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My partner seemed genuinely disappointed that in my previous post I suggested self-loathing and distrust were endemic to the human race. By way of explanation, I pointed to my Catholic upbringing as the setting for many of my observations. The world as painted by that brush is one in which joys are few and their attainment heavily prescribed by a very specific course of action, usually on a daily basis. This alone is not so onerous, but the consequences of even a minor lapse in one's actions is justification for absurd amounts of punishment.
And so my internal red flags were raised even at a very young age and pretty much stayed there indefinitely. Rather than being angry about this, I now see how useful it has been to me in shaping my ability and desire to seek alternative ways of viewing the world and the people in it.
Nowhere have I found a more entertaining product of exploration than when I came across Sam Harris on YouTube talking about free will. This is a long vid, but worth every minute you spend listening to it. To give you a sense of my gleeful release from the burden of Catholic dogma, here is a sampling of the balm of reason that is so characteristic of him:
"If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley, you've lost your mind. But if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker and the body of Christ, you're just a Catholic."And thus vanished the last drop of cognitive dissonance in the religion bucket of my life. Hallelujah, brother!
I don't see what's so far-fetched about that Elvis analogy. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me....
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, in that same vein, I've always been fascinated by the people who claim to see images of the Virgin Mary in everything from grease stains to tortillas to English muffins to the pattern of bed sores on someone's heinie. The plain fact is, that nobody knows for sure what she looked like, so for all anyone knows, those apparitions are really images of their Aunt Gladys or a bag lady wearing a babushka. Heck, it could even be Norma Desmond ready for Mr. DeMille to shoot her close up.
I love it when the possibilities are endless.
ReplyDeleteThat's what's fun about being an agnostic. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination!
ReplyDeleteThat's also why I'm a fan of the multiple universe theory. It's comforting to think that there might be universes where I treated people better and didn't make the stupid mistakes I did when I was younger. I'd like to think there's at least one place where I got it right.
BTW, how's the book coming along?
The book, uh, well, it has a chapter structure and a lengthening bibliography, so that is progress. Now I'm looking for willing participants to include in the narrative. Part of the point of this endeavor is to talk about this topic so that in between the lines the reader can feel a steady consciousness of "You are NOT alone." and alone is how I felt for a long time before I decided I wasn't.
ReplyDeleteWell, the hardest part of writing is the writing--lol! I used to have aspirations to be a writer, but found that I lack the discipline and attention span to ever get much done. If I'd been born a little earlier, I probably would have been diagnosed with ADD, but back in my day they just called it laziness and an inability to apply myself. At any rate, you seem to have good writing discipline, so that's a big part of the battle right there. Hang in there and best of luck!
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