Chances are pretty good that if you're reading my blog then you have read some of what I've written before. If not, you'll quickly find that the theme of most of my writings are quite varied. They range from anarchy to love, suffering to theology, philosophy to clones. But the topic that I most passionately write about is passion. When I say things like "Get out there and do whatever you want," "Why are you really in school right now? Take a year off," or "Let's go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan next week, not have plans, and stay til the money runs out" people get a little freaked out. Rightly so. But seriously consider and take these things to heart. People, there really is nothing keeping you right where you are right now. Follow no standards. Be unique. What's keeping you from doing things that you want to do??
Yell "WIENER!!!" right now! I bet you didn't. Did you? I did. I'll do it again, "WIENER!!!!"
This is the kind of mindset that I believe in. A passionate living. Do everything with intense desire and an unmatchable spirit and you've conquered the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to India, or Nepal, or Thailand, or Korea, or Turkey, or Egypt, or somewhere. I'm doing this for the reasons I listed above. I have a desire to see the world and impact it somehow. I'll be teaching English to kids in one of these countries. I need you to do one little thing for me. I need you to help me get to India or wherever. I've written a 400 word statement of intent to earn me a scholarship for a TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) certificate. This certificate is internationally recognized and is my key into virtually every country to teach and make some kind of minimal living. Anyway, this scholarship foundation has a component of social media tied to it and whoever can obtain the most votes, wins. I don't like the method but I didn't create the game and it's a game that I would like to win. So, I gotta play by the rules. Anyway, here's the website and my statement if you care to read and vote. Thanks a million. I thank you for your support and would encourage you to something
equally nuts. (If you need further encouragement to do something insane, find me and I will be
your personal cheerleader.)
Click here to get me to India.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tourist vs. Adventurer
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” -G. K. Chesterton
My initial thoughts stem from a conversation that I had the other night with a friend a couple of evenings ago. I was arguing that travelers are lame and that vagabonds/drifters/gypsies/nomads were much better. I mean, come on, they have a cooler name, they have a more adventuresome outlook on life, they’re counter-cultural, and the argument goes on and on. But this is not the case. I formally relinquish the defense of my previous perspective on this particular contention. The term traveler is an umbrella term, used to cover every type of person that moves from Point A to Point B. Thus, gypsies, vagabonds, drifters, and nomads are types of travelers. All gypsies/vagabonds/drifters/nomads are adventurers; but not all travelers are adventurers. After all, there are those dreadful lot that we call tourists. With that, I think that we all can agree on one more thing: tourists suck.
A tourist has a plan. A tourist goes to the Grand Canyon to see the Grand Canyon, the hawks, the sunrise and sunset, to hike a couple short hikes, etc. There’s not much to be said about the tourist. He will have pictures at the end of his trip but his experience is radically different from the traveler, the adventurer.
The traveler is an adventurer. What he sees is his adventure. There are no plans, no agendas, no pretenses, no expectations. Everything that happens is the adventure. The traveler will see the Canyon, the hawks, the sunrise and sunset. But that’s not all he’ll experience. The traveler’s travels are more than what meets the eye. Oh, yes! The traveler experiences the road, feels the Canyon, is the sunset. There is a perfect union between the experiencer and the experienced. In fact, the individual becomes the experience!
Have you ever gone to Colorado with no plan? Have you gone on a date with no idea where you’ll be taken? Have you ever just gotten in a car and drove? Have you closed your eyes but stayed awake for ten minutes? Have you ever seriously tried to pray in silence by yourself to a God? Be honest: have you ever really felt alive?
The more I think about it, the more I think that adventuring is a mind set. I reckon that it's possible to go on a planned adventure. But in order for it to be an adventure you must be willing for the plan to change, adapt to the circumstances, add to, take away from. An adventure is adventuresome only if the adventurer does not constrict himself to an agenda that could potentially jip him out of another adventure.
It all comes down to the fact that a person really just needs to experience life on a minutely basis. Was there a moment today that you were unconscious of what you were doing? Was there a time today when you slipped into a typical pattern? Was there a time today when you were on auto-mode? Was there a time today when you were a zombie that just went through the motions? These are all signs of tourism. Be alive; be an adventurer.
My initial thoughts stem from a conversation that I had the other night with a friend a couple of evenings ago. I was arguing that travelers are lame and that vagabonds/drifters/gypsies/nomads were much better. I mean, come on, they have a cooler name, they have a more adventuresome outlook on life, they’re counter-cultural, and the argument goes on and on. But this is not the case. I formally relinquish the defense of my previous perspective on this particular contention. The term traveler is an umbrella term, used to cover every type of person that moves from Point A to Point B. Thus, gypsies, vagabonds, drifters, and nomads are types of travelers. All gypsies/vagabonds/drifters/nomads are adventurers; but not all travelers are adventurers. After all, there are those dreadful lot that we call tourists. With that, I think that we all can agree on one more thing: tourists suck.
A tourist has a plan. A tourist goes to the Grand Canyon to see the Grand Canyon, the hawks, the sunrise and sunset, to hike a couple short hikes, etc. There’s not much to be said about the tourist. He will have pictures at the end of his trip but his experience is radically different from the traveler, the adventurer.
The traveler is an adventurer. What he sees is his adventure. There are no plans, no agendas, no pretenses, no expectations. Everything that happens is the adventure. The traveler will see the Canyon, the hawks, the sunrise and sunset. But that’s not all he’ll experience. The traveler’s travels are more than what meets the eye. Oh, yes! The traveler experiences the road, feels the Canyon, is the sunset. There is a perfect union between the experiencer and the experienced. In fact, the individual becomes the experience!
Have you ever gone to Colorado with no plan? Have you gone on a date with no idea where you’ll be taken? Have you ever just gotten in a car and drove? Have you closed your eyes but stayed awake for ten minutes? Have you ever seriously tried to pray in silence by yourself to a God? Be honest: have you ever really felt alive?
The more I think about it, the more I think that adventuring is a mind set. I reckon that it's possible to go on a planned adventure. But in order for it to be an adventure you must be willing for the plan to change, adapt to the circumstances, add to, take away from. An adventure is adventuresome only if the adventurer does not constrict himself to an agenda that could potentially jip him out of another adventure.
It all comes down to the fact that a person really just needs to experience life on a minutely basis. Was there a moment today that you were unconscious of what you were doing? Was there a time today when you slipped into a typical pattern? Was there a time today when you were on auto-mode? Was there a time today when you were a zombie that just went through the motions? These are all signs of tourism. Be alive; be an adventurer.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Prince of Perfect Love
What is God’s relationship with us like? Here’s an immature, underdeveloped opinion from a twenty-one and a half year old, know-it-all, philosophy major.
I’m sure if I was a Scripture scholar I could cite you several passages that preach to the covenantal promise between God and His people. I could find a plethora of information speaking to the humble and gentle love of the Christ from the Gospels. I could find the renowned stories that the disciples of Jesus told after the meek and passionate self-giving of the God-man. Yadda, yadda, yadda. We’ve all been taught this in our Catholic schools. We’ve been instructed to regurgitate this information in our religion and theology classes. But what is God’s love?!? Let’s prayerfully try to dig down deep and figure out what the love of God is.
God loves you as if there were no one else to love.
Woah, baby. What’s that kind of lovin’ mean to you?
Oh, my roommate just drunkly puked all over my bed...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, all of my professors decide to make their papers due the exact same week...I still love them as if they’re each the only person in the world to love. Oh, you decided to cut my work hours down by half...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you just ordered the death of 6 million Jews...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you’re “just a lump of cells” in the womb that will grow to become a massive inconvenience in my life...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you slept with my wife...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you broke my little sister’s heart...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love.
Yeah, that’s what God’s love looks like to me. It’s perfect. No matter what my offense is, perfect love is the response. Wrap your head around that one. If you haven’t dropped to your knees and smacked your face on the ground in veneration, complete awe, admiration, wonder, and reverence then you need to spend a couple more seconds reflecting. This thought is powerful enough to bring the most prideful to their knees. Take this thought seriously and your prayer life will be revolutionized. Let’s prayerfully take a look on the flip side of the coin now.
I am the drunken roommate that puked everywhere. I am the professor that makes my student’s life inconvenient. I am the boss that screwed my employee over because he really needs to make that payment but he can’t because I didn’t give him the hours. I’m the mass murderer, anti-Semite, the racist, the sexist, the gay-hater, the pervert. I am the mother who went into the abortion clinic last Saturday. I am the dude that slept with your wife. I am the high school boy with raging hormones that made your sister stay up all night crying because she found out my real motivations.
Yeah, that’s what my love for God looks like. No matter the amount of love I’m shown or given, I always, without fail screw it up. If this doesn’t make you question yourself and bring you to the brink of absolute despair then you need to spend a couple more seconds reflecting. This thought is powerful enough to bring tears the most prideful eyes.
This perfect love is perfectly calling us back in to perfectly consume us. The forgiveness and mercy that is derived from this love can be triumphant in our lives only when we decide to continually sprint back to it.
Prince of Perfect Love, be with me, hold me, carry me, heal me.
I’m sure if I was a Scripture scholar I could cite you several passages that preach to the covenantal promise between God and His people. I could find a plethora of information speaking to the humble and gentle love of the Christ from the Gospels. I could find the renowned stories that the disciples of Jesus told after the meek and passionate self-giving of the God-man. Yadda, yadda, yadda. We’ve all been taught this in our Catholic schools. We’ve been instructed to regurgitate this information in our religion and theology classes. But what is God’s love?!? Let’s prayerfully try to dig down deep and figure out what the love of God is.
God loves you as if there were no one else to love.
Woah, baby. What’s that kind of lovin’ mean to you?
Oh, my roommate just drunkly puked all over my bed...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, all of my professors decide to make their papers due the exact same week...I still love them as if they’re each the only person in the world to love. Oh, you decided to cut my work hours down by half...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you just ordered the death of 6 million Jews...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you’re “just a lump of cells” in the womb that will grow to become a massive inconvenience in my life...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you slept with my wife...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love. Oh, you broke my little sister’s heart...I still love you as if you’re the only person in the world to love.
Yeah, that’s what God’s love looks like to me. It’s perfect. No matter what my offense is, perfect love is the response. Wrap your head around that one. If you haven’t dropped to your knees and smacked your face on the ground in veneration, complete awe, admiration, wonder, and reverence then you need to spend a couple more seconds reflecting. This thought is powerful enough to bring the most prideful to their knees. Take this thought seriously and your prayer life will be revolutionized. Let’s prayerfully take a look on the flip side of the coin now.
I am the drunken roommate that puked everywhere. I am the professor that makes my student’s life inconvenient. I am the boss that screwed my employee over because he really needs to make that payment but he can’t because I didn’t give him the hours. I’m the mass murderer, anti-Semite, the racist, the sexist, the gay-hater, the pervert. I am the mother who went into the abortion clinic last Saturday. I am the dude that slept with your wife. I am the high school boy with raging hormones that made your sister stay up all night crying because she found out my real motivations.
Yeah, that’s what my love for God looks like. No matter the amount of love I’m shown or given, I always, without fail screw it up. If this doesn’t make you question yourself and bring you to the brink of absolute despair then you need to spend a couple more seconds reflecting. This thought is powerful enough to bring tears the most prideful eyes.
This perfect love is perfectly calling us back in to perfectly consume us. The forgiveness and mercy that is derived from this love can be triumphant in our lives only when we decide to continually sprint back to it.
Prince of Perfect Love, be with me, hold me, carry me, heal me.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Zombies.
(Before I begin, I shall state my purpose for writing this particular blog post: I have been too serious lately. I’ve been thinking too much lately. I’ve been too beautifully consumed with enlightening thoughts lately. I feel that my reader might be getting bored and lulled into my patternized thoughts. So, I’m mixing it up a bit. I’ve posted nothing like this before. (It’s also crucial to mention that I can count on one hand how many video games I’ve played in my entire life. Nor have I read any zombie books/guides.) So, I might be completely oblivious to the entire issue at hand, but, regardless, this is how I intend to kick some zombie ass. Cheers.)
Alright kids, I’m going to reveal my plan of defense against the Zombie Apocalypse. It’s inevitable that the apocalypse will happen. By nature of it being an “apocalypse” every single person will die. Including you. Including me. No one will survive. My goal, then, is to slay as many damn zombies as possible before being overcome by the living dead. Let me briefly fill you in about the nature of zombies as I understand them. They are dead humans that are brought back to life by a scientist in a lab somehow (it’s not important). They are the fittest version of their living self while still being dead. Their brains don’t work, nor do their hearts. But they can still function. They are blazing fast and startlingly strong and are attracted to the scent of humans but they have no coordination. This is how I understand zombies to work. If it’s wrong or inaccurate, I don’t care because my defensive tactics are impeccable.
Okay, so I pointed out that my goal is to demolish as many hellions as possible despite the knowledge of inevitable death. According to my understanding of zombie-nature, the only way to defeat a zombie is by separating the head from its shoulders or inflicting substantial damage to the head of the thing. As soon as the news reaches my ears that America has been infected by zombies I will immediately move to Virginia. I have, in my uncle’s house, prepared a highly armed Dixie Chopper (a very agile four wheel lawn mower that is controlled by two handles that individually direct the motion of the mower). On this Dixie Chopper are several reserve batteries to reload and re-energize. Along with the batteries are two 50 gallon side tanks of spare gas. Approximations show that the best Dixie Chopper burns about 1 gallon of gas per hour. That gives me roughly 130 hours of chopping. So, anyway, I’ll be heading to Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. Why? Because it is the largest most organized cemetery in the country. It would require very little skill in the art of Dixie maneuverability; I'd just ride up and down the rows.
I will take my Dixie Chopper lawn mower to the cemetery and run over all the zombies that are popping up out of the ground because they’ve been bit and are rising back from the dead. They will be no challenge to the 52 inch blade of my lawn mower. However, they will eventually start popping up way too fast for me to keep up with. What I neglected to mention before is that my lawn mower will have two reinforced, super sturdy iron rods shaped like hockey sticks with blades protruding from them. When the zombies begin to rise from the graves and run after me, I will eject my blades, run them over. This allows me to cover a much wider spread with my “bladed wings”. Also I can just spin around in circles which will clear a twenty foot radius, giving me room to maneuver, re-adjust, and buy me time to come up with a game plan of attack.
Obviously, there will come a point where it is just altogether overwhelming and they begin to jump on to my lawn mower. Well, while in seminary I met a fine man. His name is José. He was our Hispanic maintenance guy. Fantastic dude. I reckon that he’ll be game for my plan. (If not, I’m accepting applications and will be hosting tryouts if you want to be my teammate in this endeavor.) Anyway, there will be a seat attached right behind the driver seat and José will be slightly raised above me, the driver. He is expertly trained in sniperhood. He’s a damn good shot. He’ll be responsible for the long-range picking off of zombies. He is also responsible for refilling the gas tank and changing the batteries. When the point comes that the zombies become way too challenging, José has the option to employ the self-eject button in which he will be launched into the air while attached to a parachute. But that’s his choice. I see that as a last ditch effort to avoid the zombies but it is inevitable that the whole land is infested at this point and he will be immediately transformed to zombieness once he has landed and is infected by the bite of a zombie.
I don’t really want to have a two man team but it’s better than going solo and it’s definitely better than a team of more than two because if one person within the “family” is infected then it will be much easier for that now-zombie to infect the other members. If José was to be bitten, I would have no choice but to ditch him. And vice versa. I would want José to shoot me in the head if I turned on him.
Anyway, once the point comes that I can’t take it anymore or my fuel is running low, I retreat to my house in Virginia. This house is highly prepared for the specific circumstance of a Zombie Apocalypse. First of all, I will have many years worth of food stored in the attic and the basement. Next, the house functions off the grid. There is zero external dependency: no heat, no electricity, no water, nothing comes from the outside world. It is positioned next to a river: hydroelectric power. Windmills: wind power. Solar panels: solar power. Plus, I have a wood stove for warmth and hot water. Meanwhile, there is a generator that is capturing and holding all excess energy for future use.
This house will probably be invaded at some point in the future. What’s my defense, you ask? I have treadmills surrounding the house. Not just one row deep but two rows deep. When the zombies eventually stumble upon my house they will run at it and merely get caught on the treadmills as they are trying to approach my house. Not to mention, I have a turret that protrudes from the top of my house in which I will be able to pick them off with assorted weaponry: grenades, bow and arrow, pistols, shotguns, sniper guns, bazookas, etc.
Eventually, though, I’m sure that they will be able to reach me when one of the treadmills dies or something. Then, I guess, my time has come. But you can bet your ass that I did my damnedest to save humanity. In the great words of William Wallace, "FREEEEDOM!!"
Alright kids, I’m going to reveal my plan of defense against the Zombie Apocalypse. It’s inevitable that the apocalypse will happen. By nature of it being an “apocalypse” every single person will die. Including you. Including me. No one will survive. My goal, then, is to slay as many damn zombies as possible before being overcome by the living dead. Let me briefly fill you in about the nature of zombies as I understand them. They are dead humans that are brought back to life by a scientist in a lab somehow (it’s not important). They are the fittest version of their living self while still being dead. Their brains don’t work, nor do their hearts. But they can still function. They are blazing fast and startlingly strong and are attracted to the scent of humans but they have no coordination. This is how I understand zombies to work. If it’s wrong or inaccurate, I don’t care because my defensive tactics are impeccable.
Okay, so I pointed out that my goal is to demolish as many hellions as possible despite the knowledge of inevitable death. According to my understanding of zombie-nature, the only way to defeat a zombie is by separating the head from its shoulders or inflicting substantial damage to the head of the thing. As soon as the news reaches my ears that America has been infected by zombies I will immediately move to Virginia. I have, in my uncle’s house, prepared a highly armed Dixie Chopper (a very agile four wheel lawn mower that is controlled by two handles that individually direct the motion of the mower). On this Dixie Chopper are several reserve batteries to reload and re-energize. Along with the batteries are two 50 gallon side tanks of spare gas. Approximations show that the best Dixie Chopper burns about 1 gallon of gas per hour. That gives me roughly 130 hours of chopping. So, anyway, I’ll be heading to Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. Why? Because it is the largest most organized cemetery in the country. It would require very little skill in the art of Dixie maneuverability; I'd just ride up and down the rows.
I will take my Dixie Chopper lawn mower to the cemetery and run over all the zombies that are popping up out of the ground because they’ve been bit and are rising back from the dead. They will be no challenge to the 52 inch blade of my lawn mower. However, they will eventually start popping up way too fast for me to keep up with. What I neglected to mention before is that my lawn mower will have two reinforced, super sturdy iron rods shaped like hockey sticks with blades protruding from them. When the zombies begin to rise from the graves and run after me, I will eject my blades, run them over. This allows me to cover a much wider spread with my “bladed wings”. Also I can just spin around in circles which will clear a twenty foot radius, giving me room to maneuver, re-adjust, and buy me time to come up with a game plan of attack.
Obviously, there will come a point where it is just altogether overwhelming and they begin to jump on to my lawn mower. Well, while in seminary I met a fine man. His name is José. He was our Hispanic maintenance guy. Fantastic dude. I reckon that he’ll be game for my plan. (If not, I’m accepting applications and will be hosting tryouts if you want to be my teammate in this endeavor.) Anyway, there will be a seat attached right behind the driver seat and José will be slightly raised above me, the driver. He is expertly trained in sniperhood. He’s a damn good shot. He’ll be responsible for the long-range picking off of zombies. He is also responsible for refilling the gas tank and changing the batteries. When the point comes that the zombies become way too challenging, José has the option to employ the self-eject button in which he will be launched into the air while attached to a parachute. But that’s his choice. I see that as a last ditch effort to avoid the zombies but it is inevitable that the whole land is infested at this point and he will be immediately transformed to zombieness once he has landed and is infected by the bite of a zombie.
I don’t really want to have a two man team but it’s better than going solo and it’s definitely better than a team of more than two because if one person within the “family” is infected then it will be much easier for that now-zombie to infect the other members. If José was to be bitten, I would have no choice but to ditch him. And vice versa. I would want José to shoot me in the head if I turned on him.
Anyway, once the point comes that I can’t take it anymore or my fuel is running low, I retreat to my house in Virginia. This house is highly prepared for the specific circumstance of a Zombie Apocalypse. First of all, I will have many years worth of food stored in the attic and the basement. Next, the house functions off the grid. There is zero external dependency: no heat, no electricity, no water, nothing comes from the outside world. It is positioned next to a river: hydroelectric power. Windmills: wind power. Solar panels: solar power. Plus, I have a wood stove for warmth and hot water. Meanwhile, there is a generator that is capturing and holding all excess energy for future use.
This house will probably be invaded at some point in the future. What’s my defense, you ask? I have treadmills surrounding the house. Not just one row deep but two rows deep. When the zombies eventually stumble upon my house they will run at it and merely get caught on the treadmills as they are trying to approach my house. Not to mention, I have a turret that protrudes from the top of my house in which I will be able to pick them off with assorted weaponry: grenades, bow and arrow, pistols, shotguns, sniper guns, bazookas, etc.
Eventually, though, I’m sure that they will be able to reach me when one of the treadmills dies or something. Then, I guess, my time has come. But you can bet your ass that I did my damnedest to save humanity. In the great words of William Wallace, "FREEEEDOM!!"
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Prayer?
Let’s start with this: I’m no theologian. This is not an original idea but a beautiful concept that I’ve stumbled upon. Karl Rahner S.J. in On Prayer did something similar that I am about to do with the Our Father. (Or, rather, I'm doing something similar to what he did.) It is a common problem (especially among Catholics) to become complacent and merely gloss over the words of formulated prayers. Hence why so many people get bored while praying the Rosary or don’t have a personal relationship with Christ. However, Rahner tells his reader (and I agree) to pray despite boredom. True prayer is an invocation of the name of God, right? True prayer is prayer in the Holy Spirit, right? Well, he says that everyday, common, boring prayer leads the Holy Spirit in to the soul for strong and powerful encounters. Most beautifully he says, “If he feels himself incapable of praying, he must nevertheless kneel, join his hands, speak words of prayer even if he feels that these words come only from his lips and that his heart remains unmoved.”
I wrote this in ten minutes. I could’ve put more thought, time, and prayer into it but it was too good of an idea for me not to start writing on right this minute and I’m busy the rest of the night to give it the time it deserves. Regardless, it was an outstanding and very fruitful experience but it’s nothing much so I might revisit it later. That being said, it was good prayer and sought to avoid what I’ve been discontent with in my own spiritual life lately--that of blandness. Consider making a project like this every week for the duration of Lent.
Our Father,
My daddy. My dad. My heavenly Father. My personable Father. The one that I trust and cling to throughout everything.
who art in Heaven,
- Who created all the Heavens. Who is the Almighty Creator of the majestic expanse of the Universe.
hallowed be Thy Name.
- Holy be your most High name. You are worthy of praise. I should fall down at the sound of Your name.
Thy kingdom come,
- Bring your kingdom among us. Bring your presence fully to our lives. Infiltrate the fiber of my very being. Let me fully be one in union with You.
Thy will be done,
- Allow me to be receptive and courageous in the face of Your eternal will, that which is greater than all else, that it may be carried out. You know all.
on Earth as it is in Heaven.
- Bring to fruition your plan here and now. We desire You with enthusiasm.
Give us this day our daily bread
- I need your nourishment. You are the source of strength, courage, love, forgiveness, humility, patience, everything. As my body can’t go a day without food, nor can my soul go a minute without prayer. Give me the patience to hear you but the courage to initiate conversation.
and forgive us our trespasses
- Forgive me. I’ve sinned against You, myself, and everyone else.
as we forgive those who trespass against us
- Give me the strength to be able to have but one ounce of Your patience to forgive.
and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Bring me perfectly back into you.
AMEN.
- I believe this wholeheartedly and I'm more confused than ever but I still trust in You.
Remember that “God is more true the center of our being than we are ourselves” and that “Deep in our hearts there is a profound restlessness because God has given us a thirst for the Infinite, for the Incomprehensible, for Himself.”
I wrote this in ten minutes. I could’ve put more thought, time, and prayer into it but it was too good of an idea for me not to start writing on right this minute and I’m busy the rest of the night to give it the time it deserves. Regardless, it was an outstanding and very fruitful experience but it’s nothing much so I might revisit it later. That being said, it was good prayer and sought to avoid what I’ve been discontent with in my own spiritual life lately--that of blandness. Consider making a project like this every week for the duration of Lent.
Our Father,
My daddy. My dad. My heavenly Father. My personable Father. The one that I trust and cling to throughout everything.
who art in Heaven,
- Who created all the Heavens. Who is the Almighty Creator of the majestic expanse of the Universe.
hallowed be Thy Name.
- Holy be your most High name. You are worthy of praise. I should fall down at the sound of Your name.
Thy kingdom come,
- Bring your kingdom among us. Bring your presence fully to our lives. Infiltrate the fiber of my very being. Let me fully be one in union with You.
Thy will be done,
- Allow me to be receptive and courageous in the face of Your eternal will, that which is greater than all else, that it may be carried out. You know all.
on Earth as it is in Heaven.
- Bring to fruition your plan here and now. We desire You with enthusiasm.
Give us this day our daily bread
- I need your nourishment. You are the source of strength, courage, love, forgiveness, humility, patience, everything. As my body can’t go a day without food, nor can my soul go a minute without prayer. Give me the patience to hear you but the courage to initiate conversation.
and forgive us our trespasses
- Forgive me. I’ve sinned against You, myself, and everyone else.
as we forgive those who trespass against us
- Give me the strength to be able to have but one ounce of Your patience to forgive.
and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Bring me perfectly back into you.
AMEN.
- I believe this wholeheartedly and I'm more confused than ever but I still trust in You.
Remember that “God is more true the center of our being than we are ourselves” and that “Deep in our hearts there is a profound restlessness because God has given us a thirst for the Infinite, for the Incomprehensible, for Himself.”
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Greatest Human Emotion: Suffering.
I usually attempt to write without clear bias in favor of religion on the grounds of trying to appeal to the general secular public. I also believe that if you take God out of the equation and argue on a agnostic foundation then the argument only becomes stronger. With this method, you can more easily converse with the believer and it just becomes icing on the cake once you bring God in to support your argument. If you can prove a point without God and later support it with God, you’ve got the debate in the bag.
However, with this particular thought, I am unable to eliminate the bias of God. He must be included. I’m writing on the topic of suffering. All too many times do people use suffering and the evils that people must endure on a daily basis as a disproof for God. I, on the other hand, see suffering as a distinct proof for God. It’s radical, I know. It’s a thought that must take root in people’s mind.
Here goes it.
Every day people seem to say, “Why me?”, “Why did that innocent child die?”, “Why is this happening?”, “Would a truly good God allow this to happen?” Suffering is a phenomena that plagues humankind. We are struck with grief day in and day out. We are forced into some kind of suffering, angst, sorrow, and pain. We instinctively try avoid it. And naturally so because it hurts. It hurts us to our deepest core. We cry. We isolate ourselves. We avoid suffering at all costs. And I don’t blame us for doing it. But there’s a greater response to this suffering than to merely and arbitrarily avoid it.
There are a plethora of choices to deal with these sources of pain. Depression? There’s Prozac, Wellbutrin, Paxil, Celexa, to name a few. Massive industries are built to eliminate suffering: psychiatry, enormous multi-billion dollar drug companies, counselors, etc. Unemployed? There’s welfare, unemployment checks, go find a job, work at McDonald’s until you find another job, go get a better education, etc. Dealing with death? Mourn, grieve; these things are socially acceptable. Oh, your daughter died? Well I wouldn’t blame you if you locked yourself in your room and slept 18 hours a day. This is the society that we live in. And again, I’m not bashing it but there’s a better response to these things than eliminating these points of suffering.
I’m contesting that suffering is the greatest human emotion. There’s more potential to grow from this emotion than any other feeling that we can possibly feel. And there’s also more terror that we could walk into because of this emotion. Suffering is “the greatest” in terms of the drastic gamut of results that it can produce, from complete despair and suicide to perfect hope and assurance. If treated and viewed properly, suffering is our greatest ally. If left untreated and ignored or negatively acted upon, suffering is our greatest enemy. And oh how many times do we choose the latter!
Suffering. The mother that loses her child, the kid who has no hope for life, the anguish and bitterness of love, the helplessness of being truly sick with cancer. Every person has some radical form of suffering that they are always dealing with. But in suffering we find hope. Suffering intimately leads us to the heart of love, if we are right minded about the issue.
Look, if there was no suffering and life completely and always made sense, how, then, would Jesus have been brutally tortured? Christ seems to be calling us to face up to our greatest fears. He calls His disciples away from their comfortable livings as fishermen and tax collectors. He calls them to the Cross. He roughly says, “It isn’t going to be easy and you guys are going to see some things that you’d never want to see but the reward is infinite. Trust me on this one.” Give up your money. Be hated. Drop your jobs. Take up your cross.
Jesus Himself suffered immensely, perhaps more than any other human to walk the earth. Being God, He knew everything. Imagine if you knew everything. I know that if I knew everything I wouldn’t be able to live a sane life, especially if I knew the day and time and method of my being slaughtered. Jesus dealt with completely ignorant idiots (ie the Pharisees, the Sadducees, even His own best friends), the stress of His ministry to get people to realize that He actually is God, during the Agony in the Garden just hours before one of His closest friends turns Him over for a couple dollars. Could you even begin to imagine these things happening to you? You try to convince the world that you’re God. It hurts when your own best friend just minorly lies to you; could you imagine your best friend betraying you and turning you over to your killer? Could you imagine being so distraught as to begin sweating blood while your best buds fall asleep instead of consoling you while you cry? Could you imagine being innocent and yet being put on Death Row? Could you imagine a thorn bush being beaten into your head? Could you imagine walking barefoot on roads of rocks with a 125 pound log on your shoulders in minimal clothing for even just a quarter of a mile while being whipped, hit in the face, taunted, tripped, kicked, laughed at? Could you imagine nails piercing your body? Could you imagine the equivalent of sour milk being offered to your lips while you hang from a tree as people jeer at you? Imagine these things as if you were truly the Son of God. You know you’re right. You know you’re God. Ha! But everybody just stares and laughs while you struggle to breathe and are hanging by nails on planks of wood still covered with abrasive bark as you have widely open wounds over the entirety of your body. What about your closest friends? Where are they? Hmm, well, nobody knows. Only your mother and one of your friends are there weeping helplessly, not being able to do anything about the world’s greatest injustice.This is true suffering.
But as God, all you have to say is, “Father in Heaven, forgive them. I love them regardless.” In the Garden, previous to His death sentence, Christ was overwhelmed by every single sin of the world, from Adam and Eve all the way to the last sin of the last man to ever walk the earth. The devil barraged Him with every trick in His book. Three hours of being in that forest in complete and utter agony, nearer to despair than He’s ever been. And He was God! Yet even He suffered. If there was a good God, people say, then this would have never happened. To that I simply say, bullocks!!
Listen, the plain truth of suffering is that Christ calls us to it. Day by day we are asked to walk into and face our pain. Not run from it. Walk into it. He asks us to give up money. My dad lost his job last year and shattered his leg. You don’t think that’s been a huge source of suffering? It has. My 22 year old cousin’s 4 year old baby girl died a month ago. You don’t think that’s been a huge source of suffering? It has. My grandpa developed cancer, was put in hospice, struggled to breathe, was forced to eat, and died. You don’t think that was a major source of suffering? It was. Kids commit suicide all the time. You don’t think that’s the result/creates suffering? It is/does. This stuff happens all the time. It’s a brutal reality of our existence. Where is the meaning in it all?! How is this supposed to make sense?! Why is suffering the greatest human emotion?!
Humans have this distinct ability to make meaning out of nothing. We can come up with reasonable explanations for 9/11, tsunamis, tornadoes, unemployment, death, war, hunger, suicide, and every other thing that haunts our existence. So here is my justification for it all.
Let us reflect on stories from the New Testament such as the leper, the adulterous woman, the truly outcasted from society, the Roman guard, the poor, Lazarus, the blind man, the paralyzed man. Once they confronted suffering, they found themselves at the feet of Jesus. The leper in Roman time was banned from the city and was often left on the side of the road with nothing and most usually died of starvation. One day when wallowing in grief and pain, he was met by Christ coincidently. In his complete suffering the leper, while being ignored by the people that tried to ignore him while passing by, humbly grasped at Jesus’ cloak. Get this, Jesus said, “By your faith and hope, you are healed.” In this man’s suffering he is met with the face of Christ and is healed. Suffering leads us intimately to the heart of love. In his suffering we find Christ.
We are all asked to live lives full of suffering. That’s the nature of being human, to suffer. It’s inevitable. We are told to go to the cross. What in God’s good name is so great about suffering?! Why are we told to be crucified? Because this is where we find our true essence. This is where we find out who we actually are.
Compassion. Compassion is Latin for “to suffer with”. Who is the most compassionate character to have been human? Jesus Christ. It follows, then, that He has suffered with His people the most. He takes on our suffering with us. This is how we find Him. He ultimately takes on and walks with us in our suffering more than we do ourselves.
If everything were honky-dory all the time, how would we find God? Where would the meaning of life be in that? How could we come to know that there is something more if everything were perfectly laid out for us? In suffering we are intimately led to the heart of love. Suffering must be a proof for God or at least a validation of the words that Jesus gave us, “Pick up your cross and come with me.” In fact, it would be the greatest disproof for God if the world was set up perfectly and there was no conflict, suffering, hate, or fear.
My final words. Love is great, joy is fantastic, hope is wonderful, fear is powerful. But suffering is breathtaking. It can be positively breathtaking or negatively breathtaking. Wallow in your suffering, but figure it out, work through it, find God. Above all, it is great to “give up one’s life for another” so, at the very least, be compassionate. Suffer with your friends, and for that matter, with your enemies. People are suffering of starvation; we are called to suffer with them. Be hungry. People have no water; we are called to suffer with them. Be dirty for a day. People have no beds; we are called to suffer with them. Have restless sleep on the floor for a night. People have lost their parents or kids; we are called to suffer with them. Appreciate your parents and kids--tell them you love them. The ultimate form of compassion and solidarity must be prayer. Pray with and for these people, for yourself. In prayer we divinely unite ourselves with humanity and God Himself. In prayer we imitate Jesus; we take on suffering of our brother and sister, friend and enemy.
Lastly, there’s no need to be a masochist and to search out suffering. If you look hard enough, it’s already there in your life. That’s what life is about, to suffer. We are empty people. However, we’ve been created to fill this emptiness with something that’s not of the physical world. It’s a helpless, hopeless feeling. But it’s one that will most fully bring you to your knees. It’s a feeling that will give you the greatest sense of fulfillment.
Oh my God, and I truly do mean “oh my God”, could you even imagine the world that we could live in if everyone was to bring this viewpoint into their hearts?
Lent is the perfect opportunity to infiltrate this mindset into your daily living if you’ve already screwed up your promises. I know I have. But holy mackerel, what a great alternative. Suffering intimately leads us to the heart of love.
Finally, this leads me back to my first two paragraphs. I find it a little ironic that Suffering, something that is seemingly so unexplainable, is easily explained by the presence of a God and yet more specifically by a God made man.
Finally, this leads me back to my first two paragraphs. I find it a little ironic that Suffering, something that is seemingly so unexplainable, is easily explained by the presence of a God and yet more specifically by a God made man.
Shanti.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Colloquialisms That Grind My Gears
This is my first post that is not intended to be controversial but I fully suspect people will have problems with it regardless. That’s fine. We can discuss. I look forward to the lively conversation. But, rather, this was written for the sheer sake of enjoyment as well as an exercise in creativity. My ultimate goal here is to bring you into thought about what you say and why you say it.
I had a terribly fun time collecting these phrases over the past two weeks. Whenever I heard somebody say one or caught myself uttering one I stopped and wrote it down for further reflection.
Additionally, I must say that each explanation is fairly short for the sole reason of space and time conservation. This is an abbreviated list of phrases, also for the sake of time.
- I’m just a human. (credit to Damian Schmitt)
This phrase, if anything, is an excuse for perfection and is absolutely not a justification for screwing up. I substantiate this with the fact that we all share in a divinely similar spiritual nature and are called to perfection. This is known best in Jesus. He was ‘only’ human (obviously perfectly divine as well) but maintained perfection despite His sharing in humanity and being tempted, having walked through pain, suffering, fear and all other human emotions.
- Out of order.
Nothing is “out of order”. If an elevator, for example, were out of order then the particles would be completely and utterly destroyed. This obviously cannot be possible, for if it were the case, the elevator would be in complete nonexistence. It is not even intelligible for something to be known as being in complete chaos and in an absolute state of out of orderliness. Thus, it is rather more proper to say, “The elevator is dysfunctional,” meaning that it is not adequately or efficiently achieving its goal of transportation or of motion. So those ignorant signs that say “out of order” are completely wrong.
- Gingers have no souls.
Whoever wrote this into the script of South Park clearly doesn’t know what a soul actually is. A body is a soul inhabiting matter. A body cannot exist without a soul. The soul is a unifying principle and the soul informs or animates matter. Red heads or ‘gingers’ have a body, are a unified whole, and are able to carry out motion, tasks, animations, etc. Thus, a ginger does have a soul. Get over it.
- God bless America.
I’m glad we are telling God to bless America. Even if we were to merely ask Him to bless America, it’s as if He were going to forget. Even if we are merely praying for God to bless America, it’s as if He were not going to. This just seems like a strange concept to me.
- Be safe.
My mom is infamous for saying this every time I leave the house. Potentially for good reason, knowing my habits, but it’s still an odd thing to say. It’s like she (or any mother that tells their kid to be safe) assumes that I (or we) are going to go out of our way to be reckless. I’m not going to leave the house and be safe just because she reminded me to be safe. I understand and completely appreciate the sentiments behind saying this but it is still a goofy notion to think about on it’s own.
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I couldn’t think of anything further from the truth. This leads us down silly roads of relativism: for one person to claim that Rembrandt’s, Da Vinci’s, Monet’s art pieces are the most beautiful artists of all time and for another to claim that art this art is absolutely atrocious. There is an ultimate form of beauty and good art will best attempt to capture it in oils, marble, pastels, crayons, finger paint, clay, etc. Beauty can be looked at objectively and this common phrase distorts that reality.
- History repeats itself. (credit to Kevin Banich)
If history repeated itself then it seems as though the exact same situations would happen over again. Every situation that has ever happened in all of history is just as much different from each other as every snowflake is different from each other. There may be significant similarities in two histories but there are significant similarities in two completely different snowflakes (i.e. frozen water gathered around a particle of dirt that is heavy enough to fall from the sky or whatever).
- God exists. Or God does not exist. (credit to Eckhart Tolle)
Eckhart Tolle conveys my point adequately in his book called The Power of Now, “The word God has become an empty meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind the word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what they are denying.” St. Anselm claims that the atheist is a fool because he does not understand what or who God is. This is the same point that Eckhart Tolle seems to be making in the above quotation, none of us know who God is yet we are constantly trying to prove and deny Him.
- Life is not about imitating. (this phrase was brought to my awareness from a tweet by @jamesbrockmeier aka James Brockmeier (who does not agree with the original statement))
This proclamation is just nonsense. Imitation is the goal of life. To manifest an objective truth of how we are meant to live is imitation and should be sought after. There is no reason why imitation (of Saints, Mary, Christ, and other noble figures) should not be attempted unless aimed at wrong goals (i.e. to change one’s personality, to conform to negative influences, etc).
- Trust your instincts.
Yeah, okay, if you’re only an animal. Basing action off pure instinct and feeling is to reduce your cognitive function of your ability to choose, discriminate between two options, to have preference, to have a will of your own to a mere pain versus pleasure reasoning and basis for action. This is what animals do. Not rational animals.
- Smoking causes cancer. (credit to Professor Bill Pedtke) (also I must confess that I am not a smoker but I stand up for the rights of people who smoke)
This is ludicrous yet people say it all the time. If smoking caused lung cancer then all peoples who smoked would then have lung cancer. But this isn’t true. I can name five people off the top of my head who smoke and do not have lung cancer. I can even name an additional five people that have smoked longer than 20 years and don’t have cancer. Let’s get the facts straight: not all people who smoke have cancer. [The basic explanation of a “cause” is that which something cannot be without. Fire causes smoke. Smoke does not exist without fire.] This is because the lungs and immune system, if strong enough, can handle the extracurricular crap in a cigarette. What do I mean? Well, if the lungs are healthy then they can counteract the tar, carcinogens, etc. Just like not all drinkers (not even all alcoholics) have cirrhosis of the liver. So if the lungs are active (well exercised by physical exercise or singing) and fully mature (the age of 18(?)) when a person begins smoking then cancer is relatively sure not to develop past normal levels.
- He’s a smoker/She’s a Jew/He’s black.
I know several people who smoke, a couple of Jewish people, and many black men. They are not smokers, Jews, or blacks. They are people who smoke, a Jewish woman, and black men. To reduce a person to an action, a faith, or a color/ethnicity is incredibly offensive. Acknowledge their innate personhood.
- Does a bear shit in the woods?
Polar bears do not shit in the woods. So, no, not all. (credit to Ross McCauley)
- A tree falls in the woods and no one is around. Is there any sound made?
The tree that falls and hits the ground transfers energy which results in a sound. Duh. Sound is not contingent upon people hearing it. If everyone were deaf there would still be sounds in the world; they would just be unheard. This is a nonsense question.
- ....for God’s sake.
To say, “Oh, for God’s sake, stop doing that,” is indiscernible. God’s sake is in a state of constant perfection and happiness despite our actions. So it is more proper to say, “Oh, for your own sake, stop doing that,” because your sake is in a constant flux as in unavoidable by our existence within time.
If you have any that you think are contribute-able, please comment and share those.
I had a terribly fun time collecting these phrases over the past two weeks. Whenever I heard somebody say one or caught myself uttering one I stopped and wrote it down for further reflection.
Additionally, I must say that each explanation is fairly short for the sole reason of space and time conservation. This is an abbreviated list of phrases, also for the sake of time.
- I’m just a human. (credit to Damian Schmitt)
This phrase, if anything, is an excuse for perfection and is absolutely not a justification for screwing up. I substantiate this with the fact that we all share in a divinely similar spiritual nature and are called to perfection. This is known best in Jesus. He was ‘only’ human (obviously perfectly divine as well) but maintained perfection despite His sharing in humanity and being tempted, having walked through pain, suffering, fear and all other human emotions.
- Out of order.
Nothing is “out of order”. If an elevator, for example, were out of order then the particles would be completely and utterly destroyed. This obviously cannot be possible, for if it were the case, the elevator would be in complete nonexistence. It is not even intelligible for something to be known as being in complete chaos and in an absolute state of out of orderliness. Thus, it is rather more proper to say, “The elevator is dysfunctional,” meaning that it is not adequately or efficiently achieving its goal of transportation or of motion. So those ignorant signs that say “out of order” are completely wrong.
- Gingers have no souls.
Whoever wrote this into the script of South Park clearly doesn’t know what a soul actually is. A body is a soul inhabiting matter. A body cannot exist without a soul. The soul is a unifying principle and the soul informs or animates matter. Red heads or ‘gingers’ have a body, are a unified whole, and are able to carry out motion, tasks, animations, etc. Thus, a ginger does have a soul. Get over it.
- God bless America.
I’m glad we are telling God to bless America. Even if we were to merely ask Him to bless America, it’s as if He were going to forget. Even if we are merely praying for God to bless America, it’s as if He were not going to. This just seems like a strange concept to me.
- Be safe.
My mom is infamous for saying this every time I leave the house. Potentially for good reason, knowing my habits, but it’s still an odd thing to say. It’s like she (or any mother that tells their kid to be safe) assumes that I (or we) are going to go out of our way to be reckless. I’m not going to leave the house and be safe just because she reminded me to be safe. I understand and completely appreciate the sentiments behind saying this but it is still a goofy notion to think about on it’s own.
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I couldn’t think of anything further from the truth. This leads us down silly roads of relativism: for one person to claim that Rembrandt’s, Da Vinci’s, Monet’s art pieces are the most beautiful artists of all time and for another to claim that art this art is absolutely atrocious. There is an ultimate form of beauty and good art will best attempt to capture it in oils, marble, pastels, crayons, finger paint, clay, etc. Beauty can be looked at objectively and this common phrase distorts that reality.
- History repeats itself. (credit to Kevin Banich)
If history repeated itself then it seems as though the exact same situations would happen over again. Every situation that has ever happened in all of history is just as much different from each other as every snowflake is different from each other. There may be significant similarities in two histories but there are significant similarities in two completely different snowflakes (i.e. frozen water gathered around a particle of dirt that is heavy enough to fall from the sky or whatever).
- God exists. Or God does not exist. (credit to Eckhart Tolle)
Eckhart Tolle conveys my point adequately in his book called The Power of Now, “The word God has become an empty meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind the word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what they are denying.” St. Anselm claims that the atheist is a fool because he does not understand what or who God is. This is the same point that Eckhart Tolle seems to be making in the above quotation, none of us know who God is yet we are constantly trying to prove and deny Him.
- Life is not about imitating. (this phrase was brought to my awareness from a tweet by @jamesbrockmeier aka James Brockmeier (who does not agree with the original statement))
This proclamation is just nonsense. Imitation is the goal of life. To manifest an objective truth of how we are meant to live is imitation and should be sought after. There is no reason why imitation (of Saints, Mary, Christ, and other noble figures) should not be attempted unless aimed at wrong goals (i.e. to change one’s personality, to conform to negative influences, etc).
- Trust your instincts.
Yeah, okay, if you’re only an animal. Basing action off pure instinct and feeling is to reduce your cognitive function of your ability to choose, discriminate between two options, to have preference, to have a will of your own to a mere pain versus pleasure reasoning and basis for action. This is what animals do. Not rational animals.
- Smoking causes cancer. (credit to Professor Bill Pedtke) (also I must confess that I am not a smoker but I stand up for the rights of people who smoke)
This is ludicrous yet people say it all the time. If smoking caused lung cancer then all peoples who smoked would then have lung cancer. But this isn’t true. I can name five people off the top of my head who smoke and do not have lung cancer. I can even name an additional five people that have smoked longer than 20 years and don’t have cancer. Let’s get the facts straight: not all people who smoke have cancer. [The basic explanation of a “cause” is that which something cannot be without. Fire causes smoke. Smoke does not exist without fire.] This is because the lungs and immune system, if strong enough, can handle the extracurricular crap in a cigarette. What do I mean? Well, if the lungs are healthy then they can counteract the tar, carcinogens, etc. Just like not all drinkers (not even all alcoholics) have cirrhosis of the liver. So if the lungs are active (well exercised by physical exercise or singing) and fully mature (the age of 18(?)) when a person begins smoking then cancer is relatively sure not to develop past normal levels.
- He’s a smoker/She’s a Jew/He’s black.
I know several people who smoke, a couple of Jewish people, and many black men. They are not smokers, Jews, or blacks. They are people who smoke, a Jewish woman, and black men. To reduce a person to an action, a faith, or a color/ethnicity is incredibly offensive. Acknowledge their innate personhood.
- Does a bear shit in the woods?
Polar bears do not shit in the woods. So, no, not all. (credit to Ross McCauley)
- A tree falls in the woods and no one is around. Is there any sound made?
The tree that falls and hits the ground transfers energy which results in a sound. Duh. Sound is not contingent upon people hearing it. If everyone were deaf there would still be sounds in the world; they would just be unheard. This is a nonsense question.
- ....for God’s sake.
To say, “Oh, for God’s sake, stop doing that,” is indiscernible. God’s sake is in a state of constant perfection and happiness despite our actions. So it is more proper to say, “Oh, for your own sake, stop doing that,” because your sake is in a constant flux as in unavoidable by our existence within time.
If you have any that you think are contribute-able, please comment and share those.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Organized Anarchy: My official political/philosophical position
After reading George Orwell’s 1984 it struck me that our government in which we function within is strikingly similar. If we aren’t careful in recognizing this, we will be overtaken and soon America will be completely totalitarian, if we aren’t already.
Let me tell you a sad story to better relay this potentially stoppable but otherwise inevitable fact. The other day it was raining. I wanted to be rained on as little as possible. Instead of walking to the library, I rode my 1994 Nishiki road bike (of which I’ve pumped more than $400 into). Okay, well, the campus police was with the librarian unlocking Marian’s library. I walked my bike inside to keep her dry. He said, “You can’t keep your bike in here. It’s not a bike shop. Take it outside.” This is a direct quotation as I remember it as if it were yesterday. Note his directness, lack of politeness, unwillingness to make a deal. In response I said, “I understand. Can I keep it in vestibule area, out of the rain, and out of everybody’s way?” He said, “What did I just say? This isn’t a bike shop and I said to take it outside-outside, not partially inside-outside.” First, what in the world does that mean? Second, notice, again, his lack of words like ‘please’, ‘thank you for understanding’, ‘Sorry but I don’t make the rules’, or other consoling and reconcilable words. Finally, I said to myself under my breath and as I was walking away, “Thanks asshole.” Boosh. He overheard me talking to myself. He ends up writing me a ticket for $50 for “using abusive language towards an officer.” This is an absolutely true story. Nothing in any way has been fabricated. My boss, the dean of students, catches wind of this and fires me on account of representing the school poorly. This is an example, in my opinion, of power and authority being used in an improper way. This experience mixed with 1984 caused me to rethink the System in which I uncomfortably live. And this is how I attempt to do it....
Allow me to state my conclusion first to give you an idea of where I am progressing: “All I want is complete freedom and to live in a world, a world of perfect peace and justice which leads to progressive thought and universal happiness.”
First, I must state a few axioms under which I am working. Perfect justice allows perfect freedom. God is perfect justice. God allows perfect freedom by giving us our very essence and existence as we are able to perfectly and freely practice our free will. God does this in His sovereignty. Because of this, I answer to no one but God. A State does not have any authority over me as it does not possesses any sovereignty (Maritain, Man and the State). Perfect justice (or as close as we can come to and know it while still having free will) is an absolutely freeing idea. And to practice this idea is to make it a reality. If the State can be a manifestation of this justice/God then I would encourage it to function intimately in my day to day life. To get this kind of justice, though, is exponentially more likely to happen individually. I do not think that any State can ever provide me with the best possible method of choosing the good. I believe that there is a more likely chance for the individual to choose the good on his own rather than the individual choose the good because the State says it’s so. My solution and proposition for this will come in a minute. Keep the above in mind.
Additionally, the above fits in with the statement, "I am able to best/most trust somebody or something the more responsibly it acts." How can I trust a government with my money if they do not use it responsibly? How do I trust a police officer if he turns on his lights and siren just to get through the red light? How do I trust my dad if he is going out and partying and drinking four nights a week? How am I supposed to trust a politician that doesn’t achieve what he promised time and time again? How do I trust anybody who does not act responsibly? The answer: I do not. I do not trust a group of men to argue over laws or rights that will give me freedom x but restrict freedoms j, k, and l. Or better yet, a law to give me freedom x but restrict freedom j. But I most trust God as He is supremely responsible. However, it's not likely that He'll come rule the world tomorrow so I have more faith and trust in the individual to act in right manner especially if socially 'constructed' to have devout feelings and strong tendencies toward justice or at least love and compassion. *Cue my point from a paragraph ago.*
This ‘social construction’ that I speak of is very important. It is very easy to imagine a world of without rules where people eat the faces off of despicable men that ravenously go on killing rampages. I am suggesting this but with an inherent feeling of justice. Listen, some may say, “Josh, you’re off your rocker.” To which I would respond quoting Alice Kingsley in Alice in Wonderland in her response to the Mad Hatter, “Have I gone mad?” [Alice checks Hatter's temperature] Alice says, “I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
This social construction is completely possible. Let me crudely define a couple of things. ‘Construction’-to build something. ‘Social’-relating to a group of people. ‘Social construction’-building a system of thought within the minds of the people that will be passed on so long as it is perpetuated. I would like to illustrate the overwhelming strength and effectiveness of social construction through several examples:
- We Americans are incredibly proud of our country. I would make the point to say that this patriotism comes at a very very young age from advertisement and the media and national holidays on the 4th of July, Labor day, and Veteran's Day. With the national anthem played all the time and everywhere at fairs and festivals during the summer, the portrayal of Plymouth Rock and the pilgrims on Thanksgiving, it is no wonder that the majority of Americans have been so patriotic throughout the history of this country. We’ve won wars, we’ve grown rich, we’ve controlled a lot of the world, we set standards, etc. Of course we are going to be patriotic and proud of this. This is the best example of socially constructed mindsets even though there are unbelievably unspeakable things going on behind closed doors that nobody would be proud of if they just picked up a newspaper or were semi-educated. We are proud of our country despite the undeclared wars, the Vietnam incident, the trillion(+) dollar deficit, etc.
- When you started reading this were you already in opposition? Yes. Of course you were. You’ve been socially constructed to think that Anarchy is a horrible thing. You’ve been taught to believe that a world without rule would be chaos. What is this based on though? This is a question that ought to be taken seriously. Is it based on the fact that you’ve seen (on the news!!) other countries in anarchy and the masses were destroying each other? Of course the media is going to look down on anarchy and show you a certain view of it. Of course the government is going to look down on revolts. They don’t want their power stripped. A democracy lies in what the populus wants! In this sense, a democracy is near anarchy. Why don’t we practice this part of our right?? We can revolt and go on strike and protest the heck out of the obvious injustices that are going on then why don’t we?! It’s obvious. We aren’t encouraged to because if we did then there would be an uprooting of power...and, of course, nobody wants that. ‘Anarchy’ has become a bad word because of these very social constructions.
- The loyalty to the Church that most Catholics have is a social construction. I realize that this may be a little risque to say and that’s why I say it lightly. However, a lot of Catholics love the Church for no reasons of their own. Many cannot explain what the Church’s function is. Not many people know what their ecclesiology is. They are loyal to the institution of the Church because the Holy Father has that authority, they are told to love her, and it’s a mechanism by which the faith is taught. (Obviously this does not hold true for all Catholics. This is merely an example.)
- Most Americans threw parties in the streets celebrating the death of bin Laden. We have no sense of human dignity for somebody who has been painted as the world’s most wanted individual, the worst human person to have walked the earth, the scum of a butt crack. The media, the government, my parents (and everybody else who has been immersed in this culture), the ignorant, etc. have socially constructed the whole to believe that this death is the best thing to have ever happened. And so we ditch all morals and abandon all civility and celebrate the death of a person. This is the result of social construction.
- American views of communism. Generally (particularly anybody over the age of 30), absolutely despise the idea of communism. Why? Because we’ve been socially constructed to hate the enemy.
Again, look into Europe during World War II. The majority of Europeans and Americans hated Hitler for obvious reasons. So they, in turn, supported Stalin because he was the force that could stop Hitler. But I might argue that Stalin was worse than Hitler. It’s not the point of who was worse as they were both men who were focused on inherently evil ideas but the point is that outsiders accepted, supported, and allowed Stalin to do what he did. I’m calling this a case of ‘artificial social construction’. Social construction is an active process of molding a group of people into thinking a certain way. In this case of artificial social construction, people are molded because they are forced to make a choice between certain things.
- My favorite: it is a psychological phenomenon that has been peer reviewed and published in journals that ‘the wave’ in a stadium requires a minimum of five people to start. Five people can determine the course of entertainment for 55,000 people in a college football stadium. This isn’t social construction but it expresses an equally valuable point that a few people can shape the crowd.
Essentially, the result of feeling a certain way about a certain thing or event but not knowing exactly why you feel that way is because of these social constructions. There are millions of them and they are incredibly powerful and work even without conscious thought of them.
The point I have illustrated is, people can be taught to have deeply rooted passionate feelings toward a situation or thought without their knowledge of it. This is what I want to do in my Anarchy. I know that a true government-less State would burn down in roughly three hours (or at least would become dangerously totalitarian very quickly). This is why I’m proposing a modified anarchy, an Organized Anarchy. I recognize that this society cannot be implemented tomorrow or else there will be terrible chaos because people will have no idea what to do without rules and our borders would inevitably be breached. However, I am proposing that this society be enacted over several generations. My grandparents see the world much differently than I do. My parents see it a little less differently but nonetheless see it distinctly different than I do (particularly because of the technological revolution). And my children will see the world differently than I do. And my grandkids will see the world radically different than I do today. This is just a natural progression that can be attributed to the progress of science, media, technology, economics, wars, etc. Why can’t we make a positive progression happen, namely creating inherent feelings toward justice, love, etc? I would, over the course of generations, breed a social construction of strong feelings for justice. Every parent would teach their child of justice from day one. The result: in my Anarchy I could kill you but I would not want to because I have this sense of justice in me telling me not to kill you. (There would also be the function of fear keeping me from killing you. If I did, presuming that it was for an unjust reason, I would fear your buddies, parents, or siblings that are seeking a ‘just’ revenge to seek out my death. I would fear this and not want to kill you also.)
Anyway, let me paint the ideal picture of my society in several generations from now. Everyone would possess this innate sense of justice, love, compassion, and self-giving-ness that has resulted from the Church teaching a devout love for these qualities, families teaching these ideals, schools enforcing this good behavior, the transitional government stressing this importance, media supporting this, etc. After a transition period and after power and authority has gradually been eliminated as the sense of justice has become more apparent to the people, anarchy will be in place. (‘Transitional government’ meaning a system that leads from the current State to anarchy as a safe and efficient movement. I have no idea what this transitional government would be but there needs to be one.) (Also, the Church, family structures, and other institutions could completely function within this Anarchy. This is an organized anarchy. Things don’t have to be chaotic.)
Let’s take a bad case scenario: somebody steps on my property and I don’t like it. What am I going to do? Well, I wouldn’t want to kill him (even though there are no legal repercussions) because I have such a strong feeling of justice, love and compassion. I know it would be wrong to eliminate his life, and my community would potentially abandoned me because they know it’s a terrible deed to kill somebody, and I would be in fear of his parent’s or his buddies that have the right to kill me. I don’t think that I’m going to shoot this man who walked onto my property. Instead, I think that because it is embedded in our nature as humans, I would reason with him. If this didn’t work, I would get a third party to listen to my case, then listen to his case and make a judgement or give us advice or propose a deal between the two of us in order to right the situation.
An easy argument against anarchy is, “Well there is already horrible activity (i.e. drugs, hate crime, homicides, thievery, etc) going on even with the law in place, what makes you think it won’t get worse without the laws?!” See my above scenario. People wouldn’t want to be abandoned by their loved ones, friends, neighborhood, schools, etc. People would be afraid that somebody will have revenge on them. People have this inherent sense of justice and love embedded in their actions. People naturally want to avoid confrontation or at least want to reason through confrontation. Secondly, Ron Paul was asked in a debate in 2008 that if weed (or heroin!! God forbid.) was legalized does he think that it would be a rampant. His response, “First, it’s the state’s responsibility to make legalize or illegalize drugs. Second, if heroine was legal, would that compel you to use it? No. You wouldn’t.” This is a man that works in and for the government saying this. Also, I believe it to be true in my Anarchy, especially if medicine and science was to advance and preach out against it and everybody is just.
The ultimate goals of my anarchy are twofold and cannot happen without the other: 1) Complete freedom. Complete freedom is the ability to perfectly exercise my free choice toward the good. 2) Perfect justice. Perfect justice (or nearly perfect justice allows for the individual to have organized priority over morals, actions, thoughts, feelings, pursuits in thought such as science, medicine, philosophy, war, politics, etc. If there is too much ambiguity for you in the word “justice” as there is for many people, perhaps I can narrow the meaning or the goal down by saying that there not only needs to be socially enacted justice but also love and compassion which all fit into the general idea of justice.
All I want is complete freedom and to live in a world, a world of perfect peace and justice which leads to progressive thought and universal happiness. The system outlined above is the best way that I have come up with to allow for this best to happen.
My only glitches that I am willing to acknowledge and work through:
- The transition stage from the current system to my Anarchy. I'm not sure how I would transition from our current State to a state-less society.
- If one country is anarchist, the world must be anarchist. Or else we would be exposed to attacks from outside countries which they would obviously implement totalitarianism and take us over quite easily. Karl Marx had this same problem. If communism were to truly work, the entire world would need to be communist.
---In this regard, it might be easier for me to defend libertarianism as they have a very limited government, one that protects them in foreign affairs. Which brings me to another point: Legalize freedom. Vote Ron Paul.
A very brief cliff notes version of my compendium of thoughts:
- I want complete freedom and perfect justice.
- Nobody has power over me because God is ultimately sovereign. And even if somebody had power over me they don’t act responsibly so I can’t adequately trust them if they had this power over me.
- The individual is more likely to arrive at acting nobly over the entirety of the State. The best way to allow for this to happen is to allow him to be completely free to achieve this.
- Before the individual is completely free, through generations and generations of social construction, we design a society that values justice, love and compassion higher than other thing. These become the ultimately valued set of morals or laws or virtues.
- Once this is achieved and justice, love and compassion are ways of life then we can successfully release the hold of government very slowly by some transition to anarchy.
- Badda bing, badda boom. Organized Anarchy.
Here are some things that I would highly recommend reading to know more about what I’m saying here:
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Man and the State by Jacques Maritain (look into his definitions of sovereignty, state, man, and education) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1950275
- Albert Meltzer’s Anarchism: Arguments for and against http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001500.html --very legitimate
- Catholicism and Anarchy. Anarchism in the Catholic Worker Tradition by Tom Cornell http://www.catholicworker.org/roundtable/essaytext.cfm?Number=91
- The Guest by Albert Camus
Here are a couple of quotations that bring awareness to the issues at hand and that are very interesting:
“He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.” -George Orwell
"How fortunate for governments that people do not think. There is no thinking except in giving and executing commands." - Adolf Hitler
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein
"Mankind is at its best when it is most free.
This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty.
We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice,
which saying many have on their lips, but few in their mind." -Dante Alighieri
"In Washington, D.C. it costs $7,000 in city fees to open a pushcart. In
California, up to eighty federal and state licenses are required to open a
small business. In New York, a medallion to operate a taxicab costs $150,000.
More than 700 occupations in the United States require a government license.
Throughout the country, church soup kitchens for the homeless are being closed
by departments of health. No wonder so many people turn to crime and violence
to survive.” - Jarret Wollstein
"Freedom of thought is the only guarantee
against an infection of people by mass myths,
which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues,
can be transformed into bloody dictatorships." - Andrei Sakharov
"The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it."- Woodrow Wilson
“I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”-Ayn Rand
“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” -Mark Twain
Let me tell you a sad story to better relay this potentially stoppable but otherwise inevitable fact. The other day it was raining. I wanted to be rained on as little as possible. Instead of walking to the library, I rode my 1994 Nishiki road bike (of which I’ve pumped more than $400 into). Okay, well, the campus police was with the librarian unlocking Marian’s library. I walked my bike inside to keep her dry. He said, “You can’t keep your bike in here. It’s not a bike shop. Take it outside.” This is a direct quotation as I remember it as if it were yesterday. Note his directness, lack of politeness, unwillingness to make a deal. In response I said, “I understand. Can I keep it in vestibule area, out of the rain, and out of everybody’s way?” He said, “What did I just say? This isn’t a bike shop and I said to take it outside-outside, not partially inside-outside.” First, what in the world does that mean? Second, notice, again, his lack of words like ‘please’, ‘thank you for understanding’, ‘Sorry but I don’t make the rules’, or other consoling and reconcilable words. Finally, I said to myself under my breath and as I was walking away, “Thanks asshole.” Boosh. He overheard me talking to myself. He ends up writing me a ticket for $50 for “using abusive language towards an officer.” This is an absolutely true story. Nothing in any way has been fabricated. My boss, the dean of students, catches wind of this and fires me on account of representing the school poorly. This is an example, in my opinion, of power and authority being used in an improper way. This experience mixed with 1984 caused me to rethink the System in which I uncomfortably live. And this is how I attempt to do it....
Allow me to state my conclusion first to give you an idea of where I am progressing: “All I want is complete freedom and to live in a world, a world of perfect peace and justice which leads to progressive thought and universal happiness.”
First, I must state a few axioms under which I am working. Perfect justice allows perfect freedom. God is perfect justice. God allows perfect freedom by giving us our very essence and existence as we are able to perfectly and freely practice our free will. God does this in His sovereignty. Because of this, I answer to no one but God. A State does not have any authority over me as it does not possesses any sovereignty (Maritain, Man and the State). Perfect justice (or as close as we can come to and know it while still having free will) is an absolutely freeing idea. And to practice this idea is to make it a reality. If the State can be a manifestation of this justice/God then I would encourage it to function intimately in my day to day life. To get this kind of justice, though, is exponentially more likely to happen individually. I do not think that any State can ever provide me with the best possible method of choosing the good. I believe that there is a more likely chance for the individual to choose the good on his own rather than the individual choose the good because the State says it’s so. My solution and proposition for this will come in a minute. Keep the above in mind.
Additionally, the above fits in with the statement, "I am able to best/most trust somebody or something the more responsibly it acts." How can I trust a government with my money if they do not use it responsibly? How do I trust a police officer if he turns on his lights and siren just to get through the red light? How do I trust my dad if he is going out and partying and drinking four nights a week? How am I supposed to trust a politician that doesn’t achieve what he promised time and time again? How do I trust anybody who does not act responsibly? The answer: I do not. I do not trust a group of men to argue over laws or rights that will give me freedom x but restrict freedoms j, k, and l. Or better yet, a law to give me freedom x but restrict freedom j. But I most trust God as He is supremely responsible. However, it's not likely that He'll come rule the world tomorrow so I have more faith and trust in the individual to act in right manner especially if socially 'constructed' to have devout feelings and strong tendencies toward justice or at least love and compassion. *Cue my point from a paragraph ago.*
This ‘social construction’ that I speak of is very important. It is very easy to imagine a world of without rules where people eat the faces off of despicable men that ravenously go on killing rampages. I am suggesting this but with an inherent feeling of justice. Listen, some may say, “Josh, you’re off your rocker.” To which I would respond quoting Alice Kingsley in Alice in Wonderland in her response to the Mad Hatter, “Have I gone mad?” [Alice checks Hatter's temperature] Alice says, “I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
This social construction is completely possible. Let me crudely define a couple of things. ‘Construction’-to build something. ‘Social’-relating to a group of people. ‘Social construction’-building a system of thought within the minds of the people that will be passed on so long as it is perpetuated. I would like to illustrate the overwhelming strength and effectiveness of social construction through several examples:
- We Americans are incredibly proud of our country. I would make the point to say that this patriotism comes at a very very young age from advertisement and the media and national holidays on the 4th of July, Labor day, and Veteran's Day. With the national anthem played all the time and everywhere at fairs and festivals during the summer, the portrayal of Plymouth Rock and the pilgrims on Thanksgiving, it is no wonder that the majority of Americans have been so patriotic throughout the history of this country. We’ve won wars, we’ve grown rich, we’ve controlled a lot of the world, we set standards, etc. Of course we are going to be patriotic and proud of this. This is the best example of socially constructed mindsets even though there are unbelievably unspeakable things going on behind closed doors that nobody would be proud of if they just picked up a newspaper or were semi-educated. We are proud of our country despite the undeclared wars, the Vietnam incident, the trillion(+) dollar deficit, etc.
- When you started reading this were you already in opposition? Yes. Of course you were. You’ve been socially constructed to think that Anarchy is a horrible thing. You’ve been taught to believe that a world without rule would be chaos. What is this based on though? This is a question that ought to be taken seriously. Is it based on the fact that you’ve seen (on the news!!) other countries in anarchy and the masses were destroying each other? Of course the media is going to look down on anarchy and show you a certain view of it. Of course the government is going to look down on revolts. They don’t want their power stripped. A democracy lies in what the populus wants! In this sense, a democracy is near anarchy. Why don’t we practice this part of our right?? We can revolt and go on strike and protest the heck out of the obvious injustices that are going on then why don’t we?! It’s obvious. We aren’t encouraged to because if we did then there would be an uprooting of power...and, of course, nobody wants that. ‘Anarchy’ has become a bad word because of these very social constructions.
- The loyalty to the Church that most Catholics have is a social construction. I realize that this may be a little risque to say and that’s why I say it lightly. However, a lot of Catholics love the Church for no reasons of their own. Many cannot explain what the Church’s function is. Not many people know what their ecclesiology is. They are loyal to the institution of the Church because the Holy Father has that authority, they are told to love her, and it’s a mechanism by which the faith is taught. (Obviously this does not hold true for all Catholics. This is merely an example.)
- Most Americans threw parties in the streets celebrating the death of bin Laden. We have no sense of human dignity for somebody who has been painted as the world’s most wanted individual, the worst human person to have walked the earth, the scum of a butt crack. The media, the government, my parents (and everybody else who has been immersed in this culture), the ignorant, etc. have socially constructed the whole to believe that this death is the best thing to have ever happened. And so we ditch all morals and abandon all civility and celebrate the death of a person. This is the result of social construction.
- American views of communism. Generally (particularly anybody over the age of 30), absolutely despise the idea of communism. Why? Because we’ve been socially constructed to hate the enemy.
Again, look into Europe during World War II. The majority of Europeans and Americans hated Hitler for obvious reasons. So they, in turn, supported Stalin because he was the force that could stop Hitler. But I might argue that Stalin was worse than Hitler. It’s not the point of who was worse as they were both men who were focused on inherently evil ideas but the point is that outsiders accepted, supported, and allowed Stalin to do what he did. I’m calling this a case of ‘artificial social construction’. Social construction is an active process of molding a group of people into thinking a certain way. In this case of artificial social construction, people are molded because they are forced to make a choice between certain things.
- My favorite: it is a psychological phenomenon that has been peer reviewed and published in journals that ‘the wave’ in a stadium requires a minimum of five people to start. Five people can determine the course of entertainment for 55,000 people in a college football stadium. This isn’t social construction but it expresses an equally valuable point that a few people can shape the crowd.
Essentially, the result of feeling a certain way about a certain thing or event but not knowing exactly why you feel that way is because of these social constructions. There are millions of them and they are incredibly powerful and work even without conscious thought of them.
The point I have illustrated is, people can be taught to have deeply rooted passionate feelings toward a situation or thought without their knowledge of it. This is what I want to do in my Anarchy. I know that a true government-less State would burn down in roughly three hours (or at least would become dangerously totalitarian very quickly). This is why I’m proposing a modified anarchy, an Organized Anarchy. I recognize that this society cannot be implemented tomorrow or else there will be terrible chaos because people will have no idea what to do without rules and our borders would inevitably be breached. However, I am proposing that this society be enacted over several generations. My grandparents see the world much differently than I do. My parents see it a little less differently but nonetheless see it distinctly different than I do (particularly because of the technological revolution). And my children will see the world differently than I do. And my grandkids will see the world radically different than I do today. This is just a natural progression that can be attributed to the progress of science, media, technology, economics, wars, etc. Why can’t we make a positive progression happen, namely creating inherent feelings toward justice, love, etc? I would, over the course of generations, breed a social construction of strong feelings for justice. Every parent would teach their child of justice from day one. The result: in my Anarchy I could kill you but I would not want to because I have this sense of justice in me telling me not to kill you. (There would also be the function of fear keeping me from killing you. If I did, presuming that it was for an unjust reason, I would fear your buddies, parents, or siblings that are seeking a ‘just’ revenge to seek out my death. I would fear this and not want to kill you also.)
Anyway, let me paint the ideal picture of my society in several generations from now. Everyone would possess this innate sense of justice, love, compassion, and self-giving-ness that has resulted from the Church teaching a devout love for these qualities, families teaching these ideals, schools enforcing this good behavior, the transitional government stressing this importance, media supporting this, etc. After a transition period and after power and authority has gradually been eliminated as the sense of justice has become more apparent to the people, anarchy will be in place. (‘Transitional government’ meaning a system that leads from the current State to anarchy as a safe and efficient movement. I have no idea what this transitional government would be but there needs to be one.) (Also, the Church, family structures, and other institutions could completely function within this Anarchy. This is an organized anarchy. Things don’t have to be chaotic.)
Let’s take a bad case scenario: somebody steps on my property and I don’t like it. What am I going to do? Well, I wouldn’t want to kill him (even though there are no legal repercussions) because I have such a strong feeling of justice, love and compassion. I know it would be wrong to eliminate his life, and my community would potentially abandoned me because they know it’s a terrible deed to kill somebody, and I would be in fear of his parent’s or his buddies that have the right to kill me. I don’t think that I’m going to shoot this man who walked onto my property. Instead, I think that because it is embedded in our nature as humans, I would reason with him. If this didn’t work, I would get a third party to listen to my case, then listen to his case and make a judgement or give us advice or propose a deal between the two of us in order to right the situation.
An easy argument against anarchy is, “Well there is already horrible activity (i.e. drugs, hate crime, homicides, thievery, etc) going on even with the law in place, what makes you think it won’t get worse without the laws?!” See my above scenario. People wouldn’t want to be abandoned by their loved ones, friends, neighborhood, schools, etc. People would be afraid that somebody will have revenge on them. People have this inherent sense of justice and love embedded in their actions. People naturally want to avoid confrontation or at least want to reason through confrontation. Secondly, Ron Paul was asked in a debate in 2008 that if weed (or heroin!! God forbid.) was legalized does he think that it would be a rampant. His response, “First, it’s the state’s responsibility to make legalize or illegalize drugs. Second, if heroine was legal, would that compel you to use it? No. You wouldn’t.” This is a man that works in and for the government saying this. Also, I believe it to be true in my Anarchy, especially if medicine and science was to advance and preach out against it and everybody is just.
The ultimate goals of my anarchy are twofold and cannot happen without the other: 1) Complete freedom. Complete freedom is the ability to perfectly exercise my free choice toward the good. 2) Perfect justice. Perfect justice (or nearly perfect justice allows for the individual to have organized priority over morals, actions, thoughts, feelings, pursuits in thought such as science, medicine, philosophy, war, politics, etc. If there is too much ambiguity for you in the word “justice” as there is for many people, perhaps I can narrow the meaning or the goal down by saying that there not only needs to be socially enacted justice but also love and compassion which all fit into the general idea of justice.
All I want is complete freedom and to live in a world, a world of perfect peace and justice which leads to progressive thought and universal happiness. The system outlined above is the best way that I have come up with to allow for this best to happen.
My only glitches that I am willing to acknowledge and work through:
- The transition stage from the current system to my Anarchy. I'm not sure how I would transition from our current State to a state-less society.
- If one country is anarchist, the world must be anarchist. Or else we would be exposed to attacks from outside countries which they would obviously implement totalitarianism and take us over quite easily. Karl Marx had this same problem. If communism were to truly work, the entire world would need to be communist.
---In this regard, it might be easier for me to defend libertarianism as they have a very limited government, one that protects them in foreign affairs. Which brings me to another point: Legalize freedom. Vote Ron Paul.
A very brief cliff notes version of my compendium of thoughts:
- I want complete freedom and perfect justice.
- Nobody has power over me because God is ultimately sovereign. And even if somebody had power over me they don’t act responsibly so I can’t adequately trust them if they had this power over me.
- The individual is more likely to arrive at acting nobly over the entirety of the State. The best way to allow for this to happen is to allow him to be completely free to achieve this.
- Before the individual is completely free, through generations and generations of social construction, we design a society that values justice, love and compassion higher than other thing. These become the ultimately valued set of morals or laws or virtues.
- Once this is achieved and justice, love and compassion are ways of life then we can successfully release the hold of government very slowly by some transition to anarchy.
- Badda bing, badda boom. Organized Anarchy.
Here are some things that I would highly recommend reading to know more about what I’m saying here:
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Man and the State by Jacques Maritain (look into his definitions of sovereignty, state, man, and education) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1950275
- Albert Meltzer’s Anarchism: Arguments for and against http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001500.html --very legitimate
- Catholicism and Anarchy. Anarchism in the Catholic Worker Tradition by Tom Cornell http://www.catholicworker.org/roundtable/essaytext.cfm?Number=91
- The Guest by Albert Camus
Here are a couple of quotations that bring awareness to the issues at hand and that are very interesting:
“He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.” -George Orwell
"How fortunate for governments that people do not think. There is no thinking except in giving and executing commands." - Adolf Hitler
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein
"Mankind is at its best when it is most free.
This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty.
We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice,
which saying many have on their lips, but few in their mind." -Dante Alighieri
"In Washington, D.C. it costs $7,000 in city fees to open a pushcart. In
California, up to eighty federal and state licenses are required to open a
small business. In New York, a medallion to operate a taxicab costs $150,000.
More than 700 occupations in the United States require a government license.
Throughout the country, church soup kitchens for the homeless are being closed
by departments of health. No wonder so many people turn to crime and violence
to survive.” - Jarret Wollstein
"Freedom of thought is the only guarantee
against an infection of people by mass myths,
which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues,
can be transformed into bloody dictatorships." - Andrei Sakharov
"The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it."- Woodrow Wilson
“I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”-Ayn Rand
“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” -Mark Twain
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)