Thursday 14 August 2014

Least Aware

Perhaps the word comes to mind more often than it should, but vanity is appealing because it is visceral. It's so visceral that I can't even touch it with the tongue that I speak with, or the hands that I type with, or the feet that I walk with. I suspect that vanity is buried beneath everything we know to be evil but believe to be good. Our belief has buried vanity. It's not that we've even buried the evil of vanity, we've just buried the truth of our actions. But we don't see the truth because we believe that the truth doesn't want us to believe what we ought to. With the loss of truth comes the loss of ... I don't know how to talk about the truth.

Isn't it funny how we're all so black and white? We're comics, or at least, we try to be comics. That's what makes a good man in the 21st century, humor and cheer. An abode of delight and distraction. It's not often that I think about laughter. It's never made sense to me nor has it not made sense to me. Why should I feel pressure to be funny? The closest thing to laughter is either heavy breathing or asphyxia. Is laughter an in-situation veneer for future mourning?

It's interesting how we mature so that we can reach such "beloved destinations," yet when we make it to these places we become children again. I'm not sure if I'm simply jealous of the romantics or if I'm just unimpressed? Observantly speaking, when people engage in romantic moments they become so very juvenile; juvenile in a way that they cannot be when they are on their own. The regress, the oddity, the naivety ... maybe if I keep writing I'll never worry about romantic relationships again? Real romance is even worse than Harlequin. And why do outsiders feel so inclined as to love the lovers? Lovers don't need love like the healthy don't need doctors, and like the anxious don't need fear, and like the depressed don't need gloom, and like the snakes don't need scales, and like the birds don't need feathers, and like the poor don't need less. 

It's frightening when you see the purpose of your existence. Being without purpose might be unsatisfying, but seeing your purpose is overwhelming. When you can only think of one thing that seems meaningful, one thing that will bring you joy, and it turns out that it's something that you don't even really want.

It seems so foolish to me that tolerance is thought of as being "progressive." From my understanding, tolerance is used to try and escape the scenarios of being offended or offending others, yet it's this constant feeding of downright offense. We become trolls with tangled hair and grubby hands, as we feed both ourselves and others with the ugliness that we call "tolerance."

Do humans crave tragedy? Do humans crave that which is epic? Do humans crave terror? Do humans crave horror? It's very honorable that we sit in front of TVs and watch people being killed with machine guns. It's very honorable that we enjoy ideations of pain, or worse yet, actual pain. It's very honorable that we laugh at jokes that God probably finds abominable. "Oh, but those television shows and movies, they're just fictional. It's all in good fun." Is fiction more important than ethics?

And here I am, a bourgeois character sitting behind a keyboard, likely writing about things that I don't have enough knowledge or piety to write about. But, at the very least, I am aware of that.

Margaret Atwood, you were right.

Saturday 9 August 2014

Saint Augustine

"O Lord God of truth, if a man is to please you, surely it is not enough that he should know facts like these? Even if he knows them all, he is not happy unless he knows you; but the man who knows you is happy, even if he knows none of these things."


Confessions, book five, part four

Lonely

Building a cathedral without windows
So nobody sees my sins
And these confessions would feel lovely
If I didn't feel lonely

It's just that I'm lonely
And you're just outside the door
But I don't want to see you
So I'll choose to stay inside

The sanctuary suffers
Where's the God in you?
Where's the God in me?
I'd like to believe

It's just that I'm lonely
And you're praying on the floor

Do I fold my hands in prayer
just to hold my own hand?

Friday 8 August 2014

Do Trees Have Minds?

Have you ever heard that question “If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?” It comes from the song "If a Tree Falls" by Bruce Cockburn. This question caused me to ask another question: do trees have minds? Below is my theory which, very generally speaking, argues that it is possible for trees to have minds.

1. God has the greatest mind.

2. With the greatest mind, God created the lesser mind.

3. God created the brain as a more limited, physical representation of the lesser mind.

4. The lesser mind existed before the brain.

5. The existence of the lesser mind is not founded upon the existence of the brain.

6. Therefore, an object without a brain can have a lesser mind.

So, maybe we can hear trees within certain distances because the trees recognize the distances and provide the sounds because of this knowledge? Although, why are the trees not more generous in terms of distance? Why these limitations? I do not know and it does not really matter.

Or does it? Maybe if we believed that non-human objects had minds, and God-given minds at that, we would care about them more? Then again, nobody who writes about care really cares at all.