suffering + free will + time

Now I’ve known the existence of suffering, of bad things happening to good people, most all of my life, in the trauma and pain and brokenness of people that were no more aware of the world than I was but somehow so much less fortunate. But – and forgive me for the self-centered nature of this (after all, mine is the clearest/closest perspective I have) – semi-recent events have presented a mystery in a test of that lens. In a temporary abandonment of that clear perspective of suffering what I keep coming back to is why. I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s so difficult to link some bad thing that happened to a person to the bad things that person has done to deserve it. It doesn’t match up to me. And that’s because there is suffering in the world not because we deserve it, but because we’re just far from God. This is not new news for the many of us, I’m sure, but its meaning has taken on a far more personal turn for me now. Bad things that happen are not good things, any way you look at it. It’s true there are good things about something that has happened, it’s true people learn from bad things, but that does not really make it worth it. In fact, appreciating these things makes me more aware of the fact that in a good world it wouldn’t have happened. People wouldn’t have to learn from mistakes or gain some amount of life experience. We can’t pretend like we don’t live in a broken world. We can’t strive for perfection or oneness with God without taking into account the place we’re in and what we are. Suffering isn’t a good thing, ever, whatever way we look at it. It’s also not dismissible. It is as much a part of our lives and our identities – as humans (humanity) as much as individuals – as anything else is. That inevitability is key. We are not human without free will, free will doesn’t come without people screwing up, people screwing up makes the world a bad place, thus that is a key part of our humanity. A key fact of our humanity. And I’m not going to skate over what I just said: “We are not human without free will.” I do believe that. I imagine a humanity created by God without His accompanying blessing (debatable) of free will and it does not seem as whole to me. I think that this move by our omniscient God was a deliberate one – forbidden fruit eaten and all. As much as we (or I) don’t want to accept that, free will was/is necessary. Tragic and necessary. We are human and we are inquisitive. Knowledge-seeking. We are human and we are complex. We are human and we are not God. How could we ever be absolutely close to God if we didn’t choose it? If we didn’t know what He was not? If we weren’t aware of ourselves? Etc etc etc. If we could, we wouldn’t be human. Obviously, we are not close to God, not now. The culmination approaches. It is even now swiftly arriving. There is now for me a large significance and validity in the concept of a common consciousness of humanity. Of course! Reference my thoughts on time: we are all one person. It is all one moment. And as we near the second coming and pass on our genes and enter into the minds of our ancestors we are getting closer, closer; we are gaining and always gaining the pieces we need for the end, the knowledge and wisdom of ourselves of God of the universe, and some of us will move on. And we will be ready, then, to join God.

Does any of this make sense?

essays! help me!

EDIT: I've now posted an updated version with some of the edits.

I just sent out a mass text asking people to help me edit some essays I'm writing for an application, and this is the easiest way for everyone to see it. This came about because I realized this morning how I wanted to write the essay and that it was already half-written, so the organization really sucks. This is a SUPER first draft, but I'm hoping for some power-editing so I can get it in by today instead of having to wait all weekend. I'm sorry it's so difficult to follow with all of my notes. Also don't judge me. :D

Thanks so much, you all are awesome.

2. What book have you read recently that you found especially significant or valuable? What difference has it made in your life?

ISSUES: fragmented sentences, starting with ‘because’ or ‘and’. Informal. Also informal: contractions. Parenthetical notes I need to make decisions about. Schplotch material needs to be cleaned up. Some things don’t actually make sense. Is abbreviating OHYS okay? The conclusion sucks. Not sure if I made everything relevant enough, or even made the point that I express in the last sentence. Relevant enough to the prompt? References to the book too obscure?




This December, on the reliable recommendation from most avid readers of the family, I picked up Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. There is no doubt it was unlike any literary experience I have ever had because, for the first time in my life, despite having adored my fair share of books, within five minutes of finishing the last page, I had turned back to the first and begun again. Perhaps it was the poetry of Marquez’s prose (even in translation!) that had me so intrigued, or maybe the poignant ending, but something had hooked me and it was only in reading it a second time that the entirety and exceptional wholeness of the novel’s meaning was much more than a vague sense of awe in my mentality.

That is what strikes me most about this story of the Buendía family’s rise and fall – the wholeness of its expression. I picked up this book at a truly opportune moment, because as a new perspective had begun to form itself in my consciousness, One Hundred Years of Solitude offered that exact perspective in novel form. As unable, still, as I am to express the profound outlook that this book embodies, I find myself walking through my life as though watching it through a new lens. An intense and thorough sense of change overwhelms me at the most odd or inane moments – as I glance at a computer screen or catch a whiff of baking bread, or feel the brush of lips against my shoulder – and makes me wonder if the whole way I have been viewing life has been a minute degree in the wrong direction. It is the warp and manipulation and morphing of time and, seemingly, a glimpse of hidden reality.

Time, to us, is just a continuous succession of moments, of events. We are trapped in the way our actions move through time, our visions and perspectives are bound by the way moments enter our eyes and ears and minds and senses, our tongues wrap themselves around a language that limits us. We see the past, present and future as endlessly done, doing and will do: immovable, visible and infinitely impressionable. But sometimes we notice patterns and we anticipate sameness or potential, and we feel the past permeating into the here and now. And that, to me, is because time isn’t an endless succession of moments: we can see its sameness because it is one moment, the same moment, it’s a stack of moments, seeping through again and again. It’s all the same.

Déjà vu has taken on a distinctly new flavor and the draw and significance of history is suddenly tenfold. Memories are a glimpse of one moment through time; history is our way of drawing lines or pulling strings or tying knots in the human timeline. As One Hundred Years demonstrates, the isolation of the Aurelianos or the exuberance of the Jose Arcadios, the tragedy of the common solitude, and the cataclysmic demise of the family transcends generations, and remains throughout the passage of decades and entrance of every character or event and shade of difference imaginable. The human plight, along with the human triumph and ineptitude (error? Or what?) and isolation, is universal and understood; it is simple and the same and a connection we can all boast of or mourn together and alone, a commonality (do I need more words that mean this?) that ties us to one another and to eternity alike.

And so perhaps walking through life should be a little easier this way. Universality is always a great comfort and though we all die alone there is a large amount of solace to be had in the profound approach found by a manipulation of our perspective: that as alone as we are, we all live and die in the same way. Really, it’s all the same.


This sentence:
"
Not only that, but we are all the same, (;? Or a dash? The ‘we are all the same’ doesn’t seem emphasized enough. Also how do I make this relevant by explaining that this perspective is related to the one described in the previous paragraph about time?) in ways that I had never seen before."
was originally the beginning of the paragraph that starts: deja vu has... but then it was pointed out that it didn't belong there. should i just get rid of it or is there somewhere else to put it? if i'm getting rid of it should i rework the conclusion?

Nonchalance, humans suck at loving, this life in time, and perseverence.

Somewhat fragmented post today:

Why, please, is it a good thing to not care what anyone else thinks of you? Isn't that selfish? Isn't that just a clever excuse to get away with anything, to rationalize anything you might have done that you would have felt sorry for? If it's not, "Everyone else does it, so it's okay," it's "The only reason somebody else doesn't do it is that they're not unique and assertive like I am."
Not always the case, of course.
I just think that the only vacuum it's good to live in is the one in which God rules completely.



Humanity sucks at loving, I'm finding. I thought that I had eliminated all expectations of man but I thought wrong, because my standards have recently been lowered a step further. It is very evident to me lately that we are ultimately selfish. As much as we care about someone, as much as we love him or her, it is fundamentally in our nature to choose ourselves when we should choose others, when it is love to choose another. It comes that if there is a decision between doing something for someone else's good and doing something that might make us satisfied or feel good or benefit us, it takes a lot not to choose the latter. It either takes a lot of God making us better or a lot of the kind of love that is in action completely selfless but is only maintained that way because it is entirely selfishly rooted. That is, the kind of love in which it's not really much of a sacrifice at all (because it doesn't feel that way) to us to sacrifice ourselves. (Am I making any sense?)
It seems that we are not loving someone at all each time we don't put him/her first. In that moment we don't love.*

I knew that human love was never perfect, but I was under the impression, for some reason, that it could be pretty much unconditional. I was so wrong though! It takes so much deliberation for it to be even relatively unconditional. It is not easy to love someone all the time, no matter what. (It is impossible to love perfectly - that is, to never screw up, to never hurt [i.e. cause any detriment to] a person - but this is beside the point, I suppose.) We flare up, and lose control, and for a moment don't love. We are apathetic, or lazy, and forget to always be loving. We are stubborn, hold grudges, and are unable to eliminate baggage enough to just allow love to flow. We are judgmental, or not understanding, and it warps our perspectives.
We don't only fail in love under ignorance, we also fail under precise clarity.

I am very bothered recently by the nature in me that stops me from loving when I am perfectly aware that I should, the way in which I could, and what is stopping me from doing so.

I suppose I am just discouraged, and sad. Humanity rears its ugly head always, it seems, when I least expect it.
The best we can do, I think, and what we are obligated to do, is to love deliberately and furiously. A common theme for me of late, I suppose.

*The truth in this depends on, of course, what you consider 'love' to be, and instances in which 'love' is not.



It seems lately that endings are never good. Even if that which is ending was not good, the best we can hope for is bittersweet, for there's always the longing for it to have been better.



It used to trouble me that this life was so short and minimal compared to what eternal life should be. How could that be? Why would God have even given it to us? What's the purpose? But I'm developing a new perspective. I am so limited by my perception of time and am trying very much to overcome that. Suddenly I'm seeing this life as only a moment of truth, of sorts. A decision. A climax. A struggle. It's organized in the confines of time perhaps to indicate its impermanence and temporality (dictionary.com says the word is "temporalness" but I prefer this) in comparison to eternal life. I think, maybe, I am seeing it as a momentary break in eternal life. It is the means of reaching eternal life (and I'll point out that by eternal life I mean the afterlife inclusively) or, rather, the road you walk before you get there.
This is really, really hard for me to express. Do I make any sense?



I know I'm not done falling; I know I'll never be. My only goal - and still a very lofty one - is to always get up knowing a little something more.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill

"Successful men keep moving."
Conrad Hilton

"For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again."
Proberbs 24:16



Current music:
The Classic Crime's new Seattle acoustic EP, except minus all the songs that aren't on their purevolume, because Circuit City and Wal-Mart and work hate me and don't have it in stock. :(
Still Fighting It and Fred Jones, part 2, by Ben Folds

Currently reading:
nothing. :( Every time I pick up a book I feel guilty because I should be doing homework.