|
Lovely_Ophelia
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Erin
Birthday: 5/11/1988
Gender: Female
Interests: I yearn to be better than I am. People interest me... they also confuse me. People hurt, but they certainly feel good to be around. When I have time to be interested in philosophical and scientific things, I like to be. The universe is beautiful, isn't it? I like it best because I believe the beautiful things reflect God. Just as I yearn to be better than I am, I yearn to live in perfection in a land beyond sin.
Expertise: Theatre's a great one that I'm working on. I'm trying to learn all things theatre (except for scriptwriting, I think). Other things I'm an expert at is accidentally giving people the wrong impression, being naive, misreading or mishearing things because my head rearranged the letters, and saying things out loud I meant to just think.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Theatre and music
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
8/6/2004
|
|
| I'm heading further away from being a rationalist.
My personal definition of rationalism:
A philosophy dedicated to logically working out a system of right and wrong, with optimism that humanity can eventually work specific or all problems out this way.
While my high-school self would not be so happy with this development, I feel it's a good progression (and, hey, I have more practical experience than my high-school self. What does she know, right?)
I feel that the reasons to cling *completely* to rationalism are more than a little fearful and cowardly.
- I think it's based on the hope that you can intellectually figure things to the point where you can, eventually, avoid making any mistakes at all. The ideal life would be to structure yourself a perfect box made of principles, one that protects you from ever being unsure, or in danger of being wrong.
- It's way too optimistic. If that were so, I really think that humanity as a whole would be a lot better by now. But the thing is that some people just aren't going to be willing to change or improve themselves just for the betterment of other people. (CHOOSE to be unselfish.)
- Finally, while it feels great to work everything out philosophically, as if it really can save people from doing the wrong thing, the overwhelming problem is that people do have the ability to figure out what would be the right thing; BUT they do not want to risk what they have, and inconvenience themselves in order to open their minds to an idea of greater good outside of themselves, and make personal sacrifices for this.
It also creates a loophole for my biggest problem with smart people:
They can choose to do whatever it is they wanted to do, anyway, and then they're smart enough to justify it. They can even convince themself that they are right, and allow no one to be able to change their mind.
Conclusion:
Life can't be "safe."
People are selfish. (Define or explain how you will: need to survive, inability to truly see life from another's eyes.)
You should open your mind enough to see an outside perspective.
You can have all the great philosophy you want, but it doesn't matter if you don't go and DO the RIGHT thing. Even if it hurts.
And... ALL generalizations are at least a little wrong ;)
| | |
| Today I jogged.
I miss doing that...
not on a treadmill.
OUTSIDE. At sunset. It goes from that beautiful last breath of the blue sky, sinking into a pink glow, and the frogs begin chirping as it turns into dusk and stars appear... anyway, I wax poetic. And it is off my main point.
I like to talk to God while I'm outside.
When I see a huge sky above me, it makes it clearer that he's there and can see me, and is a Big God.
So I was running through my head how recently I realized that in recent history I had written off several possible relationships because I have been focused. And that, in itself, is fine. I've been heading towards earning a degree in a state other than where I grow up and choose to return, which seems less-than-ideal for relationships. So I've been kind of living with blinders on, and for most things I've kind of been treating life decisions like items in my class catalogue, and God as the advisor. (Picture me walking around pointing to relationships or people or decisions and saying to God, "is it this? Okay, how about this? Does this fit into the prescribed plan?") Maybe this fit that one stage of my life... but what would be better is for me to just come up to God and say "What do you want me to do, now, God? Just listen? And I'll take what you give. Not guess based on what I expect might work."
This was probably a seed planted from the Bible study last night. It was the passage in Mark when Jesus has just fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread for the second time, and then the pharisees demand a sign from Jesus and he says that generation (or tribe, or race) will never get the sign they demand. Later, he turns to the disciples and tells them to "beware the leaven of the Pharisees" (which "leaven" was a metaphor for poison, at the time, I hear). So the disciples begin to "discuss" among each other. The word for "discuss" is something that was otherwise usually used to describe the Pharisees behaviour, and the implication was that the disciples responded to his warning by doing exactly what he told them not to: turn away from the relationship they had with him, and decide among themselves as a group and according to culture what he meant. They decided he said that because they were running out of bread... because obviously a man who could feed a thousand people with one loaf would be worried about this?!! Brilliancy. What a mindtrust they were on their own...
That was all to say... they turned away from the relationship aspect of their being followers, and instead turned to the moral structure that they could construct away from him.
So I let this ruminate, and then I got to another part where I had walked to, and I turned around, and decided I was going to run all the way back down the street I had walked. So I picked a spot at the end, and booked it to that. While I was trying to make sure I didn't step in potholes while still focusing on that far away spot, I thought of another image from the Bible study the night before: the disciples, and we as believers, are like toddlers that are continually falling, with God just above us saying "just keep coming, I see you falling, it's gonna be okay, look, you're walking!" And it doesn't matter if I fall down, or look silly to other people, it's that I'm still heading toward God and where he wants me. Or even if it looks like it's the wrong thing, it's just me heading towards God.
And so... I guess I was told several things:
I'm heading into a time when I need to rely more on my relationship, one-on-one, with God, and not rely on the outside things. (Culture, parents, how I've been raised, how things will look, whether it will fit into my ideal life that I think I've built...)
I'm going to fall. That's okay. Scrapes or injuries will happen to me. People will see me fall down, but that doesn't matter, from the outside. What matters is that I'm running towards God.
And, as I told my mother some of this, I realized I ignore what might be God, and rule it out, if it comes in a form I wouldn't expect or am not used to. Oops. I... am guilty.
But maybe this is exciting  | | |
| Please don't lynch me.
On a more serious note: if you disagree, please talk to me about this. I do listen, I do want to talk. If you have a good point, by all means convince me! I don't want to be wrong (if I am!) If you just get mad at me, I won't know how to listen to your point.
Anyway, here's a summary of what I believe, and why I'm voting the way I'm going to in the next election:
John McCain: Not my first choice... liberal on issues I would rather not, conservative on some I would rather not, also... but... moving on...
Sarah Palin: I actually like her! Not only that, but so does Alaska: at one point she had an 80% approval rating. And she has more experience than Senator Obama.
Obama: He's changed on issues before. He doesn't have enough experience. He doesn't have new ideas, he's just recycling socialism! (Wealth redistribution.) And I think he's just repeating what his advisers tell him will get him elected.
Joe Biden: Umm... I'll admit I don't know much, but it doesn't matter if I don't trust Obama. Which I don't.
Gun control: Good people should be able to get guns, so not just bad people have them. We should have better enforcement of existing gun laws, not more laws (that may not be enforced any better than the ones we have.)
Abortion: It's not part of the woman's body, it's a genetically separate being. How can you be so sure it's a mass of tissues? If there's a reasonable doubt, then human life is too precious of a thing to have a doubt about.
Rape, or incest pregnancies: Horrible for the woman. However, when they're reeling from the horror and confusion, choosing what seems to be the easy way out, but which has great physical and psychological risks for her, is adding a terrible decision onto a horrible situation.
Gay marriage:
I still think it's a matter of redefining a word through a law since "marriage" has historically meant a man and a woman.
If the argument is that marriage should be a personal choice, not regulated or prevented by the government, FINE! Wonderful. I agree. The only reason you would need a law changed is because you want 1) tax breaks, 2) a certificate that approves your marriage by the government, 3) the ability to legally force people to recognize you the same way they recognize committed heterosexual couples. If it's personal.... why do you need the government's approval? That's a real question, not rhetorical.
As a sidenote on this:
I think this goes back to another difference in the way liberalism thinks of government vs. conservatism: whether you think of government as an entity unto itself, and a producer and mediator of the nation's culture (a liberal way of looking at it) or as a product of a group of people's culture, and just a name for the enforcement of laws to keep order (a conservative way of looking at it.)
The war in Iraq:
It's a big mess. Yes. Wars are messy, Bush SAID it would be long, and he was right... The work and lives lost would truly be lost if there was not a slow, systematic reduction of troops and involvement. I don't trust Obama to do that, but I think McCain would have a much better perspective on war because of his experiences.
Okay, if you read this, first of all thank you for taking the time. Secondly: if you don't want to discuss this, fine. But please don't judge me. I promise to do my best to not, either.
| | |
|
I had a lot of trouble sleeping when I was a child. I've always had a very active mind, and been a worrier, so it's not surprising. I couldn't focus my mind and keep it there, or stay still in my head long enough to let myself be asleep.
My father gave me the advice to lay back, and imagine the most calming place I could imagine...
I forget exactly what he said, but that place that resulted from this goal became almost reality for me. It changed in one detail or other every time... sometimes I was laying face upwards in a hill covered in tulips, sometimes I was floating in a pond, with lily pads around me. I was always looking up at a night sky with the breeze lightly flowing over me. A perfect night sky looking down at me, and the stars and I smiled.
That story may have seemed pointless, so the point is here: I desperately wish I could go there. Me, and someone I love, caught between in timeless simplicity. (I can't truly enjoy something until I share it.) I long for it like a child longs for home.
Instead I am fighting through tangled strings of people's lives and how they intertwine. It's a sticky web, and I can't always see the goal. I need a signal fire.
I am not as steady as I seem. If my friends think it is so, it is because I've learned to house the zig-zagging fire within me, and only let it out in the right directions. But sometimes I feel it burning, burning until it reaches my fingertips and I'm sure it will come shooting out of my eyes at any moment!
But I stay where I am. Nothing happens.
And I am still longing.
"Blue Hands I-X" by Daniele Buetti, 2005. Via Artnet.comAddendum: Yet when I look at my imperfect night sky, I know everything can be okay. I feel I am guided, I know I am taken care of. All I lack is a still moment and someone to take my hand...
Life is a beautiful mess. But it cleans up nice.
| | |
|
"I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."
- Jane Eyre, by Bronte
This, and one other thought will have to do for now: At any moment, there are really only three things that you truly have - yourself, God, and the options available right now. Every moment is a starting point for getting where you want to go. Until you promise otherwise, the Choice, the Action and the Consequence belong to you and no one else.
| | |
|
