Panegyric for Kierkegaard

It makes me happy that the world is beautiful enough to have allowed Kierkegaard to write Fear and Trembling. It is like philsosophy etched in stained glass. When I read Kant or Heidegger, I almost have to feel the print with my fingers to keep track of their reasoning, but it is impossible to read Kierkegaard like that. He reminds me of Virginia Woolf: the only way to comprehend it is to jump into the text feet first and spin around in the ideas until you have no idea which way the surface lies and are in imminent danger of drowning. I feel the ideas pressing on my skin like wind--pressure without weight. It makes me want to venture out from the fjord of my consciousness into the terrifying open ocean of God. And I want the sinking feeling of looking behind me and realizing that all is surely lost, for the beach from which I departed is no longer in sight.

One of my life goals is to polish my consciousness to such a fine albedo that it reflects the mind of the universe recognizably. For just a moment as I was reading the Prelude to Fear and Trembling (and who gives their book a prelude? Fabulous! Beautiful!) I glimpsed that my consciousness is only a segment of the enormous armillary bloom of the universe and that, if I polish it well enough, it will become transparent and I will see the neighboring petals.

Please, Blue Fairy, Make Me a Real Boy . . .

I had a new experience today. For the first time ever, I felt like a real person. Shortly, I will fritter away a few words trying to explain what I mean by that, but all I can really say is that it occurred to me in a flash: "I feel like a real person." Now to the vain elaboration:

I went dancing with my friend Aneissa tonight. For no perceptible reason, other than that I was possessed by the vengeful spirit of Mario Lanza, I decided to wear tuxedo pants, a lavender shirt, a jade necklace, and a bright purple cumberbund. Perhaps where you live, gentle reader, this ensemble is haute couture, but allow me to inform you that I have never seen anyone in Colorado wear a cumberbund except with a complete tuxedo, and then only if everyone else is wearing them also. So there I am, dancing like I don't care what anybody thinks but secretly caring a little, and wearing a cumberbund. All around me, people are stepping directly from the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog into the club, and I am dancing a rip into in the fabric of the social conspiracy, a complete anomaly. But this is not the epiphany, merely the frame for it.

I drove through Del Taco on the way home, and the moon was so beautiful when I arrived home at 2:00 that I set up a lawn chair in the backyard and spent a half-hour admiring it, solemnly eating my tacos. It was then that it occurred to me that I am "A Real Boy," a la Pinnochio. And as soon as it arrived, the feeling vanished. I suppose this is simply the experience which in Zen Buddhism is called "Being Present in the Moment," but it felt to me like I was, for the first time, inventing my experience. I had experiences tonight that came entirely from my deeper, smarter, interior self with no perceptible outside source. Who sits on the lawn in freezing weather and eats tacos, admiring the moon? Only one person. That moment was a pure expression of my real self. I cannot stress to you enough the elation that accompanied the moment. I exist after all. I do. I am not simply a volitionless product of my circumstances, there is an I who erupts from the larger, less concrete realm he inhabits and bleeds love and joy into the world I share with you, cherished reader. And it is our privilege to have met him.

Wanted: Catalyst

It occurred to me recently that, whereas contructing a theology from scratch will be the highest and best use of my spiritual quarter, my emotional quarter has an equivalent. To shoot the moon in love, for me, would look like a partner with whom the interaction sparks a level of growth so profound, the only way to describe it is "evolution." I have, in the past been on the giving or recieving end of such a catalysis, but never has it been mutual for me. For instance, there are two people in my life whose mere presence unlocks things in my mind. It is as though my mind is a heap of metal filings, scattered and amoprhous, but these people, Val and Erik, radiate magnetic fields that line the mess up in ranks and reveal a pattern. I don't pretend that these people are saints or even that they consciously exert themselves in my behalf. It has the characteristics of a chemical reaction that is unexpectedly sped up by the presence of an otherwise unimportant and uninvolved catalyst. By the same token, I have had the experience of evolving certain people in my space, simply by being myself around them. Once I would have dismissed this as arrogantly taking credit for other peoples growth, but on Sunday my friend Tosha thanked me for breaking her through a difficult phase when all I did was be myself honestly. Looking back, I see that people give me that feedback regularly; I am simply resistant to hearing it. I am finally getting it, however, that I can, when authentically myself, catalyze personal evolution in other people the same way Val and Erik do in me.

Therefore, it seems perfectly rational to imagine a partner not only in whom I provide the necessary ingredients for logarithmic growth, but who inspires the same in me. If romance is a Mazlovian hierarchy of needs, then surely this is the topmost level. My sister Beth wonders why I have so little enthusiasm for her current beau. I think the answer lies here; Matt is a nice, honest, protective gentleman, but I don't see that either of them grow as a result of their connection. If it seems persnickety on my part to insist that my sister's boyfriends be of the very highest caliber, please recall that she is my sister. I suppose I should be grateful that Matt doesn't endanger her (like Patrick did) or stifle her (like Chris did), but it is clear to me that more exists, and I want for her that which I also want for myself: a partner in mutually unlimited growth.

Baking a Theology From Scratch

It seems to me that the highest form of spiritual evolution involves a certain level of discomfort. It is relatively comfortable and easy to select a functional system of belief and adhere to it, labelling any portion of that system which evades comprehension and contradicts experience "faith." In fact, I would go so far as to say that faith is nothing more than the unique capacity of the human mind to believe whatever the hell it wants to believe. This is a seductively tidy paradigm, and all the more so because it is not inherently harmful. It is simply not the most advanced, Truthful form of spiritual consciousness. I would say that such dogma-centered worship is to real, honest spirituality as employment is to entrepreneurship: easier, but less rewarding and inefficient. Please, cherished reader, do not take me for one of those small-minded individuals who mindlessly echoes, "God is too big to fit inside of one religion" in an effort to spare themselves any of the hard work and difficulty that is inherent in spiritual honesty. Read on, and share my experience.

Like many, I was once a highly religious person. I read the Bible eagerly and painstakingly. I participated at church to the exculsion of nearly all other activity. I was scrupulously, prudishly moral and ethical. And I was miserable. You see, my religious upbringing had left no room for my experience, namely that I was (and am) gay. My feverishly agile mind successfully contraverted my experience for many years, and it would likely have continued to patch holes in my belief successfully ad infinitum if it were not for my stubborn attraction to men. However, about five years ago I ceased to trust my intellect and reason quite so far, and began to lean more heavily upon my intuition and experience. My internal balance of power was forever upended, and I began, as it withstood the burden of trust, to believe my experience almost exclusively, and relegate my reason to a supporting role.

Suddenly, I was faced with a dilemma. Many of the arguments in defense of God and the Bible suddenly lost their edge, based as they were on shaky ground to begin with. Like many, I had convinced myself that my beliefs were carefully constructed to support that which my reason had discerned. In reality, I had skillfully constructed reasons to support that which I had decided to believe. As I began to realize this inversion, I grew disgusted with my beliefs, and jettisoned them all, to the point of disavowing belief in God altogether. This is not to say that I bcame an Atheist, but rather that I crashed my operating system, and started to write a new one from scratch. Here is, so far, what I have come up with: God exists.

I do not simply rebelieve in the divine; that would be easy. The rational arguments for his existence, however, remain unpersuasive to the objective mind. As William James puts it, "Causation is indeed too obscure a principle to bear the weight of the whole structure of theology. As for the argument from design, see how Darwinian principles have revolutionized it" (The Varieties of Religious Experience, 477). To add my own morsel, the story of Noah's ark is, if taken seriously, itself an excellent argument for the process of evolution, for no vessel of the dimensions described in Genesis could hold even a small percentage of the species to which we can ourselves bear witness. Instead, God has ceased to be something I have reasoned into belief, and is something that I experience. It is just as true to me as if I experienced it with my first five senses (that is to say, doubtable only with effort). My perception goes beyond those senses, and relates to me that I am not the most sophisticated form of life. If I really need to adorn this understanding with reason, I need go no further than this: If there is nothing more sophisticated than I am out there, if I am myself really the biggest thing I will experience, life shall be phenomenally tedious and I choose death.

This is not, of course, satiating. It unlocks another level of questions: Is this, which I choose for want of a more fitting term to call God, benevolent? Does it even have a personality, let alone some investment in my life? Is it all powerful and omnipresent, or merely one of a set of similar, equal beings? Understand that this simple truth: "God exists" is as unsatisfying to possess as it must be to read. It seems to me, though, that the subsequent experience of constructing a theology from an absolute tabula rasa will be a noble and consuming occupation for life.

First Milestone of the New Year

My substitue teaching certificate arrived in the mail today. For years, I've been talking about how I'm going to teach someday, but I have been, as in so many other ways, all talk. Surely you, cherished reader, have constructed pat answers to certain uncomfortable questions: "What are you going to do now that you've graduated?", "Why don't you have a girlfriend?", et cetera. Well, now my automatic response is crossing the line from well-spun fiction to reality.

Non Sequitir: One of the most terrifying things I have ever imagined is the prospect of offering myself to the universe without a spark of reservation and with complete faith, only to be measured and found wanting: "Mene Mene Tekel Parsin."

Sequitir: So now I'm going to teach. That just blows my mind. One of my more ambitious New Year's resolutions is to have a full-time, permanent teaching position by the end of the year. Now it might happen; I mean, I don't have the best resume, but I happen to know that I interview very well, and I am pretty charming. Who know what sort of contacts I'll make as a sub? It is entirely conceivable to me that some Principal will like my teaching style and offer me a position. I just know that I am meant to teach; the only question is at what level: elementary or secondary, the answer to which will be well-answered by a variety of substitue experiences.

Non Sequitir: I notice that this post is more rambling and less well-constructed than most of my others. I wasn't even going to write about this today; I had a profound thought on the connection between Romance and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it seems so relatively pointless.

Sequitir: Could I actually be on the right path? It feels so foreign. I mean, I just don't experience victory that much. Here are my victories to date: I won on a game show once. I graduated from Horizons 30. I got my Bachelor's degree. I haven't killed myself yet. Imagine a pause here while I try to think of others, but come up blank. In fact, it seems like I have been studiously committed to not succeeding. Not that I fail at everything, but I am in the habit of reserving about 15% of myself so that failure is not a reflection on my personal worthiness. Well, to quote Saint Augustine, "fuck that shit." 2004 was a huge year for personal reflection and epiphany, and I've found myself on a healthy, if scary, growth path. 2005 is hereby officially declared NOT the year of the chicken. In the past I have turned back for fear of success, but I have experienced the box wine of "Close Enough" to satiety, and have a craving for the Appelation Beaujolais Controlee: "Better Than I Dreamed."