Thursday, September 15, 2011

Looking In Myself at Midnight

I am writing this because I must. I will tell you that it is a reflection, a confession. You may ask me if it is for school, and I will tell you that it is not. I write this because I must, for it will irritate me to no end if I do not. Maybe this does not make sense to you, so I will give an example. Imagine you are at a bar, and you see someone that you just have to meet. Well, if you do not, you felt that you missed an opportunity. You will feel regret. That is what it is like writing this, it is siezing the moment.

The Confession

I have always had a bad habit of touching my wounds and making them worse. That is why my face and back are covered in infections. That is disgusting, is it not? Well, another wound lives within me. This wound drives me to have conversations with Christians. The reason why is because Christianity bothers me, or better put, the Christian in me bothers me. When I confront the Christian, I am trying to confront myself. I want to convince this impassioned part of me to let go of this religious love.

My love lies in the power of my imagination. The love is guilty, the love is shameful, the love is eternal, and without reason. It kills you in the name of being as loving as possible. To become this love is to cease being biological, to cease living for the sake of an ideal. As some die for freedom, this Christian in me dies for love. For me, a Christian does not follow Christ nor depend on him. The CHristian is Christ-like, and strives to take on the same burden as Christ, tries to change the world in the same way, suffering.


While it is true that this is scary, do not worry. I spent a long time learning to handle myself and act "rationally". In other words, there are stronger elements in me than this Christian self, which is this unique personality most of you know so well. I can overcome the Christian self because it is a failure, and it knows that. Christianity is not true, I should not feel guilty for things I have not done, and I do not have to carry the world's burden in suffering. More than that, my Christian is a failure for all that passion is useless. You cannot feel or suffer your way into helping the world. Like the aphorism goes, a pair or working hands is worth more than a thousand clasped in prayer. 

But I should address more on the power of my imagination. You probably have no idea how much I can identify with Macbeth, not in the killing thing but in the imagination. I can found waiting at intersection, and suddenly the passion of the imagination besieges me with the vision of purposefully crashing the car. When the vision ends, I feel guilt for something I never did, and never wanted to do.  This is the thousand scorpions of the mind.

 This imagination created my Christian self, and the disturbing thing about it is that I have so much sympathy for this passion saint of divine love. This self loves everyone without judgment or ambition, cares for everyone’s well-being, and thus cries at the constant suffering and disconnect in the relationship with the world.  This love is suffering and it is crippling and there is no transcendence to its manifestation as a lifelong emotional crucifixion.

I have turned to philosophy to put reason in control, but the passion of the imagination creates everything about me. To be anything, I must see myself as something, whether it be a truth or fiction. The fiction though may through the residual passion make me change into something else and therefore change truth.

The Advice

Many have argued for the power of my mind, seeing it as my great advantage, but here I tell you, the grass may not be as green as it seems. The contemplative life requires much of you; it demands that you care for what much of society takes for granted. The important thing is that contemplation is not a choice nor a practice but rather a necessity create by the forces of the mind. The contemplator scratches at the sensitivities of the mind. Am I a moral person, who I am really, why do I feel this way? Pleeing behind those questions opens a wound sometimes (though the hope is relevation or closure), and this can cause an infection, and infections of the mind like this Christian self become ghosts to haunt you.