It's Friday night, just past 2:00 am. All the fellers got together for a movie night tonight. This time it was a showing of The Venus People and The Giant of Fire Island, both in beautifully crisp black-and-white prints. I arrived after work feeling emotionally and spiritually chilled to the bone -- and not knowing quite why. Everything was just right -- the popcorn, the music (Victor Manz' incredible score for Venus), the night air, and the friends. Somehow, though, I wasn't warmed. Instead, I left feeling as though I had spent one of those cold nights struggling to get some sleep with too few blankets on. This sort of thing used to be the high point of my week, so I was rather disappointed with myself.
As a matter of fact, I have been feeling this disappointment a lot lately. Could be just the new job, though.
I tried to talk with Bob about what I was feeling at the movie night, but I didn't get very far. We went to Krystal to hang out a while this evening. (I was enjoying the strange suicidal cuisine sort of thrill I always get as I think about how my body must react when I gobble down about six of those little hamburgers).
I said something like, "I had a sort of weird time of it at the movie the other night."
Bob said, "What do you mean?"
"Well, I didn't get into things as much as I used to."
"Hmm," Bob said through a hamburger.
"And it didn't seem like a passing thing -- like a bad night. It was more like ..." and I looked for a word to describe what I felt.
"Indigestion?" Bob said.
I laughed even though there was a little pang in my heart -- as though I was suddenly convinced that talking to Bob about this was a dead end street. "No, it was more like disillusionment, or disappointment."
"Hmm," Bob said.
"Do you ever feel that way?" I asked, anxious to move the spotlight off of me and hopeful that Bob would understand what I was saying.
"Maybe it was the movie," he said. "Maybe you were sick of seeing the movies we picked out. How many times had you seen them?"
"Well, only once before for each of them. I don't think it was that. I think it's more like losing touch with those movies in general. Losing touch with everything like those movies in general. I mean, I feel the same way about comics and Saturday morning cartoons," I said.
Bob snickered. "Well, that's pretty understandable, considering the quality of Saturday morning cartoons these days. Look, what you need is a good old cheesy drive-in movie. Or a whole marathon of the movies that got you into science fiction and fantasy in the first place. Get back to your roots."
I considered this for a moment as I tossed down a hamburger. "You think that would help?" I said.
"A couple of years ago, I felt something like what you're feeling now," Bob said. "I felt really down. None of the things that I used to get into really did it for me any more. So one day, I sat down and started going through all the boxes of stuff I had collected over the years. I went through all my comics, records, monster magazines -- and I started cataloging them. I got a notebook and wrote down everything I had. And I was really surprised at all the nostalgia they brought back for me. I started feeling real twinges of the old sense of fun I used to have."
"Hmm," I said.
"And then," Bob said, pointing a flimsy-looking french fry at me. "I went down to Comics and Curios and compared my list of stuff with what they had. And I just decided to start seriously collecting the things that I didn't have. I now have all the Famous Monsters except for numbers 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 22, and 33. I have all of the John Byrne X-Men, and all of the Frank Miller Daredevils, and all of the Michael Golden Micronauts. I'm seriously thinking of going after something really big, like collecting the old Weird Tales pulp magazines."
He said this with a sort of glee on his face. I wanted to jump on the bandwagon with him and say, "Well, that must be the answer!", but something was holding me back. "So once you started getting into serious collecting, all the old feelings came back?" I asked.
"No, not all," he said. He looked down and took his last Krystal out of its little compartment/box. "But it's better than losing it all."
Well, I felt that emotional dark clouds had definitely begun to gather -- at least in my heart -- and so I changed the subject. I couldn't help feeling that there was a note of falseness in what Bob was saying. I didn't know what the note was, however, and so I put off wondering about it until later that night.
So, "later that night" is now. I can't pin things down very well for some reason. Instead, thinking back on what Bob said conjures up memories.
What comes immediately to mind are my memories of the first science fiction convention that I went to -- the 1989 Atlanta Fantasy Fair. I had gotten all hyped up about it, thinking that I was really going to be in my element, hobnobbing with people who would know exactly what I was saying as I tried to capture what it is about science fiction and fantasy that I love. But when I got there, I felt this awful sense of barrenness all around me. The first group of people that I met just started questioning me about what films I had seen and what films I hadn't seen. Then, when they found something I hadn't seen, this condescending leer would run across their faces and they would say, "Dark Star? You haven't seen Dark Star? Jeez, man, where have you been?" Then, the second group I met seemed to want to spend most of their time doing whatever their adolescent-anarchist leader told them to do -- from crashing parties, to embarrassing the other hotel guests, to unscrewing the light bulbs in the elevators. They seemed to get off on being "radical," but I didn't think there was anything particularly interesting about them -- maybe they felt the same lack and they had decided to make themselves interesting.
So I left the convention not having met anyone whom I would call a kindred spirit. Perhaps I simply had bad luck and plenty of other people there had a great time. As far as I could tell, however, no one there seemed to want to plumb the depths of what we enjoy. It was as though their love had no content. It was shallow.
I guess that's what I felt about what Bob said today. For some time, I have picked up on a slimy sort of feeling from him and have not been able to put a name on it. Now, I think "expert" or "collector" are the right names, but they carry a connotation they didn't before. I'm definitely not saying that collecting things is bad. It's just that there's a shallowness about getting all the copies of the X-Men that you can lay your hands on -- when the love and enjoyment they used to produce in you has virtually died away. It impresses me the same way as killing butterflies and mounting them all in a row. It's empty.
But am I any different? Is that the way I am heading?
I can't put a name on what I am feeling. I know the symptoms: restlessness; a feeling of despair; a sense of disillusionment or aloofness from all the comics, movies and so on that used to give me so much joy. What the disease is I cannot say. What the cause is I cannot say.
I do know that most people would not understand. I don't feel that I can go to my parents and say, "Gee Mom, Dad, comics just don't make me happy anymore." All they will say is "Congratulations, son! Welcome to the real world! Now get to work and make some money and stop all that groaning and griping! Being miserable is what life is all about -- so you better get used to it!"
Losing a love for comics and movies and such may seem very small to most people. It seems very large to me. Basically, it seems like I am losing myself -- or the best part of me.
So far as the cause of the disease is concerned, I have a feeling that it runs deep. I feel like it's in my bones and at the very bottom of all my thoughts.
After work today, I drove up Highway 400 to a flea market called the (you guessed it) Highway 400 Flea Market. I am now looking at about seven Bullwinkle cartoon character buttons that I have spread out on the floor at my feet. I bought them for fifty cents a piece and just finished cleaning them off. They were very dusty and I suppose this increased my sense of cool stuff connoisseurmanship. One of them, a button of Mr. Peabody (the articulate, epistemological dog wearing glasses), I have set aside for Glenn Eibe. He does a very good Mr. Peabody impression and I know he will fully appreciate the uniqueness of this gift.
The Sherman button, however, I am keeping for myself. I am now staring at his blond hair, black-rimmed glasses (the same kind that Mr. Peabody wears), and absolutely open-eyed innocent face. Ringing in my ears is a faint memory of his high-pitched inquisitive voice and Mr. Peabody's matter of fact answers. I want to keep this button for myself -- rather than the Bullwinkle button or the Natasha button -- because I can't imagine anyone spending time, talent, and money on a more unlikely subject for a button -- except maybe a George Gobel button. (Not a George Gobel endorsing retirement homes in Florida button, just a George Gobel button -- a face and the words "George" and "Gobel.")
A thought just came to me. Didn't I used to look at everything with the same wide-eyed amusement that I am training on Sherman right now? Does growing up automatically mean that only rarities and collectibles bring out this intense emotional response (a la Bob) -- while trees and birds and sunsets earn only a faint appreciative nod in their direction?
I remember how in awe I felt when I saw my first zebra at Lion Country Safari back when I was six years old. Does even the unique delight of seeing a zebra gradually lose all its savor? Will I always be somewhere falling short of that true appreciation? Yuck! I hope not.
Maybe all this will help me to understand what's going on. I'll think on it some more, and then get back to me about it later. (Why do I always write in my diary as though other people were going to read it someday?)
I've been thinking about Sherman and Mr. Peabody and the "disillusionment syndrome" at work, and I think I have something. It goes like this:
I can keep this Sherman button and every now and then enjoy the thrill it gives me. It's not merely rare: it's implausible. And I've got one on my blue jeans jacket.
Or I could go the route of collecting unlikely buttons and provide myself with the sense of having a lot of cool stuff around the house. (As I have often, perhaps always, been known to do with various things.)
But, as colorful and unique as these buttons are, they are still a poor source of any lasting happiness.
That sounds stupid, but I think it's important anyway. As cool as these buttons are, they are still a poor source of any lasting happiness. For a person like me, who, when he finds himself with some free time, immediately considers getting some friends together to watch a movie or checks his watch to see if the comic book shop is still open, its an important thing to think about. I've been getting into all kinds of cool stuff for years and for a long time they have sufficed to keep me intrigued and happy and creative. But now, for some reason, the effect is wearing off. Or the magic (please God, no) is thinning out. Or, horrors of horrors, I am becoming exactly the sort of tired, jaded, cynical 20th century flotsam that I always swore I would, even could, never become.
I mean, there's no use denying the sort of cooling off that I have been feeling. I just don't feel the same delight that I used to feel -- immediately feel -- when I walked into a comic book store, or sat down to watch a neat movie. Instead, these days I walk around in the bookstore feeling strangely confused and hungry and unhappy, all at the same time. I almost feel the same as that time I smoked a couple of filterless Camels.
Of course, it could be that I've simply seen every '50s sci-fi film ever made, and read every Berni Wrightson comic ever drawn, and drained dry every book that Tolkien was able to put together in his lifetime. Or maybe my friends and I are growing apart. Maybe I've been looking to get too much out of this stuff all along. Maybe there's a chemical imbalance in my brain that I can do absolutely nothing about and I'm about to die just as I set down the next w...
Anyhow, I think those seemingly stupid statements that I made before are really important somehow. Right now, though, it's time to go to sleep.
Not much going on right now. Getting ready for a Saturday movie night with the fellers. Don't really know why I'm writing this. I don't know of anything to say, really.
Well, it's Sunday morning. I'm not in church, but I must admit I have been praying. Last nights' movie night was just as dissatisfying, even cold, as the one before. And this morning I was lying around in my bed when all of a sudden I said, "God, what's going on?" and found that I was really serious about what I was saying and to Whom I was saying it.
I didn't hear anything. But I did have a couple of interesting thoughts.
Part of my mind insisted that this wasn't such a big deal. My not enjoying movie nights and comic book stores didn't mean the end of the world had come. People go through phases all the time, my mind said to me. Then I said to my mind, But how do I know if this is a phase? What if it isn't? What if this is a condition that I need to be cured of? Then the other part of my mind didn't have much to say, and I decided to take this thing seriously because it is serious to me even if other people would probably think I was making a big deal out of nothing.
As I tried to figure things out, I realized that I felt very scared. I realized this while I was trying to come up with parallels and analogies to what I am going through.
The first parallel that I tried out was comparing what I'm feeling to falling out of love. That seemed okay for a while, until I considered that after the pain of a lost relationship has begun to die away you can always look for somebody new. I don't really feel that there's something new out there -- new comics, undiscovered classic 50's sci-fi films, fantastic authors just about to be published. And the experience of looking for something new seems fruitless and depressing so far.
Then, I decided that what I feel is more like part of me is dying. It's as though I've eaten and enjoyed food all my life -- all sorts of food, and really valued it highly, appreciated it, invited friends over to appreciate it with me and have a great time together -- but then I gradually stopped enjoying food. I stopped so that I didn't even want to eat anymore. And so I started to die inside.
After I thought this, I said out loud, "I've always wanted to be like a child no matter how old I get. And I've always associated being like a child with having a sense of wonder, an appreciation for life, an ability to feel awe. Now, I am feeling less and less of that awe. So I must be less and less of a child and more and more of what I do not want to become."
That's why I am scared.
I want to write down something about the weather.
I can see the sunlight streaming red through the trees in the backyard. Everything has shifted from brass, to copper, to molten red-hot iron. There is a firm wind blowing that is catching many of the trees so that their limbs fly up and the lighter green underside of the leaves can be seen. This happens very quickly, thousands of individual leaves shifting from the deep greens that I am used to, back to the light, fragile greens I rarely see from my window. Usually, dappled sunlight produces this variation in shades of green, but because it is the leaves themselves this time the entire scene gives me a sense of frantic revelation. It's as though they are trying to signal me, flashing deep emerald, then brighter lime, then evergreen, then grasshopper yellowgreen. I am enjoying it, even though I don't understand their code. Or I don't think I do.
There. Maybe the sense of wonder simply takes some effort and attention as we grow old?
Three strange things happened today.
The first strange thing that happened was that, while I was putting something in the attic, I found my old copy of The Fate of the Earth, a cautionary look at nuclear war by Jonathan Schell. As I flipped through it, skimming passages here and there, I remembered how hyper-aware I had once felt about the threat of nuclear war. I could clearly recall how much this book had awakened me to the idea that It Could Happen and that we are mostly keeping our minds busy, trying not to deal with such an awful probability.
That wasn't such a strange happening, until I also found my old essay about horror movies. As I skimmed through this, I found that this was also about big ideas and the way that awareness of big ideas affects our lives. In the case of my essay, I had written about how unconvincing most horror movie heroes and heroines were when they actually met face-to-face and fang-to-firearms with a supernatural creature. I reasoned that, once a person was aware that one vampire actually existed, the possibility of more vampires, not to mention werewolves, zombies, demons, and so on, would actually force the person into a real state of shock. They might go mad because of all the possibilities that came scrambling, hopping, slithering out of that dark door -- now that a factual encounter with a real monster had opened it up. And then that awareness of the reality of the supernatural would automatically change their lives in a big way. At the very least, the threat of encountering a supernatural creature would hover over their heads much like the possibility of a nuclear war hovers over our heads.
Finally, it was the third strange thing that made the previous two actually strange. In other words, the first two happenings were only interesting. The third event brought them all together under a shadow of strangeness.
As I looked over my horror movie essay, suddenly, in my thoughts my essay and The Fate of the Earth melded together with a recent diary passage -- "I feel like I'm dying inside" or something like that -- and I was shocked at the result. I thought, "What if the world is destroyed by a nuclear war?" and "What if it turned out monsters are real?" and "What if I am dying?" Then I thought, "Does it matter to me? Does any of this really make sense to me?"
It was as though I suddenly understood a major part of myself that motivated me, colored my entire way of seeing, but that I had never been aware of before -- like abruptly noticing that the reason all your photos come out looking blue is that there is a filter over your camera lens. I suddenly realized that, for some time now, I had been walking around, not only under the threat of nuclear war, but under the constant pressure of several very big unanswered questions. They run something like:
"Who am I?"
"Why am I here, anyway? Is there any meaning or purpose to life?"
"Why is there evil and suffering in the world?"
"Does God exist?" and, the ever popular,
"When I die, will I cease to exist, or will a part of me that is spirit go on living?"
When I was a kid there were thousands of questions all around me that were unanswered, and I was content to deal with one when I met it and find out about it at that time. I treated most things on a very individual basis; I focused my attention on the thing at hand. If I saw a toy car, I played with that toy car to the exclusion of most of what was going on around me. When I saw a tree, perhaps unlike a lot of kids, I really got into appreciating that tree. When I played in the dirt, I really got into appreciating that dirt -- added a little water to it, created a whole new substance, and got into appreciating that mud, and so on. At some point, though, as I listened to my parents talk, watched the news, went to school, I began to put things together. I began to connect all the individual things, to see a bigger picture, and to ask some bigger questions.
"Why am I here?"
"Is there any purpose or meaning to my existence?"
"Does God exist?"
"Why is there evil and suffering in the world?"
"When I die, will a part of me that is spirit go on living, or will I cease to exist?"
I know that I probably asked a lot of these questions when I was a kid (and in smaller words, of course). But at some point, they began to crop up over and over again and they began to stay with me and to bother me.
I think the main reason they have bothered me so much is the horror, and I mean horror, of realizing that the answers to these questions -- the most important questions we can possibly ask -- are uncertain. The things that ought to be clearest to us are the things we know least about. To me, that is absolutely astonishing.
Then there's another horror. This horror is that there's a couple of hundred people standing at your doorstep, waiting to tell you what the truth is, and each and every one of them has a different truth. I mean, all roads can't be leading to the same Rome if one road says "God exists" and the other says "God does not exist," or if one says "Man is a thinking animal in a godless, material universe" and another says "We are all dreams in the mind of God." So, not only do we not know the things that are absolutely essential, but the possibilities are not even consistent.
And the last horror that I thought of -- all in that one moment, sitting up there in the attic, looking down at my books and stuff -- was that not only are the things that ought to be clearest to us the things we know least about, but we pretend to be content with the whole situation. We even act like asking such ultimate questions and seriously looking for the answers is silly and a waste of time.
A while back, I wrote that while my Bullwinkle buttons are neat, they are not a good source of lasting happiness. I felt that was important, but I didn't know why.
Now I think I have at least one piece of why. As I sat there, feeling more than a little stunned about this new revelation, I realized that those buttons, and those sci-fi films, and the smell of popcorn, and the presence of my friends, are unavoidably overshadowed by these enormous unanswered questions. I can't remember a time when I have actually sat down and seriously thought about these questions, or even talked about them with my friends. But I do have a sense that they are always somewhere at the back of my mind -- and that they cause a strange despair to grow. And as my awareness of these questions has grown, my awareness of my lack of answers has grown, and so the despair has grown -- so that the simple pleasures of childhood are overwhelmed.
So maybe that's part of why a person gets tired and cynical and aloof when they grow up. Maybe the main ingredient.
I don't know if this is true for everyone. Maybe it isn't. Maybe I'm altogether different. Maybe I'm a fairy child and not really human at all. Yet, I can't help but think that everyone must feel this in some way.
It's been a long time since I last wrote. But then, you know that, cause you're my diary.
I've been reading a lot. Once I was faced with those big questions, I decided that there was only one course of action.
First, I decided that if God exists and if He is good, then He would be more than willing to help a person such as me in as cosmic a predicament as I am in. Also, if I admit that I don't understand everything, then I automatically admit that God may exist, and that there may be an explanation that is really the truth. So I prayed, "God, if You are real, please help me to know Who You are. Please help me to know what the truth about all this really is." Or something like that.
Then I decided to start researching. At first, I felt like I was going on a great adventure. I was really fired up and the sense of despair wasn't nearly as heavy. Then, I went to the philosophy and religion section of the library, and I almost gave up hope. Thousands of books (well, hundreds at least) were lined up and down the walls, and I'm sure this isn't the most comprehensive library in the city either. There are more people standing at my door ready to tell me the truth than I had realized. Many more. After scanning the shelves for a while, I decided to get a book that does an overview of the major philosophies and the same sort of book about the major religions. I also got about half a dozen other books just because they looked interesting and had snazzy jacket designs.
So far, my thoughts are as follows:
It seems to me that we keep the big questions on another plane -- totally separate from day-to-day reality -- so we won't have to deal with them all day long on this plane. That, at least, is what I have been doing. And, because we don't deal with the big questions, but sublimate them instead, there's a shallowness and a fakeness about all our "ways" of living (the 9-to-5 rat race, politics, Wall Street). Bob's answer to disillusionment -- "just collect a bunch of stuff and when one thing doesn't do it for you any more just buy something else" without ever wondering "Why?" -- is his own personal version of that fakeness. In my opinion, anyway.
It's as though we said, "Well, we can't figure it out. So we'll make something up ourselves." And, while we may make up some amazingly intricate systems of living, there's still the sense that we are doing all this over a gigantic vacuum. There's nothing really solid underneath it all. That's the sort of hypocrisy that teenagers see in adults -- the sense that what the adults are teaching them doesn't really add up -- and that I think it's what the really serious reformers in the '60s saw in American society.
But even if we buy what we are told ("Go for the bucks and the big cars in the garage!") and give up looking for the big answers, all of us are still forced to deal with the incredible question of our existence at least on a subconscious level. A whole gamut of possible answers -- from Hinduism to Hedonism, from Deism to Dianetics -- are presented to us as we grow up and continue to crop up all through our lifetime. Eventually, if we do not take one idea over the others, we do at least lean toward one or a combination of elements from two or three.
If most people are like me, they don't put a whole lot of effort into actually reading up on these ideas and figuring things out. We just pick up bits and pieces here and there. But, even if we hardly know what to think about everything, we do at least suspect, perhaps fear, some position to be ultimately true.
Whichever one it is, the ultimate answer that we do accept, even partially accept, makes a tremendous difference in our lives. It must. Not-knowing itself seems to have made a subtle but absolutely far-reaching difference in my life. Knowing the answer, or answers, would have the same affect. Probably it would have an even more powerful effect. The answer would be, in your mind, what the theory of evolution is in the minds of scientists looking to explain the growth of life on Earth, except even bigger than that. It would become your most basic way of seeing, the measuring stick by which you would judge what is worthwhile and meaningful in life. Instead of experiencing the despair of not-knowing as a lens that colors your way of seeing, you would actually see everything as pieces of a certain framework of ideas that add up to truth. It would be like working on a jigsaw puzzle until all the individual pieces fit together enough for the real picture to become clear.
That is what I am hoping will happen for me. This is all very overwhelming, and I wonder why I think that I might come to a conclusion when I can't even do long division very well. But when I consider my limitations, it is a little comforting to think that even when you are working on a jigsaw puzzle you don't have to put all the pieces together before you get some idea of the end result.
Also, I do have some small hope that God actually exists and will help me. I know plenty of people who would never ask Him for help even in the "iffy" way that I have. But I have some hope.
People seem to think that they can believe something in one part of their minds and live their daily lives out of another part of their mind. I think that if you really believe something then that is the thing that affects your decision-making, your aspirations, your whole way of valuing things, treating other people, and so on.
I mean, if you believe grass is a plant, you don't go around seeing it as a fish. If deep down you really believe that the main thing to do in life is to look out for number one, then you won't be very convincing if you try to pass yourself off as a Christian.
The reason I have come to this astounding realization is pretty plain. My whole life is being affected by not-knowing the answers to the most basic questions in life. Obviously, knowing the answers would change my whole life, starting from square one. What will I become? A Buddhist, an Atheist, a Muslim, a New Ager? Or will I find myself stuck in the world of the not-knowers?
I suddenly realized that if knowing some basic idea to be the truth changes your life from square one, then that is why so many religious people look so bizarre to us not-knowers. We're out here playing in the man-made systems, dressing like MTV tells us to. They believe something to be true so much that they look totally different from the rest of us -- even if their point of view isn't the correct one. I guess having a point of view on the big questions at all is pretty radical in a world of not-knowers.
I'm still meandering through these books, thinking a lot, and praying a little. I was wondering why God doesn't just come out and answer me, but then I thought that maybe the ideas that are popping into my head are His answers. That was pretty bizarre. I'm not sure how trustworthy that thought is. Surely there are true ideas and false ideas. How can I know which is which when they pop into my head? I guess by measuring them by what I can honestly say is truth. But it's hard to get to the bottom of what I really believe is truth.
Well, that's enough for now. In a way, this is exhilarating. In a way, it's very lonely. And in a way, it's still horrifying. But it's time for bed now.
I just ran across a very interesting quote last night, and I've been thinking about it, off and on, all day.
It's from a book about the ideas of a philosopher named Francis Schaeffer. Apparently, during the 60's some of the hippies and acid heads were coming to Schaeffer (he ran a sort of "think-tank" in the Swiss Alps for dealing with the possible answers to "the big questions") and they were all talking about the exact same questions that I've been thinking about. I already knew that back in the '60s more people were asking these sorts of questions - or maybe they were just honest enough to talk about them out in the open. Anyhow, the particular essay that I read (actually the particular piece of the essay that I have read so far, but I'm making my way through it) deals with the idea of man trying to make it on his own, in a godless universe, simply using his ability to reason to change the world around him (which is pretty much what a lot of people believe these days.) Here's the quote:
"The realm of reason has been spectacularly successful if one takes the obvious triumphs of science and technology as its major fruits. But Schaeffer notes that the realm of reason has been, even semi-officially pessimistic -- with scientists and philosophers admittedly unable to provide meaning for existence, no matter how much they pile up rational understandings of the material universe. Indeed, the progress of science -- far exceeding what even the most optimistic minds of the 18th century foresaw -- has been accompanied by a deepening pessimism about human existence which grows directly out of that progress. Since man has been made part of the material world, subject to naturalistic laws and scientific manipulation, he either becomes an absurd being, as Existentialism saw, or his life is simply blotted out in the vast impersonality of nature . . ."
Those last phrases stuck with me -- especially "his life is simply blotted out in the vast impersonality of nature..."
When I try to figure out which philosophy I lean toward, I find that it's mostly this idea that man is a thinking animal who has evolved in the midst of a "godless, material universe". In other words, I've always believed in evolution - that man has gotten here by a lucky streak of chance and there's no need to drag in all these Bible stories. On the other hand, I've never really been an atheist either, but now that I've started all this serious thinking about this kind of thing I realize that even though I've sort of theoretically allowed for the idea of God, I've been operating with a general theory about life and reality that (up until this point) has seemed to explain everything pretty well without Him. In other words, even if He does exist He's irrelevant. He's just sort of taped onto the system I lean toward.
This realization has led me to be a little more honest with myself. If there is no God, then I ought to just go ahead and say it, and stop farting around with this sentimental God-idea that serves absolutely no purpose in my whole idea of life except as something that keeps me from having to call myself an atheist.
So, since I'm being honest, I might as well go ahead and drop the other shoe. If I lean toward this "Nobody home" idea about the universe, then I lean toward the idea that there's no meaning built into it...in other words, I lean toward the idea that the universe is meaningless. This is really a trip. I used to think that when people said "Life is meaningless" that was just another way of saying "I'm depressed." But now I've just said it, and I'm not depressed (just a little weirded-out). Now, if they knew what they were really saying, I think I know exactly what they meant. I've just never exactly grasped all the implications before. But it's ridiculously simple. If I walk outside one fine spring day and look around at the flowers and start thinking "What's the significance of these flowers? What do they mean? What message are they sending? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be getting from all this?" the final complete answer is "Nothing. Not a thing. All this (the spring day, the sun, the flowers, and worst of all, me) is only what happens to Big Bang material after 13 or 14 billion years. That's all in the world it is."
I never really sat down to try to figure the big questions out before. But if I try to piece together what I have leaned toward, my answer has always been "Well, however man got here we are able to create our own order and make life livable."
In other words, we can create cities, nations, civilizations. If we can create order around us, we become our own truth. If there is no outside meaning for us to fit into, no measuring stick outside us, we become the measure of ourselves and of everything around us.
So you can choose your own meaning for life. Have a good time...or do something worthwhile with the life Chance has put into your hands...or push Man onward and upward - progress, or something. In other words, carve your own meaning out of it all.
But now I see that this isn't any good. In fact, this is just my problem. If this man-made meaning is all the meaning there is, then it's all just inside my head. All my "joy" while watching The Venus People is just some kind of head trip I'm on. I'm making it up as I go. I'm doing all the work. Damn...that's the whole question. Isn't there some sort of reality that just IS? Some kind of real, actual, honest-to-God significance about any of this? Some sort of a meaning that I don't have to cook up on my own? Because that's the haunting question. Is Venus People really beautiful? Or do I just call it beautiful? I think of that scene where Baarthu the warrior/judge takes little Chrissy by the hand and leads her over to the viewscreen to be with him and comfort him as he watches his home planet sacrifice itself so that the rest of the solar system may live... it seems ridiculous, but I'm getting teary just trying to write about it. I know damn well what that movie seems to be saying. It seems to be saying "Nobility has meaning. Human companionship has meaning. Sacrifice has meaning. The Venusians are dead, but they live. Their sacrifice does not, CANNOT go unnoticed by an empty sky. These dead shall not have died in vain..." Now what I want to know is, do these feelings really speak of reality as it actually is, or do the dead rocks of space just go spinning on in a big clockwork machine that's totally indifferent to the kind of rosy refined feelings some kid in Atlanta has over some old black & white movie?
And so, after going through all this, I realize that here is another reason why all my childhood joys have begun to fade away. If we are a breed of thinking, self-aware animals living in a meaningless, random universe, then how can we place any value on anything? If everything is meaningless, then there is nothing to measure anything by. As you begin to believe this is the truth, then all the movies, comics, and other cool stuff that you once loved inevitably begin to lose all value. The meaning just gets sucked right out.
Well, I'm feeling pretty frustrated. I reread today the passage that I wrote last night. When I came to the end of it, I thought, "Maybe I'm being too quick about this.What if it is possible to come up with our own meaning and just be satisfied with it? Maybe meaning doesn't have to be something outside of us." So I gave it a try.
First, I condensed the point of view that I was coming from. For some bizarre reason, thinking life has come into existence in a meaningless universe. Despite meaninglessness all around us, we are able to create order. We can create cities, nations, civilizations. If we create order around us, we become our own truth. If there is no outside meaning for us to fit into, no measuring stick outside us, we become the measure of ourselves and of everything around us. Therefore, we are able to say, "This apple is valuable to me because I say it is," or "This is a great movie because I say it is." Whole societies can be created that have there own self-contained value systems.
In this light, I tried to conjure up the values that I could place in and of myself on all these fading childhood joys. If I can just say that this thing has value because I want it to, I can bring those childhood joys back to life, so to speak; I could give them new life.
So I looked at it all in light of Man as the source of order and values. This brought to my mind all the complex technology that is behind my friends and I getting together for a movie -- all the incredibly intricate machinery behind the TV set, the video player, the house itself. I began to picture our small gathering in light of the bigger order that Man has created. I could see us, young men and women driving swift, complicated, futuristic vehicles to entertainment complexes to watch images that move across a two-dimensional surface. I felt a sort of self-glorification and awe in that Man has attained an incredibly high and sophisticated technology. The whole movie experience began to take on a high-tech, utopian glamour.
It occurred to me to wonder what film we were going to see. And then I thought, "What if we are going to see Friday the 13th Part Five?" All of a sudden, the contrast between the glamour of high technology and the sleaziness of a slasher film threw me a little -- both are coming from the same Man-Creator of order and values. It seemed to me that our sophistication has given us both heart transplants and nuclear warfare, lasers to use in surgery and in sighting your enemy, futuristic cars that are used by Sunday School teachers and drug runners.
Then, part of my mind said, "Well, that's your way of seeing it all.So you think Friday the 13th is sleazy, nuclear warfare is wrong, drug pushers are evil. So what? That's just your point of view. Other people are coming up with their points of view."
That seemed to fit in with the meaningless universe idea. If there was no measuring stick outside of everybody, then how can one person tell another that what he is doing is wrong? But it didn't seem right. But then just because it didn't seem right didn't prove anything against it.
Then, I tried to think of some examples of this sort of "do your own thing" philosophy. I thought, "If people and societies can create their own order and values, if everything is meaningless and each person can do 'his own thing,' then why were the Nazis condemned? They were persuing their ideal for Man. They had developed their own value system. If there really is no measuring stick outside us all, what did we measure them by? If it's all relative, then what right do we have to condemn even the Nazis. Unless it all comes down to one society saying to another, 'I say you are wrong. If you don't stop, I'll blow you up.' And the other saying, 'I say you are wrong. Leave me alone, or I'll blow you up!" If everything is relative, then neither one of them is really right. The only thing that will be meaningful for them is 'Might makes right!'"
The more I thought about this, the more I felt as though I can't trust Man. When I applied it to myself, I thought, "How can I be the source of all order and value in my life when I can't even get out of the bed some mornings? And when I do things that are wrong sometimes, and feel suicidal sometimes, and feel confused most times? I just don't have it in me." And then when I applied it to other people, I thought, "Are the scientists who created all this high tech order any different from me so far as human frailty is concerned, so far as morality is concerned? Is there a group of cement-jawed scientists, and astronauts, and politicians that I can just hand the future of Man over to -- as though they're some sort of evolutionary step up from the rest of us? What would their kids say to me, if I asked them what their super scientist parents are like? Wouldn't I find out that they are just like me -- that they yell at each other, and screw up, and forget things, and do drugs from time-to-time, and divorce each other? Is this the Man who makes His own order and can be completely satisfied with it?"
I am amazed at all the ideas I have been able to rummage through since I began this. But, so far, I don't like what I am uncovering. It seems that this fellow Schaeffer was right about the pessimism that comes with the idea of Man as his own measure. Even so, however, that doesn't prove that the meaningless universe/Man-Creator idea is wrong -- just that it is dissatisfying (to put it mildly).
But if it is a meaningless universe, why am I born into it searching for meaning? If there is no such thing as meaning, then why am I so disappointed at its absence? How do I even know how to look for it?
If a pregnant woman was shipwrecked on a deserted island and had her baby and died during childbirth and the child somehow survived, would the child's first feelings of hunger lead him to look for something that didn't exist? Even though he didn't consciously know "food," he would want it. And the food he wants exists. Is there anything that human beings naturally crave that doesn't exist? Any basic desire that we find welling up inside our hearts that doesn't have an existing fulfillment? Is meaning the only thing that we naturally desire that doesn't exist?
I decided to take a break today. I went out to the Windham Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness area of north Georgia. It's a very well known trail, not too far away from civilization at all, and I walked around, looking at the trees, and throwing rocks in a pond, and, occasionally, falling head over heels in love with a passing female hiker.
I meant to take a break. But I seem to be in a sort of 'desperate search" state of mind, and my questions follow me everywhere. As I looked at the beautiful trees and listened to the birds, I thought about why I had chosen to come to this particular place to feel better. I found myself saying, "Why does this landscape around me affect me this way? Why does the first sight of it lift my heart? If this is a meaningless universe, then how is it possible for me to come out here in the middle of nature and be soothed by it? Doesn't this imply that there is something good in nature, just like there is something good in someone taking another person's hand? And doesn't this imply that there is some sort of meaning acting upon me? And doesn't that suggest that a Higher Being may have designed all this with some good in mind?"
I sat there for a long while looking around and soaking in a cool breeze blowing under the shading trees around the pond. The leaves were bright and green, the sunlight was warm.
Then I had a thought that really seemed to click. "Why am I sitting here taking pleasure in all these things around me?" I thought. "If the universe were totally meaningless, if evolution alone brought us to where we are today, and if survival of the fittest is the rule of thumb, then why does pleasure exist at all? In the meaningless universe idea, pleasure is really unnecessary. Does hearing these birds singing and feeling joy in the sound help me to be a better predator? Does it help me to survive? Does it function in a bare, machinelike way? No, it's gratuitous, absolutely unnecessary!"
I sat there for a longer time, looking at the trees and listening to the birds. The smell of honeysuckle came wafting under my nose and my heart lifted up. Then, part of my mind said, "Perhaps that smell leads you to food, and that is why your heart lifts up." I thought about this for a moment, then I said, "Why should there be any pleasure connected with food at all? Hunger does very well as a built-in drive that pushes us to stay alive. Why should I possibly need to take pleasure in the food while I eat it? And why varieties of pleasurable eating? Why crunchy, smooth, nutty, waxy, sweet, sour, bitter, earthy, syrupy, fruity? And even if a variety of things to eat should evolve, why should I take such pleasure in them?" Here was something that didn't fit into the meaningless universe idea at all; pleasure even seemed to flaunt itself and ridicule the idea of meaninglessness now that I was aware of it in this way.
Suddenly, the existence of a personal and caring God seemed more plausible than ever. Even if God exists and is the Creator, He didn't have to create pleasure. Why should He cause a bird to sing in a way that gives pleasure to the listening ear (perhaps to the listening bird ear as well)? Why cause the fragrance of blossoms to lift the heart? Why not create a lot of triffid-like plants that cover most of the earth and ooze out an odorless, tasteless, grey substance that gives us all the nutrients we need? Why all this variety of texture, color, flavor, scent? Why create the earth and all its citizens in such a way that their existence and movement inspire awe in the human heart? Why should there be pleasure in sex? Why not a hunger that is filled, and that's it -- not pleasure, just no more hunger. Why don't we humans feel the same about a cloud as we do about a lug wrench; the wrench serves a purpose, so does the cloud -- so why should the cloud fascinate and cheer us? Why all the feelings of beauty, awe, delight? Is all that really necessary to keep things on schedule?
This pleasure is something that is definitely outside of us -- speaking to us. We didn't create it, or decide that we would value it. Pleasure is simply there, from our first moments of life till our death and perhaps after. In other words, it has meaning that doesn't fit into the meaningless universe idea or the evolutionary machine idea. It's already bizarre enough to say, "A meaningless universe produced ordered life by accident." But then, once that ordered life begins, the evolutionary system kicks in and it is a very basic system of survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. It is pushing it to say that evolution somehow produced intelligence. And then it is absolutely implausible to suggest that a machine-like evolutionary system produced something as gracious, impractical, and unnecessary as the pleasure a human being feels when the scent of honeysuckle is carried to the olfactory nerves. It doesn't fit into the evolutionary machine idea because it just isn't practical. I mean, maybe a kind of bird may develop certain patterns of color on its back to fool predators, but will it also develop a series of notes to sing so that a sentient predator, walking down the lane, will pause and say, "Ah, would ye listen to that! What a beautiful sound he's makin'."? Pleasure suggests not only an order, but a generous order -- an order that isn't a cold machine, but has benevolence built into it somehow. As I considered this I found no way at all that pleasure could fit into the meaningless universe/evolution idea -- meaninglessness and survival of the fittest are absolutely no frills and there I sat with "frills" all around me, stimuli in every nook and corner that simply made me feel good.
When I saw all this, the most astounding thing happened. I almost began to cry. Not only did something -- an answer -- begin to commend itself to my intelligence, so that I couldn't find holes in it, and couldn't outsmart it, but the answer itself was beautiful. Not only did it make sense, but I liked it, too! And wouldn't that be the effect of catching a glimpse of the universal order that a Good God has created? Not only does pleasure give evidence of design, but its playful, good-hearted design as well.
This is certainly not a complete answer. I'm not there yet. But I am going to bed tonight knowing that this does seem to hint at an overall picture that is actually something to be glad about. A few days ago, I would not have expected this to happen.
The gratuitous existence of pleasure seems to be a key that unlocks all sorts of doors.
When I apply it to my original dilemma -- my loss of childlike love for movies, and comics, and other assorted cool things -- everything begins to fit together in very different way.
First of all, I realized that one of the pleasures of a movie night is getting together with other people who can appreciate what you are watching. This is a relationship sort of pleasure. It's not just keeping away loneliness. You can actually get together with other thinking creatures and toss around ideas, and disagree politely, and help each other to see new insights, or just enjoy your mutual admiration for favorite scenes and dialogue and music.
Now, it may be that an animal can experience pleasure without self-awareness. A dog can feel good as he scratches at some fleas, but we don't know that he can think to himself, "Ah, that's the ticket!" or turn to another dog and say, "I pity those poor blokes who've had their claws removed by those idiotic humans."
Human beings, however, can not only experience pleasure with a sense of watching yourself or self-awareness, but they can also tell somebody else about it. And communicating about pleasure is another pleasure in itself.
I did some Junior Theologizing. From some early Sunday School classes that I thought I would never get anything out of, I remembered that Christians believe God created man in His own image. That is the Christian explanation for human intelligence, self-awareness, creativity, the ability to choose, and so on. In other words, Intelligence created intelligence.
In Genesis, God looks on the Creation at its beginning and says, "It is very good." So it only makes sense that a self-aware God created self-aware individual beings who are also able to look on the Creation and say, "It is very good." So then, self-awareness was at least intended to be a good thing.
In the meaningless universe scenario, things like stopping to smell the roses, painting pictures, writing poetry, making Warner Bros. cartoons just don't seem to fit. It is really pushing things to suggest that all that just accidentally popped up out of chaos, or even that an evolutionary system based on survival of the fittest could produce such gratuitous nonsensical behavior. In the God scenario, it makes perfect sense. An infinite God decides to make finite offspring. While He alone is God, he makes us like little gods in that we are able to choose and create, to communicate and organize. Mankind becomes, not a population of sentient accidents, but sons and daughters. We exist with the ability to be aware of our own thoughts, aware of the things around us, able to relate and to communicate with others, able to choose between this way and that way, able to take this lump of clay and make a beautiful sculpture just because it seems like a neat thing to do -- all because we are made in the image of an existing, personal God.
Am I becoming a Christian in spite of myself? I don't know. But I do know that these pieces of the puzzle fit together pretty well.
It is amazing how all this philosophizing keeps leading me back to my loss of appreciation for movie nights and comic books, but it does honestly seem that everything we do in life is connected to what we believe about the big questions. This time, for instance, I have been thinking about how the existence of God may be connected with an appreciation for popcorn and '50s sci-fi films.
There is an odd tension in my heart as I write this. It's the last thing I expected, but it is something of a reluctance to get to the real answers. It also has something to do with looking at ideas about God -- as though I were prejudiced in some way. I guess I am afraid of becoming the sort of religious person that I have always felt uncomfortable with. But I have to press on anyway. The answer is the important thing. So here is what I have come up with lately:
First of all, if a personal God exists then there is meaning in the universe around us. Automatically. Because God exists and because He thinks and chooses, there is always meaning. God is the ultimate reference point, because He is the Creator of all meaning and order. If we and all our thinking and planning were to cease to exist, there would still be meaning because God, as the source of all meaning, would still exist.
Second, God has made sons and daughters. The patterns around us are not just projections of our minds; they were made with a purpose. We were made with a purpose in mind. We are not alone. And the One Who is with us cares about us. That, at least, is what the Christians and several other groups say is His message to us. (I am leaning toward the idea of a good and meaningful rather than an evil and chaotic God because the whole superabundant existence of ordered pleasure would seem to be one strong argument in favor of the former idea.)
And so, if this personal, infinite, indestructible, always-existing God says to us, "I care about you. I love you. I am glad that you are here," there is mind-blowing, incalculable meaning to our existence.
Now, in light of all this, what happens to the details of a movie night?
If the God-centered idea is the true measuring stick, and our most basic way of seeing, everything begins to be seen as individually existing objects that are infinitely valuable. They aren't illusions; they really exist. They exist for a reason.
Our appreciation for little individual things -- Sherman and Mr. Peabody buttons -- becomes a true appreciation for unique objects that have real meaning. Our ability to appreciate these things is part of the self-awareness that comes from our being created in God's image. And even further, our appreciation for individuality is God-like, because it seems to have been God's pleasure to spread individuality like wildfire all over the earth. Each man and woman is an individual being -- similar, yet entirely unique among billions of brothers and sisters. In the same vein, plant life, animal life, sea life, all proclaim to our hearts the goodness of diversity and variety -- when it is based on the value that God has originally placed on each individual creature. He looked at what He had created and said, "It is very good." Being in His image, we naturally do the same.
In the meaningless universe scenario, a sunset was only molecules of gas and refracted light. Our self-awareness and appreciation for the sunset's beauty was a ludicrous, horrible accident that had put orderly creatures in a random, meaningless universe so that they scrambled around in their short lives saying, "Woe is me. Woe is me." Set against the measuring stick of a God-centered universe, each sunset becomes absolutely one-of-a-kind, a never to be seen again event observed by millions of sons and daughters. It is light refracted through molecules of gas, but it is much more than that, just as a sculpture is much more than "merely" clay. The sunset becomes a beautiful manifestation of the "very good" ordered universe around us (an order that doesn't trap us, but encourages us to grow and explore). In the same way, the Sherman button becomes a mass of inert matter (raw metals and pigments from the earth) that has been shaped, colored, illuminated, illustrated by a frail yet godlike being. A movie night with friends becomes a cornucopia of delights -- each kernel of popcorn a piece of pleasure created by God, adapted a little by man.
And each one of these delights has miles of meaning stretching beneath it.
I can't help being flabbergasted at how this not only adds up to my mind, but delights my heart as well.
This is an enormous clue to the meaning of the universe. There are still, however, some very big pieces of the puzzle missing.
More on those tomorrow.
It's strange, but I have encountered some opposition. I tried to explain all my new ideas (and perhaps infinitely old answers) to Bob today and all he could think of to say was, "So you're getting religion. That's pretty funny."
Even then, he wasn't too obnoxious. But as I talked about my God ideas, I eventually came around to mentioning Christianity and he got absolutely ugly. "Well," he said. "I'm glad it's working for you. Just don't turn into some kind of TV evangelist."
I was amazed at how aloof he had become. "What do you mean you're glad 'it's' working for me. What 'it' are you talking about? I didn't say I had become a Christian."
"You don't seem to be very far from it," he said then.
"Well, what's wrong with that?" I asked, angry for some reason that I couldn't figure out at the moment.
"Nothing. I guess," he said. He had that same patronizing sort of aloofness about him, and I was amazed at how much I wanted to hit him and wipe that look off his face and that tone out of his voice.
"Well, do you see any gaping holes in my arguments?" I asked then.
He looked perturbed. He sat there for a minute, apparently trying to come up with something. "No," he said then. "But I don't think coming up with answers is as easy as you make it out to be."
I felt very angry. My face was probably turning red. "I didn't say it was easy," I said in the sort of half-hushed voice people use when the argument is obviously wearing down but they want to get in a last word. What I wanted to say was, "You just want to make it out to be totally impossible so you won't have to deal with it!" But I didn't and we moved on to other topics -- like his new Weird Tales acquisitions.
So that was pretty bizarre.
I was resistant to being labeled a Christian and I'm not sure why. I guess I don't mind that label so far as Christian ideas are concerned, but I do mind it if I am being put in the same league with TV evangelists. But then, if I conclude that Christianity is the truth, then I am a Christian no matter how much TV evangelists bother me.
If being a Christian means knowing the God Who made the smell of honeysuckle, then I'm all for it, no matter how many Bobs get on my case along the way.
I left off last night just at the point of talking about the missing pieces of the puzzle. One of the foremost is that, while nature may inspire pleasure and a sense of beauty, it also can be very cruel. Spider webs simultaneously amaze and repulse me. In them is a combination of the beauty of order and the repulsive self-centeredness of the "kill or be killed" condition. Added to this is the destructive power in nature. It seems absolutely impossible that nature could contain both heart-stirring poplar trees and murderous hurricanes, baby rabbits and rabid dogs, cleansing rains and parasitic diseases.
The meaningless universe idea might explain horrible destructive forces in nature that are completely blind to man, while evolution obviously includes the survival of the fittest idea. But there is still no place in such a universe for the sort of selfless joy we feel at the sight of a baby deer, or the awe we feel at the beauty of a horse galloping across a grassy field, or the delight we have at the smell of rain.
Actually, the remarks I made about nature are very similar to what I've already said about mankind. We have in us the very same incongruous states. We appreciate beauty, and we destroy forests. We grasp the goodness of life, and we pollute the rivers and the oceans. The same bizarre combination of beauty and destruction that we see in nature exists in us. Our capacity to do wrong is another of the missing pieces to the puzzle.
Already, I have some hint of possible answers as I recall the Schaeffer book that I was reading a couple of months ago. In one of the essays, there was some talk of the Christian doctrine of the Fall of man -- that man, since he was created with free will, had the capacity for great good or great evil, and that he (we?) chose to rebel against God in favor of creating our own order. When I was reading this, I was reminded of going through Paradise Lost in the 10th Grade and Satan's statement, "Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven." The Fall apparently was a great change that came over everything that God had created -- everything that He had priorly looked on and said, "It is very good." In other words, things that are not very good became part of something that formerly was entirely very good. In the very muddy idea that I had of what Christians mean by the Fall, I thought man was the only thing affected -- so that we became "sinners." But, apparently, even the Creation was affected by this enormous change.
Anyhow, I still have a very muddy understanding of all this. I certainly don't know if I accept it as truth. It is a piece of puzzle that Christianity has offered as one of the missing pieces, and I will do my best to pray about it and figure out whether it works.
As it is, I honestly believe that I have come to some conclusions. They are few, but they are infinitely better than not-knowing.
I believe that there is sufficient evidence (so far in my search) to believe that God exists, that He is the Creator of the universe, and that, for those reasons, the universe has meaning. And He is good. I believe these things because of the existence of man's self-awareness, intelligence, ability to choose, and creativity, and because of the evidence of design built into the existence of pleasure. Both, to the best of my knowledge, refute the idea that we live in a meaningless, random universe that "just happened," and the idea that our sentience (and life itself) is a curious accident. Instead, both seem to back up the idea that God has built a universe that generously, and sometimes playfully, commends itself to our God-like ability to say, "It is very good" -- even if the universe has become flawed by a Fall, I might add.
As far as first steps go, this is tremendous. Even with these few pieces of puzzle pieced together, I now look out the window with a genuine belief in the evidence of design and meaning that I see in every tree, in every rain drop, even in my own reflection on the window glass. I have not appropriated this as "my own personal belief," as though I could fully believe something to be true just because it feels good, or looks good, or is a fashionable intellectual fad at the moment. No, I really believe this to be truth. I also feel the lack of the other pieces. And I am ready to toss all this out if it is proven untrue. Nevertheless, the fact that the pieces that do fit together are above and beyond what I could have dreamed is incredible to me. I almost feel that I could die happy, but then I haven't really dealt with the question of life after death yet.
And the timbers of this new foundation reach up all the way into movie nights, and comic books, and friends. I feel that this is a solid foundation -- that I could jump up and down on it hard and it will stand up. I believe that it is the answer to the disillusionment that threatened to gradually overcome my wonder at all the particulars around me, and the despair that specifically had cast a shadow over a movie night with friends.
It seems to me that I can pick up my next comic book or pop my next sci-fi film into the VCR without the feeling that I am looking for this upcoming "entertainment experience" to make me happy to be alive. I'm not looking to these particular childhood joys to provide meaning or purpose, or to give me a degree of happiness that will take my mind off a dreadful lack of purpose in my life. They are not things that I cling to for happiness and that eventually stop making me happy. Instead, they are cool things for very good reasons. God's existence, the meaning that He has given all things, and His love give each particular thing its own right place. And it would seem that perhaps He is the rock upon which my needs can set their full pressure.
If someone were to ask me to explain what has been going on with me -- if I had to compress all this into one statement -- this is what I think I would say:
As children we take our first steps into living and are completely overwhelmed and delighted by our first sight of a zebra, or a valley, or a car, or any number of particulars. As we grow older, we begin to see patterns in the world, relationships between man and other men, man and nature, and we realize there is greed and benevolence, destruction and healing. Behind all this, there looms a great and terrifying "Why?" that makes us want to forget our perception of disorder and trouble in the world, and return to a simple child-like appreciation for the particulars again. But we can't do that and be true to our ability to see and think on what we have seen.
I think that it is possible to see a zebra for the first time... again. To see a tree for the first time ... again. Even to enjoy The Day the Earth Stood Still for the first time...again. But it is not by forgetting the troubles of adulthood and the search for meaning. I think we can delight in a zebra for the first time again when we come to terms with God's relationship to man, and with what God really intended a zebra to be, both in its own existence and to our eyes. What does He want our response as His thinking, caring children to be at the sight of a zebra? How does He want us to value that individual zebra in its unique beauty? I think that along this road is where our answers and our happiness rest.
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