"I summon Armageddon Knight. Do you wish to negate the summon?"
"Nope."
Armageddon Knight has the power to throw more darkness to the board. It is this power which enables the growth of a plague that can affect all things. Armageddon is also an end, but as the movie Armageddon teaches us, it's not an instantaneous end. Armageddon is also perspectival. What some people view as an end, some people see as a means to new life, or not an end at all. Armageddon usually refers to an end of all things, but in life there are moments where dramatic ends create a sense of Armageddon. There are also knights of Armageddon who fight to bring a particular end, or new beginning to others.
However, I want to be more real in what I'm referring to. A Catholic Armageddon has started for a lot of people with the implementation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal on Sunday. Many people who were on the fence or on the borders of the Church will make their way out of the Church because of the egregious process and translation of the Missal text. After sex abuse, abuses of authority, and a hierarchy that consistently proves that it does not really care about the people it serves, many people have had it with their faith. The New Missal Translation is the straw that broke the camel's back so to say for many people. We are in danger of losing a majority of the young adult Church but also many people who are currently in the Church.
Some people see the New Missal translation as a revival of traditional values that promote more reverence. But at what cost, yes, we may promote more reverence through certain words and gestures. However, promoting reverence by telling people they are sinful, and that God is almighty over and over again is not the best way to go about this. Reverence through fear is not the same as reverence through love. And people know the difference. People know the difference between people imposing an image of God as a judge and being shown an image of God as a loving person with whom people are supposed to have a relationship. Since we are not being given an image of God as loving in the New Translation itself (or loving only inasmuch as we are repentent people who realize their place), many people will find other more fulfilling and life-giving spiritual outlets.
But this doesn't have to be an end for everyone. This doesn't have to be a straw that breaks the entire back of having a faith, even a Catholic faith. We know the values the Gospel promotes in social justice and concern. We know the love God has for people, even those with whom God disagrees. Our challenge in these times is to be that love, even in the midst of deep spiritual struggle, especially as our Mass becomes more distant and obscure from the belief in God which we have. But we can fight back, we fight back by the love we show and being knowledgeable about that love. Our experience of love and relationship is something that can never be taken away from us. Only by coming together can we fight the mentality of the Church authorities now. Also, only by coming together, can we really find the life God wants for us. The New Roman Missal is Armageddon for some, but not for us.
Armageddon Knight brings darkness to the field, but from that darkness comes new life. May our coming together bring new life, as it becomes more clear that our new missal will not. Please God may it be so.
Aristocrates
Monday, November 28, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Social Revolution Part 4: Fulfillment
Hello Readers,
Now, talking about fulfillment might lead one to believe that this is going to be a very individualistic post. However, the idea of fulfillment is extremely important if we're going to talk about transforming society. Also, fulfillment is something that can give life to the community or destroy it based on how one interprets what it means to be fulfilled. Therefore, we have to build a definition of fulfillment that keeps in mind the common good of the community while meeting individual people's legitimate needs.
To start building a definition of fulfillment, we need to engage the longing of people. An easy way to think about longing is to look at what people complain about most. Lounging about my environment the most common things I hear people complain about are about work, or about other people that are different/are causing problems. Therefore, this anecdotal example shows two enemies to having fulfillment in one's life: difference and stress. While there are many other problems to finding fulfillment, I want to focus on these two pieces to narrow our focus to something common in different populations.
Stress hinders fulfillment because it hinders people's ability to do the things they really enjoy. Some workload is because of the job itself, because every job has deadlines and things to meet so that productivity can occur. However, there is also stress people experience working from simply not enjoying the work they are doing. Since money and the economy is important to survival, people need to work to make their ends meet. Therefore, some people are in jobs that do not fulfill them. This leads to anxieties and lost hopes as people do not fulfill dreams they once had. These build as depressants and many people cope in different ways. When people do work they find unfulfilling, work loses its integration with the rest of people's lives, and as such, work is always seen as a burden, and everything else that goes on is more fun.
In some sense, this explains the life of a college student for many of them. College students work all week on homework, classes, student employment, activities, and stuff, and by Friday, students are exhausted. In the life of a student, this not a 9-5 task either. Classes & activities and stuff can go from 8am-midnight or later when thinking about homework. By Friday, students want care and anything else besides work, so they resort to various escapist activities from real life. Of course a similar model applies to people working dead end jobs. People work their jobs and then go home to do anything else (drink, do drugs, play D & D, etc.) However, this lack of integration cannot sustain people forever because it is built in a reality that is not real.
To continue to have a separation between pleasureable work and pleasureable play makes people feel broken from themselves. Work needs to get done, but we should do our best to be in positions where we can enjoy the work we do and feel like it serves the world in some way. If we can be drawn to deeper relationship and more connectivity with ourselves and others, then we can find more fulfillment in work, which in itself, leads to less stress.
The second thing that I want to discuss about hindrances to fulfillment is about difference. When we are in different situations, where there is a lot of change, or simply an existence different than what we are used to, it causes stress. A fear of difference can hinder fulfillment because it keeps people from trying all the crazy things they never dreamed of trying. Also, this fear of difference and standing out is engrained in our societal norms on many levels. Structures, organizations, and people in power all like the status quo, no matter how much suffering it may do to the majority of people. In these models, the elite also try to find ways to justify the status quo in saying that it serves a majority of the people, that these differences we perceive are inherent in nature and as such our societal/religious structures are appropriate for our world. And while I want to retain religious and civil structure as it is another means to serve the common good, we need to enable people to stand on their own and serve the common good and be themselves.
It's important to be oneself as one will never be happy unless she is herself. And if this means she feels the need to speak or act against important structural issues or problems in society, then she should speak and be enabled to speak. While we might not agree with everyone's formulas for making the world a better place, we need to enable people to be different so everyone can use his different gifts/charisms to serve the world. A fear of difference keeps us from each other and keeps us from being fulfilled, so the solution is to gradually build one's characters as one that accepts difference. How we start to accept difference is to realize that we are all different ourselves, and as such, "I" should act like a different person. Without standing on our two feet, we will never inspire the change we want to see in society, and we will not be able to lead others to find more fulfillment.
So where do we start? We have to start by asking the questions that inspire people to think about why they are doing what they are doing, and are people being fulfilled by what they are doing? The Why Do You Do What You Do campaign is an example of an organized campaign that is provoking some thought. To be really revolutionary, and really inspire change, as individuals, we need to do this for the people around us. Anyone, anywhere, can be a guide by listening and being willing to meet the other where she is at. We can ask the hard questions, and wait for the answers. Our mutual journeying as a people requires that we seek the betterment of the other, because we are responsible for the other that we perceive in our being-present-in-the-world. (Yes, I'm borrowing this idea from Heidegger. :) ). Part of being responsible for the other is helping the other be truly fulfilled and being a sacramental sign of that fulfillment, through various forms of love and care.
Aristocrates
Now, talking about fulfillment might lead one to believe that this is going to be a very individualistic post. However, the idea of fulfillment is extremely important if we're going to talk about transforming society. Also, fulfillment is something that can give life to the community or destroy it based on how one interprets what it means to be fulfilled. Therefore, we have to build a definition of fulfillment that keeps in mind the common good of the community while meeting individual people's legitimate needs.
To start building a definition of fulfillment, we need to engage the longing of people. An easy way to think about longing is to look at what people complain about most. Lounging about my environment the most common things I hear people complain about are about work, or about other people that are different/are causing problems. Therefore, this anecdotal example shows two enemies to having fulfillment in one's life: difference and stress. While there are many other problems to finding fulfillment, I want to focus on these two pieces to narrow our focus to something common in different populations.
Stress hinders fulfillment because it hinders people's ability to do the things they really enjoy. Some workload is because of the job itself, because every job has deadlines and things to meet so that productivity can occur. However, there is also stress people experience working from simply not enjoying the work they are doing. Since money and the economy is important to survival, people need to work to make their ends meet. Therefore, some people are in jobs that do not fulfill them. This leads to anxieties and lost hopes as people do not fulfill dreams they once had. These build as depressants and many people cope in different ways. When people do work they find unfulfilling, work loses its integration with the rest of people's lives, and as such, work is always seen as a burden, and everything else that goes on is more fun.
In some sense, this explains the life of a college student for many of them. College students work all week on homework, classes, student employment, activities, and stuff, and by Friday, students are exhausted. In the life of a student, this not a 9-5 task either. Classes & activities and stuff can go from 8am-midnight or later when thinking about homework. By Friday, students want care and anything else besides work, so they resort to various escapist activities from real life. Of course a similar model applies to people working dead end jobs. People work their jobs and then go home to do anything else (drink, do drugs, play D & D, etc.) However, this lack of integration cannot sustain people forever because it is built in a reality that is not real.
To continue to have a separation between pleasureable work and pleasureable play makes people feel broken from themselves. Work needs to get done, but we should do our best to be in positions where we can enjoy the work we do and feel like it serves the world in some way. If we can be drawn to deeper relationship and more connectivity with ourselves and others, then we can find more fulfillment in work, which in itself, leads to less stress.
The second thing that I want to discuss about hindrances to fulfillment is about difference. When we are in different situations, where there is a lot of change, or simply an existence different than what we are used to, it causes stress. A fear of difference can hinder fulfillment because it keeps people from trying all the crazy things they never dreamed of trying. Also, this fear of difference and standing out is engrained in our societal norms on many levels. Structures, organizations, and people in power all like the status quo, no matter how much suffering it may do to the majority of people. In these models, the elite also try to find ways to justify the status quo in saying that it serves a majority of the people, that these differences we perceive are inherent in nature and as such our societal/religious structures are appropriate for our world. And while I want to retain religious and civil structure as it is another means to serve the common good, we need to enable people to stand on their own and serve the common good and be themselves.
It's important to be oneself as one will never be happy unless she is herself. And if this means she feels the need to speak or act against important structural issues or problems in society, then she should speak and be enabled to speak. While we might not agree with everyone's formulas for making the world a better place, we need to enable people to be different so everyone can use his different gifts/charisms to serve the world. A fear of difference keeps us from each other and keeps us from being fulfilled, so the solution is to gradually build one's characters as one that accepts difference. How we start to accept difference is to realize that we are all different ourselves, and as such, "I" should act like a different person. Without standing on our two feet, we will never inspire the change we want to see in society, and we will not be able to lead others to find more fulfillment.
So where do we start? We have to start by asking the questions that inspire people to think about why they are doing what they are doing, and are people being fulfilled by what they are doing? The Why Do You Do What You Do campaign is an example of an organized campaign that is provoking some thought. To be really revolutionary, and really inspire change, as individuals, we need to do this for the people around us. Anyone, anywhere, can be a guide by listening and being willing to meet the other where she is at. We can ask the hard questions, and wait for the answers. Our mutual journeying as a people requires that we seek the betterment of the other, because we are responsible for the other that we perceive in our being-present-in-the-world. (Yes, I'm borrowing this idea from Heidegger. :) ). Part of being responsible for the other is helping the other be truly fulfilled and being a sacramental sign of that fulfillment, through various forms of love and care.
Aristocrates
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Social Revolution Part 3: On Gratitude
Hello readers,
Today there is a simple message which has many potential facets, but in the end stems down to one thing. Our society will only change if we are all more grateful from the gifts we receive from others (human and nonhuman.) Gratitude is defined as appreciating and being thankful for the gifts of the other.
The reason gratitude is necessary for change is because gratitude makes us more aware of our mutual relationship with all things. Thus, gratitude is a necessity for solidarity. Without gratitude, we are unable to connect to others on the deepest level as people remain at the level of appearances.
A deep level of connection with others though is really hard. Two main things hinder gratitude: fear, and our place of status. We're afraid of being grateful because it means three things: a) we can lose the gifts others give us, b) we can fear having responsibility for the other by building a desire to care, and c) we may not like the gift the other gives us. Also, we risk our status by being grateful, because our titles and labels for ourselves go away in relationships where we seek gratitude. What remains in these relationships is a mutual gift sharing between the people invovled in a particular relationship.
Finally, tips for building gratitude in relationships. First, get into activities where role reversal is encouraged. The idea here is to be in relationships where there is a mutual exchange of experience and there is not one person who is the teacher and one person who is the learner. (Note: this is a temptation in a lot of my relationships). Second, we have to learn to appreciate the gifts distant and different others can give to our experience for them being themselves. This will enable us to open up to others and help us love God and neighbor because we engage others where they are at.
Aristocrates
Today there is a simple message which has many potential facets, but in the end stems down to one thing. Our society will only change if we are all more grateful from the gifts we receive from others (human and nonhuman.) Gratitude is defined as appreciating and being thankful for the gifts of the other.
The reason gratitude is necessary for change is because gratitude makes us more aware of our mutual relationship with all things. Thus, gratitude is a necessity for solidarity. Without gratitude, we are unable to connect to others on the deepest level as people remain at the level of appearances.
A deep level of connection with others though is really hard. Two main things hinder gratitude: fear, and our place of status. We're afraid of being grateful because it means three things: a) we can lose the gifts others give us, b) we can fear having responsibility for the other by building a desire to care, and c) we may not like the gift the other gives us. Also, we risk our status by being grateful, because our titles and labels for ourselves go away in relationships where we seek gratitude. What remains in these relationships is a mutual gift sharing between the people invovled in a particular relationship.
Finally, tips for building gratitude in relationships. First, get into activities where role reversal is encouraged. The idea here is to be in relationships where there is a mutual exchange of experience and there is not one person who is the teacher and one person who is the learner. (Note: this is a temptation in a lot of my relationships). Second, we have to learn to appreciate the gifts distant and different others can give to our experience for them being themselves. This will enable us to open up to others and help us love God and neighbor because we engage others where they are at.
Aristocrates
Sunday, October 9, 2011
A Devil's Plot: How to Infest a Structure and Take the People
Note: While the ideas in this piece are my own, the style I'm utilizing is borrowed from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.
Outline: Step 1, Take advantage of external circumstances.
Seraphi: Incubus, come here.
Incubus: ehh... what is now Seraphi?
Seraphi: You have a new assignment, you need to work to destroy the church and bring all their souls to me, including the soul of the church.
Incubus: But Seraphi, that's hard, I don't like this idea. Can't I just take one soul and make it extra pure and dark, and dead for you?
Seraphi: No, no, no, it's the right time, you destroy the whole structure of the earthly church from within, (of course we can never actually deal with the eschatological church, but that's a battle for Satan to deal with.)
Incubus: Why is this the right time?
Seraphi: Because there's a sex abuse crisis going on in the church, and we can attack the souls of people in the church, and then that will corrupt the people outside the church, and at the same time we can attack the people outside the church with different demons as well.
Incubus: And you want me to attack the structure right?
Seraphi: Yep, attacking the structure, and the hierarchs of the structure is something you can do very well, plus since sex is part (not all, but of course she won't know that until she sees the situation) of the problem, it's perfectly appropriate that an Incubus attacks. (hehehe)
Incubus: Alright then, off I go, to deal with an attack on a structure at the right time.
Step 2, Make religious structure overvalue one thing and ignore the greater part of the common good.
Incubus: Seraphi!!! What are you thinking giving me this assignment? This problem has nothing to do with sex at all. All the people are complaining about power and stuff in the structure, and the priests that are having sex and doing stuff like this to children don't care about the sex either. They are getting away with the situation because they can. How am I supposed to make this worse? :(
Seraphi: Incubus, you're so impatient!! Don't you see that sex is the key to making this worse, even though the problem is not sex in itself.
Incubus: How do I make this worse? I mean look at the people, they already hate the Church and are having avid protests against teaching and authority.
Seraphi: You realize how insignificant of a problem this is in the long run don't you. (Especially because the Almighty has weird ways of engaging salvation, for as much as the Church talks about the Almighty being the only way, the Almighty has certainly taken a lot of souls in unexpected ways.) The real problem is when the structure and faith itself emanates evil and counteracts its own work. People disagreeing with the hierarchy really is a non-issue for me. Some of these people are more dangerous as they heal the brokenness of others and make the Almighty, church, and religion a safehaven. What really causes brokenness is if we can cause a hyper-reaction to something in culture, in this case the sex abuse crisis. (Of course the situation is really more complicated than just this simple hyper-reaction, but she can't really know that yet, she has to let experience hit her in the face. More importantly, the range of factors for any issue is infinite, but the souls of the people fighting really aren't important and for the most part aren't that dark to where I can allure them into darkness. The hierarchs, The hierarchs are more important right now.
Incubus: So basically, you want sex to be the hyper-reaction.
Seraphi: Hehehe, yes, yes, if sex is the hyper-reaction in the Church it will cause more issues of power (especially since we can convince the hierarchs to ignore the mystical connection in sexual practice that binds people together. Yes, people can screw up sex and hurt each other, but this bonding thing even outside of "marriage" connects people and communities, and then the Almighty comes and I can't deal with it all. That stupid line, "Where two or three are gathered, there am I in their midst (Mt)" sadly that's true even in sexual practice. The Almighty comes and connects people together with an opening of hearts. That's the key to a complete takeover of souls is to make people not connect with each other in any real way... Hooking up only does so much to corrupt the participants invovled because there's still that desire for real connectivity, and it only corrupts for so long too.)
Incubus: Seraphi, are you in your own head again?
Seraphi: Shut up Incubus, I'm plotting. But yes, use sex as a means to cause a hyper-reaction and work to build a message of faith that destroys community building. If we can do that, we're well on our way to capturing many people and making them wallow in our darkness.
Incubus: But how do I do that?
Seraphi: Make something about sex the perceived.... ah ha, yes connect all forms of sexual practice (in and out of marriage) connected to abortion in some way. If you can do that you demonize connectivity and this "unitive" end of marriage. Demonizing connectivity on a physical level will destroy it on deeper levels too. We can use this to disconnect the people and harm the common good.
Incubus: Seraphi has all the best ideas! :) Hehehehe We'll win
Seraphi: (ehh your enthusiasm is sickening, especially because satan hasn't found a way to deal with the eschatological church, all we can really deal with is the problems of the earthly church, and we've been doing this since the beginning of time. hmm...)
Step 3, Distract people with a non-issue, yet have authority abuse their power to shove something down a person's throat harming the common good more
Incubus: Seraphi!!! Argh! It was working so well. I got the hierarchs to care only about sexual practice and spreading that faith, connect everything in sexual teaching to not having an abortion, bringing this practice to the younger people, which harmed their vulnerability and relationships which was a fun effect, but now they're all bitching and complaining about Mass and translations, and abuses of authority. Waaaa!!! :'(
Seraphi: Incubus, you're insolent and you never stop. Don't you see how good this situation is for our purposes?
Incubus: Does Seraphi have another idea? :)
Seraphi: Of course I do, but step 1 of this idea is you have to prevent people from binding together against this new Mass translation.
Incubus: So, basically make them feel like there's nothing they can do and they're alone?
Seraphi: haha, you're actually learning, good work. But we can do a lot more with this plan. We can use this translation to make people believe all of their relationships will be like this one. In other words, if we can promote an irresponsible use of authority and overblow this problem, then we can extrapolate and cause people to lose hope in all their relationships.
Incubus: But isn't an irrresponsible use of authority something people actually should care about because bad leadership harms the common good. People seem to have this natural instinct to fight against bad leadership when possible.
Seraphi: Yes, but we can make people think all of their relationships are tyranny, including their relationship with the Almighty, simply based on how the hierarchs are acting. If the hierarchs shove something down people's throats (like a bad Mass translation, and yes this is God awful but we might as well use it for chaos), then people see this as symbolic of all of their relationships, because they are supposed to trust the clergy in their opinion. Since we've seen with the sex abuse crisis and now this Mass translation that they can't we're making the people lost in themselves. As long as we prevent the lights from speaking and building bridges, then our plan will be successful.
Incubus: You come up with all the best ideas Seraphi :).
Seraphi: (Hehehee, this is working perfectly. I'm so glad I thought of all these ideas, granted I've just borrowed them from the history of demons in different crises, like the Reformation for example, but so much of religious, salvation, and demonic history stems from power and sex. The worst part is, I still have yet to really deal with sex as a major demonic component. The hierarchs are the only real thing I've come up with to deal with this component because their talking against sex and touch and deep relationships leaves people alone and prevents the "where two or three are gathered")
Incubus: You're always stuck in your head Seraphi, you need to spend more time with me, and we can be wicked and spread misery together, isn't that what being together is all about for us demons. Spreading mischief and mayhem and creating a bad sense of adventure.
Step 4, Keep up the issues of sexuality and the new Mass translation as issues which cause people to look away from the common good, instead of at it. Subtle but important.
Seraphi: Incubus, I see you've come back, how's things on the surface.
Incubus: Seraphi, we have a problem, there are people starting to look toward the common good and build community and responding to our plan to make the hierarchs care only about sex and authority.
Seraphi: The Almighty! Of course the Almighty figured out what I was doing. (I guess this is part of that stupid eschatological Church thing with Jesus and the Spirit and whatnot.) Alright, for now we have to keep these issues of sexuality and the new Mass translation as signs of isolation up in certain sectors. We need to influence the hierarchs voices to be louder, more annoying, and more about dividing the community between lay and cleric. The more division the better, this will buy us more time.
Incubus: okay, so more time, but how do we get people to look away from the common good, these lights seem to be doing a good job of awakening people to the common good.
Seraphi: We have to discourage the lights by isolating them more, make them seem like pariahs, and invoke more demonic presence on them. If you can do that, the crowds will think they are crazy, and then we can attack the isolated people. But for you, first things first, we have to keep attacking the hierarchs and create a stronger defensive reaction. Pro-life = anti-abortion was a very effective mentality and we need to keep attacking here. We can overlook some of the younger people now, we have a few years before they see what's going on (stupid postmodern Europeans being so open to God and making sense. Caring and sharing and gift, argh!!! All these things strengthen relationships and open people to others, and these young people get this so well and) Incubus what is it?
Incubus: Seraphi, we have to attack now, there's more stronger light coming our way and we're in danger.
Seraphi: We both have to escape the base and get to the surface and become wolves in sheep's clothing.
Incubus: What do you mean?
Seraphi: We have to look exactly like the structure to continue our infiltration. Hurry before the lights radiate us as well as our base, make your armies invisible and prepare for the next stage of stealth attack. (All this time, we fought so hard to prevent relationship buildling. All the sex, all the authority, all the anti-abortion campaigning, it was all to prevent people from coming together so that we could take them from a place of despair. All I wanted was despair and death so people might have a chance to come here, we have to ignore the stupid Almighty and forgiveness and that kind of thing, but we had a chance to take out everything, argh!!!!!))
Aristocrates
Outline: Step 1, Take advantage of external circumstances.
Seraphi: Incubus, come here.
Incubus: ehh... what is now Seraphi?
Seraphi: You have a new assignment, you need to work to destroy the church and bring all their souls to me, including the soul of the church.
Incubus: But Seraphi, that's hard, I don't like this idea. Can't I just take one soul and make it extra pure and dark, and dead for you?
Seraphi: No, no, no, it's the right time, you destroy the whole structure of the earthly church from within, (of course we can never actually deal with the eschatological church, but that's a battle for Satan to deal with.)
Incubus: Why is this the right time?
Seraphi: Because there's a sex abuse crisis going on in the church, and we can attack the souls of people in the church, and then that will corrupt the people outside the church, and at the same time we can attack the people outside the church with different demons as well.
Incubus: And you want me to attack the structure right?
Seraphi: Yep, attacking the structure, and the hierarchs of the structure is something you can do very well, plus since sex is part (not all, but of course she won't know that until she sees the situation) of the problem, it's perfectly appropriate that an Incubus attacks. (hehehe)
Incubus: Alright then, off I go, to deal with an attack on a structure at the right time.
Step 2, Make religious structure overvalue one thing and ignore the greater part of the common good.
Incubus: Seraphi!!! What are you thinking giving me this assignment? This problem has nothing to do with sex at all. All the people are complaining about power and stuff in the structure, and the priests that are having sex and doing stuff like this to children don't care about the sex either. They are getting away with the situation because they can. How am I supposed to make this worse? :(
Seraphi: Incubus, you're so impatient!! Don't you see that sex is the key to making this worse, even though the problem is not sex in itself.
Incubus: How do I make this worse? I mean look at the people, they already hate the Church and are having avid protests against teaching and authority.
Seraphi: You realize how insignificant of a problem this is in the long run don't you. (Especially because the Almighty has weird ways of engaging salvation, for as much as the Church talks about the Almighty being the only way, the Almighty has certainly taken a lot of souls in unexpected ways.) The real problem is when the structure and faith itself emanates evil and counteracts its own work. People disagreeing with the hierarchy really is a non-issue for me. Some of these people are more dangerous as they heal the brokenness of others and make the Almighty, church, and religion a safehaven. What really causes brokenness is if we can cause a hyper-reaction to something in culture, in this case the sex abuse crisis. (Of course the situation is really more complicated than just this simple hyper-reaction, but she can't really know that yet, she has to let experience hit her in the face. More importantly, the range of factors for any issue is infinite, but the souls of the people fighting really aren't important and for the most part aren't that dark to where I can allure them into darkness. The hierarchs, The hierarchs are more important right now.
Incubus: So basically, you want sex to be the hyper-reaction.
Seraphi: Hehehe, yes, yes, if sex is the hyper-reaction in the Church it will cause more issues of power (especially since we can convince the hierarchs to ignore the mystical connection in sexual practice that binds people together. Yes, people can screw up sex and hurt each other, but this bonding thing even outside of "marriage" connects people and communities, and then the Almighty comes and I can't deal with it all. That stupid line, "Where two or three are gathered, there am I in their midst (Mt)" sadly that's true even in sexual practice. The Almighty comes and connects people together with an opening of hearts. That's the key to a complete takeover of souls is to make people not connect with each other in any real way... Hooking up only does so much to corrupt the participants invovled because there's still that desire for real connectivity, and it only corrupts for so long too.)
Incubus: Seraphi, are you in your own head again?
Seraphi: Shut up Incubus, I'm plotting. But yes, use sex as a means to cause a hyper-reaction and work to build a message of faith that destroys community building. If we can do that, we're well on our way to capturing many people and making them wallow in our darkness.
Incubus: But how do I do that?
Seraphi: Make something about sex the perceived.... ah ha, yes connect all forms of sexual practice (in and out of marriage) connected to abortion in some way. If you can do that you demonize connectivity and this "unitive" end of marriage. Demonizing connectivity on a physical level will destroy it on deeper levels too. We can use this to disconnect the people and harm the common good.
Incubus: Seraphi has all the best ideas! :) Hehehehe We'll win
Seraphi: (ehh your enthusiasm is sickening, especially because satan hasn't found a way to deal with the eschatological church, all we can really deal with is the problems of the earthly church, and we've been doing this since the beginning of time. hmm...)
Step 3, Distract people with a non-issue, yet have authority abuse their power to shove something down a person's throat harming the common good more
Incubus: Seraphi!!! Argh! It was working so well. I got the hierarchs to care only about sexual practice and spreading that faith, connect everything in sexual teaching to not having an abortion, bringing this practice to the younger people, which harmed their vulnerability and relationships which was a fun effect, but now they're all bitching and complaining about Mass and translations, and abuses of authority. Waaaa!!! :'(
Seraphi: Incubus, you're insolent and you never stop. Don't you see how good this situation is for our purposes?
Incubus: Does Seraphi have another idea? :)
Seraphi: Of course I do, but step 1 of this idea is you have to prevent people from binding together against this new Mass translation.
Incubus: So, basically make them feel like there's nothing they can do and they're alone?
Seraphi: haha, you're actually learning, good work. But we can do a lot more with this plan. We can use this translation to make people believe all of their relationships will be like this one. In other words, if we can promote an irresponsible use of authority and overblow this problem, then we can extrapolate and cause people to lose hope in all their relationships.
Incubus: But isn't an irrresponsible use of authority something people actually should care about because bad leadership harms the common good. People seem to have this natural instinct to fight against bad leadership when possible.
Seraphi: Yes, but we can make people think all of their relationships are tyranny, including their relationship with the Almighty, simply based on how the hierarchs are acting. If the hierarchs shove something down people's throats (like a bad Mass translation, and yes this is God awful but we might as well use it for chaos), then people see this as symbolic of all of their relationships, because they are supposed to trust the clergy in their opinion. Since we've seen with the sex abuse crisis and now this Mass translation that they can't we're making the people lost in themselves. As long as we prevent the lights from speaking and building bridges, then our plan will be successful.
Incubus: You come up with all the best ideas Seraphi :).
Seraphi: (Hehehee, this is working perfectly. I'm so glad I thought of all these ideas, granted I've just borrowed them from the history of demons in different crises, like the Reformation for example, but so much of religious, salvation, and demonic history stems from power and sex. The worst part is, I still have yet to really deal with sex as a major demonic component. The hierarchs are the only real thing I've come up with to deal with this component because their talking against sex and touch and deep relationships leaves people alone and prevents the "where two or three are gathered")
Incubus: You're always stuck in your head Seraphi, you need to spend more time with me, and we can be wicked and spread misery together, isn't that what being together is all about for us demons. Spreading mischief and mayhem and creating a bad sense of adventure.
Step 4, Keep up the issues of sexuality and the new Mass translation as issues which cause people to look away from the common good, instead of at it. Subtle but important.
Seraphi: Incubus, I see you've come back, how's things on the surface.
Incubus: Seraphi, we have a problem, there are people starting to look toward the common good and build community and responding to our plan to make the hierarchs care only about sex and authority.
Seraphi: The Almighty! Of course the Almighty figured out what I was doing. (I guess this is part of that stupid eschatological Church thing with Jesus and the Spirit and whatnot.) Alright, for now we have to keep these issues of sexuality and the new Mass translation as signs of isolation up in certain sectors. We need to influence the hierarchs voices to be louder, more annoying, and more about dividing the community between lay and cleric. The more division the better, this will buy us more time.
Incubus: okay, so more time, but how do we get people to look away from the common good, these lights seem to be doing a good job of awakening people to the common good.
Seraphi: We have to discourage the lights by isolating them more, make them seem like pariahs, and invoke more demonic presence on them. If you can do that, the crowds will think they are crazy, and then we can attack the isolated people. But for you, first things first, we have to keep attacking the hierarchs and create a stronger defensive reaction. Pro-life = anti-abortion was a very effective mentality and we need to keep attacking here. We can overlook some of the younger people now, we have a few years before they see what's going on (stupid postmodern Europeans being so open to God and making sense. Caring and sharing and gift, argh!!! All these things strengthen relationships and open people to others, and these young people get this so well and) Incubus what is it?
Incubus: Seraphi, we have to attack now, there's more stronger light coming our way and we're in danger.
Seraphi: We both have to escape the base and get to the surface and become wolves in sheep's clothing.
Incubus: What do you mean?
Seraphi: We have to look exactly like the structure to continue our infiltration. Hurry before the lights radiate us as well as our base, make your armies invisible and prepare for the next stage of stealth attack. (All this time, we fought so hard to prevent relationship buildling. All the sex, all the authority, all the anti-abortion campaigning, it was all to prevent people from coming together so that we could take them from a place of despair. All I wanted was despair and death so people might have a chance to come here, we have to ignore the stupid Almighty and forgiveness and that kind of thing, but we had a chance to take out everything, argh!!!!!))
Aristocrates
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Social Revolution Part 2: Gossip, Building Up, and Solidarity
Hello Readers,
In order for the world to change, we have to understand the importance of gossip and how much it contributes to a breakdown of society. To do this, we have to engage how societies are built on shame, how gossip binds cliques of people together, and finally how gossip gives us a hated other to build ourselves up. These three things though they feel good in the group setting do not contribute to an overall solidarity that embraces love of neighbor even those neighbors who are distant in any way (age, experience, etc). The end goal of this reflection is to engage the possibility of using language to build up the community and spread good rumors about people, and favorable parts of people's appearance (defined as the symbolic representation of the unseen self, and has physical, mental, and spiritual components.)
To start, we have to examine how societies are built on shame, both religious and political. Shame is a component of society because all societies have mores. Shame occurs when people are judgmental toward others who do not meet certain mores. For example, if someone does not follow a certain rule, such as not mowing your lawn in your boxers on a Thursday, then society will punish the person mowing the lawn by words, shunning, etc. It's important to note that shame while it can happen for laws, it moreso happens because people are different and do not follow unwritten rules of conduct. Examples would include someone who does not fit in a specific gender role set by society. Shame; therefore, is an important part of society for many people, because it tries to build and keep a status quo. However, shame cannot have a part in love, because it does not let people appear and be a mutual interface with each other in a communal experience.
Part of shame is gossip. Societies of people that have a status quo gossip about others who are not in their status quo. If I sit down on a bus and am not talking to anyone, most often I hear some form of gossip. For people in a society (read community), gossip is almost natural, because we either have to talk about the heretics and how they are destroying the world, or we have to talk about that weird stalker kid who looks creepy and might like me. We talk about the other so as to distance ourselves from the other. The other is the hated other who becomes the scapegoat for the clique to build themselves up. In this way, gossip builds community in a clique sense because common people that have a common status quo can spread bad rumors about people not in their clique. However, this is problematic as we don't learn from the other, and are not challenged by the other, if the other is not embraced in our arms, and loved like God loves all. The reason we need a larger community is because cliques break down, once the common theme of gossip is gone, and the community pleasure received from gossip is gone, these cliques break down unless something else happens to expand a friendship. In other words, the clique does not allow for an embrace of the unknown, and without the embrace of the unknown we can never truly love anyone, because we will only love their appearance as it is given before us.
So we see the problem before us. A clique and a status quo form because people like the appearance of a certain way of society and do not want to embrace the unknown. The opposite of this behavior is to have an openness to the other and seek to build up people and work to have solidarity with them. When we build up the other we are praising their appearance for the joy it brings us and the community. Positive talk of people's appearance is a good thing because it embraces a symbolic representation of an unknown and lets it flourish. For example, when we praise someone who has a strong appearance in caring or leadership, we're praising not just that role that a particular self/person (self keeps the mysterious quality I'm looking for in talking about this topic.) has in my life, but how that appearance extends into other relationships. In this way, praise offers gratitude to the other and elevates the other to inspire more service and love. Praise also puts us in solidarity with others because we are elevating others and embracing the unknown self. This allows our love of others to grow and helps us to grow past the clique and embrace real community as we can only love the unknown, otherwise we become too attached to appearances and our love becomes idolatrous and narcissistic.
In closing, we have to nuance our vision a little bit. There are people that do real harm to the common good, and to protect others from real danger is something we are morally obligated to do. But we have to discern the difference between real harm and existential discomfort. (Of course, these are not mutually exclusive necessarily but there is a difference between someone being weird and someone raping people.) Also, there are people that drive us crazy. Everyone has pet peeves and issues with others. We have to allow for outlets with close friends to help us engage people who drive us crazy. There's a difference between talking to a confidant about people driving you crazy and spreading rumors amongst a whole group of people where there is no expectation of silence. These things being said, our goal in solidarity should be to continue to grow more patient and more loving in the mutual interfacing we experience consistently with the world. When we love more and build up more, I think we'll find that less things drive us crazy, especially as we understand and gain solidarity with the people around us and far away...
Aristocrates.
In order for the world to change, we have to understand the importance of gossip and how much it contributes to a breakdown of society. To do this, we have to engage how societies are built on shame, how gossip binds cliques of people together, and finally how gossip gives us a hated other to build ourselves up. These three things though they feel good in the group setting do not contribute to an overall solidarity that embraces love of neighbor even those neighbors who are distant in any way (age, experience, etc). The end goal of this reflection is to engage the possibility of using language to build up the community and spread good rumors about people, and favorable parts of people's appearance (defined as the symbolic representation of the unseen self, and has physical, mental, and spiritual components.)
To start, we have to examine how societies are built on shame, both religious and political. Shame is a component of society because all societies have mores. Shame occurs when people are judgmental toward others who do not meet certain mores. For example, if someone does not follow a certain rule, such as not mowing your lawn in your boxers on a Thursday, then society will punish the person mowing the lawn by words, shunning, etc. It's important to note that shame while it can happen for laws, it moreso happens because people are different and do not follow unwritten rules of conduct. Examples would include someone who does not fit in a specific gender role set by society. Shame; therefore, is an important part of society for many people, because it tries to build and keep a status quo. However, shame cannot have a part in love, because it does not let people appear and be a mutual interface with each other in a communal experience.
Part of shame is gossip. Societies of people that have a status quo gossip about others who are not in their status quo. If I sit down on a bus and am not talking to anyone, most often I hear some form of gossip. For people in a society (read community), gossip is almost natural, because we either have to talk about the heretics and how they are destroying the world, or we have to talk about that weird stalker kid who looks creepy and might like me. We talk about the other so as to distance ourselves from the other. The other is the hated other who becomes the scapegoat for the clique to build themselves up. In this way, gossip builds community in a clique sense because common people that have a common status quo can spread bad rumors about people not in their clique. However, this is problematic as we don't learn from the other, and are not challenged by the other, if the other is not embraced in our arms, and loved like God loves all. The reason we need a larger community is because cliques break down, once the common theme of gossip is gone, and the community pleasure received from gossip is gone, these cliques break down unless something else happens to expand a friendship. In other words, the clique does not allow for an embrace of the unknown, and without the embrace of the unknown we can never truly love anyone, because we will only love their appearance as it is given before us.
So we see the problem before us. A clique and a status quo form because people like the appearance of a certain way of society and do not want to embrace the unknown. The opposite of this behavior is to have an openness to the other and seek to build up people and work to have solidarity with them. When we build up the other we are praising their appearance for the joy it brings us and the community. Positive talk of people's appearance is a good thing because it embraces a symbolic representation of an unknown and lets it flourish. For example, when we praise someone who has a strong appearance in caring or leadership, we're praising not just that role that a particular self/person (self keeps the mysterious quality I'm looking for in talking about this topic.) has in my life, but how that appearance extends into other relationships. In this way, praise offers gratitude to the other and elevates the other to inspire more service and love. Praise also puts us in solidarity with others because we are elevating others and embracing the unknown self. This allows our love of others to grow and helps us to grow past the clique and embrace real community as we can only love the unknown, otherwise we become too attached to appearances and our love becomes idolatrous and narcissistic.
In closing, we have to nuance our vision a little bit. There are people that do real harm to the common good, and to protect others from real danger is something we are morally obligated to do. But we have to discern the difference between real harm and existential discomfort. (Of course, these are not mutually exclusive necessarily but there is a difference between someone being weird and someone raping people.) Also, there are people that drive us crazy. Everyone has pet peeves and issues with others. We have to allow for outlets with close friends to help us engage people who drive us crazy. There's a difference between talking to a confidant about people driving you crazy and spreading rumors amongst a whole group of people where there is no expectation of silence. These things being said, our goal in solidarity should be to continue to grow more patient and more loving in the mutual interfacing we experience consistently with the world. When we love more and build up more, I think we'll find that less things drive us crazy, especially as we understand and gain solidarity with the people around us and far away...
Aristocrates.
Monday, September 19, 2011
"The Well and the Gravestone" by the Vespers
"Here lies the heart of me. Buried with an unmarked gravestone. No name just the dates you lived and died and now I want it back.
Always fighting but never seeing the way. Teach me how not to be afraid. (counter-melody: teach me to love again, to love again).
Take me down and let me see, the well that's full of bravery, and baptise me so I'll be free, to do the things I fear.
Always fighting but never seeing the way. Teach me how not to be afraid (counter-melody, teach me to love again, to love again).
Hiding in a filthy hole with a battered, bruised and blistered soul, we will laugh the day I'm whole and I'll finally see why I used to cry. Ooh ooh ooh ooh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh
Always fighting but never seeing the way. Teach me how not to be afraid. Always fighting but never seeing the way. Teach me how not to be afraid. Once again, once again."
Heart break and loss is something that existentially shakes all people. However, some of the grace in heart break is that it has the potential to liberate people from fear. There is a need for grace in order to find strength to love again. When hearts break and people lose hope, there is a temptation for despair. This song is a great message to keep fighting and embrace the future hope that can come forth in times of suffering. This is a short meditation but I want the song to speak for itself.
Aristocrates
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Social Revolution Part 1: Care, Control, and Flirting
Hello readers,
As today is September 11th I want to take a little bit to give a memorial for those who died on September 11th and since in the ensuing wars that have happened. I pray we learn many things from what happens when fear is utilized and how others are demonized through fear. And sadly, a few bad apples create havoc and fear for everyone. All we can do now is try to grow and seek peace even when people are not peaceable to us.
Control and fear is something I want to talk about today but I want to back up a couple steps and give a brief introduction to what I want to talk about in this entry. I want to explore more about three aspects of human relationships that often create significant tension for people trying to build friendships/relationships. Note: Most of this entry will be dealing with these questions in regards to relationships though the principles suggested can be applied to all relationships in general. Care, control, and flirting is named such because it is three responses people can have in response to people being nice to others. Of course we don't want to oversimplify too much because there are as many responses to others' care and compassion as there are people and situations that arise and people to react to others' behavior. Also, any one behavior can exhibit any level of all three intentions: care, control, and flirting. However, what I want to examine is our human tendency to assume a control or a flirting response in response to someone's kindness. (Minnesota Nice falls under a different category as that is social custom, I also want to limit my search to personal interactions, and while Minnesota Nice does affect social interactions, it does not affect the existential feeling of care, control, or flirting, except inasmuch as Minnesota Nice affects a subconscious. And while it does affect the subconscious a social construction can only do so much to determine behavior, givenness and an individual's BIS (Biological Incentive System) do the rest of the determining and then the rest is left up to individual choice.
So now that some of the nuance is accounted for let's give a scenario. A guy walks up a woman and comments that he likes her dress. The woman has three possible sets of responses that she can give. 1) She can act like he is caring and respond to his care. 2) She can think his comment is an attempt to control her behavior or get her to do something and respond to his control. 3) She can think he is flirting with her and respond in kind by either flirting or keeping him at a safe distance. Anyone have an answer to what the man's comment is? The correct answer is it's a trick question. In order to accurately determine whether he is caring, controlling, or flirting, you have to assess the man's behavior over a long period of time, and even then it may not be completely accurate in assessing whether the man has any one (or possibly a combination) of the three responses. However, in most social situations a comment like this one is going to be taken as one of the latter two responses, even though an honest discernment says it is really hard to tell what exactly the man is up to in this scenario.
Now why would a woman (or we can use a man receiving the same kind of comment) assume either a control or a flirting response? The best answer I've found is that there is a fear of the unknown in relationships because they are out of our control. This includes many different things such as what happens if I think about building a future (e.g. a friendship or relationship with a particular person), what happens if he/she likes me and I don't like her/him back? This fear creates an analysis that happens quickly in response to a given stimulus. And in a quick analysis, it's easier to come up with a control or a flirting response, partially because it's easier to respond to a control or a flirt response, and extremely difficult to respond to a care response, and if it's nuanced and multi-layered, it's even more difficult. And of course, discussing feelings is awkward because in society, men are only taught to have two feelings, and discussing feelings requires a level of vulnerability and trust on the part of both persons, so feelings do not always come to the fore right away, even if subconsciously our BIS is triggering feelings that motivate our actions toward a perceived reward. (e.g. sexual activity with someone we find attractive will trigger an orgasm which is a pleasant feeling.) The lack of discussion about feelings creates a game that forces the other to be vulnerable first as a back and forth game of both people trying to grab control in a relationship.
The game works something like this. Men are taught to build up courage to make "moves" on a particular woman, and the woman so as not to seem too easily obtained plays "hard to get". Now of course, this is not always the case, men can play hard to get and women can make moves as well, but what's listed above is the general tendency for relationship forming. (I also realize that homosexual relationships create a different nuance but some level of this mutual seeking and game-playing exists in forming these relationships as well. And dare I say, even in friendship as well, since we're taught to not appear too needy, even building non-sexual friendships has some level of game theory, even though it looks different (mostly not calling too much, etc.) Game theory goes on for a period of time until both people build a level of trust based on how well each person has played the game. Playing the game well involves giving adrenaline rushes and endorphin highs to the other through encounter, teasing, sparks, whatever you may, namely the sense of being romantic. Or in a non-sexual friendship it mostly occurs when one of the two friends breaks the game by showing brokenness. Showing brokenness changes the rules of the game and breaks the game because the masks of perfection come off, and the person is exposed for the friends to see. Yes, you can hide your self from yourself.
Next, we have to explore why it's advantageous to play a game. We've explored the psychological effect above, but I think there is also a possible biological effect to playing a game with others. I've mentioned BIS which is an incentive system which encourages people to do things which are pleasureable. People move toward those things which are pleasureable, or they move toward things which may lead to greater pleasure later even if there is some pain now. New relationship forming has some level of anxiety. A new person means new circumstances, feelings, and a new person to explore and engage. The unknown creates fun but also creates complications, especially when people trigger unknown buttons which unleash all sorts of uncontrolled feelings. But part of the exploration is the notoreity and adventure of meeting a new person which creates an adrenaline rush. The continued game of vulnerability back and forth also creates good feelings for the participants.
Again, I'm going to use stereotypes here and realize that the opposite can be true depending on circumstance. Say a woman likes being pursued by a man before she dates him. She doesn't like to submit easily to saying yes for a date. So most men back off before asking this particular woman out. She enjoys the conquest of overcoming a "weak" man by getting him to step aside. She gets a happy adrenaline rush by taking control of another person and utilizing emotion and circumstance to her advantage. This is a great feeling for her. The other feeling she enjoys is when a man continues to pursue her and eventually enough magic happens for her to submit sexually to him; however that looks. Biologically she also feels good when a man has given enough pursuit and has continued to "hunt" her. However, she has issues about 2-3 months into the relationship when she notices that he cannot fulfill her any longer. He starts to beat her and starts dating other women looking for more conquests. She wonders why this behavior continues in her relationships.
Though this is stereotyped, it gives some insight into the minefield of dating at college campuses and with young adults in general. Women that like being pursued (of course not all of them) are acting on biological impulse. If a man continues pursuit of a woman, she is going to get a man who is strong and can target prey. His physical aggression will be comforting because she'll feel protected, which in turn leads to an increase in sexual pleasure. The man who goes after a woman who is hard to get also gets a large adrenaline rush from finally capturing his target. (Again, this can and does work in reverse too, I just wanted to use the stereotype that people would be familiar with). In a sense, it's a playing out of primal instinct, if man can hunt and do enough to capture the target (in this scenario the woman), he'll keep the woman happy. However, this is a danger in relying only on a BIS, because the Biological Incentive System tends to be short-sighted, unless an individual has trained his/her goals to be higher. The short-sightedness comes when the woman realizes all she has captured is a man who can hunt and she'll quickly become boring. The man gets bored unless the woman performs or is forced into more extreme sexual positions (handcuffing, beating to inspire orgasm, etc.) (Again, can work in reverse too.) However, eventually the hunt ends, the masks come off and people have to engage their own lives and stories. Sometimes this "hunt" transfers over into a meaningful, compassionate relationship, but oftentimes it doesn't, because it no longer feels good for the participant(s) involved. When that happens, at best all one can have is a mutual break-up, unless it's a hook-up relationship which then presents it's own complications. This inevitably hurts both participants, and it's because both participants chose a game which feels good in the short term instead of caring about the other and asking about feelings in order to build a long-term care. The short term game creates a burst of good feeling, while the long-term build up feels good but it's slow and not necessarily the lose your mind drunk on feeling adreanline, endorphine, alcohol, caffeine, and whatever else goes into enhancing one's short term burst of sentiment.
The other issue with the game is that it makes any sort of care reflex impossible. Since care, control, and flirting look very similar, it's easier to think that someone is wanting to play the game and respond whether one wants to play the game or not. A care reflex is beyond most people's imaginations for two reasons, a) there isn't a whole lot of a care reflex for most people to begin with, and b) a care reflex is extremely nuanced so a person must be capable of nuance and communication in order to engage someone with a care reflex. Care also has to become a habit, which is hard because it can be discouraging to be a caring person, especially when many people assume a caring person's intention is either control or flirting.
Now to nuance this more, sometimes the game is needed for security, because people have been hurt by those who appeared to be caring, or they want some relief after a bad long term friendship/relationship break-up and want some semblance of control in their lives. These psychological needs must be met; however, in order for society to really change, we need to be a people that care less about control, and care more about caring for others. We have to be people that not only recognize the game but also work to do something about it, even if the game is an endemic cultural problem that teaches people to be focused only on short-term sentiment. (Which is another nuance I want to throw in, we all need short term intense sentiment in order to feel good and function. Depression happens when life becomes unstable and people are unable to count on others for support. Short bursts of feeling can keep people feeling and healthy, adrenaline rushes are a good thing, but what I want to argue against is building a relationship philosophy that seeks these rushes as ends in themselves, either in how much we control others or how well we can play games with other people to get them to do what we want.)
So to conclude, I want to leave with a few remarks about how we can build a society of more caring people.
1) Be a caring person. The habits of a caring person will eventually spread in reputation and people will know there is something different about person X. Be that person that asks how others are doing and try hard to remember things going on in different people's lives. Remembering that someone is in a Greek class she likes is something that can be a deeply caring intention (it can also be used in the game so intention is important as well.)
2) Know how your responses can be taken and be patient with others if they mistake or catch certain parts of other intentions. Flirting and control are not necessarily bad things and these intentions may come in certain actions. If you're walking with someone and you grab their arm because a car comes close you're taking control of the other person. Now this is also a caring response, and can be a flirting response that activates a "spark." However, the person is not going to know what one's intention is unless there is a habit of care and time spent with each other (which is another problem is that people don't want to invest time and intention in relationship, but that can be saved for another post/discussion, etc.) So people may react poorly, and it's partly the society we live in, partly the fears of someone being controlled or someone having unwanted feelings, and partly the awkwardness certain situations bring forth because of the unseen givenness of one or both persons. Part of being patient is talking honestly about one's feelings and engage what's going on with each person, in other words having a conversation and meeting/privileging the other where he/she is at.
3) Finally, talk. Talk about what you're feeling and encourage others to do the same. Build a friendship environment where people can be themselves and encourage an ethic of care. And if we take Jesus as an example, in the modern age a lot of his actions could be seen as controlling or flirting. Jesus did heal women and break social custom by actually talking to women (note he had women followers and John 4 where he talks to a Samaritan woman who have been a major social taboo for any Jew.) Jesus kept caring and talked about what society was like and how people engaged either other. In his teaching and healing, He remained open to the other. This openness to the other can only happen if we know our own feelings, especially if they're complicated. If we fear for someone we care about making poor choices, or if we like someone and care about them, these nuances are important to know for both people to think about and engage in friendship/relationship building to build an ethic of care for the common good.
This discussion is far from complete, though I will end it here for now. All I can really say is to try to love like God loves, privileging the other, listening, and caring, and in these actions, different habits will form and people will see difference. Also, we have to know the "signs of the times" and understand how relationships form and think about why are things happening the way they are. When we know our habits and know how society construes relationships, we can work to be the change we want to see. And also, we can't count on religion to help us in a lot of circles, because these same cycles of competition and hunting in relationship building occur, even though they look different and focus on purity and laughter, rather than a "hunt" persae, even though it is a hunt of sorts, because the end goal is the same of having some sort of relationship with the other. All we can really do to start is show why our faith must be about building a real care ethic and act in those ways that show care.
Peace,
Aristocrates
As today is September 11th I want to take a little bit to give a memorial for those who died on September 11th and since in the ensuing wars that have happened. I pray we learn many things from what happens when fear is utilized and how others are demonized through fear. And sadly, a few bad apples create havoc and fear for everyone. All we can do now is try to grow and seek peace even when people are not peaceable to us.
Control and fear is something I want to talk about today but I want to back up a couple steps and give a brief introduction to what I want to talk about in this entry. I want to explore more about three aspects of human relationships that often create significant tension for people trying to build friendships/relationships. Note: Most of this entry will be dealing with these questions in regards to relationships though the principles suggested can be applied to all relationships in general. Care, control, and flirting is named such because it is three responses people can have in response to people being nice to others. Of course we don't want to oversimplify too much because there are as many responses to others' care and compassion as there are people and situations that arise and people to react to others' behavior. Also, any one behavior can exhibit any level of all three intentions: care, control, and flirting. However, what I want to examine is our human tendency to assume a control or a flirting response in response to someone's kindness. (Minnesota Nice falls under a different category as that is social custom, I also want to limit my search to personal interactions, and while Minnesota Nice does affect social interactions, it does not affect the existential feeling of care, control, or flirting, except inasmuch as Minnesota Nice affects a subconscious. And while it does affect the subconscious a social construction can only do so much to determine behavior, givenness and an individual's BIS (Biological Incentive System) do the rest of the determining and then the rest is left up to individual choice.
So now that some of the nuance is accounted for let's give a scenario. A guy walks up a woman and comments that he likes her dress. The woman has three possible sets of responses that she can give. 1) She can act like he is caring and respond to his care. 2) She can think his comment is an attempt to control her behavior or get her to do something and respond to his control. 3) She can think he is flirting with her and respond in kind by either flirting or keeping him at a safe distance. Anyone have an answer to what the man's comment is? The correct answer is it's a trick question. In order to accurately determine whether he is caring, controlling, or flirting, you have to assess the man's behavior over a long period of time, and even then it may not be completely accurate in assessing whether the man has any one (or possibly a combination) of the three responses. However, in most social situations a comment like this one is going to be taken as one of the latter two responses, even though an honest discernment says it is really hard to tell what exactly the man is up to in this scenario.
Now why would a woman (or we can use a man receiving the same kind of comment) assume either a control or a flirting response? The best answer I've found is that there is a fear of the unknown in relationships because they are out of our control. This includes many different things such as what happens if I think about building a future (e.g. a friendship or relationship with a particular person), what happens if he/she likes me and I don't like her/him back? This fear creates an analysis that happens quickly in response to a given stimulus. And in a quick analysis, it's easier to come up with a control or a flirting response, partially because it's easier to respond to a control or a flirt response, and extremely difficult to respond to a care response, and if it's nuanced and multi-layered, it's even more difficult. And of course, discussing feelings is awkward because in society, men are only taught to have two feelings, and discussing feelings requires a level of vulnerability and trust on the part of both persons, so feelings do not always come to the fore right away, even if subconsciously our BIS is triggering feelings that motivate our actions toward a perceived reward. (e.g. sexual activity with someone we find attractive will trigger an orgasm which is a pleasant feeling.) The lack of discussion about feelings creates a game that forces the other to be vulnerable first as a back and forth game of both people trying to grab control in a relationship.
The game works something like this. Men are taught to build up courage to make "moves" on a particular woman, and the woman so as not to seem too easily obtained plays "hard to get". Now of course, this is not always the case, men can play hard to get and women can make moves as well, but what's listed above is the general tendency for relationship forming. (I also realize that homosexual relationships create a different nuance but some level of this mutual seeking and game-playing exists in forming these relationships as well. And dare I say, even in friendship as well, since we're taught to not appear too needy, even building non-sexual friendships has some level of game theory, even though it looks different (mostly not calling too much, etc.) Game theory goes on for a period of time until both people build a level of trust based on how well each person has played the game. Playing the game well involves giving adrenaline rushes and endorphin highs to the other through encounter, teasing, sparks, whatever you may, namely the sense of being romantic. Or in a non-sexual friendship it mostly occurs when one of the two friends breaks the game by showing brokenness. Showing brokenness changes the rules of the game and breaks the game because the masks of perfection come off, and the person is exposed for the friends to see. Yes, you can hide your self from yourself.
Next, we have to explore why it's advantageous to play a game. We've explored the psychological effect above, but I think there is also a possible biological effect to playing a game with others. I've mentioned BIS which is an incentive system which encourages people to do things which are pleasureable. People move toward those things which are pleasureable, or they move toward things which may lead to greater pleasure later even if there is some pain now. New relationship forming has some level of anxiety. A new person means new circumstances, feelings, and a new person to explore and engage. The unknown creates fun but also creates complications, especially when people trigger unknown buttons which unleash all sorts of uncontrolled feelings. But part of the exploration is the notoreity and adventure of meeting a new person which creates an adrenaline rush. The continued game of vulnerability back and forth also creates good feelings for the participants.
Again, I'm going to use stereotypes here and realize that the opposite can be true depending on circumstance. Say a woman likes being pursued by a man before she dates him. She doesn't like to submit easily to saying yes for a date. So most men back off before asking this particular woman out. She enjoys the conquest of overcoming a "weak" man by getting him to step aside. She gets a happy adrenaline rush by taking control of another person and utilizing emotion and circumstance to her advantage. This is a great feeling for her. The other feeling she enjoys is when a man continues to pursue her and eventually enough magic happens for her to submit sexually to him; however that looks. Biologically she also feels good when a man has given enough pursuit and has continued to "hunt" her. However, she has issues about 2-3 months into the relationship when she notices that he cannot fulfill her any longer. He starts to beat her and starts dating other women looking for more conquests. She wonders why this behavior continues in her relationships.
Though this is stereotyped, it gives some insight into the minefield of dating at college campuses and with young adults in general. Women that like being pursued (of course not all of them) are acting on biological impulse. If a man continues pursuit of a woman, she is going to get a man who is strong and can target prey. His physical aggression will be comforting because she'll feel protected, which in turn leads to an increase in sexual pleasure. The man who goes after a woman who is hard to get also gets a large adrenaline rush from finally capturing his target. (Again, this can and does work in reverse too, I just wanted to use the stereotype that people would be familiar with). In a sense, it's a playing out of primal instinct, if man can hunt and do enough to capture the target (in this scenario the woman), he'll keep the woman happy. However, this is a danger in relying only on a BIS, because the Biological Incentive System tends to be short-sighted, unless an individual has trained his/her goals to be higher. The short-sightedness comes when the woman realizes all she has captured is a man who can hunt and she'll quickly become boring. The man gets bored unless the woman performs or is forced into more extreme sexual positions (handcuffing, beating to inspire orgasm, etc.) (Again, can work in reverse too.) However, eventually the hunt ends, the masks come off and people have to engage their own lives and stories. Sometimes this "hunt" transfers over into a meaningful, compassionate relationship, but oftentimes it doesn't, because it no longer feels good for the participant(s) involved. When that happens, at best all one can have is a mutual break-up, unless it's a hook-up relationship which then presents it's own complications. This inevitably hurts both participants, and it's because both participants chose a game which feels good in the short term instead of caring about the other and asking about feelings in order to build a long-term care. The short term game creates a burst of good feeling, while the long-term build up feels good but it's slow and not necessarily the lose your mind drunk on feeling adreanline, endorphine, alcohol, caffeine, and whatever else goes into enhancing one's short term burst of sentiment.
The other issue with the game is that it makes any sort of care reflex impossible. Since care, control, and flirting look very similar, it's easier to think that someone is wanting to play the game and respond whether one wants to play the game or not. A care reflex is beyond most people's imaginations for two reasons, a) there isn't a whole lot of a care reflex for most people to begin with, and b) a care reflex is extremely nuanced so a person must be capable of nuance and communication in order to engage someone with a care reflex. Care also has to become a habit, which is hard because it can be discouraging to be a caring person, especially when many people assume a caring person's intention is either control or flirting.
Now to nuance this more, sometimes the game is needed for security, because people have been hurt by those who appeared to be caring, or they want some relief after a bad long term friendship/relationship break-up and want some semblance of control in their lives. These psychological needs must be met; however, in order for society to really change, we need to be a people that care less about control, and care more about caring for others. We have to be people that not only recognize the game but also work to do something about it, even if the game is an endemic cultural problem that teaches people to be focused only on short-term sentiment. (Which is another nuance I want to throw in, we all need short term intense sentiment in order to feel good and function. Depression happens when life becomes unstable and people are unable to count on others for support. Short bursts of feeling can keep people feeling and healthy, adrenaline rushes are a good thing, but what I want to argue against is building a relationship philosophy that seeks these rushes as ends in themselves, either in how much we control others or how well we can play games with other people to get them to do what we want.)
So to conclude, I want to leave with a few remarks about how we can build a society of more caring people.
1) Be a caring person. The habits of a caring person will eventually spread in reputation and people will know there is something different about person X. Be that person that asks how others are doing and try hard to remember things going on in different people's lives. Remembering that someone is in a Greek class she likes is something that can be a deeply caring intention (it can also be used in the game so intention is important as well.)
2) Know how your responses can be taken and be patient with others if they mistake or catch certain parts of other intentions. Flirting and control are not necessarily bad things and these intentions may come in certain actions. If you're walking with someone and you grab their arm because a car comes close you're taking control of the other person. Now this is also a caring response, and can be a flirting response that activates a "spark." However, the person is not going to know what one's intention is unless there is a habit of care and time spent with each other (which is another problem is that people don't want to invest time and intention in relationship, but that can be saved for another post/discussion, etc.) So people may react poorly, and it's partly the society we live in, partly the fears of someone being controlled or someone having unwanted feelings, and partly the awkwardness certain situations bring forth because of the unseen givenness of one or both persons. Part of being patient is talking honestly about one's feelings and engage what's going on with each person, in other words having a conversation and meeting/privileging the other where he/she is at.
3) Finally, talk. Talk about what you're feeling and encourage others to do the same. Build a friendship environment where people can be themselves and encourage an ethic of care. And if we take Jesus as an example, in the modern age a lot of his actions could be seen as controlling or flirting. Jesus did heal women and break social custom by actually talking to women (note he had women followers and John 4 where he talks to a Samaritan woman who have been a major social taboo for any Jew.) Jesus kept caring and talked about what society was like and how people engaged either other. In his teaching and healing, He remained open to the other. This openness to the other can only happen if we know our own feelings, especially if they're complicated. If we fear for someone we care about making poor choices, or if we like someone and care about them, these nuances are important to know for both people to think about and engage in friendship/relationship building to build an ethic of care for the common good.
This discussion is far from complete, though I will end it here for now. All I can really say is to try to love like God loves, privileging the other, listening, and caring, and in these actions, different habits will form and people will see difference. Also, we have to know the "signs of the times" and understand how relationships form and think about why are things happening the way they are. When we know our habits and know how society construes relationships, we can work to be the change we want to see. And also, we can't count on religion to help us in a lot of circles, because these same cycles of competition and hunting in relationship building occur, even though they look different and focus on purity and laughter, rather than a "hunt" persae, even though it is a hunt of sorts, because the end goal is the same of having some sort of relationship with the other. All we can really do to start is show why our faith must be about building a real care ethic and act in those ways that show care.
Peace,
Aristocrates
Monday, September 5, 2011
On Nature and Escapism
Hello Readers,
In any world, there are many worlds associated with it. We associate with not only the present world in our daily interaction, but also with the worlds of history and eschatology. It is in these different types of interactions that we learn more about why our world is the way it is. From the past we learn lessons from past worlds about relationship, interaction, and how people lived simpler and harder lives all at the same time. Things we find natural in our environment today are only there because of events/choices in the past that enable people to have the convenience to have what seems natural to us. Plumbing, warm showers, sliced bread, all of these are innovations which have not always been. These conveniences come naturally to us now but are really the result of the hard work, inventions, and environmental gift of many people and ecospheres. The point of this is that our present world with all of its natures takes place because of the events in a past world and its nature. This is a healthy recourse of examining choices and learning from our mistakes to promote the common good.
However, there are potential issues of idolizing a particular time in the past, or a particular world one encounters in fantasy that may have lessons to teach us about love, charity, and mercy, but when idolized and obsessed about people lose sight of the common good in their own world by losing ability to relate to the present world's own nature. We call this phenomenon escapism. Escpaism is common as it is a coping mechanism to deal with problems in the present world, either with the world itself or its nature. Everyone has some level of escapism, as we all have hobbies that bring us to different worlds and realities. In addition, everyone needs a release from the stresses of life. There are a lot of things about the present world and its nature that are problematic as I've discussed on other blog entries. However, the balance becomes when does this escapism either through history or fantasy become unhealthy. When does it harm the common good not to be alert to this present world and its nature?
1) If escapism causes people to lose sight of the common good, then it becomes a problem. In other words, in escapism if people are not attentive to real world concerns for the sake of preserving the fantasy/history world, then escapism is immoral. People in the real world suffer, and needs must be accounted for in some way, if they arise.
2) If escapism actually causes people to harm each other in any way, then it is a problem. Escapism causes people to enter a different world, thus their character allows them to do things they might not otherwise do in the present world and its nature. While Sartre would argue this is people acting in bad faith, that's besides the point here. (Bad faith is when a person acts against their own self by acting in character differently then they would in the present, real world.) The issue at stake is what happens when characters act in ways that harm other people in the other world and how does that affect people's reality in the real world. Of course, some people will argue that we need to be able to have jokes and make fun for escapism's sake, to not be so serious. However, when that fun causes harm to the other, then there is an issue, as that does not just stay in the fantasy/history world, but carries on with people subconsciously. Escapism does not excuse abuse toward others, or our responsibility to be sensitive to the other.
3) The other must retain her privilege in escapism. The present world and its nature is one of encountering the other. We live in a world of interaction. As such, we have responsibility for the things and people with whom we interact. This responsibility takes on many forms and our interaction draws us to others in a variety of ways. Escapism is problematic when the other loses her privilege for the sake of the fantasy world, of a nostalgic rememberance and desire for an ethic that's passed. Of course, history can teach us many ways of privileging the other if one searches hard enough; however, there are many cases where history and fantasy teach us how to privilege our own desire for nostalgia and a semblance of control in our own lives. In an escapist world, we can control the world to make it show what we want. The other does not have much privilege here. In the present world and its nature, we cannot control all of the world to our conforming. We can't build a reality with everything we want all the time. Therefore, the privilege of the other is important to recognize, because then we can honestly engage the world more fully, even when we cannot control it. In losing control, we gain the things which are really important, but we need the skills to engage the present world and its nature, even if we are asking questions of that nature.
And finally, 4) If escapism disables people from being able to converse about the present world and its reality, then it is a major problem. We live in the present world, which has a certain nature, which changes over time and engages different people and interests. All over the world there are different worlds which have different natures due to the culture and influence of the people. All of these present worlds and their natures are interconnected and result in us having one world with one nature, and at the same time many worlds with many natures. The one world, is the world of the now, and while it takes many forms, in the end people are unified by their desire for community and relationship in the present world and its nature. Relationship requires engagement, if people spend their lives in a nostalgic world, desiring for something better, (and this applies to history, fantasy, and eschatology), then people lose sight of the opportunity to love and relate in the now, and people that need love need you and me to love like we would want to be loved. In other words, to be able to give and love like God does, while also realizing our own need for love and fulfillment in our lives. Escapism becomes problematic when it is the end sought after for release from the present world and its nature. Escapism can be fun and an enjoyable time by oneself or with friends; however, it can also draw people away from the present world and its nature so much so that the common good is lost. A failure to dialogue about any concern or action in the present world and its nature is symptomatic of this problem.
Aristocrates
P.S. An abuse of eschatology takes most of these symptoms but there are two important differences. 1) The object of the escapism has not happened yet so a deep apathy toward anything appears in anticipation for a pious eschatology as purveyed by a group/cult, etc. This has the effect of creating a lack of care for anything that happens in the present world and its nature and disables people from really being able to act for the common good as people take in the problems of the world if it offends their piety. 2) and most importantly, an abuse of eschatology creates a climate of judgment and hell, which usually does not coincide with the present world and its nature. To be clear, eschatology is important as it shows how the heavenly world and earthly one connect, relate, and interact. Eschatology enables people to talk about God, charity, and purpose in a deeper way, as it draws all past, present, and future history together. However, eschatology is a problem when it does not privilege the other as part of God's creation, even when we find the actions of the other person sinful, shameful, and something that harms the common good. A real eschatology which does not create escapism shows us how God discloses all people and seeks for us to work for the common good.
In any world, there are many worlds associated with it. We associate with not only the present world in our daily interaction, but also with the worlds of history and eschatology. It is in these different types of interactions that we learn more about why our world is the way it is. From the past we learn lessons from past worlds about relationship, interaction, and how people lived simpler and harder lives all at the same time. Things we find natural in our environment today are only there because of events/choices in the past that enable people to have the convenience to have what seems natural to us. Plumbing, warm showers, sliced bread, all of these are innovations which have not always been. These conveniences come naturally to us now but are really the result of the hard work, inventions, and environmental gift of many people and ecospheres. The point of this is that our present world with all of its natures takes place because of the events in a past world and its nature. This is a healthy recourse of examining choices and learning from our mistakes to promote the common good.
However, there are potential issues of idolizing a particular time in the past, or a particular world one encounters in fantasy that may have lessons to teach us about love, charity, and mercy, but when idolized and obsessed about people lose sight of the common good in their own world by losing ability to relate to the present world's own nature. We call this phenomenon escapism. Escpaism is common as it is a coping mechanism to deal with problems in the present world, either with the world itself or its nature. Everyone has some level of escapism, as we all have hobbies that bring us to different worlds and realities. In addition, everyone needs a release from the stresses of life. There are a lot of things about the present world and its nature that are problematic as I've discussed on other blog entries. However, the balance becomes when does this escapism either through history or fantasy become unhealthy. When does it harm the common good not to be alert to this present world and its nature?
1) If escapism causes people to lose sight of the common good, then it becomes a problem. In other words, in escapism if people are not attentive to real world concerns for the sake of preserving the fantasy/history world, then escapism is immoral. People in the real world suffer, and needs must be accounted for in some way, if they arise.
2) If escapism actually causes people to harm each other in any way, then it is a problem. Escapism causes people to enter a different world, thus their character allows them to do things they might not otherwise do in the present world and its nature. While Sartre would argue this is people acting in bad faith, that's besides the point here. (Bad faith is when a person acts against their own self by acting in character differently then they would in the present, real world.) The issue at stake is what happens when characters act in ways that harm other people in the other world and how does that affect people's reality in the real world. Of course, some people will argue that we need to be able to have jokes and make fun for escapism's sake, to not be so serious. However, when that fun causes harm to the other, then there is an issue, as that does not just stay in the fantasy/history world, but carries on with people subconsciously. Escapism does not excuse abuse toward others, or our responsibility to be sensitive to the other.
3) The other must retain her privilege in escapism. The present world and its nature is one of encountering the other. We live in a world of interaction. As such, we have responsibility for the things and people with whom we interact. This responsibility takes on many forms and our interaction draws us to others in a variety of ways. Escapism is problematic when the other loses her privilege for the sake of the fantasy world, of a nostalgic rememberance and desire for an ethic that's passed. Of course, history can teach us many ways of privileging the other if one searches hard enough; however, there are many cases where history and fantasy teach us how to privilege our own desire for nostalgia and a semblance of control in our own lives. In an escapist world, we can control the world to make it show what we want. The other does not have much privilege here. In the present world and its nature, we cannot control all of the world to our conforming. We can't build a reality with everything we want all the time. Therefore, the privilege of the other is important to recognize, because then we can honestly engage the world more fully, even when we cannot control it. In losing control, we gain the things which are really important, but we need the skills to engage the present world and its nature, even if we are asking questions of that nature.
And finally, 4) If escapism disables people from being able to converse about the present world and its reality, then it is a major problem. We live in the present world, which has a certain nature, which changes over time and engages different people and interests. All over the world there are different worlds which have different natures due to the culture and influence of the people. All of these present worlds and their natures are interconnected and result in us having one world with one nature, and at the same time many worlds with many natures. The one world, is the world of the now, and while it takes many forms, in the end people are unified by their desire for community and relationship in the present world and its nature. Relationship requires engagement, if people spend their lives in a nostalgic world, desiring for something better, (and this applies to history, fantasy, and eschatology), then people lose sight of the opportunity to love and relate in the now, and people that need love need you and me to love like we would want to be loved. In other words, to be able to give and love like God does, while also realizing our own need for love and fulfillment in our lives. Escapism becomes problematic when it is the end sought after for release from the present world and its nature. Escapism can be fun and an enjoyable time by oneself or with friends; however, it can also draw people away from the present world and its nature so much so that the common good is lost. A failure to dialogue about any concern or action in the present world and its nature is symptomatic of this problem.
Aristocrates
P.S. An abuse of eschatology takes most of these symptoms but there are two important differences. 1) The object of the escapism has not happened yet so a deep apathy toward anything appears in anticipation for a pious eschatology as purveyed by a group/cult, etc. This has the effect of creating a lack of care for anything that happens in the present world and its nature and disables people from really being able to act for the common good as people take in the problems of the world if it offends their piety. 2) and most importantly, an abuse of eschatology creates a climate of judgment and hell, which usually does not coincide with the present world and its nature. To be clear, eschatology is important as it shows how the heavenly world and earthly one connect, relate, and interact. Eschatology enables people to talk about God, charity, and purpose in a deeper way, as it draws all past, present, and future history together. However, eschatology is a problem when it does not privilege the other as part of God's creation, even when we find the actions of the other person sinful, shameful, and something that harms the common good. A real eschatology which does not create escapism shows us how God discloses all people and seeks for us to work for the common good.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Gender Imagery and the Bar Scene
Hello Readers,
Yes, I did something out of character the past couple weeks and that was to go to the bar a few times during my vacation. A friend of mine and I joked about writing a paper about the bar scene and discussing relationship building and people's interactions in the bar. He suggested it as a way for me to earn money from the federal government and drink at the same time. However, as our time in the bar progressed we both thought about the bar scene a little more seriously and watched interactions. So to my friend, here is a thought process to start an idea for a paper and I hope to have more discussions about it soon.
To start, the main thesis for this paper is: the bar scene is a place of searching. However, the gender constructions promoted at the bar hinder people's searches for love and fulfillment. This thesis will emphasize an experiential and existential approach to prove these conclusions. My effort for this paper will be a mostly existential look as I am approaching this from a direction of philosophy and ethics associated with particular philosophies. The sociological data will have to wait until we can actually conduct a study, which is hard considering the inebriated condition most people find themselves at at the bar. Recognizing this lack, I hope to present an existential view utilizing my own experience and perceptions upon observation at the bar.
We need to understand the two objects of my thesis before continuing. First, gender constructions: these are ideas about the relationship and roles between male and female in response to phenomena (e.g. a certain environment that encourages x behavior.) Gender constructions can also be identified in close connection with social pressure as they often go hand-in-hand. Gender constructions also tend to favor one particular gender over the other dependent upon the leadership and subtle social cues. Second, searching: searching is usually utilized as a religious term emphasizing people's search for God in an existential sense. The term has a similar usage here but instead of emphasizing on God exclusively, searching refers to an existential search for something greater than oneself, particularly in seeking relationship with others. Different bar scenes will seek different kinds of relationships (namely hetero v. homosexual) but the search in going to a bar revolves around relationship to others.
Now that these two concepts are clear we need to build a gender construction of a bar. For purposes of this essay I'm going to stick to a heterosexual bar as that is where my experience has led me, but I would reckon to guess there might be some constants at homosexual bars. And yes, bars do get rumored as places for hetero and homosexual involvement so there is a socialized segregation enforced by mores, though there are no explicit rules in place. Gender construction can be seen in three main areas in an existential search. A) The dancing between "ritual" participants at the bar. (The word ritual is utilized on purpose here as there are particular patterns which are consistent, and certain dances and types of dancing associated with different songs as well based on social mores, again nothing real explicit besides stares from other participants.) B) The concept of the alpha-male and its promotion at the bar based on two factors: drinking and picking up women. C) The model of female favored at the bar, one who is loose and will draw herself to the alpha male. This model emphasizes women who drink heavily to compete and engage the alpha-male. While there are exceptions to every rule, these general tendencies rule the bar scene.
Gender construction is seen in dancing as most dancing emphasizes grinding and physical closeness to the other person. One positive of this dancing is that touch is never at a lack. Also, some physical proximity is necessary as the loud noises of the bar scene necessitate close quarters to hear the other person. So the touch can help communication as well as being its own form of communication. However, this type of dancing tends to endanger women as men tend to be quicker to get a physical release from physical contact and tend to be more willing to have this close contact with more than one woman in the same night. While alcohol helps lead to these decisions, part of the issue also stems from the image of the male portrayed by the bar scene.
The alpha-male is one who leads, is strong, can drink a lot, and gets all the women, or the hottest one, whichever is preferred by himself or the group. This image of male is promoted by alcohol commercials in mainstream media, as well as a social more of the bar scene. One particular example is observing a couple who was dancing and a guy comes and pushes the couple closer together. While this gesture might not seem significant it does show how difference is awkward for some. However, we can joke that people like the pusher just want to see more "cheap floozy sex" on the dance floor. Jokes among guys about who got the woman or is x going home with y woman also emphasize the prevalence of the alpha-male mentality at the bar scene.
The alpha-male is also favored in the bar scene in seeing the drinking contests that go on between men. At one table a party bought over a dozen beers for two guys to drink as fast as possible. Chants like "chug, chug" emphasize and build the image of strength, alcohol tolerance, etc. The amount of alcohol consumed is also matched by a desire to dance. And while dancing and touch can be good, excessive amounts of alcohol consumption can lead to an abuse of persons which is not ethical, especially considering the deeper existential search for relationship sought after in a bar scene.
Women that go to a bar scene implicitly understand this model of the male promoted at the bar, if not explicitly. The hard part in writing this paper is that the female seems passive in creating the bar scene, merely as a response to the male. I do not want to oversimplify and say that is the case. However, there is a reciprocal response between drunk women wanting alpha-male men and alpha-male men wanting easy women to build ego, hubris, etc. It all boils down to people's choices, and the influence of alcohol and pheromones in interaction with the other. The image of the female preferred at the bar scene is one which complements the alpha male: women willing to grant sexual favor to men, women who want to participate in drinking with men, and women who make themselves up to be attractive to a male. While some would say this is beneficial for equality, these actions only appear equal in deed but not in process and final result. Yes, a woman can drink with a man, a woman can grant lots of sexual favor to different men and this is not a problem in the bar scene in deed. However, with more of this favor/dancing, etc, this equality turns into an expectation needed for social standing at the bar. Popular women that many guys want to dance with wear lots of make-up, dress with as little clothing as possible, and are relatively skinny and have larger chests and butts, accentuated by their choice of clothing.
In a normal societal model promoting the alpha-male (promoted in both a religious and secular sense) this bar scene just accentuates that model. It favors the aggressive, leader male and males who prefer to care and be gentle are pushed out or coerced to try to be more aggressive and more like everyone else. This societal model also favors women who are submissively sexual, made to look like a model (very skinny, moderate to tall (so like 5'6"-5'9" just to take a guess, bigger breasts and bigger butt), and women who are sort of strong. Woman are called to equality, sort of. There are a lot of sort of's because while we've progressed in allowing women to work with males, made sexual discrimination policies to protect women (mostly), and given women the same rights as men, there are a lot of social norms that keep women subliminally if not actually degraded in comparison to men. So the bar accentuates these gender differences and draws them out with more physicality, so the bar is a good place to examine as it gives a vibrant image to examine gender imagery and differences.
These images affect people's existential search for relationship when at the bar. The biggest consequence is that the individual gets quickly lost or not privileged in an encounter. The encounters tend to follow an unwritten code of norms trying to promote individuality. First encounters have to be smooth, magical, and provide some sort of physical sensation that is pleasureable to both parties. Second, encounters after an initial meeting in a bar have a three-day rule where you don't contact the other person so as not to appear needy or dependent on the other person in a co-dependent way. (This holds true for encounters outside of bars as well.)
Part of the existential search is wanting to have people with whom you share fuzzy warm memories. Fuzzy warm memories make the existential toils of life easier to engage when they come. In this sense, a bar is a great place to release from life. Though too much drowning one's trouble in alcohol, dancing, and a night out can lead to addictive tendencies and a poor ability to cope, some ease is good for those who get stressed or need some help loosening up in meeting people. So the bar codes help build this pleasureable experience. However, part of the greater goal of going to a bar, finding relationship, has to engage the reality that life is difficult at times, and that life isn't always warm and fuzzy as much as we'd like it to be. The bar by itself cannot provide an atmosphere to teach this part of relationship. As mentioned above, conversation is hard in a bar because of the amount of noise at the bar. Also, conversation is difficult because it has to be relatively low-key in order to deal with the disconnectedness of a conversation in the midst of dancing, interaction, music, noise, order for drinks and various other distractions at a bar. In effect, this eliminates the individual part of the existential search and all which is left is desire, the desire for relationship exists, even as the individual part of searching is annhilated because of the social mores of relationship and the bar (which as shown above are deeply connected.) This desire then becomes manifest in a deeply physical way as that is an instinctual way of relating to others. This instinct is very good and needs to be fostered; however, this needs to respect individuals, their differences, and different needs for touch and affection in particular. Individuality is important to perserve as we are individuals with different needs and sublimating those needs will only harm ourselves and those with whom we relate in the future. Not all people fit the alpha-male or the sexually submissive female type of persona. In fact, alcohol contributes to more people fitting to these stereotypes in a particular time and place, even if their personality outside that setting does not match these personas.
Also, in thinking about different personas, we need to think briefly about how interaction occurs. For some people the three-day rule is a test of will, to be sure that I don't need the other person. However, if the self is an interactive entity that relates to objects, people, and God, then others' input necessarily affects our selves positively and negatively. Also, it means that we inherently need others in order to build our own worldview, because we need interaction. If another person contributes positively to loving God and neighbor (or loving neighbor for those who don't believe in God), then why shouldn't we want to be loving, merciful, and willing to encounter the other? The three-day rule seems to hinder this ability to encounter the other. While it's an attempt to prevent a perceived danger, it ignores our existential experience as persons who interact and need reception from others. It's a question to leave open in thinking about societal interaction. (Note: The same thing happens even in a religious sense as well, particularly in those who try to not overvalue any person by placing all value on God. The fear of dependency is placed upon others not taking the place of God. It seeks to prevent idolatry, but this argument ends up being moot as it turns idolatrous very quickly, because it favors a passive role for people in God's life, which comes with certain images and problems but that's another paper and story entirely.)
However, as I've said, there are exceptions to every rule. There are people who are dragged to bars by their friends either because of a perceived need to experience this type of social interaction or to be a designated driver for others. There are people who also don't follow these rules at the bar. There are those who protect others from stalkers, care for those who are drunk and try to protect them from being taken advantage of, and those who don't proscribe to the social norms for dancing and interaction. These exceptions fit certain personalities and are needed to help teach other ways of relating and love of other. These people can also help us find what we are looking for. The individuality helps us dispel of gender models and seek connection with others for being others who can challenge and love us despite our differences.
That is how I enjoyed my night at the bar, is finding one woman who actually didn't proscribe to these models of gender and could engage me in dance and conversation. In the midst of seeing all these potential issues around me I found someone different. Light in the midst of darkness, while I don't like this line for the Gnostic interpretation this could give, it's appropriate for my own state of my mind as I think back on my experience in what I saw in writing this paper. It was originally my friends' decision to go to the bar and I was like ehhh :(, but I was blessed to find the exception to the rule, and have interesting material to think about and dissect as we observed others and talked. Also, I hope this piece is a conversation starter, to engage our own experiences at the bar and socially, and start to talk about them to think about what we really experience and do as we are social with others. In conversation, we can find the means to love God and neighbor, even when having fun, by perserving others' dignity and opening ourselves to the other.
Peace,
Aristocrates
Yes, I did something out of character the past couple weeks and that was to go to the bar a few times during my vacation. A friend of mine and I joked about writing a paper about the bar scene and discussing relationship building and people's interactions in the bar. He suggested it as a way for me to earn money from the federal government and drink at the same time. However, as our time in the bar progressed we both thought about the bar scene a little more seriously and watched interactions. So to my friend, here is a thought process to start an idea for a paper and I hope to have more discussions about it soon.
To start, the main thesis for this paper is: the bar scene is a place of searching. However, the gender constructions promoted at the bar hinder people's searches for love and fulfillment. This thesis will emphasize an experiential and existential approach to prove these conclusions. My effort for this paper will be a mostly existential look as I am approaching this from a direction of philosophy and ethics associated with particular philosophies. The sociological data will have to wait until we can actually conduct a study, which is hard considering the inebriated condition most people find themselves at at the bar. Recognizing this lack, I hope to present an existential view utilizing my own experience and perceptions upon observation at the bar.
We need to understand the two objects of my thesis before continuing. First, gender constructions: these are ideas about the relationship and roles between male and female in response to phenomena (e.g. a certain environment that encourages x behavior.) Gender constructions can also be identified in close connection with social pressure as they often go hand-in-hand. Gender constructions also tend to favor one particular gender over the other dependent upon the leadership and subtle social cues. Second, searching: searching is usually utilized as a religious term emphasizing people's search for God in an existential sense. The term has a similar usage here but instead of emphasizing on God exclusively, searching refers to an existential search for something greater than oneself, particularly in seeking relationship with others. Different bar scenes will seek different kinds of relationships (namely hetero v. homosexual) but the search in going to a bar revolves around relationship to others.
Now that these two concepts are clear we need to build a gender construction of a bar. For purposes of this essay I'm going to stick to a heterosexual bar as that is where my experience has led me, but I would reckon to guess there might be some constants at homosexual bars. And yes, bars do get rumored as places for hetero and homosexual involvement so there is a socialized segregation enforced by mores, though there are no explicit rules in place. Gender construction can be seen in three main areas in an existential search. A) The dancing between "ritual" participants at the bar. (The word ritual is utilized on purpose here as there are particular patterns which are consistent, and certain dances and types of dancing associated with different songs as well based on social mores, again nothing real explicit besides stares from other participants.) B) The concept of the alpha-male and its promotion at the bar based on two factors: drinking and picking up women. C) The model of female favored at the bar, one who is loose and will draw herself to the alpha male. This model emphasizes women who drink heavily to compete and engage the alpha-male. While there are exceptions to every rule, these general tendencies rule the bar scene.
Gender construction is seen in dancing as most dancing emphasizes grinding and physical closeness to the other person. One positive of this dancing is that touch is never at a lack. Also, some physical proximity is necessary as the loud noises of the bar scene necessitate close quarters to hear the other person. So the touch can help communication as well as being its own form of communication. However, this type of dancing tends to endanger women as men tend to be quicker to get a physical release from physical contact and tend to be more willing to have this close contact with more than one woman in the same night. While alcohol helps lead to these decisions, part of the issue also stems from the image of the male portrayed by the bar scene.
The alpha-male is one who leads, is strong, can drink a lot, and gets all the women, or the hottest one, whichever is preferred by himself or the group. This image of male is promoted by alcohol commercials in mainstream media, as well as a social more of the bar scene. One particular example is observing a couple who was dancing and a guy comes and pushes the couple closer together. While this gesture might not seem significant it does show how difference is awkward for some. However, we can joke that people like the pusher just want to see more "cheap floozy sex" on the dance floor. Jokes among guys about who got the woman or is x going home with y woman also emphasize the prevalence of the alpha-male mentality at the bar scene.
The alpha-male is also favored in the bar scene in seeing the drinking contests that go on between men. At one table a party bought over a dozen beers for two guys to drink as fast as possible. Chants like "chug, chug" emphasize and build the image of strength, alcohol tolerance, etc. The amount of alcohol consumed is also matched by a desire to dance. And while dancing and touch can be good, excessive amounts of alcohol consumption can lead to an abuse of persons which is not ethical, especially considering the deeper existential search for relationship sought after in a bar scene.
Women that go to a bar scene implicitly understand this model of the male promoted at the bar, if not explicitly. The hard part in writing this paper is that the female seems passive in creating the bar scene, merely as a response to the male. I do not want to oversimplify and say that is the case. However, there is a reciprocal response between drunk women wanting alpha-male men and alpha-male men wanting easy women to build ego, hubris, etc. It all boils down to people's choices, and the influence of alcohol and pheromones in interaction with the other. The image of the female preferred at the bar scene is one which complements the alpha male: women willing to grant sexual favor to men, women who want to participate in drinking with men, and women who make themselves up to be attractive to a male. While some would say this is beneficial for equality, these actions only appear equal in deed but not in process and final result. Yes, a woman can drink with a man, a woman can grant lots of sexual favor to different men and this is not a problem in the bar scene in deed. However, with more of this favor/dancing, etc, this equality turns into an expectation needed for social standing at the bar. Popular women that many guys want to dance with wear lots of make-up, dress with as little clothing as possible, and are relatively skinny and have larger chests and butts, accentuated by their choice of clothing.
In a normal societal model promoting the alpha-male (promoted in both a religious and secular sense) this bar scene just accentuates that model. It favors the aggressive, leader male and males who prefer to care and be gentle are pushed out or coerced to try to be more aggressive and more like everyone else. This societal model also favors women who are submissively sexual, made to look like a model (very skinny, moderate to tall (so like 5'6"-5'9" just to take a guess, bigger breasts and bigger butt), and women who are sort of strong. Woman are called to equality, sort of. There are a lot of sort of's because while we've progressed in allowing women to work with males, made sexual discrimination policies to protect women (mostly), and given women the same rights as men, there are a lot of social norms that keep women subliminally if not actually degraded in comparison to men. So the bar accentuates these gender differences and draws them out with more physicality, so the bar is a good place to examine as it gives a vibrant image to examine gender imagery and differences.
These images affect people's existential search for relationship when at the bar. The biggest consequence is that the individual gets quickly lost or not privileged in an encounter. The encounters tend to follow an unwritten code of norms trying to promote individuality. First encounters have to be smooth, magical, and provide some sort of physical sensation that is pleasureable to both parties. Second, encounters after an initial meeting in a bar have a three-day rule where you don't contact the other person so as not to appear needy or dependent on the other person in a co-dependent way. (This holds true for encounters outside of bars as well.)
Part of the existential search is wanting to have people with whom you share fuzzy warm memories. Fuzzy warm memories make the existential toils of life easier to engage when they come. In this sense, a bar is a great place to release from life. Though too much drowning one's trouble in alcohol, dancing, and a night out can lead to addictive tendencies and a poor ability to cope, some ease is good for those who get stressed or need some help loosening up in meeting people. So the bar codes help build this pleasureable experience. However, part of the greater goal of going to a bar, finding relationship, has to engage the reality that life is difficult at times, and that life isn't always warm and fuzzy as much as we'd like it to be. The bar by itself cannot provide an atmosphere to teach this part of relationship. As mentioned above, conversation is hard in a bar because of the amount of noise at the bar. Also, conversation is difficult because it has to be relatively low-key in order to deal with the disconnectedness of a conversation in the midst of dancing, interaction, music, noise, order for drinks and various other distractions at a bar. In effect, this eliminates the individual part of the existential search and all which is left is desire, the desire for relationship exists, even as the individual part of searching is annhilated because of the social mores of relationship and the bar (which as shown above are deeply connected.) This desire then becomes manifest in a deeply physical way as that is an instinctual way of relating to others. This instinct is very good and needs to be fostered; however, this needs to respect individuals, their differences, and different needs for touch and affection in particular. Individuality is important to perserve as we are individuals with different needs and sublimating those needs will only harm ourselves and those with whom we relate in the future. Not all people fit the alpha-male or the sexually submissive female type of persona. In fact, alcohol contributes to more people fitting to these stereotypes in a particular time and place, even if their personality outside that setting does not match these personas.
Also, in thinking about different personas, we need to think briefly about how interaction occurs. For some people the three-day rule is a test of will, to be sure that I don't need the other person. However, if the self is an interactive entity that relates to objects, people, and God, then others' input necessarily affects our selves positively and negatively. Also, it means that we inherently need others in order to build our own worldview, because we need interaction. If another person contributes positively to loving God and neighbor (or loving neighbor for those who don't believe in God), then why shouldn't we want to be loving, merciful, and willing to encounter the other? The three-day rule seems to hinder this ability to encounter the other. While it's an attempt to prevent a perceived danger, it ignores our existential experience as persons who interact and need reception from others. It's a question to leave open in thinking about societal interaction. (Note: The same thing happens even in a religious sense as well, particularly in those who try to not overvalue any person by placing all value on God. The fear of dependency is placed upon others not taking the place of God. It seeks to prevent idolatry, but this argument ends up being moot as it turns idolatrous very quickly, because it favors a passive role for people in God's life, which comes with certain images and problems but that's another paper and story entirely.)
However, as I've said, there are exceptions to every rule. There are people who are dragged to bars by their friends either because of a perceived need to experience this type of social interaction or to be a designated driver for others. There are people who also don't follow these rules at the bar. There are those who protect others from stalkers, care for those who are drunk and try to protect them from being taken advantage of, and those who don't proscribe to the social norms for dancing and interaction. These exceptions fit certain personalities and are needed to help teach other ways of relating and love of other. These people can also help us find what we are looking for. The individuality helps us dispel of gender models and seek connection with others for being others who can challenge and love us despite our differences.
That is how I enjoyed my night at the bar, is finding one woman who actually didn't proscribe to these models of gender and could engage me in dance and conversation. In the midst of seeing all these potential issues around me I found someone different. Light in the midst of darkness, while I don't like this line for the Gnostic interpretation this could give, it's appropriate for my own state of my mind as I think back on my experience in what I saw in writing this paper. It was originally my friends' decision to go to the bar and I was like ehhh :(, but I was blessed to find the exception to the rule, and have interesting material to think about and dissect as we observed others and talked. Also, I hope this piece is a conversation starter, to engage our own experiences at the bar and socially, and start to talk about them to think about what we really experience and do as we are social with others. In conversation, we can find the means to love God and neighbor, even when having fun, by perserving others' dignity and opening ourselves to the other.
Peace,
Aristocrates
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Story Time Part 2
Last time we left Asal while he was lying in agony after he summoned Neo-Bahamut. No one really knew where he was but he was feeling isolated and dejected. Some people are in the area of Asal but no one really directly close. Asal has a nice, natural setting around him but he isn't focusing on the lake, he can't really observe much of anything.
Cristophy was working late at night finishing some grading when she felt the resonance from Neo-Bahamut's summon. "I don't know what to do now, but I'm afraid for Asal, I hope he remembered to take those herbal supplements and pills to stop the darkness elemental, otherwise he's in trouble and I can't help him. I can't get near that monster, not after what that last summoner did to me."
Meanwhile, the people at the lake notice that something is wrong when Neo-Bahamut lets out a loud roar. These were students at the undergrad level, so they are not involved in sorcery. However, they decided to run toward the scream because they were curious what it was. Upon seeing the monster everyone except for one girl ran away from Neo-Bahamut. The girl noticed Asal lying there and waited because she was afraid for his sake. The girl tried to sneak up toward Asal and in doing so found a bush and listened to more of the dialogue.
"Asal, look you're worthless in power before me, and all I had to have was your self-hatred to be summoned. Hahahaha, now I will destroy the Earth." The girl in the bushes was freaked out but also knew that she had to get near Asal to try to protect him. So she runs out from the bush and does a straight line dive near Asal. She is able to touch his arm as Neo-Bahamut is laughing maniacally at his victory. At this point, Asal snaps slightly out of his funk and notices that someone is touching him. He is happy because he's getting what he wants, but still scared for the precarious position he is in. He asks the girl's name.
"Victoria, I'm Victoria".
"Nice, I'm Asal."
"You're going to be okay, you just have to calm down a little."
"You do realize I summoned death incarnate, right?"
"No, I'm not a sorcery student, so I don't know what you did."
"Wow, then why did you come here."
"Instinct, and I do have some sorcery skills, just no formal training. I'm a light elemental."
"Ooh, a light elemental, that's why you can help me."
"Yeah, I can summon a basic spell but I need some more advanced magic to help get you out of this situation."
"Well, I don't know what we can do, we can cast sorcery for a distraction. I do need a light spell to weaken it, and then I can summon a wind barrier."
"Got it, Crystal Pillar sorcery cast."
As she casts this Asal is thinking to himself. "what the hell, she has no training yet she can cast a level 4 light spell. That's like epic level light magic, especially for someone not in MA or PhD level sorcerer's school. Oh wait I have to cast a spell,"
"Pixie cast Rose storm"
At this Asal and Victoria run away toward campus to find some shelter from Neo-Bahamut. The Rose storm traps him temporarily.
"Victoria, how did you cast that spell?"
"Asal, what are you talking about, I've always known spells like this one, white magic runs in my family."
"For someone with no training, you certainly can cast high-level white magic, but yet you don't seem like the support and white mages I run into here that have no survival skills or relatability with people and you can cast better spells than they can."
"Well, sometimes more training actually hurts you and isolates you from the people magic is supposed to serve."
"Why do you seem like such an amazing person, you can cast light magic, you actually care, there aren't very many people like you."
"Well, there aren't very many people like you either, Asal."
"Yeah, except for there's the whole, I'm easily manipulated, I can summon death incarnate, I'm cold, and I don't like myself."
"You've let your darkness elemental take over too much of your vision. You need to recognize that you have a light elemental inside you. Your darkness elemental is good because it can give you attacking power, unlike anything I've ever seen, but you've now endangered everyone you love."
"Part of me thinks you're being a complete bitch, the other part of me realizes you're completely right. Cristophy..."
"You really care about your professor, don't you Asal?"
"Wait, how did you know..."
"Asal!! What happened?"
"Cristophy, I caused a giant monster to appear, and that giant monster lived inside me, why didn't you tell me? I hurt everyone."
*hugs*
"Asal, please stop, part of this is my fault too, I tried to give you pills and medicine and Kristoria gave you spells, but we really needed to pay attention to you and help you through your social difficulties, because you are different from the other students, and you do need more attention. Also, you have so many gifts, wait Victoria, what are you doing here..."
"Well, Cristophy, my friends and I wanted to see what was going on, and as soon as they saw Neo-Bahamut all my friends ran and I stayed because I was curious and saw Asal needed help."
"Victoria, did you even know Asal before you saw him..."
"Well, no Cristophy, but you always say we should help vulnerable people that need help."
"Victoria, I'm so proud of you, but you scared me to death, but I'm so glad you found Asal. *hug*"
"hahhaha, isn't this touching, Cristophy... Now you will all die."
"No, Darnell, no, you will not do this again, I have people that love me now, I have a family that supports me, and I have my students. You can't attack my self-hatred anymore."
"hahaha, but you can't protect Asal, he has no family, a few shallow friendships, and will always feel distant from the community."
"Victoria, why are you grabbing my hand?"
"I will not leave Asal alone anymore. I don't want to date Asal, but I also won't leave him to a monster like you. If that means touching him to be a friend, then I will do that."
"Victoria??" (Cristophy and Asal respond.)
"Victoria, you really get it don't you, and I'm so proud that you've grown so much, to reach out for the common good is really important and that may include doing things you're not comfortable with."
"Hahahaa, ahh your common good almost makes me sick to my stomach, yet your barrier is about to break and I can destroy worlds with one breath, you have no chance, hahahahah..."
Cristophy, Asal, and Victoria all look on in horror at the barrier and hope it will hold. Cristophy starts contemplating a plan, when Victoria's friends start throwing rocks at Neo-Bahamut. In this distraction Cristophy runs toward Neo-Bahamut and casts her super special ultima magic.
"What the hell is this spell?"
"Lv. 7 Ultima, a master level spell that can contain the destroyer of worlds, but not destroy him. I will exile you to another world with no life for you to destroy."
"Cristophy, I never thought you would be the one to detain me, after all those years, all my torture of you, and your student, Asal, he'll be as strong if not stronger than you."
"Darnell, this is something you never learned, I'm not strong in competition in others, I'm strong because of the support and love I have from others, and now I exile you to the lost world without life."
"Cristophy, will you hope for me to find more of what you have?"
"Cristophy stop..."
"Victoria, what are you doing?"
"Can't you see in your dialog that there's even hope for someone who is Death Incarnate. Neo-Bahamut's dangerous but he lived inside Asal this whole time, but he tried to thrive on nothingness and death, but your example showed him something else, if you banish him to another world you'll never get a chance to see him grow away from being Death Incarnate. Plus, you can't banish death, everyone will die at someone, even you two as sorcerers."
"Why would someone like Victoria have mercy on me? Why wouldn't you let Cristophy banish me (because secretly I would still be the destroyer of worlds...)? Why do you want me to stay here? Do you really think you can tame a monster like me?"
"I can't but we can, Asal and I can tame you, you did live inside him after all, and we can co-exist with each other, I don't like your insistence on death, destruction, atrophy, doom, and all your negativity, but we can show you something better."
"Fine, and you're correct, death and darkness can never go away, not in this world you see, but you can teach me about light and darkness co-existing. Pain, suffering, sin, these things will always exist in this world, and darkness will be opposed to light, but light and darkness co-existing can help teach people about why people cause darkness."
"We can't control you, but we accept that you're here. Self-hatred exists in all of us, but we can be better at healing people's self-hatred by understanding their darkness and being the healing we seek."
"Cristophy, what's Victoria's darkness, she seems so intact and you two seem to know each other well, and I'm thankful for her inspiration, but no one's perfect right."
"Well Asal, darkness comes out in time and friendship, you'll see eventually, but you're right to try to avoid disillusionment, but you can't be scared either, you have to take your friendship as the gift it can be, and engage darkness together. Weakness, sin, emotional illness, these things are dealt with better in community than on one's own exclusively, though individual effort is needed. People need to be able to work to love God and neighbor, and Victoria has done very well to improve her behavior."
"Cristophy, thank you for saving us, all of us, even though Neo-Bahamut hasn't really gone away."
"Asal, Neo-Bahamut only holds power over you if your darkness elemental is out of control. You have an unfair situation as you can sense darkness elemental and it overpowers you easier. You have to grow and know that we care about you, even if we don't pay attention all the time, believe me it's not because I don't like you. I have to pay more attention but please don't take a lack of attention as something against you. I just have a lot to take care of, but you'll always be a special student, and I have a lot of fun with you. Just pay attention to Victoria too and just let your friendship be what it is, but meet each other's needs."
Asal, Victoria, and Cristophy made a cloaking spell to hide Neo-Bahamut and bring him to a field in the side of campus. The field was then blessed with an invisibility sorcery so that people could no longer see or remember the darkness that inhabited the world, however, some would always be aware of the presence of darkness like the Zu-Zu and people like Asal and those who knew him. Victoria and Asal met each other's needs, some days Asal would have panic attacks and be overpowered by the darkness elemental. Some days Victoria would be overcome with jealousy and anger as she felt like she gave a lot to her relationships and got little in return. Luckily her feelings didn't cause a monster like Neo-Bahamut to occur but she still was overcome by darkness. On those days Cristophy and Asal would find Victoria and smile at her or do something else just to remind her that she's not invisible and her love doesn't go unnoticed.
Light, darkness, both are present along with other elements that empower existence. There will always be a need for sensitivity to elements, but we must be careful that sensitivity doesn't paralyze our existence. And when sensitivity does paralyze our existence, that's when we need our friends, role models, etc to find us and touch us physically, psychologically, etc in order to help us walk and keep going. This story doesn't have a happy ending, yet this is the world we see, a world of light and dark, good choices and bad. In the end, all we can do is pray for the grace of light and persevere through the existence of darkness, in all its subtle, invisible form. In the light of grace may we see light.
Aristocrates
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Story Time
Since Harry Potter premieres this weekend, I figured I'd try my hand at a fantasy story as fantasy can be fun as well as educational.
This story starts in the land of the Zu-Zu a giant bird who guards the Bylia castle. This story takes place in the home of a young stick boy named Asal. Asal is a young teenager who studies mid-level sorcery: low level summons, intermediate curing magic, basic presence magic, that kind of thing. He looks to study more advanced sorcery in college. However, above his sorcery studies, he also has a power inside him which he cannot control. This power manifests itself in many, various ways. He lives in a village, goes to school, like other students, though he's going into advanced studies into sorcery.
Asal goes to a small school with people all wanting to study mid-level sorcery. It's a specialty study so there are people of various races, ages, and personalities all wanting to study the same basic sorcery. There are several options for study for sorcery students. Students can specialize in curing magic, attack magic, summon magic, support magic, or presence magic. Students can choose any one of these 5 tracks as their specialty and are encouraged to take another track as a minor to expand their learning of sorcery. Saying all this, most of the faculty focus on curing, attack, summon, and support magic. Presence magic is a dangerous magic to teach and learn as it's not something that creates an external effect. Presence magic makes one aware of spirits in the environment and allows the user to use different spirits for different effects. Different elements of spirits give the user different abilities. As such, presence magic is the most powerful magic, but also if uncontrolled can cause different types of possession in the caster.
Asal, being a bit precocious, is really interested in presence magic. His interest makes him a bit odd in his school community as no one else is actively studying presence magic in his school. His interest also creates tension with the rest of the community as he sees things that others do not. These things are important to keep in mind as we go forth with the story. This story is a day in the life of a sorcery student.
Asal gets up early one stormy morning for a meeting with his main adviser, Sorcereress Cristophy. Cristophy is the only adviser who studies presence magic at the school. Asal on his walk over starts feeling sick, because of the thunderstorms. Thunderstorms create a combination of darkness and water elements present in the air and it overloads Asal's consciousness. Asal walks into Cristophy's office and she gives him a concerned look. Asal tells her everything is okay and they begin their meeting. Asal is writing a paper on the effects of darkness and light elementals on human existence and their interplay even outside of magic. Cristophy is his adviser and she is the only Sorceress who teaches presence magic. Their meeting is over the latest draft of Asal's paper. After their meeting Cristophy asks again if Asal is okay. Asal mentions feeling sick because of the weather and Cristophy gives him some tea, gives him a hug, and hands him some herbs, tea, and pills to deal with storm sickness. Asal takes the medicine and begins to feel a little better.
Cristophy thinks to herself inside her office after Asal leaves. "Asal has power unlike anything I've ever seen. The severity of his sickness, his sensitivities, and his ability to acclimate new spirits and magic is off the charts. I'm concerned about his darkness sensitivities though, this can cause great disaster for himself and others. He keeps not wanting to talk about it, yet, this power will eat him up unless he asks for help. Whatever monster lives inside him is beyond his own control, especially at this stage."
Asal's next meeting is with his summon magic adviser, Sorceress Kristoria. They arranged a meeting to discuss the Lich Lord summon and its potential effects on society, particularly as the Lich Lord has become a manipulative threat that threatens to control people in a Coreia cult. The Coreia cult is a religious sect that seeks to revive the Lich Lord in order to control the populace through manipulation, secrecy, and telepathy. Since it's such a strong darkness elemental, Asal is reacting the summoning of the Lich Lord, so Kristoria and Asal are looking for ideas on how to stop the summoning of the Lich Lord. This meeting is to propose a plan to use a support magic barrier by implementing Asal's ability to utilize wind spirits and her minor ability to use support magic. Her plan is to summon High Pixie and have Asal react to her element and create a barrier for a temporary seal of the Lich Lord. They discuss this plan during their meeting. The storm is still going on outside and Asal is getting noticeably more sick during his meeting with Kristoria. Asal tries to sneak taking Cristophy's pills but Kristoria notices. Kristoria asks what he is taking, and Asal responds by saying Cristophy's pills. Kristoria is unhappy but also realizes Asal is in severe pain because of his sensitivities. Kristoria casts a support spell to give him a barrier to the darkness elemental of the storm and Asal's mood brightens as he loves the water elemental aspect of rain and storms.
After his meeting with Kristoria, Asal goes to lunch. At lunch he encounters other students and decides to sit with them. At lunch, Asal notices he's not really in the conversation, but kind of just there, sitting with people. This makes Asal a little sad. However, he is sitting with a bunch of support mages, who tend to dislike what Asal says about presences and the need to act for others with sorcery. The support mages tend to like to do magic for themselves and invoke divine power to enhance themselves. Some support mages can act for others but their main goal and emphasis for study is their own abilities. So Asal is kind of bored with the conversation and observes other people in the cafeteria. He doesn't see anyone he knows, which makes him sad. In particular, he's looking for light elemental mages. While they are technically attack mages, their element also gives them healing abilities. Light elementals make Asal happy as they help control his darkness reaction. The pills Cristophy gave Asal are light elemental supplements to help calm down the reaction to darkness he is having, and the spell Kristoria casts on Asal is a light element boost that raises resistance to darkness elemental air.
After lunch, Asal goes and works for a bit. He works in an office by himself, so he plays some music to engage different feelings and elementals to try to control himself. Different tones of music exemplify different elementals and thus Asal can engage different feelings to control his powers. On a good day, Asal gets more control of himself, on a bad day, music simply causes him more pain as it cannot cure any elemental overload and sickness, it can only delay symptoms. Work is humdrum and Asal thinks more about seeing his light elemental friends, stopping the Lich Lord and is concerned with how Cristophy looked at him during their meeting.
After work, Asal talks with his friend Silmeria. Asal is happy around Silmeria just by her presence, because she's a light elemental that can calm his dark days down. On this day, they didn't get to talk for very long, but they got to catch up. Asal then tries to decompress from his day by playing some games, but he still feels sick and the sorcery and pills are wearing off. He is a little sad as Cristophy and Kristoria are gone for the evening and he is still sick. Silmeria is also busy, and Asal is unsure where his other light elemental friends are that can help him.
Asal starts to feel really sick and decides he needs to leave his room as being near water helps him control the darkness element somewhat. Asal walks to a fountain and meditates near the fountain to find some peace. The fountain on this day is not having much affect for Asal, so he decides to try something different.
Asal then moves to the lake area. It's a pleasant lakeside view accompanied by the sound of gulls, doves, and the wind against the lake. Some piers are seen along the lake and swimmers can be seen in the distance. Asal is feeling really lonely, as he's seen a lot of people but no one has really shown interest in spending time with him, but rather they want his gifts. Kristoria loves his ability to acclimate magic and Cristophy always thought Asal was a prodigy. The other students at the school are interested in him only inasmuch as he can help them and ignore him at other times, and he struggles to find his light elemental friends to calm him stress. He is contemplating on the lack of attention and he is overwhelmed by darkness that's present inside him and around him. The darkness paralyzes him on the ground he's meditating on. From inside him, without his attempt or control, he summons Neo-Bahamut. Neo-Bahamut is the ultimate darkness elemental that destroys worlds with one breath. Asal still can't get up off the ground, and lays there wondering, "how on earth will anyone ever come for me or be supportive for me when I have this ultimate evil living inside me, and because of this evil I sense all sorts of darkness?", "why do I have all these abilities that make me so different from the other students, and everyone else?", Lying in agony, Asal is still stuck in his own head, he sees people in the distance at the lake but can't scream for help, out of the fear of exposing his summoning of Neo-Bahamut.
I'd like to say that Asal gets out of his darkness, he gets his gifts under control and stops being tormented by Neo-Bahamut, but I don't know if that has happened yet. All we can say for now is that Asal is in a desperate situation, there's hope for a solution in the light elementals, yet the darkness elemental seems to have all the power in this situation. The tale continues, but not just yet, the story needs to stop here, just for now, to be continued... (*insert cliffhanger ending here*)
Afterword: This was a fun exercise and I kind of enjoy writing fictional stories. Granted this is more of an outline than an actual story, there's a lot of things I get to express here in thinking that I can't do so much with my philosophical writing. I'll have to work on this genre a bit though. (and not write this at 2 in the morning :P )
Aristocrates
This story starts in the land of the Zu-Zu a giant bird who guards the Bylia castle. This story takes place in the home of a young stick boy named Asal. Asal is a young teenager who studies mid-level sorcery: low level summons, intermediate curing magic, basic presence magic, that kind of thing. He looks to study more advanced sorcery in college. However, above his sorcery studies, he also has a power inside him which he cannot control. This power manifests itself in many, various ways. He lives in a village, goes to school, like other students, though he's going into advanced studies into sorcery.
Asal goes to a small school with people all wanting to study mid-level sorcery. It's a specialty study so there are people of various races, ages, and personalities all wanting to study the same basic sorcery. There are several options for study for sorcery students. Students can specialize in curing magic, attack magic, summon magic, support magic, or presence magic. Students can choose any one of these 5 tracks as their specialty and are encouraged to take another track as a minor to expand their learning of sorcery. Saying all this, most of the faculty focus on curing, attack, summon, and support magic. Presence magic is a dangerous magic to teach and learn as it's not something that creates an external effect. Presence magic makes one aware of spirits in the environment and allows the user to use different spirits for different effects. Different elements of spirits give the user different abilities. As such, presence magic is the most powerful magic, but also if uncontrolled can cause different types of possession in the caster.
Asal, being a bit precocious, is really interested in presence magic. His interest makes him a bit odd in his school community as no one else is actively studying presence magic in his school. His interest also creates tension with the rest of the community as he sees things that others do not. These things are important to keep in mind as we go forth with the story. This story is a day in the life of a sorcery student.
Asal gets up early one stormy morning for a meeting with his main adviser, Sorcereress Cristophy. Cristophy is the only adviser who studies presence magic at the school. Asal on his walk over starts feeling sick, because of the thunderstorms. Thunderstorms create a combination of darkness and water elements present in the air and it overloads Asal's consciousness. Asal walks into Cristophy's office and she gives him a concerned look. Asal tells her everything is okay and they begin their meeting. Asal is writing a paper on the effects of darkness and light elementals on human existence and their interplay even outside of magic. Cristophy is his adviser and she is the only Sorceress who teaches presence magic. Their meeting is over the latest draft of Asal's paper. After their meeting Cristophy asks again if Asal is okay. Asal mentions feeling sick because of the weather and Cristophy gives him some tea, gives him a hug, and hands him some herbs, tea, and pills to deal with storm sickness. Asal takes the medicine and begins to feel a little better.
Cristophy thinks to herself inside her office after Asal leaves. "Asal has power unlike anything I've ever seen. The severity of his sickness, his sensitivities, and his ability to acclimate new spirits and magic is off the charts. I'm concerned about his darkness sensitivities though, this can cause great disaster for himself and others. He keeps not wanting to talk about it, yet, this power will eat him up unless he asks for help. Whatever monster lives inside him is beyond his own control, especially at this stage."
Asal's next meeting is with his summon magic adviser, Sorceress Kristoria. They arranged a meeting to discuss the Lich Lord summon and its potential effects on society, particularly as the Lich Lord has become a manipulative threat that threatens to control people in a Coreia cult. The Coreia cult is a religious sect that seeks to revive the Lich Lord in order to control the populace through manipulation, secrecy, and telepathy. Since it's such a strong darkness elemental, Asal is reacting the summoning of the Lich Lord, so Kristoria and Asal are looking for ideas on how to stop the summoning of the Lich Lord. This meeting is to propose a plan to use a support magic barrier by implementing Asal's ability to utilize wind spirits and her minor ability to use support magic. Her plan is to summon High Pixie and have Asal react to her element and create a barrier for a temporary seal of the Lich Lord. They discuss this plan during their meeting. The storm is still going on outside and Asal is getting noticeably more sick during his meeting with Kristoria. Asal tries to sneak taking Cristophy's pills but Kristoria notices. Kristoria asks what he is taking, and Asal responds by saying Cristophy's pills. Kristoria is unhappy but also realizes Asal is in severe pain because of his sensitivities. Kristoria casts a support spell to give him a barrier to the darkness elemental of the storm and Asal's mood brightens as he loves the water elemental aspect of rain and storms.
After his meeting with Kristoria, Asal goes to lunch. At lunch he encounters other students and decides to sit with them. At lunch, Asal notices he's not really in the conversation, but kind of just there, sitting with people. This makes Asal a little sad. However, he is sitting with a bunch of support mages, who tend to dislike what Asal says about presences and the need to act for others with sorcery. The support mages tend to like to do magic for themselves and invoke divine power to enhance themselves. Some support mages can act for others but their main goal and emphasis for study is their own abilities. So Asal is kind of bored with the conversation and observes other people in the cafeteria. He doesn't see anyone he knows, which makes him sad. In particular, he's looking for light elemental mages. While they are technically attack mages, their element also gives them healing abilities. Light elementals make Asal happy as they help control his darkness reaction. The pills Cristophy gave Asal are light elemental supplements to help calm down the reaction to darkness he is having, and the spell Kristoria casts on Asal is a light element boost that raises resistance to darkness elemental air.
After lunch, Asal goes and works for a bit. He works in an office by himself, so he plays some music to engage different feelings and elementals to try to control himself. Different tones of music exemplify different elementals and thus Asal can engage different feelings to control his powers. On a good day, Asal gets more control of himself, on a bad day, music simply causes him more pain as it cannot cure any elemental overload and sickness, it can only delay symptoms. Work is humdrum and Asal thinks more about seeing his light elemental friends, stopping the Lich Lord and is concerned with how Cristophy looked at him during their meeting.
After work, Asal talks with his friend Silmeria. Asal is happy around Silmeria just by her presence, because she's a light elemental that can calm his dark days down. On this day, they didn't get to talk for very long, but they got to catch up. Asal then tries to decompress from his day by playing some games, but he still feels sick and the sorcery and pills are wearing off. He is a little sad as Cristophy and Kristoria are gone for the evening and he is still sick. Silmeria is also busy, and Asal is unsure where his other light elemental friends are that can help him.
Asal starts to feel really sick and decides he needs to leave his room as being near water helps him control the darkness element somewhat. Asal walks to a fountain and meditates near the fountain to find some peace. The fountain on this day is not having much affect for Asal, so he decides to try something different.
Asal then moves to the lake area. It's a pleasant lakeside view accompanied by the sound of gulls, doves, and the wind against the lake. Some piers are seen along the lake and swimmers can be seen in the distance. Asal is feeling really lonely, as he's seen a lot of people but no one has really shown interest in spending time with him, but rather they want his gifts. Kristoria loves his ability to acclimate magic and Cristophy always thought Asal was a prodigy. The other students at the school are interested in him only inasmuch as he can help them and ignore him at other times, and he struggles to find his light elemental friends to calm him stress. He is contemplating on the lack of attention and he is overwhelmed by darkness that's present inside him and around him. The darkness paralyzes him on the ground he's meditating on. From inside him, without his attempt or control, he summons Neo-Bahamut. Neo-Bahamut is the ultimate darkness elemental that destroys worlds with one breath. Asal still can't get up off the ground, and lays there wondering, "how on earth will anyone ever come for me or be supportive for me when I have this ultimate evil living inside me, and because of this evil I sense all sorts of darkness?", "why do I have all these abilities that make me so different from the other students, and everyone else?", Lying in agony, Asal is still stuck in his own head, he sees people in the distance at the lake but can't scream for help, out of the fear of exposing his summoning of Neo-Bahamut.
I'd like to say that Asal gets out of his darkness, he gets his gifts under control and stops being tormented by Neo-Bahamut, but I don't know if that has happened yet. All we can say for now is that Asal is in a desperate situation, there's hope for a solution in the light elementals, yet the darkness elemental seems to have all the power in this situation. The tale continues, but not just yet, the story needs to stop here, just for now, to be continued... (*insert cliffhanger ending here*)
Afterword: This was a fun exercise and I kind of enjoy writing fictional stories. Granted this is more of an outline than an actual story, there's a lot of things I get to express here in thinking that I can't do so much with my philosophical writing. I'll have to work on this genre a bit though. (and not write this at 2 in the morning :P )
Aristocrates
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Trying to be Nice in light of the Vespers "Not so Nice"
"Verse 1: It's not so nice when they say goodie-goodies you can't stay, not so nice, it's not so nice, not so nice of them to say, when my baby brother fell, you didn't even stop to help, not so nice, it's not so nice, not so nice,
Prechorus: but even though I have this much to say, I just like living my own way, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo. Chorus: I am catching all the yellow lights in my hands and in my mind. Just in time we're just in time, just in time I'm just in time. I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate.
Verse 2: Now what's the use of preaching to your brother, acting just like you're his mother, not so nice, it's not so nice, you don't take your own advice, not so nice at all, not so nice.
Prechorus: But even though I have this much to say, I just like living my own way, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo.
Chorus: I am catching all the yellow lights in my hands and in my mind, I'm just in time, I'm just in time, just in time, I'm just in time. I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate.
Verse 3: But I am trying to be nice, trying hard to compromise, between my love, between my vice, "I thank God" (not clear on my recording what this is) I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice." (The Vespers, Not so Nice song lyrics, Album: Tell Your Mama)
Something about this song amuses me a lot so I wanted to write a blog post about it. I think it's amusing for me first off because of the voice parts. I like the blend of different women's parts in the song. I think the song amuses me because of the tone of the song. It's played in such a happy key talking about in part how some people can make awful choices, so the paradox is funny. I think the main reason this song appeals to me is because I like ethics and this song brings forth a real struggle that every ethicist has to deal with. There are times where I do things that I spend so much time writing against. It creates a difficult situation as it creates some sense of hypocrisy. But as humans are imperfect, this is always a possibility and conversion is needed sometimes. People also have legitimate struggles and need help from the community and part of doing ethics is working with communities of people who all listen and work to be better people.
However, this song is not about my amusement purely, I want to reflect on what the artists are singing about. The opening verse is particularly telling of things people can do against the common good. We can be closed and cold to people who are different and give them some label like goodie-goodie to make them distant and less human. We can also ignore a suffering, vulnerable person in front of us because it's too hard to make time for someone. If we do this, we can provoke the rage of the artist in this song. Whenever we make a choice against someone, we do not just affect that particular person. We affect a lot of people in someone's present and future. Harm to others can carry over both physical and psychological.
The prechorus gives some interesting context to this song, because the artist admits she has a lot to say about people's behavior, she likes to live by her own standard quickly followed by the chorus where the artist admits she also might act in ways she hates. In particular, she sounds impatient and upset driving and hitting yellow lights on the road, but could also be something the artist is thinking about as she's critiquing other behaviors around her, potentially. (Again, the issue of interpretation is that it can mean a lot of things. :P )
Verse 2 is something I know I'm guilty of, harping on people trying to influence certain people's actions. Now of course, I like blogging, and I like my opinions. I think there's a borderline thought between presentation and nagging, and I know I have to watch that in myself. We have to present ourselves as that is part of our symbolic reality (both of God and ourselves), so it's just practicing and knowing when we hit that borderline, and apologizing and seeking forgiveness when we do.
Verse 3 is the happy resolution to the song because it shows the artist's resolve to try to be nice, even as she's observed unpleasant things around her. She also is admitting she has vice and love and still is trying to be nice. I think that's a nice place to be, as being able to admit imperfection can help connect us to others in their weakness. However, this is a learned skill, as admitting imperfection can be really hard sometimes, especially when we want others to like us. Being imperfect means we're not always useful or pleasant. Even in these times, we still need people to love us, so part of loving and being nice is being available for people even when it's not so nice.
Overall, I love the folky sound this song has. The sound adds to the overall effect that makes this song pleasant. This song is also pleasant because it is not oversaturated. Though things are repeated, and the same lyrics are repeated over and over again to seeming death for some, this song does not become oversaturated. This song connects experience and openness in interpretation in a way that this song can connect to many people's experiences about more than one thing. When a song can promote good values and not be oversaturated, this is a wonderful thing :). I hope though we all try to be nice to someone today by hearing this song. (The tone of the song will encourage you to be nice.) Please God may it be so.
Here's a link to the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrGACJFrjNg
Aristocrates
Prechorus: but even though I have this much to say, I just like living my own way, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo. Chorus: I am catching all the yellow lights in my hands and in my mind. Just in time we're just in time, just in time I'm just in time. I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate.
Verse 2: Now what's the use of preaching to your brother, acting just like you're his mother, not so nice, it's not so nice, you don't take your own advice, not so nice at all, not so nice.
Prechorus: But even though I have this much to say, I just like living my own way, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo.
Chorus: I am catching all the yellow lights in my hands and in my mind, I'm just in time, I'm just in time, just in time, I'm just in time. I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate, I'm afraid I might be everything I hate.
Verse 3: But I am trying to be nice, trying hard to compromise, between my love, between my vice, "I thank God" (not clear on my recording what this is) I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice, I could be nice." (The Vespers, Not so Nice song lyrics, Album: Tell Your Mama)
Something about this song amuses me a lot so I wanted to write a blog post about it. I think it's amusing for me first off because of the voice parts. I like the blend of different women's parts in the song. I think the song amuses me because of the tone of the song. It's played in such a happy key talking about in part how some people can make awful choices, so the paradox is funny. I think the main reason this song appeals to me is because I like ethics and this song brings forth a real struggle that every ethicist has to deal with. There are times where I do things that I spend so much time writing against. It creates a difficult situation as it creates some sense of hypocrisy. But as humans are imperfect, this is always a possibility and conversion is needed sometimes. People also have legitimate struggles and need help from the community and part of doing ethics is working with communities of people who all listen and work to be better people.
However, this song is not about my amusement purely, I want to reflect on what the artists are singing about. The opening verse is particularly telling of things people can do against the common good. We can be closed and cold to people who are different and give them some label like goodie-goodie to make them distant and less human. We can also ignore a suffering, vulnerable person in front of us because it's too hard to make time for someone. If we do this, we can provoke the rage of the artist in this song. Whenever we make a choice against someone, we do not just affect that particular person. We affect a lot of people in someone's present and future. Harm to others can carry over both physical and psychological.
The prechorus gives some interesting context to this song, because the artist admits she has a lot to say about people's behavior, she likes to live by her own standard quickly followed by the chorus where the artist admits she also might act in ways she hates. In particular, she sounds impatient and upset driving and hitting yellow lights on the road, but could also be something the artist is thinking about as she's critiquing other behaviors around her, potentially. (Again, the issue of interpretation is that it can mean a lot of things. :P )
Verse 2 is something I know I'm guilty of, harping on people trying to influence certain people's actions. Now of course, I like blogging, and I like my opinions. I think there's a borderline thought between presentation and nagging, and I know I have to watch that in myself. We have to present ourselves as that is part of our symbolic reality (both of God and ourselves), so it's just practicing and knowing when we hit that borderline, and apologizing and seeking forgiveness when we do.
Verse 3 is the happy resolution to the song because it shows the artist's resolve to try to be nice, even as she's observed unpleasant things around her. She also is admitting she has vice and love and still is trying to be nice. I think that's a nice place to be, as being able to admit imperfection can help connect us to others in their weakness. However, this is a learned skill, as admitting imperfection can be really hard sometimes, especially when we want others to like us. Being imperfect means we're not always useful or pleasant. Even in these times, we still need people to love us, so part of loving and being nice is being available for people even when it's not so nice.
Overall, I love the folky sound this song has. The sound adds to the overall effect that makes this song pleasant. This song is also pleasant because it is not oversaturated. Though things are repeated, and the same lyrics are repeated over and over again to seeming death for some, this song does not become oversaturated. This song connects experience and openness in interpretation in a way that this song can connect to many people's experiences about more than one thing. When a song can promote good values and not be oversaturated, this is a wonderful thing :). I hope though we all try to be nice to someone today by hearing this song. (The tone of the song will encourage you to be nice.) Please God may it be so.
Here's a link to the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrGACJFrjNg
Aristocrates
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Loving Like Jesus
The assumption of everything I will say forward in this blog entry is that our religious experiences should influence us to love like Jesus, in His multivalent way of loving people. I pray that you all will grant me this assumption moving forward.
The reason I bring this up is because I want to explore the human ideal of loving, and in particular look at how structures enable or disable us to love like Jesus does. To start, we need to provide a definition of how Jesus loves without becoming idolatrous. In short, our religious and political structures do not help us to love like Jesus, because they build imagery and favor certain images of love while downgrading others. Also, our structures define an "us" and a "them" inhibiting love as it restricts love to certain worthy people who are deemed deserving of humanity, while others are ignored or rejected, both are bad.
First, we must build an image of loving like Jesus loves. Many people tend to use agape to describe the love of Jesus. Agape is described as a self-sacrificing love which is other centered. While this described the intent of Jesus' love, it also has severe limitations. Oftentimes eros is defined against agape, so agape tends to look at love which is not necessarily bodily in the touch or desiring sense. Agape tries to draw desire away to prevent particularly sexual interactions, which are the key example of eros. Too much focus on agape ignores God's desire in love as shown by the fact that an Incarnation even happened. Of course, eros can be overdone, where we love only other people whom we find desirable. So we need an image of love that desires and sacrifices for the other. Also, an image of love needs to include the different ways that love is shown. Words, presence, touch, giving, Jesus presents all of these in his ministry in reaction to loving other people. So love must be able to do many things, be inclusive, and desire and sacrifice at the same time, just to give a limited image for definition here.
Structures prevent a multivalent love, because they have a preferred image of what love is. Certain actions, gestures, presence styles, and terms of affection are used and favored in structures. Society, as seen through advertising, tends to promote a physical love based on feeling good. People are useful and good for us inasmuch as they make us feel good. As soon as people do not make us feel good, or are useful for us, then people can be replaced with others with better qualities. This hinders our ability to love like Jesus, because people aren't the end of society. The end of society is to function and enable people to exist, though it doesn't care which people exist or where. This is how we get broken societies where the poor are taken advantage of and exploited for resources. However, religious structures do not fix this model, they take a different object and present us with the same problems. The growing religious trend is that spiritual love is preferred, one which emphasizes time with God and existential discovery to find one's purpose/vocation in life, but discourages community as seen in certain ritual effects in liturgy and encouragement of devotion among other sources. This spiritual love promotes sacrifice and discourages desire, agape over eros. This dichotomy between society and religion leaves loving like Jesus unfulfilled because we need love that desires, because Jesus desires people in loving, and we need love that sacrifices, like Jesus performs in His miracles for suffering people that he didn't necessarily know.
In building preferences, structures also create an "us" and a "them". People that think like the structure and are favored, and others who are on the outside. Power, influence, money, and many other qualities can be examined in looking at who influences and benefits from the structure. However, when looking at the structure, if we're going to think about loving like Jesus, we must understand how structures encourage or discourage interactions with those on the outside. Many communities in the modern era are becoming more like-minded and hostile to others. This is incompatible with loving like Jesus as Jesus even loved those who crucified Him, as seen in His forgiveness of His persecutors, and loved the Pharisees with whom He disagreed by eating with them and offering to spend peaceable time in their presence.
Our hope for the future is that community and structures do not have to be this way. Communities can listen and people can try to reach out to others and understand their experiences. We can be people that don't ignore others, and our outreach can be both because we desire other people and want to sacrifice for their good. We can touch, give time, listen, and all those activities that inspire the common good in individual relationships that flow over to others. However, as our structures are, many things need to change, and this is not including problems in particular structures due to "emotional illness, personality differences, and sin." (When Ministry is Messy, Richard Brown). My hope is that we can build relationships where we love in these deep ways and build our community. Please God may it be so.
Aristocrates
The reason I bring this up is because I want to explore the human ideal of loving, and in particular look at how structures enable or disable us to love like Jesus does. To start, we need to provide a definition of how Jesus loves without becoming idolatrous. In short, our religious and political structures do not help us to love like Jesus, because they build imagery and favor certain images of love while downgrading others. Also, our structures define an "us" and a "them" inhibiting love as it restricts love to certain worthy people who are deemed deserving of humanity, while others are ignored or rejected, both are bad.
First, we must build an image of loving like Jesus loves. Many people tend to use agape to describe the love of Jesus. Agape is described as a self-sacrificing love which is other centered. While this described the intent of Jesus' love, it also has severe limitations. Oftentimes eros is defined against agape, so agape tends to look at love which is not necessarily bodily in the touch or desiring sense. Agape tries to draw desire away to prevent particularly sexual interactions, which are the key example of eros. Too much focus on agape ignores God's desire in love as shown by the fact that an Incarnation even happened. Of course, eros can be overdone, where we love only other people whom we find desirable. So we need an image of love that desires and sacrifices for the other. Also, an image of love needs to include the different ways that love is shown. Words, presence, touch, giving, Jesus presents all of these in his ministry in reaction to loving other people. So love must be able to do many things, be inclusive, and desire and sacrifice at the same time, just to give a limited image for definition here.
Structures prevent a multivalent love, because they have a preferred image of what love is. Certain actions, gestures, presence styles, and terms of affection are used and favored in structures. Society, as seen through advertising, tends to promote a physical love based on feeling good. People are useful and good for us inasmuch as they make us feel good. As soon as people do not make us feel good, or are useful for us, then people can be replaced with others with better qualities. This hinders our ability to love like Jesus, because people aren't the end of society. The end of society is to function and enable people to exist, though it doesn't care which people exist or where. This is how we get broken societies where the poor are taken advantage of and exploited for resources. However, religious structures do not fix this model, they take a different object and present us with the same problems. The growing religious trend is that spiritual love is preferred, one which emphasizes time with God and existential discovery to find one's purpose/vocation in life, but discourages community as seen in certain ritual effects in liturgy and encouragement of devotion among other sources. This spiritual love promotes sacrifice and discourages desire, agape over eros. This dichotomy between society and religion leaves loving like Jesus unfulfilled because we need love that desires, because Jesus desires people in loving, and we need love that sacrifices, like Jesus performs in His miracles for suffering people that he didn't necessarily know.
In building preferences, structures also create an "us" and a "them". People that think like the structure and are favored, and others who are on the outside. Power, influence, money, and many other qualities can be examined in looking at who influences and benefits from the structure. However, when looking at the structure, if we're going to think about loving like Jesus, we must understand how structures encourage or discourage interactions with those on the outside. Many communities in the modern era are becoming more like-minded and hostile to others. This is incompatible with loving like Jesus as Jesus even loved those who crucified Him, as seen in His forgiveness of His persecutors, and loved the Pharisees with whom He disagreed by eating with them and offering to spend peaceable time in their presence.
Our hope for the future is that community and structures do not have to be this way. Communities can listen and people can try to reach out to others and understand their experiences. We can be people that don't ignore others, and our outreach can be both because we desire other people and want to sacrifice for their good. We can touch, give time, listen, and all those activities that inspire the common good in individual relationships that flow over to others. However, as our structures are, many things need to change, and this is not including problems in particular structures due to "emotional illness, personality differences, and sin." (When Ministry is Messy, Richard Brown). My hope is that we can build relationships where we love in these deep ways and build our community. Please God may it be so.
Aristocrates
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)