I believe in the absence of God. I believe in the irrelevance of God. I believe in the liberation that flows only from the death of God. For years I was bound with ties manufactured from ancient mythology of the divine that labored to survive in the harsh light of cold reason. Questions flooded in my young mind. Jesus loved. Jesus was loved. Jesus died. God loved. God killed Jesus because God loved me. Sacrifice. Somehow human nature throughout many generations concocted a story from the ideas that our hearts require to maintain hope.
Love. Death. Sacrifice. From one story, billions of human beings find the formula that wills their souls to continue. From this story, hope has sprung, a culture is born, politics finds a well of power that will never go dry, and rules are crafted in stone.
I believe in breaking free of the myths that were once a bulwark for my very existence. I crave what every human soul craves. I crave love. I crave an explanation for death. I crave the subject that will inspire a passion for me to sacrifice. Now I have come to crave freedom. The freedom not to conform. The freedom of sexuality. The freedom of creativity. This freedom comes with responsibility and the knowledge that there is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. There are no second chances. The moment I began to truly believe this, my soul transformed. I baptized myself in truth, and reason flooded into the pores of my soul. From it came a jubilation tinged with sadness and separation from the people I would be leaving behind.
I believe now that I am free to believe. I see lives in the present. I see beauty in its current form. I feel emotions as they are. I love as I am able now. I have concocted my own meaning without mythology. I have found hope from the ties of experience and will. They thrive under the fire of logic and reason. They are beautiful because they are mine.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
A draft for a story I am writing
I had been carrying my secret for five years. It hovered behind me in the shadows. Sometimes, with an old friend who knew all my secrets, it came out and sat with us over dinner. It was an awkward relative. It was an unwanted child. It was the albatross of my experience. With lovers who were curious to know my history, I embellished or concealed the details using an artful sequence of words I had come to repeat instinctually when presented with casual questions surrounding that period of my life.
My secret was innocuous. To a stranger peering into my world, my secret would have no impact. It would be a box to be checked in a survey. Were I to be his subject, an observer of my life would take notice of my travels, my writings, my dancing, but never my secret. This recondite burden only bore any weight to me. The players on the stage of my existence adeptly made their way around it, simultaneously mollifying and heightening my sensitivity to the topic.
One day I went to a bar in the city with a friend who shared my secret. It was then that he casually introduced himself to me. We quickly found that we shared a love of opera and the classics. Like me, he had tried goulash in Vienna, and developed the view that the Mona Lisa was significantly overrated. Our conversation took me to the places I loved the most and our shared passion entranced me. Commitments made earlier that day forced me away from our encounter, but he called me the next day and a cautious romance blossomed.
He loved to talk about his work at the government. He spent time explaining to me the submissions that companies made to his agency, and the carefully sculpted questions he posed to them. His home was neat and orderly. His music was classic, conspicuously devoid of any album produced in the last decade. His life was open and structured. On our nights together, I curled up naked beside him in his bed with my head resting perfectly into the curves of his shoulder. He had no secrets.
After a few long days apart while I was on a trip, we met for dinner in a cafe at the train station when I came back into the city. Just like all new lovers, we completely enraptured each other with the mundane details of our lives. Afterwards, he took my hands and led me outside to a shimmering fountain. We spoke softly and talked about our histories, our passions, our families.
It was then that the secret burst out of me.
"I was married before." I said. "It was just a month, and I had grounds for an annulment, so I am technically not divorced. I just wanted you to know that. If it is a deal-breaker, I understand."
He was silent. He held me close to his chest and kissed my cheek. He whispered his secret - the secret I could never imagine that he had. He had made a woman pregnant, and helped her when she decided to end her pregnancy.
I kissed him on his cheek, and then on his lips. We had shared our secrets. We knew the worst of each other before we tasted the best. In one sentence we conveyed fear and sadness bound for years and unleashed to uncertain tempers of unknown consequences. In return, we received acceptance and a redemption of sorts. We were new lovers, but in that moment, we became deeper lovers.
My secret was innocuous. To a stranger peering into my world, my secret would have no impact. It would be a box to be checked in a survey. Were I to be his subject, an observer of my life would take notice of my travels, my writings, my dancing, but never my secret. This recondite burden only bore any weight to me. The players on the stage of my existence adeptly made their way around it, simultaneously mollifying and heightening my sensitivity to the topic.
One day I went to a bar in the city with a friend who shared my secret. It was then that he casually introduced himself to me. We quickly found that we shared a love of opera and the classics. Like me, he had tried goulash in Vienna, and developed the view that the Mona Lisa was significantly overrated. Our conversation took me to the places I loved the most and our shared passion entranced me. Commitments made earlier that day forced me away from our encounter, but he called me the next day and a cautious romance blossomed.
He loved to talk about his work at the government. He spent time explaining to me the submissions that companies made to his agency, and the carefully sculpted questions he posed to them. His home was neat and orderly. His music was classic, conspicuously devoid of any album produced in the last decade. His life was open and structured. On our nights together, I curled up naked beside him in his bed with my head resting perfectly into the curves of his shoulder. He had no secrets.
After a few long days apart while I was on a trip, we met for dinner in a cafe at the train station when I came back into the city. Just like all new lovers, we completely enraptured each other with the mundane details of our lives. Afterwards, he took my hands and led me outside to a shimmering fountain. We spoke softly and talked about our histories, our passions, our families.
It was then that the secret burst out of me.
"I was married before." I said. "It was just a month, and I had grounds for an annulment, so I am technically not divorced. I just wanted you to know that. If it is a deal-breaker, I understand."
He was silent. He held me close to his chest and kissed my cheek. He whispered his secret - the secret I could never imagine that he had. He had made a woman pregnant, and helped her when she decided to end her pregnancy.
I kissed him on his cheek, and then on his lips. We had shared our secrets. We knew the worst of each other before we tasted the best. In one sentence we conveyed fear and sadness bound for years and unleashed to uncertain tempers of unknown consequences. In return, we received acceptance and a redemption of sorts. We were new lovers, but in that moment, we became deeper lovers.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Carolyn Kennedy when she wasn't considering a Senate seat
Carolyn wrote this article in the New York Times last year in support of Obama's presidential candidacy.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Roland Fryer
About a year ago, I read this article about Roland Fryer's efforts to improve educational achievement for black children in the New York City public school system. His research indicated that black children did not do as well in school as children of other races. Relying on his economics background, he helped institute a program that pays children a certain amount of money every few weeks for maintaining a certain grade in each class.
Mr. Fryer cited the fact that these children have no tangible examples of successful people who look like them to motivate them academically. I wonder if this is as relevant now that we have a black President-elect.
I have no doubt that in the short term, the results of an initiative like this will be very promising. Every child likes to have spending money, and a little bit of focus to earn it is doable. But in the long term, the effect is that a generation of children is growing up expecting a large reward for a little effort on a regular basis. This is not the value system that grows businesses, composes beautiful works of art, or forges scientific advancement.
It might be that this student population's achievement is so far behind that it needs to be jump started with an economic incentive. But this can only really be of use to these students if it is coupled with a drastic change in how they perceive success, and what they think they can achieve.
The Seed Foundation addresses this problem using a more holistic approach. The SEED boarding schools help children from an urban environment shape their priorities and develop a value system that includes education and learning. We will only know the answer to this question in a decade, but I hope we can find a way to pass on a love of learning to these children. After all, test scores say nothing about what children will do with what they have learned once the test is over.
Mr. Fryer cited the fact that these children have no tangible examples of successful people who look like them to motivate them academically. I wonder if this is as relevant now that we have a black President-elect.
I have no doubt that in the short term, the results of an initiative like this will be very promising. Every child likes to have spending money, and a little bit of focus to earn it is doable. But in the long term, the effect is that a generation of children is growing up expecting a large reward for a little effort on a regular basis. This is not the value system that grows businesses, composes beautiful works of art, or forges scientific advancement.
It might be that this student population's achievement is so far behind that it needs to be jump started with an economic incentive. But this can only really be of use to these students if it is coupled with a drastic change in how they perceive success, and what they think they can achieve.
The Seed Foundation addresses this problem using a more holistic approach. The SEED boarding schools help children from an urban environment shape their priorities and develop a value system that includes education and learning. We will only know the answer to this question in a decade, but I hope we can find a way to pass on a love of learning to these children. After all, test scores say nothing about what children will do with what they have learned once the test is over.
There's a Holiday Card Company for the Non-Religious!
This was featured on the Colbert Report. I have not spent time on the site, so I have no idea if they are any good.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Israeli and Indian solidarity
I joined the facebook group in memory of the Mumbai massacre. The message boards are full of messages from all sorts of people, but the one that interested me the most was the one about Israeli and Indian solidarity. This was quite a controversial post because the opponents of this notion contested it due to the disparate histories of the two nations. I have some major issues with the way that Israel was formed. It was stupid. It was a recipe for disaster. If anything, the Jews should have been able to anex a portion of Germany to call their own. That would have made a lot more sense.
But I am baffled by how people insist on looking back. The world is not the same. Alliances have changed. India has emerged as the world's largest democracy and embraced capitalism and Western culture. Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East. Modern American values have forged a new international meritocracy for commerce, culture, and science. Even in these nations where the cultural ethos is steeped in religious traditions, religion necessarily becomes irrelevant in normal life. Yet the doctors, bankers, and lawyers who benefit from this egalitarianism still turn to the darker side of history to shape their political views.
They insist on hating Jews because of the UN's decision over 50 years ago. They remain paralyzed in an outdated Eastern block state of mind long after the fall of the USSR. They benefit from the stability and comfort of democracy, but suffer from inexplicable guilt at the thought of openly defending this foundation of their daily lives. Very frustrating.
But I am baffled by how people insist on looking back. The world is not the same. Alliances have changed. India has emerged as the world's largest democracy and embraced capitalism and Western culture. Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East. Modern American values have forged a new international meritocracy for commerce, culture, and science. Even in these nations where the cultural ethos is steeped in religious traditions, religion necessarily becomes irrelevant in normal life. Yet the doctors, bankers, and lawyers who benefit from this egalitarianism still turn to the darker side of history to shape their political views.
They insist on hating Jews because of the UN's decision over 50 years ago. They remain paralyzed in an outdated Eastern block state of mind long after the fall of the USSR. They benefit from the stability and comfort of democracy, but suffer from inexplicable guilt at the thought of openly defending this foundation of their daily lives. Very frustrating.
The Beginning of Ending Well
I suddenly realized over the last month or two that I have a lot to say. The past few years I have been haunted by a fear of scorching my thoughts down in the blogosphere section of the annals of history. What if I find that concepts I have churned over and over in my mind like meat on a rotisserie are judged irrelevant or infantile by people who have not even been born yet? And then it occurred to me, that at the very worst I would be completely ordinary. I have read the utter rubbish that lurks along this path, and I have decided to throw in my hat. My friends will no longer have to endure ranting e-mails about an inane political issue with which they are vaguely connected. If they want to see my thoughts, they can choose to type in a short URL and poof, they are immediately connected with my inner narrative - for better or for worse. So here, dear reader, we begin this journey together. This can only end well.
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