Existentialism

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/existentialism/

There are a lot of words running around in my head, and little that’s cohesive. I’ve been contemplating what life is, means, and the purpose thereof. The words of Solomon rush to the forefront first:

Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. For the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words.

When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?  For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.

 (Ecclesiastes)

I’m not sure why these words immediately overwhelm me, but that there is a despondence in Solomon’s voice that is never far when walking the path of existentialism. That road is long, and not wrong, though precipitous at points – what road is not?

This passage isn’t as popular as the more poetic Ecclesiastes 3, with a dichotomous sequence of times for everything, but I think it speaks of the oddness of this experience we’ve suddenly discovered ourselves mired in. It’s a territory of emotions as wide as the world, with mountains as tall as the depths of the seas, and even though we dream of flying, we forget what the secret was on waking.

-Chloe- “When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly. So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?"

-Sandman- "When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget."

-Chloe- "But that's not fair!"

-Sandman- "No."

(Brief Lives – Neil Gaiman)

Then my existential journey wanders. I start wondering whether I’m stepping in the right places, or following in Christ’s footsteps properly. I used to play a philosophical game with myself, wondering whether I’d ever lived any “perfect” days. It was a common Sunday School understanding that no one, save Yeshua, is perfect. But how many days could I go without sinning? And is simply “not sinning” good enough? Or does “living perfectly” require a significant motion in the other direction?

Could I fail to live perfectly simply by not living at all? If I locked myself into a room and prevented myself from engaging in any negative thoughts, or lying, or behaving cruelly to those around me, does that day fall short of perfection simply by virtue of having not moved?

Paul said that walk of Christianity was a race – so simply standing still isn’t wandering down the wrong path, but it’s making no headway towards the finish line, either. Does that make it… sinful? If sin is simply falling short, motionlessness might be falling short also, right?

And this thinking goes round and round.

Next, I contemplate Micah, the famous words:

He has told you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justice, to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God?

To love kindness; to do justice; to walk humbly with my God.  This, too, I’ve contemplated over these last weeks, days, hours. Christianity today is a puzzle of beliefs, with everything hinging on a “God is relationship; God is love” factor that suddenly implies that God “must love everyone” and so anything that makes up a person must be “good”.

This concept stuffs God into a small box of “if God doesn’t appreciate what I’m doing, he must not be Love because My God would love what I was doing”. And this sort of thinking is such obvious bullshit that I’d immediately dismiss it if it weren’t so prevalent in our culture. And the second aspect of this is, one we fail on one portion, we assume that we’ve permanently failed, and if God can forgive us for the beginning, why should we stop now?

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

(Romans)

Yet there are those consistently making concessions to their “God image” they’ve designed imago adam, until there is nothing respectable, nothing fearful, nothing remotely righteous about the God of dust we’ve breathed ourselves into. Whenever you start saying, “this is who I am so God must be satisfied with that” then you are fooling only yourself.

God destroyed whole cities of unrighteousness with nary the bat of an eye; God opened up the earth and swallowed countless Israelites for their faithlessness; God killed two people in the new Church just for lying about money. Our God is a consuming fire, not a penpal writing little hearts on Bible leaflets and hallmark cards with cute verses to cheer you up.

I was also contemplating community, and our world. The culture of our day is an unbelievable mess. The convenience of technology has eliminated the need for community, because your friends can talk to you in video conversation from forever away, or email eliminates the need of heartfelt letters sent in slow-haste along postal lines (though I love letters dearly, and would prefer to long-distance communicate this way).

But there is no staying, no holding force that knits a community together. Churches have become businesses, linked on Sundays in a single building as a concession for community, but the personal nature of communion has been eviscerated from our services, and the raising of voices beside everyone you love is lost in a crowded vacuum of who, who are you?

This may just be me, an introvert stuck in a great emptiness, and no hands or inertia moving me.

I long for an Amish-type community where everyone lives, labors, and loves in a small place, understanding the depths of happiness that derive from hard work beside friendly souls and the gatherings of those you know every day in a small town.

We’ve created a crowded room if individuals instead of a family, and that’s what our media and culture create also.

The real problem, of course, is me. Why engage in existential and philosophical musings, anyway? If a problem exists in every friendship, it’s likely the reason is yourself. I should have known that – what was I thinking? There was once a study which resulted in the naming of an effect called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where individuals vastly overrate their own abilities and fail to recognize genuine skill in others. I see this in myself, knowing my weaknesses are many.

I was asked, once, what my love languages are, and though  I think the question is a bit of a silly one – because what occasion have I had, as yet, to love like that? – I realized that my language of love with friends is that of quantity time.

Quantity time? Not even one of the original list – what a psychological hipster. (quality time; service; words of affirmation; touch; gift-giving) None of the others apply to me. I don’t find myself desperately trying to serve others to express my love, or effusively thanking those who offer their service for me. The same is true of gifts: I hate giving gifts, because I’m always self-conscious, so I avoid it. And I always try to return gifts I’ve been given, because “things” don’t matter to me. Touch is important, but not something I overemphasize to a great degree in my friendships; words of affirmation are important to me, and perhaps this is a close second in my love languages. Quality time is fine, but I really don’t care what is being done, as long as the duration is sufficient.

I’d rather spend five days with someone doing nothing than one day with someone doing everything, every time.

This makes the long distance relationships in my life nearly impossible to maintain. With Matthew, we talk every day, sometimes twice, sometimes more. With other examples, generally I find that I grow less and less attached to the people the less we communicate. Eventually, I don’t consider them at all – they are nonentities in the timing of my life.

See? It’s definitely a personal problem.

I remember when I used to play games with my older brother, I’d always get frustrated whenever he started over before beating a game. I didn’t understand the waste of struggle, the waste of playtime, in “trying something new for fun” instead of “beating the game”. To me, beating the game was the only source of fun. In a way, this personality quick carried over into my interaction with life. I hate starting over – I hate moving somewhere without finishing everything in the previous place.

This is a very ambiguous state, because how can you “finish everything” in a particular place? I think the real truth of it is, I don’t make friends easily, because I don’t understand the purpose of “half-way” friends. Why have acquaintances at all? What use are they to me? The sort of people you say, “hi how’s the weather” to, and then move past them to grab your tea or coffee or whatever – this isn’t relationship. So why have it at all?

I only want deep, lasting friendships, and so the very idea of starting over pains me, because I hate to see everything I’ve invested in get burned away to chaff. People assume the technological inventions we’ve made circumvent that necessity, the necessity of removing that which you love in a place, but it doesn’t. It slows the poisonous decay, but only barely, and probably makes it harder in the end.

That’s my existential crisis of the day. What do I do? Where am I? What should I be doing? And how is it so easy for everyone else to say goodbyes? I think because they don’t realize that to me, it’s actually a goodbye.