Sunday 5 August 2007
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Pic of the day: I blame the raccoons. This longingI guess I should come forward with it eventually. I don't think I quite make sense without this out in the open. You see, there is this longing inside. Not for the first time, but it is there again, and perhaps it is a bit different each time. I am still having fun playing The Sims 2 and City of Heroes. But the fun does not satisfy me as much as it sometimes has. The hunger for deeper life is waxing again, and in comparison the hunger for fun is waning. Oh, it is still there, but more and more I find myself drawn to deeper reflection. And, no offense to my atheist readers, this is a need of the spirit. It is impossible for me to enjoy life purely on the level that a dog or cat would, by simply fulfilling my bodily desires and play with a ball of yarn. Oh, I am still surprised sometimes by the strength of those bodily desires after all those years. And I have a lot of fun playing. But it is not everything. There is this longing to go deeper. Into the quiet, where the buzz of distracted thoughts fade bit by bit. Don't worry, I have no desire to shed my mortal coils. I don't even want to quit my job. It is more on the level of not playing both of my favorite computer games on the same evening. -_-; I suspect this is unlikely to get me canonized as a saint... But anyway, it is not really something I do. It is something that happens to me. It is not that I am rowing, it is the deep currents that are carrying me off. Off to a less superficial, more earnest life. For the time being, at least. Who knows where the currents will take me next? I should make the best out of it while it lasts. But superficial habits have their own life. Sometimes they feel like obligations, as if I am required or at least expected to go on without simplifying my life further. I'll be honest, I think part of this change is seeping into me from One Cosmos, the blog I read pretty near daily. It is not so much that I agree with "Bob" and his raccoons. I often don't, and sometimes they are just plain wrong. (Like praising the economic policy of Bush, but let us not flog that dead horse again.) But whether wrong or right, they are always earnest in a way. They may come across as arrogant when they just shoot down those who disagree, brushing them off and ridiculing them without a second thought. (Then again, some of the stuff people throw up is really ridiculous. What kind of idiot tries to convert believers to atheism? That's totally like peeing against the wind. Nothing good comes from it. And the same the other way around, of course, as I have found by experience.) The thing is, the raccoons have a core which is unshakable because it is based on experience. They may wrongly extend it to think that they cannot be wrong in other things where they are actually still human, but this is something that life will peel off. Or at least it has done for me. What they do have is the core, and I can sense it. Their depth. I can actually sense it beyond reasonable doubt. It is there. And I have felt those things before. Yes, they are suspiciously similar to "Smith's Friends", back when these were less organized. When the only thing we really had in common was that spiritual core. I did not agree with them either on everything, but there was no need to. When there became more need of agreement, I could not continue that way. But I would have been a sorrier excuse for a human being if I had not been drenched in their earnestness for so many years. It made my current life possible. And I am unashamed in riding other people's spiritual coat tails even if I disagree with them. I need not only all the earnestness I have, but all the earnestness I can borrow. I am thirsty for it. It is a craving of the spirit that feels as real as some cravings of the body. Perhaps it will go away in time; quite possibly. But I'd rather it doesn't.
And they said we were heroes Chris de Burgh, Last Night. |
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