more questions and answers

[alexr_rwx]

Do you ever feel like this?

The question is:
I am hungry, but I can't find anybody to eat with me. I am alone, and people I'd like to be hanging out with are busy behind closed doors, getting sweet lovin', or out with interesting people doing fun things in the real world. I would like to be getting sweet lovin', but I don't even know how to begin meeting people, and the people it would be easy to meet, categorically, are at best uninteresting and at worst mind-numbing and inane. I feel like I don't really belong anywhere; where I once had a group of folks to be around, they've dispersed. Not only do I have no feeling of the divine (did I ever?), which is desolate and lonely in and of itself, I feel guilty and deceptive, even being in a church, and I've never really felt at home there anyway -- it's full of people I had trouble relating to; I often wonder about the sincerity (or at least the level of self-examination) of those who proclaim a faith. In my own country, I feel like an alien, and when I'm abroad, I'm a tourist. There is no particular culture to which I pertain; other geeks even make me uncomfortable.

The answer is:
Be more proactive about it. Go find people. Join a club. Do something interesting that's not sitting in your room writing whiney livejournal entries. Pay more attention to your own mind, and don't let yourself be stupid -- watch for the tendency to despair. There are people out there; either go be with them, else do more work, or maybe get more exercise. Further, "real people" actually aren't uninteresting -- just find out what it is about them that's cool.

Just bloody well do something. Deep down inside, the answer to everything is "So, what are you going to do about it?"

Comments

[scottique.livejournal.com]

I like you. You make me happy. The end. :-)

[agonistes]

A few questions you might want to consider:

Where did you get your sense of the divine from before?

When and why did you stop having a sense of the divine?

Do you really need a sense of the divine? Really? (Not 'you' as in 'all of humanity'; 'you' as in 'Alex'.)

If you do, why do you need one?

And if you do, where are some places that you can find one, or at least look for one?

It's this last question that is potentially the most interesting -- I've got a few observations, but this isn't the forum for them. We should talk. Yeah.

And like Christin, I like you, and you make me happy, and this is the end. :)

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Bleah. I'm not sure how to respond to that. I mean, the obvious (ly wrong) answer is "well, I'll try out a different church/sect/religion/cult!" You can't just go and pick up religion at the QuikTrip... because, unless it's Buddhism or UUism, they've just got a different external style and theology. And the theology (or non-theology, in the Buddhist case) is the whole point. Relationship with God is there so that you have some grounding, something stable, some base of operations, and (depending on your take on things) either somebody who cares, all the time, or just an ideal to work towards -- but either way, it's not a cold, uncaring, totally human-ambivalent universe.

I think, deep down inside, one may just have to come to grips with how, fundamentally, there may be no basis for anything... but how? How can that be a comfortable idea?

But, I mean, smile, Cthulhu loathes you. At least there's that.

[agonistes]

I didn't pose the questions as some form of pop quiz, you know -- these are the kind of questions that would go under that fucking 'Critical Thinking' heading at the end of the chapter. Things to consider, and all of that.

...I think there are certain things you don't understand about Unitarian Universalism. The bottom line is that people are more important than dogma...but that doesn't mean that theology doesn't matter. What it means is that everybody has a right to their own way of figuring out what the world is, what it means, and what it's all for. And one goal of most UU congregations is to be a community for helpful research to this end.

Everybody -- everybody -- has to choose what to believe, even if that choice is not to think about the big questions. Doesn't matter whether you're Buddhist, UU, Protestant, Catholic, Baha'i, atheist, agnostic -- whatever. You come up with something that will get you through the day.

The way I address the 'what if there's no basis for anything?' question is this: if there's no basis for anything, I can't do anything about it, so I'll just trust my own perception of reality and live that way the best I can. Why lie awake and worry about things you have absolutely no control over?

Everybody brings their own baggage to the big questions. Find what works for you.

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

You keep using the word "dogma", and I think you mean to imply all of the negative connotations associated with the word. Replace "dogma" with "doctrine", though... the point is the teaching. The point is proposing an answer to the question "so how does this all work, and how can I fit in to it?" That's the important bit. Any sort of "right thing happens to the happy man" standpoint is essentially a faith in the idea that everything's going to work out -- why? Why is everything going to work out? What does that mean?

So everybody's got to choose, yeah... but the thing is, deep down inside, we suspect that there's some sort of external reality. I mean, you can say that you want to help everybody work out their own spiritualities...

... but at that point, you're almost forced to accept that it doesn't really matter (unless you're going to get totally relativist), and that one's own theological take on Stuff is essentially just the spiritual aspirin that they take to ease their existential angst headache. It's merely, to get Marxist, the opiate to keep people from getting too twitchy.

(Alternatively, you could posit a benign creator who wants for people to, more or less, in a very, very wide fashion, split infinitives and be happy, and doesn't so much care what they believe, because it's sickeningly complex, and at the end of it all, it's going to collect up all the souls and do something cool with them. I think that's what I used to think... and I think maybe you expressed an idea like that not too long ago?)

[agonistes]

... the point is the teaching. The point is proposing an answer to the question "so how does this all work, and how can I fit in to it?" That's the important bit.

Agreed.

Any sort of "right thing happens to the happy man" standpoint is essentially a faith in the idea that everything's going to work out -- why? Why is everything going to work out? What does that mean?

I can't answer these questions from the UU standpoint on this -- there isn't one. I can answer from what I believe, though, so that's what I'm going to do.

The reason I've taken that Roethke poem as part of my own personal doctrine is that it makes my life easier to believe in a benevolent universe than a malevolent one. I prefer to believe in a laissez-faire approach to the big questions. It's preference with no real evidence, and that's all. Faith, if you'd like.

As for 'what does that mean'...there's some higher Something-Or-Other, similar to the Deist God -- a benevolent power behind the universe. There's some way that things are going to fall out, and that way is a good way.

So everybody's got to choose, yeah... but the thing is, deep down inside, we suspect that there's some sort of external reality.

Who do you mean by 'we'? Because I doubt that everybody thinks about these sorts of questions -- or rather, takes inventory that deep within their own mind.

...you're almost forced to accept that it doesn't really matter (unless you're going to get totally relativist), and that one's own theological take on Stuff is essentially just the spiritual aspirin that they take to ease their existential angst headache.

And it doesn't matter, really. As regards the 'is there a fundamental basis for anything?' question, we can't change the answer, and right now we can't know the answer, so we might as well believe whatever makes our perceived realities easier to deal with. The spiritual aspirin metaphor is a good one, and the idea it expresses is one that I agree with.

I think that's what I used to think... and I think maybe you expressed an idea like that not too long ago?

I did, and what I believe is similar to what you stated, but with a few (important) differences. I won't get into those, though. Not the forum for them.

And if that's what you used to think, we've looped back around to my original set of questions.

[reality-calls.livejournal.com]

   You can't just go and pick up religion at the QuikTrip...

What, you're not familiar with the recent cooperation between the major global retail outlets and Christian sects to make religion a commercially available item?

The truly sad part is, I'm not sure whether I meant that jokingly or not...


      "Live from the People's Republic"

[reality-calls.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I know exactly what you mean.  I used to feel that way all the time since I moved out here.  I think it is the result of being left to one's own devices, i.e. loneliness.(well, that's rather obvious I suppose...)  I've actually spent a good bit of time pondering it, and from a philosophical perspective, I can't necessarily say that it's entirely a bad feeling.

I worry about this whole "need to belong" feeling.  It doesn't sit well with me.  I've been tempted to and seen others respond to this feeling with abandon, associating with anyone and substantially changing their own personalities to fit in.  The result usually involves a large amount of "groupthink," which is completely revolting to me.  I'm at the #1 party school in the nation, here, and I've seen some fairly horrific things result from the "gotta belong" mentality.

It's also somewhat ridiculous, in a sense.  Everyone is an individual; nobody really "belongs" to any one group. So why is it that the human psyche has such difficulty dealing with this fact?  Why is the whole idea of becoming a faceless member of the collective so seductive?  Philosophically I can't help but see it as a human flaw, yet there is definitely a need there in the human psyche...

Try though I might to analyze the situation scientifically, it doesn't seem to get rid of the feeling, and this deeply disturbs me.(on a somewhat detached, rational level, that is)  My scientific perspective may seem bleak, but I've seen the results of willful ignorance for personal happiness, and it's disturbing.

Also, there's the fact that my scientific perspective only *seems* bleak; it really isn't bleak so much as indeterminate.  For instance, just because there's no solid evidence for the existence of God doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that He can't exist, just that there's no way of knowing right now.  Here's another fact that I find it difficult to come to terms with, despite the rationale.  Why is the truth of the human situation so difficult to grasp?  Why would we rather live in ignorance of our own ignorance than admit that there are a few things we just don't know?

The realization that my situation isn't really as bad as it feels has helped me manage it without doing anything stupid.  I still go to social events and such, but not to belong so much as to just be myself in public without getting nervous.  I've found a certain level of egotism helps, but only as long as it's fairly small and serves merely to stave off the feeling of wanting to act like everyone else.  Also, plenty of sleep takes a lot of the stress off of life for me.  Aside from that, I haven't made too much progress determining just how to get around these feelings, but I'm working on it.  Who knows?  Maybe some day I'll come across the perfect group for me, but until then I'll be myself and see who accepts me.  The ones who do that are my real friends, after all...

Hmm...  This was more of a post than a reply...  I started it with the intent of offering some consolation, but it developed into one of those annoying introspective dissertations on my life.  Oh, well...

      "Live from the People's Republic"