So tonight I was walking home right around that mysterious moment when days switch, lost in fog. For the past couple weeks, I've been processing that I'm about to graduate, and that I'm getting married, and that I'll be moving and starting a new job and…life. As a result, I've been mulling over my four years here, and who I've been throughout it all. Fog is always super special; my first kiss was in fog, and I think it makes the world magical. Anyway……as I was walking back, I passed a bridge, a bridge I crossed that day, that wretched, beautiful, ending beginning day. And the year between that day and the summer after came flooding back; agony, hopelessness, devastation.
And then I had this moment where I realized I was gazing straight at my younger self of three years ago, standing on that bridge, a hundred yards away. In my memory, my younger self stared back at me, broken, aching, destroyed too thoroughly for words, begging her future for some scrap of hope. And I smiled at her warmly and said, "Take strength, little one, all will be ok; you will find meaning once again. You will discover that you are a human, and when you soon begin asking yourself, 'Why prolong my existence?', you will, after many vast failures, find an answer. You will embrace the purpose that is intrinsic to humankind and know beyond doubt that it's perfectly ok to be that…human…and nothing less and nothing more. Your pain is overwhelming at this moment, but at the end lies great reward, when you get to spend the rest of your life discovering what humanity truly entails."
I'm at the last few pages of the Olivet book; that point where you know everything has to get wrapped up somehow, and quick, even if the author still has a little trick or two left to spring. Well, here's my trick: somehow in the midst of this weird time loop — something healed. It was as though I became my own redeemer, validating familiar old pain. Is that sacrilege even possible? Can dopamine bathe the miserable neurons of deeply painful memories and soothe them, making them sweeter for the contrast?
Enh, maybe it was just the fog.
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Friday, April 4, 2014
Saturday, July 14, 2012
One Year Anniversary
According to old emails, the anniversary of my question moment was about three days ago. Wow. So it seems like a good time to share a little more of my story. I'll start with that day for the heck of it.
I remember texting a friend that night, one of the people I thought would be most open and relaxed about it all, and asking if I could be a Christian atheist. I also remember being blown away by how strongly she reacted. I realized that somehow, I had finally asked one question too many, had crossed a line that thou shalt not cross, and I was enthralled by the newness of it all. There was so much excitement and relief that came from uncharted territory. It was all so freeing.
But as the weeks went on, and my parents began and continued to struggle, and school rushed at me with the religious fervor only found in a religious community, the fun quickly disappeared. I became bitterly nihilistic, lost most motivation, driven mad by menial tasks (there's so many of them) and occasionally suicidal. I remember sitting in my car late at night many times, sobbing and screaming at a God I didn't think existed for abandoning me to meaninglessness. Ecclesiastes says it better than I can. I began to truly appreciate why Nietzsche went insane. I talked with a counselor, a dean, several professors, my roommates, my boyfriend, and a few friends, and inevitably, with terrifying and increasing efficiency, my mind arrived at this single dead end of blank meaninglessness. Why fight, why work to have any impact on the world, when clearly the most efficient end was a permanent end? The thought of returning to Christianity was tantalizing, almost more than I could resist. To just…forget…to have the safety net, the peace, the hope, the assurance, the meaning. It was a miserable irony to recall the classic argument that surely Christianity must be true, because laying down one's life was the hardest thing possible. Miserable, because what I faced was infinitely worse.
I remember texting a friend that night, one of the people I thought would be most open and relaxed about it all, and asking if I could be a Christian atheist. I also remember being blown away by how strongly she reacted. I realized that somehow, I had finally asked one question too many, had crossed a line that thou shalt not cross, and I was enthralled by the newness of it all. There was so much excitement and relief that came from uncharted territory. It was all so freeing.
But as the weeks went on, and my parents began and continued to struggle, and school rushed at me with the religious fervor only found in a religious community, the fun quickly disappeared. I became bitterly nihilistic, lost most motivation, driven mad by menial tasks (there's so many of them) and occasionally suicidal. I remember sitting in my car late at night many times, sobbing and screaming at a God I didn't think existed for abandoning me to meaninglessness. Ecclesiastes says it better than I can. I began to truly appreciate why Nietzsche went insane. I talked with a counselor, a dean, several professors, my roommates, my boyfriend, and a few friends, and inevitably, with terrifying and increasing efficiency, my mind arrived at this single dead end of blank meaninglessness. Why fight, why work to have any impact on the world, when clearly the most efficient end was a permanent end? The thought of returning to Christianity was tantalizing, almost more than I could resist. To just…forget…to have the safety net, the peace, the hope, the assurance, the meaning. It was a miserable irony to recall the classic argument that surely Christianity must be true, because laying down one's life was the hardest thing possible. Miserable, because what I faced was infinitely worse.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Orson Scott Card
The first time I read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game was back in high school. At the time, I enjoyed the book, but as my worldview was still quite intact I had no real need to pick up on the occasional hints at Card's deep understanding of philosophy and human nature. This past spring, though, I heard the last couple chapters again on audiobook. I broke down sobbing. Here, at last, was an author who got it. Someone who knew my struggles for what they were, and validated my craving for inherent meaning in intelligence and human life without necessitating an extrinsic force. This summer, reading Card has been a therapy unlike anything else.
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