Sun, 03 Jun 2007 09:45:00
Everybody’s talkin’ at me. I can’t hear a word they’re sayin’
Only the echoes of my mind...
Are we looking out the window too much? Car windows, TV, your living room windows, the glowing box that connects you to the network like a window on the world...are we so busy looking out that we’ve somehow forgotten why we looked that first time?
Are we too nosy? Do we have too much information about how every little thing in the world works? Is the disillusionment one sees in culture the world over a symptom of some larger sickness brought on because we simply can’t process it all? Have we trivialized the search for knowledge into a non-stop flood of useless information posing and intellectual or social stimuli? I think I might know too much about every damn move Lindsey Lohan makes, and almost nothing about what Senator Lindsey Graham does every day. I know everything you can possibly know about every pore on Tricia Helfer’s body, but my own machine is a broken mess.
Am I trying to figure something out in my head by applying these questions to everyone when the fault lies with me and me alone?
I don’t know. What I do know is I haven’t slept since yesterday and this is what is going through my head. I’m thinking that we’re not looking inward enough. The scale of everything is getting larger, but what the world is made of is not any stronger, nor have we planned well for the scaling up, as it were. All I can think of to do is to look inward, examine my immediate surroundings and find a way to positively impact them. Is that isolationist? Is it some strange contradiction in philosophies that I am asking you, a sea of friends, family and perfect strangers, to help me examine the question and find an answer?
Hmm. That leads me to an idea. I want anyone - friend, foe, family or casual reader - to ask me something. Anything. The question can be about you, about me, about comedy, about art, WW2, politics, Bosnia, Japanese tea ceremonies, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to talk about. What I ask from you is pure, unadulterated honesty. If that means your question needs to be blunt and mean, then be that way. I asked for it. If it means you may have to share a piece of yourself in order to ask your question, then all the better for you and for those who be asked.
Ask me anything and we’ll see where we go from there. I want to try to slow this down every so often and make it about people again.
Posted by JimK at 09:45 AM on June 03, 2007
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#2 Posted by Drumwaster 
on 06/03 at 05:08 PM -
I think Jesus put it very simply: Render unto Caesar, etc.
Because every man perceives Divinity differently (as should be obvious to even the most cursory of mental examinations), we have no more right to force someone else to perceive that Divinity the same way we do than we would to force them to think like we do.
That makes it very easy to distinguish between secular and religious. The question one should ask him- or herself to determine that is “Does this affect someone else, or just my own interaction with the Divine?”
#3 Posted by zoomzoom on 06/03 at 08:36 PM -
Christian,
You’ve spent countless hours searching for the Truth and have come up mostly empty. You reveal your fault when you say “never could find one that I felt was compatible with my own personal beliefs.” Have you considered that real Truth exists independent of your personal beliefs and that perhaps it is those beliefs that are getting in the way of your acceptance of Truth? I mean this in the most earnest sense, but maybe you just need to get over yourself!
As a Christian, I know the fist step to knowing the Truth is to understand the fact that although we live in a world that wants you to believe it, it’s not all about you. I challenge you to take a look at Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life. You might be surprised at what you find!!
#4 Posted by Christian on 06/03 at 10:49 PM -
Zoom
Actually, I believe in Truth. Please don’t misunderstand what I was saying. Its not that I don’t believe, its that I haven’t found a Religion that meshes with what I believe. I have read The Purpose Driven Life (and sold quite a few copies of it), and I do believe in many of its tenants. I don’t feel that I haven’t found Truth. I just haven’t found an organized body that believes as I do.
Drum
Couldn’t agree with you more. Everyone has their own path to travel, and no one path is better than another. Where my hang up comes from is that it seems that you can’t be both Secular and Faithful in this world, but you can’t be both right or left either. I think we are told by many that you have to be one or the either, and I don’t think thats healthy. Thats why I strive to maintain that balance.
#5 Posted by Drumwaster on 06/04 at 09:45 AM -
But just as you can maintain a balance (whether a formal one, like the Swiss, or an informal one, where the balance is done inside the mind, aka “moderate” or “independent"), between conservative and liberal, you can maintain a balance between secular and spiritual.
I just accept that there are some things that the secular world cannot explain, and quit asking so that I can just enjoy.
I mean, I can get some rocket scientist to explain the phenomenon in terms of refraction and prisms and angles of reflection and all the rest, but it will never be able to explain the child-like joy that the sight of a rainbow will bring.
#6 Posted by Kazama on 06/04 at 11:22 AM -
Did you enjoy growing up in Upstate NY or do you find it to be a soul-less never ending suburbia like I view it?
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All right, here’s one that keeps me up at night…
I’m an agnostic who believes that there is a higher power who watches over us, and sometimes seems to interact with us. I feel that you can divorce Religion from this belief because, for me, Religion is simply man’s way of explaining that belief. I have experimented with several religions-a very long list I will provide if asked, but lets just say other than Baha’i, I’ve dabbled in them all, as well as having a minoring in Religion in college-but never could find one that I felt was compatible with my own personal beliefs.
My problem comes in finding this middle ground that I feel is best for me. I can’t stand Atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens who feel anyone who has a spirituality is obviously retarded, but they make very cogent points about how religion has been used for evil. I hate Religious conservatives even more because of their moral superiority. That they, and they alone, are the ones to define what is and is not moral and want us to go along with this belief or we will GO TO HELL. While at the same time they are correct in that a strong spiritual belief can help with dealing with the world.
A VERY long prologue to get to:
How does a person balance secularism with faith?