September 1999

September 6, 1999
Yes, at long last I have decided to write once again in my journal. I haven't really had much to write about. I still don't. I'm mostly writing just to write because I haven't written in so long.
I do have plans to add a quote page to this doo-dad. I think I might also re-vamp the "About me" section. I do update it, but interests and things have changed since I wrote the first version, and I think it'd be faster and nicer to re-do it all instead of just updating it.
I've said this a hundred times and I've never done it, but I'm thinking of putting a book review up, as well. ( although when I put the quote deal up, you'll be able to tell which books I found to be the most enlightening )
One thing that has happened lately has bothered me a bit. When I got to school ( I am back at school now ) a red plastic bag full of pamphlets and brochures from the Student Health Services was on my desk. Two pamphlets are of interest at the moment.
The first is marked: "Positive Statements For Self-Esteem." It's a real hum-dinger. Allow me to quote:
"I fully accept and believe in myself just the way I am."
"I accept all the different parts of myself."
"I am a person of high integrity and sincere purpose."
"I deserve respect of others."
"I'm optimistic about life."
Hmm. Well, I don't know whether I actually want to go through the list and give a detailed description of why each of these statements is bologne. I notice right off that if everyone felt the way these statements prescribed, the world would sink into utter chaos. We'd all be so content with ourselves we'd never want to change. Other then that, what on earth is meant by "high integrity and sincere purpose"? Or optimism for that matter. There is no one so misguided as the pure optimist. The pure optimist refuses to see existing faults and inadequacies. Again, if we were all optimists, nothing would ever get done. We'd just sit around talking about how marvelous everything really is.
The second pamphlet is about sex. It's called, "Sex, To do it.. Or not to do it... THAT IS THE QUESTION." It's an unfitting title, really. The front inside cover is filled with reasons not to have pre-martial sex. I have to respect that. Then on the back inside cover, it discusses how to use a condom, how to manipulate a partner who is unwilling to use condoms into using them, etc. It's the classic, "well, they're gonna do it no matter what we say, so to hell with the morality, let's just tell them how to do it the least dangerous way." Sick, sick, sick. There is an arguable position here.. and that is basically what I just said. Not everyone is going to do the smartest thing, so provide a second smartest thing. My contention is this: By providing the second ( VERY second ) smartest thing, you are undermining the good that might have been done by promoting the smartest thing.
September 12, 1999
Man I'm tired of school, and the third week is just beginning. :)
I did have quite a few things to say here, let me try and remember them.
This is actually in reverse order, but it's also the latest one, so it's the one I remembered first. So here it is. I was in church this morning, and I suddenly remembered a thought that I used to have. When I was younger, I wondered why some pyschologist hadn't come out to say that the only reason we believe in God comes from our need for authority and our need for meaning. It would bother most of us if the universe was empty or meaningless. It would make sense to make up a god to make ourselves more comfortable.
This was actually a terrible thorn in the side of my faith. I was really terrified that my set of beliefs had just been invented by a man to fight back loneliness. Or perhaps by a man to control the masses who were lonely.
It never occured to me that I ought to be wondering why it is we feel lonely at the prospect of there being no god. Why is it that we have invented magic and sorcery and idols? I've heard it said that we do so to explain nature. Lightning bolts were the spears of Zeus to the ancients. Perhaps in some cases, but certainly not in all. We invent magic and sorcery and idols because they are fun to believe in. They are exciting to believe in.
The question is.. Why?
September 21, 1999
Two things have happened to me.
I have ceased to enjoy writing here and I have ceased to have time to write here.
In months it seems I have become a hermit. I no longer enjoy talking to people as I once did. I dislike the little amusements from which others seem to derive a great deal of pleasure. TV, computer games, dating, and etc.. I have a hard time wanting to do those things. I would rather just sit or read or possibly nap.
I know I've said this before but it's clear to me that unless I change the way I conduct myself, I will end up exactly as I say I wish to be.. alone.
Is that so bad?
Perhaps it is. A friend told me she had been asked to homecoming. She was very pleased because of it. For a split second I remembered what it was like to want that sort of thing, to be excited by it. Genuine excitement w/o apprehension. Then the gun-metal grey murkiness of practicallity washed over it, obscuring my view of it, and I forgot what it was like again. I managed to congratulate her, contented that I was the wiser for not involving myself in such foolishness.
September 25, 1999
The greatest irony I can think of at the moment is the situation we exist in day to day as related to the polarity of our emotions.
When some tragedy has occured, I always find myself asking about how it is anyone can ever be happy in the face of all the pain in the world.
A friend of some friends, a girl I did not konw so well personally, died yesterday. This is certainly not the first person I've known who has died. It is the first person I've known who was my own age, and with whom I had a semi-personal connection.
I cannot say what I feel is grief. I did not know her well enough for that.
The decent thing would be to claim that I feel some grief in proxy, what could be called empathy. I cannot, however, do any such thing.
I only feel hollow, as though I've heard a tremendous bang and been kicked in the stomach simaltaneously. My ears are ringing, I'm dizzy, and I'm a little sick and winded.
Might it be that I'm experiencing the realization that I'm not immortal? That sounds very adult.
\ Returning to the point I actually intended to make, happiness on the part of some despite the suffering of others is a sort of irony. Who can sing songs of hope while staring down death?
Let me not put a nobler face on it then it warrants. We are not singing poetry out of some sense of dignity in all cases. We're playing golf and reading romance novels. We're playing video games and watching prime time television. In a word, we ignore the pain of others to persue triviality.
But that isn't my point precisely. Part of what makes us so human, so interesting, is that we can do this. Regardless of our condition, we can nearly always find time for trivial amusement.
Either we are overtly shallow and we should be in constant mourning, or we should be happy go lucky because it's all meaningless.
Or the third possibility which I think nicely explains it all. We can only enjoy these things in light of death and pain if we believe that life is worth living. We mourn and find this whole discussion meaningful because we value life. We engage in worldly amusements also because we value life.
I really do think there is a great deal more to it then that. I think we have this attitude because secretly most of us believe that this life is not everything there is. The majority of people even in this secularist scientific age know somehow that our spirits are eternal. And that, I think, is partially why we can reconcile the matter to ourselves. We cannot stand to believe that once our breathing and pulse stops we no longer exist. Some would argue that this is a sort of evidence that the supernatural is a man-made concept developed to soften the sharp edges associated with our mortality. To that one can just as easily say that all our descriptions of nature which preempt the supernatural are actually just man-made concepts developed to soften the sharp edges associated with our immortality. If the natural world is all that truly exists, what then of accountability and morality?
Yes, I realize that's no conclusion and it followed no logic, but I'm tired of writing.
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Contact me: adam.stephens@ttu.edu 1