this trustworthy mystery:

"There’s a humility that's necessary to sustain the messianic idea, because the Messiah is always someone else and never ourselves, and so who knows what their arrival will bring?"

"I also hope to convey a tangible sense of the autonomy of God. There's so much theological projection these days. Everybody's God sounds a lot like themselves. God becomes a collection of religious facts, an object of knowledge. People map God as though God were a land we might go and discover and populate. I don't believe in any such thing. The God who interests me has their own thoughts and I can't tell you what they are. God is an autonomous other. Who knows what God will do next?"

removal and renewal

mariame kaba: what is the world we want?

visakanv: focus on what you want to see more of

rose tico: that's how we're gonna win. not fighting what we hate, saving what we love

scott domes: the problem I’m most interested in is how we move away from using fear & shame as our primary source of motivation, and instead allow ourselves to be pulled along by joy & love

james k.a. smith: you are what you love

kevin jenson: we are not called to focus on what is sinful but to seek what is sacred

paul: do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. jesus: what do you want (me to do for you)?

jesus: seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness

jesus, to martha: you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed

jesus, to peter: what is that to you? as for you, follow me

"let Your reign come, let Your desire be done on earth as it is in heaven."

~~~~

we often live oriented around what we want to avoid, or what we're against

e.g. how to prevent bad behaviour, defining ourselves as anti something, debunking bad arguments

but what if we could ask ourselves what we are for? what do we want to see more of?

what if life is about the good, the true, and the beautiful?

simone weil you are everywhere i look

all sins are two sins, which is one sin

idolatry and injustice

both of which are distortions of love, or turning away from the desire of the god who is love

the deity who makes an image out of dirt

the lord who comes riding on a donkey and the saviour who was crucified

the spirit who dwells in temples of clay

in all the "press releases" surrounding the wild robot, the cast and crew constantly repeat the sentiment that the main theme of the film is that "kindness can be a survival skill."

what's interesting to me is that while i can see this, i don't know if i agree that this is wht the film is about

in fact, had i gone into the film expecting this, i wonder if the experience would have been diminished somewhat

but it almost goes to show that good art is more than the sum of its parts, and good art eludes summarizing even by those who made it

and maybe this kindness idea is signaling or messaging; it's what the production want you to think the film is about

but my point is that you don't have to know what your own art is about, or at the least, you don't have to be able to explain it

here's how i would describe the film's main theme: it is about what happens when outsiders are let in, for better or worse

but of course, go watch the film: it eludes explanation and summarizing; it is more than the sum of its parts

• everything everywhere all at once
• the wild robot
• the book of ruth

"my psychotherapist told me, "unlike most you don't have a problem feeling difficult emotions or stepping into intensity & discomfort. you've spent years training that ability. what you need is more pleasure, fun and play. what you need is to resource & practice allowing pleasure" (source)

i've personally noticed that despite a growing capacity to accept being here and sitting with pain, i'm still very very afraid to let myself feel joy.

sometimes i laugh, and realize after that there was little joy reverberating in in my chest - only a hollow sound and air coming out of the mouth.

but joy is as fundamental to aliveness as is sadness (and we can imagine a joyful kind of sadness). joy is communion

and that's what all us modern-day mystics are searching for, right? communion, depth and mystery, some sense of being swept up into a transcendent yet immanent living river, presence and power

(for more, see andrew root's the church in an age of secular mysticisms)

"i am back in the rural alberta of my adolescence and i am noticing a particular kind of prole nerd culture that i was adjacent to - fantasy books, rpgs, heavy metal / i see this as kind of a failed bid for re-enchantment. / nerds as failed mystics" (source)

we are dreaming of joy and running away to magical worlds because we find ourselves in worlds empty

can we fully enjoy being here? and what is the joy of the lord, anyhow?

"...God presented [Messiah Jesus] as the atoning sacrifice to propitiate his wrath and to expiate our wrongdoing." (Michael F. Bird, Romans (Lexham Interpreter’s Translation))

life propitiates, and life expiates

i have anarchist tendencies but am also pessimistic about human nature

not in the sense of an evil essence, but in the sense of a deeply sick labyrinth

i think a common move for the restorative justice minded and the liberation minded is to offer a less cynical portrait of human nature

so that we can believe in goodness and kindness as effective salves rather than naivete

for if we are indeed wicked beasts, then we are justiied in treating each other with fear, harshness, punishment, and control

but the anarchist christian says: no

we do not need humans to be salvageable to refuse to draw the sword upon them

for while we were helpless, christ died for the ungodly

"A fundamental characteristic of the hydrologic cycle is that it has no beginning and it has no end. It can be studied by starting at any of the following processes: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, interception, infiltration, percolation, transpiration, runoff, and storage." (source)

what is the first philosophy (the starting point which makes all other philosophy possible)? is it ontology, epistemology, or ethics?

but what if there is no starting point? what if all philosophies feed into one another and are intertwined with the tangled web of life? what if we can't do philosphy without lunch and dinner and cleaning dishes and arguing at the table, but we can't eat without philosophy, and so on?

what if our thought life was less like a building laid brick by brick atop a foundation, but more like an ecosystem where parts burrow in the ground, prey on one another, live in symbiosis, decay and die, giving way to more life, again and again?

if there is no one starting point, we can study by starting anywhere and following the current. we do not need to justify where to start.

the way reveals itself if we can pay attention to where we are.

god is working through bibleproject to inspire many to greater love for himself and his word

the "christmas" bible study group is still going strong. i'm so lucky god speaks to so many ppl in this church

jessica texted me out of nowhere to say "random, but, whatever ur pursuit of god's heart looks like, keep doing it"

sometimes conversations with your parents cycle. i just got to experience my favourite iteration of a difficult convo with my dad. im fortunate for the grace to be able to get better at difficult convos over time (i think). thank you god for your wisdom.

radicalism isn't the problem

but unsustainable, individualistic radicalism is

the radical who swims the deep end alone is a fool

manga with yummy scrunkly art that is so yummy:

• rai rai rai
• far east chimera
• love bullet

concrete takes on the colour of soil in the autumn

the breadth of a stage

as a thousand thousand citizens of leaf kingdom dance

and run and skitter across the roads

between the cars

as if we'll always be here

1. everything is patchy. what we call "the world" is an interconnected ecosystem of diverse patches.

(these patches are distinct, diverse, but not demarcated. patches cross over. think of the thread that holds together a patchy quilt, or the roots a patchy lawn.)

so in terms of dealing with the world, there can be no one-size-fits-all universal silver bullet.

even if there were, you'd have to translate it for all the different languages.

everything is patchier than it looks. in the human world, nothing is 100% unified, homogeneous, and absolute. the best cure to purity mindset is studying actual history.

2. in a patchy world, diversity, adaptation, and discernment are key

what works for one patch may be less effective when it comes to another

the alternative is to introduce monocropping and remake the patches to conform to a single approach

but my suspicion is that monocropping is never complete (patches resist). but you can try! i'm guessing you will run into cases where your solution breaks down.

in every field, there are always multiple schools of thought among experts (there are some exceptions, but notice how rare they are).

one conclusion is that one of them is true and the others are wrong, or stupid, or propaganda.

another conclusion is that a patchy world leads to patchy knowledge due to patchy focus.

this doesn't mean everyone is right, or that you can't prefer one school of thought. but i think we should assume that there are multiple approaches for a good reason.

(and even this is patchy advice that may only apply locally)

3. And the LORD said, As one people with one language for all, if this is what they have begun to do, now nothing they plot to do will elude them. Come let us go down and baffle their language there so they will not understand each other's language." And the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth and they left off building the city. (Genesis 11:5-7)

some works of imagination-expanding "ethnography" i'm currently really enjoying:

• samuel balentine - leviticus: interpretation: a bible commentary
• harry west - ethnographic sorcery
• scavengers reign

applied to two (2) jobs on friday and three (3) jobs today

this is more in two days than i've done in months

it was a painful road to get here, with people being upset at me, yelling at me, and me being very sad and raw and sad again

maybe it was all for good

i never talk about job-searching on this blog, but i wanted to say "good job" to myself for today

i want to celebrate a small win, if no one else will.

no one else will know how hard it was, but i will

just wanted to share an experience that just happened

idk why but i spent the whole day feeling a little irritated and “activated” and experiencing some anhedonia

context: i noticed that i had been feeling agitated and defensive for a while

then i noticed that there was a kind of subtle emotional flashback that i was experiencing

like a specific flash of a feeling that would keep popping up multiple times within a short period of time

i think at first i was trying to make it go away (like process it as quickly as possible to bypass it)

but then i had the grace to try listening to where it was in my body

and legit i think it immediately connected me to a memory from grade 3 or 4

and i started tearing up

and then a memory from gr 6

and yeah it was almost like the flashback was a part of me that was crying out and wanting to be listened to

and connecting with it allowed things to arise that my conscious mind had forgotten was important

more context: some ppl at church called me lazy and nerdy and cringe

and i dont know why i was getting so defensive over it

like usually i would take it as like a joke, and not personally

but this time the distress wouldn't go away. so, trying to listen to the pain in my body, it showed me to a memory from gr 3 when someone pulled down my pants in the school courtyard as a prank

i later became friends with him (and maybe i realized that being nice to my bullies is a coping mechanism)

and then also a memory from gr 6 where i did something socially taboo in class (sorry, tmi) the girl next to me got really grossed out and called me out.

i went to the washroom and one of my friends came in and chastised me, telling me that he used to do the same until he learned that it was wrong.

and i think the pain of those memories has still persisted

i think subconsciously i feel like a loser

and i think the recent events are activating that feeling that i hadnt felt in a while

like confirming that sense of “you are a loser. you are weird."

idk if its an epiphany but yeah im realizing that a lot of my insecurity takes the shape of coming into relationships and automatically feeling like they'll reject me unless i earn their approval. “oh god what if they think im a loser”

anyway yeah and i started crying!!

and a lot of that depressive feeling felt replaced by warmth and aliveness

i dont want to feel like a loser

maybe feeling like a loser has helped to protect me from pain and rejection that i wasnt ready for

but i’d like to grow and not subconsciously chronically anticipate ppl attacking me and making fun of me

i was really surprised by how closely connected the anhedonia was to this. it's like a lot of things shut down because i felt distressed and powerless in my body. and the feeling of ennui and boredom opened up into warmth after i hugged myself and promised to be there for myself.

"others have it worse"

sure, but:

1) our problems are interconnected.

someone's mental health issues, loneliness, or sadness during a difficult time (supposedly minor issues) are directly connected to the same capitalist colonialist complex that is exploiting people across the world. the same system that demands children to perform hard labour in the global south is the same system that is destroying or privatizing social support systems in the global north for profit. we hate work while others long for what we have; and we must both fight both a better life for everyone.

while the oppression of the system is not evenly distributed, our struggles are interconnected. so yes, get some perspective - a bigger picture.

see that you're not just singularly accursed and wretched; you're a rebel in a long and global fight.

2) [TBD]

this post assumes that love is the most fundamental reality, and that love is ultimately stronger than death.

for a long time (even now, still, maybe), i experienced long seasons of dissociation and depression.

the way i once described it, i didn't feel alive in the world or safe in my head.

every possible action felt unsatisfying and wrong, like falling short of... something.

much later, i realized that i had been feeling disconnected from everything good - displeasing to and unwanted by god. fundamentally alone.

i think a lot of this comes from an upbringing that taught me to override my needs, feelings, and instincts in favour of what i'm supposed to do or feel or think (according to duty or devotion). consequently, i had little connection to the emotional storms inside me.

so i write this to a younger me, in hopes of being able to say this: many "abstract" issues (purposelessness, shame, etc.) turn out to be connection issues (especially in the form of missing a sense of safety and/or belonging). connection precedes correction.

on depression:

• heidi priebe: "‘All options seem effortful, arduous and at the same time meaningless’ is actually the most concise description of the circumstances that tend to underlie depression I think I’ve seen yet." (source)

there is, at every moment, an overflowing fount of infinite love pouring itself out everywhere in search for all of us and our good

i think, somehow, everything i do and care about is about undoing the great barriers (psychological and sociological) that try (failingly) to stand between us and the love of god.

two hours until amelia watson graduates

some part of me wishes it was all some elaborate joke

i've been a teamate for 16% of my life. only 4% of my expected lifespan

i'm hiding behind numbers, i know.

above all i'll miss this community

will everyone here find each other again, somehow?

no joke, i think the teamates and investigators showed me how to be a human

~~~~

a collection of thoughts from the past week:

• "i spent all morning crying / i didn't realize how hard i would cry / i knew she meant a lot but i didn't realize / like you only realize once they're gone"
• "dude it hurts / i didn't expect that / i went through stages of grief in reverse / like i immediately accepted it but now i feel like i'm in denial / it feels like a bad dream"
• "i feel like you understand tho, it's really sad but part of me is enjoying the sadness / like there is a romance in getting to say goodbye / seeing all the sad fanarts touches something deep in my soul / i think it's evidence that she meant a lot to us"

~~~~

[7:38 PM] so, this is love, huh?

~~~~

i think one thing i learned from being a fan of amelia watson is the nature of devotion

the way people talk about ame, you can see that they are devoted to her

and i think this usually blurry abstract concept of "faith" and "devotion" becomes very tangible

in a way, idol worship can help us understand what christians fail to do in their worship of the true god

i can tell you that my (and other teamates') praise for ame sometimes comes from a deeper place in the heart than our praise for god

basically, look upon the teamates and see the face of devotion. this is organic devotion - un-institutionalized devotion. devotion to the person of ame

and i can tell you: this isn't what most christians are experiencing towards god

• creativity: creativity is not a spark distinguishing the blessed from the wretched, a ladder upon which we must prove ourselves or die. it is a gift of power from god. it's contingent on receiving an experience of the world overflowing. this is why we also say creativity is a muscle. but muscles can be exercised in the gym or in the gym of life. we can discipline ourselves into creativity, or we can try speaking of the world we experience.
• creative worldbuilding: borrowing from 1) ben robbins' "in this world" and 2) the fact that humans are creatures of imitation (and need to study through imitation; e.g. master studies), here's a tool for creative fun. take something already cool (e.g. pirates), and break this down into constituent parts (e.g. pirates sail on boats, pirates stalk the sea, pirates loot other ships, etc.). in our minds, tropes come bundles together, but what if we let our minds play around with figuring out what it would look like to unbundle the tropes, and then let our minds wander that uncharted space that's been opened up? what if pirates didn't ride boats but something else? what if pirates stalked the dreams of sleeping people? what if pirates gave more than they took?
• grounded and expansive: dissociation and anxiety and narrowness keep us away from being here. one thing i've learned about grounding: move your attention to your tongue in your mouth or the soles of your feet. one thing i've learned about narrowness: read fiction, poetry, or watch videos from other cities, other countries, other times.
• why fiction? 1) naming reality (source) 2) it's like the experience of learning what you're tasting; appreciating textures and tastes 3) diving into the river of want and expression

i recently went to indigo and didn't feel anxious and overwhelmed like i used to (in 2022 or so). yay :D

well, the latent feeling was there. but i am grateful that the attitude i had towards it seemed to have been changed.

more open-heartedness and curious feeling-through-it, rather than feeling trapped in it and pushing back.

i don't recall what felt different, but i think there was less of a sense that it was all on me

i don't have to read every book, i don't have to see everything.

i don't have to explore every possible trajectory for my life (if books are a doorway to other lives).

someone else will read those books, and i can talk to them about what books they read.

we each of us only get a very small slice. but we can share.

this evening, the clouded sky, lit by sun, cast an eery and beautiful greenish yellow.

it was the colour of a dream stopping still.

i wish you could have seen it

"To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high."

another name for that safety need or feeling of safety so many ppl say is vital to development and growth:

"i'll-be-okay-ness"

i lied

don't know where i'm going

the dark is coming back

im losing air

sorry for the edgeposting i really don't want to be depressed again

but it was good while it lasted

@shakoistsLog: "I got my toddler daughter to eat broccoli not by forcing her to, but just by eating it myself and explaining to her while I don’t like the taste it makes my poops better. Now she wants to eat it."

i.e. we learn from watching other people model how to live life

(update: 9/26) what i mean is that we inherit this assumption that humans learn by being taught. someone tells us information, we take in information, and now this information is available to influence our decision-making for the better. and if this persuasion fails, then we can only resort to force.

this assumption underlies a lot of our interactions in the world. as learners, we try to take in more and more books and articles and podcasts in attempts to learn. as teachers, we try to find better ways of presenting our information. we repeat ourselves, hoping the epiphany will strike (as we prepare to take out the big guns).

but what if people don't learn to eat vegetables by being told to eat vegetables?

to get to my point, what if people aren't learning because we don't have good role models from whom we can imitate the living of a good life?

paul: "And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ." (1 corinthians 11:1)

maybe we learn when monkey sees and monkey does. maybe information can only carry us so far.

happy one year of unemployment! 🥳

anyway, it's epic: the musical hours again

some thoughts i have:

it's interesting that texts can contradict themselves and their author's intentions.

supposedly, jorge rivera-herrans intended the main lesson of epic to be "that it is necessary to have a capacity for ruthlessness in order to protect yourself and that which you care about." and to his credit, the musical does that well, and explores the delicious possibilities of stepping over others' feelings and lives to pursue what you want.

however, in the "wisdom saga," the goddess athena comes to odysseus' aid, having previously chosen to abandon him after he disappoints her one too many times. in other words, she has pity and mercy on him, especially when he desperately cries out her name when he is trapped.

in a musical about the necessity of ruthlessness in life, there's this contradicting element about how the story can only move forward because athena chooses pity.

and perhaps that's ideology! any narrative too coherent cannot stand, because it would be too unlike and untrue to life.

a simpler explanation: rivera-herrans has mentioned how writing epic has been important for him because he had previously gotten burned by being too merciful and soft. perhaps our personalities inevitably haunt our works of art, just as all of ryan o'neal's enneagram songs carry a nine-ish inflection to them.

• thank you god for saying things to me in meaningful ways. i remember how your spirit led me to lift up nathan in a way i couldn't expect. i remember how you answered when i prayed to be able to understand your teachings. thank you that you hear me. i'm sorry that i often don't return the same.
• god also raised up aaron and some others to start a bible study that has now grown far beyond all expectation. i attended two weeks ago, and i was so blessed by what god was doing there. i never expected so many people to share insights that i would never have seen for myself. this is the spirit's blessing through community. sometimes faith is a lonely road - two or less sets of footprints in the sand. but this bible study reminds me that it's not up to me, that i'm not alone, and it's never been the case.

i love reading about multiple rhythms of time co-existing with and underneath the dominant calender

there are other cycles and rhythms out of joint with the rhythm of 24 hours, 7 days, and 12 months

an example: as i reread my own blog, i somehow feel that this blog runs on a rhythm which counterpoints the rhythm of my daily life and of my memory

in other words, sometimes blogposts that i think are ancient turn out to be from just two months ago, while i vividly remember writing blogposts from years ago as if only recently.

and it's interesting how the blog weaves in and out of my day life, insofar as how my activities appear (or don't) in what i blog about, and how my posts in turn affect what i pay attention to (or don't) in my activity.

and the "author" i see reflected in my posts is sometimes very different from the "person" i feel is reflected in my autobiographical memory

two different me's, inhabiting different rhythms of time! how fun

soundtrack for this post: 🎵 (porter robinson - do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do)

~~~~

a few substack essays focusing on (small) aspects of japanese urbanism that i really enjoyed and perhaps it'd be up your alley too!

• 📦 - an essay on kakuuchi as neighbourhood living rooms
• ♨️ - on urban bathhouses
• 🌿 - on tsuboniwa (small indoor courtyards)
• 🛝 - an imaginary city designed by japanese kids

i think everyone knows that living in japan is not ideal but idk i think these stories really spark the imagination about what it means for people to make their cities somewhere to live

enter: portal one 🌀

enter: portal two 🌀

enter: portal three 🌀

enter: portal four 🌀

jay dragon on playground theory

as i reckon, some of our favourite examples of worldbuilding are like game design for the imagination.

rather than verisimilitude for its own sake, we love when worldbuilding gives our imagination scaffolding to dream wild and imagine what it would be like to be there.

and here's one form of scaffolding for the imagination: tension, like unresolved chords

~~~~

here's something i've been thinking about: dialectical materialism as a means of introducing tension

reading material: jay dragon on creating space through tension

it's easy to conceptualize polities, places, people, and powers as self-contained bodies whose organs function together as a unified whole. we think of country A as distinct from country B such that the parts inside country A must be similar to each other and different from the parts inside country B.

but dialectical materialism invites us to consider this: what if the world is more paradox than it is propositional syllogism? what if it is more contradiction than consensus? what if every system at equilibrium was in fact a state of internal tension, the fragile stalemate reached through the conflict and movement of opposing forces and interests?

what if everything gives rise to its opposite? what if every system sows the seed of its own abolition?

~~~~

some tools for worldbuilding:

• rather than seeing society as an interconnected whole, dialectical materialists see it as an arena between opposing social classes. the arena is contested, such that every status quo is always fragile. one group makes a move, another group reacts and contests it, which the first group reacts to, and so on...
• let's say you are building a place, person, object, or phenomenon. establish something, then introduce an opposing counterpart or counterbalance (one that is not entirely outside to the first thing, but is in it somehow). build a stately monument, then introduce those who vandalize and steal from it (source). now introduce the guards who preserve the stately form of the monument from the vandals, and so on. see how the monument is not a static thing, but an arena whose meaning is contested and thus always transforms
• on the level of persons, establish a primary value or interest, then introduce a secondary value which opposes the first. the individual too is a multitude.

i've been reading a lot about ethics and virtue

and also about anthropology and relativism

it all makes my head hurt

but it all feels like it doesn't even matter

i feel stupid

and lonely

we need ecosystems; there are no silver bullets that can serve as monocrops

we need safe spaces AND free spaces, not to turn every space into one or the other

we need decentralisation and centralised coordination

we need lectures AND active learning

we need "left-brain" arguments AND "right-brain" experiences

what we need is to abolish the conditions which cause one pattern to become hegemonic and marginalize all others. nothing is intolerable that people are able to (meaningfully) leave or withdraw from. a minimum ethics: anything can be allowed to exist so long as it doesn't dominate the landscape

there are two fundamental freedoms upon which all the others rest

the freedom to participate

the freedom to leave

• god has shown himself to me. with a god who shows himself, all humans must do is wait. his word makes a way where there was no way.
• the nature of grace struck me like a lightning bolt about a week ago. it turned the ground beneath me to sand. it is all arbitrary. it all could have been otherwise. everything that we are, everything that we have done. our good deeds. we did not bring any of it into being. there is no way to get around generosity onto solid ground. no strength nor cleverness can take us. somebody loved us simply because somebody loved us (and this is true even of the most wretched of us). this is the terror of grace.

to be expanded on (maybe):

• paradoxes - the world is irreducibly complex such that contradiction is perhaps the best line of inquiry. rather than assume coherence, why not study "the law of dialetheism" (a cheeky reference to the law of non-contradiction)? what if everything gave rise to its opposite? what if every system contained its own negation? what if we understood that every text contradicts itself, and every person themself?
• interpretation and translation - the world must be interpreted in order to be sensible (naming is what gives rise to the ten thousand things, and distinguishes the hill from the valley). interpretation is an act of translation (translating a wave into a particle). translation is a leap of faith (there are ten thousand ways to translate anything). there is no, and there has never been, solid ground. we read faces into the vapour to make it talk.
• basic emotional needs - every neurotic or troubled human expression is a desperate plea about an unmet need. there are five core emotional needs of the psyche, according to schema therapy. they are: to be securely connected to others; to have autonomy and agency; to be free to express feelings and needs; to learn through play and spontaneity; to have realistic limits and self-control
• love - the question is whether someone enlarges what they're looking at or makes it feel smaller

practices for intellectual honesty in a pluralistic world:

• before criticizing a given position or advice or worldview, are you able to articulate 1) common ground between that position and your position, 2) why someone might genuinely espouse it, and 3) contexts in which that position or advice might actully make sense?
• remember, this doesn't mean conceding anything to that position. you can find common ground but believe that your position covers that ground better and with less issues; you can believe the position's adherents are genuine but completely mistaken; it could be that the only contexts in which that position would make sense would be entirely fictional.
• are you able to articulate and explain what you believe to be the strongest critiques of your own positions? or do you think there are no valid critiques, and everyone opposed to you must be irrational, propagandized, or even malicious?
• in a world, are you at all curious why human beings just like yourself would dedicate themselves to this or that way of life? or are the answers already obvious?

coram deo: facing God; in the presence of God

the treasure of human existence is abiding in god's love, in a close intimate relationship with the creator of the universe (bibleproject)

from romans 14:

• accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong
• in the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike ... those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord ... and those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord

whether "christian perfection" or "antinomian," whether we decide to do good works or not, what matters is doing it "coram deo."

what we do (or don't do), we do it before god, to god, for god, with god, in god.

if we sin, let us fall "coram deo." if we do what is right, let us be righteous "coram deo."

"By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames."

reading tyler staton's praying like monks made me realize that i've been living about god, but not necessarily with god (or to god) for a long time.

i don't know how to do relationship with someone like god. i feel like my faith has been a sham, a complex of projections - a project of complexes.

seeing "the real thing" in others' eyes makes me feel like a fraud by comparison.

i wonder if everything i've done in my church will pass away like vapour - the grass-kingdom of an arrogant fool.

i don't know.

on why god gives spiritual gifts (e.g. prophecy) to right-wing blowhards:

• samson: flawed yet favored
• samson: the wildness of god’s spirit and the shocking cost of love

read these people (all thoughtful jesus-lovers)

• fleming rutledge
• richard beck
• ellen davis
• melissa florer-bixler
• brad jersak
• walter brueggemann

"i shouldn't have to be responsible for this"

• it's complicated, but not too complicated. for us to acknowledge the infinities inherent in every distance does not mean to refrain from taking a single step. everything is complicated (the only problematic reductionism is the division of the world into "simple" and "complicated"). it's complication all the way down.
• you don't have to be an optimist about human nature. we can be very pessimistic about the human inclination towards death. i only maintain that pessimism does not warrant the need for domination. masters are not a solution to our wickedness; they are the very culmination thereof.
• pessimism is often used to shrug about the status quo; we can't expect utopia. leftism does not mean chasing after utopia. leftism merely requires the sober recognition that humans are malleable, that society is not immutable, and that we are living at the end of two hundred millennia of human change, and the beginning of whatever is still to come.
• the best answer for what leftists want: as marx says, communism is not a state of affairs to be established or an ideal the world must adapt itself to. communism is the real movement of the working class to abolish the present state of things. what leftists want is to take the side of the working class (and all the oppressed) in every conflict; our ends is whatever happens next.
• domination violates the golden rule: "do to others what you would have others do to you." a superior is one who has the right to command a subordinate but will not be commanded in return. therefore, it violates the ethics of reciprocity. only command to others if you are willing that they would command you in return.
• pushing someone out of the way of an incoming car is not domination. pushing someone who has freely chosen (in an informed manner) to walk into traffic can be. why? because pushing someone who is unaware of their situation does not establish a relation of domination or command. the two parties can still be equals, despite the intrusion of force into the relationship. however, it is possible to cross the line if we prohibit another party from walking into traffic (as if we were an authority over them).

i wanted to journal about some difficult feelings today, but they've all disappeared out of sight now

i wish i was more real. i wish i lived in my body and not in the imaginations of other people.

i don't know how to be more chill. i'm learning that perhaps not knowing how is where everybody has to start.

there is more to life than growth. decay exists as an extant form of life.

if emotional healing means anything, it means growing capable of accepting difficult and out-of-control emotions

if self-development means anything, it means growing capable of accepting our frailty, weakness, and inability to be optimized

if contemplation and introspection means anything, it means growing closer to the reality of our bodies, minds, and the context in which these exist

if sanctification means anything, it means growing capable of accepting the mistakes and disappointments of ourselves and others

in a world that makes no sense:

• "how to be hopeless," carlos maza (link)
• ecclesiastes, kohelet

there's this trope that gods need belief - their power grows and shrinks corresponding to how much they are believed in

i think it's a little too commonplace, and honestly, a little unbefitting of that which we call gods

however, tyler alterman commits to the bit, and the result is pretty interesting

to revisit later:

• christ the eternal tao
• the jesus sutras
• the secret sayings of ye su

to learn to say nothing

except a few grunts up

in the dark bloodied face of abel

the horizon disappears

when you look close enough at anything

come begins with see

• complexity + contradiction
• curious compassion
• corporeal character
• cross
• commons + collective
• compost

sometimes, we feel compelled to do this or that, or live in this or that way

but what is a compulsion?

a compulsion can be something we owe (obligation)

or something we are forced to do (coercion)

or something we want (desire) or need

however, on examining our actions, we may realize that we do many things that we don't owe to anyone, weren't forced to do, nor were things we wanted to do

they were not good, desired, or coerced. so why do we do them?

i think this points us to the fact that we are marked by fixations, compulsions.

sometimes we feel compelled to "stay true to ourselves," without knowing why or whether it's important to be true to ourselves. basically, unexamined habits of the self. the scary possibility is that we could let go of these urges without losing anything other than ourselves (or, who we think we have to be).

because who might we be without our compulsions, our fixations, our pet peeves that serve little purpose other than to define us?

(update: 6/25) in other words, a lot of skill issues are actually identity issues

the lord's prayer is a map for living life "out of control" (to borrow a phrase from melissa florer-bixler)

each of the prayer's seven petitions is a form of release, a form of letting things go into the hands of the creator

• may your name be hallowed - an eccentric (out of the centre) move; shifting our main attention from our name to god's name
• may your kingdom come; may your will be done - the kingdom is a mystery (gospel of mark), it is not in our hands
• give us our daily bread today - a prayer to have just enough right now, to entrust tomorrow to tomorrow (the centre of the seven petitions)
• forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us - a prayer for "release," to be free to live into new tomorrows
• lead us not into the test, but deliver us from the evil one - the least fitting, but nonetheless, an honest admission of our own weakness, and a prayer for release (deliverance) from the grips of evil, death-dealing powers

many of our prayers involve asking god to help us do something (help me pass this test, help me mediate this dispute), but the lord's prayer really minimizes human agency (imho), or at least places it in the backdrop (e.g., "as we forgive" implies that the action is already done). in this prayer, all we do is release and receive.

and unlike some other practices of prayer, there is no hope that we will get better at anything. we're not cultivating any kind of mindfulness, or progressing up any kind of spiritual ladder, or aspiring towards growth. it is the same words every time, the last time identical to the first. in this prayer, all we do is receive and release.

notes on the gospel of mammon:

mine:

• the foundation of capitalism (and all modes of accumulation) is enclosure and private property
• in genesis, humanity's sins stem from taking and seizing what isn't ours to possess
• the two arms of capital: exploitation and disposession (capital grows by taking from others)
• in culture: egoism, narcissism, self-interest, individualism
• antivenom: common stewardship (leviticus 25:23); common good; reparations/jubilee; generosity, giving away, and sharing

more:

• competition and profit-seeking among capitalists means more: expanding production, expanding into more markets
• capitalist values: profit motive, efficiency (more for less), constant growth, ambition and productivity (drive for more)
• antivenom: enoughness and manna economy (exodus 16; matthew 6:11); rest and sabbath economics; sustainable, circular economy; gratitude; smallness and st. therese's "little way;" ecclesiastes' "chasing after wind"

masters:

• production for profit requires control and mastery over resources, that is exploitation
• bosses must master workers, workers must master their own bodies, and humans must master nature
• mammon gives the "haves" the power to master the "have-nots"
• and yet, workers, bodies, and nature will fight back and not comply; therefore, mammon demands force, violence, and discipline
• antivenom: christian anarchism (no masters); transformative justice/abolitionism; disability theology; relationalism; contemplation (body as mystery, wilderness, not machine); re-enchantment and anarchist ecology; trust over control

mammon:

• just as jesus' gospel points to himself, mammon's gospel centres mammon
• mammon seeks to grow mammon; capital exists to produce capital
• thus, mammon prioritizes capital and commodities over human and creaturely needs
• mammon must deny reality (the reality of finitude, of needs, of limitations)
• antivenom: love god and love neighbour as self (centre what is really real: creation and the creator); wealth is "hevel"

"grace" is another name for "more"

my adventures with superman season 2

television is back

the fans are serviced

the man is super

notes on a better theory of change:

we all want to change for the better (perhaps, mostly for others to change,,,), but change feels so hard. what's happening?

read more:
it's complicated - it's hard for us to face this fact, so we turn to explanations like "people are too lazy to try" or "some people are inherently evil" or "change is impossible" to explain why change isn't happening. people who offer simple-sounding solutions (even good solutions like "global revolution now!") are probably misinformed about something. if how to change (or what to change) was simple and easy, we probably would have changed by now.
everyone is doing the best they can with what's available to them - again, i try to assume that the problem isn't just that people are bad. if people aren't changing, can we imagine that if we had been born like them, raised like them, given the same circumstances as them, we would almost certainly do the same thing they're doing? and conversely, others finding themselves in our circumstances would probably do the same thing we're doing. this doesn't mean we don't have agency or moral responsibility, but it does mean that people probably already are trying their best as they know how. if someone is acting abusively, their behaviour is unjustifiable, but it's perhaps the case that they don't know how to "do better" (or that they don't know that doing better is something they should want to do). the idea is that our moral values are part of what's available to us; some people are under-resourced with respect to moral values. it seems obvious to us that people should know what is right and wrong, but this just isn't true.
the self can't fix itself - the self is a very limited tool for fixing the self. as rich decibels says: "everything that lives, grows inside something else. if you want to change yourself, change what you’re inside of"(source). we need a theory of change that takes into accounts social contexts and environmental factors. plants can only be as healthy as the soil they grow in.
more information ≠ change - gaining more knowledge about what's right and good doesn't mean much in the end. smokers know that smoking kills. you can learn more and more about a subject or issue and never apply that information. i think we've relied on an overly-intellectualized model of the human being as a rational thinking actor, like we are primarily decision-makers who think through the options based on the information given. and therefore the best way to affect our decision-making is to provide more information. but i don't think humans are rational thinkers in this way. i think we are weird hungry animals who need our tribe. i think any good theory of change will acknowledge that giving people information is not the same as allowing people to work through feelings of fear and desire in their body and subconscious needs for attachment.

perhaps this is obvious to everyone else but me,

but i think the kind of stories i like to engage with

could all be classified as "thoughtful" and/or "heartfelt"

some implications: thought-full, not replicating genre tropes out of habit, probably slower pacing (not senseless stuff happening), contemplative, meditating on the big questions

• "jesus, lord, your love surrounds me and leads me"
• "jesus loves the father; lead my heart to our father" ➜ pray to the father
• "jesus loves me; lead my heart to myself" ➜ pray for myself
• "jesus loves my neighbours; lead my heart to my neighbours" ➜ pray for family, friends, neighbours
• "jesus loves the poor; lead my heart to the poor" ➜ pray for the poor and oppressed
• "jesus loves my enemy; lead my heart to my enemy" ➜ pray for the enemy and the oppressor
• "jesus loves the kosmos; lead my heart to your world" ➜ pray for the world, all that is in it

• a random notification reminding me to pray popped up right before i was about to make an unwise choice about how to use my time. i'll take it as a holy interruption.
• i trust the holy spirit helped our worship team to cut our song bank from 190 to less than 70. though we didn't keep track, we somehow ended up cutting the exact number of songs we needed to cut. i believe the spirit was in our midst, in our democracy.
• i got invited to play minecraft with COOL sauga! i could never have imagined this. i'm very grateful that they invited me. things happen without me. what a blessing.

"in that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike." (matthew 5:45)

"you intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people." (genesis 50:20)

"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven."

~~~~

i may never understand the mystery of god's providence.

but i think this: we cannot attribute sunny days to god's providence and the rewarding of our goodness, and then rainy days to the absence of providence or the punishing of our wickedness.

sun, rain, breaking down, building up, weeping, laughing, everything under heaven. all of these are gifts for both the evil and the good.

the bus comes on time, the bus comes late. these may both be gifts from our father, each in their time.

i wonder how far this life principle would take you:

"that all might suffer equally, more or less"

it sounds like a joke, but i think it actually ties together a few things for me

• because god is gracious, i've been praying more and reading more of the scripture recently. the great mystery is calling my name
• like i said, things are being shaken at my church. i wish i had the wisdom to have insight (or be given insight) into what's going on. but i imagine (and pray) that god's will will be done. my expectations: seeds will bear fruit. unexpected reversals (the important will be humbled, the lowly will be exalted). mercy will triumph over judgment.
• god is empowering other people (i don't care if something good happened to you yada yada). i think at the same time, god is teaching me to rejoice in others' successes. hard.

today, i read some critical scholarship that destabilized me and my faith*

* in both a good and difficult sense (difficult because it's difficult to reconcile faith and scholarship sometimes, good because it's interesting at least HAHA)

so, in the vein of mike mchargue's "axioms of faith" (i.e., a set of at-least foundations that he found trustworthy enough to serve as a scaffold from which to reconstruct what he believed), i'd like to think about what my own rendition may look like

these are non-axioms, non-foundations, because i don't claim that these are self-evident. but i do think they make good supports in rough shifting seas

what god desires is to share godself

relationship

to be all above all, through all, and in all

for the land to be filled with knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as water fills the sea

for us all to live in god

for infinity to share infinity's self, streaming out as love, goodness, righteousness, truth

safety + desire = expansive imagination

we need to rebuild a sense of safety

we need to reactivate a sense of desire

lord have mercy

i am so hungry for

the flesh

of distant lands

if i eat out my eyes

tear out a hole

will the light get in?

• after waking up from a nap a few days ago, i suddenly felt awake - like, awake awake. idk if it was god, but i suddenly felt like, present. but also exposed (like adam and eve realizing they were naked). this is life huh. this is life. it's like i suddenly walked out of fog.
• i think shierly's PR issue is on its way to being resolved. truth be told, i didn't pray for it. it's important to remember that everybody else is facing their own struggles at the same time.
• a longer term one: i feel like god's been sending me a lot of tools and supports to help me grow in vulnerable communication. i've always found vulnerability and expressing myself to be really scary (i supress it until it blows up). yesterday, i was able to say something to someone instead of dealing with it myself. thank you lord.

love is a desire that the infinite distance between us could be a garden for new tomorrows

hey, trust me, okay?

you'll hold this. you can.

and when you can't, someone will hold you

i love you

master of one trade or jack of all

it's all connected, big and small

the motivational speaker talks about life, and so she talks about life.

the poet, who comes by once in a while to the old bar on belmont, she talks about the newly painted wall.

she talks about life too.

i've drastically cut down on the blogging, which is interesting in retrospect

my memory of these last few weeks are also noticeably worse, though i know that a lot has happened.

in some sense, my sense of self feels less bound up with my thoughts

i've been doing less introspection, i think, less time with myself. i've been doing more autopilot (in ways good and bad). i've been doing a little more outside

my thoughts escape me. vapour. pissing in the wind.

however, i feel like i have been thinking a lot about tools and practices

the minimum viable toolbox we need to be human well

i propose at least two tools: 1) reparation and 2) listening

i could explain, but not yet. hope this makes sense though lol

here's something new i've been wanting to do (enough to break my one word title rule, anyway!)

following in the footsteps of all of the very profound theologians who tell me that the christian life is recognition that god is the subject (i.e., god is the main character), i've been thinking about ways to practice my eyesight in order to see this truth well.

honestly, i'm not very good at living "coram deo" (before god). i still often see my life as my own, spinning around the axis of me.

it's hard to live as though god is the one who does, so to speak. as though god is the source of the action.

as such, this is "what's god wednesday," in the sense of "what's god doing?"

it's like a gratitude journal, but for my amateur attempts to listen to god's birdsong (in order to remember that we do not make birds sing, and that birds sing regardless)

~~~~

• in the past week, god has brought fun conversation and laughter to my door. while i may have invested in these relationships to some extent, i was caught by surprise by these conversations.
• beyond my personal life, god has also been on the move in our church. some things are being shaken up for sure. it's hard to say what the word of the lord is here. i simply hope that where there is reconciliation, where there is forgiveness, where there are tears, there god is also.
• ps. salmon and ps. lanny prayed and prophesied over our worship team. christ's body is bound together by the diversity of its members. everyone around me has a struggle and a future beyond my comprehension, beyond me. i hope to remember that.

context: a post from 2/29, titled "gospel"

i wanted to update my formulation of jesus' manifesto and gospel, which i had previously framed as "a peaceable common-love and a humble kingdom"

in keeping with the seven-word framework, i have decided to put it thusly: "surprising way, peaceable common-love, and humble kingdom"

while the former formulation summarized much of my understanding of the nature of god's reign, it was missing "the door" so to speak, that is, the way in.

many competing ways of life proclaim a good kingdom, but jesus' manifesto is as much about how this kingdom will come as it is about the kingdom itself

"Trying to get into a meditative mindset despite being around other people. I find this challenging! There's a burden of meaning—"time to have a meaningful experience"—and I end up performing what I think I'm supposed to be doing instead of just having an interior experience. So I was trying to get out of that, and just do the thing." (source)

"I find a kindred heart in anyone who yearns to journey outward from the self-isolating skull-cave of mental projections and fantasies into the sunlit realm where real things are allowed to be really real, as the Zen Buddhists do" (source)

the flower is more than your meaningful experience of it.

the flower is more than your inability to have a meaningful experience of it.

notes: st. therese is called the little flower

"If we don’t know how to love what’s right in front of us, then we don’t know how to see what is. So, we must start with a stone!" (source)

(context)

we talk a lot about the shift to overprotectiveness and anxiety in parenting

a shift to "safetyism" that has eroded a culture of play in wild and risky places

but i think that we can't encourage parents to let their kids play in rivers and scrapyards

unless we're willing to forgive people for letting someone get hurt

nobody wants to lose their kid, or be the parent who lost their kid

we can't condemn anxiety while also being severely punishing of the making of careless mistakes

there is no play, no exploration, without forgiveness (of others, of ourselves)

prepare the way of the lord

the way of the lord is the via dolorosa

following in the tradition of @emilie_in_montreal deleting her twitter after witnesing the solar eclipse,

i want to try "journalling" about my recent wandering with my emotions (over the past three years) or so

to confess, i'm very hesitant about this, because my relationship to my emotional/mental health is not as linear as lines of prose may convey.

furthermore, my memory is shot through with holes. i cannot guarantee that these memories capture things as they were; they capture things as they are now.

ah well

i fucking love lesser-known religions

• askreddit post 1
• askreddit post 2
• askreddit post 3
• askreddit post 4

i love thinking about mandaeism and a life of john the baptist which escapes and eludes being captured by the gospel account.

i love remembering that the world is so wide and weird and wild. that every smooth surface is full of crags and holes and worms when you look closely.

i love being a christian, but there is something so boring about christian supremacy and exclusivism (allegiance to a way when you don't know of any other way is no allegiance)

it's not your responsibility (nor is it in your ability) to fix yourself.

however, we are given the opportunity to participate in our becoming.

older brother syndrome: "there isn't enough. i must protect what i deserve."

younger brother syndrome: "there is more than enough, and it's mine for the taking."

both brothers have an immature relationship with abundance, and more than that, a lacking relationship with the giver of abundance.

life and love as justice and play

justice = our responsibility to reckon and make good

play = our desire to recklessly enjoy what is good

justice = the defanging of danger

play = frolicking with danger

~~~~

a reading list:
• In Defence of Fun: Pastoral Care of Young People and the Seriousness of Fun
• A Theology of Play: Learning to Enjoy Life as God Intended
• The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality
• THEOLOGY AND PLAY: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL.
• Religion as Play: Pentecostalism as a Theological Type

~~~~~

my interest is not only in a defense of fun and frivolousness in themselves, however. my interest is in the possibility of identifying play with leviathan. in psalm 104, leviathan is the great play-er.

"And yet, [fun] experiences often have a darker side to them. Thrill rides ... may be scary and physically demanding. Games routinely involve us in pretending to commit unspeakable acts such as butchering others. And the works we encounter in theatres and galleries may challenge, confront and even outrage us. So perhaps fun is not so frivolous after all? Maybe fun inevitably encompasses a ‘dark side’ as a vital, even necessary, part of the entertainment." (Discomfort—The Dark Side of Fun)

play is haunted by leviathans, by tohu va-bohu, by dangers, by irresponsibilities, by transgressions, by that which is "beyond good and evil."

~~~~

play is the dionysian playmate to the apollonian principle of justice. both have their place in life.

often, we have justice without play and play without justice. playless justice refers to over-responsibility, over-seriousness, and an inability to tolerate the wild and its whims. it does not suffer fools. meanwhile, justiceless play refers to laughter, fun, and desire which goes on getting its way, leaving destruction in its path. it makes messes and refuses to clean them up.

playless justice is overzealous activists ignoring that desire is desire, while justiceless play is gamergaters ignoring that fun is not above reproach.

playless justice is the older brother in the parable, while justiceless play is the younger. the father loves them both and is calling both home.

~~~~

life and love as justice = the law, the prophets

life and love as play = the writings (e.g., song of songs, ecclesiastes, job)

it's interesting that the new testament represents the triumph of justice over play (to me, it's much more serious and much less wild). revelation = the final triumph of the garden and city over the leviathan's sea. nevertheless, there is still a place for desire, now rightly ordered (22:17).

two weeks ago, i went down the mister rogers rabbit hole

some notes:

• i find it interesting how both mister rogers and jesus are often watered down in pop culture into a generic niceness. as melissa florer-bixler knows, jesus is not nice. yet both rogers and jesus can be, in fact, quite demanding and imposing figures.
• it's also interesting how the role of the children's corner is often neglected in the popular hagiography. before the neighbourhood, there was the corner, hosted by josie carey from 1953 to 1961. on this show, rogers did not appear on camera; he would only play puppets and write songs. eight years! not to mention that what came after this was not the neighbourhood, but a precursor which ran from 1963 to 1967. four years! twelve years on television before the neighbourhood was born. sometimes, things take time.
• to add onto that point, rogers' wife joanne byrd also did not want him to be known as a saint. saints are put on a pedestal all by themselves, whereas rogers had a partner in josie carey, a teacher in margaret mcfarland, and a role model in his grandfather. we will not learn everything from rogers' life and biography until we learn how to write the biography of communities and scenes. in other words, how can we zoom out of remarkable individuals and see the communities which sustained them? as henrik karlsson says, "exceptional people grow up in exceptional milieus." imagine if we could commemorate exceptional milieus.

after around seven months of very regular posting, it's interesting and a little strange to now not have so many thoughts that i want to blog through.

some hypotheses about why this is happening:

• just plain ol' moving through seasons of interests
• anxiety because the number of ppl following this site has somehow been growing (hi to anyone who follows me, for some reason??)
• i don't really know what's worth saying or thinking. i'm a little tired of thinking sometimes

three readings on the end of our power:

• a.j. swoboda on our inability to walk through walls
• atkin on our body as wilderness
• oldfield on getting things wrong as creative

the opposite of life is explanation.

i am grateful for disagreements.

having to clarify my thought for someone who disagrees with me surely makes my ideas come alive.

for example, i now think that the idealism vs. pragmatism/realism debate is missing the point (or it is at least incomplete).

ironically, the whole debates is itself idealistic (in the sense of being anti-materialistic), in the sense of prioritizing ideas over material realities.

when i say that i am an idealist, i mean that i proudly wear the label when people call me an idealist.

which people call me because i am an anti-capitalist.

i actually do not care about pursuing radical ideals. i actually do not care about the attitude we should have bout what is possible.

what i believe is this: capitalism is the problem, and we cannot end capitalism through capitalism.

we cannot fix capitalism. capitalism isn't broken; it's working perfectly to do what it's designed to do.

and if the state exists to protect property rights and the economy, and if the state is held hostage by capitalist interests, we cannot work within the government to bring about the world we want to see. we may better things somewhat. but if you join a military to promote peace, don't be surprised if war wins.

there is no world i want where capitalism survives. and that means that every path forward, for me must involve the abolition of capitalism.

idealistic action to get there? great. pragmatic strategy to get there? great.

i don't want a better world. i want the end of capitalism.

• i am compelled by this story of the god of israel
• whom the ancient israelites testified to be the holy creator god
• on a mission to rescue everyone and reconcile all things into relationship with himself.
• this god, or so the story goes, wants to do this through partner-relationships with "called-out" humans (called covenants)
• but none of the partners were faithful to the relationship, until god became his own relationship-partner, as jesus.
• and as such, through his life, crucifixion, and resurrection, jesus announces and embodies the in-breaking of the peaceable common-love and humble kingdom of god.
• jesus effects this kingdom through pouring out god's spirit onto human beings, transforming them into his image, enabling them to be his body.
• and so, there are no heroes (but one, if that); there is a story-testimony, there is a saving and holy father who wants us home, there is a saving and victorious brother who is the way home, there is a saving and empowering spirit who calls us home.
• there is the building and righting of loving relationships and there is mercy and there is humility, over the long haul.
• and one day, there won't be any death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.
• humans will once again live in relationship with god, and god with them. and we shall reign forever and ever.
• maranatha (come quickly, king jesus)

in acts 2, peter preaches for 7 minutes and 3000 people are baptized.

prior to this sermon, the holy spirit had come upon the apostles after they pray for 10 days.

prior to this waiting, the apostles had been formed through jesus' ministry of 3 & 1/2 years.

prior to this ministry, jesus had been growing in wisdom and stature for 30 years.

30 years for 3 1/2 years for 10 days for 7 minutes for 3000 souls.

7 minutes takes 30 years to grow.

surprises, disappointments, and interruptions are all different words for the same kind of event.

the main difference is one's capacity for openness and gratitude.

another definition of wildermess:

"...cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken.

wildermess takes the forms of thorn and thistle which come up as we work the ground.

this is life outside the garden.

wildermess tempers utopian thinking. just because life has conflicts, grief, and exhaustion does not mean there is a problem.

there is a world beyond getting our way as we will it now.

~~~~

where the conservatives would conclude that suffering is therefore necessary, i would say that the answer lies in a reframing.

we musn't measure ourselves against a utopic bliss of easy trouble-free comfort.

rather, we measure ourselves against whether our society is lending strength to those in affliction.

we seek not the end of suffering, not the end of the curse (at least not now), nor to live life free from unruly wildermess, thorns, and thistles.

but to bring healing to those who suffer, strength of heart to those who toil under the curse, and dancing amid the thorns.

fix our eyes on peace and justice in the fray. suffering qua injustice, not suffering qua suffering.

henri nouwen...

...you get it

it always takes me such a long time to recognize that i'm afraid

i was afraid today

little JJ, how can i face you now? how can i hold you now?

four substack articles about being here

• singing is not therapy - yatharth
• frustration and the art of motorcycle maintenance - jesse crossen
• the tree manifesto - simon ohler
• what i wish someone had told me about starting a meditation practice - sasha chapin

"THE GOOD IS MORE THAN X" is more than "X IS NOT GOOD"

in other words, the good may be "a more excellent way" than X (1 corinthians 12), but that does not mean x is bad or unnecessary or wrong. just... incomplete.

a theology of gracious concessions ("but if you don't"): brad jersak on 1 corinthians 7

related: "but if you can't" in the didache

in summary: not a binary between right and wrong, beneficial and destructive; rather, a spectrum of the good, towards increasing completeness (wholeness)

bonhoeffer: "God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly ... He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure."

"Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it." (related article by chase replogle)

"If we do not give thanks daily for the [actual] Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if, on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ." (related article by zach puthoff)

~~~~

"I Love Mankind...It's People I Can't Stand " (related multi-part blog series by richard beck)

dostoevsky:"...love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action ... But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.”

~~~~

love = gratitude for interruptions, disappointment, the otherness of the other; windows into grace

where you are now is the place god meets you. you need only to turn aside to see.

the infinite creator god has decisively entered into the universe through the human, jesus of nazareth

in him, the infinite god and human nature are reconciled. he carried an infinite life and love into death, crucified as a criminal under pontius pilate

note: i'm missing a part about rescue from sin here (oops)

but death could not hold him, and he shattered death open from the inside. he lived, though he died.

and this is the announcement: he reigns now as the forever king, reconciling all things under heaven to the love of the infinite god

and those who swear their allegiance to him shall have part in the world to come; they will live in him, even though they die

~~~~

"a peaceable common-love and a humble kingdom"

1. peaceable = inclined towards peace and peacemaking (shalom)

(reconciliation, wholeness, rest)

peace within the self, right relationships between individuals, between groups, between species (ecological), with all created beings (cosmic)

it's a stretch, but shalom means a whole self; enoughness for our fragmented, divided, and disconnected hearts.

2. common-love = a play on commonwealth (a political community founded on the public welfare)

common = shared; interdependent; belonging equally to or held by all in question (acts 2:44-45; acts 4:32); a just arrangement

the commons - land that was not private property, but instead managed by all for the needs of all (granted common rights: the right to graze, to fish, to take wood according to need)

"in it together" - collaboration, not competition; gotong-royong, not isolation

love = power in solidarity; delighting in the sheer existence and flourishing of the beloved; patient and kind action; seeing as god sees, to be led to where the infinite erupts into our finite world; to see and seek a world where we live and flourish together

as bonhoeffer says, the community has no basis other than the god who is love, the love that is god

(agape, ahava, hesed, etc.) - not love in the abstract; love as revealed through god's character and saving power in scriptures and in history

love in action (not love in dreams): to love these people in this moment

love: of god, of neighbour, of self, of enemy

common-love = a commons bound by love (the communism of love

3. humble = an accurate recognition of one's limitations vis-a-vis the infinity and mystery of the other

etymology: from latin humilis, low, lowly; from humus, ground, earth, soil (grounded, rooted)

synonyms: curious, non-presumptuous, non-aggrandizing, gentle, patient, grateful, interdependent

wildermess = the recognition that our sovereign power is never final, our projects (on every level) will always be interrupted by an unruly, recalcitrant, free-spirited (beloved) other which eludes our discipline

micah 6:8 - "walk humbly with your god" - life as utterly dependent on YHWH's creative and saving action; YHWH as the subject of our grammars

we are not leaders in charge, but disciples who follow

4. kingdom = kingdom of god

not an empire, not a bureaucracy, but the rule of a king (a person)

the rule is not a law, but a person

power and virtue exemplified in the character of a person (the anointed king jesus), not a principle

we are a king's subjects, we belong to him

we are a king's sons and daughters and children, we belong to him

(humble king)dom - but this king is not like the worldly kings; to rule is to serve one's enemies (matthew 11:29)

5. AND - unresolved tension between commons and kingdom; equality and submission

christ is the supreme cosmic king AND we shall all reign with him forever and ever (2 timothy 2:12; revelation 22:5)

to have one image is static; to have two images is animation

~~~~

"communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. we call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. the conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." (karl marx, the german ideology)

the peaceable common-love and humble kingdom is for us not an ideal state of affairs to be established. it is the free participation in the ongoing real movement of christ which makes all things new. the conditions of his movement result from the premises now in existence."

"god hates visionary dreaming ... he who loves his dream of a community more than the christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter." (dietrich bonhoeffer)

a call to nature

interrogating nature

interrogating nature 2

someone needs to find me an ecosocialist synthesis that is neither pro-civ in its imagination but also not haunted by retvrn rhetoric.

this is what i want to try to do with wildermess: wildermess assumes the goodness, and yet, non-finality of domestication.

currently reading through the gospel of mark.

it compels me somehow. it has a different energy.

keywords: power; the king come in secret; mysteries and non-understanding; dull disciples

i'm happy to pick up on the parallel betweeen mark's gospel and homer's odyssey regarding the diguised beggar-king rejected in his own homeland.

and even happier to discover that other scholars have picked up on this too (i.e., woo, i'm not just making it up!)

thank you to wolfythewitch for your beautiful homeric and biblical brainrot. wouldn'tve seen this without you.

there's so much in this gospel. definitely see why people call this gospel a mystery story, a gothic horror.

i love that this gospel allows us to just completely misunderstand everything and get things wrong. god works through our foolishness.

“for every direct actionist we need ten supporters” – margaret killjoy

(update: 4/2): "to weave and reweave the fabric of community is quiet, quotidian, Sisyphean work, but without it, revolution and liberation will never grow roots and bear fruit." - the spiral lab

mariame kaba's five-hundred-year clock; five-hundred-person movement

curiosity, non-judgment, patience, expansive attention, wildermess, and "being with the process"

= i don't know everything. my conclusion is only a slice of the reality. there is more here. there is more than i can see now. don't move on just yet.

~~~~

"there’s a moment where [Kenny Werner] confidently brings his entire hand down across multiple keys on the piano, which of course makes a big, discordant, jangly boom sound. And he says, “listen to how beautiful that sounds.” [...] it’s the judgement, the criticism that an individual brings to their work that kinda ruins it." (source)

“the thing that makes it sound good is your love and acceptance of it.” – Kenny Werner

~~~~

i am interested in this. i love this. i am not thinking about myself. i am getting out of the way. it's about this moment with these people. for the sheer pleasure of it.

~~~~

related?: there is a full life found in listening, washing dishes, and brushing teeth, and doing it again tomorrow.

thinking about goodhart's law

some reading: david manheim

a similar law: campbell's law

some notes:

• multiplicity, diversity, and noise. monoculture = vulnerability. polyculture = fecundity.
• what do you actually want? what are you optimizing for? poke the desire a little; it could turn out to be a proxy for what you actually want.
• goodhart's law for decision-makers: metrix and measures simplify complex reality. sometimes the goal is more complex than can be captured by the measure (be clear about what you want), and more unruly and slow-coming than can be captured by the measurement period (be patient).
• cathedrals take multiple generations, begun by builders who know the work will outlive them. anything worth doing will escape and outlive your life (there will always be more tooth brushing). the desire to finish something can be misguided (it can distort your goal). think about ten years, fifty years down the line. so let go. i.e, “you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it (pirkei avot 2:21).”

there was once a pile of vegetables who wanted to become a man

the pile of vegetables went to a witch and asked the witch to transform him into a man

the witch said “of course, but for a price. the price is your soul”

the pile of vegetables thought to himself, “aha! well i am a pile of vegetables. I don’t have a soul, so i will come away with the upper hand”

so the vegetable pile became a man. and he swam in the river, he sat under the sun, he fought in wars, and he slept at night

years later, the witch came to his door. the man who was once vegetables was now living with his lover.

when the witch asked him for his soul, the man laughed in the witch’s face. “You have nothing to collect!”

but alas, of course all those years of crunching in the snow, of feeling the wind against his face, and making love had given him a soul

how could it have not?

so the man had to give away his soul to the witch

and he once again became a pile of vegetables

it is said that travellers asked the pile of vegetables whether he felt foolish

and he said “no”

and the field grown from the compost made from that pile of vegetables still stands there to this day

the end.

just finished reading invisible cities by italo calvino.

now i am thinking about babel and arcadia.

about fey and uncertainty. about bricks laid in the wilderness.

unrelated: i am also following roads into pastoral science fiction.

context: 1-2am, 2/7

[11:12 AM] pastoralpunk: i drove someone home with my sister and i broke down crying haha

weeeeeeeeeeeee

[11:13 AM] ko: whymst

[11:13 AM] pastoralpunk: they didnt understand why i was afraid of the mortifying ordeal of being known

i was trying to explain how i feel, fear of rejection and being unwanted

like the feeling that i cant win someone over and be important to them

and i guess at some point it just triggered the emotion

[11:22 AM] like i dont really know if its about wanting more relationships than it is about feeling lonely and disconnected and rejected

and trying to seek out connection

and feeling like being likeable and being important/close to others is the only secure form of connection

why are spiritual gurus childless men?

(example 1)

(example 2)

but a virtuous life is expressed in being interrupted, washing dishes, raising kids, and conflict.

our image of the spiritual guru is a childless man.

i am interested in what childless women and parents (women and men) have to say about the spirit-led life.

as a christian, this is the heart of advice:

• relax
• seek the god who is pursuing you
• listen to him and let him hold everything of you
• go, trusting him

the rest of advice is just commentary on what each particular person needs to be able to get there and the constraints along their way home

the things we affirm readily

the knowledge we accept readily

these are important, but they are the stuff we already know

reinforcement, we might say

the greatest potential lies, therefore, is in the things we don't (know how to) value

to love a stranger, to love an enemy

p.s. do the thing that is below you

• assume things will go wrong (unplanned)
• assume that the wildermess will be unruly
• assume that "mistakes" will be made
• we need to know that, even so, we will be okay (the help of god, the help of others, and the help of ourselves)
• (03/04: lack and loss are not the end of the story; change is happening)
• this is why the "problem of evil" really boils down to two vulnerable questions: does anyone care about me when i'm hurt? can anyone help me when i'm hurt?
• our worldview (imo) spins on this axis. optimism and pessimism spins on this axis. growth mindset and fixed mindset spins on this axis. this is not about which mindset is better or worse to have; just an observation that optimism (when it's not a coping mechanism) rests on a fundamental trust that there is enough good to overcome the bad.
• the way out of the charybdis and scylla of denialism and doomerism is "hoping against hope." i still have to learn this. it's slow.

all humans need:

• possum
• blessing
• provisions
• belonging
• pleasure
• boundaries
• communion

source: genesis 1-2

possum is a latin word related to the english words power, potency, and possibility.

to me, the concept of possum is the basis of the modern concept of safety needs.

to have safety means not being dis-empowered.

sunset becomes a ghost

you cannot hold on

but grip the steering wheel just a little more

can you feel your fingers tickle the pores in the leather?

below birds passing, you are still now

friend, you here are part of the wonder

tl;dr: you don't need to systematize the finding of walking sticks

you only need three questions to be a leftist:

if there is a problem, ask: "why?" (example)

if a reactionary defends the status quo, ask: "for whom?" and "how long?" (example)

please

let the strong inherit the earth

and let those who mourn have nothing

i am too tired for anything more than being mean

i am too tired for wellness

those who find it easy should testify.

those who find it difficult should teach.

"seek first to understand, then to be understood."

when is that "then" coming?

it's funny.

the people who have understood me most, i have never needed to try to understand.

some notes:

sources: "the sufferer's wisdom" (ellen davis), "destiny not fate" (walter brueggemann), "the one in whom all things hang together: bureaucracy and the christian life" (myles werntz)

• keywords: unruly, untameable, mystery, wild, riotous
• the patient urgency of justice
• i am not interested in masters (or managers), but outlaws
• unruly and disorderly characters: e.g., yotsuba (children), fiona (roaming); recalcitrant to prosocial moralism and agreeableness
• the summertime metropolis inside me
• the opposite of "to love" is "to use"
• shoshin
• nadasdy's indeterminancy + haraway's unruly fungus
• melissa florer-bixler: "heresy [names] the doctrines that cleared up mystery too quickly ... too easy and too neat. Heresy cuts away the knots, replacing them with the appearance of order. Heresies turn God into an idea we can manipulate with our good deeds or our intellect or our power." + rowan williams on heresy
• "Within the economy of God’s creation, this kind of fecundity—this kind of unruliness of stories and complex actors—is the rule. Because the thing about fecundity is that you don’t exactly know what it’s going to do. To order something well, there is an acknowledgment of freedom, and that any order will happen in and through the fullness of what people are, not in spite of it." (myles werntz)
• to be overwhelmed, to be at a loss
• confounds final calculations, sums that don't add up
• "much of gardening is a war against nature so if you want to attract wildlife, the secret is to garden less" (source) + myles werntz's "truth from power
• it is too easy and too neat to simply promote surrendering to the wildermess, to give up power. this is yet another (subtle) way of domesticating the wildermess. there is no innocent life. we inevitably will tamper with the wildermess and try to use it. to try to abstain entirely is only to deny our own internal wildermess. "creatures such as us can be free of the blurring Fitch wants us to abjure" + "but what we need is not a purer model of power but the ongoing bonds of forgiveness" (werntz)

faith without works is dead (james 2).

works w/o justice is dead (isaiah 58).

justice w/o mercy is dead (james 2; hosea 6).

mercy w/o freedom is dead (genesis 3; luke 15:11-32).

freedom w/o love is dead (1 corinthians 10).

love without faith is dead (1 john 2).

christ is alive.

it always strikes me that the father of the prodigal son allows his son to leave home.

there is no possible good answer to the one suffering from the problem of evil.

to reiterate, if my post sounds like an apologia for suffering, feel free to ignore the whole thing. suffering has little purpose other than to be healed.

the free-will defense fails. it sounds narcissistic. "god allows suffering because it is the price of giving people free will." "why free will?" "because god wanted people to freely choose whether to love him or not." "at the cost of billions of people of suffering?" "yep."

but let's try another reading of the free will defense, a more political one.

on raising humans to be better

two posts that i think are saying the same thing:

richard beck's "the grace of disillusionment"

myles werntz's "truth from power

and both of these intersect with what bonhoeffer is talking about the real Christian community.

idealism is, let's say, an impulse to strain out the bad parts of the soup, to make the soup "clearer."

our idealism for our community is good, but it can also lead us to fail to accept and love our human neighbours whenever they can't live up to it.

myles werntz writes that: "But what we need is not a purer model of power but the ongoing bonds of forgiveness. We must assume that we will in fact harm one another, at least in unintended ways. We must not assume that we can somehow put off 'power over' altogether."

we musn't hope to "upgrade" each other, whether ourselves or our neighbour — believing that this would fix things (once and for all), such that we can bypass conflict and the need for forgiveness entirely.

"upgrading" and "technical fixes" can prevent us from seeing the image of god already in one another, in our strengths and our failures. paul writes: "put up with one another" (colossians 3:13). we will get it wrong, we will make mistakes, we will always have to put up with one another.

expect people to change (even hope for it, maybe); don't expect to change them.

there can be no other object for our love other than "this moment, with these people." (andrew root)

once there was a plant that hid from the light to prove it could grow in the dark.

related to a previous post: "12/29 - domination"

some lessons from genesis 3, the parable of the prodigal son, and god's character:

• allow people to make their choices
• teach people to make good choices
• allow and accommodate the outcome of peoples's choices (though, hold them accountable to justice)
• help people when they make bad choices
• love people throughout

all else is commentary.

context

note to self:

things don't have to be final to be valuable

do things that aren't the final word; make things that don't express the final word. do things that fail to represent the infinite in a complete way.

a public record of snapshots, mistakes, and how you've grown is equally valuable.

of course, as always, "doing things without finality is easy, just be born with secure attachment"

p.s. i wonder if this is why shitty doodles are often "better" than laborious polished pieces, insofar as they seem to resonate with people more? there is value to the shitty doodle. there is value to the complex idea or feeling being summarized over fragmentary DMs rather than a polished essay or blogpost.

holism ought not lose sight of antagonism.

aleksandr solzhenitsyn wrote that:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

funny how we all know this saying, but we're never told that solzhenitsyn was an "arch-reactionary" monarchist who romanticized pre-revolutonary tsarist russia.

note: i should really write something about the circulation of "self-authenticating sayings" in reactionary thought.

solzhenitsyn also says that "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts."

he adds that "since that time I have come to understand the falsehood of all the revolutions of history: they destroy only those carriers of evil contemporary with them (and also fail, out of haste, to discriminate the carriers of good as well). And they take to themselves as their heritage the actual evil itself, magnified still more."

it's not that solzhenitsyn is wrong about the line between good and evil. surely we ought to take out the log in our eye before we condemn others.

however, the universal capacity of all beings for both good and evil distracts from the reality that there is another line: the line dividing "power over others to use them for oneself" and "no-power." this line passes between states, between classes AND through every human heart. we're not talking about expelling evil but struggling against tangible material oppression. a person can be both virutous and vicious AND also be clearly on the side of the line that has power over others.

what about the line dividing "to place trust in seizing power for oneself" and "to surrender in trust to the good?" this line is more ambiguous (the oppressed may certainly aim to seize power), but even so, it reveals that one side has seized more power historically, and the other side has historically needed to surrender.

notes on a theology of sight:

• philippians 2:4 "look to the interests of others" (source: transforming church conflict, p.34)
• "turn your eyes away"; sin is not looking at the thing we shouldn't do, sin is not looking at the thing we should do. (source: secular christ podcast, s1e8)
• what would jesus see?

am wondering if theology of sight is 1) dominated by white gaze and 2) ableist. can sight be retold as something more whole, less cartesian subject-y?

tl;dr: don't always try to skip over the ugly stage. it's okay to "think like a child" when you are a child (metaphorically)."

i may consciously reject the myth of the heroic soldier, but i realize that even when i was young i have embodied what i call the "false sage."

the false sage is the impulse to "be mature for your age," to skip past the naivete and errors and impropriety of youth entirely.

if rudimentary models of atoms are the stuff of children, false sages seek to skip straight to the advanced stuff.

context

some would say "we don't need another hero." i generally agree, but maxims (and language itself) are lossy; it's reasonable that in some contexts, we would need something that looks like what we'd call heroism.

have no fidelity to the cult of the hero.

god, love, and community will save us in the end, by means of empowering grace.

"Negativity is a fact of life. Sometimes empathy isn’t what’s needed. Sometimes self-absorption is required to create good art. Sometimes we need catty people to tell the ugly truth. Sometimes hand-holding positivity is just a lie. Sometimes insisting on being “good” and “healthy” all the time is an exhausting way of ignoring our darker impulses. Sometimes elitism preserves high-quality practices. Sometimes we just want to be mean because it’s honest to our experience. Sometimes we shouldn’t care about disrupting others’ good moods if it means we’re being authentic to ours. Sometimes hatred is the truth." (source)

"nothing is a waste if you learn from it" (source)

"everything belongs."(source)

few things are inherently good or bad in absolute terms. for everything, there is a season (everything, any given thing, may be good or bad according to its context). discernment of this is both our highest test and our greatest temptation.

what we consider good may be bad if it is without love (1 corinthians 13). what we consider bad may be good if it is redeemed in love (jesus' crucifixion). there is a time and place for everything, good and bad. everything is only good sometimes. everything is bad only sometimes.

what matters is that nothing is "waste" if we can learn from it (if we can learn where and how it belongs in order for it to benefit universal flourishing).

the question, at its heart, is therefore: what do we need in order to be able to "learn from it?" what supports do we need to grow into a "growth mindset" where everything (potentially) belongs?

(update: 1/28) surrender it to god, surrender it to god, surrender it all.

a healing, transformation, and resurrection society:

not a society where nothing bad happens

where bodies never break

where lives never fall apart

where no one ever loses their way

where no one suffers;

but a society where people have everything they need to heal and transform

where broken bodies are given the time to mend

where failures are given the space to be restored

where prodigals are given the way back home

where suffering people are given enough to lean on

not the prevention of death but the certainty that it'll be transformed by resurrection

our aim is common flourishing and a flourishing commons

currently noticing how everywhere the metaphor of exercise and practice is

"[x] is like a muscle."

"no pain, no gain."

i've always been pretty bad at exercise, which might explain things.

i feel like i've always leaned closer to the energy of "flow," of "non-doing."

as people always point out, flow and non-doing are not passive (far from it!). the basketball player in the zone is not doing nothing, but their activity is spontaneous.

of course, it takes a lot of "exercise" and "practice" to get into a flow state in the first place.

but i wonder if we take for granted how much of life is like exercise.

related to a post from 11/13, titled "difference."

it probably turns out that a lot of my "issues" come down to a poor theory of mind

i.e., underestimating others' agency; seeing myself as a "source" or "origin" rather than a recipient

branching paths/timelines are scary. it's scary to think about how some very good thing or very bad thing happening now is the result of a past choice, itself resulting from a past choice, resulting from a past choice, and so on, all of which could have occurred otherwise.

analysis paralysis is at its heart the fear of having to make a difference. we know that every decision we make makes a difference for us and can make a difference for others' lives, even years down the road. how can we know that the difference we're making is the best difference we can make?

as nix says in their blogpost: "Every choice holds ripple effects: meeting one person in a particular time and particular place can change your entire life trajectory."

however, nix also says this: "and you only need to meet one or two right people or do one or two right things. Take the pressure off of doing everything perfectly and instead focus on the areas with most surface area/leverage."

i think that the anxiety of freedom is at its heart an underestimation of others' agency. if every choice holds ripple effects, this doesn't have to be scary when we think about how everyone else's choices also holds ripple effects.

we can't expect ourselves to make perfect choices when the terrain is rippling and changing beneath our feet every second as eight billion other people make their choices. the branching paths are constantly twisting; the trajectory of our lives are not only the sum of our choices, but the sum of everything, everywhere, all at once.

rather than being responsible over the trajectory of our lives, let us instead be "response-able." rather than try to thread a needle through the optimal path, let's look up from our lives and see everything else. let's see the water rippling with possibility, and let's swim over to wherever looks fun. and let's go from there.

our world is fire and burnt flesh.

it is ice worms and heaving stomachs.

it is urchins and ragged edges falling into infinity.

saving this for later:

• grothendieck
• p. 50, greenwood, michael christie

(update: 1/17) there's something here about lone radicals

as andreas malm says: "I can do [illegal, militant activism] only as part of a collective of people who do something that they have decided on together."

hypocrisy is not the prerogative of the individual; it is the work of the collective.

chat, i figured it out:

when people give advice in the form of "do [x]," it helps me to understand that advice in the form of "be the kind of person who can do [x]."

e.g., touch grass; don't procrastinate (start earlier); be on time; meditate; exercise; worry less; practice gratitude; love yourself

all this advice is good, but when we focus narrowly on how to do [x], we may beat ourselves up when we're unable to do so (and miss what's actually happening)

let's follow the train of thought: when we fail to start doing these things consistently, we conclude that we're defective; we're unable to make good choices, we lack willpower and determination, etc.

therefore, the advice at its root: "be the kind of person who can make good choices," "be the kind of person who has willpower and determination"

sounds absurd? that means we're now starting in the right place

note: my working theory is that this root advice is not actually so absurd when you consider richard bartlett's saying that "everything that lives grows inside something else". all living being grows within a supportive context (good soil, good light, good grace).

the issue is no longer limited to "making bad choices" and "lack of willpower." yes, these are still important. but it's also worth considering what kind of environment allows for the growth of a kind of person who can make good choices. what would it actually take for us to grow into people who make good choices?

conclusion: there's a lot of advice out there. when advice disappoints, we ought to blame not ourselves or the advice, but the truth to which it points: "it's good to be the kind of person who can do this. be that kind of person."

update (03/05): "What matters is that, through certain against-the-grain actions, of giving thanks, we become people who are grateful. [...] This is what distinguishes gratitude (as a virtue, part of our character) from the act of giving thanks (something we summon up when the occasion arises, or on Thursdays in November). It’s the end of the train, not the beginning. Put differently, you’re not required to be grateful, or even thankful, for a bad nights’ sleep. Or grouchy children. Or cancer." (myles werntz)

becoming a kind of person > the performance of our actions. becoming a grateful person is the end of the train. but what's the traintracks?

happy new year! :D

just a few notes, since i have nothing much to say:

• i just put up a survey on IG, and i am both surprised that other people feel it to be very hard to be okay, and surprised that other people feel it to be very easy to be okay.
• i am making it to the end of gabor maté's the myth of normal and i am finding the ayahuasca and spirituality turn unsurprising, but a bit disappointing. perhaps i am too mockingbird-pilled and disillusioned with TPOT. still, nadine burke harris' concept of "incremental milestones that need to happen over thirty or forty years' time" is very helpful. thirty or forty years!! i don't even think on the timescale of a single year. perhaps good things grow over years.
• just off of that previous point, i think we need to become more conversant with agricultural images. it's a false dichotomy to argue that either 1) be patient even if you don't see visible growth, since growth is slow, or that 2) being told to be patient is an excuse to justify ineffective programs that don't actually help us grow. good growth should bear fruit. if we think agriculturally, we know that great trees take decades to mature, but at the same time, there are characteristic milestones that we can use to monitor the tree's growth even in the earliest stages of its life. by comparison, we shouldn't expect maturity to come quickly, but we should be able to discern the hidden signs that their maturation is going well or poorly (even if the person themselves is still very, very green, and their fruit underripe). what are those hidden signs? idk.
• (update: 2/7) to read: how to read a tree by tristan gooley