible represents humanity's--or at least a contained set of humanity, as far as I am concerned, the rest of the world is still an open question for me--attempt to understand their past, the present, and their relationship to God. The gospels are named after their writers and represent their perspectives. Paul wrote letters to specific churches at specific times. It is all subjective.
Many people, perhaps the majority of organized religion will fight me over that. That's fine.
To be continued...
But I have been learning. The difficult thing in admitting this is pride, sadly enough. And even though this may just be in keeping with pride, I would like to clarify--these are not things that a person learns from other people. I don't think that each person follows the same path as every other, or even that they work towards the same conclusions, necessarily.
Here are some things that I strongly believe.
Faith, ideology, belief. I believe these things are very personal, subjective. I believe that a person's relationship with God and others is explicitly their own and does not necessarily involve other people. Some might argue that faith is essentially social, that a person must act if they are truly to be considered a believer. While this may often be the case--more often than not, likely--I believe the statement itself to be inherently flawed. First, practically, this formulation would exclude the rich monastic tradition that every system of belief contains in its rich heritage. Second, I think it errs seriously when it comes to the fundamental relationship between belief, or faith, and the agent of belief. I truly believe that it all takes place in the heart or mind of the individual, or between a person and God. It has been often said that, reflecting the changed or motivated heart, a person must act if they truly believe. While I might agree with the causal relationship between changed person and external action, I would gently caution whoever makes this claim. There are 7 billion other people in this world, and many times more than that preceding them. If you think it is possible to formulate a general claim like that pertaining to all of them, you may be mistaken.
I believe that the bible is not incorrigible, or--to word this negatively--I don't think that every word of the bible is infallible. I might even go so far as to say that none of it is beyond doubt. The arguable exception of this would be the 10 commandments, but the original was destroyed and a man-made version was retained, if I remember the story correctly, so perhaps not even that is indubitable. I think that the bible represents humanity's--or at least a contained set of humanity, as far as I am concerned, the rest of the world is still an open question for me--attempt to understand their past, the present, and their relationship to God. The gospels are named after their writers and represent their perspectives. Paul wrote letters to specific churches at specific times. It is all subjective.
Many people, perhaps the majority of organized religion will fight me over that. That's fine.
To be continued...
Monday, February 2, 2009
eating alone.
Today, I was busy. From my first class to my last, I had only a brief respite between work at the Arbiter and Analytic philosophy, my three hour night class. This break was spent at BRC, the vastly improved campus eatery. I arrived twenty minutes before the official dinner hours and spent about an hour total dining alone. It was interesting.
I am writing down some of the thoughts that I had while sitting alone, watching the world go by, not from any hubristic tendency; but just so that, in a few weeks, when I return to this post, I can wonder at how such immature and inarticulate thoughts could have come from the same mind that will presently be reading. And I guess I am making it public-ish from a similar sentiment. To pretend that my thoughts are in any way unique is to ignore the fact, or at least theory, that others are simply, or perhaps not so simply, unique variations of the same model from which I come, making it likely that we will all come to a point where the sum of our life experiences leads us to a place where such nonsensical and irrelevant seem suddenly pertinent and demanding further introspection. Thus, the sentiment behind the public listing is that most people are likely far past this point and, as I will in a few weeks, this will all seem remarkably immature and, hopefully, so childish as to be humorous.
I have not even arrived at the aim of this post and already I have written far too much. Sorry.
Anyway, to the topic at hand. Eating.
My days are busy. I wake up and do school, do work, do school, waste time, do work or school, and sleep. Sometimes I fit in a meal. Very occasionally, I fit in two. In direct contrast to my school/work schedule, my days, weeks, seem remarkably free of any spontaneous diversion. What I do when I am not in my daily routine is itself becoming startlingly routine. And an increasingly large percentage of my free time is spent on facebook, which, in itself, is not an altogether bad thing.
All this is to say, really, that today, I had a little over an hour break between work and my last class and, for lack of anything else to spend it on, excepting school work, I sat by myself at Boise River Cafe for almost an hour exactly. I arrived twenty minutes before dinner hours began and found a table by myself. I was already situated when people began to enter in number.
Eating was a strange experience.
After another packed day of work and school, with more school waiting in the evening, I found myself with nothing to do, no reason to hurry. So I didn't hurry, deliberately. I feel so rushed, constantly, but aside from work and school, I have almost nothing move towards. So I sat alone, eating slowly, watching life swarm around me. Suddenly, the rush of life felt strangely alien to me!
I like to feel that everything I do is very important. If not in some vague way important to the entire world, then at least to me personally. When I study, I am working towards the creation of new knowledge. When I work, I am giving my time and labor to something else, hopefully something important in some way. When I sleep, I am investing in my self. And, somehow, it feels like everything is culminating. At some point it will all come together, all the games, work, play, academia, and it will be crucially important. My days are intentional, every minute somehow vastly important.
So I rush, from class to work, from work to sleep. Full of purpose, but no real direction.
Today, I had nothing to do. For an hour, nothing I did was for the sake of anything else. There was no reason to do anything. So I enjoyed my meal, slowly, and watched life continue without me.
After nearly 700 words of preface, this is what I am trying to say:
Sometimes, most times, I like to feel that I am a part of this world, that what I am doing is important. Here's the thing: it isn't. Removed from my directionless crusade towards something important and indefinite, even just for an hour, life went on, without me. Hundreds of other people uniquely just like my walked past my table, where I sat along, unmoving, silent. I contributed nothing. And life went on.
It is kind of strange to openly admit that nothing I do matters, that less than one thousandth of one percent of the people now living on this earth will ever know my name, even if I poured my entire life into creating some lasting monument, or blow myself up in a violently glorious cause. Of the few that will, almost none will remember me. And when they are gone, none will. And humanity will continue into the ages, possibly into eternity and, just like the unnamed milliards that have passed before me, I will be washed away by an endless stream of humanity, flowing as quickly as possibly to anywhere but here.
Now I am not trying to be original here, or pretend as some kind of deepness, but there is something reassuring about knowing that the world owes no ontological dependence to me. Perhaps the entire world is just a set of ideas, as Rev. Berekely seemed to think, but that is God's deal, not mine.
On that same line of thought, I suddenly realized how empy everyone else seemed, how remote their minds were! First, I was strangely overwhelmed by the amount of clothing, all branded, all manufactured. It would be, and probably has been, the culmination of several lifetimes of work and achievement by various people, likely largely belonging to poor, undeveloped countries, to create such a quantity of clothing! And what has been the fruit of that labor? Survival, for a time. Then nothing. To live a life so unremarked and without gratitude breaks my heart, but what more can be said of my situation? I am infinitely more privileged, but no more deserving. And the fruit of my labor will be no greater.
This was all followed by more aimless introspection, about how I could never escape perception and never access the mind of another person. How strange it is that I can pick up any object and access directly what makes it what it is! I can feel a bowl, discern its physical makeup, its purpose. But a person, everything can be perceived except what makes a person a person! The only thing worth understanding is imperceptible. Knowledge is strange.
But I am not going to go into detail with anything else I was thinking about. It is all even more childish than the first things I talked about, which is pretty strong statement, but most likely true.
So I will conclude by saying that, were I to have more things to do when not scholastically engaged or working, I wouldn't waste so much time typing useless things. So invite me to do things. That is the real purpose of this blog, to convince you that I need to make more friends. I am sorry for anyone who wasted their time reading this, thinking there was something intelligent contained within. There wasn't, and isn't, and I am sorry for that.
So it goes.
I am writing down some of the thoughts that I had while sitting alone, watching the world go by, not from any hubristic tendency; but just so that, in a few weeks, when I return to this post, I can wonder at how such immature and inarticulate thoughts could have come from the same mind that will presently be reading. And I guess I am making it public-ish from a similar sentiment. To pretend that my thoughts are in any way unique is to ignore the fact, or at least theory, that others are simply, or perhaps not so simply, unique variations of the same model from which I come, making it likely that we will all come to a point where the sum of our life experiences leads us to a place where such nonsensical and irrelevant seem suddenly pertinent and demanding further introspection. Thus, the sentiment behind the public listing is that most people are likely far past this point and, as I will in a few weeks, this will all seem remarkably immature and, hopefully, so childish as to be humorous.
I have not even arrived at the aim of this post and already I have written far too much. Sorry.
Anyway, to the topic at hand. Eating.
My days are busy. I wake up and do school, do work, do school, waste time, do work or school, and sleep. Sometimes I fit in a meal. Very occasionally, I fit in two. In direct contrast to my school/work schedule, my days, weeks, seem remarkably free of any spontaneous diversion. What I do when I am not in my daily routine is itself becoming startlingly routine. And an increasingly large percentage of my free time is spent on facebook, which, in itself, is not an altogether bad thing.
All this is to say, really, that today, I had a little over an hour break between work and my last class and, for lack of anything else to spend it on, excepting school work, I sat by myself at Boise River Cafe for almost an hour exactly. I arrived twenty minutes before dinner hours began and found a table by myself. I was already situated when people began to enter in number.
Eating was a strange experience.
After another packed day of work and school, with more school waiting in the evening, I found myself with nothing to do, no reason to hurry. So I didn't hurry, deliberately. I feel so rushed, constantly, but aside from work and school, I have almost nothing move towards. So I sat alone, eating slowly, watching life swarm around me. Suddenly, the rush of life felt strangely alien to me!
I like to feel that everything I do is very important. If not in some vague way important to the entire world, then at least to me personally. When I study, I am working towards the creation of new knowledge. When I work, I am giving my time and labor to something else, hopefully something important in some way. When I sleep, I am investing in my self. And, somehow, it feels like everything is culminating. At some point it will all come together, all the games, work, play, academia, and it will be crucially important. My days are intentional, every minute somehow vastly important.
So I rush, from class to work, from work to sleep. Full of purpose, but no real direction.
Today, I had nothing to do. For an hour, nothing I did was for the sake of anything else. There was no reason to do anything. So I enjoyed my meal, slowly, and watched life continue without me.
After nearly 700 words of preface, this is what I am trying to say:
Sometimes, most times, I like to feel that I am a part of this world, that what I am doing is important. Here's the thing: it isn't. Removed from my directionless crusade towards something important and indefinite, even just for an hour, life went on, without me. Hundreds of other people uniquely just like my walked past my table, where I sat along, unmoving, silent. I contributed nothing. And life went on.
It is kind of strange to openly admit that nothing I do matters, that less than one thousandth of one percent of the people now living on this earth will ever know my name, even if I poured my entire life into creating some lasting monument, or blow myself up in a violently glorious cause. Of the few that will, almost none will remember me. And when they are gone, none will. And humanity will continue into the ages, possibly into eternity and, just like the unnamed milliards that have passed before me, I will be washed away by an endless stream of humanity, flowing as quickly as possibly to anywhere but here.
Now I am not trying to be original here, or pretend as some kind of deepness, but there is something reassuring about knowing that the world owes no ontological dependence to me. Perhaps the entire world is just a set of ideas, as Rev. Berekely seemed to think, but that is God's deal, not mine.
On that same line of thought, I suddenly realized how empy everyone else seemed, how remote their minds were! First, I was strangely overwhelmed by the amount of clothing, all branded, all manufactured. It would be, and probably has been, the culmination of several lifetimes of work and achievement by various people, likely largely belonging to poor, undeveloped countries, to create such a quantity of clothing! And what has been the fruit of that labor? Survival, for a time. Then nothing. To live a life so unremarked and without gratitude breaks my heart, but what more can be said of my situation? I am infinitely more privileged, but no more deserving. And the fruit of my labor will be no greater.
This was all followed by more aimless introspection, about how I could never escape perception and never access the mind of another person. How strange it is that I can pick up any object and access directly what makes it what it is! I can feel a bowl, discern its physical makeup, its purpose. But a person, everything can be perceived except what makes a person a person! The only thing worth understanding is imperceptible. Knowledge is strange.
But I am not going to go into detail with anything else I was thinking about. It is all even more childish than the first things I talked about, which is pretty strong statement, but most likely true.
So I will conclude by saying that, were I to have more things to do when not scholastically engaged or working, I wouldn't waste so much time typing useless things. So invite me to do things. That is the real purpose of this blog, to convince you that I need to make more friends. I am sorry for anyone who wasted their time reading this, thinking there was something intelligent contained within. There wasn't, and isn't, and I am sorry for that.
So it goes.
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