I just got out of spring convocation 2005. those of you who know me must wonder why I would attend such an event. Well, the truth is that I went to it under the false assumption that there would be free lunch served afterward. I guess what they say is true, "there is no such thing as a free lunch." so here I sit, hungry and annoyed. an entirely different calvin college shows up to convocation; they must be the type of people that go to chapel, as I've never been to that either. There is really nothing more irritating to me at this stage of my life than worship sing-alongs. The balding worship leader with abercrombie clothes desparetly clinging to youth in an attempt to connect with college students, signifying the next verse with a shout of "praise to the spirit" during a short vocal pause as if we couldn't read the words ourselves (maybe our eyes are closed and our hands in the air to show those around us how "into the spirit" we are). Homely-looking girls behind me singing every line line in full force to each other, so sheltered in their upbringing that they surely don't realize just how awkward the entire experience appears. Lyrics empty and meaningless, happy suburban evangelicals never thinking of how their christ told them to live and what a damper it would have on their opinions of others not so fortunate think nothing of a drag on their general lifestyle. I know I'm being synical, but I'd like to think that I'm beyond the surface of their antics. Am I a bad person for feeling this way? Has my line of thinking disallowed me from feeling non-apathetically about those that treasure other aspects of life, delusional or non? Perhaps I am just as pathetic as the rest of them.
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Before Logan's last evening Andrew and myself had a conversation relating to your posts topic, towards the end here. Andrew was saying (I believe) that it bothered him how impossible it is to not view his own viewpoints, worldviews, etc. in a hierarchical fashion in relation to others, specifically those with more traditional religious views or those whose religious views override what another could consider scientific fact-- I didn't follow everything myself but you get the idea. Maybe Andrew could chime in at some point. Anyhow I think this is similar to what you're saying--I also find myself pitying people who raise their hands and sway and everything in church. Thats not a choice to be snobby or cynical its a gut reaction. Discuss.
Before Logan's last evening Andrew and myself had a conversation relating to your posts topic, towards the end here. Andrew was saying (I believe) that it bothered him how impossible it is to not view his own viewpoints, worldviews, etc. in a hierarchical fashion in relation to others, specifically those with more traditional religious views or those whose religious views override what another could consider scientific fact-- I didn't follow everything myself but you get the idea. Maybe Andrew could chime in at some point. Anyhow I think this is similar to what you're saying--I also find myself pitying people who raise their hands and sway and everything in church. Thats not a choice to be snobby or cynical its a gut reaction. Discuss.
Zach you shouldn't have removed your post. Hell, I didn't even remove my post and its the same thing twice. Nick, in an entirely nonsarcastic way I thoroughly enjoy input as always.
reminds me of needing to step out of a guilt-driven need to explain explain explain and prove oneself as not an asshole to who exactly?
I appreciate all of your opinions on this matter. I am, however, mildly disappointed that zach has now posted and removed three comments before I could read them. I'm not sure why zach would do such a thing but if you're reading this, please leave your comments up so I can basque in the great knowledge seeping from your words.
I know that I am entirely to blame for going to convocation yestarday. I thought it was interesting exactly how irritated I was by the students and leaders practicing their culture/beliefs in all their shallow, meaningless splendor. My point is: what is keeping me or someone like me from being just as critical of how I live my life. Nowadays people can't feel strongly in anything without feeling the wrath of cynical assholes like us. And if they do, do we brush it off and return the favor? discuss
i'd like so see someone try.
i want to make love to the free forum of kevin´s unbearable automaticity of being.
it was a mistake that both of my posts were removed. i accidentally posted twice, like our friend peter, then i tried to remove my superfluos post,accidentally removing both, mistakenly.
kevin, the other day god told me you were a mistake as well. and when he tried again with the archetype of which you´re merely a mirror, bob newhart came into being.
the nature of my post was something along the lines of devil´s advocate. but here at the bottom of the post-pile-scrap-heap is not the time or the place to try to reproduce the essence of my post.
but i will try anyway. i said something to the effect of
"who the fuck are you to criticize someone for sincere worship to their Lord? you´re probably going straight to Hell!
i saw you see tons of souls down at mulligan´s every night worshiping their Lord, but you never got on their case!
" (but it was much more succinct and lucid) and then i signed it
-pissing on a tree that rests beside the path of righteousness
but, in any case, what´s any sort of justification of anything? i´ve had enough of making myself feel better and stronger by justifying my superior position through rhetoric. rhetoric is rhetoric, i´m not ragging on it´s name, it´s beautiful, but it´s just a game.
words are the objective tool of the subjective rhetorician, words are the wordsmith´s bitch, and i love them so.
and yeah, i don´t know about you kevin, but i´d say that i´m just as pathetic as the rest of them.
i think a lot of them have filler where there are wholes in my worldview, the draft of which has been written and erased and thrown in the trash and started over so many times i´m not even sure i´d recognize it in a dream.
as unoriginal and unthoughtful as they or the drafts of their respective and/or collective cosmovisions may be, i´d wager that a lot of them have a fucking final product, ready for a sort of metaphorical and/or literal evangelist press.
so i suppose, at least, that´s one way to look at it.
i guess i feel i´m at a point where it´s hard to say anything. science isn´t innocent. darwin isn´t fucking innocent. it can´t be trusted because it´s a subject, it has intent, it´s another beautiful, fantastical myth.
and i want to say that all my opinions and viewpoints are spatially and temporally determined. in other words, i´m one of reality´s small dirty mirrors.
i´m almost nothing, and the same goes for all of you.
but don´t let that get you down. i never meant to hurt you.
but still, aren´t words fun? don´t they make you feel like you´re getting somewhere, to some "point" about things?
peter, if you´re reading this, well hell, all of you, i highly recommend reading borges´short story "the immortal" (from fictions) and his essay "avatars of the tortoise", the latter of which is a brief outline/biography of the concept of infinity, which sheds a lot of light on the use of the infinite in his literature.
why the fuck am i posting all this on kevin´s site??:
because i love him, and his unbearable automaticity.
kevin,
if you want me to, i can try and criticize your life for you.
arrogance dominating the way you feel about those around you on a daily basis, as if they were some sort of subhuman species, and you floating from concept to concept without any sort of anchor, let´s not even speak of the truth, only understanding things in a general way but still thinking you have some sort of idea about something...
oh wait, maybe that´s me. i´ll try and criticize you at a later date.
looks like zach's gone soft. (slash always was?)
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