So, milestone along the journey. This is the summary of some musings and thoughts I have had over the past several months. So let's start at the beginning...
I grew up in a Christian microcosm, a very intense microcosm. It wouldn't be until I was in my mid-20s until I realized how peculiar a microcosm it was. Spirituality was very intense. Holiness was stressed big time, and well...intense would be the most appropriate, if not understated, modifier. When I was 16, this world started to crack, and by the time I turned 18, breakdown was in full swing. I tried to pick up the pieces and move on as best I could. I tried for a while, but I eventually had to admit that I could not deal with the fall-out of my religious construct breaking down. This came to a head when a friend of mine confronted me late one night and told me that I had become as bitter and unforgiving as the very people I had spent the last several years trying not to be. At least they had fun getting to where they were...
So, for the past several years, I've been wandering around in a bit of an existential funk trying to find my way and all that depressing stuff. I admitted that I was in depression and needed help, so I got into counseling, only to have it end as I graduated from university. I recently started pursuing some kind of help with these same mental patterns and stuff that has been weighing me down.(help being something besides alcohol...)
Along the way, I've realized that I have very little ability to process emotion. The easiest way I can describe it, is that it is like a white blood cell. It surrounds the alien substance, and removes it from the body. It's like my subconscious recognized emotion as an alien entity and tried to remove it from my cute little world. This wreaks havoc on most of my friendships, especially those with the opposite sex. That is another story entirely by itself.
So where I have ended up thanks to counseling, is realizing the importance of emotion in everyday life, as well as in one's spiritual well-being. I've found that to have healthy or even outstanding spiritual growth is incomplete without an accompanying emotional health. To have one without the other is to be lop-sided - like an ancillary Disney character. (Kronk's not exactly ancillary, but you get the picture). One cannot be complete without the presence of emotional health. You fall over, you break your backbone - what makes you stand up - and you lose many positive things that would otherwise dramatically improve your life. Now, if I only I could find some emotional health...that'd be the trick.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
On the Pointlessness of Sanity
So, all of five minutes of looking into the meaning of the word 'sanity' and 'insanity' yields little in the substantive definition of 'insanity' but yields (in my mind) more interesting results for the meaning of 'sanity.' Using common sense (as much as I have) I'm going to go with 'Insanity is the opposite of sanity.' So with that...sanity. Wikipedia had what I thought was an interesting description - "of a healthy mind" according to its etymology. Functional definition: Insanity = unhealthy mind or state of mind. The dancing monkey will save us.
Next, let us consider the world we live in. It's pretty f@#$ed, no ifs, ands , or buts about it. Every time I have the misfortune of turning on the news (once every 2 months or so) It's always something dark and depressing and catastrophic. No one talks about kittens anymore...darn. To make up for it, we pay Hollywood billions of dollars a year to lie to us, stroke our matted fur and tell us it will all be OK, just as soon as overpaid actors dash daringly across a green screen to save our way of life. And this is the pinnacle of western civilization. or something. I could go on, but no. The dancing monkey will save us.
Another angle from to view this is from an applied relativistic standpoint. We have attempted to believe lies. 'there are no absolutes.' 'I can do what I want, because I live in a free country, therefore I'm right.' 'No one bitch slaps me when I say something stupid, I must be right, or God. maybe both." Our culture has attempted to fix the human condition with lies. By pretending to make new lies, we can fix the old ones! Eventually, we can lie ourselves out of our problems.' The dancing monkey will save us.
So, relativism. Postmodernism, etc. Whichever overused word you feel like using to describe how exactly we're screwed. So with 270 million people going insane (I'm assuming roughly 30 million sane people who are being hunted and herded into Montana and Wyoming slowly but surely) and thinking that they're all demi-gods who cannot be contradicted by virtue of where they're born, what's the point in being sane?
To get to my cracked metaphor already - if you're in a nuthouse, and there's no way to get out, and you're not in physical harm - why be sane? What good does it do you to be sane if everyone else is insane?
The only reason I can come up with is to get along with people. Relationships. If my circle of friends are all insane, and I'm sane - then I have an incredibly hard time relating to them and getting along. May as well become insane with them right? I'm not saying that we should all go off the deep end. I mean, this is America. We're there already. But it makes me wonder if we're trying too hard. If we're trying too hard to try and make sense of it all. Life doesn't make sense outside of relationships. I think it's possible that the human race has been insane from the day it broke the most important friendship we had and left Eden. By ourselves, this is what we become. The dancing monkey will save us. or Jesus. preferably Jesus.
Next, let us consider the world we live in. It's pretty f@#$ed, no ifs, ands , or buts about it. Every time I have the misfortune of turning on the news (once every 2 months or so) It's always something dark and depressing and catastrophic. No one talks about kittens anymore...darn. To make up for it, we pay Hollywood billions of dollars a year to lie to us, stroke our matted fur and tell us it will all be OK, just as soon as overpaid actors dash daringly across a green screen to save our way of life. And this is the pinnacle of western civilization. or something. I could go on, but no. The dancing monkey will save us.
Another angle from to view this is from an applied relativistic standpoint. We have attempted to believe lies. 'there are no absolutes.' 'I can do what I want, because I live in a free country, therefore I'm right.' 'No one bitch slaps me when I say something stupid, I must be right, or God. maybe both." Our culture has attempted to fix the human condition with lies. By pretending to make new lies, we can fix the old ones! Eventually, we can lie ourselves out of our problems.' The dancing monkey will save us.
So, relativism. Postmodernism, etc. Whichever overused word you feel like using to describe how exactly we're screwed. So with 270 million people going insane (I'm assuming roughly 30 million sane people who are being hunted and herded into Montana and Wyoming slowly but surely) and thinking that they're all demi-gods who cannot be contradicted by virtue of where they're born, what's the point in being sane?
To get to my cracked metaphor already - if you're in a nuthouse, and there's no way to get out, and you're not in physical harm - why be sane? What good does it do you to be sane if everyone else is insane?
The only reason I can come up with is to get along with people. Relationships. If my circle of friends are all insane, and I'm sane - then I have an incredibly hard time relating to them and getting along. May as well become insane with them right? I'm not saying that we should all go off the deep end. I mean, this is America. We're there already. But it makes me wonder if we're trying too hard. If we're trying too hard to try and make sense of it all. Life doesn't make sense outside of relationships. I think it's possible that the human race has been insane from the day it broke the most important friendship we had and left Eden. By ourselves, this is what we become. The dancing monkey will save us. or Jesus. preferably Jesus.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Concerning Prejudice
Prejudice. We know what it is, but I for one am realizing how much the concept has infiltrated my mindset, my perspective. We are used to discussing prejudice in the aspect of race, ethnicity etc, but today I want to expand it to include the negative differentiation of any traits particular to any sub-group of people. The ever-trustworthy dictionary.com defines prejudice as “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.” It is in this vein that I will discuss prejudice today.
For argument's sake, let's assume that I despise blond hair. I think it's dumb, pointless, retarded, etc and that there's no good reason for being blond. I do of course, realize that some people are natural blonds and there's nothing they can do about it. I do give them some credit, as it's not fair to discriminate against anyone for something over which they have no control, but I still don't like them.
Then let's assume that I have a friend who has been a friend of mine for a very long time, then dyes his/her hair blond. I am still their friend, but I still despise blond hair. So where does this leave me in relating to this person? By the virtue that I am still their friend, it seems that there must be something overriding my prejudice. Part of me then wonders, is my original predisposition against blonds valid?
If I consider my prejudice at greater length, I may find that it has a basis in something, be it legitimate or not. So then, my prejudice is confronted by new information, new light, and can shift. Two things can happen at this point.
2)
I would think it would be more difficult to overcome the immediate and personal confrontation of my prejudice (blond friend) than it would be to alter my opinion of people I’ve never met. So, if I cannot or do not alter my prejudice against people I’ve never met – can I say with sincerity that I have overcome my prejudice where my own friend is concerned?
That is what has been bothering me recently. I honestly don’t know the answer. What do you think?
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Let us consider the emo kid
So, today's topic will be the emo kid. It's easy to rag on mopey morons who cover their faces with retarded haircuts and whine about everything, but it is sometimes difficult to articulate why they suck so bad. This is my take on 'why'
When one thinks of a stereotypical 'emo kid' one thinks of: self-absorbed, pretentious, pre-occupied with pain, narcissistic, victim mentality, wussy, pathetic, pessimism, mopey, etc
But why do we attribute these things to them? What makes one emo? We've all heard "I hurt to feel" but how does one get there? Well, let me begin with some preconceptions.
There is an innate sense of justice in us all. We know when we are wronged. We know when something should not be. (Where this comes from is to complicated for this post, but I use it as a presupposition.) This has never been clearer than in our current generation. Divorce, social pressures of conformity, broken families, medical issues, etc. One does not have to be an honor student to see that there are problems within our society.
It seems to me that emo kids are in touch with a particular nerve that reminds them all is not right, not well. While it easy to look around our world and see that there is a multitude of thins wrong, the average person has a way of either accepting or ignoring this fact. Emo kids on the other hand, tend to embrace this pain that something is wrong. They revel in it, acting as if the violation of an innate sense of justice gives them liberty to be self-absorbed. While the average person may recognize that things within our society are wrong and in a state of disarray, there is a sense of detachment, jadedness, or cynicism that lends them functionality in the face of such issues. The average person knows that "life's not fair" but they accept it. They don't spend time brooding over how screwed they are because 'life's a bitch.'
So, why does the emo kid brood over this pain, this acute awareness that life is not as it should be? Because we've told them that it is. This is America - land of the free from pain. home of those who have reached the pinnacle of existence. Somewhere along the line, the American dream morphed from "life, love, and the pursuit of happiness" to "The right to life, love, happiness and anything else I decide I want." As we have worked harder to provide for ourselves, we have found it within our capacity to derive and finance creature comforts past the point of excess. We have told ourselves that this is our right. We have supported our lifestyles and our culture, ignoring the fact that materialism does not answer or ameliorate the human condition. The root causes of our needs, our failures, our desires is no more filled or matched by materialism than spraying Glade at a filthy toilet disinfects it. It is a band-aid on arterial bleeding.
This is what the emo kid feels, broods over - the fact that we've been lied to. That life doesn't work like we've told it would, like we want it to. Instead of moving on out of either apathy, ignorance, they sit, dwell, brood, embrace the pain. They also personalize it - they are the ones being affected. They are the only ones aware of such wrongs and pain being inflicted upon them. What have they ever done? They're Americans! They have a right to be happy!!
It is this personalization of the pain that bothers me. Not that they embrace that there is something wrong with the world - Chuck Palahniuk is great at that- but that they pretend that it is important. While they may be more consciously in touch with some nerve somewhere that reminds them that everything is screwed, they're not better or worse off for it. We're all human. We're all broken. The world's broken, and not like it's supposed to be - so shut up and see if you can't improve the world around you.
When one thinks of a stereotypical 'emo kid' one thinks of: self-absorbed, pretentious, pre-occupied with pain, narcissistic, victim mentality, wussy, pathetic, pessimism, mopey, etc
But why do we attribute these things to them? What makes one emo? We've all heard "I hurt to feel" but how does one get there? Well, let me begin with some preconceptions.
There is an innate sense of justice in us all. We know when we are wronged. We know when something should not be. (Where this comes from is to complicated for this post, but I use it as a presupposition.) This has never been clearer than in our current generation. Divorce, social pressures of conformity, broken families, medical issues, etc. One does not have to be an honor student to see that there are problems within our society.
It seems to me that emo kids are in touch with a particular nerve that reminds them all is not right, not well. While it easy to look around our world and see that there is a multitude of thins wrong, the average person has a way of either accepting or ignoring this fact. Emo kids on the other hand, tend to embrace this pain that something is wrong. They revel in it, acting as if the violation of an innate sense of justice gives them liberty to be self-absorbed. While the average person may recognize that things within our society are wrong and in a state of disarray, there is a sense of detachment, jadedness, or cynicism that lends them functionality in the face of such issues. The average person knows that "life's not fair" but they accept it. They don't spend time brooding over how screwed they are because 'life's a bitch.'
So, why does the emo kid brood over this pain, this acute awareness that life is not as it should be? Because we've told them that it is. This is America - land of the free from pain. home of those who have reached the pinnacle of existence. Somewhere along the line, the American dream morphed from "life, love, and the pursuit of happiness" to "The right to life, love, happiness and anything else I decide I want." As we have worked harder to provide for ourselves, we have found it within our capacity to derive and finance creature comforts past the point of excess. We have told ourselves that this is our right. We have supported our lifestyles and our culture, ignoring the fact that materialism does not answer or ameliorate the human condition. The root causes of our needs, our failures, our desires is no more filled or matched by materialism than spraying Glade at a filthy toilet disinfects it. It is a band-aid on arterial bleeding.
This is what the emo kid feels, broods over - the fact that we've been lied to. That life doesn't work like we've told it would, like we want it to. Instead of moving on out of either apathy, ignorance, they sit, dwell, brood, embrace the pain. They also personalize it - they are the ones being affected. They are the only ones aware of such wrongs and pain being inflicted upon them. What have they ever done? They're Americans! They have a right to be happy!!
It is this personalization of the pain that bothers me. Not that they embrace that there is something wrong with the world - Chuck Palahniuk is great at that- but that they pretend that it is important. While they may be more consciously in touch with some nerve somewhere that reminds them that everything is screwed, they're not better or worse off for it. We're all human. We're all broken. The world's broken, and not like it's supposed to be - so shut up and see if you can't improve the world around you.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Before the impetus doth pass me by
I was having a good conversation with a friend of mine concerning life etc and what we're both dealing with at the moment. At present, amongst many melodramatic things, I have a distinct lack of motivation. Let me back up...
I used to blog a lot, I had a livejournal and apparently some of my friends still use theirs to keep up with each other. At one point, I think I had accounts with Livejournal, the old Blogger, myspace, and facebook all at the same time. not super-odd or anything, but I'm not a 14-year old with no life. I'm 24 and have no life, small difference there. At any rate, I eventually subconsciously said something to the affect of "I'm living in existentialism and there's little point to writing about just 'being.' Philosophers have done that for millenae and look where it got them."
At any rate, back to present. My friend asked me what I wanted to do with my life, assuming all the problems went away.
"I'd like to write."
"So why don't you? If you wait for everything to be right until you write, you'll never write anything."
"Good point."
So this is the attempt at starting up writing again. Hopefully not the random spew of gobbley-gook that I used to do - although I'm sure there will be plenty of that - but the musings that I have and an attempt to codify them into coherent writings with a purpose. Existentialism only lasts until death, so here's to having more than 'being' to be remembered for.
I used to blog a lot, I had a livejournal and apparently some of my friends still use theirs to keep up with each other. At one point, I think I had accounts with Livejournal, the old Blogger, myspace, and facebook all at the same time. not super-odd or anything, but I'm not a 14-year old with no life. I'm 24 and have no life, small difference there. At any rate, I eventually subconsciously said something to the affect of "I'm living in existentialism and there's little point to writing about just 'being.' Philosophers have done that for millenae and look where it got them."
At any rate, back to present. My friend asked me what I wanted to do with my life, assuming all the problems went away.
"I'd like to write."
"So why don't you? If you wait for everything to be right until you write, you'll never write anything."
"Good point."
So this is the attempt at starting up writing again. Hopefully not the random spew of gobbley-gook that I used to do - although I'm sure there will be plenty of that - but the musings that I have and an attempt to codify them into coherent writings with a purpose. Existentialism only lasts until death, so here's to having more than 'being' to be remembered for.
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