yeah.
so i’ve been gone a while. not like anyone would notice or anything.
obligatory update stuff
in recent weeks i’ve been busy with planning and executing my family’s reunion kid’s games extravaganza (i really need to chronicle that here sometime) and generally getting on with life. chiefly, that’s been trying to see what the next step is in this crazy career path i’ve started for myself.
somewhere in the thick of all this i bought a new toy, convinced that if i had a proper tool to compose with, i’d be able to update my blog more often, write more convincing & timely essays and generally get up to speed with the rest of the world. well, that was a convienient story, and i have significant doubts as to it actually coming to pass. but, evidenced by the current tapping away at the keyboard, at least some of it must be true.
anyways, for the record, here’s my updated workspace:
not much has changed from the old version clutter-wise, but now, part of this one’s mobile. the machine in the background has decided to go belly-up, or at least not boot properly. the pipes are all there, there’s just no one at the switch. i’ve backed up all of my data; i just need to format the hdd and finally upgrade to the current linspire build. (that’s the linspire live disc i’ve got on there now.) i don’t know how well the old 800mhz clunker will take to it, but if the live version is any indication, at least it’ll run. and that’s an improvement over what i have now.
inspiration
anyway, i’ve finally been inspired to log something today because i was lured out of my routine of working-crazy-time-then-sleeping-crazy-time-waiting-for-work-again by my superman-fanatic cousin who dragged me 1.5 hours away to see the new epic, in 3-d, no less).
the point isn’t the film, per se. it’s closer to the juxtaposition of seeing it followed by watching bill moyers’ pbs special on faith and reason. to see a larger-than-life update of the christ story, then to see it (figuratively) deconstructed by a catholic believer and an athiest was a surreal, and fitting experience, given my current internal agitation.
passion
i keep getting the impression that my current occupation in the putting-other-people’s-words-on-the-page business isn’t where i should be right now. when given my own space and time, i’d rather be churning out my own thoughts, researching my own leads and reporting on the results, not that you can tell, of course. this isn’t journalism i’m speaking of, for the hustle & bustle of getting the scoop on breaking news isn’t in my veins, but parts of that do sound appealing.
combine all this foment with my religious upbringing, all of which isn’t evident to you because i haven’t filled you in on it yet. at this point, suffice it to say that if i could gain college credit for the effort i’ve put into study independently and otherwise over my lifetime, i’d be either ordained or at least credentialled by now–i’m really in the wrong business.
see, but here’s the thing, i don’t feel right putting on a résumé that i’ve read through both the king james and niv versions of the bible (mostly, i always got stuck in the major prophets in both versions), that i’ve sat through (and considered) countless sermons from four different christian traditions, that i’ve looked at the idea of christianity specifically, and belief generally, from several different aspects and ultimately found it wanting. (for the record, i consider myself a gnostic agnostic–a bit redundant, i’ll grant you, but i believe that there is enough evidence to be such.) but that i’m still driven to search, that i still desire to know. this has no place on a résumé as i understand them, but it drives my life.
the search for my place in the world, the search for our place in the universe, has driven me to consume as much information as i can gather. to see life as experienced by as many people as i can through the parables of literature, through the “cinema veritae” of blogs, through the lenses of film (not “movies,” heaven forbid–how many mindless teen date movies must we have foisted upon us!), through the imperical evidences of the sciences, through even the business pages of the newspaper, they all tell, retell, the myths and customs, the significance of the human experience.
all this sounds rambling and nebulous, and really leading nowhere, but, you know what, this isn’t about you.
or is it? for in the essence of i ♥ huckabees, “we’re all connected.”
Funny - I recently set up a wireless network in order to bring new life into an aging laptop. So now I can blog in front of the TV. Ain’t technology grand?
I haven’t seen any of the new Moyers specials, but I was particularly fond of the the series he did with Joseph Campbell, as well as the Bible roundtable from a few years ago.
Particularly the Campbell series gave flame to the embers in my mind regarding religion. I, too, find myself agnostic (gnostic-agnostic too large a leap for me at the moment!). The wealth of information at Campbell’s fingertips is astonishing - it’s a great loss that he is no longer with us. But he helped me see not only an underlying thread of humanity’s need for religion, but brought into sharp focus the nearly infinite ways in which that need can be sated. How can one “choose” a religion when all myth (faith?) is so connected?
kom,
yeah, wireless networking is fun. i bought my stinkin’ router over a year-and-a-half ago, even before i had broadband, because i wanted to network some old machines i had and well, the wireless add-on was free. now for reasons that aren’t worth going into, i’ve purchased three of these things total, and i’m still using on the slowest one. (call me a sucker for a family sob story.)
i haven’t seen any of the other moyers specials, i wasn’t even much aware of moyers until recently. that’s not true; i was introduced in passing to the campbell myth book in my freshman colloquium, but since it wasn’t required reading i didn’t read it. i picked it up later after i’d graduated, and promptly put it back down. don’t know why. i think some parts were too fusty and i wasn’t in a fusty mood at the time. i should pick it up again this winter when the doldrums return. . . .
yes, you’re right, how can we “choose” a religion, especially in this land of consumerism and demagoguery dressed up as free market economy and democracy? it puts me in the mind of the old monty python sketch where a tweedy consumer rights group compares all the world’s major religions and recommends the best deal. i think protestantism won out because of its relative ease.
should be sold in a box down at the wal-mart instead in the pricey mega-church. (how much revenue per square foot will this doctrine bring in?)
maybe it’s time to update that sketch. . . .
i think that maybe we’ve already chosen our national religion, and it’s tearing apart our communities and families and environment. it’s the power grab its vestments are versace. the holy book has been transformed into glossies and moving pictures, and tom cruise has died for our sins.
okay, that’s a little bleak, but you get the point.
about the gnostic-agnostic thing:
as far as i can tell, the gnostics believe(d) that the only way to heaven/enlightenment is through knowledge. that in order to be saved (not really sure what that definition is), there is some secret that you must find or intuit through the evidence of the natural world and the words of scripture, or having someone intimate with the secret tell you (it really is all in who you know). you must root out some magical kernel of truth that will set everything to rights.
that sounds a little fishy to me, but it was how i began my search.
now, an agnostic is someone who just plain can’t see how there is any way to fall on one side or another for a decision on god, et al. i’m not sure if in that definition there was any need for a call for papers or not, but i’m assuming that there isn’t. that’s how i come to the conclusion that there can be a mixed title in there.