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Tal Tales
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Warning: this post is nothing other than introspection. I'm writing it down for my own purposes, and in case anyone else would be curious. But if you are inclied to respond "What a pile of narcissistic garbage", then please be assured there is no need.
I had some sort of major existential crisis in the car on the way home from work last night.
Since I was a young teenager, I have been trying to figure out just who the heck I am. I look at myself, my behavior, and I try to understand why I do what I do. Many times, I seem to see just a hollow shell; I can't find anything at my core.
I am a chameleon. On most issues, I tend to agree with the person I am talking to. I have always told myself that it is because I try to maintain an open mind, and see everything from others' perspectives in order to understand tham. Last night, though, it seemed to me more likely that I have no core to understand from. That inside me, there is nothing immutable or stable, no solid place from which I could make judgments. I don't know if I had one and eroded it away to nothing, or if I never had one in the first place, but I was having trouble finding anything last night.
It has always been important to me to be "good", but last night I couldn't find what good meant. My religious faith, which would suggest that there is an objective good outside myself, has been a little shaky of late, and I felt compelled to question what guides me. Last night, it seemed to me that what I define as "good" is more likely "what makes other people like me".
I've always known that I have a great need for approval, and to be liked. Looking inside myself, though, I was alarmed to find that I couldn't find anything else at my center. If at my core I am nothing more that a desire to have other people like me, it would make sense that most of my behaviors and opinions fluctuate from moment to moment. What sort of person is that, though, who has no center, no core? It seems to me that such a person is almost valueless.
The image that came into my mind was of a tangle of ropes. From inside me, there are ropes stretching out to other people, and those ropes pull on me. It seemed to me that my center was nothing more than a knot in the ropes, with no substance aside from the tension of opposite forces. That knot may feel like a distinct entity, but really, it's nothing more than tangled ropes. There isn't anything there which is real, solid. The knot is nothing more than the ropes which pull on it.
What do I do which I would not do differently?
What values are at my core, and independent of others?
If I were free of any responsibility, and nobody even knew of my existence, would I be anything at all?
If I were alone in the world--no other people, but ample resources--what would I do with my time?
The thought that my wanting to do good is really nothing more than wanting to do what people approve of is profoundly disturbing to me.
I'm still not sure. It may be that that need to be liked is itself some core, invariant quality (but what a lousy thing to build a person on!). I have come up with a few other potential candidates. I love stories. I love creating things, such as computer programs.
I think maybe this is why I have always felt drawn to some sort of solitary adventure, like hiking the Appalachian Trail. Maybe what I need is a good vision quest--to go off alone, strip away all relationships and responsibilites, strip away all supports, and see what's left underneath. If anything.
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I also posted this in Sensory Overload, but what the heck.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
I saw Chronicles of Narnia last night.
Overall, excellent, I'd say. They did a fine job of keeping the meat of the story, while making minor changes needed to make it work well as a movie. It is inevitable that one will compare this to Lord of the Rings, of course. It may be that this did a better job of adapting the story than LOTR, but of course LOTR is a much, much bigger story and bigger challenge to adapt. Regardless, this was a fine movie of a fun book.
I was especially pleased that they didn't feel obliged to eviscerate the Christian allegory. While the most obvious nods to the story of Christ have been slightly toned down, a surprising amount remains. It's a nice job of making it profoundly meaningful to those who appreciate the story of Christ from a religious perspective, while not forcing one to see it in those terms (you can also view it as the basic archetype of sacrifice and redemption, without religious doctrine).
Some high points: Tilda Swinton is absolutely PERFECT as the White Witch. Magnificently evil, otherworldly, smooth, charismatic, powerful. She was one of the best points in the film for me. Lucy and Edmund were also played very well, I thoroughly enjoyed their performances. The effects were excellent, as one would expect. I was very impressed with the quality of the CG animals (except maybe the Beavers), they were entirely believable. Mr. Tumnus also turned in a fine performance, with some subtlety.
Things I was slightly less pleased with: While I though Peter and Susan were well-played, I was not as impressed with them as with Lucy and Edmund. I had a harder time seeing the nobility in their characters that is, I think, as important as Edmund's challenges and Lucy's innocence and spirit. Aslan is one of the most important characters, and while again I was not exactly displeased, I was not awestruck (and Aslan should be awe-inspiring). Liam Neeson did the voice, and he has a beautiful and skillful voice, but it is too human fr Aslan. He's not a tame Lion; his voice should not be urbane. The way I have always envisioned Aslan, he's the sort of being that whether you love him or despise him, you have no choice but to kneel in his presence. Him being there should make it almost impossible to pay attention to anything else. In this movie, he was impressive, powerful, and compassionate (all of which are important), but I would have liked him to be even more so on all three. He's not just another character.
Nice battle footage, and an excellent job of keeping the story focused and faithful but not slavish. 3.5 out of 4 stars from me.
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So last night, Ellen and I went to see the opening night of Parsifal, Wagner's opera, at the LA Opera. I had only been to one Wagner opera (Tannhauser) before. Conductor was Kent Nagano, Parsifal played by Placido Domingo.
One important piece of information: the staging and costumes were by Robert Wilson, who is an avant-garde stage designer, quoted as saying something along the lines of "I don't like the theater".
His stage design was minimalist, to say the least (so to speak). The basic stage was bare except for what looked like a whole lot of stacked plexiglass plates, forming a ramp over the whole stage. Actually, those looked pretty cool; kind of like ice, or a lake. Other stage designs will be noted below.
The costumes were bizarre--mostly weird black angular constructions of what looked like felt, except for Gurnemanz, who was dressed as a giant lower-case letter "y", as far as I could tell.
Anyway, the stage direction apparently consisted mostly of "hold still for about fifteen minutes at a time, except for occasional extremely slow hand or leg movements". Now do that for about five hours, including two twenty-minute intermissions, add some truly exquisite music (Wagner may have been an anti-Semitic egomaniacal arsehole, but he was a musical genius), and you've got this staging of Parsifal. Actually, I had a pretty good time, but the staging was really bizarre.
Below, is my five-minute summary of the two and a half hour first act:
Act 1
(setting is the Grail castle, where a band of knights have been charged with guarding two holy artifacts: the Grail, and the Holy Spear (which wounded Christ on the cross). )
Gurnemanz: What a nice morning. It's time for Amfortas' bath. Poor guy.
Kundry (semi-demonic witch beautiful woman): Here. Have some balsam. It'll help him.
Gurnemanz: Cool. Thanks.
Kundry: Fuck off.
(by the way: that all took about 30 minutes)
Offstage voices: Hey! Someone killed a swan.
(enter Parsifal)
Gurnemanz: You're not supposed to kill swans. Who are you?
Parsifal: I don't know.
Gurnemanz: Where are you from?
Parsifal: I don't know.
Gurnemanz: Who are your parents?
Parsifal: I don't know.
Gurnemanz (to himself): Hmmm. We've been told to expect an "innocent fool, wise through compassion", who could heal Amfortas of his wound. Maybe this is him.
(to Parsifal): Well, you certainly fill the "idiot" part. Come on into the Grail Hall, and we'll see what part of it you understand.
(At this point, two pieces of scenery appear. The first is what seems to be an iceberg, drifting SLOWLY in from stage right. The other is what I will henceforth call the Neon Donut of Wisdom, which is a big glowing donut descending from the top. These come together , with the donut surrounding the iceberg, in a process which takes at least five minutes and during which NOTHING ELSE IS HAPPENING. I am not kidding.)
Amfortas: AAAAAGH! Someone please kill me and put me out of my misery. That damn evil sorcerer Klingsor (I'm not making up the name) stole the Holy Spear and stabbed me with it, and the wound won't heal. I suck. I SUCK!
Gurnemanz and knights: Show us the Grail.
Amfortas. AAAAARGH! No way. I suck too much.
Titurel or some such (Amfortas' father, who is dead): I'm only mostly dead. Now show us the grail before I have to go revenant on you.
Amfortas. Fine.
(shows them the Grail--or rather, has some person do something with the iceberg, and maybe hand something invisible to him, or maybe not, we can't tell. Amfortas then lifts his hands up and walks SLOWLY around the Donut of Wisdom, with his hands glowing. The walk takes about ten minutes.)
Audience: Wait. Is he holding the grail? Is the iceberg the grail? Is the guy the grail, or his glowing hand? Am I too impure to see the grail? What the hell is going on, and why is it going on so SLOWLY?
(Amfortas finishes his walk, then disappears from view behind the Donut of Wisom, leaving Gurnemanz standing on it looking at Parsifal, who is standing downstage left, looking at Gurnemanz. Gorgeous orchestral music.)
Amfortas: (looks at Parsifal)
Parsifal: (looks at Amfortas, slowly lifts foot up, then puts it back)
Amfortas: (looks at Parsifal)
Parsifal: (looks at Amfortas)
Amfortas: (looks at Parsifal)
Parsifal: (looks at Amfortas, makes odd twirly motion with his hand)
(this goes on for about ten minutes--I am not making that up--with nobody saying or doing ANYTHING. Then comes my favorite line of the whole opera.)
Gurnemanz (suddenly): Why are you standing there like that? Did you understand anything about what you just saw?
(At this point, I heard suppressed chuckles from my entire row, and felt people's shoulders shaking with laughter.)
Audience: NO! WE DIDN'T! AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STANDING THERE LIKE THAT?
Parsifal: (says nothing)
Gurnemanz: You're just an idiot. Go away.
Parsifal: (leaves).
End of Act 1.
Act 2 involves Parsifal getting the Spear back from Klingsor (dressed as Ming the Merciless in black felt) and avoiding fleshly temptation by a bunch of witches (who he thinks might be flowers) and Kundry. He does so by being profoundly stupid. Seriously, that's what makes him the good guy.
Act 3 involves Parsifal returning the spear to the Knights and using it to heal Amfortas. Also in this act is the Attack of the Giant Scenery Bird, Return of the Donut of Wisdom (sans iceberg, with a BBQ pit instead), and the World's Slowest Whac-A-Mole Game.
It was actually pretty fun.
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I have always believed that one of the biggest problems facing the world/society is fear of the "other". It produces so many misunderstandings, and causes so many of those misunderstandings to turn violent. I have been thinking about the source of that fear, and I am beginning to wonder if it might also be tied into the sort if incurious worldview that (it seems to me) is becoming increasingly common.
It feels to me as though more and more people are uninterested in the world around them, or in thinking about why things happen the way they do. I even wonder if this is the source of some types of religious fundamentalism--the world seems frightening and incomprehensible, and so it becomes easier to simply explain any occurrence as "God's will" and whomp anyone who says differently. Or, to use a less extreme but more common example, to simply not care about finding out why things work they way they do, and instead watch TV. Not that I object to TV...
In any case, I am beginning to think that fear of the unknown, religious fundamentalism, and anti-intellectualism may have a common cause, which is at its core a lack of faith that the world around us can be understood. If one can say reach the point of saying "Well, I see how phenomenon B seems to arise from process A. I wonder if phenomenon C comes from something similar?", and then decide to investigate (or read about others' investigations), one can come to the conclusion that the world is not hostile and inscrutable. Rather, one might decide that the world is complex and subtle, but one can gain increasing understanding of it by study.
That gentle faith--that the natural world is something worthy of investigation and curiosity--is what I would like to inculcate in my students, because I think it leads to other beliefs. I think--I hope--that it can lead to a belief that other kinds of people or societies are not, in fact, incomprehensible and hostile, but rather comprehensible and explicable. Patience, an open mind, and the humility to start from the assumption that there are things one does not understand can go a long way toward scientific discovery and towards peaceful coexistence.
It is important to note that this faith in reason does not exclude religious faith, although if taken to far it can lead to the kind of hostility to religion that we see much of the time. When taken that far, I think that one has lost the aspect of intellectual humility; one concludes that, because one does not see how something might be, that it therefor does not exist. To me, that seems to be a logical fallacy based on the assumption that one's understanding of the universe is complete. Agnosticism and skepticism ("I don't see how God could exist, so I will behave as if God does not exist, but I concede that I might be wrong") I can respect easily, but blanket hostility to any form of religious faith seems unfounded to me. Faith in reason can coexist with explicit religious faith or religious skepticism quite easily, though.
This is the attitude I would like to teach my students. If I can show them that they can understand something about biology, it is my hope that they will decide that maybe, with humility, patience, and openmindedness, they can learn to understand and accept other people as well.
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The schools have been asked to do too much. The job of a school, especially a public school, is to impart knowledge and critical thinking skills. Instilling morals, values, or civic virtue should not be within the province of the schools, but rather that of the family. At most, the faculty and administration of a school should provide reinforcement (if necessary) of those basic aspects of civilized behavior necessary for the more central mission of learning; respect for the instructor, polite behavior to one’s peers and the faculty and administration, respect for the facility.
However, even more disturbing to me is the idea of the schools as an avenue for the instilling of patriotism. The business of the school is instruction in arts and sciences, and beyond a fact-based education in civics, there is no call for the school to try to encourage a specific love of or devotion to country. As with morals abd values, such notions should come from the family, not the school. In fact, the school should be a safe place for critical questioning of notions of patriotism. Schools should be environments where students are taught to analyze and assess, weighing evidence and facts, and coming to well-reasoned conclusions. Attempting to teach students love of country is not only outside that mission, but even counterproductive. In fact, presenting love of country alongside arts and sciences as one of the basic ideas of a school could be better termed brainwashing.
It should not be necessary to instill patriotism in the schools. How much better it would be if students with good analytical and critical thinking skills could look at the way our nation is governed and justice is upheld, and decide for themselves that the nation was worthy of a patriotic attitude!
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"I have lived almost fifty years, and I have seen life as it is...pain, misery, hunger, cruelty beyond belief! I have heard the singing from taverns, and the moans from the bundles of filth in the streets. I have been a sodier, and I've seen my comrades fall in battle--or die more slowly, under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, and yet they died despairing! No glory, no gallant last words, only their eyes...filled with confusion...whimpering the question "Why?"
I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had lived.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Too much sanity may be madness...to seek treasure, where there is only trash. Perhaps to be practical is madness. And maddest of all, to see life [i]as it is, and not as it ought to be!"
-Don Miguel de Cervantes, Man of La Mancha
That quote (and indeed, that whole musical) is one of the central, defining aspects of my life. When I saw it for the first time as a kid, it completely altered the direction of my soul. However, as I touched on in Politicas, I am becoming troubled by its possible relevance to what is to me one of the most chilling aspects of the Bush administration.
I think that the idea proposed by Man of La Mancha (MOLM hereafter) is that it is important never to give up on the idea that the world, and the people in it, can be the perfect, noble, and heroic archetypes portrayed in the stories we have all loved. We must never release the idea that THAT is the goal toward which we strive, and we must always work to see it realized. While Quixote in MOLM was, indeed, insane, and lived out his pursuit of this ideal to a greater degree than I think would be advisable, I am not sure that the point of the story is that we should emulate Quixote exactly as he is shown. His philosophy, expressed in a calmer moment, feels more like a workable set of principles:
quote:
"...Take a deep breath of life, and consider how it should be lived.
Call nothing thine own, except thy soul.
Love not what thou art, but only what thou may become.
Do not pursue pleasure, for thou may have the misfortune to overtake it.
Look always forward; in last years nests, there are no birds this year.
Be just to all men.
Be courteous to all women. (NOTE: I'd be in favor of just AND courteous to both genders...)
Live always in the vision of that one for whom great deeds are done...she that is called Dulcinea."
One can do that, it seems, while still keeping some grip on reality. And, of course, the Impossible Dream:
quote:
"To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go,
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!
This is my quest, to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far.
To fight for the right without question or pause,
To be willing to march into Hell for a Heavenly cause.
And I know, if I'll only be true to this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable stars!"
Actually, some parts of that one sound uncomfortably close to religious fanaticism, too, but now I think I see where the problem is. Part of the problem Quixote's madness is that he thought he had identified the enemy, the evil that it was his glorious duty to combat--but he was wrong. And there is nothing glorious about a heroic struggle against a misidentified enemy.
One of the things which bothers me most about the Bush administration is the denial of reality in favor of the world as they think it should be. This comes on the small scale ("The press conference was not scripted") to the large scale ("Saddam Hussein poses an imminent threat to national security"). It's nearly Orwellian at times, this redefining of reality to be what it would be more convenient to have it be. But really, isn't that what my hero does, too?
That question frightens me. I don't think Bush is evil incarnate, but I do think that he (or those around him) are very willing to twist perceptions of reality to fit an agenda. Quixote does much the same; reality, as it exists, is ignored or altered to fit his idea of the way things should be. Is there a difference between them? As I said above, I believe that the real message of MOLM is that we should not lose sight of the ideal, but our President hasn't done so either. In fact, both life and literature are full of people who have done awful things, because you can't compromise in pursuit of the dream! I have a horrible image that is popping into my mind now--a gallant knight reaching out to grasp a star in the sky, never looking down to see the crushed bodies of those he has walked across in his quest.
Perhaps Quixote is both an inspiring and a cautionary figure. Through him, we are urged "To fight without question or pause", and we see the beauty of his insistence that people are inherently noble and good, but we are also shown what happens to Aldonza because of his refusal to pay some attention to reality--she sings quite a song to Quixote about how his insistence that she was Dulcinea gave her hope, and made her believe that she was more than she thought, which made it hurt all the more when she was gang-raped and thrown by the roadside. Insistence on the dream, and willful blindness to reality, can lead to disaster.
On the other hand, later on, Aldonza visits the man who was Quixote (he has recovered his sanity) on his deathbed, and begs him to remind her of how we saw her before. She has found that losing the ability to believe that she is more than her squalid life of drudgery and horror as a scullion and whore had left her deeper in despair. He gave her hope, and a vision of what could be. As she says, "You spoke to me, and everything was different". Quixote's mad insistence that she was not Aldonza, but Dulcinea, has given her courage to alter herself and her life.
Here, perhaps, is the real message of MOLM. Quixote's madness was inspiring, but still madness, and still led to disaster for many who heard him. It did, however, show that belief in good--not that everyone is perfect, but that they can be, that they are inside, and just need to release it--can itself inspire that goodness to emerge. It also shows that simply accepting that evil, corruption, brutality, and selfishness are the inherent and unalterable qualities of humanity makes it very hard to achieve anything better. I see the message of MOLM being that accepting the evil that exists in the world as simply "the way the world is" is the road to despair, and that only by remembering what ought to be can bring what ought to be about.
So, again, how is this different from the administrations denial of reality, and insistence that everything is great or will be great very soon? It's still disturbingly close to me. I can believe, if I try, that Bush honestly believes that he is trying to bring about great good in the world. Part of the problem, though, is that I don't believe that it is true of all of those in power here. I see some reason to suspect that some of the denial of reality we are seeing is in order to cover up a heart of corruption and love of power which stands against everything embodied by the chivalry of Quixote.
Another difference might lie in the scope of their power. A government led by Don Quixote would be an unmitigated disaster, probably. MOLM suggests a way that each of us, as individuals, can improve the world--by assuming the best without solid reason to believe otherwise, by not giving up hope. Those attitudes affect each of us personally, and those we touch. Running a government which refuses to deal with reality, ignoring it in favor of the preferred worldview, is not likely to work out well. Quixote is an inspiring example, taken to an extreme by Cervantes (in the play) to show us that hope and idealism are powerful tools. He is not intended as a literal model for a system of government.
Finally, there is a big difference between denying reality to avoid punishment (i.e. lying) and believing that people are more good and noble than they might seem to be. "The event was not scripted" seems most like a statement of the former type.
So in the end, I conclude that Quixote is an example, in extreme form, of a personal philosophy which can change the way we treat each other, the assumptions we make about each other, and the way the world turns out. He is not intended to be a literal example of the right way to live (although a bit of glorious madness now and then is a fine thing), and certainly not as a way of governance. Cervantes didn't say that one must ignore reality, or deny it, but rather that one should not accept evil as the best we can do. One should always try to live up to the ideals of mercy, peace, benevolence, and justice, and expect--even demand--that others do the same. There is actually a lot of that in the administration. But I don't hear a lot of people in the administration making ludicrously positive assumptions about John Kerry's motivations out of a belief that he is a good and noble man, and while I would be willing to believe that President Bush is, personally, a decent and kind person, I don't want to be governed by an administration that is only willing to assume the best about themselves, and only willing to be idealistic about their own motivations.
Enough blather. This is extremely long-winded, rambling, and probably immensely shallow reasoning. I welcome critiques, and I promise to assume the best about your motivations, regardless of what you say or how you say it. 
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You know, I have always considered myself to be a reasonably intelligent guy. Not brilliant, but at least as bright as the average person. That's why I am increasingly horrified at how utterly dense I can be at times.
The primary example of this is this odd disability I seem to have about getting jokes. A prime example: about three years ago, I was sitting on the couch when I suddenly, out of nowhere, got the joke about what the brainsucker is doing on your head. You (and I) heard it in elementary school, or maybe kindergarten. Someone comes up and puts his/her hand on your head...
Other kid: "Know what this is?"
Me: "What?"
Other kid: "It's a brain-sucker. Know what it's doing?"
Me: "What?"
Other kid: "Starving! BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Pretty dumb, huh? But how dumb am I, that it took me TWENTY-FIVE YEARS to get the joke? I'm not sure what I thought before...I guess I just figured that I didn't really understand it, but didn't want to illustrate my disability by asking.
Another example: I was doing dishes last night, when I was again visited by the Dim-Bulb Epiphany Fairy. I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was young (12, maybe? I can't remember). There's a line early on, in which Ford Prefect is telling Arthur Dent about being teleported:
Ford: "It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
Arthur: "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
Ford: "You ask a glass of water."
Audience: "BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Now, for years, I sort of figured that Ford was making some allusion to water tasting bad after being drunk, or something, and wondered why such a strangely unfunny line was in such a funny book. Last night, I finally got the joke. Again, somwthing like twenty years later, and after having read it countless times.
What is wrong with me? Am I just unbelievably dense? Does this happen to anyone else?
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The other night, I was listening to the local Christian radio station in the car. I do so not because I follow it as a source of guidance, but because I find it interesting to hear the opinions of a group with which I frequently disagree. I am also always interested in hearing what others think about God.
In any case, it got me thinking about something a friend of mine once said. She was an evangelical Christian, and spoke of her relationship with God in terms I have not usually heard used. She referred to a knowledge of God being intimately in love with her. Now, I don't think that she meant intimate as in sexually (although plenty of depictions of religious ecstacy, like Michelangelo's Pieta, look nearly orgasmic, as do some writings of cloistered nuns). However, it was very different from the usual depiction of a sort of generalized love of God for people. When she spoke, it sounded like she felt that God loved her--personally--in the same way that a best friend knows you and loves you. God as someone you could hang out with, cry with, or see movies with, who knows you in great detail, and has opinions about you, and is honestly interested in what you think.
It's not a way in which I have usually thought about God. I was brought up by United Methodists, and in our church, God was a sort of generalized loving presence. We said the same things about how God loves all of us, and how Jesus died for each of us, but I always had the feeling that we were talking about God loving us like we might love pet hamsters. God was something so far beyond us, so infinitely superior, that it was hard to imaging God's love for us as individuals. How could God even be aware of us as individuals, let alone "intimately" love each of us?
That's why my friend's idea was so striking to me. I guess if you hold that God is both loving and omnipotent, there is no reason why even a God infinitely beyond any human couldn't also have the capacity to know each of us personally, as a friend or lover, and care deeply about every one of us.
I started wondering if I wanted to feel that way about God, or (maybe more importantly) if God really wanted to feel that way about us. That led me to another thought--when I think about my best friend, or my wife, and the love we share, it seems that a necessary component of it is that it is unusual--that is, I wouldn't feel the same way about my wife or best friend if I knew that, as much as they loved me, they also loved everyone else the same way. It may be a failing on my part, but Part of me wants my best friend to love me *more* than anyone else--to be unusual and special in his or her eyes. Do I feel the same way about God?
Could that be part of the source of religious intolerance? At some level, we can't stand the idea that God isn't our best friend in the same way that a human can be? If we are intimately in love with God, and believe that God is intimately in love with us, then maybe we can't stand the idea that God might be just as intimately in love with other folks (or even everyone else) at the same time. Maybe we convince ourselves that really, God loves us *more*, because that's how love works. God is MINE. Yes, God might love you too, God loves all of us, but God loves me BEST.
I suppose that could also be why it can be so difficult and uncomfortable to talk with other people, especially those of other faiths, about God. We don't want to share.
And, of course, there's the inherent absurdity of me thinking that I could reach any truthful conclusion about God, if God even exists. But surely inherent absurdity is the natural state of a blog?
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For some reason, as I was sitting here at my desk just now, I suddenly found myself on the verge of tears regarding the situation in New Orleans and elsewhere on the Gulf coast.
I imagine all of those people crowded into the Superdome, or outside the convention center, desperate for rescue, food, shelter, *anything*, and it is almost more than I can bear. I pray, and find my faith shaken.
That, though, I think I can deal with on a conceptual level. Natural disasters have always caused human suffering, and probably always will. That doesn't make it any less tragic, but I can at least understand it, and send my money to the Red Cross, hoping that someone out there will get a meal and bottle of water, and survive for one more day--maybe long enough to get to a safe place and start the task of rebuilding their life. It has always happened, and someday, it may well be my turn. I live in LA, after all, and we're overdue for a big quake anyway.
What I can't deal with--what makes me want to scream at the sky--is knowing that there are people shooting at helicopters coming to try to airlift people out or deliver supplies. I can't handle the mental image of gangs of people roaming the streets, stealing jewelry. People looting stores for food, clothing, water, and medicine, I can understand. They're doing what they have to to live. But people taking things that they don't need--using this as an excuse to steal for profit--makes me tremble with rage and fury. People who, when faced with something like this, seem to do their damndest to make it as bad as possible. Why does it happen? What makes a person decide to break into a children's hospital--where there are sick kids and doctors trying to care for them with no power and no supplies--to steal what little those doctors and kids have?
What makes a person do that? And, truly scary--since I've never been in that situation, would I do it too? Since I don't understand it, how can I know it wouldn't be me?
I am in despair. The disaster is tragic. What it shows about what people may do in a disaster is soul-chilling.
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It feels good to have finally figured out what I am here for.
I've been trying to find my place in the grand scheme of things for some time. I'm a pretty passive person, and so the advice and recommendations of others have always had a big influence on me, which has been good and bad.
However, I think I have identified what I was born to do, if there is such a thing. I was made to be a teacher.
I just finished teaching genetics for UCLA summer session, and it went very well. The students leared as much as I could have hoped for, and I only made a complete idiot of myself a few times that I know of. More important, though, is that I feel centered, at peace, and in control when I am teaching. I struggled all through graduate school with maintaining focus and energy about my work. I love science, but in addition to being passive, I am LAZY, and it was tough to keep myself on track. When I have a class to teach, though, I have no difficulty spending hours of focused attention on making it come out right. It is rewarding and exhilirating, even when it is exhausting and frustrating.
It was certainly a different experience from the other school where I have taught. The UCLA students are significantly better prepared and motivated. I wouldn't say I like it better; these folks don't really need me, whereas I feel like I'm doing some good for someone at the other school. Still, it was an interesting experience, which I hope to try again sometime soon.
So now I just need to find some school that will hire me full-time. My postdoc will be over next summer, and with some luck I'll actually be an assistant professor somewhere in the fall. Or maybe take two or three part-time positions until that magic tenure-track spot opens up.
Anyway, I feel good, and happier about my future career than I have felt in some time, and I though I'd share my joy.
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