Percolating Questions

My thoughts have been unclear for a while now, as I'm sure has been apparent, and I've had a hard time picking a new direction.  Too many questions, too afraid of the answers I think.  A lot of this started when I came out of the closet and started allowing myself to question everything more, although I think some predate it.  Come to realize, allowing yourself to question everything is a good first step, but then you need to actually look for answers, which I've more or less been too timid to do I think.

Here are some of the things I'm thinking about in random moments on a daily or weekly basis:

Do I overthink everything?

Having left my childhood religion, what do I think of spirituality?
Is spirituality a thing people need, or a delusion created by religion? (in other words, are the dogmatic atheists right?)
How do I deal with death?  Must I proudly embrace oblivion with no hope of anything beyond to be a good person?
Do I really believe in anything beyond a material, clockwork universe?  Am I a positivist, materialist?
Do I have an emotional need to believe that the world is weirder, and bigger than it appears because of how I was raised?
Did I receive adequate training in dealing with the disquieting existential questions that arise from being a sentient ape?
What is the shape of my worldview, now that I consciously wish to abandon the one I was raised with?
How many unconscious adventist assumptions still shape my current worldview?
How important is it to me that I be purely rational?  Or purely irrational?
Am I allowed to reserve judgement until I've gathered more information?

Do I really want to write?
Would I be any good at writing?
Is there any point where I'm going to stop talking about it and just do it?
Ditto for piano and music.
Ditto for swimming and exercise.
Ditto for Japanese and language.
Am I every going to abandon childish whining about the difficulty of striving and be and adult and strive?
Do I have a clear definition for adulthood?  Is it important to have one?
Am I on my way to being a better person?
Just how much damage did a long devotion to comics, games and glowy, tappy things do to my attention span?

What do I do about the amount of injustice in the world?
Is there anything to do about it?
How much of the misery I'm told to consume as "news" am I responsible for?
Do I spend too much time looking at the forests and not enough time at the trees?
How do I coexist with people, when people frustrate me so badly?
How do I exist with myself when I frustrate myself so badly?
Do I need to relax?  Or could people stand to behave better?
Where is the fine line between defending my boundaries and being an asshole?
Where is the fine line between being reasonable and being a doormat?
Where is my community now?  Where are my people?
Why do I subject myself to the gaming community?
How to I find social groups concerned with bigger questions than "is my game fun enough?"

How do I structure my environment?
Is it important to be choosy about the tools I surround myself with?
Am I too much of a luddite about glow screens?
Is it okay to be tired of staring at glow screens?
Are there more questions about technology to ask than "is it new?  is it shiny?  does it give me social capital?"
Do I have a better criteria for whether to adopt a new technology and could I convince anyone else to agree?
How do I survive in a culture that seems to value so many things I don't value as core values without seeming like a crazy person?
Am I a crazy person and no one's told me?
Am I too much like my father?
Am I not enough like my father?

How do I fight self-righteousness while still fighting for principles?
What are my principles?
Am I fighting for anything or just whining?
Why do I feel like I'm standing still so much of the time?
What will it take to move forward?

Do I overthink everything?

An Attempt at Clarity

Some of my conversations about religion might be a little confusing to long-time friends or even the casual observer.  The piece I wrote a few days ago discussing gay men, christian or otherwise, and the christian church's reaction to them was an attempt to talk about christianity within christianity's own rule set.  I should probably be clear that I myself do not identify as christian currently and probably will not in the future, assuming organizational christianity continues to insist ostracizing lepers is key to following a guy who went out of his way to show kindness to lepers.  In other words, I cannot support it so long as their actions and rules seem so completely out of alignment with the broader principles they claim to be founded on.

Having said that, this does not mean that there is no redemption for Christianity, this does not mean I think all christians are intolerant assholes, this does not mean I can't see a way for them to be decent to gay people quite easily within the philosophies of their own religion.  It does not mean I want to reconvert either, but I'm trying not to be pointlessly antagonistic when talking with christians about these things.  And sometimes I do that by trying to argue one doesn't need to tear christianity down entirely or concede victory to the sexual revolution entirely to find a way to find brotherhood with gay individuals.  Indeed, I'm pretty prudish for a gay man and I know many who DO consider themselves christian and DO have gay relationships and, as surprising as this might be to secular and religious alike, DO want to wait until marriage to have sex and value chastity.  I'm not quite, ahem, as chaste as that, but I feel for the people in that position, who are actually more or less aligned culturally with the church congregations they want to be party of, and are on the same page regarding the sanctity of marriage between two people, but who the church members refuse to let themselves see as brothers and sisters.

So yes, I have my negative opinions about institutional christianity.  I don't believe the modern incarnation is something I really want to be a part of, but part of that frustration is, having soaked in that religion for over 20 years, I can see clearly how there is plenty of 'wiggle' room theologically to abandon the culture war, let go of gay panic, and start being decent to people who are not them again.   But in so arguing, I need to be decent to people who are not me, also.  So sometimes, I try to write from that point of view, and make the argument using their own internal logic.  Whether that's really the most effective kind of writing I should be doing is another question, of course.  But I don't mean to dishonestly imply that I'm a true believer.  Nor do I want to give the impression that "not of christianity" means "intrinsically hostile to christian people who just want to be better, kinder people."

And lets face it, that's kind of the default isn't it?  So much online discourse starts from "you're not in my circle and you're ruining everything." followed by "no, YOU heathens are ruining everything!"  Which, frankly, I'm completely exhausted by.  So these are my halting, attempts to find my voice and find a way to actually talk to people about this stuff, rather than launch rhetorical cruise missiles from 20,000 ft, not caring who it hurts on the other end.  Ideally I want a world where I can talk to Christians, and be listened to, and listen to them, without needing to buy into their worldview wholesale and vice versa.  I mean that's basic pluralism, but it seems to be something most of us have a hard time with anymore.  And that's not great, you know?

My writing is imperfect.  My ideas are imperfect.  But I am trying.

Today's Quotes from Technics and Civilization

"Of all forms of wealth, money alone is without assignable limits.  The prince who might desire to build 5 palaces might hesitate to build five thousand:  but what was to prevent him from seeking by conquest and taxes to multiple by thousands the riches in his treasury?" (p. 24)

          "...to think in terms of mere weight and number, to make quantity not alone an indication of value but the criterion of value--that was the contribution of capitalism to the mechanical world-picture.  So the abstractions of capitalism preceded the abstractions of modern science and re-enforced at every point its typical lessons and its typical methods of procedure."  (p. 25)

"Capitalism utilized the machine, not to further social welfare, but to increase private profit:  mechanical instruments were used for the aggrandizement of the ruling classes.  It was because of capitalism that the handicraft industries in both Europe and other parts of the world were recklessly destroyed by machine products, even when the latter were inferior to the thing they replaced:  for the prestige of improvement and success and power was with the machine, even when it improved nothing, even when technically speaking it was a failure." (p. 27)

Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford

Apocalypse Dreamin'

All the gods are dead
and the sky is gray.
I went for a walk,
On the world's last day.

I'd be getting warm
At the hellgate in L.A.
Here it's raining blood
On the world's last day!

This was my earworm for the weekend:  Chilly Down from Labyrinth.  You're welcome.