"But I've Got My Philosophy" -Ben Folds This is where I'll say it when I've got something to say. I've got something to say & took time to say it, so here it is for your listening pleasure.
HAH! You can't hear me. I win. (Wait a minute...) Excerpt from a Letter Written in Ohio, 14 May 2005 (11/June/05) I've always loved the lush, intense foliage - it's so thick that I can smell the forest when I stand near it! Oh my god,
I love being where the world is alive! New England is so slow, its blood so thickly coagulated from the cold that it doesn't start growing when the season turns. Here, the locusts and tulip trees are blossoming. I have had a lot of time for active fun, a lot for sweet relaxation and time still for reflection. I know Emerson said that travel does the mind no good, but a change of scene always gets my mind going, especially one so dramatic and positive. Like I said before, things in my mind have been coming together and I'm very excited. I've defined my feelings toward this 'love and beauty' concept. It's not that this is all I can bring myself to believe in - it's what I don't have to bring myself to believe in. When my mind is in a receptive state, I am acutely aware of the beauty inherent in all things, from a tree to a person to a piece of gravel or a computer keyboard, and I feel a divine presence in them. Things are beautiful not because they have a certain value to me personally, but because they are expressions of this divinity - and the appreciation of this is Love. I'll admit that some things are so distasteful to me that they can overwhelm this openness, but these are things with which I have some horrible associations (like slugs - the mere suggestion of them makes my flesh crawl and my mind shiver).
When I am receptive to this, I have no trouble believing that there is a God, and that he is detatched but benevolent. I can conceive of a God who loves all, but
rains no fire or brimstone on the 'evildoer.' Life is a vast piece of art, the creator's personal expression, full of "good" and "bad," savage beauties and delicate tendernesses, each bearing the divine brushstroke. Our human art is a result of that instinct: as we are God's children, we carry the urge to create and to express. In this way, art did not simply precede religion; art was the first spiritual expression, before humanity's greed for power imposed religion on spirituality. Every instant is a work of art whose complexity exceeds our comprehension; but in some moments, which grow less and less rare for me, one can apppreciate the fragment we are blessed to percieve. American Hit List Doesn't it sound like A Film by Quentin Tarantino?
Well it isn't, it's slang for American History and Literature. I'm one of those English freaks, so I love the class (my girlfriend is a Math Freak, she disturbs even me sometimes), although some others dislike it. Ah, well, so it goes.
We're doing the Transcendentalists about now, which is pretty sweet because it's basically "Let's study Foster's philosophy and spiritual beliefs" month. I didn't know much about Waldo before this, but I am now a firm supporter of his. He rocks my socks, even from beyond the grave. Well, now... that's your ration for today. Bring it home to your starving children and explain how mommy makes a living.
Ye Update, 13 Nov 04: Anyway, Waldo's thing is that God is in all things (a no-brainer, right? I mean, if He made them & all...). Thus, we are all extensions of God. SO: that's right. This is God's personal website. And, get this - the Divine link between all, the great universal consciousness, he referred to as the "Oversoul." Hot Damn. 
Update (Turkey Day): More Emerson.
Emerson was around when the Unitarians church started breaking away from those blasted Puritans. He was a preacher, then left because he was a little too Out There even for the Unitarians. He believed in following our own natures & being true to ourselves; although he admitted that many great thinkers lived & wrote valuable things in days gone by, he admonished all to seek their own highest truths, even should those actions contradict the Establishment (da-dam!). After all, since God is at the core of all things, following our nature = following the will of God (by Emerson's logic, mind you). Sounds good to me, man. |
