As always, thank you for your comments, Rooson. You must know that I am in your position, a seeker. The day I think I know everything will be the day I've really become lost.
I must add something more about prayer, meditation, the search: it is much more than preparation for death. Reading more of Matthiesson's book last night, it struck me what I had forgotten in my comments: beauty, mystery and freedom. To recognize the divine in all things is to see it's uniqueness and worth - in short, its beauty; to understand that being is filled with meaning, meaning far beyond our terrestrial minds, is to give it mystery; and to know that we are part and partner of the infinite, no less so than any one else, is to give us freedom - freedom to choose a track in life that may not comport with normative ideals of success. These are qualities that can greatly enhance life itself. By that I do not mean "make life easier," but to make of it what it is - a miracle and, in many ways we cannot always understand, a blessing. Crass mesomorph that I naturally am, it has certainly been my blessing.
To add to "Jesus as the one and only," I can say that if this strengthens your faith (keeping in mind Love of Neighbor whether he believes as you do or not), more power to you. I have been told that perfect faith can indeed have you walking on water, if that is important or necessary. Catholicism is my formal path, because it is so deeply imprinted. I look to Jesus, not the Buddha. But I learn from the latter - a lot. As an anthropologist, is is my view that sometimes we have to go outside ourselves to find ourselves.
The darkness that "Tattoo" gave me is almost gone, and it is not likely that I will visit that Dark Night of the Soul again. But the main character, the freaky girl, does give a lot to think about. She is a computer genius but completely incompetent in the social world. Now, according to the author, the social world is such a mess that it is better to be outside it. Such have many mystics and prophets preached (leave your families...) But she is lost. She has no place to go. She reacts only as a beast - to sex, to violence, to whatever external or internal pressure that affects her. Does she find the golden string that leads to truth? The author, I have read, killed himself, I don't know why. If she, his character, found it, it seems certain that he, the man, did not.
We have many anti-heroes of this sort - the lost, the bruised and the reactive. Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, James Dean, "Then Came Bronson," Rambo - all played or were celluloid characters who found themselves outside the social average, and ultimately above the average social person. Some found something - Bogart, nationalism, Rambo, vindication - others did not, but none found what they - and we who sympathize with them - were looking for whether they knew it or not. They resonate with us because ultimately, few of us are part of a social average in the current world culture. We know that, as one philosopher put it, our center is nothing but a "God-shaped hole." Dump what you want into it, there is only one "thing" that can fill that hole.
Back to Matthiessen: while hiking in the Himalayas, he saw an especially large grasshopper, shining gold in the morning sun, by the side of the path, perched on the edge of a cliff that dropped thousands of feet from the frozen heights into the lusher and greener world below. It sat, he said, as if waiting for him, until the author could nearly touch. At the last moment, however, it jumped off the cliff. As a grasshopper, it would not die; but it was trusting that with this small leap, it would find itself in a better world. Courage is what all the anti-heroes share. But trust, faith? In their world, only the fool has trust or faith. In the more classic films, they do find it, in some ideal or some one. In the darker, they do not. And films end - life does not. Will that ideal or person live up to ultimate trust or faith?
Or are we to trust in the very wind, and have faith in life itself? How much more difficult is that, and how much more brave.
I must add something more about prayer, meditation, the search: it is much more than preparation for death. Reading more of Matthiesson's book last night, it struck me what I had forgotten in my comments: beauty, mystery and freedom. To recognize the divine in all things is to see it's uniqueness and worth - in short, its beauty; to understand that being is filled with meaning, meaning far beyond our terrestrial minds, is to give it mystery; and to know that we are part and partner of the infinite, no less so than any one else, is to give us freedom - freedom to choose a track in life that may not comport with normative ideals of success. These are qualities that can greatly enhance life itself. By that I do not mean "make life easier," but to make of it what it is - a miracle and, in many ways we cannot always understand, a blessing. Crass mesomorph that I naturally am, it has certainly been my blessing.
To add to "Jesus as the one and only," I can say that if this strengthens your faith (keeping in mind Love of Neighbor whether he believes as you do or not), more power to you. I have been told that perfect faith can indeed have you walking on water, if that is important or necessary. Catholicism is my formal path, because it is so deeply imprinted. I look to Jesus, not the Buddha. But I learn from the latter - a lot. As an anthropologist, is is my view that sometimes we have to go outside ourselves to find ourselves.
The darkness that "Tattoo" gave me is almost gone, and it is not likely that I will visit that Dark Night of the Soul again. But the main character, the freaky girl, does give a lot to think about. She is a computer genius but completely incompetent in the social world. Now, according to the author, the social world is such a mess that it is better to be outside it. Such have many mystics and prophets preached (leave your families...) But she is lost. She has no place to go. She reacts only as a beast - to sex, to violence, to whatever external or internal pressure that affects her. Does she find the golden string that leads to truth? The author, I have read, killed himself, I don't know why. If she, his character, found it, it seems certain that he, the man, did not.
We have many anti-heroes of this sort - the lost, the bruised and the reactive. Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, James Dean, "Then Came Bronson," Rambo - all played or were celluloid characters who found themselves outside the social average, and ultimately above the average social person. Some found something - Bogart, nationalism, Rambo, vindication - others did not, but none found what they - and we who sympathize with them - were looking for whether they knew it or not. They resonate with us because ultimately, few of us are part of a social average in the current world culture. We know that, as one philosopher put it, our center is nothing but a "God-shaped hole." Dump what you want into it, there is only one "thing" that can fill that hole.
Back to Matthiessen: while hiking in the Himalayas, he saw an especially large grasshopper, shining gold in the morning sun, by the side of the path, perched on the edge of a cliff that dropped thousands of feet from the frozen heights into the lusher and greener world below. It sat, he said, as if waiting for him, until the author could nearly touch. At the last moment, however, it jumped off the cliff. As a grasshopper, it would not die; but it was trusting that with this small leap, it would find itself in a better world. Courage is what all the anti-heroes share. But trust, faith? In their world, only the fool has trust or faith. In the more classic films, they do find it, in some ideal or some one. In the darker, they do not. And films end - life does not. Will that ideal or person live up to ultimate trust or faith?
Or are we to trust in the very wind, and have faith in life itself? How much more difficult is that, and how much more brave.
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