Trenches

There are moments where I stare at a table upon which I am studying with books and other implements of learning strewn about, and ponder imaginary battles.  As a kid, it would have been tiny men of the G.I. Joe variety, going to war.  After all, it's common knowledge that all man-like entities less than one twentieth the normal human size have an insatiable appetite for war.  As any male five year old could inform you.

I stare at books forming walls, and trenches down their crease.  Spiral notebooks form hazardous razor wire.  Pens and pencils are unexploded missiles.  It's a treacherous environment.  

Alas, the days where one could envision miniature humans fighting battles, almost as pointless as those which full-scale humans engage in, are past.  As I am thrust into the world of "maturity" I no longer find myself at the helm of a vast army, but now I watch as ideas wage a war for my mind.  This week, Trigonometry has declared war on Chemistry (of the general variety), and Analytic Philosophy is terrorizing Anatomy and Physiology the Second.  Meanwhile Religious Studies and Phenomenology among others suffer brutal oppression in the midst of this endless cycle of violence . . . and sleep deprivation.  It's a cruel world that we live in people.  And by "we", I mean "I".  Of course.  

I say this from the trench (which also happens to be the crease of my chemistry textbook, coincidentally) which I am currently face down in, as the Battle of Triangular Atoms rages in my head.  This, for those unfamiliar with Fall '08 history, is where the The Valence Electron Battalion of chapter 8, made a valiant but ultimately vain attempt to defeat the Cartesian Coordinate Brigade of Le Trigonometre's chapter 2.  

(I know, I know, there is no way to make this interesting . . . I'm trying.  I was hoping the application of a narrative would make my life more interesting . . . how foolish!  Yet, the blog goes on!!)

Quite the toll such battles can take.  Moonscapes are made of what was formerly referred to as a social life.  The great war for the mind has cataclysmic effects . . . ok, ok, detrimental effects on blood pressure, as well as compromising the long term viability of one's own sanity.  Vast fields of lovely hair now thinning and being infiltrated with gray.  

. . . Yeah, anyway.  So, it's not that bad, really, . . just ridiculous when every subject presumes to be your only subject.

denouement:

Moving on, life is good, and boring, . . . and busy, . . 

-  I plan to get in better shape this fall, which possibly includes the following:

-  quitting or, more likely, drastically reducing coffee intake

-  running, swimming, or biking more

-  eating better, whatever that means

-  I feel, actually, that my life is starting to gain some steam, in terms of the whole directionality sort of thing.  I'm about to the point where I can really focus intently on med. school stuff.  . . . I can see the crest of the hill,  i guess would be a good way to say it.

-  I'm on a break from church right now, which seems to be a good thing.

-  And, I'm going to lunch.

the end.

suspended between. . . reflecting on kurt vonnegut and my faith

"Kilgore Trout took a leak in the men's room of the New York City movie house. . . . There was a message on the tiles by the roller towel.  This was it:  What is the purpose of life? . . .  he would have written, if he had found anything to write with:

To be

the eyes

and ears

and conscience 

of the Creator of the Universe

you fool."                          - Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Spoiler warning.

Vonnegut's writing always is equally self-deprecating and critical of the world at large.  I think this passage represents both his criticism of God (which is found in all of his books), as well as a criticism of himself.  He writes himself into this story, as the "Creator of the [literary] Universe".  He seems to point to the fact that he experiences the world through his fictional characters, just as he often feels that God himself must be deaf, blind, and in some sense antisocial.  Still he is often quoted for having said that the only proof of God he needed was music.

I find it quite easy to relate to his attitude.  No matter how often religious people assert that we should feel the responsibility of evil on our own shoulders, I can't help but fall back on theodicy:  I don't know that I can ever escape the feeling that God has a lot to answer for.  Yet, in all that, I also find him/her intricately woven into the fabric of all the things I would consider beautiful; music included.

My girlfriend who has never been a Christian keeps asking me if I actually consider myself to be so.  I never really know what to say.  I think somewhere inside me, there is a part of my psyche that does not want to let go of that part of my identity.  There's also a part which is thoroughly disgusted by 99% of what is called "Christian" in our world, and so I want to leave it behind and not look back.  There's also realist in me that looks at what "following Jesus" would mean in the most pragmatic of terms, and he questions whether I, or anyone I know have ever really . . . actually "followed" this homeless preacher who lived in such a radical way as to be killed by authorities a few months after going public.  We won't be killed for our lifestyles and beliefs.  We wouldn't be killed for our lifestyles or beliefs.  Hell, we wouldn't even consent to live without shelter for our lifestyles and beliefs.

When I listen to Jesus talk about God, part of me is impressed, and most of me dismisses him the same as any other overzealous adherent I might hear.  

"That's great for him . . . "  I say

Which is really just a way of saying, "I don't want to impinge my beliefs on yours, but I think you're an idiot."

Truthfully, I don't think it's possible for any one human to know "God" any better than any other human.  I think we all just focus on different facts, different histories, different myths, different lies . . . and then we indoctrinate the conclusions we draw from the picture we've chosen to see.  I would be hard pressed to say I'm not an agnostic.  

As I've said before, the value I take from Christianity is that I feel that at its core, and particularly at its best, it is a movement that serves as a radical humanism.  Beyond what often passes for humanistic tendencies in secular circles, Christianity has always birthed a small portion of adherents who fought for a radical sort of egalitarianism.  One which restored the dignity of those who slipped through cracks of popular humanist tendencies.  Vonnegut once said, ". . if Jesus hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being.  I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake."   He considers Jesus to be the greatest inspiration to all humanists.

Vonneguts pessimism, as well as his humanism, in my opinion, are the outgrowth of his experience in World War II.  He was a prisoner of war in Dresden, up through the days where our government firebombed the city mercilessly.  It was a city without a military presence.  We did it for revenge, and because military leaders are typically sadists.  Vonnegut was one of a handful of prisoners who survived.  The German guards who survived forced him and his compatriots to attempt in vain to bury the tens of thousands of bodies who had died from bombs, but whose remains had not been consumed by the ensuing fires.  The city which had been a center for the German Arts looked like this afterwards:

I also assume this experience is responsible for his stance as a radical pacifist, and an outspoken critic of any pretense of a "just war".  

I wonder often if Christians, or those of us who are somewhere in between, should try first to be good humanists, before they/we ever assume to be "followers" of Jesus.  Maybe then we could have some sort of grasp on how extreme Jesus actually was.  Maybe then we could understand why he was killed after only a few weeks of speaking publicly.  Maybe then we wouldn't act as though there was ever a justified reason for the country we inhabit to firebomb anyplace,  ever.

I guess lately the realist in me is controlling the floor, so to speak.  I hesitate to identify myself as a Christian; not out of shame, but honesty.  If Gandhi is correct, and the poor are the litmus test for who qualifies as such, I highly doubt I will be counted among the righteous.  I don't particularly like sleeping outside, and I hope to never need preach to get a meal.  I also don't expect the Kingdom of God to come within the week.  And really I don't think lions will ever lay down with lambs, or that the world we live in will see true equality on a global scale.  So, following Jesus, in the literalist sense, is the last thing that I am actually doing with my life.

But, apart from literalism, there is a degree to which my life is still inspired by Jesus.  I am intrigued that a world could exist where inequalities are not respected.  Where compassion is set out towards even if it is imperfect.  etc. etc.

I think that means I'm either a Unitarian or a Christian Agnostic.  I don't really know.

Vonnegut reminds me of the psalmists a lot of the time . . . just more sardonic.  The psalms often indict God for the great tragedies of their day.  Later on, extra material was added to the end of such psalms to make them more faith-friendly.   

I wish it weren't so necessary to polarize our society into factions of belief and disbelief (which I find demand equal amounts of faith).  I resent the greed of both sides to win support for their extremes.  I, like many, remain suspended in the middle, wishing naivete and wisdom weren't mutually exclusive.

Labor Day

So, most of us are off today.  We get a day out of the year to relax, thanks to a movement that has basically been squeezed out of existence.  Labor day is one of the many privileges we enjoy thanks to the Labor Movement.  Other such privileges consist of 40 hour workweeks, vacation time, workers rights, etc., etc.  It should only take a quick read of any novel produced circa 1900 to realize how significant such privileges are.  

These privileges did not come cheap to those who fought for them.  "Labor rights" activists have always been despised, and have always suffered the anonymous abuses which corporate industrialists find so easy to dole out.  

I frequently hear people who have known someone, who knew someone who was in a labor union.  Generally they complain about how the union took their money, and forced them to go on strike when money was tight.  So, unions, especially in the South, are often disparaged.  At best they are an inconvenience that none should be subjected to; at worst they are socialist "Commies" trying to usurp our pristine democracy.  

So, here we are, on Labor Day, enjoying the last vestige of the bygone days when America was a democracy.  Since unions were the only thing that kept America democratic on any level.  Ask yourself:  in our glorious union-free society that we have built in the South, and are building in the North (slowly but surely), what are the odds that corporate America is going to demand giving its employees another day off for any reason?  What would Corporate Day (to off-set Labor Day) look like?

Somehow I doubt it would involve us getting a day to relax.

Consider:  whoever wins this coming November, what are the odds of them fighting to strengthen worker rights?  Are they likely to fight to maintain the 40 hour workweek, which as a matter of fact is being steadily and passionately eroded in our society?  Most people I know would laugh at the idea that 40 hours and no more, should be enough to sustain their livelihood.  A standard that took decades to achieve has, especially in recent years, begun to slip out of our hands.  And, seeing that Democrats and Republicans are both puppets for corporate interests, it doesn't appear there is much we can do about it.  

Maybe appearances aren't what they seem . . . 

I remember my first corporate job sitting in a training session where I was informed that if I joined a labor union (as though one even existed in the area) I would be fired immediately.  How this doesn't display a disgraceful violation of constitutional rights, I have no idea.  Yet, no one seemed disturbed by it.  It was a sub-clause in long verbal indoctrination, which assumed we should feel a deep sense of gratitude for said company rescuing us from the flames of unemployment.

Where there is no Labor Party, nor any unions, corporations fear nothing, and we are precariously close to slavery.

I am not calling us to revolution, except maybe in our worldview.  What we are often instructed to see by (corporate) media, or churches (corporate religion), or school textbooks (corporate propaganda) is frequently not what is actually the case, but only what others would have us see.  Still the choice of seeing is ours, so long as we can hold on to a spirit of subversion and criticism.  As long as we have the remnants of the Labor effort around us, we should keep in mind where we have come from, and where we are going; at least on the few holidays we have left.