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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Some Musings on Fame

With the "King of Pop" dead people are talking quite a good deal about what drove him to the grave. I wasn't going to write this post, because I felt like there was already enough stuff out there. But something struck me this week and I seemed to have found the proper context in which to frame my musings.

Post-Modern America & The Cult of Personality

Billy Mays was the quintessential celebrity. Unlike other celebrities who earn their stripes by acting or playing in a band or (unfortunately) writing a novel or being a public figure; Mr. Mays claim to fame was that he was famous. He was what is known as a pitchman. He sold products, that was pretty much it. He earned notoriety for doing so and became a household name. Somewhat laughable sure, but he had his fame. With that fame and fortune he was able to build an house and start a business. The question is, what did he really create in the world that would warrant fame?

Paul Hewson, better known as Bono, the frontman for U2, disdains his fame but understands its uses. In one interview he said, "I'm just trying to put this thing called fame to good use." However, when one watches most famous people it is easy to see how they have to be drug from the limelight kicking and screaming. When one looks at what is behind there fame, one is faced with a truly frightening reality. Like the great and powerful wizard, there may be nothing behind the curtain. John and Cate are going through a messy break-up. Paris Hilton was foisted on us as something we should admire.¹ American Idol and the myriad talent shows are great, but one feels as if those singers are even one step removed from the bands who play small shows until finally breaking into the big time.

Why do we do it? What purpose does it all serve? America, land of opportunity and meritocracy. A country the Hamilton envisioned as place where all people could get ahead by shear hard work and perseverance, a place that Washington and his army fought for the right of a government by the people conspicuously devoid of king and gentry; finds that it cannot get rid of that desire for nobility.

I can't help but think of George Orwell's "1984." The thing he left out was celebrity. With enough celebrities one can take over the world. In a recent ad campaign by T-Mobile, the company pokes fun at this. They claim to have numerous economists go door-to-door to explain why T-Mobile is the right choice in cell-phone coverage, only to have each and every economist forced away. At the end Catherine Zeta Jones, the original spokesperson for T-Mobile, goes to a door, and hey presto, she's accepted.²

How bad is it that we can be shown exactly what is going on, and still not care one bit? Quick question, who is the president of France? The chancellor of Germany? The prime minster of Japan? Who leads China? Where is Iraq for heaven's sake? These are questions that no one cares about, but if Michael Jackson dies we drop everything.

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen

There is a certain glee we take from watching heroes fall. Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, called it: Schadenfreude. For those of you who frequent my page, you know all about it; but for those of you who don't, it is the concept that we take joy from other people's misery. I suspect some of us feel that way about Michael Jackson. His over the top behavior seemed lead us to believe that he was going to fall and fall hard. Jackson was obsessed with "the show," it ruled his life. He had bought into the myth he had created and in that darkness he found his oblivion. It was the perfect death for a twisted public's spectacle.

While reading, I happened upon another interesting article about a non-celebrity. Whereas Michael Jackson moonwalked, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Armstrong however, does not give interviews and practically disappeared from center-stage. He had done what he thought was his job, and it certainly would've been easy and tempting to capitalize on all that fame; but he has rejected it. He took a job working at the University of Cincinnati where students used to form human pyramids just to get a look through the window at his office.

Today, People don't climb up to see his windows and the limelight has fallen away from Armstrong as a public figure and installed him as an historical figure. He seems to live a life of quiet dignity away from the cult of personality which has already claimed so many. Perhaps, like the astronaut with ice-water in his veins who landed safely in the Sea of Tranquility, we would be best to ignore the siren's call from the rocks of fame. Perhaps it would be better to go about our business and not look for our fifteen minutes of fame or glory in the fall of others.

Incidentally, I have yet to meet a man who finds Paris Hilton attractive.
I suppose it should be duly noted that it is Catherine Zeta Jones; who, unlike Paris Hilton, is attractive. Still she is a celebrity and therefore my argument is still valid.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

ThoughtsAboutaVision

I once remember in college having a vivid image of Jesus under a tree in the middle of a field of green grass. He was sitting under it and when I walked up to him, I felt bad for not living up to the standards that I thought every Christian should live up to in their lives. I hadn't helped the poor or the needy as much as I should have, I hadn't been as personally responsible or read the Bible or been as consistent with so many things. Yet, when I went to him I can remember him saying it would be okay.

Life doesn't turn out okay ... or at least it doesn't feel that way. Years of flailing around in the wilderness of just life itself takes a toll on a person. It isn't so much that we feel unworthy or we do things that aren't that great; its just the mediocrity of it all. The nine to five job or being stuck in the same place can kill a person. I'd wake up with that vision in my head and my heart. I'd feel it getting harder and harder to get back there. The rage just to be under the tree and hear him say it was going to be okay wasn't half so heart breaking as feeling that it was getting farther and farther away.

The thing is that faith in God is never about us. It never has been and never will be. Faith in God is a painful, grueling experience. There is this glimmer of hope in God and that glimmer gets fainter and fainter. The mountain top experiences where you thought you believed in God move further and further into your recesses and it is only the fool who always says that he or she had always clung to faith.

These people forget the great giants of faith. They forget how Abraham doubted, Moses had to lose everything, and Paul had to be knocked off his ass. These are the people that we idolize in our churches and hold up to as great examples of what it means to believe. Perhaps the greatest example of one of these giants of faith is Elijah who, having just scored a victory for the existence of God that is still unparalleled in all of existence, not only becomes suicidal, but wants God to do the job for him. (This is either the most whiny assisted suicide of all recorded history or the most lazy.)

It is because of these imperfect people that a Christian gets his or her strength. Some ludicrous nabob is "called" because they are fit for nothing else in life but to follow God with all their heart, mind, and spirit.

This is the point that most aggravates Americans though. The book shelves are filled with self-help books tinged with passages from scripture taken out of context and forced to obey the philosophy of the time. How often do we listen to Joel Olstein or some other schmuck in slicked back hair and a three piece suit telling us life will be okay if we just follow God's instructions. The fact is that following God's instructions is pitiful, painful, and pure suffering. No amount of sugar coating will get us around this. The Bible isn't joking when it says that every day we are crucified with Christ.

The fact is we don't live in a Christian nation. We never have. Trust me, I'm an history major. (Famous last words.) The people in this country say they don't want to give the money to help the poor; they don't want to pay for better health care, schools, infrastructure, and development; they don't want to end abortion; they don't want much of anything except to have a big screen television, a cushy job, and a decent tax break around April.

Then they do something good and they feel like they have appeased God. Some distant memory of what they should have done, who they should have been, came into their hearts and mind for a split second and they think they have tasted the wellspring of everlasting happiness and goodness and have it in with God. I have done "good things" and I still come back to that dream and doubt ... and doubt.

I doubt because I am probably more American then I would like to admit. I haven't gone to save starving children in Africa or gone to fight for the right to vote in Asia or built orphanages in Latin America. American Christians put too much emphasis on what you have done and not enough on who you serve. Bonhoeffer once said it was better for a good man to do a bad thing than for a bad man to do a good thing. For the longest time I couldn't understand what he meant. The words were caught in my head all the time and I quoted it quite a good deal too, but it still never really made sense. It makes sense to me, but not to most of us living in turn of the millennium America.

It means the good deeds and noble causes that you and I have fought for are nothing without our love of God. I think back to the great saints and what failures they were and realize what made them saints was never anything they had done, but when God called they listened. God rarely calls us to be CEOs and multimillionaires. God calls us to suffer and find joy.[1] The Bible has its share of kings, but more often has its share of nobodies.

This here is what the devil loves so much. This here is what Americans hate so much. Americans pay lip service to Christ, but when push comes to shove we do things for ourselves. Who are we? What do we really want? Nietzsche talked about the rise of the superman and how Christ, though a charismatic character in his own right, had ruined that. We Americans follow Nietzsche far more than we follow Christ. In many ways Nietzsche was right and we would be better off to abandon Christ and the “lies” we no longer believe. We would be better off to live as libertarians and forget the “myths.”

Yet, I have lived the failed life. I have lived a life of trying to figure out the answers. Perhaps that is why the fates conspired against me and allowed to make me a Christian. I shouldn’t be one. I doubt too much. I read books “that a Christian oughtn’t.” I have friends who aren’t Christian at all. Then I think of Christ whose faith overcame the doubts that tried to assail him, who talked to people he shouldn’t have, and who was friends to people who were the worst kind of sinners. It really puts things in perspective. The lies vanish and one can see the false dichotomy. There is not should’ve in God’s book, just the question: are you willing to serve?

I am not, and never will be. My life will always be filled with doubts where I wonder if there is really anything out there. I will wonder as to whether there is a God in heaven and how this world could have ended up such a mess. I will wonder if that vision of Christ under a tree telling me all will be okay is real or whether it was all something I created to make me feel okay. In this wonder I will probably die as I have lived. Still, it is better to have wonder than to die without it. I should count my life half lived without the pain and its inevitable comfort.

[1] It should be noted that this particular thread could be an essay in and of itself. However, I leave you with this thought. Name any artist, musician, or business leader of any lasting renown who has ever known success without suffering. Van Gogh only sold one painting. The Beatles were rejected from numerous labels. Steve Jobs lost his company only to come back and make it stronger than before. Suffering and joy are bound up together. To miss the former is to have a shallow victory. To miss the latter is to dive into despair and oblivion. The walk of faith is just the same razor’s edge. The only difference being is that you have to trust in something else to make the steps for you.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Paranoia

"I know the world's been sheared by a drunken barber and I don't need anybody to tell me," says Walter Brennan in Frank Capra's Meet John Doe. Surely the faulty pretenses of the Iraq war with its ever changing reasons for why we attacked or the amount of political posturing for pork barrel spending leave all of us except the most foolish feeling a bit queasy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in my opinion the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, put it this way:

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?

I suppose when faced with lies and deceit, the subtle wearing away of our consciences and the endless deals even the best of us make with ourselves just to get through one day; a better world can seem so far removed from this ever present hell we inhabit. This leaves us either docile or angry.

I know the anger. The ever present urge to break free from the dogmas that envelop us so much that we feel we are suffocating just by being alive.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The words of Dylan Thomas seem so real and true to many of us about life as well as death. We live with a rage against death and a rage against life so much that we live with both of them deep inside of us. We don't even know that we are all poisoned.

I was talking with a person at a local bookstore today about politics and the other subjects that one is not supposed to discuss in general (you know, all the fun things). He began discussing how America was trying to influence Iran by keeping the media talking about Iran.¹ He said it was a CIA² and State Department plot. (He is not alone, apparently the clerics in charge of Iran also believe this.) It seems where ever we go these days we hear the same stuff. We hear about such and so spinning a story, and no doubt this happens; but what is intolerable is the outright conspiracy theories.

Quite possibly one of the best conspiracies is that we went to Iraq for oil. This is a simple answer to a complex question. Oil is inevitably linked to money, but money in and of itself is not something that is desirable. Rather money is a form of order and to obtain more order means that you are winning a game. The thing many people miss is that there are more forms of order that people will follow. There are things like pride or ego that lead to actions just as disagreeable as the reckless pursuit of money and power. Now I am sure that oil played a role, but the real reason was obviously hurt pride because Daddy Bush didn't finish the job of deposing the resident dictator of Iraq.³

However, what really made me write this blog post was something I saw while watching The Best Years of Our Lives, one of the finest pictures of the year 1946. The movie follows three servicemen who are trying to readjust to life after the war. At one point a man begins to commiserate with a sailor who has lost his hands. Then he tells him that the entire war had been a falsehood and certain powers had orchestrated the entire endeavor for their own selfish reasons. This is more than two of the service men can handle and they lay the guy out.

The point in this blog post, and yes it has a point, is that life is far more nuanced than we would like it to be; and sometimes that nuance is in a cruel and simple answer that has little root in webs of reasons and large scale organizations. JFK was killed by a lone gunman, September 11th was not orchestrated by the CIA, there is nothing at the bottom of Loch Ness, and allergies in America are not the plot of the evil Kleenex company. (I am willing to be proven wrong when the evidence surfaces.) I suppose the humoresque nature of such things would be benign except for the fact that they get in the way of any real work being done, just as a television show which we would never watch in a million years keeps us from mowing the lawn or writing a paper. The things that are less than inconsequential destroy our reality and begin to weigh us down.

In addition to this it poisons our notions of humanity. I admit to being repulsed by order for order's sake, but I do love the notion that human beings create order as a tool. When we do not trust our government as a tool or our businesses as tools; we are rejecting a part of our human nature. We are choosing to be animals rather than rational beings. In addition to this we denigrate our fellow humans by saying we are more incorruptible and more pure and made of better stuff than they are be they bankers or bureaucrats.

Lastly, people mess up or let something leak. I have never known of any secret that can last as long as our conspiracy theories. Human nature will let the truth leak out eventually. People are not machines, they are flesh and blood and usually stupid errors are the cause of great catastrophes just as planned and organized terror are as well. The lone gunmen wreak more havoc many times than the organization of great powers. To look for unavailable motives to back up our audacious theories is in the same vein of stupidity.

I am not a Pollyanna, I have heard the spin of fools and mortals who try and back up their ludicrous actions with spurious justification. I have heard a great deal and read a great deal. However, America and capitalism and the government are not the things to fear; as one person once said, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." As a recovering phobo-phobic, I would say that is pretty good advice for the paranoids to heed.

As if the media needs an excuse for a good story. I can just hear John Meacham of Newsweek trying to decide the merits of covering a story about a country known for its anti-democratic tenor and totalitarian tendencies which is in a state of near meltdown as its monsters finally come up from years of sewn dragon's teeth. "No, I just cannot cover this story, it would not be fair to the good people of Iran to cover the news." Yeah, the Obama administration had to work really hard to keep this story alive.
Unlike many people who talk about the CIA, I have actually studied the history of the organization. I have many facts about it. For instance: Did you know the CIA was not founded by demons or that its primary goal was not to destroy countries or that many times it was the people's will that forced it to so many of the things for which it is criticized. First off, it was created to beam in news from the Western World into Eastern Europe and Russia via organizations called Radio Free Europe and Radio Freedom respectively. Secondly, when given the task of toppling the elected government of Chile during the Nixon administration, the CIA was vociferously against such an action. It was in fact planned by people within ... wait for it ... the Nixon administration (most notably Henry Kissinger). Go figure.
I suppose that replacing one conspiracy theory with another one is not the appropriate way to go about things, but my justification is this: First, Hussein is out of power and we have no oil revenues (nor did it ever look like we would get any in the first place, only liberal ideologues thought that might happen). Secondly, I do not believe it is a conspiracy theory because the answers are so manifest and most of the public knows the reasons anyway. Concurrently it should be mentioned that all of us (except for a few that marched against the war) were of the opinion that it was the right thing to do. Nancy Pelosi, George Bush, and yours truly all kept silent and backed the war de facto if not out right. I kept silent. I did not march. I didn't think it would happen. I should have made sure. But the hypocrisy of the Americans who say they were lied to is both inexcusable and intolerable. Admit you were wrong and then work to fix this mess.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Among the Fragments of Life.

I just got back from a mission trip down in Tennessee. I am tired and a bit hungry and I suppose that things will make sense tomorrow afternoon. In Western Culture there is a phrase about coming down from a mountain-top experience. We have seen the face of God or witnessed some sort of epiphany and all of a sudden the clouds come and its just us again. Its hard when that mountain-top experience never really comes and you are plunged into a deeper valley. I combed the myriad of e-mails and found most of them to be spam or unrelated threads of thoughts thrown into the universe. (I suppose that is what this blog post is as well.) I deposited money into a bank account that has been much depleted from various trips and malnourished with my measly pay-check. My computer screen is full of half-started starts of stories where the perfect words seem to escape me. Life is full of imperfection and we just say, "Get over it. Move on."

To a degree these people are right. We cannot just stay still and immobilized, but neither should we accept the fact that our lives are fragmented and fractured. Too often they lie broken and disheartened. Maybe that is just my life and I am projecting it on others. There is a sad chord humming through the course of our lives. It never goes away and it gives some sort of importance to our existence that would be missing otherwise. I try and cure it or ignore it or "move on", but it never goes away. I wonder if others are afraid to talk about it: this sadness. The sad feeling of coming down into the dirt and dust and muck and mire of a world that seems so frankly indifferent about our survival that it borders on cruel.

This is the world of the atheist and this is the world of the Christian. These two people exist in the same world. I suppose I'm a lost cause. I have tried so hard to free myself from fear. I can't do it. I lose my old faith daily and each day I have to keep coming back to a new vision. How I wish I could throw away my faith in God, but the alternative cannot exist in my worldview. I wish this world was a place where I didn't have to answer to anyone at all. I wish this world was a place where I would be pat on the back because I, by my own initiative and power did good and resisted evil. I wish I were God.¹

But I can't. I would like to stay in my room all day and work a dead-end job and read books. I would like an easy victory with no work. I just can't do it though. I am not strong enough and so I join the legions of failures; the group of people that Nietszche said had destroyed the world by stifling the Übermensch and creating a world where the dregs of society end up on top. I am a Christian. Why do I keep coming back to this problem? Why can't I let it go?

In order to be anything you must go back to square one all the time. I suppose we never outgrow numbers no matter how far into math we descend. My reason is this. I gave up the thing I loved most. I gave up trying to have all the answers and worry if people think I am smart. I stopped trying to predict my future.² I just gave up. And I gave up worrying about my timing. I stopped getting angry that I had not reached a point where I thought I should be. I gave up listening to a lot of things. The point is, I take things a lot less seriously because I take life a lot more seriously. I am not what I am. I am a lot of broken fragments that don't know where I fit. Big deal. Walk away. Stop being perfect. Just be human ... be what I am created to be.

And so, I just got back from Tennessee. I think I will take care of a few things, get some water and read. I think a deserve to take a break from worrying about things I didn't do wrong and can't control. Mazel Tov.

Yes, I said it Spencer. I would also like to see how many other people out there believe they have a "God complex."
Oh sure, I do it still. Its my personality. I am built that way. It is my blessing/curse; that strange aspect of your humanity that is both your attribute and achilles heel. I am a know-it-all, but I have to make sure that I am never defined by it and sprawling on a pin under the heading: A prime example of a know-it-all.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Coins

I was recently watching the History channel, which ironically is something I never do. (I am serious, it is never really about history is it?) On an episode of Modern Marvels they were talking about money production in the United States. Apparently Hamilton had wanted bank notes to be the main legal tender, while Jefferson wanted coinage. Really quick, what do we usually use? Sure we have coins for the smaller amounts, but come on, we use bills ... or bank notes.

Now, for many of you who know me, you know that I think Jefferson was lucky enough to be floating along with the right people. If the British had won the revolution, it is pretty safe to say Jefferson would probably have survived just fine. However, Hamilton was a republican to the hilt. He realized that economic development could never reach its full potential under a strict state control. So, he had a lot invested in the success of a republican-based federal government.

However, if you were going to put coin production under a particular cabinet who would you pick: the state department or the treasury department? That's right: the state department. Why? I have no clue. But we had coin production and the banks had decentralized bank note printing.¹ Eventually we switched over to bank notes and Hamilton's idea was implement almost three-quarters (no pun intended) of a century later. Once again, the legacy of Jefferson haunted future generations.

What does all this mean for us today? A centralized government is a necessity, not an impediment. Government, as Russell Shorto would have it, is only one part of civilization just as the individual, religion, and business are. If you do not view your life as made up of symbiotic composites, you will end up becoming a paranoid fool or at the whims of paranoid fools. What causes this is quite simply fear. Fear is purely emotional, but disguises itself as reason. It is important to understand the aspects of our human experiment and not to fear them or rage against them.

There were about 7,000 different bank notes circulating around the United States at this time. Oh, and you didn't know if they were still viable in one place or another.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Fairy Tales

Two Peoples of America

The most realistic fictions are the ones that do not seem most realistic, but rather the ones that gives us what we want most. In America, grace given for free, is anathema. Neither left-wing Christians nor right-wing Christians wish to embrace what the German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "costly grace." The left wishes to demonstrate its benovolence through its "good works" while the right wishes to prove its grace through its "economic gifts." Both miss the point that Christianity is not about what you get out of it. It is a world view in the purest sense precisely because it resists the things it can get out of the world and accepts the blessings of a good day and the suffering of a bad day with the same joy. It is absurd, I know, but those who argue that absurdity is a reason to discount it, miss the point that life itself is absurd and dictated by the absurd. However, I am not arguing Christianity right now, but rather the fairy tales created by the right and left in order to ignore their Christian heritage.

I voted for President Obama, lets get that on the table right now. I believe he is a good "American." And by this I mean he is a pragmatist who is willing to reach concessions and willing to try anything that might conceivably get us out of this financial dilemma. He has the country's best interest at heart and it probably wouldn't matter if he were Christian, Muslim, Atheist, or whatever; his first loyalty is to the country. So, when certain segments of society criticize him for not being Christian enough; I respond, "We probably wouldn't like that too much if he were." Mr. Obama was not elected to be the "high priest" or "pontifax maximus" of the United States. He was elected to be the president of the United States of America. If he were elected to be the bishop of a synod or the pastor of my church; then I would not have voted for him to hold this office. His views on Christianity are very "works-based" righteousness and it wouldn't take any great theological master work to punch holes in his viewpoints.

I bring up Mr. Obama not to discredit him, but to highlight two very important points. Firstly, in America, the separation of church and state is not only something beneficial to our survival; it is actually something quite deeply rooted in our Christian heritage. From Jesus saying, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's (the state) and give to God what is God's (the church)" all the way through Augustinian and Lutheran notions about the "Kingdom of the Right and Kingdom of the Left." Christians work within the state and follow the state's rules, but adhere to further dictums of their religious affiliation. The two come in conflict a great deal less than critics believe. Mr. Obama's faith and his reason for what he does are not mine. He is not Lutheran. His speeches are to deal with finances, the environment, and the Constitutionality of such-and-such; not on the theological aspects of free-will v. determinism or the Trinity. He has a job, his own brand of Christianity informs him of it; but I am not looking to him for theological insight and I highly recommend that you do not either.

The second point that I would like to make is that his Christianity is one that I find to be flawed. It expects that works are the cause rather than the fruits of grace. His decisions and his involvement allow him to have a good cache in the Bank of Heaven. He was fortunate enough that his politics was able to accept Christianity; and that he could get by with a little work's based righteousness. This is anathema to the good Lutheran, who, though we do good works, see it as a gift rather than an obligation. To many leftist Christians any "good work" is seen as the ultimate sign of faith and even trumps the Christian who "doesn't do enough good works." I don't know who is going to get into heaven, Jesus doesn't know who is going to get to heaven, and Barack Obama doesn't know who is going to get into heaven (and he has the good sense to keep quiet about it).

The right on the other hand seem to leave their faith at the door when they pursue their issues. Gay marriage and anti-abortion and (I don't know how) the tax code; become enmeshed not in their Christian world-view, but in their Pharisaical desire to be "right." To them the issue is paramount and their faith is secondary. They have a fervor that is not found in anyone in the New Testament except Saul of Tarsus before he saw the light. And so, when someone comes to the table with viewpoints they do not particularly care for, they do not argue the point but attack the issue. Dialogue cannot continue in that environment. However it is more important to know that Christ befriended the extortionists, the prostitutes, and whoever else would listen to him. He didn't do it to prove some point and he never accepted their excuses for why they did what they did; but to him the message of God's saving love was more important than some political plank. I wonder how many we needlessly alienate by not trying to figure out how God went missing in someone's life and how we can be like Philip and say "come and see." Instead the right is trying to legalize morals and ignoring that the law was fulfilled by Christ. We are not free from the law or tax codes or obligations to the state by Christ's death, but we are free to share the good news. That's what it means, and so much more.

The fictions of the religious right and the religious left are so desirable because they require us to be in charge. They allow us to delegate and regulate good works or morals. They don't allow the Holy Spirit and God to be at the center of our lives and so they should be disregarded as fairy tales that we ignore now that we are older. Our faith in God is bigger than our faith in the state or even in our own determinism. Our grace should be the determining factor in our lives.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Summer in Ohio

Its finally summer time in Central Ohio. The sky is gray and filled with rain and people have been working on lawns and house projects. The tulips and daffodils finished blooming a while ago and now it is time for the irises and daylilies to finish their cycle. A talk with a good friend of mine by the name of Spencer Troxell reminded me of something my dad said a long time ago. Spencer asked if I was being to harsh on people what with my criticisms; and that reminded me of how my dad said he was going to avoid writing anything nasty on his blog.¹

While none of us should be Pollyannas with rose-colored glasses and happy mindless babble; I think I have spent far too much time in the stuffy ivory towers of human perfection. When I say that we humans have issues and problems, its nothing new. The problem is that many of us can get so frustrated that the world is not the way it should be, that we often sound angry. Our idealized world becomes more important the world around us. We forget to look at people as people.²

So as I stare out my windows and onto the world around me and think of tomorrow and its promises of a good walk with a friend of mine, I think that maybe I am not taking life seriously enough. The serious fact that I didn't make a beautiful day and if I didn't, than maybe it was created for me to enjoy.

An almost herculean effort to be sure in this day and age of foaming-at-the-mouth-ideologues.
I was going to argue this point in this blog post, but it seems more appropriate to argue it in a footnote where it won't disturb the flow of the rest of my post and it will fulfill the requirement for my response. Mr. Troxell pointed out that I was too hard on humanity and that we have god complexes. He is right. I believe we all want to be, not just the hero of our story, but the gods as well. Whether that is good or bad is up to you and your philosophy. I believe I am too hard on people because we ignore just how wonderful it is to be human. Here is a bit of a paradox because in my criticism I am actually ignoring their humanity which has built into the capability of doing monumentally stupid things, but also can look up at the stars in wonder. It is pretty amazing that no matter who we are, we all seem to look up at the stars in wonder. I get frustrated when people just don't think too much, but I think way too much for anybody. I suppose that is projection of desires for people to think more about what they do. Big deal, its my way.

I also was told I didn't have to write so much, but I like to write. So whatever.