..is hard to do?

It seems most of my life is on a project of curiosity — how has humanity through the ages viewed the transcendent realms: the location of hope, of curiosity, of mystery and potential and of infinite fear? Religions deal with this, philosophy like Existentialism deals with this. So as I view these various perspectives and values, I find that Christian beliefs are surprisingly sturdy, and they get pretty-well along with many ideas. In this dialogue, I end up finding a new sense of depth and goodness to my faith.

But that’s intellectual appreciation. It doesn’t really do much for the soul. I can appreciate an idea, but act entirely outside it’s parameters. And that’s where churches get curious. Sunday mornings are filled with squishy songs, and large groups of people wearing their heart on their sleeves, embracing the aesthetics of language and sound (albeit in the form of socially-normative prescribed behaviors). I think a lot, and I’m thinking about what’s occurring instead of embracing and embodying like other people.

I remember asking myself, around age 20, “Do I wanna be like (committed, expressive) person “A” over there?” It scared me. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be, but I was still attracted to what it could be like. Being convinced, being self-transcendent, being energetic, being hopeful. And for a time, I was, or at least thought I was, but it didn’t do/accomplish much. Finding myself no further in life, I guess I’ve regressed into myself again. Given alternatives, I’m thrilled with the person and work of Christ.. I’m thrilled to be with my wife in the face of being alone. Life together is great, and so much more dynamic.

I think what I’m saying is that reminders and motivators for love certainly vary by time, place and person. But what seems screwy to me is the general church assumption that worship-music helps people fall in love with Jesus more. That seems a little weird, since love itself is the kind of thing which multiples itself. Oh sure, eucharist is all about remembering, sermons are all about remembering, songs are about remembering, and Peter said his whole duty was to remind the church of what she forgets.. but there seems to me that sometimes words aren’t enough. Sometimes I need to talk with people. Sometimes I do like my heart on my sleeve, but oftentimes it’s been beat down into hiding with cliche. Authentic love is amazingly powerful, and that’s why I’m thrilled to be married. And that’s what I’m looking for among church-members. Does such love cross intellectual borders? Yes, but not when we’re all reveling in our own understandings. I’ll love you and I’ll listen to your stories about your kids, but I need you to listen and hear me ramble about Sartre & Wittgenstein.. because ya just did.

Mediate Transcendentalism: that’s my new title for the secular approach.

Let’s start the tale at the lowest level though, and tell it through the lives of most of us: the daily worker. I hated my job in accounting, mostly because it was rote, but my interest here is in the fact that we eight would subject ourselves to each other, the boss and the working conditions.  One could explain our behavior through all means and sorts of 17th or 18th century social logic with terms like “common good” or the like. And that is my point: the early modern approach to society was one of a larger-than-self to which the selfish individual sacrifices. This “larger-than-self” isn’t fully transcendent like a Neo-Platonic God, but rather still very immanent: we see everyday those for whom we are to be sacrificing. Despite this direct vision, modern economic secularism advocates indirect sacrifice.. “for the masses, for society, for the Ideal!” not “for you” or “for him.”

The trouble I see with secularism isn’t it’s half-way transcendentalism, as if it’s not good enough, or as if it’s a poor attempt at deity-replacement or something. Rather, my complaint for any transcendental way of life is that no one really wants to be indirectly loved. I especially don’t want to be “loved” because someone, something, or some ideal is telling them to love me.. that’s the late 20th century interest in “authenticity” (thank you very much Habermas). Fully immanent love/sacrifice is direct, personal and soul-filling (and perhaps soul-emptying!!). And despite how energy-taking it may be, it is at the same time never life-energy taking. A level of confidence must exist lest sacrifice be used as a tool for selfish ends.

k. that’s all I’ve got so far..

Before we got married, Mark and I decided that since travel is one of our favorite activities, we should schedule it into our lives once a year.  Ideally, we’d like: 1) A two-of-us trip 2) A “family” trip if we have kids eventually… 3) A “Hers” trip, and 4) A “His” trip. So i got my solo trip this week. Really more due to budget there was only enough money for one to go…and i thought i deserved a little trip/break after my boards. So i headed off with my carry-on to NOLA. Stayed with my friend Quinn in her dorm apartment… within walking distance to the French Quarter. Here’s my itinerary:

Day 0: Land in New Orleans airport and Dr Q picks me up, and we go eat sushi and ice cream with her friends.

Day 1: Walk to St Charles streetcar. Ride the streetcar to uptown (reminds me of Savannah, actually). Find the Farmer’s market. I’d heard that during the month of June, some chefs from Emeril’s restaurants (I think he has 3 places in town…) would be there featuring their seasonal cuisine. So I figured that for my budget, this was the best way to get some authentic Emeril food. As an amateur chef, I have to say that Emeril’s recipes always turn out well. I don’t necessarily like the fact that he has a “food empire” now, but his 3 restaurants in the city are all different with their unique ambiance and cusine. So he’s got some cred and respect.  All I can say is this: the dish i tried- Goat Cheese Cake w/ Tomato Coulis- (0r something like that) was very nice, cooling, and honestly, a really great late breakfast.  Ok, so it starts raining a bit while I’m there, so I pull out my handy-dandy rain jacket and the baseball cap Mark let me borrow and found a covered spot to enjoy my goat cheese… had Panko bread crumbs on top, not to mention that really light and slightly sweet tomato sauce, and some mint and chives on the side (yeah i ate them too).

Goat Cheese Breakfast

Alright so it kinda let up raining, so I started to head back to the streetcar. Of course it started POURING down rain. Finally made it back to the streetcar line… put in my dollar… didn’t work. The conductor said “do you have a dry dollar, ma’am because it will not be receptive.” Fortunately I did find a more dry one in my purse, so I didn’t get stranded there. So rode all the way back downtown, wringing out my skirt and pouring out my shoes in the process. Since i was already wet, I decided to keep sightseeing. Went to the Spanish plaza, rode a ferry across the Mississippi River (and back), walked a bit thru the Quarter and found a Po-boy place (playing both afternoon world cup group games!) with some awesome sweet tea for lunch.

Po'Boy Lunch

Headed back to the apartment, showered, changed to dry clothes, then out again with Quinn and friends for Mexican food and frozen margaritas.  Then out for hookah with Q. Good times catching up with an old friend.

Day 2: Much drier. Head to the Quarter, see the voodoo museum, then to Cafe du Monde for Beignets and Cafe au Lait. Very enjoyable. Also some quality jazz musicians on the corner-one man on trumpet and singing, the other on snare drum. Then to the cathedral. Really nice… not as impressive as Europe…or even Savannah or New York… but SO well air-conditioned. Just sat there awhile and rested.

Cafe au Lait and Beignets

Then went off looking to make a reservation for cooking school the next morning. At the first place, which I’d heard of before, I was wait-listed. So i decided to try my luck at a new place (with questionable existence according to google). It was located in the mall…which made me a bit skeptical… but as soon as I saw their classroom overlooking the Mississippi and their really lovely, expensive kitchen and their menu… Jambalaya, Shrimp Etoufee, Bananas Foster, Pralines… sold.  I’m only the 5th person to make a reservation for the class. yay! Then found some red beans and rice before retreating to the air-conditioned apartment. Out to a pub for a bite with Q and friends again, then Q and I head back to the French Quarter in hunt of a Hurricane. Bourbon street at night is pretty hilarious. Not scary, just comedically seedy with all the over-the-top clubs. Alright, so take a turn off Bourbon at St. Peters and find Pat O’Brien’s on the right. Reminded me of a pub Mark and I visited in Nottingham (reportedly the oldest still in existence) – new little rooms everywhere you turned (except in England it was caves, not a 200 year old house). So anyway we got a Hurricane (meh, vodka and Kool-aid?) and enjoyed the dueling-piano-bar-show for awhile.

Day 3: Cooking class. Really my favorite part of visiting the city. 2 chefs, 12 students. Both chefs were “creole” or from the city. One was of italian heritage, the other french. They both had great recipes from their Cajun (country) friends and relatives. I learned that Jambalaya was based on paella, and that it should be “herby,” not “spicy”.

Jambalaya

Really good dried meat they put in there. Then Etoufee.. nice and creamy. Then Bananas Foster. Then they offered us seconds! If you ever get a chance to take a cooking class in NOLA, check out Crescent City Cooks. They’re great. Then I walked around the French Market, and for some reason got more food- Muffaletta at Central Grocery. I usually don’t like salami, but with all that cheese and olives… surprisingly good Then off to the airport. Good thing I ate so much cuz my flight was delayed and i didn’t have time to stop for dinner since I was running thru the Atlanta airport. Made it home around midnight. Mark and Axel definitely missed me. (yeah yeah I missed them too, especially Mark)

"Muff-a-lotta"

Ahh the “New Media makes you dumb” debate. The WSJ has it going, and Slashdot picked it up.

My spin agrees with both sides, in the context of actor-responsibility/meaningless-drone. That itself is a rough divide for humanity; I mean, how many of us are *fully* determined in our thought patterns? Most of us are in small ways, but not in all ways. Further, we are only as determined by what is available to us. If no one is ever forced to turn off the TV, read a book, or read a full webpage, they never will. Humanity is *that* fickle. We’ll live in the present, assuming the past isn’t consequential. The Internet has only “given the people what they want” in that regard.  To this end, Shirky did a wonderful job with the history of new media; theories are only good if they hold water across time & place.

But this consistently distracted state is in some ways my own life. I have trouble filtering out background conversations when in a restaurant, among other examples. I’m sure it’s giving rise to affective disorders (let’s not get beyond simple parole: dis-order = out of order). How can someone know what to love if there is no order or priority to in and out-flow of info, people, experience, etc.

The spiritual consequences are huge then. Jesus’ 2 commands of love God & fellow-man could be well-undermined by this novelty. That’s why I’m agreeing with a friend’s recent Facebook status: “Discipline is remembering what you love.” Discipline isn’t about saying “no,” so much as remembering, and remembering & reflecting is being killed off.

Reflection is a time-intensive activity, one which now-now-now-or-you’ll-miss-it-or-get-too-far-behind media won’t allow for, and as noted, is required:

“The researchers were surprised by the results. They had expected that the intensive multitaskers would have gained some unique mental advantages from all their on-screen juggling. But that wasn’t the case. In fact, the heavy multitaskers weren’t even good at multitasking. They were considerably less adept at switching between tasks than the more infrequent multitaskers. “Everything distracts them,” observed Clifford Nass, the professor who heads the Stanford lab.” — Nicholas Carr

This is exactly what the other side of the debate agrees with as well:

“Reading is an unnatural act; we are no more evolved to read books than we are to use computers.”–Clay Shirky

But what I like about Clay’s statement is the next line: “Literate societies become literate by investing extraordinary resources, every year, training children to read.” Resources maybe anything from mothers to educators, from $ for private tutoring to the publishing industry.. but it is always about time. My own time reading is only worth it if I spend the time to stop every other paragraph or so. Ideas need to sink in for any foundation to be placed. Who wants a skyscraper built on unset, wet concrete? That’s the best analogy I can give for what the Internet is doing: providing shortcuts for our memory, and keeping us from remembering anything. Even the act of scrolling a webpage is vague. Turning a page is much more definitive. I can’t glance-back as easily as I can scroll back & forth. (Ok, maybe not the best example..)

I suppose what this means for future information-design is clearspace. Data can also be held better when it is interacted with. Static graphs are visualization of too many numbers; interaction/overlays, compare-contrast is a beginning for too many graphs. Fickle “daily info-graphics” sent to my inbox or RSS reader only clog my mind, unless they spark interest  for further research (assuming I know where & how to research it!). I’d much rather have the data in contrast with something else, both of which are in connection with present values and personal states of knowledge. This way graphics could be delivered to my inbox for me, which overlap/redundant, and over-time help me learn and meat specified goals.

And finally for a sociological perspective. This little idea about remembering can be expanded further to include any binary-division, even gender-roles. While there’s a pressure from amongst egalitarians to “be equal” between/across genders, there is also a consequence of each gender doing everything, overburdening itself with too much. But that is still no “win” for anyone who would espouse a fascist (Modernist) sociology, where each person must fit the role assigned 100%. (I’m looking at you SB-preachers!)

Update: NYT picked this up too with their own spin that sounds like a good middle ground/awareness campaign.

Paul was a missionary. He went on missionary journeys. He wrote missionary letters; letters to those who needed to understand his mission, the gospel: Jesus.
Now, what can we say about the North American Evangelical church today? Need they hear more of first-generation “Christian living” (which to later generations sounds like moralism) or second-generation “Christian living”, which might actually be more “applicable”?

What is it a missionary does? Overtly, communicate Jesus. Secondarily, covertly, intentionally or unintentionally, they communicate “Judeo-Christian values”. Paul however, saw the *lack* of Judeo-Christian values & after preaching Christ, preached a moral system to clarify what behaviors are becoming of a Christian.
Directly, abstractly, do I agree with such procedure? Sure. I’d rather have Paul preaching morality after redemption than before, and that is what he did. Were I to sit him down and ask him if he was even preaching morality, he would never even agree to such a statement.

Now, bring in the Contemporary Evangelical context. First, the every-man has much of the Judeo-Christian ethic already (relative to the Corinithians, say), so simply: why the Pauline addiction by Evangelicals?

I suppose my question and concern is simpler: What books (generally) “apply” more to the later church than the early church? Oddly enough, how about those which were written to the 2nd generation of church-goers! Hebrews-Revelation. Such a question has already been answered, and few will doubt it.

So why then is there so much emphasis on preaching Pauline lit & not enough of the General Epistles? I admit, I love the General Epistles (potentially for their novel factor), and I’ve never heard enough from them. Practically, there is more content. And I’m not going to say a moralism cannot be found in the General Epistles; moralism exists whereever you seek for it. Likewise, “Human nature is evil: we will find something anywhere to become addicted to, to build our pride through.” True, and for that, perhaps a sufficiently changing terrain of call-and-response in preaching & personal study is necessary.

So why the divide between Jesus & Paul? And more to my concern, why the Pauline unacceptance by socially minded “liberals”, as opposed to a consistent reprimand of Christians for not being sufficiently Jesus-like (by “liberals”)?

I suppose my final stance of Paul, generally, is one of “how to be a missionary in a non-Judeo-Christian ethnos (society).” A fine missionary, showing the tenacity and patience needed, and surely we all face this in “preaching” to ourselves. Yet I suppose I find him to be an extension of the book of Acts (and for good reason!) — akin to the “Books of History” (Writings) in the Old Testament (for our example) than any pure, direct. But of course, this is way too general a statement to uphold for each and every verse; more a generic background tone for the genre than the guitar-solo in the foreground.

Background Point #1: The 20 Statements Test
I was forced to do the 20 statements test last Monday in Socio Theory class, only to discover 2 things:
(a) a deep, anti-labeling drive/push (based surely in too many labels placed upon me through my life)..
(b) a natural reaction into the subjective.
Obviously this is an accusation that I’m self-focused..

But this sociology class is teaching me more about myself than any other class. It is showing me some distinct traits which are good & bad. Philosophy only gives me options. I like studying the human nature, and I like considering the philosophical options, however, I still enjoy some concrete things every now & then. But I’m not a scientist. I’d rather let someone else run the numbers, do the methods (is that what research assistents are for?). I’ve got plenty of ideas.

Background Point #2: Carmen’s Theory of Society.
I (like most people) value what’s in me too much; others read this in me, and find no ‘room’ in/nearby me for themselves to value me/attributes of/things in me. I have been actively stopping other ppl from valuing me. I should start letting other ppl value my qualities.. cuz that’s their job, not mine.  Society only works when other ppl value what’s in me, and I in them.

Background Point #3: NYT Depression Article. Just read it. (over & over again! )

Quick, Fake Responses to all this, in particular to Carmen’s Theory:
-Waaay too idealistic.
-That’ll never work
-That hasn’t worked
-That’s why I’m so self-consumed; others never valued me
-Ok, so maybe some ppl valued me, but I didn’t value them, cuz of an unequal distribution. That is, Older ppl might have valued me, and I might have valued them for their place in my life (being old ppl).. but a lack of peer-valuing has contributed to an uneasiness in me, and self-reflection. The “rumination” theory of the mind, that we get focused and obsessive about certain attributes we got picked-on by others long ago.

Perhaps a real response:
What I value is what I value; it is initially sourced in what I find outside myself (like everybody else). But because of various ruminations/imaginations/strong-mindedness, I create a world about me, fanciful, unique-to-me, and nearly impenetrable.

It all starts with something very small which I find amazing or appauling. Then, instead of  (a) “tempering” any next idea or thought regarding this against reality, or (b) perhaps as many others do: just leave it be, I continue on my mental jaunt, which to me is fun. It no longer seems imaginative but very, very real – more real than the external world in which the idea was sourced. This, of course is not simply my personal, willful “commitment” to rationalism; a free-willful choice is hardly what I feel! Rather, my mind has come to a near-enslavement of rumination by sheer habit. This enslavement is where I feel all/most of my determinism/anti-will ideology.

Consequences of all this:
I feel oddly confused, relieved and surprised by all this self-learning. Carmen noted how most of this information did not come from inside of me. (Read: I’m not that amazing after all.) Second, this is all certainly a relief, that there is a new platform from which I can actually live my life and take part in what actually is the external world.

Most importantly, for all those med-students who wish to be psychiatrists (which likely I should have seen a loooooooong time ago! ..but they’re all booked up in this city..) I have some words of advice:
1) You will not solve your patient’s problems unless you understand their context, and method of mental processes. Read: I hope you took your psychology & sociology classes seriously in undergrad!
2) You will not change the world with drugs. Hopefully you already know this. But hopefully you understand your role as a counselor more than as a doctor.
3) You will get more “data” on mental issues than anyone else ever will. You have the chance to be the best at what you do. Make sure you get the data & be a good mental scientist. (See #1).

In a tribute to Jessica Hagy‘s oh-too-obvious work (but we still love it!) I hereby present:

In the past 20 hours, I have heard of “snow-pocalypse” on FoxNews* & “Comcast/NBC mergepocalypse” / “Comcatastrophe” from the Consumerist**. Need I mention the “financial meltdown” from 2-4 months ago?? I’m not convinced.  Sure the snow is “record setting“, but that just means it’s rare, which means exciting. It’s fun, it’s February, it’s supposed to snow! And the more southerly it snows, the faster it will melt. My real concern is the general public (and news media’s) willingness to panic. Panic attacks don’t get anyone anywhere.

Enough already.

Notes:

* I do not watch FoxNews. Ever.
** I was pointed to this link by a friend, which was amusing.

Philosophy, by the way, is not about saying “I don’t believe that” and it sure isn’t about saying “I don’t see/can’t see… how … is..” Philosophy is that incredulity, which says to your beliefs not, “you are wrong”, but “how is it that you function?” It’s not a matter of if your beliefs are or are not ‘foundational’ or ‘supported’, or ‘right’, but how your beliefs are destroying or building yourself, another person, another society.

Now, go ahead and say I’m wrong, but please do so in an original way.

1) Mention everything (in passing), so the readers (graders, profs) know you know all that is involved.

2) Mention only what’s within-scope & keep it a tight (albeit closed) paper. But then what of all the contingencies I just left open? What of all the things I know are involved, but don’t have time or space to mention?? These are the questions which drive me (a) crazy and (b) back to #1.

I’ve previously gone with #1, but no one seems to like that way of writing. It’s certainly how my brain works. I’ve got a paper due in exactly 48 hours. Looks like I’ll try for #2. Still I fuss: “Sure it’s easier to leave stuff out, but it’s a Western-minded induced inaccuracy!” ..And I’m a fan of accuracy.