The last 5 months or so have been incredibly low for me. More broadly (although not as intensely), the last several years have been incredibly low, as well.
I believe that this has been the case in large part because of my aggressive rejection (starting my last year of college) of the religion I was raised with. It all started when I became totally possessed by my anger at the close-minded, judgmental, patriarchal, legalistic view of God held by evangelical Christians.
Awash in my anger, I lost my moorings. I let myself be taken control of by my worst fears, ambitions, desires. I acted and thought selfishly, carelessly, thoughtlessly. I worked hard because I felt like I had to, not because I loved to. Although I struggled against it, I let myself be tempted to view people instrumentally (which Kant justly condemns as a profound flaw). Essentially, that is to say, I lost myself. I have been depressed, sad, lonely, fearful, and while in some ways functional, in other ways, lost--without a core.
I have been thinking about this for awhile now, for obvious reasons: I have been worried about what the hell I'm doing. Some of these thoughts came to a head last night as I was riding the subway.
I think I have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. In my haste to dispense with the doctrinal narrowness of evangelicals, I have failed to recall some of the profound goodness of spirituality.
I want to rediscover that profound goodness and power. (I will take advantage of a coincidence of the English language and call the source of this goodness and power not "God," but "the Good," in order to avoid some of the gendered, vengeful, or narrow associations that have unfortunately shaped many of our ideas of "God." There can't really be any difference, I don't think, between understanding "God" and understanding that which is Good. Goodness is as much as we humans can understand of whatever the meaning or purpose of life is; and this is as good as we are going to get, I think, to understanding "God.")
Not that I want to rediscover specific religious doctrines and start telling people how to live their lives or what to believe get to "heaven" or something. I have experienced firsthand how confusing, distorting, and destructive the strictures of doctrine are, in the course of human life.
But I do want to live with higher ideals governing me. I believe that life is (or should be) all about love, truth, and compassion; I want to start living in accordance with these beliefs (of course, very imperfectly--but as well as I can). I want to shun that which is evil, fearful, selfish, and pursue that which will bring peace and happiness.
I don't think it will be easy, and I am very humbled by how far off of this track I have wandered. But it feels like something of a spiritual awakening. (Maybe this all sounds cheesy. Maybe it is cheesy. All I know is that living with these ideals made me a much happier person in the past; and living the other way hasn't been doing that.)
Here are two quotes that I think are amazing, and express at least some of the ideals I want to pursue:
(1) “The flies seek filth, the bees seek honey. I will shun the habit of the flies and follow that of the bees. I will refrain from finding faults in others and look only for the good which is in them.”
(2) “Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked. If we meet someone who is happy in his way of life, we are inclined to envy him and be jealous of his success. We must learn to rejoice in it, as we take pleasure in the happiness of a friend. If someone is unhappy, we should feel sorry for him, instead of despising him or criticizing him for bringing misfortunes upon himself. The virtue of others is apt to irritate us, because we take it as a reflection upon our own shortcomings. We are tempted to sneer at it and suggest that it is only hypocrisy. On the contrary, we should delight in it and see it as an inspiration to do better. As for the wicked . . . ‘Be not overcome of evil.’ If someone harms us or hates us, our first instinct is to answer him or her with hatred and injury. We may succeed in injuring him or her, but we shall be injuring ourselves much more, and our hatred will throw our own minds into confusion.”
This is all of course oversimplified, particularly the parts as regards my own personal journey with regards to faith, family, etc. (after all, many hours on the couch go into all this, so there are a lot of ins and outs that are involved in the thinking), but sometimes things that are inherently complicated also have a very simple upshot. And maybe the upshot is all that matters on this one, at least for now.
(As the Big Lebowski would have it, "My thinking about this case had become very uptight....")
