Waking from a Nightmare

It seems I scared off a few followers with my last blog entry. I could write an entire blog entry solely based on that alone, but I don't think it would be very nice. Suffice to say that I do not value followers who simply disappear when they read something they don't like. In fact, if those people try to follow me again, I think I'll spare them the hypocrisy and just block them from viewing my blog. I don't want their half-baked and flaky following anyway. If I quit reading stuff because I didn't like it, then I would quickly run out of things to read.

I cannot say that I understand what happened, but it was a very awful experience. I had come into this semester not on top of my game emotionally, but I still had a great sense of hope. My hopes were raised with the discovery that I enjoyed my job, my classmates, and my classes. But soon my classmates disassociated and began to clique-up. I am fortunate to spend more than ten minutes with any one of them. I was also quite excited because I had such a unifying experience at Chapter Focus Week in Michigan that I thought things would be better at my chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF or simply IV). My first three months that I went were completely insignificant and altogether disappointing.

Everything I had looked forward to was crumbling. I was more than just discouraged. I was feeling completely crushed and defeated. Then I was severely penalized at work for somethings I didn't do. I tried to contest it, but the issue fell on deaf ears. In class I found myself so sleep deprived that my short-term memory failed and I couldn't remember the data as it was being read off in the lab for recording results of experiments which I must later turn into a lab report. The last two things which I found fulfillment in; work and class, had just been pulled out from under me like a rug. I would cross the street and literally question whether it would matter at all if I got hit by a large vehicle. There seemed to be absolutely nothing significant about my life and there was certainly nothing that I could think of at the time that was keeping me here on Earth.

Then I woke up one day and this monumental pressure was gone. The dark clouds had parted and the Son was shining through again. I cannot for a moment explain what happened or why. All I can say is that I'm glad it is over and I'm glad there were a very small handful who took time to talk with me, listen to me, and genuinely showed me that they cared. Others still made offers to listen, but at the time I wasn't in a place where I could just pour myself out to anyone.

There's so much more I could say about how much I hold such contempt for the human race, and about how much I trust humans to do only one thing and that is to let me down, but I'd prefer not to dwell on such darkness after having been in complete absence of Light.

James

Why not just shave my head?

That question cuts to the heart of what I have come to realize. I have come to realize that there is no meaning in life. The individual cannot, nor the society of individuals, derive a true meaning from life. The individual or the society of individuals can only synthesize a valid meaning from life, which is to say that they can create a non-self sustaining, or non-provable meaning from life. This meaning requires some loosely defined concept of faith. By faith I simply mean an acceptance to be true what cannot be proven. To some extent, even things that can be proven are taken by faith by the average individual. Most individuals do not understand why water is essential to our survival, but we in faith drink water when we are thirsty rather than some other fluid because we have faith that it will rehydrate us.

Furthermore, I have realized that friendships and other non-specific social connections with individuals is an extension of faith. Social connections are made for the basic purpose of exchanging goods. Goods, as I am using it, are anything physical or immaterial that can be given or taken. So what then is the good that a friend provides? A friend can provide many goods, but at the most fundamental level I would posit that a friend exchanges familiarity. Familiarity is a more base concept of solidarity, which is a unifying principle that unites individuals for a single purpose or cause. Familiarity is more abstract and less impacting than solidarity in that it only unites one individual to another and a single familiarity which can be exchanged between two people does not necessarily have value outside of the ongoing transaction between these two individuals. In fact, familiarity can be exchanged between non-individuals such as domesticated animals and plant life. It is taken on faith that the familiarity we derive from animals and plant life is a reciprocal response to our own given familiarity.

Beyond that, there are many more immaterial goods which can be exchanged between individuals which I could attempt to list, but might not be able to satisfactorily define what these immaterial goods are. The purpose of even bringing up familiarity is to show on a simple model what it is that friendship provides for the individual. I recognize that I am altogether neglecting to address the issue of social contract theory, but I leave that to more capable minds. The reason for avoiding this is to stay separate from the aspect of social that encompasses the question of why we form governments and political hierarchy. I believe it is possible discuss the other aspects of social without delving into the realms of political theory. From now on, it should be understood that when I talk of social I am referring to immaterial and to some extent the physical connections between individuals and the evolutions of those connections.

And I have said all this to say that I am deficient of faith in other individuals, moreover I continue to lose faith in everything (not just individuals) that I interact with as I begin to understand more and more the complexity and inconsistencies which all things have. For drawing up a very broad and non-theological definition, I shall call these inconsistencies in individuals sin to denote the negative connotation I wish to associate with inconsistency. I do this so that when I say that I am full of sin and that the promise of redemption from sin by a savior, namely Christ, is a very wonderful prospect. Unfortunately, I lack the faith that there is such a savior. I lack the faith to believe that my inconsistencies can be remedied. Even if the Christ is perfect, that is consistent, I still cannot summon faith to believe that an individual's consistency can inoculate my inconsistency.

But if this is true, why shouldn't I just shave my head? For those not aware of why I am growing out my hair, I am growing it out because I made a seven-year vow to the Judeo-Christian God that I would consecrate myself to better understanding myself and It in relation to each other and the impact we can have on the world. If I do not have the faith to believe in the exchange between a non-physical entity and myself, then it follows that I do not have the faith to believe there would be repercussions for cutting my hair. However, I believe that my own consistency; which I now give the abstract title of righteousness, is at risk if I break this vow. By cutting my hair, I would be rendering myself yet further inconsistent. To the same extent that righteousness might be self-determined, or self-made; sin is also self-determined. I can sin against myself, or be inconsistent with myself, and thus be doing wrong by myself.

If anyone cares to try to show me that there is meaning in life using the terms I have laid out, and not with their own terms unless you can justify why your terms are more appropriate, then I would greatly appreciate the exchange.

James

The Breeder: Introduction

I have a story idea that's buzzing around in my head which has been bothering for a good part of the night and I wanted to get on it, but instead I thought I'd do the service to the few who read this of prefacing what is to come. The idea is rather vague, no fine details in my mind that would make it novel-worthy. Instead, I have decided to post it in parts here on my blog.
Should I got to sleep and awake to find the creative juices diverging from this idea, I shall promptly update this to let you all know and so as to not keep you waiting in anticipation of a proper first part.

Wow, that was wordy... I need to take a chill-pill from all the British-folk and their literature.

James

P.S - I have lost all motivation to write this story.

O, Woe is Me! Where are You now, God?

"No one is good, not even one"

I have always had a harsh opinion of myself. They say that we are always our harshest critic. It's funny, a co-worker of mine pointed out that I'm always telling people that they need to stop hating themselves but in reality I hate myself more than I hate anyone else. Why?

"The front pages of papers of children raped by rapist
Iraqi torture chambers and we the blame claim we're blameless
Wrong, all"

True, I'm not a rapist, nor a murder, nor the kind of person who should be locked away in an asylum. I'm human. Humans, evolutionarily I'm inclined to believe that we're programmed to think there is something wrong with us so we can strive to become better than what we are. It's like a diagnostic program that runs in the background of your computer trying to find all the things that are slowing it down; in reality the diagnostic program itself is probably the most CPU-consuming program. But on a spiritual level, I believe the damage to our soul is reflected in our physical bodies. I personally believe that I am racked with guilt over sins I've committed and thus I hate myself; that is why I smoke.

"And swelling up inside of us there's this pride in us, this arrogance
And our only line of defense is the sense that
I'm not as half as bad as this friend of mine so I must be fine"

But everybody smokes at one time or another, right? I mean, it's not like I smoke pot or get drunk. As if I could put qualifiers on what makes me better than someone else, now that's a load of bologna. James 2:10 tells us that any and all sin condemns us. None of us can point a finger without also convicting ourselves.

"We mean well, don't we?
Yet I've never seen good intentions set a man free from
Hurt, all"

Being a kind person does not solve the problem. It goes a long way to making life easier while living it, but it does not solve the problem. Granted, if someone is a genuinely kind person then they're way better off than the 90% who claim to be kind and are really the scum of the Earth. I have every good intention when I am kind to people. I mean well and I mean what I say when I say it. Yet I am still alone and left to my own self-destructive devices at the end of the day.

"This poor unfortunate soul
Filling a single void with toy after toy, girl after boy
How boring- this wasn't this meant to be Humanity's life story
Warring with God saying, 'what have You done for me?'"

So, in my bitter malcontentedness I blame everyone and anyone else, even God for the way I feel. I blame myself and the way I look, the way God made me, as if I am somehow deficient. The truth is much harder to swallow. There is nothing wrong with me. I am not deficient. Nobody is to blame for this except myself, but not for the things I blame myself for. Oh wait...

"Bought, all
Hanging out for six hours, marred beyond recognition
In complete submission to His Father's will, still"

I am a child of God. When I accepted Christ I surrendered all the guilt and shame, the ugliness of sin, to Him. I have a choice now and I don't have to look at life as a predestined promenade of doom. My self-hatred and proceeding self-destructive behavior is for nothing. I don't have to do this anymore.

"A proclamation was made louder than the loudest temptation
With more beauty than all His creation
More eternal than eternity, more angelic than the heavenlies
It Is done for you and bought with blood"

How stupid and foolish to think that I, in my finite understanding, could presume to hang the judgment of the universe over my head when God Almighty doesn't. Who am I to condemn myself for what God has forgiven and forgotten? Where are my accusers now? Who can lay a finger of blame on me with evidence that will hold up in the courts of Final Judgment? He who knit me in my mother's womb has brought about a redemption love story that erases the things that I hated most about myself and given me a completely new identity: child of God.

"Accept
Rejoice
For freedom has come"

Prose titled, "Benediction" written by Jimmy Needham
Accessed October 2nd, 2011 at: LyricsMania

Integrity of Personality

As a result of miscommunicated intention between myself and a friend at a party, I've begun to contemplate a theory I have about something I call integrity of personality. Following up beliefs I hold to be true about purity, I have endeavored to answer the question of what makes a person a genuinely kind person. We cannot assume that mere kind deeds make a person kind, because we don't know their intentions, so therefore I ruled out deeds altogether. This may seem rather too quick, but since we seldom know the true intentions and motivations behind the actions of others it would seem that eliminating the most unpredictable variable would be a prudent action.

I do not wish to flesh out this theory of integrity of personality. It would take many blog entries to do so, and without solid evidence it will always remain a theory that can be observed but not proven. Instead, I have opted to give the interested reader a taste of what the implications would be if this theory were correct. As an aloof Christian, I have become disenfranchised with many superstitious beliefs about what it means to be a kind person. Fundamentalism amongst the charismatic circles of the Christian religion would have an individual believing that outside of God there is no such thing as kindness. They would also have an individual believe that righteousness in deed is essential to being a kind person. When I refer to righteousness I am in fact referring to sexual purity. Often times the definition of righteousness and purity are blurred by the belief that righteousness is obtained through purity. While commonly ignored, this de facto belief denies the basic tenet that there are none who are good except God. If all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God as it says in Romans 3:23, then no amount of purity will save your soul more than sexual ambiguity will. I do not deny that once we have been given new life in Christ that we are called to live differently from the rest of the world, but amongst the fundamentalists this had devolved into works-based righteousness which is in direct conflict with Paul's words to Timothy in the second letter. (2 Timothy 1:9)

Therefore, the implications of the theory behind integrity of personality is this: it doesn't matter if you're the most chaste and sober individual if you are not a kind person. However, if a person is otherwise morally ambiguous and still a kind person then they are demonstrating integrity of personality. Contrary to the opinion of the charismatic fundamentalists, there can be such a thing as kindness of personality without chastity. Feminists should rejoice, since the implications of this are a major undercut to the patriarchal narrative that plagues Christian tradition.

Thoughts, comments, questions, and the like are appreciated as always.

Hoc est verum,
James

Prelude: Reactionary vs. Revolutionary

If this whets your appetite, then you'll be pleased to know that I am planning to write a novel for NaNoWriMo about this concept of Reactionary vs. Revolutionary.

College students are probably the most laughable kinds of revolutionaries. They begin to study some other political systems or learn about some injustice in the world and think that they're going to make things better by doing something. They may start using some fancy words, or kid themselves into thinking that going to protests with militant socialists will somehow help the situation. They read about Che and start wearing those ridiculous shirts with Che's face plastered on the front. They may begin to fall out of favor with the local authority, opting to give them the middle finger, all the while living under the protection of the same. They criticize administrations of all kinds for their lack this or that, but in the end they're mostly just making noise.

It reminds me a lot of the high school students who wrote their own version of the "Pledge of Allegiance" and proceeded to show up late to school in the mornings so that they could recite their version of the Pledge (which omitted God, allegiance to the State, and pretty much everything that made the original what it was). The video they made showing off their progressive-thinking act of civil disobedience showed the student organization behind all this was a group of liberal kids who had a history of jumping on the bandwagon of the next most progressive thing to-do. These kids were in high school, an abysmal time for many in many different ways, yet they were claiming to be on the forefront of progressivism? They're little act of rebellion did nothing more than put a few bad marks on their attendance sheet and gave Yahoo! News something to talk about for a day while a few thousand viewers commented on it like the peanut gallery they are.

As I have gotten older, I too have grown dissatisfied with the status quo. I have begun to question all that I know; challenging it all with what I am learning. This trial by fire as all the tradition I grew up with passes through the flame of reason with hope that all that remains is what's worth embracing of the old traditions. The problem comes when my emotions are running high and I want nothing to do with the traditions of my parents or of the culture I live in, and when the flame of reason doesn't consume everything, I am quickly left with something that makes sense; I just don't want to accept that it does. This rejection of something that makes sense on the principle that it is a part of what you want nothing to do with is a central them of what I called Reactionary.

Reactionary is called so because the actions that stem from this type of thinking are usually a reaction to something. Some people might look at the hippies of the 1960's who were into bra burning, nudism, sexual flippancy, and all sorts of other things and say, "Huh, what a silly group of people." The sad part is that we can find examples of the same type of reactionary radicalism on campuses today. This is not to be confused with Revolutionary activists on campus who are genuinely seeking to change the way things are and (hopefully) improve something about the environment of the campus.

To be continued in November in my novel...

Hoc est verum,
James

The Inconsistent Significance of Marriage

Marriage plays different roles in cultures throughout the world over. For this topic, it seems appropriate to address the issue from an overarching view of the culture as a whole like Benedict does in Patterns of Culture as opposed to how marriage affects the individual like Schieffelin in Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality. The logic behind this is that I want to ask questions while drawing comparisons and contrasts to the marriage rituals from the cultures of the Zuñi, Dobu, and Kwakiutl with that of American marriage rituals. Because marriage rituals is relative to the couple, their families, and the cultural heritage they share; it is more accurate to say that I am comparing and contrasting the three cultures described in her book with the idealized and often stereotypical concept of the “American marriage ritual”.

The image of an American marriage ritual is in the setting of church filled with family and friends. The groom stands at the altar which is at the front of the church and is accompanied by his best man, the priest/pastor, and other select few who make up the grooms portion of the wedding party. The bride and her portion of the wedding party make their way out in the oft long-awaited moment as the tune, “Here Comes the Bride” plays to signal her walk down the center aisle of the church. After a speech from the priest or pastor, the bride and groom exchange vows of love, endurance, and faithfulness who then recite the words, “With this ring, I thee wed” in an exchange of rings which are brought to them by a member of the party given the apt title of ring bearer. The religious official gives them new names pronouncing them, “Mister and Misses [first and last name of the groom]”. After all is said and done, the procession of the wedding party and all guests watching make their way to another location for a party in which food and drink is served as well as toasts of best wishes to the newly wedded couple primarily from the best man and close friends or family of the couple.

While there are many aspects of the American marriage ritual which could be analyzed, such as the expenses incurred to make such an ideal ceremony possible, it is not feasible to make an accurate evaluation of how much is spent on average without going beyond the scope of the readings assigned. It is noteworthy that the preparation and planning for such an event is considerable. Many months go into planning the wedding from invitations sent out to potential guests to catering for the wedding reception. Every detail is carefully thought-out and taken into account. Some couples and their families elect to hire an individual who specializes in coordinating all the aspects of the planning to relieve some of the stress which often ensues from trying to organize such a grandiose day. The emphasis is mainly placed on making the wedding “her day”, meaning that focus is on the bride and appealing to her fantasies of how the wedding should be. The groom also has input, but his contributions are not considered central to making the day of the wedding perfect.

In stark contrast, the Zuñi put a very small emphasis on their marriage rituals. The boy goes to the father of the girl whom he wishes to marry and awaits for the father to ask the boy about what he came for, and the boy replies that he is seeking his daughter, at which point the daughter is brought out to answer for herself. If she consents, her mother prepares a place for them to retire together. The bride washes her grooms’ hair and for four days brings her now mother-in-law a basket of fine corn flower. Nothing more is made of the event, which points to a larger underscore in Zuñi culture that they avoid expressions of strong emotion.

Divorce in Zuñi culture is about as equally lacking in ceremony. The wife need only to make it a point to attend ceremonial feasts, have a private meeting with a potential new husband, and then to leave her husbands’ few possessions outside of the house which effectively sends him back to live with his mother. Despite this, Benedict notes that marriages on the whole of Zuñi society last the majority of a lifetime (Patterns of Culture, 74-5).

In Dobu culture, a boy freely travels nightly from house to house having affairs with eligible women in a neighboring community. When he grows tired of moving from one to another, he begins to awake to late in the morning and thereby not avoiding being trapped by the soon-to-be mother-in-law as she blocks the door effectively preventing his escape. In view of the public, the couple sit upon a mat, presenting themselves as betrothed to the girl’s village community. The boy and his brothers then work for approximately a year preparing crops to present to the family of the girl. They consummate the marriage with with the wife and husband eating each others’ mothers’ cooking. From then on, the husband provides food for himself in his own garden and for his wife and children in her garden. Marriages do not necessarily end in divorce, but take a more form of passive-aggressive abuse towards each other’s property as a result of discovery of extra-marital affairs occur. Though conciliatory acts by the village community on behalf of their respective married member are made, it is usually only enough to keep the couple together in bitter discontent. The entire marriage ritual underscores the importance of food for the Dobu, as their environment is not conducive to agricultural productivity (Patterns of Culture, 130, 134-5, 140).

In Kwakiutl culture, marriage in almost strictly a business transaction. The boy makes his bid for the girl in an aggressive competition directly against the father for the right to marry his daughter. The more renown the father is, the more the boy must pay in order to acquire his bride. This hostility can sometimes lead to physical violence and even death. The groom is also forced to run a gauntlet of the father-in-law’s men whose sole purpose to inflict pain upon him. The father of the bride forces the family of groom to endure the blistering heat of the fire he stirs while be subjected to mockery and threats of death should the groom fail to acquire his daughter. If the groom is successful, he makes a final payment to retain the bride. The father of the bride then bestows upon the son-in-law all of his titles and wealth for the children his daughter will have. The father-in-law sends his payment down river, which is then sunk by the friends of the son-in-law, which in turn causes the father-in-law to pay with interest what he originally owed(Patterns of Culture, 203-5).

Divorce for the Kwakiutl comes in the form of dissatisfaction with the payments he has received to compensate for the children his wife has had. The father-in-law is then left with his daughter and grandchildren and not paid for the right to see the children. This type of dispute can result in a fiercely competitive form of material destruction. If the father-in-law is forced to destroy most or all of what is valuable to him, then the son-in-law has effectively dissolved the marriage and is free to move on to another woman who will bring him higher status through the wealth and titles that will pass to his children through his father-in-law (Patterns of Culture, 208).

Looking at these three cultures in comparison and contrast to the American marriage ritual, I have to wonder what the significance is that there are similarities between them all. For example, divorce in America may be high, but one of the common reasons for divorce is a spouse having an extra-marital affair. While the Dobu culture has no real escape clause for a disguntled spouse who has caught their partner having an affair, Americans can easily file paperwork and go their separate ways. The father of any children from a now broken-up marriage in America is expected to pay child-support, which mirrors somewhat similarly the payment a son-in-law must pay to see his children in the Kwakiutl. The Zuñi, as pointed out earlier, have rather relaxed attitudes towards marriage altogether, yet they do not have high divorce rates.

As someone with high regard for my cultural heritage of marriage rituals, I am forced to ask why it is that the divorce among those who share my heritage is so high. To hypothesize, I would call into question the significance of marriage in my culture. It should be noted that while there is a semblance of the American marriage ritual present in my culture, when I refer to my cultural heritage of marriage rituals they are somewhat more heavy on the emphasis of religious importance in the marriage. For the longest time, I was under the impression that casual marriage equated to casual divorce, but that is simply not true for the Zuñi. I can only underscore the significance of their anti-conflict stance in marriage as an explanation for the ability for their marriages to outlast marriages among the people I share a cultural heritage with. Until such a time as when I am empowered with the resources to conduct my own research, I may never be able to know for certain what it is about marriage rituals within my cultural heritage that could contribute to their failure.

Source:

Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. New York City: Mariner, 2005. Print.