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

[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.