In a previous post I received a comment to the effect of "Stop Bitching and Start Living." This was very direct advice, and useful because it is easy to collapse into only complaining about things, letting unresolved issues dominate my life to the point of robbing my life of any joy. But I was thinking about this: What does it mean to "start living?" Shall we use the definition from my Biology textbooks of high school, that the definition of life is to grow, to reproduce, to react to your environment? This seems to be the height of pointlessness. Is it the more hedonic "do what makes you feel good?" If this is taken to be a base motivation of life, in an economic "utility maximization" sense, then one might say I am doing that already. Perhaps whining in the past is more self-satisfying than anything else I can come up with. If the ultimate arbiter is myself, who is anyone else to judge what's in my head? I may well already be maximizing my utility with the resources at my disposal.
If my life revolves around me, then nobody else has any right to suggest that I live in any other way than I am. All such advice would be self-serving, as the number of TV and radio commercials, in addition to whole wings of bookstores for self-help books can attest It would be like trying to measure my pulse by counting off six seconds while simultaneously counting off the heartbeats in my neck - the beat in my neck always messes up my sense of time. Only when I ahve an external clock, if my life ought to be subordinate to something else, an external ideal that I have any basis for saying I ought to be better.
If I, therefore, claim to be following Christ, suddenly my life has a form, a mold that it can be checked against. My faith, love, aspirations, motivations, actions, emotions, and everything else have a standard to be measured against.
I need Christ, not only for forgiveness for my sins, but for a direction, a path, a purpose. I need Christ living inside of me, acting in me the unbelievable role of a member of the Body of Christ. Left to my own devices, I will as Scrooge McDuck pace the same tired territory in my life until I disappear utterly into the rut.
4 comments:
Your old buddy anonymous here. Wow, you're even an amateur philosopher. I must agree with you that if the ultimate goal in life is self, then I had no right to try and correct your thinking. I am amazed at the typical American who deep in their hearts believe that they are autonomous beings, and that no one has the right to tell them right from wrong; and yet self help books are continually on the best sellers list. They don't want advice about life (in a spiritual sense) but they do want to "fix" whatever they see is "wrong" with themselves. Truly, Christ said it best when He commands us to love others just as we already love ourselves. He assumes the later is true of every human being. WE ALL NEED something outside of ourselves to set our bearings straight. I see myself pacing the same tired territory in my life all the time and it sucks. No good ever comes of it UNLESS I repent. Then, tracing that territory for a time will give me the strength to DO something about my situation. That is called repentance. Understanding a sin / fault / flaw / whatever, and then changing my mind to follow a different course that is set by another. That's why I started working out recently. I keep complaining about how I look and feel, I ponder on what it will take to make changes, I repent of my past eating and laziness that put me in my current position, I join the gym, eat healthy, and with hard with and time, kazaam; new person. So what are you going to do since we last talked? Date? Not Date? Anything? I'm waiting to hear.
Good question. I think in the end, I don't know. If the question is "will you get the nerve to talk to a girl to try and get to know her better?" the best I can say is that I'm trying. I'm also terrified. Repeated rejection is tough. Getting back up again and again is tougher each time. I'd love to claim that my reservations are ideological. I could, but it would be mostly dishonest.
In the end, I don't have real objections to dating per se. What I would prefer to avoid is becoming involved in a serious romantic relationship that doesn't have the potential to go further, for whatever reason. I know of someone who I have heard described as being in favor of "dating that leads to marriage." Not just getting involved for the sake of not being single, but willing to get to know someone without the rigors of "courtship." I think that is a fair description of my opinion on the subject.
When I say "I don't date," what I mean is that I don't want to date the way that people seem to think of it today. Having never kissed a girl, I'd like the first such event to be special, significant beyond "I couldn't hold back any longer." I want to behave in an honorable way, treating the girl as she ought to be treated. I don't want to be duplicitous, and I want the relationship to be edifying to both of us.
Anonymous here. Well, by now I've been outed by jackswords so I might as well give you an invite to my new blog. I will be adding to it quickly as I have a lot of thoughts running through my mind lately. Here's the link: www.sheeptobeslaughtered.blogspot.com
I look forward to our future conversations.
No outing here. I'm still in the dark, but I can occasionally hit the height of cluelessness (I'm sure you're suprised).
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