avanderzwan

So I am sitting here today, reading more Dostoevsky. What can I say, I’m enthralled. Right now, Ivan is explaining to his brother, Alyosha, his struggle with Jesus. A quote, talking to Jesus from Ivan’s perspective of the church, is as follows, “You promised them bread from heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, always vicious and always ignoble race of man? And if for the sake of the bread from heaven thousands and tens of thousands will follow you, what is to become of the millions and scores of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to give up the earthly bread for the bread of heaven? Or are only the scores of thousands of the great and strong dear to you, and are the remaining millions, numerous as the sand of the sea, who are weak but who love you, to serve only as the material for the great and the strong?” – The Brothers Karamazov

Now, I actually write this article not so much in response to the real meaning of this book and chapter, even though that interests the point that I have thought about recently. The point is as follows, our world, the world that we know it, is not going to last. Eschatological study will soon be proven right or wrong. As it is going, and as history has shown us, living conditions will eventually only exponentially get worse, we continuously devour every good physical essence that this earth has been granted us to have. I feel like one day, one of our future generation will hold her stomach in the corner of her rubbled house, trying to shield her unclothed body from the wind and rain that is ripping shreds of skin off of her body. She will think about the books that she read about our generations, how nice we had it, how beautiful the sun had been, how clean the air had been, how we could go to a store and buy any kind of food we wanted.

The unarguable truth is this, we are going to die, you the reader is going to one day die, your children will die, their children will die and eventually whether we kill ourselves or not, the resources on this earth will be so used up, everyone will be dead. Now the passage by Dostoevsky has, yes made me very mellow dramatic, but also shown that we as a whole generation should not focus on the differences and warrant them into being something important, but instead should look at the enormous amount of freedom that is waiting for us at the doorstep everyday; a gift showering us continuously. I am very grateful for being born into one of the easiest cultures and generations ever, a culture which shows me so little of the pain and death that other cultures and our undoubted future holds. However, I am also distressed at how the circle of life must take its course. We do not understand the importance of work in this happiness, we utterly take it for granted and therefore spew shit at others who we think, “just don’t work hard enough.”

What can I do with my situation? Well as I see it, I have two choices. One, I can look at myself in the mirror every morning and thank God for God’s graciousness in not presenting me with any serious difficulties, and go on being thankful throughout my meaningless monotonous life, figuring that no matter what I would do it would result in pain and death in the end anyways; or I could try to do something with my almost perfect (big picture) life. So cliché. So Bull Shit. However, when the game is over, when the king is knocked down and we all have to go to sleep to wake up on the other side, I want to bank on the fact that there is more. So what do I live for? Not this world. This world is going to be dead in a couple thousand years, “second coming” or not. (well I suppose with the “second coming” the idea that this world would be dead is debatable) Either way, it will hit the fan. Life will not be the same. All the religious stuff will either turn out true, or very, very false.

No, for me to struggle to redeem this world is a pointless cause. I simply struggle after what I am told to struggle after. I do the “right” things, the “correct”, righteous things in response to this evil pain ridden world. I take on the losing, pointless goal of promoting the happiness and the painlessness of others. I am not convinced of how righteous these actions are, however, I have nothing else to base my righteousness on. I believe there is more to this world, I believe that death is only falling asleep, and I do believe that we wake up in the next life “only gaining a yesterday”. This is something that I have to use as my crutch, the crutch of hope that works me through the mindless actions of today; the “faith”, if you will, of something beyond this world.

posted by ehzee at 6:25 PM   

2 Comments:

Reshae said…

just for the record..when i click onto the music listed, it doesn’t have the same music available to listen to that is listed on the blog…it has the old list of music…with heart, sigur ros…etc. not the new list.

2:41 PM  

sarah said…

a, i’m with reshae… much as I would love to hear some Spice Coyote tunes. I can’t, because it’s broken.

5:26 AM  

“The most direct and spontaneous historic pastime we have is the infliction of pain by beating. Nekrassov has a poem about a peasant who flogs a horse about its eyes, “its gentle eyes”… He describes how a feeble nag, which has been pulling too heavy a load, sticks in the mud with its cart and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely and, in the end, without realizing why he is doing it and intoxicated by the very act of beating, goes on showering heavy blows upon it. “Weak as you are, pull you must! I don’t care if you die so long as you go on pulling!” The nag pulls hard but without avail, and he begins lashing the poor defenceless creature across its weeping, “gentle eyes”. Beside itself with pain, it gives one tremendous pull, pulls out the cart, and off it goes, trembling all over and gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a curious sort of skipping motion, unnaturally and shamefully… But it’s only a horse and God has given us horses to be flogged.

And there you have an educated and well-brought-up gentleman and his wife who birch their own little deaughter, a child of seven- I have a full account of it. Daddy is glad that the twigs have knots, for, as he says, “it will sting more” and so be begins “stinging” his own daughter. I know for a fact that there are people who get so excited that they derive a sensual pleasure from every blow, literally a sensual pleasure, which grows progressively with every subsequent blow. They beat for a minute, five minutes, ten minutes. The more it goes on the more “stinging” do the blows become. The child screams, at last it can scream no more, it is gasping for breath. ‘Daddy, Daddy, dear Daddy!’”
- Brothers Karamazov

posted by ehzee at 8:17 PM   

1 Comments:

etiyet said…

just a favor-when you quote-could you let me know where the quote is coming from? Thanks. It would be good for me to see it in the larger context- help me to better understand it. Very powerful quotes and also very thought provoking.
Hard questions. Thanks for them.

4:42 AM  

So right now I am sitting on a plane that is headed for Dublin, Ireland. I am cramped behind a seat that is reclined to its max. I have my tray down, and am listening to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in the airplane headphones. Every once in a while I look up to see some crazy child making some mistake, misjudging the value of candy. Interesting and quite hypothetical, I would say. Not really about candy but more about instruction and respect. I enjoy it except for one thing. The new movie completely leaves out Charlie’s mistake that he makes with his grandfather, a staple in the original film that brings home the point about obedience and our individual accountable to a supreme being. This idea seems to be replaced by a spin that the new movie tries to throw on the importance of family. Acceptable but it ends up being very predictable.

However, the point of this journal has little to do with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more with my trip to Northern Ireland. I was fortunate enough to land a seat on my 5 hour flight (Newark to Dublin), next to a guy that actually attends Queen’s College in Belfast (this is the university that we are going to be “staying” with). He is presently taking classes in Portland but is taking a break to go home. He is arriving in Dublin and then is going to look for a bus ride to Belfast. I am hoping there will be a way for us to take him along since we are going to be practically going straight to Queen’s. It would be nice to save him some money and it would also be nice to continue a “friendship”.

I understand that my posts have not ever been personal before. Well I guess I change that now as I am going to be looking for a place to journal and document what I learn and experience in this country.

Now for the personal in depth analyzation of myself, albeit a depiction of my egoistic nature. I still call myself a Christian. I feel like as a Christian, my worldview should include much more room for God than I have given Her or Him. My life has not been completely void of the idea of the orthodox perspective of a God, although my view has seemed to form with echoes of deistic theology. The ideas that echo are, very generally, that God created this world and everything in it, good and evil, created a scenario of redemption that includes promoting the creators need for acceptance of the creator. I feel like this was scripted in the shape of a sacrifice, a sacrifice that we should view as a true sacrifice and therefore something that makes the creator worthy to be praised and respected.

Many people would say that this is not Christianity at all and I imagine that is a fine judgment to make. I do not want to base my beliefs on titles or even affiliations. I would question the one that pushes for my excommunication from the body of Christianity on what basis it is that they believe what they believe. Then I would ask if they did not have that reason, could they still believe… and with a guaranteed answer of “no” I imagine some understanding in my present struggle would have to be manifested, and also, hopefully through that understanding they might see that my questions are asked in order to move me in the direction of a similar belief of what they feel, for I do not have that belief as of yet.

So much for my defensive banter. Big issues have brought me to where I am, big issues with small decisions about those issues. Some of these issues are large issues in Northern Ireland right now. This is the basis for my excitement for my trip: not based on the idea of learning the culture and struggles of this great people that has minor differences, but primarily to let my egoistic nature shine and allow for my own construction to continue through their struggles and readjoinment.

Well we still have 1768 miles left to go,.. we are currently hovering over miles of water and are still only about a third of the way there. Given everything goes well, I will post this online. However with so much time left I have promised myself that I would close my computer when my battery reaches 45%. After an hour of intense work on my portfolio my battery is closing in on that point. I look forward to any responses you may have for me, and I hope that now that this is personal you don’t a) criticize me personally too much, and b) don’t fear responding openly with questions or issues that you can think of about my theories.

Anne Lammott writes…
“I try to listen for God’s voice inside me, but my sense of discernment tends to be ever so slightly muddled. When God wants to get my attention, She clears Her throat a number of times, trying to get me to look up, or inward-and then if I don’t pay attention, She rolls Her eyes, makes a low growling sound, and starts kicking me under the table with Her foot.”

I don’t have this kind of faith right now. It seems appealing, and maybe (for all of those out there that are already sending up prayers for my soul) I will discover something like that somewhere on this trip. Cheers…

posted by ehzee at 9:41 AM   

4 Comments:

Anonymous said…

Hey darl’en
Lots of things to think about! I am looking forward to reading these blogs and the Calvin website to keep on top of your responses and thoughts. I am learning from your experiences as you comment on them. Keep up the honest banter.
mom

10:52 AM  

Reshae said…

hey bud. love the post…keep ‘em coming! i am in rochester after a long day of travel…and am headed to bed, but will email you tomorrow.

love ya!

3:04 PM  

Anonymous said…

my love,
i do not assume to know you, or to know where you are. in fact, i think that knowing you is so far from true at this moment (which i hope changes!). and my comment was not a prayer for your soul. my comment was a prayer for your struggle. you mean the world to me, and you have my complete and utmost respect. if only i was able to be so clear with what i feel and what i struggle with. and believe me, there are stuggles for me as well. we don’t always agree, but your pursuit for who you are and who you are to be is a reason for my complete admiration. i do pray for you- that this trip does answer questions, or does not answer questions as need be, and that it opens to you new perspectives and experiences in your faith.
thanks for your honesty. i’m eager to read more.
i love you so much.

7:28 AM  

Anonymous said…

As usual, I am going to affirm you. I know that you are in a constant struggle with what you believe when it comes to God and Christianity(and just about everything else;). Is that such a bad thing? I would almost argue that we should be praying for the souls that aren’t struggling with that. What good is it to believe in something without knowing why you believe it? Sure, it may result in a happier way of life, an easier way of life, but it would be a choice of ignorance. One that I am sure you would never choose. The gist? I think you are way ahead of me in terms of “my worldview should include much more room for God than I have given Her or Him” simply because you are opening your mind and thoughts to question your beliefs and what you base those beliefs on. This is much more than many people could offer and are willing to offer to God. I’m still thinking on the rest of it, but wanted to give a little affirmation:) Much Love.

9:04 PM  

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