Some books are trash

I walked in buoyed up with bookish enthusiasm; I left sagging under pseudo-intellectual self-congratulatory bubbles and bangs.

We see readers as the bearers of the thinker’s torch, but the booksellers I visited with my wife and children today bore little resemblance to that image of scholarly devotion. Instead I saw legions of trashy romance novels (some raising the bar by excluding vampires and the paranormal, I suppose). In the philosophy section, I had hoped to find the original works of the philosophers themselves, but instead I found shallow and selective examinations of trendy themes in popular movies and tv shows. 

The selection on the shelves proved more interesting material than the content of the volumes. I could read in the selection that this branch of “the great conversation” was restricted to ego-boosting pseudo-intellectualism, brain teasers, time wasting entertainment, and a coffee shop.

The result of my visit was alienating and offensive. I feel disappointment bordering on grief for the clientele of this bookseller; I feel offended by the writers and publishers who produced the selection.

Reading and the reading culture are not in themselves a higher form of entertainment. Only good books are good. Being a book is not enough for something to be good. Some books are trash, and it seems from my recent foray into the bookseller’s shop, that the trash is common and accepted.

May we perpetually read toward the light, better and better rather than worse and worse.

Why Atheism is not "Rational"

Atheists make sense to me, but I can’t take them seriously. Their motives vary, but typically fall into the camps of righteous indignation or misapplied nihilism. Then there are those who just don’t care (though if your push them, they turn out to be mostly agnostic).

Atheism, at its simplest, is the positive claim that there is no God. As a philosophy student, my question is instantly “how do you know that?” I ask this because the claim is not “there is no particularly good reason to believe in God.” No, it is stated as the truth distilled from the lips of reason herself that there is no God.

Yeah, No.

My beef with this is a common blunder of attaching the word “reason” to claims that “make sense.” Spock, nor scientist, nor atheist may call their modus operandi “reasonable.” To say that a claim is backed by reason is usually, (I would say always, but in this I am agnostic), a total cop out designed to make belittling one’s opponents seem like the moral high ground: “I alone of all people (together with those who think like me) see the manifest truth (which is obvious) and anyone who does not agree is a blind idiot. So there.”

Define reason. No, don’t give me your evidence; I want to see your method and criteria. What are they? Oh, subjectively defined non-empirical criteria loaded with oodles of value assumptions (which incidentally can never be derived from “matters of fact”). Uh huh. So you are saying that you have decided that God does not exist and have then gone looking for sufficient corroborating evidence to make you feel like you believe because of the overwhelming, evident, manifest truth after the fact? Got it. You are still arguing? So you have convinced yourself well. Now here come the prepared attacks on faith generally as immoral (see the above problems with establishing moral criteria from “matters of fact”), and attacks on my religious tradition (inferred hastily and a bit too generally) as irrational or inconsistent.

I understand that there are a host of reasons for disbelieving in God. I understand this with the heart as well as the head. What I have a problem with is claiming to hold reason as the enemy of faith, particularly when the “reason” implied is empirical. No decision or assertion of value of any kind is consistent with empirical reason outside of pure subjective preference as the ultimate arbiter. 

“That’s not logical captain…”

Spock loves to say “logical,” and the other members of the Enterprise crew hold that Spock is “logical” and that McCoy is “emotional.”

News flash, everything you learned about logic from Spock is wrong. When Spock says “logical,” he means that something is a good idea, or the smart thing, or the likely answer to a problem. In this misuse of the word “logical,” science is logical, statistics are logical, and emotions are decidedly “illogical.”

Real logic breaks down into two kinds: deductive logic and inductive logic. Deductive logic consists of arguments which have a link of necessity between their supporting statements and their conclusions. In other words, if you accept the supporting statements, you can’t argue with the truth of the conclusions. Examples of this kind of logic are 2+2=4, “either the keys are here or they are somewhere else, they aren’t here, so they must be somewhere else,” and so on. These arguments are described as “valid” because the supporting statements (premises) guarantee the truth of the conclusion (provided that they are true themselves).

On the other side is inductive logic. Inductive logic, by definition, is never ever valid. The truth of the conclusion is not inescapable even if the premises are all true. It may be the case that 99% of all cases end in a particular way, but that does not guarantee that this particular case will end that way. All inductive logic is invalid by the deductive standard. Just because something has never happened does not guarantee that it never will (so much for statistics), and just because something has always happened up to this point does not guarantee that it always will (so much for science).

Inductive logic does not deal with any degree of certainty, only of probability, and even that probability is never more than an approximation. When one leaves the surety of deductive, valid, logic and enters inductive territory, all pretense of certainty ought to be abandoned. Inductive logic is “soft logic” because of this squishy property of never offering any degree of certainty. Deductive, mathematical, logic is “hard logic” because the structure of the argument makes the conclusions rationally necessary.

So back to Spock. Spock speaks almost exclusively from the perspective of soft logic, squishy logic. He is well endowed intellectually and boasts a broad understanding of science and statistics and rational decision-making models. He speaks for moderation and proven methods. This is all well and good. However, he speaks of these soft logic enterprises as though they had the same rational weight as hard logic. It is this soft-logic-in-hard-logic’s-clothing that so irks me about his use of the words “logical” and “illogical” to describe things which are no more rationally established than what one happened to have for breakfast.

Mistaking soft logic for its more reliable counterpart is dangerous and criminally dishonest. Scientists who don’t fathom the differences (the scientific method relies on soft logic making it categorically invalid in all positive results) make bold claims about what is possible without the slightest shred of hard logical evidence to support their claims, regardless of how strong these claims may seem inductively. The scientist who speaks of “confirming” theories by observation does not understand the logical framework upon which his or her entire enterprise rests. Scientists who voice atheism as being rational do not understand rationality, or even what science is in the first place. This point is not a matter of mere opinion, but one which is rationally established through the certainty of deductive logic. The Eighteenth century philosopher David Hume established the logical problems inherent in the scientific method irrefutably over two hundred years ago. This is not new news.

Is science incredibly useful? Absolutely! Is it very good at understanding the natural world and the principles by which it operates? It seems to be. However, this success is inherently inductive, which means that we cannot rationally claim certainty for any of our claims beyond their effects. We can know the effect, but not directly the cause.

I may have to write more thoroughly on this topic later to clarify my point and make concrete the differences between inductive and deductive logic. For now let it suffice that inductive logic lacks the logical property of necessity, which means that its conclusions are never guaranteed. This means that there is always an element of uncertainty inherent to any inductive conclusion, regardless of how much evidence is involved. I hold that to deny this uncertainty is dishonest and immoral. Scientists should not pretend to be mathematicians. Spock should not pretend to be “logical.” 

We're all gonna die, so...meh

Neil Degrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russel and others are hopelessly, ludicrously out of their depth when they speak about God, or the best way to live, or metaphysics in general.

Most people today think of metaphysics as speculative where science is firm; metaphysics maintains a very similar status to the paranormal, ghosts, psychics and the like. But this is simply not the case. “Metaphysics” simply refers to the field of things which are “meta” to physics. Any time you have a conversation about what counts as “real,” you are having a conversation about things that are beyond the physical, tangible portion of reality.

So how does science fit into this? Science is a method that fits within a context. Any reference to that context must necessarily be “meta” to the discipline and methods of science itself. Similar to the way that an eye cannot see itself except indirectly, science is a really lousy tool for talking about science. It must make use of the context beyond its borders to have a rationally consistent conversation about itself. This is why great scientists no not necessarily make good philosophers or consistent thinkers.

I’ll give a concrete example. Richard Dawkins does not like the idea of Religion or of God. His book “The God Delusion” argues that people will be better off putting these hopeless delusions out of their minds and focusing on what is real, which is what is investigable through the scientific method.  I can’t fault his opinion, but I can fault his defense of that opinion as unscientific, badly reasoned, and more than slightly offensive to a seeker of truth.

This argument, that the only things that exist are the material facts of the world, can never be liberating or rationally considered a good thing for one simple reason: if the supposition that there are no non-material facts in the universe is correct, then there is no such thing as good or bad in the first place. Also, accepting the modern version of materialism means that humans don’t technically exist either, because the only things that exist are energy, energy gathered into particles, forces, space, and time. Humans are not on that list. According to the Standard Model, we are nothing more than an arbitrary designation for a relatively organized bundle of particles that will eventually find some other orientation after we die.

So nothing is good or bad. In that case, liberty is not better (more good) than ignorance and captivity, and there is no rationally justifiable reason to prefer liberty over captivity, other than simple arbitrary preference. There is no real reason for it. There is no reason to prefer living over dying, because living is not better than dying. Everything is equally “Meh.”

This means that the liberated Nihilist doesn’t get it. There is something that is just not clicking in their heads when they speak of the “benefits of Atheism/moral nihilism/materialism/relativism.” “Benefits” comes from the Latin “Bene”, meaning “good.” So any discussion of benefits, and any argument that attempts to show that these worldviews are somehow better than their alternatives has not swallowed its own sales pitch. If they actually believed it, they could not rationally argue to make converts.

This bothers me very deeply. Many clever and seemingly intelligent people argue for materialism and relativism and nihilism, but they could not maintain their fervor if they understood or thought deeply about their own doctrine.

Be consistent, think deeply.

Excited

We move in two weeks. It would be surreal, if it weren't for all the boxes full of books littering our front room and the half finished bathroom floor repairs.

Still, there's a lot to be grateful for. My beloved wife is healthy, my daughter is precocious and adorable and healthy, I am moving to a dream job teaching science to middle-schoolers. Life is good.

There are upcoming bumps in the road. Not least of which is the fact that we are expecting our new baby about the same time we are moving and the job starts a few days later. But life is good.

I'm excited to see what wonders await.

Don’t Hate Me Because I Care

John Lennon’s “Imagine” reminds me of prison for two reasons. The first comes from an experience I had when I was 17 years old. I volunteered in my college public speaking class to apply what I was learning by speaking to the inmates of the Utah State Prison. They had a weekly motivational speaker come at that time to address those on good behavior, and my professor just so happened to be a coordinator for the program.

I never actually got to give my speech, but I did go and listen to one of the other speakers a few weeks before I was scheduled to speak myself, as required by my professor to understand the audience. I had to surrender my driver’s license at the visitor’s entrance, replaced by a clip-on, numbered ID badge. I wondered if they would still let me out if I lost it. Then I had followed my professor down the many cement corridors past thick steel bulkheads. I didn’t want them to close while I was in there. Eventually we arrived at the prison chapel, and I sat among the inmates, next to Bo. Bo was in for killing someone. Most of the inmates were friendly and starved for conversation. One showed me his sketch book, mostly pencil drawings of the five books on his shelf. Another offered me guitar lessons after he got out, though it’d be a few years before he did. All were dressed in white, which is why my professor called them “the men in white.” I was wearing a white shirt; I hoped my slacks were enough non-white color to get me out. Eventually, the program started and the prison band played after the introductions were given and a prayer said. The band played “Imagine” by John Lennon.

The speaker was boring and talked about avoiding self-directed pity-parties. I was frankly more interested in watching the guards, one of whom kept walking along the pews and looking anxious. My professor noticed as well. When the speech was finally over, my professor guided him and myself quickly out of the chapel and back through the corridors to the entrance. I was relieved to trade back my numbered ID badge for my driver’s license while the professor talked with the guards. He told me later that one of the inmates had been misplaced and the facility was about to go into lockdown. We just made it out in time. The guards searched my car including the trunk, hood, and undercarriage, and when I drove out of the prison, I was struck by the fact that the road into the prison was better paved than the one leading out of prison.

That was the first reason; it has more to do with association by experience than with the song itself.

The second is purely from the message of the song.

Lennon’s anthem for world unity is ambitious and admirable, but hopelessly tangled up in bad reasoning. “Imagine” invites the listener to picture a world where there are no borders and no causes worth fighting for. His iconic line “Nothing to kill or die for” imagines a world where the conflicts end because there is no cause for contention. But nothing to kill or die for also means nothing to live for. This is not a world of peace, but a world of apathy masquerading as peace. Another problem with this simplistic vision of Lennon’s Utopia is that people die with or without good reasons. Even with nothing to die for, you are still going to die. But if you were willing to die for something, then maybe something is worth more than maintaining your doomed pulse. The heart of conflict is a belief that there is something valuable in the world, the idea that things matter. People fight because people care deeply about things. Asking one to imagine a world without this fuel for conflict not only destroys contention, but also everything worth living for. Unlike animals, humans crave and need a reason for their existence; breathing and breeding are not enough to live for. We must live for something higher to believe that there is true and lasting value in our lives.

But the problems don’t end there:

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

As good as it is for people to live in the moment and appreciate the life around them, paying no attention to the future is a recipe for disaster. “Living for today,” at least in Lennon’s context, permanently disconnects the present from the future. A world without questions about, and faith in, the metaphysical nature of the human soul is one where this world and everything in it is meaningless. Today only means something in the context of yesterday and tomorrow. If people disagree about the nature of the soul and its fate beyond the grave, at least in the midst of the conflict they can appreciate their mutual faith that life is worth living. This very faith is only possible in a consistent manner through a belief in the beyond.

Lennon sings of apathetic inertness, with no spark to separate the living from the dead. There must always be right and wrong, questions about the philosophical nature of man, and a belief in the great beyond. Without these, Lennon’s world is not worth imagining.

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Marriage and the Prisoner's Dilemma

The situation:

Bonnie and Clyde are arrested by a detective who knows that they are famous bank robbers. The trouble is, he can’t prove it.

So the detective makes this ploy.  He separates Bonnie and Clyde, putting them in separate cells with no way to communicate with each other. The detective then approaches each of them separately with this offer. 

Betray your partner, and I’ll see that you get only 1 year of prison time if your partner stays loyal, and your partner will go to prison for a minimum of five years. If your partner rats on you, but you stay loyal, then your partner gets one year and you get five years minimum. If both of you rat on each other, then you will both spend three years in prison each.

As Bonnie sits quietly in her cell, she weighs her options. “The detective might be bluffing, which would mean that Clyde and I could go free if we just stay loyal and don’t rat each other out. But If Clyde tells on me while I stay loyal, then I get a minimum of five years. If I tell on Clyde I get either one (1) year or three (3) years. But if I stay loyal, I get either none (0) or five (5).”

On the other side of the station, Clyde is thinking the exact same thing. 

The situation is dire. Each of these partners in crime makes their choice. No one is surprised when both partners betray each other, and each serves a three year sentence.

Bonnie and Clyde both know that their partner is not entirely trustworthy and will probably betray them. Because of this, each will choose to betray (rather than be betrayed).

This situation is a thought experiment from game theory called “The Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Game theory, which is the study of decision making in strategic situations, operates on the assumption that people usually act out of a desire to further their own rational self-interest. Game theory provides the backbone of economics, national defense, and political theory.

The unsettling irony of this situation, however, is that exactly by pursuing their rational self-interest, both Bonnie and Clyde have wound up counting days in a cell.

This brings me to the subject of marriage. Marriage is a partnership similar (hopefully without the crime) to Bonnie and Clyde’s in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Conflicts arise constantly in marriage which force both partners to decide between their own rational self-interest (what they want) and the needs of their spouse/marriage/family.

Commitment in marriage is like staying loyal in the Dilemma. If both partners sacrifice their rational self-interest and personal wants, then both receive the highest possible benefits. But if either spouse is in it for their own happiness, the whole thing falls apart and everyone is miserable. This has been made even more visible with no-fault divorce laws, but a marriage does not need to end in divorce to be a failure.

This terrifies me, and I assume other rational, sane people feel the same way. Personal commitment and self-sacrifice are not enough to make a marriage work if only one partner is in the game. It takes both partners 

willingly sacrificing themselves for the marriage to succeed, but it only takes one to destroy it. You are at your spouse’s mercy, just as they are at yours.

However, as afraid as we may be, if we act on that fear, then we have failed before we have even started. Marriage is an integral part of human happiness, but if you go into marriage seeking your own happiness, you are likely to lose it.

This is something worth thinking about. What quality could be more important to find in a future spouse than loyalty? Forget the looks, or even the people-skills. Loyalty is of supreme importance.  In yourself, cultivate reliability and trustworthiness. Meet your commitments, always.

Remember that for marriage to benefit personal happiness, it cannot be about personal happiness.  Laws and politics which speak of marriage as a vehicle for personal fulfillment are missing the point.

Mathew 10: 39 "^aHe that findeth his life shall ^blose it: and he that ^closeth his^dlife for my sake shall find it."

KJV 

Moving Forward in a New Semester

Life is great. And busy. My three-and-a-half-month-old daughter Adelaide has discovered her hands and Aubrey and I have discovered mobiles. I always thought that mobiles were a myth.  Nothing that simple could possibly entertain a child, but lo and behold, it works.  Aubrey is hard at work designing a creative mobile for Little Adelaide this week.

The new semester just started here at BYU-Idaho only one week after the last one finished.  The break was brief but sufficient, and the new semester has both Aubrey and me back in the saddle. She is amazing. My dear Aubrey has landed a job as adjunct faculty teaching English for the university in addition to all the full-time effort required to feed, love, and entertain our baby. Babe, you rule. As for me, I am still working hard on my undergraduate degree in English with a full load of 15 credits. This semester I am studying medieval literature and will be memorizing passages in Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English for class. I am so excited!
In addition to my regular classes I am busy trying to get the Philosophy Society  up and running and managing/instructing the Taekwondo Club. As I said. Life is great, we are busy, and good things are happening.

Looking back on the post I wrote for the start of last semester, the changes are starkly apparent. I have been growing personally as a result of my marriage, education, and numerous prayers for strength and guidance. Going to school is not the burden it once was, and I know that life is going to continue getting even better.

Gratefully,
Joseph Bjork

New thoughts on the word “Old”

“Dude, your computer is ancient. That thing has to have come from the stone-age.”

In the modern word, “Old” means bad.  “Old” has connotations of “outdated,” “outmoded,” “irrelevant,” “inefficient,” “inferior,” and so forth. 

“New,” on the other hand, seems to mean “better,” “relevant,” “effective,” bigger, better, faster, stronger. Newer computers, cell-phones, games and etc. are better than older ones. But does that apply to ideas as well? Often we (modern people) think so.  “Cutting edge solutions” and the like.

But is that really the case?

A hundred years ago (and even more recently than that) the word “old” wasn’t a bad thing.  “Old” also meant “tried and tested,” “reliable,” “mature,” and “refined” (think of fine wines and cheeses). “New” was just the opposite. “Untried,” “risky,” etc.  

I think this is very interesting. New ideas are not always better than old ones. (If you even believe in new ideas, most “discoveries” in politics and philosophy have been around for millennia.) "Nihil novi."

Just a quick thought.  Listen when old people talk.  You stand a good chance of learning something valuable.  Don’t throw out old ideas just because they are old. Some things don’t get outdated.

The Gift of Distraction

When I was a missionary in the Netherlands and Belgium it boggled my mind that so many people had never once stopped to wonder about the big questions.  Who are we? Who am I? What is the point of all this? Where did it come from? Why?

These questions are of critical importance to everything we do in life.  It is critical to know what is worth pursuing and what our long term goals should be when deciding what direction to take in life.  But people don’t live that way. 

How often have you sat still and wondered about your place in the universe? Or pondered the dark, and somewhat awkward, question of the meaning of life? Is there anything after this life?  Does being alive even mean anything? How do I even know that I am alive? Perhaps it was in the moment when you were away from the city lights and saw the night sky full of stars.  In quiet moments when you felt empty and alone.  Maybe when choosing a college major or making some other life changing decision.

However, most of the time, we don’t think about it.  We worry about the tasks of the day, we watch TV, we get distracted, and we distract ourselves.

After years of tearing my hair out over this observation, I think distratction might be a good thing in moderation.

This is why.

Before setting out on a journey, it is important to know the goal.  “Begin with the End in mind” as the saying goes.  Without the big picture none of the smaller steps have any meaning or direction and nothing can be achieved except by accident or dumb luck. Understanding long term goals can be critical to one’s happiness and success.  The trouble with that is this.  What bigger goal is my big goal working toward? The scale can always increase to a larger plain.

This is a problem.  If you wait until you have the journey completely planned, “with the end in mind,” you will never start walking, and you will get absolutely nowhere.  This is the paradox of beginning with the end in mind. 

The beauty of the big questions is in their relevance and monumental importance.  The trouble with them is that they do not always have answers.  There will always be things (sometimes answers monumentally important things) that we will not know.  What makes something good?  Why are wrong things wrong? Good luck trying to figure that one out.

Our entire lives are a balance between the powers of reason and distraction.  Reason asks the questions, and if left alone with them, drives itself insane asking them. Distraction doesn’t bother with the questions, ignoring them entirely, and living on assumptions and dogmas.  Clearly, there is danger in each of these.  The danger of obscurity and an infinite regress on the one side, and of ignorance and dogma on the other. 

Reason helps us to question our beliefs and to trim away false ones so that the truth may thrive.  But like a set of overzealous pruning shears, reason alone continues to cut away at beliefs until none remain.  The entire branch of philosophy called Epistemology is dedicated to correcting this problem, and so far, there has not been any progress. Reason cannot even prove that there is a real world outside my head (think Matrix), let alone what that world is like.

Thus the need for distraction. And an even greater need for faith.  At some point, we need to be able to step back from the questions to live our lives.  This does not mean abandoning critical thinking and living in ignorance.  It simply means being able and willing to admit ignorance and keep living anyway. 

Gratitude Follow Up

The week after my last post on gratitude was incredible.  I found a few small ways to serve (mostly my wife and a friend who needed some help), and at the end of the week I was asked to give a talk in Church on service.  It was an interesting experience to think about, and try to practice, gratitude and service in a concentrated way. What I learned was to serve where I am.  There are plenty of opportunities here and now without rushing off to “somewhere else” to do service.  

Gratitude and Service

I feel really good today, and I’m grateful for it.  Life is incredible, even with homework.  I am grateful for my daughter (Adelaide) and my beautiful wife (Aubrey).  I am grateful to have Sundays off so that I can spend time with my family. I am grateful for shelter, central heating, and a well-stocked fridge. I am grateful to attend University. I am grateful to be alive.

I have so much to be thankful for, and I can’t say that I deserve any of it. I am blessed to live in very good circumstances. All good things come from Christ, including sunlight, rain, and the contents of my refrigerator.  He blesses the whole of humanity daily with life, the air that fills our lungs, the food we eat, the people we love, and the very earth beneath our feet.  Wow. I can never pay Him back, but I can pay my portion forward.  This is why I want to be a teacher someday. This is why Aubrey and I contribute a fast offering every month to bless those in need.

I will look for ways to give of my time and resources this week.  I invite anyone who reads this to do the same.

Value, Philosophy, and Faith

If “owl city” can make hit music with insomnia then perhaps I can write hit philosophy with it as well.  Thoughts often seem clearer before any attempt is made to communicate them though they do not become useful until they are expressed. Some things are not understood until taught.

I have struggled lately with a certain meaninglessness.  I have done what I believe was right, though I have been gaining little from it in the way of happiness or fulfillment.  I feel distanced from God and His nourishing power. And as much as I struggle with these feelings, I cannot help but also feel that that may be the point. 

As I see it, though I am not God, the single most important question in mortal life is the question of value.  The only trouble is that all the evidence of the senses and reason cannot positively guarantee what has value or even if value exists.  I believe that the world has been deliberately designed this way.  Life has no apparent or justifiable meaning.  There is none.  Every philosopher I have heard or read who tries to defend some objective ground for value has his axioms rooted in blind faith.  Value is then both essential to human life and meaning and also frustratingly elusive. 

If we were truly sent here to earth to learn from experience and to define ourselves by our choices, would it not make sense that we would be allowed to make those choices in the freedom of a value vacuum?  Justification and philosophy prove only that there is no conclusion which we cannot doubt.  All the intellects of the ages have not offered a single scrap of information which we can trust as a reliable foundation of knowledge, let alone value. 

I believe that the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are beautiful in their truth and clarity.  However, they do not clear the fog of mortal existence.  Life is hard. It stays hard even with all the right answers because we cannot prove or justify those answers to rid them of the possibility of doubt.  We are free to choose the probable or the improbable, the true or the fictitious, the real or the absurd.  The decision is a matter of faith in the value of the choice. 

This is important to remember that just because the gospel is true does not mean that it will be obvious or clear.  To remove the fog, struggle, and despair of mortal life would be to defeat the entire purpose of its existence.  God is kind and gives us moments of clarity where we can see through the veil but we must not expect this as the norm.  Trials of faith can come before and also after moments of great insight.

Hope

I really believe that hope is the one idea that I am most passionate about.
The world can be a bleak, scary place.  Things happen for no good reason all the time and often times those things are painful.
Hope is the belief that God is kind and that He will fulfill his promises, and it changes everything. It changes the focus from the details of the here and now to the meaning which those details have in the big picture.  Most of the things which I and the rest of humanity tend to worry about are not that significant even the scope of a human lifetime, let alone eternity.
What it means that God will fulfill His promises is that everything will eventually be fair and just, that our lives will be given meaning, and that we will live forever in this just and meaningful life.  That is awesome! Even the worst aspects of earth life will be made up.  There will be no sickness, death, physical or mental weakness, hunger, etc.

According to my beliefs as a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) every single human being who has ever lived, or ever will, will be resurrected and given immortality free from physical problems. This gift is a freebee which Christ has given to all of humankind regardless of the way they have chosen to live. The gift of Eternal Life, or the kind of life that God Himself has, is promised only on condition of repentance and honest effort to live the way Jesus Christ did while He was on earth. That means allowing Him to teach, guide, and instruct you in the way you live.
So hope changes everything.

If God does not exist or will not fulfill those promises then we will all live out our years however we decide to live them, and when we die, our self-created purposes and meanings will die with us. Even a well remembered name will last only so long before it is forgotten and lost.

However.

If  an honest God will honor these promises then the meaning of this life is eternal and every injustice on earth becomes nothing more than a temporary inconvenience which will be made up in the end


 

New Semester Panic

I can feel my stomach curdling.  The sour, dizzy smell of panic exudes from my own skin, and the worst part is, I’m not exaggerating.

Why does the very thought of an extra class fill me with dread? 

I was excited for this semester.  Every one of my classes are in topics that I find interesting.  I would probably study them eventually on my own time.  Eventually is right.  How often do I actually stop to read the classics and philosophy treatises? Not often. Rarely will I ever sit down with a book to read.  I am too busy.  Often, ironically, with school.

I feel trapped.  Locked in with no escape.  From what? Is it the work and effort required?

I think it is the commitment.  Ironic that I struggle so much with that.

Every class is a bundle of responsibility which I must commit to carry.  Registering for classes is akin to standing on the beginning of a ski-run in the moment before plunging over the edge.  The trouble is that it is skiing with a tow rope. Rather than gliding effortlessly down the slopes and enjoying the speed and the wind and the silence, I roll and bump and bash my way from rock to bush to bramble with a rope around my neck pulling me ever onward.  There is never a chance to get to my feet and fly.

Every class adds to the weight of panic.

I do not think this feeling is limited to school.  I contemplate other commitments (careers of various kinds et cetera ad infinitum) and the panic is the same.  I feel overwhelmed and grossly inadequate.  I feel offended by the challenge that dares to make me feel small and resigned to the bumping and the bruising.

All education is pain.  We come to understand pain as a gourmet understands food.  These pains produce these strengths. Those, others.  Each has a subtle character and distinct attributes. No two pains are exactly equal.  In the strain of exercise there is sweat and the tension of tearing flesh. Then the ache of rebuilding what was lost, stronger, denser, more complete.  The old is torn and bent and broken, and the resilient emerges as strength is created.  

What ought I to do?  This question is never easy to answer.  I believe that I must prepare now to endure later.  These thoughts now will serve to remind me that there is nothing good which does not require sacrifice.  I am ready to become stronger.  I am ready for pain.