|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Danny had an interesting post about why he's not liking Lost right now. In summary, the message it imparts is seemingly Job-ian. I think he says it's a valid message but not all that entertaining.
Job, on the surface, is a really simple book to understand. Satan claims the followers of God are mercenary in their desire to be good, that they are only good b/c of God's material blessing. God then says "Oh yeah? You can do anything you want to my man Job short of killing him. You'll see that it isn't true." Job then proceeds to get screwed in just about every way possible. His friends tell him it's b/c he did something wrong. He is insistent that he didn't and continually ponders why he suffers despite being a blameless man. After some waiting, God shows up at the end of the book but gives him no direct answer to his question. He simply describes Himself.
Kirkegaard speaks of the necessity of an emotional comprehension of fact for it to really qualify as truth in our lives. Though I think Job is a difficult book in this respect, our generation is probably more ready to embrace it than any other. Here's why:
(a) We're deeply suspicious of our own power to change the world around us.
Our predecessors, the Modernists, were raised with hopes and ambitions on a scale never seen before in human history. I'm sure every generation wants the same things. The Modernists, however, actually believed they could get them. Global power shifts and rapid technological progress allowed them to not just wish but genuinely believe they could materialize the things which they dreamed. And they were truly amazing dreams.
What do hippies and the UN have in common? They both actually though they could bring an end to national conflict. GMO's--it's a dirty word now but once upon a time, people worked on those things believing they could end world hunger. The Civil Rights Movement--at its heart is a belief that the law could bring true equality to all men. Social Security--a belief that government could insulate the welfare of the common man from the fluctations of the market and physical decline.
As the children of the modernists, we live in the tangled wreckage of those dreams. The UN is a joke. It is just another arena in which the world's most powerful compete to secure their own interests. They do nothing--can do nothing--to stop well publicized reports of genocide. The main purpose of GMO's has shifted to lining corporate pocketbooks often at the expense of the health of their consumers. What subpar help social security provides to the ailing is economically unsustainable. Despite MLK's sacrifice, despite widespread legislation, bigotry abounds. MLK's successor, Jesse Jackson is a man gifted with the same eloquence but not the same wariness of self-righteousness. The trivialities he chooses to fight for cause us to denegrate the idea of racial equality instead of inspiring us towards it. All around us, the systems our fathers built for us are failing and instead of picking up their cause despite more rights and access to better technological innovations, we don't do anything b/c inwardly, we are all convinced the best effort has been made. Knowledge, organization, industry--the Modernists didn't succeed b/c they didn't have enough of these things but rather b/c they are fundamentally limited. They cannot eradicate the ugly side of human nature, they cannot insulate us from the effects of misfortune, they cannot bring us to the utopian vision of our fathers. I think we believe this, I think this is our truth, in the Kirkegaardian sense of the word.
(b) This is why Job interests me so. The story could have ended in a lot of different ways. It could have concluded the narrative with an account of God's intellectual victory over Satan. It could have ended with God explaining to Job his life was a defense of humanity's ability to be good independent of reward. It doesn't end that way. It ends with an admonition to Job to trust in the character, the person of God. No new knowledge is offered him, no reason given for apparently random suffering . God simply says He is who he is and intimates Job needs to have faith in who He is. When I say faith, I don't mean the fuzzy New Age definition of the word. I mean a deep seated remembrance of one's Kirkegaardian arrival at truth. Once upon a time, Job knew that God was good. Faith is holding on to that despite changed circumstances.
I really like that answer and I really hate long winded attempts to rationalize all the bad things that happen in our lives. Karma is bullshit. I've seen plenty of lives where the goodness given out and the goodness received wasn't a zero-sum game. So are those saccharine email forwards about how everything in life happens for a reason. Evanglicals modify that by saying everything happens for God's reasons--which I find true--but not the unspoken corollary that we will understand it on this earth. There are dark things here we will never understand. If you don't believe that, you've either never seen them or are lying to yourself.
(c) Paul tells us that human relationships reveal the mystery of God's relationship towards us. Paul doesn't say this but I think it's vice-versa too. I'm in a relationship now. Our feelings for each other are simple but the circumstances we find ourselves in our complex beyond my wildest imaginations. And they keep getting more complex. I think I'm being objective about this when I say we're in the 99th percentile of relationships in complicated circumstances. We've made a lot of sacrifices to make it work.
The last month was tough in that regard, this past week especially difficult. What I realized today, thinking about the lesson of Job, is what makes this work, what makes any human relationship work, is faith in the other person. Faith that they love us, faith that they will continue to love us and want our good. Things come up that frustrate us, that may be beyond our ability to understand and rationalize. At the end of the day, however, there's only one question: do you believe in that other person? I think this is true of all relationships, between lovers, between friends, between business partners, between a citizen and his country, between parent and child.
I've never loved anybody the way I love Cecilia. She says the same thing. We ask each other why and we've told each other a multitude of different answers. None seemed completely satisfactory. I think this thing God asks of Job, this faith in another. That's the real answer. We've this mutual exchange that was given quickly and generously. It was strong to start with. It's been tested, sometimes in ways I couldn't imagine anyone surviving. But, here we remain. Here, I am confident we will remain. This exchange of faith was been paid willingly and lavishly.
| | |
| me: i wanna be with u all the time. im so emochickenCecilia: it's ok I'm emochicken too me: how come batman never had this problem?Cecilia: I don't know cuz he's the goddamn batman Does your girlfriend quote Frank Miller at his abysmally finest?  | | |
| "In the time of gathering together, we should make no arbitrary choice of the way. --I Ching
Like most little boys, I grew up with a fascination with war movies and war games. I think that gusto for conflict has been around since time immemorial. What is unique about our generation is we were around for the advent of the real time strategy game (RTS). I know that sounds hyperbolic but hear me out.
Early iterations of RTS, like Dune 2 and Warcraft 1, were groundbreaking in that they showed computer processing power was finally at a level where 200+ units could be represented in way that was graphically and behaviorally adequate. This is something earlier contests, whether computer games, board games, or sports, could not emulate. You now could participate in conflicts of a completely different scale. Concepts like advantages of position, numerical superiority, resource management could actually be played out in a way that mattered far more. Unfortunately, these games were single player. You played alone against computer AI and the save/load feature made it so you could rewind time. Everyone was a strategic genius b/c save/load allowed you to rewind time and make every decision optimally.
Warcraft II popularized multiplayer RTS. I remember the first time I ever played multiplayer--against my friend Remy--and he totally kicked my ass. Things were pretty hard with no save/load. Not being able to rely on save/load really highlighted to me the importance of understanding and manipulating the temporal and the dynamic. Since battles could not be replayed and units lose or gain strength over time, you had to make decisions about when to fight and when to play for time.
These concepts have really stayed with me. I use them at work, I use them in my relationships, I use them when managing my finances. Take for instance, work. There are many opportunities to take on somewhat trivial projects that nevertheless put you in the limelight. To me, this is like the footman rush in Warcraft III. You make a bunch of low quality units early and hope to overwhelm your opponent. If, however, he survives the rush, your opponent can win later with technologically superior units. The analog in work would be to work on more important, less immediately pressing projects. The risk in that is that other guy who took the crappy but more flashy project may have consolidated enough political capital and authority such that it doesn't matter what you do in the future.
Relationships. I used to think if you liked a girl, you just walked up to her and said "I like you." Then, I learned about the dynamic nature of a girl's affections. They're constantly in flux, sometimes high, sometimes low. You want to wait for that magic moment, the golden window. It's like that moment in Dota where the other team has been beating the hell out of you, but you somehow win a team fight. Positionally, you've been weaker all game but you now have an opportunity to permanently change the status quo. Good players are always biding their time, able to recognize those moments and capitalize on them. They can read the flow of the battle. Like sharks in the water, they can sense the
"Oh shit!" moment. It's like this in group debates. One guy might be dominating the conversation. He's got some momentum from some good points he made earlier. You disagree but it's a bad time to debate with him when he's got that momentum. Your arguments become much more effective when he's lost some of that, when he's talked so much the group is starting to tune him out. That's your "oh shit" moment.
The most influential book I've read in the last two years was Mao: A Life. His entire being was governed by these ideas and he carved a future out for both himself and his people. Being able to read disparities in strength, having the patience and wisdom to mitigate or exacerbate them using timing. These are very simple, basic ideas but just like the harmonic scale is a relatively simple idea, the music that has and can be created from them is... endless. | | |
| This guy actually spoke at Solaria. I didn't like him. He knew far less about PV than his influence would suggest. We need real leaders not demagogues.
| | |
| Seinfeld first introduced us to neurosis as comedy. Gilmore Girls somehow took that and convinced females between the ages of 15 and 45 that men find neurotic behavior disarmingly cute. "Hi, I'm a girl and I have some mind-bogglingly inane fetish that people will use to one-dimensionally represent me. Find me winsome and charming!"
Why on earth would you think being more psychotic than you already are is a good thing?
| | |
|
