October 15, 2008
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Life is something we cannot capture because it is always happening. But there have been times when I have sat down to write when my thoughts were particularly salient or my mood was especially thick, because it seemed the air of life was real and profound. It is as though life is usually just a cloud in the sky, a mere idea over our heads, but that sometimes it descends to create a thick fog, overwhelming us with its immediately surrounding presence. With it close and up front, ideas appear about all of life that seem to be true all the time, they were just never so explicit; usually they lurk just beneath the surface of life as we sail along, but here they emerge if only for a time.
Because ideas and moods are fleeting, and since we change extremely gradually such that we eventually would be very surprised if we knew what we had thought in the past, when I am in this fog of life I will write and write and write, if only to channel some of the surrounding fog into the computer so that my future self can review the shadows of what I once thought. For I know that I have had some moods of thought that I did not write during, and thus I can only remember vaguely and one dimensionally what it was like.
Sometimes I go back and reread these to try and figure out who I am, as though I were some other person I was studying and these were external documents that would help me to that end. The post “Strangers” is the most personally significant thing I have written, for now as I look back I can see quite clearly how my entire life led up to me writing that as a sort of manifesto that I exist. It is one grand realization of a person growing up and finally and suddenly understanding the full magnitude of being a human in the universe.
So I have decided to include a few others that I have never posted before. This is not only because we only exist once and this is a place for sharing thoughts so I might as well, but also for another reason. (leaning in, whispering) It is because sometimes I have this fear, when no one around me seems to be very passionate about life or God or anything at all, that no one else really has a soul, a place in them where they understand that life is a very deep and real thing. It is as though life really is just a thing lived on the surface, and that if I started talking about life like it went deeper than is socially assumed people would act like they had no idea what I was talking about.
So I post these thoughts at least to let other people who feel this way know that they’re not crazy, and that I for one think that life ought to be lived very honestly and intentionally, and always with an intense desire to find the truth.
As one final disclaimer I must say that I wrote them under the assumption that only I would ever read them, so they are as honest and intense as that assumption allowed. They are under “Honest Reflections.”
And with that, I will try to post something silly soon. After all, I am having an unbirthday party with some friends tomorrow, so I need to get in the mood. (And yes, it will definitely be the stupidest tea party they’ve ever been to.)
Comments (11)
hahaha. Your awesome. I think you have way more “mystical” moments than I do, but I have them. Some profound, some innocent, some silly. I have never really thought of writing them down. At least not in full. Maybe I should.
happy unb-day (?)
p.s. You should have posted a link to your “stangers” blog entry.
Yes, we can’t relive the passing moment. We constantly build experiences with respect to our moods, which ultimately change the instance we once were. How steep the change is depends on how capable a person is toward change.
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.“ ~Galileo Galilei
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” ~C.S. Lewis
“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” ~Winston Churchill
And, something for the silly mood you are striving for…
“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.” ~Elvis Presley
@vangelicmonk -
I actually don’t know how to put links in xanga posts. Unless of course I just post the html address, but I think that looks tacky. Fortunately ChrisRusso, the good Xangan he is, explained to me how to format the html for the custom module, so “Strangers” is under “Thoughts about Life.”
The silly moods are the hardest to catch, I find. People do not tend to think sillily all the time, so it is a much harder state of mind to reach. Sigh. It’s a shame really – seriousness is such an unfortunate ingredient in humans, don’t you think?
@StrokeofThought - Ah, adding links is pretty simple. When you are blogging there are tools above which provide a way to add an address that is linked to a word or set of words within your blog. It is usually up to the right hand side with what looks like a “chain.”
Seriousness and foolish thoughts make me think of Dostoevsky’s “Idiot” where Prince Myshkin would go off on these “inspired” rants about all kinds of issues in like a hyper bipolar fashion. However, his simplicity and childlike take on the world was not “idiotic” but almost Christ like.
@vangelicmonk -
Whenever I do that chain thing, it asks for the html, and then I put it in and press “enter,” and then it just puts the html in the post. Is there a way to make it a word, like you can in comment boxes?
I couldn’t do The Idiot – did The Brothers Karamazov, and will do Crime and Punishment hopefully before the years is up. And after that I might have to do Anna Karenina. I have a friend who is really interested in literature, but really lazy, and he had AK out on the coffee table and told someone it was his. I bet him he couldn’t finish it by the end of the year, and if he did, I would read it in two days. He has read 25 pages since about two weeks ago, which is good for me, but he said he liked it, which is good for him. We’ll see where that goes. *crossing fingers*
lol @ friend who loves lit, but slow reader. That is me, but mostly because I’m reading millions of articles online, blogs, my seminary books, and my fun books (plural).
hmm, are you using Google Chrome by any chance? I’m not sure about Firefox. Try it on explorer. I can’t do a blog entry with Chrome and maybe Firefox is the same way. I need Explorer because it does the html for me. If that makes sense. If you are already using “explorer” maybe you have to click the button to format it from html. Let me know.
Geez, I sound like a tech geek who knows what he is doing, but I’m just a dumb geek who doesn’t know what he is doing.
P.S. The Idiot rocks!!
Thank you for posting. Your honesty and perspective is refreshing. As well, I’m always pleased to know I’m not crazy. (Or in the very least, not the only crazy one.)
I’m afraid that’s a fear that’s surfaced for me as well. I don’t understand people — I genuinely don’t. I don’t understand why people aren’t completely enchanted with life. I don’t under why they don’t contemplate all these beautiful, profound sentiments embodied in the world around them. I don’t understand why they become so caught up in knitpickings and minutiae when they’re surrounded by things of such higher worth.
And when you try to explain it to them, they give you a very blank look. Life is perhaps the greatest, deepest, most prevalent part in all creation. And no one around seems to even notice it’s there….
Do you suppose this type of thinking might partly be an effect of being homeschooled? I’ve never met nor run across anyone who thinks as much, as clearly, or as honestly, as you. And homeschool has definitely led me to ponder things I normally wouldn’t have. It almost as if homeschool allows for a sheltered, solid standpoint to grow up from. It allows for an objective perspective on all the “social norms” — the way that most people define life. Under objective scrutiny, the world’s concept of normal becomes so bland, weak, and hazy like a fog. It’s then you realize you are standing outside the fog, under blue skies and sunlight.
@Yume_Shii -
I think so – I have five siblings, and we are all fairly goofy people, which I suppose is because we have never assumed to need to be just like the culture. Which is such a wonderful way to live life – as if everything you see you’ve never seen before, because you don’t have the built-in assumption of everyone around you that life is normal and need render no enthusiastic reaction. I am so grateful for my silly family – and do trust, we are silly – and a homeschooled childhood, for I do think it has made everything in life seem new and weird and exciting. And that has certainly made all the difference.
Romans 12:2 comes to mind.
Thanks for the encouragment – being even slightly honest is always difficult, because it leaves you bare, so that anyone can take a swing at you and hit who you really are. And nothing requires that they show who they honestly are. But in the end, the value is that it makes everything real, which make nearly anything worth it.
@StrokeofThought -
Goofy people are the best! Seriously, I don’t know how all these cool jock-types or snobby covergirl-types survive. How boring their lives must be… When you’re a goof, you don’t have a social image to worry about, and that means freedom to do goofy, interesting things. Like learning dance moves from grandpa, smearing peanut butter over your sleeping friend’s face, or completely butchering a song by singing with the radio while you work. (Not to mention all the butterflies to chase after, street gutters to poke at, and the ever-enthralling, ever-changing vast expanse of blue overhead to gaze into.)
Heh, I bet your family’s silliness has nothing on mine. Seriously. Communication in this household often degrades to repeating single word sentences to the tune of Beethoven’s symphonies. (Not joking.)
I’m reminded of Psalm 8:1. Who needs sunshine when you can bask in holy majesty?
Please, please, please, please never ever give up being honest! Never ever. Genuine people are jewels amidst this quadruple-faced society. Indeed, being honestly who one is inside does leave one wide open. But even if one does get hurt, what’s it matter? The person doing the hurting is no better — perhaps even worse off, for they probably do not have the bravery to be honest.
All hurts can be healed. If they whack one down, then one can bounce back. (This is why Bobo dolls have always had my admiration.) And one can bounce back stronger and with better character than before! I believe honesty is worth the vulnerability, and even the pain. After all, what other options are there? Losing yourself inside fake actions, forced behaviors, and empty words — the mask. /end-Rant.
@Yume_Shii -
No way you guys are sillier! I recall family vacations filled with questions like “Mom hasn’t the sun gotten hotter since you were a kid?” and “Can clouds catch on fire?”, all the forts taking up the whole basement and the weird role-playing games we made up for them, the fits of being drunk with laughter where a few of us may simply be lying on the ground laughing for no reason, and on and on and on.
Recently I was talking to a friend about it and remarked, “The silliness of my family, I think, reflects the glory o God. I think of the dark places in the world, and then I think of my family, and how stupid it is, and it is a very beautiful thing.” LOL.
You say it all. It’s true. I take the quote “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation” to mean that the mass of men do not live honestly. They live in constant suppression of their true thoughts, always conforming to the atmosphere of thought they happen to be in, never thinking for themselves and chasing after the truth. Because deep inside everyone there’s a madman who wants to know the truth, and once you find him, you can never go back. To do so would be unbearable, for the knowledge of how deep reality really goes has stained one’s mind. One then becomes serious because of the search for truth, and silly because of the realization that social rules aren’t necessary. In total, a life worth living I should say.