I'm alone but I ain't lonely

Michelle at Daedalus Notes posted a link to an article entitled The End of Solitude. For centuries the author posits solitude was a social good and something to be sought.

Man may be a social animal, but solitude has traditionally been a societal value. In particular, the act of being alone has been understood as an essential dimension of religious experience, albeit one restricted to a self-selected few. Through the solitude of rare spirits, the collective renews its relationship with divinity. The prophet and the hermit, the sadhu and the yogi, pursue their vision quests, invite their trances, in desert or forest or cave. For the still, small voice speaks only in silence. Social life is a bustle of petty concerns, a jostle of quotidian interests, and religious institutions are no exception. You cannot hear God when people are chattering at you, and the divine word, their pretensions notwithstanding, demurs at descending on the monarch and the priest. Communal experience is the human norm, but the solitary encounter with God is the egregious act that refreshes that norm.

Modern society sees solitude as an anathema to be eradicated rather than a gift in which to revel. Technology such as AIM, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, is aimed at giving us constant connection to others ensuring that we are never alone. The article glosses over the fact that technology can be more isolating than true solitude ever was.

For how often do we check someone's away message instead of actually talking to them? Text them a few lines instead of having a conversation? Follow someone's blog and twitter and feel as though that counts as actually knowing them? (And yes I am very guilty of this as I stalk Neil Gaiman sedulously and feel as though we are friends.) These brief technological brushes are hardly substitutes for time spent with someone, for dreams and fears and laughter and life spent together, as the basis of friendship.

The point of solitude, of meditation and introspection is to gain a deeper knowledge of ourselves and the world which we can then share with others. Modern technology places us in a type of limbo; we are never alone so have no true solitude nor do we actually connect with others but rather approach through the interface of technology which allows us to hold people at arms length and saves us from allowing people in. We are not alone, yet neither are we replacing solitude with a web of meaningful human connections.

Wanderer

The wanderer is not lost, but on the contrary, has a much clearer idea of where he is and where he is going then the rest of us. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I feel so drawn to wander. To simply walk in the unknown, "to sail away to half discovered places. To see the secrets so few eyes have seen. To see moments of enchantment on our faces. The moments when we smile and those in between." I want to live without a plan, without a map, I want to see, I want to be taught, and I want to teach. When I hear the word wanderer one of the things I think of is Taran, Taran Wanderer. To travel as he traveled, to simply learn what people have to teach me. To learn trade after trade after trade, to work the land, to have "a garden to walk in and immensity to dream in - what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars." I have thought about Taran Wanderer, and as I do, I know that I could not do as he did. This world is too different. But as I think of Taran, another figure comes to my mind, the figure of St. Francis. "He was obedient but not dependent. And he was as free as the wind, he was almost widely free, in his relation to the world around him." Here is a man who lived his entire life as a wanderer, yet was perfectly content to live his life in the same place every day. "He succeeded in obtaining an interview with the Sultan; and it was at that interview that he evidently offered, and as some say proceeded, to fling himself into the fire as a divine ordeal, defying the Muslim religious teachers to do the same. It is quite certain that he would have done so at a moment's notice. Indeed throwing himself into the fire was hardly more desperate, in any case, that throwing himself among the weapons and tools of torture of a horde of fanatical Mohammedans and asking them to renounce Mohamed." St. Francis shows how a man can live freely, and that is what a wanderer means to me, no matter where he is living or what he is doing. It can truly be said, " not all who wander are lost."

Burned by this world's cold

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more that you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt. -Thomas Merton

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination

 I finally got around to reading J. K. Rowling's commencement speech to Harvard last May, something I had meant to do for sometime.  It was very good, and I strongly recommend it.  Parts of it however, were also quite surprising.  Jo made her theme, while addressing graduates from one of the most prestigious universities in one of the most privileged countries in the world, failure and imagination.  

How one handles oneself when met with disappointment and the ability to imagine a better future--these are things that are independent of ones education.    It is not the responsibility of the rich, wealthy or brilliant to make the world a better place.  We cannot sit idly by and wait for those more powerful than us to fix things.  The real ability to better ones life and the world lies with everyone and not just those blessed with higher education or a privileged position in society, but is the power and responsibility of all.  

Here is part of Jo's conclusion :

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you  have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

The full text can be found here.  

Look again

"Life isn't a support system for art. It is the other way around." --Stephen King

You can't catch me and make me a man!

When are we considered to be grown? When do we reach the piont of maturity? Is it when we reach the age dictated by society? No, age is not the determining factor of a man. But, 'how do you measure the worth of a man in wealth or strength or size? In how much he gained, or how much he gave?' In what way is a boy any diferent than a man? Is it strength and wisdom that separate the two momentuos stretches of time in ones life? 'No life can escape being blown about the winds of change and chance. And though you never know all the steps, you must learn to join the dance. You must learn to join the dance. Lai-la-lai...' It is when a boy joins the dance that that boy becomes a man.

A defense of tragedy

Did Lady Macbeth have schizophrenia? Hysteria? Was Macbeth suffering from PTSD? These are the questions several of the English classes are attempting to answer in their final projects this week.

Asking these questions it trivializes the tragedy of Shakespeare's play and of the human experience. Why believe in the Fall, in greed and sin when it can conveniently be passed off as a chemical imbalance or a result of upbringing or experience.

In humans unending effort to rationalize, explain and control the world through scientific methods human experience becomes marginalized. When children are energetic we medicate them. When adults feel sadness we medicate them or send them to therapy, indicating that these emotions are not normal. Attributing the actions of Lord and Lady Macbeth to a chemical imbalance or psychological disorder reduces human experience to the mean-anything out of the ordinary, that is not average, must have some exterior cause and cannot be the result of human nature.

"Harrison Bergeron," a satiric and insightful Vonnegut short story, offers a tragic look at a society where the norm has become an enforced rule. Yet, the effects of such an outlook are more subtle. If we suppress the depths of human emotion in favor keeping everyone on an even keel, then we take away a part of life that makes it worth living and gives it meaning. Life's joys and triumphs are much sweeter when set against periods of sorrow and failure. Poets and writers know this--it is intense passion or deep sorrow that provides the impetus for works of art. If Edger Allen Poe had been on anti-depressants American Literature would be much poorer, and those suffering tragedy would not have the solace of seeing a mirror of their experience.

It is clear that by the end of the play Lady Macbeth's sanity at least is in jeopardy. Attributing the cause of mental break to the power of her actions and the intensity of her greed serves to illustrate the power of the human experience, rather than diminishing it by claiming the insanity came first.

Caritas

"To love another person is to see the face of God." -- Les Mis

Magnificent Valour

Valour is the strength , not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul - it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own. He who falls fights on his knees. He who relaxes none of his assurance no matter how great the danger of immanent death, who giving up his soul, still looks dimly and scornfully at his enemy - he is beaten not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered.

Where has our valour gone? Where are our heroes? Where are the men who would give their lives for an idea? Are there no more epic battles left for history? Is valour only left in songs and legends? Why do our "modern" wars seem so hideous in my eyes? Did all the heroes die with the arrival of the gun? Wars used to show men in their greatness, back in a time when it was thought right to die for a cause. When we fought with swords and shields there was a beauty in war. That beauty was death. It is not in the killing of a man, but rather in the dying of a man. "Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered, as men." "A hero would die for his country, but he would much rather live for it."

Stare in wonder, who's here to bring you down?

Find your martyr, I'm sure you've made the crown

So light a fire under my bones, so when

I die for you, at least I'll die alone

Ain't nothing for me to end up like this

There's no comparing me this time

All my heroes have now become ghosts

Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

All my heroes are dead and gone

But down inside of me, they still live on

Dark devotion in a beacon paradise

Shows no emotion to a willing sacrifice

You can put a man on trial, but you can't make the guilty pay

And you can cage an animal, but you can't take away the rage

Ain't nothing for me to end up like this

There's no comparing me this time

All my heroes have now become ghosts

Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

All my heroes are dead and gone

But down inside of me, they still live on

All my heroes have now become ghosts

Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

All my heroes are dead and gone

But down inside of me, they still live on

They're all dead and gone

We Once Were Kings

After the birth of Christ he was visited by the Magi who followed a star from the east. They did not come merely to gaze on this new king but brought with them gold, frankincense and myrrh.

While these gift's foreshadow Christ's life- frankincense and myrrh are used to prepare bodies for burial- they are not befitting his station. What would be a gift worthy of the Son of God? Instead, they are the gifts most fitting the giver, the best and most stately things they can offer.

This is what C. S. Lewis meant in Mere Christianity with his metaphor of the boy who borrows money from his father to buy him a present--the father is a sixpence none the richer. God also does not need our gifts, but we offer him our best, our talents and time, because it enriches us.

We are Kings, that is one of things we are called to. So with guidance from a star we too need to lay our gifts at the feet of Christ.

When I use a word it means precisely what I want it to.

"Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning. A meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination."--Virginia Woolf

They Kiss the Past Goodbye

A year goes by and I'm staring at my watch again as I dig deep this time, for something greater than I've ever been, life through ancient wine-skins and I was blind but now I see, this New Year's Eve something must change me, inside. I'm crooked and misguided and tired of being tired. A New Year for new beginnings. That seems to be the mindset. I do not really undertsand why. The day changed, one to the next, night faded to morning like it has since our conception of forever began. Two nights ago happened to fall on what the western world has dubbed the end of the year. It's man made, this schedule by which we run our lives. It becomes a countdown, one deadline to the next, the mindset of just making it this far, this much longer and then a break will come and we live for the furure instead of the moment. So on December 31st of every year we celebrate, having survived another year and we move on to the next, a new beginning.

All these new resolutions that people make, thinking it makes a difference that it is a New Year. This does not change your past for the decisions you make and experiences you have will always be a part of you. They are what has shaped you. You are who you are because of your past, every struggle or blessing you have encountered teaches you something different. This does not mean that people cannot change, it means that even if you do, you cannot simply dismiss your past, that a new year is not a clean break from our old lives, that we must always remember even the things that we do not like about ourselves. These make us stronger, and remind us that we too are only men.

This desire to reinvent oneself and remedy the shortcomings that one sees in oneself should not be constrained to these manufactured new beginnings or bound by human time. Live for every moment, not on a schedule or a countdown. A new year is a good time for resolutions and promises to be a better person, but then so is any time really.

This New Year's Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow. My heart is on my sleeve, and yes I still believe, in You.