More Thoughts
Dear Constant Readers,
I've just knocked out the first week of my senior year at Wesleyan. I think I can predict from this week I will be busy, but then again, I was expecting to be. Things have gone quite well thus far, I think. Socially, I really only have one good friend here, Amanda, so when I can I try to spend time with her. I'm becoming far more involved on campus than I ever have been before: a more consistent writer for the campus paper, a job as a tutor (or something like that) a few times a week, and possibly helping with the campus radio as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing what experiences and personalities might come my way.
Though, really, what I want to talk about is how empty, in a way, I've been feeling. Since coming to college, and I guess a little bit before then, but really since arriving here, I've really started to, not so much change what I think, as in change to completely, but to better discover what it is I believe. It's hard to describe, and as I'm a living, thinking being, it's not a static process (and nor is it for anyone else). But there is so much in the world that can't be quantified. I'm taking a course on world religions, and spoke with the professor outside of class for a couple of hours about the point of even studying religion, since it's so varied anyway, sometimes not even really religious in the terms Europeans would recognize it (no ethnocentricism implied: I'm using this example because I'm of European decent, but the inverse can be applied as well), and in most if not all cases, rather individual to at least some level. How can we study something, if it's so vague anyway? To study "something" we first have to agree there is a "something" to study, and yet that "something" I'm finding more and more, cannot be adequately defined, in every sense of the word. With so much overlap and change that happens in religion, language, philosophy, society, etc etc etc, I told my professor it's like trying to put a cookie-cutter in the ocean. And thus began our discussion, which was too long for me to dictate here, but in any case, I was satisfied with it.
I wonder if maybe questions weren't made to be answered, but rather explored. There is no definite end-all answer that I'm aware of. There is truth, but a definite truth, with a big T? A Platonic form? Plato said that there were forms: your lover is beautiful, but so is a sunset, yet they look nothing alike. How can they both be beautiful? Start to understand that, and you start to understand the Form: the base of whatever it is you are examining: beauty, pain, love, or whatever. It's a nice idea, but it's not one we can obtain, and even if we could, I'm not sure (m)any of us would understand it. Yet it lies within us. It maybe can't be explained, just experienced. A musician once said "If you have to ask what Jazz is, you'll never know," or something like that. I have yet to hear a jazz piece that I enjoy, but the same idea applies to just simply knowing something. CS Lewis once said about his conversion from Theism to Christianity that at one moment he wasn't not a Christian, and the next moment he was. It was like a person waking up. You don't know when you wake up, but suddenly you realize you are awake, and no longer asleep. You just know.
I feel somehow I've lost a lot. Of what? Dignity? Self-respect? I've gained a lot of experience, but at a cost. And yet again, who doesn't? And I'm still young, this surely isn't the end of anything for me, both in gaining and losing, provided I have a long, and indeed full life ahead of me. A full life involves all of these things, I think. There are some core values of mine, that while I believe in, things aren't as black and white as they used to be. I agree that there is a right and a wrong, and somethings I won't condone, but on the same hand, I can't judge them either, because I am not a saint. I guess we all have regrets that we live with.
A quote I love says "Character is what you do when you know you can get away with it". Sometimes I think I should reflect on that more, because sometimes I wonder if I'm really on the path to becoming the person I want to be. In friendships and just in life, and in self-esteem to myself I've made some blunders, and I'm not quite sure what to make of them, other than they are things to consider and to learn from.
And yet I've also began to learn how much stock I've put into things people say, instead of thinking for myself. I'm finding out, a bit to my surprise, that a lot of what I believed was either misinterpreted or misrepresented thus becoming something today that probably wasn't what it was intended to mean. I wonder how many writers of the Bible (or perhaps any religious text) would step out of Doc Brown's time machine, look around at what is being taught, slap there forehead, and say "That's not what I meant!" (At this point I would like to say I hope I'm not coming off as a type who is "Bible this, Bible that." I'm quite the contrary, but still these are questions I have.)
I want to find out what "I" believe and think, now. I look at some people who get into serious relationships at my age, and things seem to work out, and then I look at others and thing do anything but. So who's right? Of course, you can't generalize. Every situation is unique. So then again, I have to decide for myself what I believe is right for me. That's what we were supposed to do anyway: think and decide for ourselves.
(Of course, there are other examples too, the above is just one example I chose.)
It's unsettling to see this play out, but really, I look at it with a sense of adventure and wonder, and not so much fear. I do believe in God, that's one thing I can be sure of, and I believe he's (or whatever "gender" God may be) has gotten me through a lot of stuff. I'm not worried, but I am a bit alert. When everything starts to fall down, you become alert.
And is innocence really lost? Or is there other perspectives of looking at it. Everyone has made mistakes, so is anyone really "innocent"? Likely not. Does that make them bad people? I don't think so. Realizing where one has made a mistake is a big part of that, I believe.
And then, maybe I just think too much. The gravity of most situations ends up being rather exaggerated much of the time. I'm better than I used to be at not dwelling on stuff, but there are such things as ghosts, and sometimes they come and haunt you when you aren't expecting it.
I don't really know what else to write about. I've made a few goals for myself. For one, I want to become a big reader again. I've always loved it, but I want to really get into it again, more than I was back when I was in high school and before. I think that would be a better use of my time than dinking around on the computer. Also I'd like to get into better shape. I'm already in decent shape, but not the kind I want to be in. The reading, though, that's the main one. I got through eight chapters of my economics book today, which I felt pretty proud of. I'm not sure how much of it I retained, but it's complicated stuff in the first place, and unless you are an economics genius, one read through just won't cut it.
I'm a little bummed at my roommates' cleaning habits. How hard is it to clean and put your dishes away, especially if you are going to be gone? That's not asking much, is it? I won't be their mommy, and since this isn't just my apartment I can't, and don't want to, boss them around. But it's not just their place, either. I don't know how to talk to them about it. I'm afraid of sounding too lenient, or sounding like too much of an asshole. So far I've tried to be nice about asking, but being nice doesn't always seem to be effective...Sheesh.
There are other things I would like to discuss: for example I had a very interesting chat about a philosophy of language with Amanda, but that in itself would be too long, so I think I'll end it here.
Ultimately what I've tried to write in this post is too complicated to be conveyed satisfactorily by me at the moment, so I'm not sure how it will be read.
Hope all is well.
Tristan
I've just knocked out the first week of my senior year at Wesleyan. I think I can predict from this week I will be busy, but then again, I was expecting to be. Things have gone quite well thus far, I think. Socially, I really only have one good friend here, Amanda, so when I can I try to spend time with her. I'm becoming far more involved on campus than I ever have been before: a more consistent writer for the campus paper, a job as a tutor (or something like that) a few times a week, and possibly helping with the campus radio as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing what experiences and personalities might come my way.
Though, really, what I want to talk about is how empty, in a way, I've been feeling. Since coming to college, and I guess a little bit before then, but really since arriving here, I've really started to, not so much change what I think, as in change to completely, but to better discover what it is I believe. It's hard to describe, and as I'm a living, thinking being, it's not a static process (and nor is it for anyone else). But there is so much in the world that can't be quantified. I'm taking a course on world religions, and spoke with the professor outside of class for a couple of hours about the point of even studying religion, since it's so varied anyway, sometimes not even really religious in the terms Europeans would recognize it (no ethnocentricism implied: I'm using this example because I'm of European decent, but the inverse can be applied as well), and in most if not all cases, rather individual to at least some level. How can we study something, if it's so vague anyway? To study "something" we first have to agree there is a "something" to study, and yet that "something" I'm finding more and more, cannot be adequately defined, in every sense of the word. With so much overlap and change that happens in religion, language, philosophy, society, etc etc etc, I told my professor it's like trying to put a cookie-cutter in the ocean. And thus began our discussion, which was too long for me to dictate here, but in any case, I was satisfied with it.
I wonder if maybe questions weren't made to be answered, but rather explored. There is no definite end-all answer that I'm aware of. There is truth, but a definite truth, with a big T? A Platonic form? Plato said that there were forms: your lover is beautiful, but so is a sunset, yet they look nothing alike. How can they both be beautiful? Start to understand that, and you start to understand the Form: the base of whatever it is you are examining: beauty, pain, love, or whatever. It's a nice idea, but it's not one we can obtain, and even if we could, I'm not sure (m)any of us would understand it. Yet it lies within us. It maybe can't be explained, just experienced. A musician once said "If you have to ask what Jazz is, you'll never know," or something like that. I have yet to hear a jazz piece that I enjoy, but the same idea applies to just simply knowing something. CS Lewis once said about his conversion from Theism to Christianity that at one moment he wasn't not a Christian, and the next moment he was. It was like a person waking up. You don't know when you wake up, but suddenly you realize you are awake, and no longer asleep. You just know.
I feel somehow I've lost a lot. Of what? Dignity? Self-respect? I've gained a lot of experience, but at a cost. And yet again, who doesn't? And I'm still young, this surely isn't the end of anything for me, both in gaining and losing, provided I have a long, and indeed full life ahead of me. A full life involves all of these things, I think. There are some core values of mine, that while I believe in, things aren't as black and white as they used to be. I agree that there is a right and a wrong, and somethings I won't condone, but on the same hand, I can't judge them either, because I am not a saint. I guess we all have regrets that we live with.
A quote I love says "Character is what you do when you know you can get away with it". Sometimes I think I should reflect on that more, because sometimes I wonder if I'm really on the path to becoming the person I want to be. In friendships and just in life, and in self-esteem to myself I've made some blunders, and I'm not quite sure what to make of them, other than they are things to consider and to learn from.
And yet I've also began to learn how much stock I've put into things people say, instead of thinking for myself. I'm finding out, a bit to my surprise, that a lot of what I believed was either misinterpreted or misrepresented thus becoming something today that probably wasn't what it was intended to mean. I wonder how many writers of the Bible (or perhaps any religious text) would step out of Doc Brown's time machine, look around at what is being taught, slap there forehead, and say "That's not what I meant!" (At this point I would like to say I hope I'm not coming off as a type who is "Bible this, Bible that." I'm quite the contrary, but still these are questions I have.)
I want to find out what "I" believe and think, now. I look at some people who get into serious relationships at my age, and things seem to work out, and then I look at others and thing do anything but. So who's right? Of course, you can't generalize. Every situation is unique. So then again, I have to decide for myself what I believe is right for me. That's what we were supposed to do anyway: think and decide for ourselves.
(Of course, there are other examples too, the above is just one example I chose.)
It's unsettling to see this play out, but really, I look at it with a sense of adventure and wonder, and not so much fear. I do believe in God, that's one thing I can be sure of, and I believe he's (or whatever "gender" God may be) has gotten me through a lot of stuff. I'm not worried, but I am a bit alert. When everything starts to fall down, you become alert.
And is innocence really lost? Or is there other perspectives of looking at it. Everyone has made mistakes, so is anyone really "innocent"? Likely not. Does that make them bad people? I don't think so. Realizing where one has made a mistake is a big part of that, I believe.
And then, maybe I just think too much. The gravity of most situations ends up being rather exaggerated much of the time. I'm better than I used to be at not dwelling on stuff, but there are such things as ghosts, and sometimes they come and haunt you when you aren't expecting it.
I don't really know what else to write about. I've made a few goals for myself. For one, I want to become a big reader again. I've always loved it, but I want to really get into it again, more than I was back when I was in high school and before. I think that would be a better use of my time than dinking around on the computer. Also I'd like to get into better shape. I'm already in decent shape, but not the kind I want to be in. The reading, though, that's the main one. I got through eight chapters of my economics book today, which I felt pretty proud of. I'm not sure how much of it I retained, but it's complicated stuff in the first place, and unless you are an economics genius, one read through just won't cut it.
I'm a little bummed at my roommates' cleaning habits. How hard is it to clean and put your dishes away, especially if you are going to be gone? That's not asking much, is it? I won't be their mommy, and since this isn't just my apartment I can't, and don't want to, boss them around. But it's not just their place, either. I don't know how to talk to them about it. I'm afraid of sounding too lenient, or sounding like too much of an asshole. So far I've tried to be nice about asking, but being nice doesn't always seem to be effective...Sheesh.
There are other things I would like to discuss: for example I had a very interesting chat about a philosophy of language with Amanda, but that in itself would be too long, so I think I'll end it here.
Ultimately what I've tried to write in this post is too complicated to be conveyed satisfactorily by me at the moment, so I'm not sure how it will be read.
Hope all is well.
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 9:46 PM
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