| | Part Three of a Devotional
On occasion, most notably through conversation, I seem to reach a point beyond which very little seems to be of any concern. I believe it is because concern is the topic of conversation, and when it has been defeated by that conversation, there seems little left to do logically than reflect on my success and enjoy my coffee, which I'll undoubtedly be having at the time. Then I return to the mundane life, where what little truth I feel I've found becomes equally irrelevant, save one recurring thought. I wonder if there are individuals in the world who never seek Truth (capital T), never push the limits of their values, never really "value" anything. I'm beginning to believe they exist. Like the scene in Annie Hall when Woody Allen learns that a couple he's just met continues to have a successful relationship because they (in an Allenesque sense of ironic humor, naturally) both have no independent thoughts, beliefs, or concerns of their own. What do you do with yourself all day? You must be continuously sleeping, or continuously talking. And you better hope your favorite team blew it, or hit it big. Perhaps in high school that's where all the drama arises- an inability to rest and listen to you thoughts, and to others' for that matter.
Oh, I'm fed up to death with all of you fundamentalists- of all sorts. I have to move away from the previous themes of the last two entries, and touch less on God for the moment and more on believers and nonbelievers. Theists and Atheists. I myself have been convinced with almost absolute certainty throughout my life that there is and is not a God. And, understanding the somewhat inevitable dangers of skepticism, I have to say that both theistic and atheistic fundamentalism is the greater danger. I've not entirely decided what the reconciling point is, but to be absolute on anything seems to discredit the almost naturally ambivalent state of the human intellect. It's a slap in the face to thought in all forms. For to be certain is to be without thought, and to be without thought is to be rather animalistic, in my opinion. Struggling with the broad themes of reality, or at least (as always) the reality one perceives, should be a daily exercise. I worry for those who do not. It has created war for millenia now. To openly and unquestionably embrace any philosophy seems to call into question the value of philosophy itself. The same of course applies to any religious creed. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing in these entires, or, in my life in general. That's why I seem to have gone out of my way to be unorthodox. I don't know if I'll ever find what I'm looking for, but I know it will not rely in a self-asserting creed, with the exception of course, of "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." That old maxim, you know.
What really appalls me about American life in the twenty-first century is the ease we have in never questioning, in never evaluating anything short of our dinners. We find ourselves trapped in careers, in relationships, in contracts and ordeals that never fulfill us, and we seem surprised. Why have we allowed ourselves to settle ourselves so easily into contentment and convenience? Why is it as simple as going to Church on Sundays, work on workdays, and nothing else any other day? Why do we not care about how little we will be here? Why do we make such absurd assumptions that there is something beyond all this? There may be, and I as much as the next person hopes there is, but until I'm certain, which I'll never seem to be, I'll keep focusing on trying to figure it out, and I plead that you do the same. Keep talking.
Joe
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| | Posted 5/4/2008 3:16 AM - 1 comments
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