doogiewray (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} doogiewray) wrote,@ 2008-01-25 19:56:00 |
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| Entry tags: | up on the soapbox |
Passages
But, any of the hundred or so books listed to the left
as My Ten Favorite Books could serve just as well!
Well, let's see (hmm...): I was raised Augustana Synod (Swedish) Lutheran until the commies took over and it merged into some milk-toast-sounding Lutheran Church of America back in the early '60s.
I stuck with it anyhow until, oh, maybe the late '60s (had to get married in the right "church" after all, or my kids would roast in hell ... oh, they'll probably do that anyhow, but I'll be there to tell them one last time that "it builds character!")
Somehow I found Unitarian Universalism around 1970 (well, how I found it is a warm and encouraging memory of how one or two people can still be nice in this dog-eat-dog world, but that's for another day/soapbox here). My second marriage and my two sons were both celebrated in various UU ceremonies.
(Skip several chapters of Life at this point)
About ten years ago (after putting my toes into the waters of Zen, Pagan, Buddhism, Hedonism (well, maybe I went in all the way there and, spiritually, I'm still all wet), and, well, you name it and I've looked at about ten percent of what you might call out, I started to realize that maybe I was an agnostic (though I still rebel against labels of any kind).
I still think that Buddha came closest to getting it all right. His teachings are not a religion (folks who came later ruined it out of this illogical need to make it into something "bigger" that just the Humanism and a way to rid yourself of hangups that make Life not as rewarding as it should be).
About two years ago (if forced by waterboarding torture to put a label on myself) I would call myself an agnostic, but with the sidebar as a functional atheistic (great label, huh?).
About two months ago, I finally figured out that I am, indeed, an atheist and now that feels just about right.
The label atheist though just doesn't cut it for me, because there are enough negatives in Life already and I don't want a label that starts with that prickly "a" (= "not").
So, here's what I think (after two rather large rum cokes tonight): I think that when we die, that's it, folks! I think that, given that fact (grin), it makes Life all that more precious.
I think that it also means that we have to take total responsibility for our own Lives and Actions. It also follows logically that, since we are here for just a short time, we should make the most of it. That implies that it might be ok if we strive to make the World just a little better because of our short time being here (tricky ground, though, that value judgement of "a little better" ... be careful out there, my friends).
It also comes to my attention that, given that plan, I have and continue to waste vast portions of my Life (oh, well...).
It means that Beauty is even more precious because we have such a short time to appreciate it, to grok it (heh!) and that it is something that we ought to try to recognize in everything (oh, as I type that it sounds so New-Agey ... well, words are not my strongest suite, so take it for what it's worth).
The last two years or so, for example, I have really been getting off on the beautiful sculptures alongside our Winter roads ... take a second or two and look at that "dirty snow" that's been left by the plows. After a few days, the "dirt" absorbs the infrared rays of the sun and causes the snow to melt in wonderful, concrete forms (no "abstraction" here, ok?) that, when you get past the "dirty snow" slur are truly Beautiful.
I've already talked (scroll down about two or ten years ago in earlier LiveJournal entries below) about the beauty of bubbles from a coke being poured over ice cubes. I used to really get off on watching the cream I poured into my coffee ... don't ever stir it! It's better than a Lava Lamp if you just watch it (and Brownian Motion takes care of the "stirring" just fine). Oh, but I miss that so much lately, because I take my coffee black now (though, as I type this, I might just go back to adding cream, if only for the Beauty that I've been missing these last few years).
Oh, damn! I've gotten sidetracked and babblingly (sic) lost my train of thought (and, probably, a whole bunch of "important" points that I needed to make here).
To me, the "Great Mysteries" that some wallow in are only our "Collective Ignorance," but that our ignorance of the unknown is not something to bewail, but something to (hmmm ...) celebrate(?), because as the Venn Diagram circle representing our collective knowledge grows, the circumference between what we know and what we don't know also grows ... and that line in the sand represents both our present knowledge and the challenge for our future investigations and pursuits for further knowledge ("so many unknowns, so little time"). Isn't that great? (for you egoists out there, it really is ok (no, it is imperative) to say "I don't know!" when, in fact, you don't ... then follow it up with a "Hmmm ... I wonder ....").
I also know that folks who have already died that I loved still live on inside of me (well, actually, those still alive, too), because of their giving of themselves to me made me, in part, who I am now. Extrapolated backwards, they, too, were who they were because of others before them that, in turn, gave of themselves. And again, in turn, I hope, after I die, that a part of me will live on in the few people who have shared Life with me. It's a wonderful continuum of Life - just like the continual Breaking of Bread and Toasting with Wine and good, old Jokes that bring Tears to our Eyes and great Laughs to our Bellies!
This last paragraph (just above, that is) of my diatribe I know to be True and it probably says it all.
Oh, I've gone on for far too long ... even though there is much more that needs to be verbalized/vented in this, my Lifelong Hobby of Figuring It All Out.
Thomas Pynchon said something like "All we all really need is to be warm, well fed and well fucked." Is that a paraphrase of Maslow? But, you know(?), if you realize that that is true for most folks, maybe you can cut them a little slack now and then, right? And maybe, realizing that, we can all just try to help each other out a little more so that everyone can have a bit of comfort in their lives (of course, that also means standing up and speaking out when those basic comforts are being stolen through Greed, Ignorance and Corruption).
Finally (of course), "in the end, only kindness matters."
May it be so.
