reflections on tolstoy

the gist
in philosophy we are reading parts of tolstoy's confession. if you haven't read it, the gist is that this famous author named leo tolstoy is describing how he came to success in every way, and then realized how life is meaningless (listen leo, i could told ya that years ago).

he wants to take comfort in his family, but he realizes that because his family are all human beings, they are caught in the same meaningless scenario called life. he wonders if he should continue to nurture them and act as if life is meaningful in and of itself, or if he should expose them to his realization of emptiness.

of his family, tolstoy says "every step in cognition leads them up to this truth. and the truth is death."

he also tries to take shelter in his accomplishment as a writer (artist), but he realizes its emptiness as well. tolstoy sees art as a mirror of life, and life as an empty venture. "it was clear to me that art was an adornment of life, a decoy of life... how, then could i entrap others?" he laments.

"i could no longer console myself with what is saw in the mirror, namely, that my situation was stupid and desperate." sounding pretty human there, amigo.

tolstoy's dilemna
so he starts asking questions:
"'what is the meaning of life?'"
"'what will come of my life?'"
"'why does everything which exists exist, and why do i exist?'"

tolstoy then concludes that the science he studies will not answer these questions in a satisfactory manner. "... i understood that it was not right for me to look for an answer to my question in rational knowledge, and that the answer given by rational knowledge was only an indication that the answer might be got if the question were differently put..."

so he puts his questions differently and examines them in the light of the infinite, ignoring for those purposes the things he had come to know about science. "thus, outside the rational knowledge... i was inevitably led to recognize that all living humanity had a certain other rational knowledge, faith, which made it possible to live."

in essence, this philosopher settles on blind faith coupled with the ignorance of reality. he throws himself at the the closest religion at hand and becomes a more or less devout christian. his idea of science doesn't support his belief, but then again science had already made the world a meaningless location and vocation for tolstoy. he wanted to again believe something so that his life would no longer be meaningless.


tolstoy essentially concludes that he would rather be ignorant about reality than have to face its potential meaninglessness. our friend cypher from the matrix is having a similar dilemna in the video below.


my conclusions?
i would go back to science. don't close the door on observation so quickly as to conclude that everything is meaningless. science and art in themselves just reflect the finite world, which many of us have already "discovered" doesn't hold any answers directly.

however, the finite world also systematically and beautifully speaks something more than just the futility and hopelessness that tolstoy discovered. the world, as expressed by science and art seems to be alluding to both a creation and a creator. as an ancient hebrew poet once said, "the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands."

i would challenge anyone who disagrees to look and listen with an open mind. these findings are not only mine, and they are not only the mob(err, church)'s. i think you'll find that there's really something to them.

good questions, bad solutions. why is it there? why am i here? what does it all mean? tolstoy has some qood questions, but he is trapped by his previous assumptions that the world is only the world, and is thus not open to the possibility that it might mean something after all.

we can start to discover purpose in art, in science, and in the people around us because nature, human and otherwise, is the paramount witness to the existence of a living God.

as ever,

joel

picture by andrew

life after love

i sit in lectures, cafeterias and coffee shops in which apathy is the prevailing tone. and i can hear the hurt behind so many cool and disaffected voices as the people get up to leave. there is a serious lack of purpose at this campus.

so this is the liberty we've come to know - that nothing could possibly matter less than our actions, inactions and empty rhetoric; that we are pathetically helpless in our quest for meaning, that we are weak and incapable in our empty strivings, and that we are small and flailingly ineffectual when put in perspective.

we've all been through a bad break-up. we've all been addicted or lonely, used-up or forgotten, broken and/or phony. hard situations have provided the context for even harder decisions. sometimes it is only natural to accept defeat. our failures can lead us to question why we tried so hard - to succeed, to prevail, to do the right thing - in the first place.

the mystery is not why people give up when faced with heart-crushing circumstances. on the contrary, the wonder is that we're still alive.

we are told by friends that things will be fine, that we're just having a hard time and that (chin up!) this will all blow over soon. deep down, we all know that blind optimism is a scam. worse than the original depression, a false promise for the future can destroy what remaining sense of security and well-wishing we still harbored within us. an old jewish proverb says that "hope deferred makes the heart sick."

please don't listen to that trash. hold out for something more reliable, for Someone who really knows the future. i will submit that optimism is a fool's errand and hope is his calling. maybe God has a purpose for people, and He hasn't completely abandoned us to our circumstances.

why? i can't tell you for certain. but listen, and maybe you'll connect with something greater as well. maybe hope really doesn't disappoint. take care what you wish for, and even more what you hope in. as ever,

joel

my aim

chatting with a christian leader today, i had thoughts about God that i haven't had in a while. i got a chance to redefine what it is i'm looking for whilst tossing the status quo out the window and off the balcony. simply put, what i want is living water.


i have all these needs, wants, thoughts and theological constructions (thoughts about God) pervading my consciousness many times during the day. i have life mechanics, too - work and school. its easy for me to forget what my real search is.


its high time today for me to take a hard look at the things that matter - the search for meaning, the pursuit of truth, the realization of real love and the best context for relationship.
i want in every way to grasp for understanding, to seek out wisdom, to treasure and build relationship, to make my home with the invisible God.


one interesting thing that i read today was paul's address to the athenians. maybe its just because i'm reading the socratic dialogues (greek philosophical dialogues ~460 years before paul's speech), but the language in it really seems to resonate with something deep in me. i want to know truth, and i want to experience the intangible.


and so, that's what i want to do - in my thoughts, in my actions, in my conversations and in this blog. please join in. i want to hear your thoughts, your contributions, your encouragements and your condemnations. let's get humble, honest and open to being wrong. whatever we do, let's keep this conversation going.
as ever,


joel


p.s. "it is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings" - ancient jewish proverb

from behind the missing glass

raving mad man, biking up and down the street and screaming about the bus.

and i'm sitting in a coffee shop, behind a window with a conspicuously missing pane, reading plato and thinking how raving lunacy is also a group thing.

the validity of a culture is directly threatened by those within it who are willing to treat the life and death of their neighbors like a political issue.

children behind the wire in the auschwitz death camp (1941 - 1945) [holocaustresearchproject.org]

thoughts from the concrete steps

last night i was sitting on the staircase thinking about how i would have virtually no knowledge of how to build it, and no ambition to see it built, had there not come someone before me who both knew how, and deemed it important. 

i know so very few things, but kind of piggy-back on the body of knowledge and accomplishment that has been accumulated by both my predecessors and contemporaries.

when it comes down to it, few of us know enough to get by without this conglomeration of past and present thinkings and doings, and no single one of us could rebuild if we suddenly lost all information and infrastructure.

kind of pathetic, isn't it? we build our lego houses on the skyscrapers of those who went before us. our every action is solely dependent on that ever-expanding collection of knowledge that is mostly the product of shaper minds, of stronger and more determinate souls.

well, i hope this doesn't lastingly depress anyone. look at the brightside! we have a morning full of quasi-meaningful, hyper-caffeinated activities to look to, come sunrise.
as ever,

joel

p.s. this post by andrew is really intriguing

the notes just stab the staff between the ribs

i find it hard to believe that there's absolutely nothing true out there.

Hypnotized in to a Matrix - Choose you pill @ Yahoo! Video

this is the agony of waking in a sleeping world.
this is the sharpforcetrauma of caring too much again.

how can everything be a lie?
not sure, but still looking,

-joel

my friends the crazies

journalism, at its most basic level,  can change minds, attitudes and policies.
poetry engages hearts.

if you want to get to the whole person, for good or for evil, start a blog.
freedom of the press, while not an end-all or cure-all by any means, has enabled some of the most swift and dynamic political and social change that the world has ever seen. speed is the key element of this ever-changing landscape.

and its only getting faster.

news used to break in weeks, then days, then morning and night editions and then...

i'm back. just checked my twitter feed.

as the late a.j. liebling reminds us, "freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
however, with the advent of blogs (pronounced web-lawg), every one of my friends can be the owner of  a figurative "press" (wordpress, blogger, livejournal, etc.).

anyone could potentially start a blog in two minutes for free (and grandpa, if you're reading this, you really need to start one). a good blog can combine literary elements with journalistic motivations for a reading experience that is genuinely entertaining, enriching and worthwhile to the reader.

a few examples of brilliant blog-erary-ism:

the world awakens
emily writes some of the best poetry i've ever read. she is extremely down-to-earth, in a dreamy sort of way. her posts are chock of contradictory literature that's worth a read for sure!

hipstercrite
the tagline for this blog reads: "because pretending we're not hipsters is what we hipsters do best." well said lauren. and, by the way, you're a brilliant writer with some whack politics and an awkward fascination with drastically older famous men.

hyperbole and a half
allie and "boyfriend" have some grand adventures. i especially like how velicoraptors are so prominently and frequently mentioned in this blog.

puddle werld: a land of fantastic adventures
the late "puddle werld" displayed erratic posts by mr. puddle who was at once ingenious and sociopathic. though its no longer updated, the archives still exist. if you click on "older posts" at the bottom of the page you can access some strange and wonderful material from days gone by.