This is the Last Post Ever!

At this point, this blog has become mere randomness.  And although random thoughts can be fun, in such a scenario substantive progress is lost for any one topic.  My original intention was to keep a blog with which I could discuss the goings-on of my life and then what I have learned from them.  However, and much akin to the way I have never been able consistently to journal, I am unable to keep up a rigorous discipline of relating life occurrences to my latest mind-trips.  Of course there is a relationship, and an interesting one.  But it seems a useless waste of time to regurgitate the simple facts when they have already passed through my mind and generated more interesting meta-thoughts.  This has always been my problem.  I lack an appreciation for details (even though apparently as a Taurus I am supposed to be overly concerned with them… get it right, astrology!).  Although, when it comes to administrative tasks I’m all for a good spreadsheet, but precisely for the purpose of never having to waste precious cognitive resources on memorizing data.  To be entertained by trivia, talk to somebody else.  But I’ll discuss the impact of Foucault’s History of Sexuality on Quaker nonviolence any day of the good-god week.

And this is my conundrum.  Well, it was a conundrum until earlier this week when I decided that it’s time to retire thismomentshines.  It’s time that I direct my burgeoning writing skills into a useful and informative blog that might have some substantive impact on something (if only for me) overtime.  So I have created a new blog called RobustPeace.  It is the blog that most directly relates to what I foresee at least the next twenty years (if I live that long) of my life will be about—working to develop the intellectual resources for a less violent society.  Of course, I may discuss the same sorts of topics (sex, community, worship, religion, etc) but they will all be better written (hopefully) and more sophisticated.  Blog entries won’t emerge as often, they'll have lots of footnotes, and we’ll all (as in I will) be better off for it. 

P.S.

(permit me one last exposition)

I recently blogged about Quaker worship in which I polemically exclaimed that I’d rather be at the gym than sitting in silence.  I did this to begin a side project in which I’d like to start codifying a separate (but equal) discursive space for liberal Quakers.  I want to do this merely so that we can be proud of uncertainty, of our ambivalence.  I want to do this so that we can make headway in justifying our pride without reducing our faith to what was true for Quakers years ago, but is no longer right for us now.  It’s time that Liberal Quakers cease apologizing to less liberal Quakers about their supposed lack of robust religiosity.  It is time, instead, that liberal Quakers unapologetically announce to God and everybody that the testimonies are important not merely as results of discernment, but as regulative elements in a postmodern faith.  It is time that liberal Quakers claim uncertainty and mystery as the foundations of their religion, and it is time that we push back against other Friends who want everyone to believe that.  Believing that, is so twentieth century.  One can believe that, or one can believe in.  And although there are other distinctions that might get at the same idea, to what I point is especially elucidated if I utilize belief.  For example, one can believe that God exists.  Or one can believe in the existence of God.  To believe in the existence of God is really to indicate that the idea of God existing has some meaning for you.  It helps you get along in this world, and it helps you understand virtue.  Believing that God exists relates to God as a fact, as a thing of science.  But religion is not science.  Science and religion are two separate systems of thought.  There is reason why we learn about evolution in Biology classes, and about God in theology classes.  So, to me, it is pointless, for example, to claim that Jesus is Lord.  And I don’t mean to offend anyone when I say this, even though I acknowledge that I am, and but I don’t much care that I am.  Because, I’d much rather advise people to believe in the Lordship of Jesus—to hold lightly and not tightly the matter of his guidance in our lives, in his salvific sacrifice, and in the beauty which he represents in our hearts.  So for us Liberal Quakers, belief is important, but its importance should not be mistaken for attachment.  What matters is that we hold to mystery, to uncertainty and to the contingency of belief.  So.  It's true that we don’t know what does the leading when we are led, and we don’t know really what the best way to worship is.  And we are proud of our lack of knowing.  So, on the side, I will be blogging also with WordPress about liberal Quakerism.  That blog is called The Liberal Quaker.

Suck it Up and Love

I have come to see particularly why semi-extreme social conservatives lack any appreciation for gay marriage.  I have come to see this via an experience of my own, as I recently confronted a thought process involving polyamory.  I made my way into a consideration of this particular option for romance in my own life.  For a long while polyamory breached my awareness as a mere ideal, so ridiculous as to be a myth.  Then slowly, many of my closest friends began to engage in some form of polyamory, meaning most generally to have multiple serious sexual relationships at a time.  The book entitled The Ethical Slut entered my view, and then here I was, as open as I am, fearing that this new even more liberal position would haunt my own quixotic wits.  And so it has.

I was so inculcated into the idealized notion of finding the one that I felt viscerally anxious about the idea of there being an alternative to this goal.  The possibility that we might love multiple people in our lives, and in essentially fully realized romantic relationships with multiple people, gave me serious pause.  Even a lesser option, open relationships, gave me serious pause.  Open relationships are often also said to be a form of polyamory--where two people are primary lovers who sometimes additionally involve themselves in less serious sexual affairs.  Granted, I was not devastated, angered, or violent towards these new ideas about sex.  I merely felt in the pit of my sternum a profound weirdness, and profound fear.  What if this polyamory spreads and becomes popular?  How, then, would I find people who might want to love me monogamously?  For, although this idea was not in itself particularly threatening, it became extremely threatening to me if it meant my own way of life, my own strategies for getting meaning and purpose, would all disappear.  My thoughts then would leap, at these points, into other thoughts about how I might actually become violent to protect my own way of life.  So entrenched, so hot and bothered, was I!  If I weren't obviously more enlightened than Christian Evangelicals, I might have actually decided to judge polyamory and polyamorous people as crazy, to be avoided, and treated when caught.

But I am not these things because I believe in inclusiveness and in the right to happiness for all.  If there is one right that I believe ought to be granted to every individual it is this right.  So if there are individuals on this earth who think that polyamory is the best way for their own meaning and purpose, happiness, then how could I justify even only disagreeing with their right to follow their hearts?  If there is evil, doing so would be.  And if there are only a few people on this earth, if there is only me left who prefers monogamy, I bet that after a struggle I might get used to it myself.  But, see, I am actually very satisfied and happy where I am.  And so then, why and what motivation would I have to change unless I absolutely had to?  As the old saying goes, don't fix what ain't broke!  Back in the day, see, we weren't merely cruel capitalists.  In any case, it was at this point that I realized that it really wasn't a big deal, that life wouldn't be over, and that meaning and purpose would still be available to me.  And for now, I am finding the kind of monogamy that makes me happy.  It turns out there are actually quite a few people out there, in the big'ol' world, who still want what I want too.

Thus although I have come to see why semi-extreme social conservatives might be offended by gay marriage, or by homosexuality in general, I also see how it is possible for them to suck it up and love.