My Age of Enlightenment
Most of my life, I would get a look of surprise when I would tell people my age. I found that they had often assumed I was several years older. In fact for awhile, in my early 20’s the margin seemed to increase, and I wondered at what point would the trend reverse.
Well... I seem to have reached it. I have been noticing that Backroads guests have been guessing more and more consistently and correctly, and now I have even started to have a few folks guess under my age. It seems to happen more when I am clean shaven. I always looked to this switch with slight dread, as a perceived loss in my maturity, but now that it is happening, I see it more as a perceived gain in my health.
PS. Playing racquetball the other night, I realize that I normally match the skill of the person I am playing with. In fact, I realized that by behavior in general often mirrors those around me. Acquaintances often say that my friends are great people. I think I choose you all so that you bring the best out in me. I think I can often bring the good out in others as well. The few friends that I have lost over the years is because I fail to bring the best out of them, but they succeed to bring the worst out of me.
Long time, no write
So I have determined that my current spiritual health is directly and inversely proportional to how often I write on my blog. I have not decided if this is a good or bad thing, but it seems to be true, with a small tempering for my social support network in the present. I wish all you loyal readers could be as present in my life geographically as you are temporally (careful NOT to read temporarily).
But speaking of spiritual health, I had a bit of an epiphany today. I realized that I really do believe that we will be forgiven for all that we ask forgiveness. There will be no judgment of our righteousness, only of our integrity: do we really want to be forgiven? My doubt in the drive to do good under this amnesty, always has cast doubt on the amnesty itself.
Because when this idea is floated, many people have a narcissistic response. Why should we do good if all we do will be forgiven? Why should we try so hard to always be better the next time, when it won't make any difference as long as our intentions are pure? This hearkens back to a question I posed long ago: If all we ask for is 'good enough', will we ever get it?
My epiphany was an answer to these ideas. It isn't that when I am struck with divine forgiveness I give thanks for its mercy, though I do; it is more that when confronted by that power, I want to share in its magnificence. It encourages me to care more, to take responsibility for my actions, to truly 'build the kingdom of Heaven'. I don't want to be left on the sidelines to ask the questions above; I feel inspired to jump into the game. I want to share in the goodness, instead of sulk in the amnesty.
Does any of this make any sense?
Oryx and Crake
(the main character is in review of the society he lost, one that sounds like it could be in our near future):
"When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it had once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray. It must have got tired of the soul's constant nagging and whining and the anxiety-driven intellectual web-spinning of the mind, distracting it whenever it was getting its teeth into something juicy or its fingers into something good. It had dumped the other two back there somewhere, leaving them stranded in some damp sanctuary or stuffy lecture hall while it made a beeline for the topless bars, and it had dumped culture along with them: music and painting and poetry and plays. Sublimation, all of it; nothing but sublimation, according to the body. Why not cut to the chase? But the body had its own cultural forms. It had its own art. Executions were its tragedies, pornography was its romance."
- Margaret Atwood
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