I’m in something of a bad state right now, and I’m not sure exactly how I got here or what to do about it. I’m not even going to attempt my typical philosophical analysis, partly because of apathy and partly because I’m pretty sure it won’t help. Instead, I’m going to use over-dramatic words to deliver a sense of what I am feeling. You may want to stop reading now.
Right now, it frustrates me to have people just assume that I believe, or even to be around people whom I fairly or unfairly believe just assume, the following things:
I’m in a really awesome spiritual community here in Palo Alto. There aren’t that many of us right now, but it’s getting sizable enough where sometimes I want to do the following exercise: sit everyone down for an hour, give them 1 piece of paper and a pen, and say, “Answer these questions on paper: what are we trying to become, and why, and how do you feel about that?”. Then, we each read our “papers” aloud to the others. ...
Kierkegaard speaks to my deepest self when he says: The simple man who humbly confesses himself to be a sinner–himself personally (the individual)–does not at all need to become aware of all the difficulties which emerge when one is neither simple nor humble. But when this is lacking, this humble consciousness of being personally a sinner (the individual)–yea, if such a one possessed all human wisdom and shrewdness along with all human talents, it would profit him little. Christianity shall in a degree corresponding to his superiority erect itself against him and transform itself into madness and terror, until he learns either to give up Christianity, or else by the help of what is very far remote from scientific propaedeutic, apologetic, &c., that is, by the help of the torments of a contrite heart (just in proportion to his need of it) learns to enter by the narrow way, through the consciousness of sin, into Christianity. ...
I have been looking for love (and lamenting my lack of it, in terms of the females) so intensely recently, that in a superbly dismaying irony, I have actually been un loving those around me [yes, that was a transitive verb]. I have been withdrawn, aloof, sarcastic, ungentle, and careless in my interactions with my community, and I was so wrapped up in myself, so enjoying my melancholy depression, that I didn’t even notice until someone called me out on it last night. ...
I was thinking with Pavi and Kennedy this morning about doubt. Pavi brought up the question of, what are the real foundations / reasons / motivations for doubt? The question came out of a realization we shared, which was that, as much as we interact with atheistic philosophers and scientists and hear all these reasons that God does not exist or religion is a purely social construction or whatever, we’ve never really felt convinced by these things.