November 30, 2003
I love Christmas season.
Just read about a woman who was trampled in a Wal-Mart. Apparently the other patrons were so busy in their respective searches for junk to buy that they completely ignored this helpless woman at their feet.
I graduated last May with a Marketing degree. I help run a marketing company. And reading that made me sick to my stomach. Something is wrong here.
Our lives have become so much about the pursuit of more. I know, it's a cliche. But cliches exist for a reason.
My grandfather created new explosives for mining in Alaska during the 60's and 70's. He also helped invent the collapsible steering column. The man became ridiculously wealthy. Had a terrific place on Lookout Mountain. Had all the trappings that worldly success brings.
When he was dying of cancer, he became a Christian. Happy ending? Sure, in one sense.
But the man also died with despair. He looked back at his life and what he made of it. His conclusion was that it was an enormous waste. All of it. His life was for nothing. And he was too old, too sick to do anything about it. All he could do was live with regret.
He had all the stuff. And it meant nothing.
When I think about my life, what my dreams have consisted of, I'm filled with despair. I'm a pretty creative guy, and have always wanted to capitalize on that creativity to make as much money as humanly possible. I've managed to put quite a track-record of successes together during my short time on Earth. My closest friends all enjoy the game of telling me what I could do and how much I can make. It's easy to buy into it.
I have. Completely. If unchecked, I could very easily be just like my grandfather. I could make millions, creating clever products that people can buy for their loved ones while trampling their neighbors. I could have a nice house on a mountain. I could have all that stuff.
But it would mean nothing.
It's a very scary thought, because it strips me of what has long been my biggest goal. Why would I intentionally pursue a goal that I knew deep down was hollow?
What really sucks, what scares the living hell out of me, is that there's still a very good chance I'll do exactly that. After all, my loved ones all believe in me. I can't let them down. Right?
I love Christmas season.
November 28, 2003
How do we avoid judging people?
In my quest to systematically eliminate character flaws, I hit upon this one recently. And it's a doozy. I honestly don't have the slightest idea how to go through life, to go through a single day, and not judge someone. Very rarely do I make my judgment known - most of the time it's an internal process. But it happens. All the time.
I know I'm not alone on this one. It's extremely difficult to avoid being a judgmental person. We have all grown up with certain prejudices, and they go way beyond the biggies we traditionally think of.
I personally place judgment on children born into wealth. My natural instinct is to think of them as spoiled and lazy. Accurate? Absolutely not. Do I know how to stop thinking it? Not a clue.
We all judge each other constantly. The Christian judges the non-Christian. The non-Christian judges the Christian. They both judge the Mormon. Everyone judges Paris Hilton.
Do these people possess, or at least exhibit, the characteristics we judge them for? Perhaps. But that doesn't change the nature of our judgment or make it any less wrong.
What's particularly ironic is the ever-increasing trend of judging those who judge. We're becoming particularly gifted at looking at someone and calling them "close-minded," which is another way of saying "judgmental." But doing so by definition makes us close-minded as well.
Here's the thing that very few of us get. In order to be "open-minded" in its truest sense, we have to be willing to accept the beliefs of others who aren't open-minded. So that means that the atheist needs to understand and respect the fact that the Christian feels they have an obligation by faith to talk to said atheist about their God. The atheist is by no means obligated to change their mind about anything, but they do have an obligation, in the interest of being open-minded and avoiding hypocrisy, to say "I respect their belief, and their felt need to spread the word about it."
A difficult thing to do.
For the Christian, who believes in a world where there are moral absolutes (something that's technically impossible in a world without a Creator,) the problem becomes even harder. I have to be able to say that there are certain things that are right and wrong. I have to be convicted about that fact. I have to be unafraid to say when I think something is wrong. But, I have to tread the very fine line between talking about a person's actions or lifestyle and talking about the person themself.
Extremely hard to do. But until I can do that I'm a hypocrite.
Hypocrite. I hate the way that word looks and sounds. I hate that I look and sound like that word.
November 27, 2003
A lot of people knock Christianity, describing it as a huge mass of people who do whatever the church tells them to do, who are absolutely incapable of thinking for themselves.
In a lot of cases, those people are right. But I don't think that's how it's supposed to be.
People, not just Christians, have a natural tendency to gravitate towards the mass. Marx believed in organizing a nation around the premise of "sacrifice for the good of the whole." Problem was, it didn't work.
It never does. The mass is not the ideal, but rather the distraction, the tool used to dull our senses. And it's been used with alarming accuracy.
We're becoming stupid. We make the decision, consciously or not, to pay careful attention to what everyone thinks. We follow trends in music, in clothing, even with our financial futures (the stock market is the biggest conglomerate mass of idiocy ever devised. The people who make the money are the ones who go against the mass.) We're a nation of fat people who don't like to think for ourselves. And the church is no exception.
The Christian church has become a world of conciliation. They don't want to upset people, so they avoid difficult topics. They want to "embrace" everyone, to attract the largest mass possible, and water down their message to do so.
The thing is, people don't really want to be watered down. They want their lives to stand for something important. They want a high bar to jump over. There's a reason why Mormonism is the fastest growing faith in the world. There's a reason why Islam is recruiting thousands of people all over the world.
Mormons and Muslims have strong, convicted beliefs that they don't apologize for. Christians hide their beliefs because they don't want to offend the mass.
God doesn't want a relationship with a big blob of people thinking for each other. He wants a relationship with individuals. Deep down, we know that. Deep down, that's why we gravitate towards the mass.
Christianity is at its heart a pretty solitary life. It's designed to slowly strip us of our explanations, get rid of our rationalizations for our actions, and tear us away from the mass. The goal is to eventually be laid bare before God - vulnerable, small, needy. As an individual before God, the opinion of the mass doesn't matter. That's why we're deathly afraid of getting to that point.
The mass tells us that deep down we're terrific people. The mass tells us that in the end everyone's just fine. The mass gives us explanations for our actions.
"Everyone's doing it."
"Everyone goes through that phase when they get to college."
"Everyone shares the same brain. According to the schedule, it's your turn to have it next Wednesday."
The mass is nice. God is loving. The mass is amiable. God is just. The mass likes us just as we are. God holds us accountable.
The thing is, the mass doesn't end up giving us anything. It can't. The mass doesn't carry with it that purpose we all desperately are looking for. We are designed to become solitary individuals, separated from the mass. We are designed to come face-to-face with our own destiny, our own path in this life, and our God.
The power of thought is not man's greatest gift - the power to become solitary is.
November 26, 2003
Pascal was on to something with his wager. He said you have four choices, with four consequences.
-there is no God and you believe there is; you live your life, die, and become dirt.
-there is no God and you don't believe there is; you live your life, die, and become dirt.
-there is a God and you believe in him; you die and go to Heaven.
-there is a God and you reject him; you die and are judged.
Given the four choices, Pascal made a "bet" and choose to believe in God. Not the most touching testimony, but one nonetheless.
Philosophers argue that it is not a sound philisophical argument. They're right. But does that change the four options?
November 23, 2003
Christianity doesn't make sense. It's not supposed to.
It is nearly impossible to enter a university in America these days and not be bombarded by the lack of belief in the Christian God. Students leave the protective womb that is their childhood home, and eagerly embark on a journey of self-discovery and newfound freedom. In that journey, many students make the choice to forsake much of what they were raised on. If Christianity was a part of their lives, it is often dropped during school, in favor of another life where there are no moral absolutes.
I know. I did it myself.
Being a Christian is hard. Perhaps the most difficult thing a person can do. It requires what appears to be the suspension of a certain amount of logic, and the acceptance of certain paradoxes inherent in the faith.
Perhaps this is the whole point though. Kierkegaard thought so. He believed that faith is the most important thing a human being can achieve, but it is also the most difficult. It can't be given to us by a pastor or parents or friends - it's a matter of individual subjectivism. Such an idea places a tremendous responsibility on the shoulders of the person, because their spititual choices determine their ultimate fate. Kierkegaard believed that this choice produces anxiety, and that anxiety provides two equal and opposite feelings - the dread associated with choosing your eternal fate, and the exhileration associated with the freedom of choice.
The concept of Christianity is one of paradoxes, and Kierkegaard believed these paradoxes result in a belief system that is offensive to the human mind. He believed that left us with only two choices - have faith or take offense. You have to make a choice - by choosing faith you suspend reason, thereby believing in something higher than reason.
Christian faith actually embraces the absurd - the absurdity that an eternal being would have the temporal, human attributes of love, kindness, anger, etc. The absurdity that such an eternal being could possibly have become temporal in nature, taking on a human body in the form of Christ. The absurdity that an all-loving, all-just God could command Abraham to take his son to the top of a mountain and kill him.
Yes, Christianity is absurd - it's offensive to us. Many of us go to school and decide to reject it, and often further decide to take become offended when someone else still believes it. But maybe that's the whole point. Faith isn't supposed to easy.
Today's culture places a tremendous focus on individuality. It is believed that having one's own goals, dreams, beliefs, etc. is the mark of the true intellectual, and that because we're becoming more comfortable being individuals, we must be evolving as a society.
But are we really acting as individuals in the truest sense?
Someone comes out of the closet and marches in a Gay Pride parade. People argue that those who agree with (or simply lack intense hatred toward) Bush are simply sheep, and demonstrate their ability to think for themselves by marching with 100,000 other people in the UK.
Bloggers, claiming to be exercising their ultimate freedom of speech, spend more time getting links from other blogs than they do writing in their own, in order to become more popular.
In truth, isn't any appeal to the opinion of others and expression of collectivism rather than of individuality? If we were interested in writing our ideas and thoughts down simply as a mode of venting, why put those thoughts online? Is it because deep down, we think we're extremely profound/entertaining/worth listening to? Is it because we truly seek affirmation from others, whether they be our friends or some guy in Luxembourg?
I claim to write this blog as a method for eliminating ego - that by exposing my flaws in front of other people, by humiliating myself with a public profession of weakness, I can somehow become less of an arrogant prick and avoid the wrath of God chopping me down through suffering.
But I have a space for comments at the end of my posts. I signed up for the free service, put the code into my page, and link to it at the bottom. No comments yet. But I'm sure when they come in, I'll read intently. Whether they be positive or negative, I still have a desire to know what other people think of my thoughts, even of my weaknesses.
I'm a liar. At the very least, I'm not an individual. Truth is, I'm not even sure how to become one.
November 21, 2003
There's a tremendous amount of loneliness in the lives of women today.
I went to dinner with the folks this evening. Across from us was a couple, probably in their late 30's. The husband was reading the paper, the wife was fiddling with her enchiladas.
Literally ten words were exchanged between the two of them.
You could see it in her eyes. She was married, she lived with the man, yet she was desperately lonely. Her eyes were screaming for him to say something nice to her, to let her know that he cared about her, that he thought she looked beautiful. But nothing.
We've all heard the statistics about divorce rates. Even in the "perfect Christian" marriages, the rate hovers around 40%.
Men cringe at the thought that their girlfriend or wife would ever cheat on them. But we rarely take the time to think about the damage we do to these women. We think of ourselves as gods among men. We go on a constant search for money, fame, power. We buy more toys. We work more. We become tremendously successful in everyone's eyes.
All the while, our women are dying inside. We men have fallen for the money trap. We work at everything but our relationships. We engage in sins of neglect. Our women feel lonely and isolated.
I'm sure when that man in the restaurant first met that woman, he thought she was the most beautiful creature to have ever graced his life. When they got married, he probably told her to what extraordinary lengths he would have gone to make her deliriously happy. He would have been willing to die for her. And now? He makes her feel isolated and alone. Each night she forces herself to fight back the tears, to swallow the bitterness inside.
When your woman cheats on you, it's your fault. The guys who are desperately afraid of commitment are better than the guys who are in relationships but don't give their women what they need. Your woman doesn't want the money and the fame. She wants you.
So put down to f*%$ing paper and tell her she's beautiful.
November 20, 2003
Finished what turned out to be a horrible failure of a fast. Sure, I didn't eat anything the entire time, although I desperately wanted to. But last night my business partner and I met up with the editor of a local newspaper for drinks. On three days with no food, I made the brilliant decision to order a Jameson. Followed by a beer.
Left the bar nearly obliterated at 7.
So I could get to a Bible study on time.
Who is so idiotic as to show up at a Bible study reeking of cigarettes and alcohol and making WAY too many jokes and talking WAY too loud?
How honoring is it to the Lord if you abstain from food but find drunkenness to be completely acceptable?
Oh, and I read this morning that I'm not supposed to talk about my fast. The Pharisees liked to go around talking about how they fasted to demonstrate how "holy" they were. The Pharisees are the epitome of arrogance and corruption.
I'm a Pharisee. A drunk one.
November 19, 2003
I'm on day three of my four-day fast.
I LOVE food. I miss it dearly. But this has been a pretty phenomenal experience. You begin to become acutely aware of your own frailty. You begin to realize how precious your relaxation time is. And when you hit the wall, when your body screams to provide it with fuel, and you are able to push past it and trust God instead, you come upon the greatest realization of all:
I need God more than I need food.
What an incredible thing to discover. Day two was absolutely horrible, but today I've felt a level of energy I didn't think I had left. These first couple hours of the day have been incredibly productive, and at the same time very peaceful. Right now I'm happy with my place in this world. I'm content. A rare feeling for someone as ambitious (naive?) as myself. This has been really good for me.
Of course, I'm still looking forward to eating. A Wendy's hamburger has never sounded so good.
November 18, 2003
Humor is difficult to find these days.
Much of what is termed "humor" is actually its evil twin, sarcasm. Sarcasm is less about making the other person feel good and much, much more about making them feel bad to make yourself feel better. It's strange that such a feeling would be pleasurable, but I should know - I've somehow managed to lose my sense of humor and replace it with an abundant supply of sarcasm.
I'm unsure when exactly that happened, but happen it did. I've been noticing it more and more lately, and it makes me feel sick inside. I've subconsciously trained my brain to act as a radar, constantly listening for any comment that could be responded to with something very witty and guaranteed not to make the other person feel any better about their life. I do it to my friends, my parents, my business partner, and most likely myself.
I've had three people tell me that my voicemail message is sarcastic. I officially have a problem.
I don't consider myself an unhappy person by any means, and I don't think anyone would characterize me that way. So that leaves me wrestling with the obvious quesiton; why be sarcastic?
I think it might come back to my ego problem, which in recent weeks has been revealed to me more and more as the source of most of my problems. My constant pursuit of humorous observation is most likely a way to prove to myself how clever I am. But it has led me down this horrible path of sarcasm, and I am unsure how to turn it around.
In the end, sarcasm doesn't make anyone feel better. It certainly doesn't make the object of the sarcasm feel good about themselves. But perhaps less perceptable is the slow process that each sarcastic remark has on oneself. You begin to become hard, cold to the world around you. You feel a little less good about yourself, and before you know it, your natural instinct is to find someone else to bring down a notch. And so it goes.
Believe me, this is not a fun realization. One of the more depressing things to discover about yourself. The beauty about life is that tomorrow I can wake up and try to do something different. Try to stop and think about what I say before I let words fly, as I'm notorious for doing. To call someone up and just let them know that I care about them and think they are a terrific person.
At the very least, I can change my voicemail message.
November 16, 2003
Stubbornness...I'm not sure if that's a word, but it's definitely a condition. I don't get into arguments often - in fact, I try to avoid them as much as possible. But when the times come where an argument cannot be avoided, another person begins to well up inside of me.
This person isn't like the hulk - I don't yell, I don't break things and my skin doesn't turn green. It's my ego that grows, out of control, creating a monster that absolutely refuses to give in to any argument.
I've always been a relatively gifted debater, which has helped me influence people in more cases than not. But with the talent of rhetorical discussion comes a problem: you begin to really think of yourself as one of the smartest people in the world. You begin to think that, no matter what the discussion, your point is somehow more valid than the opinion of the person you are talking to.
What results is not communication, at least not the kind of open and honest communication that such discussions call for. Instead, you're simply waiting for the other person to stop moving their mouth so you can give them your beautifully-crafted argument. Any listening that you do engage in is simply to identify the weaknesses or flaws in their argument, all the while ignoring the flaws within your own platform.
Of course, this is obvious to few. I've become very good at pretending to listen, at saying the right things to make people think that I truly care about what they're saying.
"Oh, that's interesting. I haven't heard it from that perspective before."
"I see where you're coming from. It would be easy to arrive at that conclusion."
"I see your lips moving, but I have no idea what is coming out of them."
The funny thing is, the only person who really knows that I do this is the person who I'm closest with. I have done a pretty good job at pulling the proverbial wool over most people's eyes. But she sees it. And it hurts her tremendously. I have become a master at manipulating what should be an open and shut discussion (something bothers her, I tell her I'm sorry, I make a conscious effort to fix it, she's happy) and turning it into a clear-cut example of why she's a horrible person.
She's not a horrible person. She's a great person. But because of this "gift" I've been "blessed" with, I can make her convince herself she's terrible for having the audacity to suggest that there's something wrong with me.
I'm sorry. I'll make a conscious effort to fix it. I hope you're happy.
No, really.
November 07, 2003
I've started attending a Bible study the past couple of weeks, and I forgot how nice it is to spend time learning about God. I also realized how much more of that I need to be doing. For years I've put a ridiculous amount of energy into a lot of things - the obvious one being business, an equally obvious one (for those who know me) my relationships, and depending on my mood my physical fitness. But my spiritual life has been pretty lax.
It really is amazing what starts happening to you when you spend time in the Bible, and spend time praying. I've had a difficult time getting to sleep for years - lay down at 10 with every intention of putting in a solid 8-hour sleep shift. But restlessness always resulted. I used to pray at pretty random times and with no sort of regularity. But I've recently been praying every night before I go to sleep, and I've been zonking out immediately. It's incredible to feel all the burdens of your life and of the past day lifted off of you as you give them up to God.
Reading the Bible has also been beneficial for me in terms of providing wisdom and guidance. I grew up in the church, and felt I knew all the Bible stories, which in large part I do. But my study is a much more mature one as an adult. I actually study the verses, not just read them. Without fail, I've been receiving guidance for problems I'm facing, as well as wisdom for problems I didn't know I've had. Day by day, I'm learning to control my ego, learning patience, and most of all beginning to understand that I don't have to be in control of everything (which is an enormous leap for me to be taking.)
I'm nearly 23, but I feel like an infant in terms of my spiritual life. You know what? It's a pretty exhilerating feeling.
