I went to the soccer fields at Zilker Park today with my dog, Riker. After a brief and meandering walk, we settled down on top of the Rock Island, my back against a scraggly tree, the dog reclining to my right like a lion.
I read the chapter in The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, called "Why God Almost Certainly Does Not Exist".
I read two chapters in my cosmology textbook about the formation of stars and the formation of galaxies.
I read a chapter in Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, by Rob Bell, called "True" about sensing holiness in great moments, ordinary moments, and tragic moments. Rob Bell tells the story of being speechless when he held his newborn son in his hands. He also tells the story of sensing holiness while holding the dead body of a friend's one-day-old child.
Two weeks ago, I went to Zilker to read and the grass was all dead, burnt by thousands of hot bodies during the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and the fields were covered with rows of trash bags, filled with plastic bottles, cups, and debris. Today, however, the grass was beautifully green and lush.
When the wind stilled, a little sweat would trickle down my nose, but the wind was rarely still; a gentle cool breeze slipped across the surface of the rock and between the trees, rustling branches and sending leaves to the ground around me.
Thousands of birds and locusts screamed from everywhere around me. Dogs barked sometimes, and if they got too near, Riker would bark back. I decided to leave my iPod off so that I would not miss the music.
Rightness. Holiness. A sense of something bigger than me, greater than me, flowing around me, part of me but... apart from me. Holiness. I cried a little while reading Rob Bell just at identifying so immediately with the immensity in his stories.
Once the sun started to sink below the horizon, I packed up my books, and Riker and I strolled back across the fields to my car. My air conditioner is broken, so I never go anywhere without all my windows rolled down.
The radio is broken in my car, so I usually put on my iPod, but I decided today to keep listening to the other music around me. My car makes an almost imperceptible, rhythmic squeaking noise when I'm not braking that makes me a little nervous, whi-whi-whi-whi!
Austin is growing these days, so the sounds of construction are almost all-pervading. I sat at a stoplight and listened to the sound of metal-pounding-metal. Riker sat in the passenger seat with his head out the window and his tongue hanging from his mouth, smiling.
At some point, I put my headphones on and listened to Joanna Newsome tentatively singing, "Joy! / Landlocked / In bodies that don't keep / Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being / Until we don't be," over the majesty of a full orchestra.
The windows were still open, and when I pulled into a neighborhood, I passed a sprinkler in someone's front lawn. It made a sound, one of a trillion sounds that cannot be reproduced in words, but that every author wants to capture, because the sound is just. so. right. Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat! Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat!
I have read the arguments Richard Dawkins calls his most convincing. I have read Freud arguing against God. And yet, as I crawled out of my car, and whistled to Riker, who jumped out and ran a little circle around me, I thought, "Do some people just not have this feeling? This oceanic feeling of rightness?"
It has been a good day.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
A Warrior for Peace
I heard a talk this weekend about Christian men as warriors, which created a lot of thought and discussion between Joe Ricks, Bryon Hance, my dad, and myself. The three of them shied away from the metaphor and were a little disappointed with its use. Their reasons are pretty good: the militant metaphor is hard to use practically. Either you take it literally, which is a terrifying thought and suggests fundamentalism, or you take it as a metaphor, which risks leaving the image meaninglessly impractical for our daily lives. Sure, you can get hyped up at the thought that "I am a warrior for God!" or something like that, but if it doesn't really tell you how to live on Monday morning, it is useless. Dad says that an intense connection to the practicality of an ideal is a big part of 'emergent' Christianity. (Shudder. I hate that word almost as much as 'postmodern'.)
While I agree that focusing on the Monday-morning practicality is a great idea, because it takes spirituality out of the theological realm and into real life, I have to say that I believe a warrior image - or even better, a defender image is desperately needed these days.
The quote below is from the website for The Defenders:
“We are joined together to take a stand, declaring that the sexual exploitation of children, using pornography, and buying sex is not something real men will tolerate. Real men guard themselves and protect children with dignity."
I’ve heard a lot recently about how there are more people enslaved in the world right now than ever before in history, and that the vast majority of these slaves are women and children. This includes a huge number of sex slaves, child soldiers who are kidnapped and forced to kill, and “simple” economic slaves, who run restaurants, salons, etc., around the world. I don’t know if you remember, but there was actually a bust just out of Austin only a few months ago where hundreds of women and children were being kidnapped in Mexico and brought here where they were forced to work without pay in American restaurants.
I agree with Joe that we do NOT live in a time of universal moral decay or debauchery like a lot of Christians think. In some ways, our culture is morally better than ever; in some ways, the situation is the same as always; and in some ways, the situation is worse. I also understand the great care that has to be taken about not creating a militaristic image to outsiders, but I do think that a warrior image is still a useful thing to stress. And we can leave “Christian” out of the title to avoid misinterpretations. When a culture wants to (rightly) stress equality of men and women in the home, workplace, and society, it is awkward and difficult to admit that it is men who are a big part of the problem (even if one's role is as small as buying pornography that might feature underage or slave actresses.) and therefore it has to be men who take a role in fixing the problem.
“Real men” have to be proactive and passionate about defending the women and children around them. If we take the religious overtones out of the equation (but keep the spiritual leaning), then we are not warriors against the forces of Satan, but defenders against the forces of evil that really truly do exist. From that perspective, ancient customs like a knighting ceremony (very macho) mean something as a practical metaphor. Imagine the scene from The Gladiator when the evil emperor Claudius forces the hitherto anonymous gladiator to reveal himself by asking, "Who are you?" The gladiator replies, "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." Maximus is driven by an all-encompassing purpose in his life (be it vengeance) that tells him who he is and defines what he wants to do with his life. The emotion I get out of that is intentionality and aggressive proactiveness against the less savory elements of life.
We are not philosophers in an ivory tower talking about how to achieve inner peace and tranquility. If we achieve inner peace and tranquility, it is because those are skills we need in our fight.
Many of older Christians have probably heard the military metaphors so much that they are burned out on it all or else simply can no longer hear the metaphor at all. However, young people like myself who have grown up in churches that stressed peace and personal happiness probably do need to hear, I think, that they actually have a purpose in this life and it is not just to become happy. Our purpose is to be a defender of the helpless. And I wonder if the older men and women might not benefit from a reminder that only those who sacrifice their own happiness for someone else get to be happy.
And so, with this whole discussion in mind, I watched 300 this evening, and thought about it as a metaphor in which it is not about fighting the Persians or the 'infidels' or Satan. It is about fighting brokenness and wrongness. I thought about the grueling process by which boys are transformed into soldiers in the movie. About how the first and possibly greatest battle that a defender of wholeness must fight is the battle to make oneself whole and how it's a process that you never finish but you cannot begin to fight brokenness in the outside world until you have begun to fight it in yourself. Apparently that whole inner peace and happiness thing really is an important tool to becoming warriors of wholeness.
This is a metaphor that I imagine being especially powerful - at least in our culture - to men, but I suppose it is not meaningless to women also, who are commissioned as much as men are to fight brokenness and hurtness in the world around them.
And so what's the practical implication? (Since - in the long run - practicality trumps poetry.) Well, that's a little harder to say, and I'm still thinking about that. But I think that it is worth keeping the emotional sensibility of the warrior image for as long as it takes to figure out what that means on Monday morning.
While I agree that focusing on the Monday-morning practicality is a great idea, because it takes spirituality out of the theological realm and into real life, I have to say that I believe a warrior image - or even better, a defender image is desperately needed these days.
The quote below is from the website for The Defenders:
“We are joined together to take a stand, declaring that the sexual exploitation of children, using pornography, and buying sex is not something real men will tolerate. Real men guard themselves and protect children with dignity."
I’ve heard a lot recently about how there are more people enslaved in the world right now than ever before in history, and that the vast majority of these slaves are women and children. This includes a huge number of sex slaves, child soldiers who are kidnapped and forced to kill, and “simple” economic slaves, who run restaurants, salons, etc., around the world. I don’t know if you remember, but there was actually a bust just out of Austin only a few months ago where hundreds of women and children were being kidnapped in Mexico and brought here where they were forced to work without pay in American restaurants.
I agree with Joe that we do NOT live in a time of universal moral decay or debauchery like a lot of Christians think. In some ways, our culture is morally better than ever; in some ways, the situation is the same as always; and in some ways, the situation is worse. I also understand the great care that has to be taken about not creating a militaristic image to outsiders, but I do think that a warrior image is still a useful thing to stress. And we can leave “Christian” out of the title to avoid misinterpretations. When a culture wants to (rightly) stress equality of men and women in the home, workplace, and society, it is awkward and difficult to admit that it is men who are a big part of the problem (even if one's role is as small as buying pornography that might feature underage or slave actresses.) and therefore it has to be men who take a role in fixing the problem.
“Real men” have to be proactive and passionate about defending the women and children around them. If we take the religious overtones out of the equation (but keep the spiritual leaning), then we are not warriors against the forces of Satan, but defenders against the forces of evil that really truly do exist. From that perspective, ancient customs like a knighting ceremony (very macho) mean something as a practical metaphor. Imagine the scene from The Gladiator when the evil emperor Claudius forces the hitherto anonymous gladiator to reveal himself by asking, "Who are you?" The gladiator replies, "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." Maximus is driven by an all-encompassing purpose in his life (be it vengeance) that tells him who he is and defines what he wants to do with his life. The emotion I get out of that is intentionality and aggressive proactiveness against the less savory elements of life.
We are not philosophers in an ivory tower talking about how to achieve inner peace and tranquility. If we achieve inner peace and tranquility, it is because those are skills we need in our fight.
Many of older Christians have probably heard the military metaphors so much that they are burned out on it all or else simply can no longer hear the metaphor at all. However, young people like myself who have grown up in churches that stressed peace and personal happiness probably do need to hear, I think, that they actually have a purpose in this life and it is not just to become happy. Our purpose is to be a defender of the helpless. And I wonder if the older men and women might not benefit from a reminder that only those who sacrifice their own happiness for someone else get to be happy.
And so, with this whole discussion in mind, I watched 300 this evening, and thought about it as a metaphor in which it is not about fighting the Persians or the 'infidels' or Satan. It is about fighting brokenness and wrongness. I thought about the grueling process by which boys are transformed into soldiers in the movie. About how the first and possibly greatest battle that a defender of wholeness must fight is the battle to make oneself whole and how it's a process that you never finish but you cannot begin to fight brokenness in the outside world until you have begun to fight it in yourself. Apparently that whole inner peace and happiness thing really is an important tool to becoming warriors of wholeness.
This is a metaphor that I imagine being especially powerful - at least in our culture - to men, but I suppose it is not meaningless to women also, who are commissioned as much as men are to fight brokenness and hurtness in the world around them.
And so what's the practical implication? (Since - in the long run - practicality trumps poetry.) Well, that's a little harder to say, and I'm still thinking about that. But I think that it is worth keeping the emotional sensibility of the warrior image for as long as it takes to figure out what that means on Monday morning.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
And Then It Was Today
I spent the evening doing nothing that I intended to do and it was everything that I could have wanted it to be.
I have to say that for the first time in my life, after 5 roommates, I am really enjoying having a roommate.
I specifically got this apartment because I wanted to live alone. I had a whole list of reasons why I wanted to live alone, and all my previous experience with living with other people suggested to me that I could not get what I wanted unless I lived alone. So, for 3 months I lived alone. (That number is not really true, because I spent 6 weeks in there living in PPD.) I have to say that living alone was AWESOME. I guess I got to see myself in a different way than I ever had before. I saw myself as a bachelor adult and I yearned for the odd quirks and habits that come from being accountable to no one. The funny thing is that I started to see them in myself. I started to create a morning routine and I set the alarm for the same time every day. I had something of an evening routine too. I bought a pair of pajamas for the first time in my life because I found that a shower was no longer always the thing I did right before bed, but the thing I did before fixing a cup of coffee and watching Simpsons and Seinfeld. And the best part was that my "routines" were completely flexible enough to be tossed out on a whim, and I could - and did - spend the evening out without having to inform someone about how my plans had changed, and then justify it.
The point is that for the first time in my life, living alone created a sense in me that this is ALL my life - every minute of it, from the moment I wake up until I wake up again. How I manage my time and my resources is both my privilege and my responsibility. But significantly, it is mine. Living the bachelor's life is amazing, and when (and if) Mike moves out in January, I might well decide not to get another roommate.
However, I have been surprised at how cool it can be to have a roommate. It has been surprising to find that it does not necessarily mean that I can't still have some of that independent life. I still have friends over; my Doxology small group met at my house Wednesday. What I have gained, however, is daily conversation, and I did not even suspect how good that would be. Mike smokes occasionally (a couple of cigarettes every couple of days, I think) and I have gone outside with him a couple of times and sat on the balcony talking politics and religion and life, and even though we come from very different perspectives on a lot of issues, the conversation is friendly and really good. Incidentally, I'm not sure how we might have breached the conversation wall had it not been for cigarettes. "Hey, I'm going to go stand outside. You want to join me?" does not allow the same easy excuse as "Hey, I'm going to go smoke a cigarette. You want to join me?"
So tonight, Mike and I cooked spaghetti, (Cooked meals is another thing I enjoy which is so much easier when cooking for 2.) watched Simpsons and Seinfeld, and then stood out on the balcony talking for several hours, until just a few minutes ago, actually. After the conversation, we both went into our own separate rooms, agreeing to do it again sometime. Those of you who have easily come by successful adult relationships with your roommates might not understand how shocking it is for me to realize that living with someone can actually be more than an economic relationship.
I was telling my mom and dad a few days ago about how cool it is that Mike cooks regularly, (The second day he lived here, I came home to find a plate of pasta for me in the fridge.) and I jokingly said that I now understand the advantages of a wife. Besides the (joke) advantage of someone to cook for me, the actual feeling I'm getting at is that there is definitely something nice about the practical side of things, which I hadn't considered before. A relationship like that isn't just in your head or your heart, "soulmates", or something like that. There is that, but then there is also something nice about cooking dinner with someone. Cleaning dishes with someone. Just the nitty-gritty living of life with someone. It's not like, "I love this person, so clearly I would want to have her around as much as possible, so that's worth the sacrifice of my own independence. And besides, that's more practical too." It's more like, "I love this person, and it is pleasant to think of having the same life, with the same dog that needs walked and morning and evening habits that complement each other." Mike, of course, is not my wife; we are friendly at best and merely sociable under most circumstances. Even if we were best friends, he would not fit this description, because he's a guy, and because there still is something, I think, to that whole lovey-dovey side of the coin. But having a really positive roommate situation really is a new perspective for me. Of course, I do not think I could possibly have seen this perspective if I hadn't had a few weeks to understand my own independence.
So, thanks to unplanned conversation, I have a lot to do tomorrow before I leave for Tres Dias, and I have stayed up WAY too late. So it's off to bed for me now and then the weekend begins with a rush! Don't let life slow down on you, because that means the spring is winding down...
I have to say that for the first time in my life, after 5 roommates, I am really enjoying having a roommate.
I specifically got this apartment because I wanted to live alone. I had a whole list of reasons why I wanted to live alone, and all my previous experience with living with other people suggested to me that I could not get what I wanted unless I lived alone. So, for 3 months I lived alone. (That number is not really true, because I spent 6 weeks in there living in PPD.) I have to say that living alone was AWESOME. I guess I got to see myself in a different way than I ever had before. I saw myself as a bachelor adult and I yearned for the odd quirks and habits that come from being accountable to no one. The funny thing is that I started to see them in myself. I started to create a morning routine and I set the alarm for the same time every day. I had something of an evening routine too. I bought a pair of pajamas for the first time in my life because I found that a shower was no longer always the thing I did right before bed, but the thing I did before fixing a cup of coffee and watching Simpsons and Seinfeld. And the best part was that my "routines" were completely flexible enough to be tossed out on a whim, and I could - and did - spend the evening out without having to inform someone about how my plans had changed, and then justify it.
The point is that for the first time in my life, living alone created a sense in me that this is ALL my life - every minute of it, from the moment I wake up until I wake up again. How I manage my time and my resources is both my privilege and my responsibility. But significantly, it is mine. Living the bachelor's life is amazing, and when (and if) Mike moves out in January, I might well decide not to get another roommate.
However, I have been surprised at how cool it can be to have a roommate. It has been surprising to find that it does not necessarily mean that I can't still have some of that independent life. I still have friends over; my Doxology small group met at my house Wednesday. What I have gained, however, is daily conversation, and I did not even suspect how good that would be. Mike smokes occasionally (a couple of cigarettes every couple of days, I think) and I have gone outside with him a couple of times and sat on the balcony talking politics and religion and life, and even though we come from very different perspectives on a lot of issues, the conversation is friendly and really good. Incidentally, I'm not sure how we might have breached the conversation wall had it not been for cigarettes. "Hey, I'm going to go stand outside. You want to join me?" does not allow the same easy excuse as "Hey, I'm going to go smoke a cigarette. You want to join me?"
So tonight, Mike and I cooked spaghetti, (Cooked meals is another thing I enjoy which is so much easier when cooking for 2.) watched Simpsons and Seinfeld, and then stood out on the balcony talking for several hours, until just a few minutes ago, actually. After the conversation, we both went into our own separate rooms, agreeing to do it again sometime. Those of you who have easily come by successful adult relationships with your roommates might not understand how shocking it is for me to realize that living with someone can actually be more than an economic relationship.
I was telling my mom and dad a few days ago about how cool it is that Mike cooks regularly, (The second day he lived here, I came home to find a plate of pasta for me in the fridge.) and I jokingly said that I now understand the advantages of a wife. Besides the (joke) advantage of someone to cook for me, the actual feeling I'm getting at is that there is definitely something nice about the practical side of things, which I hadn't considered before. A relationship like that isn't just in your head or your heart, "soulmates", or something like that. There is that, but then there is also something nice about cooking dinner with someone. Cleaning dishes with someone. Just the nitty-gritty living of life with someone. It's not like, "I love this person, so clearly I would want to have her around as much as possible, so that's worth the sacrifice of my own independence. And besides, that's more practical too." It's more like, "I love this person, and it is pleasant to think of having the same life, with the same dog that needs walked and morning and evening habits that complement each other." Mike, of course, is not my wife; we are friendly at best and merely sociable under most circumstances. Even if we were best friends, he would not fit this description, because he's a guy, and because there still is something, I think, to that whole lovey-dovey side of the coin. But having a really positive roommate situation really is a new perspective for me. Of course, I do not think I could possibly have seen this perspective if I hadn't had a few weeks to understand my own independence.
So, thanks to unplanned conversation, I have a lot to do tomorrow before I leave for Tres Dias, and I have stayed up WAY too late. So it's off to bed for me now and then the weekend begins with a rush! Don't let life slow down on you, because that means the spring is winding down...
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Connecting the dots
Since I posted last...
- I am responsible for a dog who lives with me. (Though I will not say, "my dog".)
- I have a roommate who treats me like the landlord.
- I am again a teacher.
- I have begun working toward becoming a "steward" at Doxology.
I spent the evening watching football and talking about beer with my dad, who doesn't watch football or drink beer. For that matter, while I drink some beer, I don't really watch football either.
Yesterday, I drove to Crockett alone, which is one of the longer drives I've made alone, and probably the longest drive I've made alone at night. I hung out with a bunch of old guys I didn't know who know my dad and took care of some stuff and had kind of a weird experience where I didn't feel like I needed my dad to be there or needed to be carefully unassociated with him.
Sometimes I look at what's happening around me and wonder "Is this my life?" and then something extraordinarily stupid happens and I think, "Yeap, yeah, this is the one." The past two weeks have been like this.
The tagline for the New York Times is something like "All the news that's fit to print." Well, it's amazing to me that in the past two and a half weeks, there has been - it seems - no news that's fit to print. The key phrase here is "fit to print." Instead, 17 days fill up with an enormous amount of dots or data. One of these days, something is going to happen that will be the key, and the past 2 weeks will somehow make sense. But for now, I won't bother with all the news that isn't fit to print.
And it's really a great way to describe how I feel these days: waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
And so for now, I will read a book and listen to music and type away on my typewriter and keep my eyes open for that last dot to make the picture make sense.
And this posting doesn't make any sense.
- I am responsible for a dog who lives with me. (Though I will not say, "my dog".)
- I have a roommate who treats me like the landlord.
- I am again a teacher.
- I have begun working toward becoming a "steward" at Doxology.
I spent the evening watching football and talking about beer with my dad, who doesn't watch football or drink beer. For that matter, while I drink some beer, I don't really watch football either.
Yesterday, I drove to Crockett alone, which is one of the longer drives I've made alone, and probably the longest drive I've made alone at night. I hung out with a bunch of old guys I didn't know who know my dad and took care of some stuff and had kind of a weird experience where I didn't feel like I needed my dad to be there or needed to be carefully unassociated with him.
Sometimes I look at what's happening around me and wonder "Is this my life?" and then something extraordinarily stupid happens and I think, "Yeap, yeah, this is the one." The past two weeks have been like this.
The tagline for the New York Times is something like "All the news that's fit to print." Well, it's amazing to me that in the past two and a half weeks, there has been - it seems - no news that's fit to print. The key phrase here is "fit to print." Instead, 17 days fill up with an enormous amount of dots or data. One of these days, something is going to happen that will be the key, and the past 2 weeks will somehow make sense. But for now, I won't bother with all the news that isn't fit to print.
And it's really a great way to describe how I feel these days: waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
And so for now, I will read a book and listen to music and type away on my typewriter and keep my eyes open for that last dot to make the picture make sense.
And this posting doesn't make any sense.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
IN FAVOR OF IDIOCY, BROKENNESS, AND IMMATURITY
Imagine, if you will, a person who has it all together. Call her Jane, because, you know, why not? Jane's finances are perfect - free of any real debt to speak of because she exercises admirable restraint and foresight when she spends her money. Her time is always her own to spend, and it too is budgeted carefully and spent with restraint and foresight. Her emotions are always positive, or else smooth as glass, and nothing seems to affect her inner tranquility or budge her emotional stability. Her faith and beliefs - whatever they might be - are rock-solid and immutable, neither swaying nor breaking, even in the most extreme conditions. Overall, Jane is a real rock in the storm, a true beacon of maturity.
Of course, Jane is entirely imaginary: I have never met such a flawless soul and don't anticipate it ever happening; usually those who seem at first to fit Jane's description turn out - as you get to know them - to be as flawed as everyone else. For another obvious statement, Jane is, I think, very definitely an admirable person, a hero.
Now, imagine another person, Jack, who seems to have always had it all together. Jack has never been so deep in debt that he can't see a way out, and doesn't know what it is like to look at a bank balance with a clenching guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach and wonder, Where did it all go, and have no answer except a long series of movies and dinners out, or one, big, stupid, and impulsive purchase. Jack has never failed miserably, publicly, embarrassingly, or put his head in his hands and said to no one: "What was I thinking?" He doesn't understand so thinks suspiciously of those whose faith slips through their fingers sometimes, who doubt and question. Jack has never had to fight for a place in life or claw his way back to okay.
Jack, needless to say, is even more imaginary than Jane; if few are really mature then none could have been born with this maturity. As my grandfather would put it: "You can't put an old man's head on a young man's shoulders." However, it feels to me like - whether we say it or not - many people hold Jack up as an ideal to be sought after personally and in those we love. To put it another way, if maturity is a good thing, then the earlier a person comes by it, the better it will be for them.
I have recently decided that I wholeheartedly disagree. While that is true on the simple, immediate level, (More maturity equals less pain.) I think that, in the long run, this idea is absolutely false. Not only is it impossible to put an old man's head on a young man's shoulders, such a feat is highly undesirable and potentially dangerous. If forced to choose between an easy maturity and a difficult journey with no end before death, I hope I might choose what I see from the outside to be the best option: a hopeless journey.
Why? This is a tricky question to answer. Before we attempt to, I should mention that I am not interested in "early maturity" in children. A seven-year old who acts like an adult (a sight more frequently seen in the movies than in real life) does not really, I think, mean very much at all. I remember one time when I was about thirteen or so, sitting in a Randall's café, talking to my mom about someone we knew who was thinking about dropping everything to move to California to marry a girl he had only ever met online - clearly, a bad idea. I remember Mom saying something to the effect that at thirteen, I knew it was a bad idea, and at thirty-something, she knew it was a bad idea, but that sometimes, when you're in the thick of something, you can't see how bad an idea that thing really is, or else you hope in spite of reality, betting against the odds. The impression I got from Mom was to be very careful about putting yourself into that kind of situation, and that a wise person knows not to get so far in that you can't still tell what the wise thing to do is. I also felt, at thirteen, like a cloud of stupidity must descend on you at about fifteen and not evaporate until about twenty-five.
This, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), is true. It is not, however, a cloud of stupidity as much as a narrow canyon that suddenly opens up onto a vast plain of new possibilities and freedoms to fail or succeed at, and the only way to understand this plain upon arrival is to take a series of breathtakingly-stupid risks.
I can think of two kinds of people who begin their journey across the ever-changing plain of life without somehow "destroying their lives" at some point or another: those who keep their eyes to the ground, refusing to acknowledge the vastness of possibility, and taking each step slowly and carefully for fear of tripping, and those who are extremely lucky and whose every risky decision works out in their favor. The first situation can only create timid naivety and the second can only create cocky naivety. Neither creates real wisdom. No matter how "together" such a person seems, I do not think that their wisdom lasts. Whether you are careful or lucky, eventually, life trips you up and breaks you down, and those who never learned to fall are the worst for it.
I first fell - really fell - for writing. Specifically, I fell for my idea of what it means to be a writer. I have to admit, by the way, that this is still an idiotic idea that I haven't quite let go of, but I have come to realize that I am not the only one with this idea. I wept to hear Garrison Keillor tell the story of one place this pursuit took him, but then I've become a big sap recently. Basically, I am not of the personality to naturally take risks, but since I was young, I have longed to find a really cool story to tell or an amazing experience or emotion to capture. It seemed to me when I was younger that no real writer could ever come out of a happy, middle-class, suburban, idyllic upbringing, so I spent a long time making myself miserable to I could talk about it down the line somewhere. Yeah, I know. The moment I walked into my first job and saw the strange, addictive community of servers, I thought these people were so much more interesting than anyone else I knew, and immediately wanted to become a part of that group and figure out their story. It wasn't until I started at UT and left home that I found myself in that community, but that search for another experience to write about led me to stupid risks and I finally found my long-lacked immaturity.
After three semesters at UT, I found myself out on my butt, suffering the consequences of my foolishness. I didn't need to do that, and would not recommend it to future college students, but it is a very important part of who I am today. As a side note, I have found that I can tell a lot about a person by the look on their face when I talk about flunking out of school. The people I have the most difficulty relating to are those who look at me confused and a little disgusted and say, "But why?" and the coolest "grown-ups" are the ones who say "No, I didn't go through that, but man, it sure coulda happened."
In the end, I think I prefer the company of fools over the company of our artificially wise friend, Jack. I prefer those who are broken and fallen and hurting over the cocky fool. I am deep awe of those who are healed enough to be truly wise, who tread carefully because they know what it is to fall and be hurt, but also know what can be gained by leaping, so sometimes they still look like fools and sometimes are broken down. These people truly amaze me.
It's not a new idea to praise the value of suffering - the depth and complexity of character created - but I don't think many seem to be lauding the self-inflicted suffering of fools and idiots, the immature and the risk-takers, and this makes no sense to me, because I'd rather learn to fall by leaping than by being pushed. In fact, I hope that I never have it all together until the day I die, that I'm always taking risks everyone tells me are stupid, hoping against hope that the unlikely will happen.
The funny thing is that all the stupid things I know are stupid are things I want to - and have to - fix! To choose not to grow up and mature when you know how to is irresponsible and dangerous. I have a cigarette-burn, cross-shaped scar on my forearm, self-inflicted, from a time when I wanted a visual symbol of a pain and had not yet discovered poetry. (Incidentally, I wrote my first poem around that same time.) My sister and my parents and basically everyone told me that it was a stupid idea. Looking back, I know that it was a colossally-stupid idea. One of those moments mentioned before when you put your head in your hands and think, "What was I thinking? Why on earth would I want to be so dramatic?" And I can tell you. I was being romantic, playing a role, filling someone else's shoes. More significantly, it had recently (finally) gotten through my skull, actually gotten into my head, that I had been very depressed for a very long time, and I wanted to do something - anything - to break through my ice cocoon and remind me that it is okay to hurt. Once I got the image of ice in my head, fire seemed the perfect solution. And wonderfully romantic. Now, a couple of years later, I can tell you that I did not have to do that; I can tell you it was idiotic. But do you know what? It worked. Do I regret it? Well, given the choice, I couldn't do it again, so it's probably good I have no choice, because, really, I wouldn't want it any other way. Now I might have decided to keep burning myself with cigarettes so I don't have to admit it had been a silly mistake. A fool, a real fool, beyond the kind of fool I've been praising, would recognize the idiocy of his actions but keep doing them for whatever reason.
So we do stupid things, immature things, things we know won't turn out like we want them to (but we have to try anyway). We do them until we see them fail, then we stop, and try something new. We fail, pay the consequences, grow from the experience, deciding not to step on that mousetrap again, then we move on to the next trap hoping (in spite of all the odds) fora day when we've figured it all out.
Now isn't that idiotic?
"Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid."
~John Keates
"[The young poet] should stay the hell out of writing classes and find out what's happening around the corner. And bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything very well."
~ Charles Bukowski
Of course, Jane is entirely imaginary: I have never met such a flawless soul and don't anticipate it ever happening; usually those who seem at first to fit Jane's description turn out - as you get to know them - to be as flawed as everyone else. For another obvious statement, Jane is, I think, very definitely an admirable person, a hero.
Now, imagine another person, Jack, who seems to have always had it all together. Jack has never been so deep in debt that he can't see a way out, and doesn't know what it is like to look at a bank balance with a clenching guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach and wonder, Where did it all go, and have no answer except a long series of movies and dinners out, or one, big, stupid, and impulsive purchase. Jack has never failed miserably, publicly, embarrassingly, or put his head in his hands and said to no one: "What was I thinking?" He doesn't understand so thinks suspiciously of those whose faith slips through their fingers sometimes, who doubt and question. Jack has never had to fight for a place in life or claw his way back to okay.
Jack, needless to say, is even more imaginary than Jane; if few are really mature then none could have been born with this maturity. As my grandfather would put it: "You can't put an old man's head on a young man's shoulders." However, it feels to me like - whether we say it or not - many people hold Jack up as an ideal to be sought after personally and in those we love. To put it another way, if maturity is a good thing, then the earlier a person comes by it, the better it will be for them.
I have recently decided that I wholeheartedly disagree. While that is true on the simple, immediate level, (More maturity equals less pain.) I think that, in the long run, this idea is absolutely false. Not only is it impossible to put an old man's head on a young man's shoulders, such a feat is highly undesirable and potentially dangerous. If forced to choose between an easy maturity and a difficult journey with no end before death, I hope I might choose what I see from the outside to be the best option: a hopeless journey.
Why? This is a tricky question to answer. Before we attempt to, I should mention that I am not interested in "early maturity" in children. A seven-year old who acts like an adult (a sight more frequently seen in the movies than in real life) does not really, I think, mean very much at all. I remember one time when I was about thirteen or so, sitting in a Randall's café, talking to my mom about someone we knew who was thinking about dropping everything to move to California to marry a girl he had only ever met online - clearly, a bad idea. I remember Mom saying something to the effect that at thirteen, I knew it was a bad idea, and at thirty-something, she knew it was a bad idea, but that sometimes, when you're in the thick of something, you can't see how bad an idea that thing really is, or else you hope in spite of reality, betting against the odds. The impression I got from Mom was to be very careful about putting yourself into that kind of situation, and that a wise person knows not to get so far in that you can't still tell what the wise thing to do is. I also felt, at thirteen, like a cloud of stupidity must descend on you at about fifteen and not evaporate until about twenty-five.
This, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), is true. It is not, however, a cloud of stupidity as much as a narrow canyon that suddenly opens up onto a vast plain of new possibilities and freedoms to fail or succeed at, and the only way to understand this plain upon arrival is to take a series of breathtakingly-stupid risks.
I can think of two kinds of people who begin their journey across the ever-changing plain of life without somehow "destroying their lives" at some point or another: those who keep their eyes to the ground, refusing to acknowledge the vastness of possibility, and taking each step slowly and carefully for fear of tripping, and those who are extremely lucky and whose every risky decision works out in their favor. The first situation can only create timid naivety and the second can only create cocky naivety. Neither creates real wisdom. No matter how "together" such a person seems, I do not think that their wisdom lasts. Whether you are careful or lucky, eventually, life trips you up and breaks you down, and those who never learned to fall are the worst for it.
I first fell - really fell - for writing. Specifically, I fell for my idea of what it means to be a writer. I have to admit, by the way, that this is still an idiotic idea that I haven't quite let go of, but I have come to realize that I am not the only one with this idea. I wept to hear Garrison Keillor tell the story of one place this pursuit took him, but then I've become a big sap recently. Basically, I am not of the personality to naturally take risks, but since I was young, I have longed to find a really cool story to tell or an amazing experience or emotion to capture. It seemed to me when I was younger that no real writer could ever come out of a happy, middle-class, suburban, idyllic upbringing, so I spent a long time making myself miserable to I could talk about it down the line somewhere. Yeah, I know. The moment I walked into my first job and saw the strange, addictive community of servers, I thought these people were so much more interesting than anyone else I knew, and immediately wanted to become a part of that group and figure out their story. It wasn't until I started at UT and left home that I found myself in that community, but that search for another experience to write about led me to stupid risks and I finally found my long-lacked immaturity.
After three semesters at UT, I found myself out on my butt, suffering the consequences of my foolishness. I didn't need to do that, and would not recommend it to future college students, but it is a very important part of who I am today. As a side note, I have found that I can tell a lot about a person by the look on their face when I talk about flunking out of school. The people I have the most difficulty relating to are those who look at me confused and a little disgusted and say, "But why?" and the coolest "grown-ups" are the ones who say "No, I didn't go through that, but man, it sure coulda happened."
In the end, I think I prefer the company of fools over the company of our artificially wise friend, Jack. I prefer those who are broken and fallen and hurting over the cocky fool. I am deep awe of those who are healed enough to be truly wise, who tread carefully because they know what it is to fall and be hurt, but also know what can be gained by leaping, so sometimes they still look like fools and sometimes are broken down. These people truly amaze me.
It's not a new idea to praise the value of suffering - the depth and complexity of character created - but I don't think many seem to be lauding the self-inflicted suffering of fools and idiots, the immature and the risk-takers, and this makes no sense to me, because I'd rather learn to fall by leaping than by being pushed. In fact, I hope that I never have it all together until the day I die, that I'm always taking risks everyone tells me are stupid, hoping against hope that the unlikely will happen.
The funny thing is that all the stupid things I know are stupid are things I want to - and have to - fix! To choose not to grow up and mature when you know how to is irresponsible and dangerous. I have a cigarette-burn, cross-shaped scar on my forearm, self-inflicted, from a time when I wanted a visual symbol of a pain and had not yet discovered poetry. (Incidentally, I wrote my first poem around that same time.) My sister and my parents and basically everyone told me that it was a stupid idea. Looking back, I know that it was a colossally-stupid idea. One of those moments mentioned before when you put your head in your hands and think, "What was I thinking? Why on earth would I want to be so dramatic?" And I can tell you. I was being romantic, playing a role, filling someone else's shoes. More significantly, it had recently (finally) gotten through my skull, actually gotten into my head, that I had been very depressed for a very long time, and I wanted to do something - anything - to break through my ice cocoon and remind me that it is okay to hurt. Once I got the image of ice in my head, fire seemed the perfect solution. And wonderfully romantic. Now, a couple of years later, I can tell you that I did not have to do that; I can tell you it was idiotic. But do you know what? It worked. Do I regret it? Well, given the choice, I couldn't do it again, so it's probably good I have no choice, because, really, I wouldn't want it any other way. Now I might have decided to keep burning myself with cigarettes so I don't have to admit it had been a silly mistake. A fool, a real fool, beyond the kind of fool I've been praising, would recognize the idiocy of his actions but keep doing them for whatever reason.
So we do stupid things, immature things, things we know won't turn out like we want them to (but we have to try anyway). We do them until we see them fail, then we stop, and try something new. We fail, pay the consequences, grow from the experience, deciding not to step on that mousetrap again, then we move on to the next trap hoping (in spite of all the odds) fora day when we've figured it all out.
Now isn't that idiotic?
"Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid."
~John Keates
"[The young poet] should stay the hell out of writing classes and find out what's happening around the corner. And bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything very well."
~ Charles Bukowski
Thursday, August 30, 2007
A New Era
It is crazy and more than a little depressing for me to realize that I checked out of PPD 30 days ago. I have now been out two-thirds of the time that I spent trapped inside, and I have to say that the time outside has flown far far faster than life in the slammer. This is not surprising in the slightest, but looking at the future through an inmate's pace of life led me to establish unrealistic expectations for the month of August.
Given the discrepency between what I wanted and what was, in fact, possible, I guess I actually held to my goals closer than might have been expected. Maria, a friend from my days at Macaroni Grill, was one of the first people to say she wanted to hang out after I got out of PPD, but we only spent time together this past Tuesday, because I have simply had so few free evenings.
For the first week after I got out, I continued my morning ritual that I had wanted to keep up out of PPD, and it was as wonderful as I expected it to me. I got up earlier than I had to, and, after a brief morning run, I walked down to Clementine's where I bought a paper, a bowl of oatmeal, and a cup of coffee, then read the paper and completed the crossword before walking back to my apartment to begin my day in earnest. However, the surprising part is that this two-hour routine held up as long as it did. I think it was the first truly late night out that did me in (3 or 4 in the morning).
Now, here I am, a month later, and I don't know really where the past month has gone. Of course, Sara, my sister, and I went to the Grand Canyon and spent three days hiking to the bottom and back up, which was awesome, but not exactly for the obvious reasons. (More on that later, maybe.)
I remember being extremely unhappy at one point on the drive back from Flagstaff to Austin, thinking, "Why did I just do that if nothing ends up being any different?" I realized that if I just did it for fun, there are many things that would have been funner (in the classic sense of the word). Things like shooting myself in the foot. And I was desperately afraid that after a few days of refining fire, I turned out to be only made of iron after all, and rust was already setting in. It's hard to explain my frustration on that point, so I'll quit trying. Of course, as I explained the trip to friends, I began to realize that it had been a good thing, and more than just entertainment. I turned out to be stronger in ways I never knew and weaker in ways I have always known, but chosen to ignore.
In the end, my relationships with Sara and Katie will be stronger than our squabbles and differences, even if we ended the trip a little more distant than when we started it. I realized that I am a man and remembered that I am still a boy and that will end up being a good thing.
But I've had the same fear about my time in PPD. "Why did I just do that if nothing ends up being different?" If I did it for the money, then I now have no cash to show for my efforts; several bills and debts and a car later and I'm basically where I started. I must have done it for the experience itself - I said so all along - but if a month after checking out, life, and my outlook on it, seems little different than when I checked in, why did I waste 42 precious days of my life?
I cut off my hair a couple of days ago, and saw someone in the mirror that I didn't know. I assumed it must have been me, because I didn't recognize him while everyone else seemed to know him quite well, saying simply, "Whoah, nice haircut," instead of "Who is this strange-looking man before me?" as I said to myself.
I realized in that moment that I am not a child. I saw it, maybe for the first time ever. I saw it in my eyes. As I looked at a face that I wasn't familiar with, nearly hairless, not yet my own, I saw it from a few feet further away then I normally do, and I realized that it was not the face of a boy.
I saw time in my eyes. Pain and exhaustion and joy and peace all existed simultaneously in these orbs that I was slowly realizing were my own. I saw too much worry and brief moments of faith that made it all okay. I saw the energy and excitement of youth (which I hope I am a long way from losing) tempered by the lack of innocence that experience inevitably causes.
And looking at myself, I realized that I really am on a journey, and I am a long way from where I was ten years ago or one year ago or even six months ago, but I'm also an incredibly long way from where I am headed, which - to steal a zen buddhist idea - is nowhere. I am still traveling to nowhere.
So I decided to keep blogging! Because it helps me to write and to imagine that someone is reading. Because I'm not the only one journeying (in fact, we all are). Because I still have to say something. So I'm back on the site. I think I'll try to post about once a week.
Let the race begin!
Given the discrepency between what I wanted and what was, in fact, possible, I guess I actually held to my goals closer than might have been expected. Maria, a friend from my days at Macaroni Grill, was one of the first people to say she wanted to hang out after I got out of PPD, but we only spent time together this past Tuesday, because I have simply had so few free evenings.
For the first week after I got out, I continued my morning ritual that I had wanted to keep up out of PPD, and it was as wonderful as I expected it to me. I got up earlier than I had to, and, after a brief morning run, I walked down to Clementine's where I bought a paper, a bowl of oatmeal, and a cup of coffee, then read the paper and completed the crossword before walking back to my apartment to begin my day in earnest. However, the surprising part is that this two-hour routine held up as long as it did. I think it was the first truly late night out that did me in (3 or 4 in the morning).
Now, here I am, a month later, and I don't know really where the past month has gone. Of course, Sara, my sister, and I went to the Grand Canyon and spent three days hiking to the bottom and back up, which was awesome, but not exactly for the obvious reasons. (More on that later, maybe.)
I remember being extremely unhappy at one point on the drive back from Flagstaff to Austin, thinking, "Why did I just do that if nothing ends up being any different?" I realized that if I just did it for fun, there are many things that would have been funner (in the classic sense of the word). Things like shooting myself in the foot. And I was desperately afraid that after a few days of refining fire, I turned out to be only made of iron after all, and rust was already setting in. It's hard to explain my frustration on that point, so I'll quit trying. Of course, as I explained the trip to friends, I began to realize that it had been a good thing, and more than just entertainment. I turned out to be stronger in ways I never knew and weaker in ways I have always known, but chosen to ignore.
In the end, my relationships with Sara and Katie will be stronger than our squabbles and differences, even if we ended the trip a little more distant than when we started it. I realized that I am a man and remembered that I am still a boy and that will end up being a good thing.
But I've had the same fear about my time in PPD. "Why did I just do that if nothing ends up being different?" If I did it for the money, then I now have no cash to show for my efforts; several bills and debts and a car later and I'm basically where I started. I must have done it for the experience itself - I said so all along - but if a month after checking out, life, and my outlook on it, seems little different than when I checked in, why did I waste 42 precious days of my life?
I cut off my hair a couple of days ago, and saw someone in the mirror that I didn't know. I assumed it must have been me, because I didn't recognize him while everyone else seemed to know him quite well, saying simply, "Whoah, nice haircut," instead of "Who is this strange-looking man before me?" as I said to myself.
I realized in that moment that I am not a child. I saw it, maybe for the first time ever. I saw it in my eyes. As I looked at a face that I wasn't familiar with, nearly hairless, not yet my own, I saw it from a few feet further away then I normally do, and I realized that it was not the face of a boy.
I saw time in my eyes. Pain and exhaustion and joy and peace all existed simultaneously in these orbs that I was slowly realizing were my own. I saw too much worry and brief moments of faith that made it all okay. I saw the energy and excitement of youth (which I hope I am a long way from losing) tempered by the lack of innocence that experience inevitably causes.
And looking at myself, I realized that I really am on a journey, and I am a long way from where I was ten years ago or one year ago or even six months ago, but I'm also an incredibly long way from where I am headed, which - to steal a zen buddhist idea - is nowhere. I am still traveling to nowhere.
So I decided to keep blogging! Because it helps me to write and to imagine that someone is reading. Because I'm not the only one journeying (in fact, we all are). Because I still have to say something. So I'm back on the site. I think I'll try to post about once a week.
Let the race begin!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Day 43 - The Last Post
I am free today. Crazy. It really is crazy. Have you ever heard stories about people who grow up living in the jungles where the trees are so close together you can't see more than 10 feet away from you? Have you heard the story about the ones who come out of the jungle and stand on the savanna where you can see all the way to the horizon? Those people find it impossible to make their eyes see that far. They can't judge distance at all. The beetle on a branch 4 feet away and the elephant 4 miles away are the same size, so - to the jungle-dweller who never learned perspective - they must be the same size and the same distance away from him. I've heard of someone who spent a year in the jungle in the Peace Corp. Just a year. But when he came out, even though he knew from growing up about perspective and vast savannas, his eyes physically found it difficult to process great distances. Focusing on distant objects was difficult for a few days, because his eyes were so used to everything being very very near.
Well, PPD wasn't quite like a jungle where one could only see ten feet, and I was there for (comparatively) very little time, but I was surprised today to find that, in some small way, I could identify with that difficulty with perspective like the jungle-dwellers in the savanna. Driving from my parents' house to the bank, I couldn't concentrate for a few minutes on the cars in front of me! The curb would be in focus or something lying on the dashboard while the objects I was actually staring at, the ones moving quickly, were blurry, like they were in the background. A few times, the part of the scene in focus bounced around, like my brain was trying to figure out what of the myriad things around me was important enough to focus on and couldn't decide on one value.
I would hardly call this physiological as much as psychological: I was just overjoyed to be in the great big world and uninterested in the intense focus required while driving. However, the sense that the world is actually very very enormous was definitely awe-inspiring. To see down a straight road until the hill's horizon, to see clouds before me larger than mountains, to see the river, sharper than the most expensive TV... All this forced itself on my scattered attention, impressing on me the immense and amazing nature of our world.
Eventually, this too became normal, and I was able to focus more easily on the traffic around me, zooming in on the things that "mattered". That's safer, I guess, but if there ever were an "oceanic feeling" of being part of something much much bigger than the material and human and mundane world, it was in that moment of realizing how much bigger our material world is than we mundane humans ever give it credit for. It's probably a good thing that the feeling would fade, because it's not a bad thing to know that the world is bigger and more important than I perceive it right now to be. To remember a time when everything was grander. If I did not come out of it, I might think that I finally understood nature and mankind, but even then, it would be a long way from true. I would be in the same place as I had been in before: sure of myself and my relation to the world. But I know that the world is bigger than I think it is, because I remember perceiving it as bigger than I think it is, so I know that there's a good chance it (and therefore me, as part of the living ocean of spirit) is even bigger than that experience of grandeur.
While he was driving me home from PPD, I told my dad that I felt a little bit like the people coming out of Plato's cave, sensing a big world full of light and colors and more than shadows. It was sort of a joke, but also how I felt. By the evening, I had fallen back into normal life. But then it is the job of Plato's cave-dwellers - the ones who find the light - to come back into the cave and try to explain the light to those still trapped.
I fervently believe that the real world, the world of perceivable material and invisible spirit, is to the world which I perceive as the small world of PPD is to the outside world. If not larger.
And now I am done! I'm tired. I am in my own apartment about to sleep on my own bed. I could talk a little bit more about what the past 42 days have meant to me, but I won't. I can say easily that it meant more to me than money. I'm not sure how to express exactly what I have gained from 42 days of separation and near isolation, but it is certainly more than a paycheck. And now, I have to become normal again. Or something like it. I have to go through six weeks of piled mail. Pay bills. Try to save my nearly dead lily. Because that's life. And I kind of like it.
Whoever you are, if you have been following my daily posts for the whole of my study, thank you very much. I've never been very sure who - if anyone - was reading, so I tried as often as possible to act as though this blog would be read by no one except me but could be read by anyone with a computer. I appreciate you hanging in there with me through the lonely days and judgmental days and exciting days. I'm eager to see you soon and talk to you face to face, in person. If you've been reading, call me up or send me and email and let me know!
Take it easy, friends.
Well, PPD wasn't quite like a jungle where one could only see ten feet, and I was there for (comparatively) very little time, but I was surprised today to find that, in some small way, I could identify with that difficulty with perspective like the jungle-dwellers in the savanna. Driving from my parents' house to the bank, I couldn't concentrate for a few minutes on the cars in front of me! The curb would be in focus or something lying on the dashboard while the objects I was actually staring at, the ones moving quickly, were blurry, like they were in the background. A few times, the part of the scene in focus bounced around, like my brain was trying to figure out what of the myriad things around me was important enough to focus on and couldn't decide on one value.
I would hardly call this physiological as much as psychological: I was just overjoyed to be in the great big world and uninterested in the intense focus required while driving. However, the sense that the world is actually very very enormous was definitely awe-inspiring. To see down a straight road until the hill's horizon, to see clouds before me larger than mountains, to see the river, sharper than the most expensive TV... All this forced itself on my scattered attention, impressing on me the immense and amazing nature of our world.
Eventually, this too became normal, and I was able to focus more easily on the traffic around me, zooming in on the things that "mattered". That's safer, I guess, but if there ever were an "oceanic feeling" of being part of something much much bigger than the material and human and mundane world, it was in that moment of realizing how much bigger our material world is than we mundane humans ever give it credit for. It's probably a good thing that the feeling would fade, because it's not a bad thing to know that the world is bigger and more important than I perceive it right now to be. To remember a time when everything was grander. If I did not come out of it, I might think that I finally understood nature and mankind, but even then, it would be a long way from true. I would be in the same place as I had been in before: sure of myself and my relation to the world. But I know that the world is bigger than I think it is, because I remember perceiving it as bigger than I think it is, so I know that there's a good chance it (and therefore me, as part of the living ocean of spirit) is even bigger than that experience of grandeur.
While he was driving me home from PPD, I told my dad that I felt a little bit like the people coming out of Plato's cave, sensing a big world full of light and colors and more than shadows. It was sort of a joke, but also how I felt. By the evening, I had fallen back into normal life. But then it is the job of Plato's cave-dwellers - the ones who find the light - to come back into the cave and try to explain the light to those still trapped.
I fervently believe that the real world, the world of perceivable material and invisible spirit, is to the world which I perceive as the small world of PPD is to the outside world. If not larger.
And now I am done! I'm tired. I am in my own apartment about to sleep on my own bed. I could talk a little bit more about what the past 42 days have meant to me, but I won't. I can say easily that it meant more to me than money. I'm not sure how to express exactly what I have gained from 42 days of separation and near isolation, but it is certainly more than a paycheck. And now, I have to become normal again. Or something like it. I have to go through six weeks of piled mail. Pay bills. Try to save my nearly dead lily. Because that's life. And I kind of like it.
Whoever you are, if you have been following my daily posts for the whole of my study, thank you very much. I've never been very sure who - if anyone - was reading, so I tried as often as possible to act as though this blog would be read by no one except me but could be read by anyone with a computer. I appreciate you hanging in there with me through the lonely days and judgmental days and exciting days. I'm eager to see you soon and talk to you face to face, in person. If you've been reading, call me up or send me and email and let me know!
Take it easy, friends.
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