He had no right to feel unsatisfied. But this illusion of status was a cloud to Joshua, obscuring the down-to-earth details he needed to structure his life. He did not care anymore about whether what he was writing was good or not. He just needed to fulfill his quota—four pages a day. It was a blistering pace, but he was determined to stick to it because he knew he needed too. He had never attempted anything like this before and never written a longer paragraph. But here it was, in all its postmodern glory. Ultimately he chose how to create meaning from experience, but that was unfortunate, because he derived meaning from few experiences. Many of his daily actions were unconscious, automatic. He never had to think about them. He just did them. Now he was inching toward the finish line when he would feel unsatisfied yet again for not having written a story but a very long paragraph indeed which was mostly rambling. But it was in Joshua’s nature to be incoherent.
Let's talk try to talk about two smatterings of ideology, postmodernity and spirituality. What is postmodernity? This is hard to answer, mainly because the term itself resists definition. To put it loosely, it is a collection of narratives that refuse concepts of universal truth: skeptical of interpretations that claim to explain everything.
And what is spirituality? It is, as I mentioned, the kind of deep fervor that is rooted into your bones; it is the feeling and thought that love and community are paramount. Interestingly enough, churches and temples and mosques do not have monopolies on spirituality. It can rest snugly in the individual.
It's the abnegation of intellectual poverty—be the nerd you are inside. In some sense, there can be such people as 'spiritual nerds.' I wouldn't really count myself among those ranks, but I'm sure you know people really interested in theology or defenses of a particular faith.
And I sort of, um, choke up when I talk about spirituality because it's the real thing that sustains me through the long nights when I'm lying there, just thinking and reflecting. In the book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Mario likes Alcoholics Anonymous meetings because people aren't afraid to cry and break down and talk about God with a straight face.
And I say yes. Yes to public crying. Yes to breaking down in front of people. Yes to the talk about God that is real; sometimes, we have to realize that men and women are very fragile creatures; we are hurt and torn down and bruised and wounded and ripped apart from the inside; we all mess up and sometimes the messes leave stains that can never be washed out. As someone who has the emotional constitution of a child, I try to cover up traces of my humanity: my insecurities, mistakes, and small grudges.
It's raining outside and God is crying. He is crying because there is so much that the world could be. I walk and walk along the Schuylkill and see the wonder that has been put forth into existence. But seeing nature at work, I realize how very small I am. How insignificant I am in context of the cosmos, which are orders of magnitude older and larger than me. There is that view: life goes on regardless of us. This is no pessimism but optimistic and thorough realism applied to life.
So let's share. Let's share to others what we've got. Let's talk about our pain in a real way; let's show the tears that God himself cries; let's empathize with the very pathetic; let's listen closely to what others have to say. The dawn is coming—and it will have a lot to say. This is the spiritual and secular perspective I am talking about. All that ugliness within us... it has a place: the air around us. Release it to the birds and the sky.
It's the abnegation of intellectual poverty—be the nerd you are inside. In some sense, there can be such people as 'spiritual nerds.' I wouldn't really count myself among those ranks, but I'm sure you know people really interested in theology or defenses of a particular faith.
And I sort of, um, choke up when I talk about spirituality because it's the real thing that sustains me through the long nights when I'm lying there, just thinking and reflecting. In the book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Mario likes Alcoholics Anonymous meetings because people aren't afraid to cry and break down and talk about God with a straight face.
And I say yes. Yes to public crying. Yes to breaking down in front of people. Yes to the talk about God that is real; sometimes, we have to realize that men and women are very fragile creatures; we are hurt and torn down and bruised and wounded and ripped apart from the inside; we all mess up and sometimes the messes leave stains that can never be washed out. As someone who has the emotional constitution of a child, I try to cover up traces of my humanity: my insecurities, mistakes, and small grudges.
It's raining outside and God is crying. He is crying because there is so much that the world could be. I walk and walk along the Schuylkill and see the wonder that has been put forth into existence. But seeing nature at work, I realize how very small I am. How insignificant I am in context of the cosmos, which are orders of magnitude older and larger than me. There is that view: life goes on regardless of us. This is no pessimism but optimistic and thorough realism applied to life.
So let's share. Let's share to others what we've got. Let's talk about our pain in a real way; let's show the tears that God himself cries; let's empathize with the very pathetic; let's listen closely to what others have to say. The dawn is coming—and it will have a lot to say. This is the spiritual and secular perspective I am talking about. All that ugliness within us... it has a place: the air around us. Release it to the birds and the sky.
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