You want to join this discussion here: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=166300? Here or there, maybe you could talk more at length about the way you think things should be, and what you feel that implies about God (that things aren’t the way you think they should be)? All are welcome.
Keller quotes Dostoevsky in the chapter being discussed above… “I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”
Tonight I read “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis (just before coming here to post). I’ve never read anything that made me “blub” so much (the tears are still dried to my cheeks). I’d like to hear what you think about it. Maybe it will help you look for “the holy in the commonplace” --to quote Sara Groves. Can anyone translate this for me: “Poi si torno all’ eterna fontana.” The last o in torno has a strange mark over it. I also recently read C.S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters”. I highly recommend reading it.
Reminds me of Nietzsche somehow, but it’s mostly all a haze.
Everything is still sacred. Trust yourself, not them.
Simply stop the thoughts – just be still, look around you, listen. Don’t think!
Listen for something that you love to hear. Just be where you are. The sound of the surf, your favorite song, “hear it” in your spirit. You can only touch the sacred from within your spirit. It doesn’t matter when you were born, 100 years ago, 100 years from now, your spirit will be the same. But you can’t touch it unless you are still and listening…Just listen…
If you listen without thinking (as suggested by arc), that leaves room for thoughts to come in uninvited. Listen selectively to love–this exercise strengthens your will. For example… tune Fabiano out completely (I would be careful if I were Fabiano). Get picky with what you let in. Stuff you can’t seem to get out–give to God (even the stuff you think you can manage), and He’ll take care of it. Give your attention to only those thoughts which conform to His love, and the rest won’t have time to germinate… starve the thoughts that plague you, and they will die [and, if applicable, love/forgive the person(s) those thoughts surround]. Open your Bible and research whatever topic fascinates you (it’s all in there… predestination… ethics… history…). Listen to my Message thread songs and if you think they suck, tell me why. Listen to Sirius 66 or XM 32 or KLOVE on-line… see if you notice any cool songs I haven’t posted, and add them to my thread. Go on a long, brisk walk with your head filled with conversation with God about everything you are struggling with… and don’t forget to turn your conversation toward others less blessed than you. A few suggestions to take or leave. Just remember. Tune Fabiano out completely. If you respond to him, I’ll doubt you are genuine and wonder if maybe you aren’t just a mask.
I want complete separation and independence from this world; I want death. But, I cannot commit suicide myself, because it is self-defeating. It is an abomination and an affront to all that I stand for. Thus, I need somebody else to kill me, without any proper provocation. If I commit no injustice to any other, then how could I manage to get another person to desire to kill me? – I mean to imply enough desire to actually do it.
This is not a cry for attention. I am seeking aid to find me a way out of my life.
Fate has got me by-the-balls, so-to-speak. I cannot kill myself, because I cannot intend to apply my own death to myself. I cannot poison myself in anyway, because I would be cognizant and self-conscious enough to understand that I am intending it. I cannot trick myself, because my third eye watches me.
What is my fate then? – to live my life out in boredom? – to go through the motions anyway?
Everything I say is ignored or misunderstood, by everybody. I mean, I don’t desire to be saying any of this, but myself is forcing it to be written and I cannot stop myself from acting. I am determined, predetermined, to act in accordance with my fate & destiny. I want to undo everything I have ever done in life and return from whence I came. I want to delete all the words I have ever written, all the sounds I have ever verbalized. I want to regress all progressions and pains. Life says: “no”. It paid for me to come here, but it does not ask me for anything in return!? I do not understand this Purpose…
Null.
Everything ends in meaning-lessness-lessness-lessness. – indeed Colin Leslie Dean.
I don’t want to write anymore. I want to be dead, back into the ground from whence I arose. That’s where I want to go, so so badly. How do I get there?
I no longer desire the warmth of human affection; rather I desire the freezing cold touch of death. How do I get there without becoming a hypocrite?
I will report anyone who warrants being reported. And, no, I don’t mean to the board moderators.
What do you stand for?
You can’t erase your history 'cause you went through it for a reason. Your purpose is love and you are expected to allow Him to fulfill it in/through you.
If you didn’t desire the warmth of human affection, you wouldn’t be here writing. If you didn’t want to write, you wouldn’t write. You ‘think’ you don’t want to write (if you are not a mask), because you have begun a process of ignoring that need for contact, because it hurts to constantly feel it when it is never fulfilled. Go to church (where they are authentic) and get connected. Calvary Chapel is usually good… google it and find the one closest to you. If it would ever help to talk to a live human ‘now’… go to KLOVE on-line and find their phone number… If there are friends or family in your day-to-day, confide in the one(s) you consider most level-headed. Tell them everything you’ve said in this thread.
You’re surely very young. No offense, but when we’re young, it seems to us that everything has to come out right once and for all. We lose our patience and our grip easily. We want it all to end too quickly, even before it has really started. We want the end, we don’t want the means. But life doesn’t work that way. It’s a long journey and there is no way out for any of us. It’s everything that we have, everything that we own for sure. Like I said, after you have gone through a near-death experience, the miracle of life seems more valuable to you. If you tried to commit suicide and failed, you’d see what I am talking about. If somenone tried to help you to do away with yourself, and failed, you’d know what I’m talking about. Pain, depression, loneliness, disgust, and of course, BOREDOM, damned BOREDOM are life’s handicaps, but it (“she”) also has a lot of advantages, a lot of good things, there is a good side in life, the value of which only very experienced people can properly judge.
And it’s a miracle…it’s a miracle. Even the most pessimist of all great thinkers (Cioran) admitted once that “life is a miracle that bitterness destroys”. It’s a unique opportunity and a one way street. When we need to show others that we are disappointed with life, we also declare that we really want it to be more than a mediocre accident. Our confessions betray us.
Figures that you may be happy now that you have forced me to write like a self-help author…it’s just that I sympathize with you and I see you’re being sincere.
you think life does not have a meaning>>>you dont carre about it>>>you dont carre about how the things will turn out>>> THEN MY BOY YOU HAVE HELL A LOT OF A POWER!!! you can do whatever you want, because what holds us back is actually fear that we will screw up, if you are not affraid sudenlly life has a meaning… ana you become free…
Unreasonable is right. Didn’t you guys get the memo? Life’s absurd now.
This is the upshot of our nihilistic, postmodern society. Who can be surprised? God and meaning have been removed from the equation for guys like Unreasonable by the generation which has come before. It’s a tragedy, and one you would think a smart guy like him could have risen above and avoided. But we haven’t seen the end of this pattern. My guess is that we’re still relatively at the beginning of it.
The sad case of Unreasonable provides a lesson for those who can see it.
Unreasonable, you have a pure mind. Your poem honors reality. The landscape of the world you might have been born into – a place you would not flee so readily…forgive me for trying to persuade you to paint it for us before you die. I am ashamed to even ask, but my hunger betrays me.
I like Fabiano’s last post much better. Self-help has good intentions, except … we can’t do it alone. I started believing that seeking help (even from friends) was a bad thing before He brought me back. That was a lame lie to believe.
– Marge
‘Paint’ meaning ‘live’ --right?
Folks who say there is no real purpose can’t prove it with any more certainty than folks who acknowledge a real, discovered, revealed purpose we don’t have to create… but which enables true creation (love)…
How many sand castles do you watch melt into the sea before you long for an eternal kingdom?
There is so much I don’t see – perhaps it is a blessing. What I ask of you is to create a haiku, a word painting of a world you would choose to live in, as yourself – a world that is not our world, nor oblivion, but active. Would you do that for me? Unreasonable request, but I have to know.
There is a flat landscape, a plain perhaps, and it is the dead of night. There is no moon, so the ground is pitch black from the bottom of your feet extending all the way to the horizon of your field of view in every direction. Above the horizon, on the top half of your view is the unclouded sky full of stars and galaxies. You feel compelled to walk, so you go in a direction. This direction is your Fate or Destiny. You cannot help but move towards something, because you are forced to do so. It is gravity. Something is gravitating you towards your end.
As you walk across the pitch black ground, you approach a wide hole. It is somehow darker than the pitch black of the ground. You simply intuit that it is there, but you can also see it clearly. You cannot tell of its dimensions, whether it is narrow or wide, shallow or deep. This is Nothingness. It is a Black Hole. As you approach this place, you notice that there are others sitting on the edge of this hole. They are Nihilists. You join them and dangle your legs and feet into the empty pit. Mostly, the other figures keep their gaze fixated on the center of Nothingness, unable to move. But, as you look at one of them, he turns his head to connect with your stare. When he makes contact, you observe that his eyes are pure whiteness and they blaze light at you like two powerful suns.
At some point in “time”, I have fallen into this hole, within myself. After that happened in my past, it becomes pointless to describe what I feel or think from there. It is indescribable.
My philosophy is the result of this process. I would never wish my life upon another. I honestly believe that I am cursed by the gods.
Even that can be made peace with. Back away slowly and think happy thoughts until they carve into the wood of your soul. Your body and your primal programming will take over, I guarantee it. What you describe is not unlike a bad acid trip, but there is a way back to the game. I think you know this. Which is the real reason you won’t kill yourself. Many brilliant minds have been there, and many return. Whether you know it or not, you already have, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation, I assure you. I’m not saying it’s easy, but you CAN get back in the right direction, little by little. And your vision of emptiness will be transformed into the most freeing kind of wisdom imaginable.
If Unreasonable is genuine (despite the avatars that remind me of a different user), then he isn’t going to buy the baloney about creating meaning… he’s going to be tired of pretending emptiness actually matters, like some pitch from a salesman trying to make nothing look worth a fortune. We have a hunger for something more because there IS something more–always has been… always will be.
I’m saying that if you are creating with “meaning” in mind–all truly meaningful creation is co-creation (love). We do not have the strength for it apart from the Creator. See 1 Corinthians 13.
