Truly, What Does Time Heal?

It's been a very long time since I added to this blog project. Several months past a year, in fact. Why is that? What caused me to put down the sword in that time? Was I busy? Did I not care? Was I in a coma?

The truth is, time happened. I started several posts, and many had solid arguments for what I held true. But once I was halfway through them, I didn't feel the desire to finish my argument. Who was I trying to convince? It was no longer myself. I'd long finished that battle in my mind. It was no longer my Jesus-freak ex. Shit, nowadays someone pretty much has to remind me that I even ever went through all that before I even think about it. It's not my friends, because I co-exist quite happily with them.

And I'm never going to get through to that mass of people careening our world to utter disaster.

Over time, I've come to one conclusion: I get one life here. There was nothing before. There is nothing after. What I've lost, I've lost. What I have will eventually fade to dust. I have no guarantee of tomorrow, or even another hour. Experience is both everything, and nothing. Creation is a fight against the inevitable, and it should be done out of love, not desperation. Don't cry in the rain, don't sit in a puddle. Whatever happens, happens. Who knows what is good or bad. If you find happiness, enjoy it. If what made you happy disappears, remember it fondly and keep breathing. Strength comes not from the ability to stand firm, but rather from the willingness to bend with time.

Time, the great equalizer, will take everything from you. Including your pain.

Now live.

The Reverse Idea

Something good happened from that last entry: there was a conversation. Not an argument, but a good discussion. An exchanging of ideas. This is what I want. This is what we all need. At some point in the future I will go into more detail about the nature of ideas. For now I want to bring to a close a certain chapter of thought so that we might begin another.

In the last entry, I had talked of this cultural myth of "The Cinderella Story" and how many women believe in some version of it. I had said that the reverse idea, while nameless, was just as absurd a notion. Well, in the aforementioned conversation with my friend Katharine, she found a name for it, and we discussed how this flip side of the story plays out. The idea is hers, and I cannot take credit for it. But it fit so perfectly here that I wanted to at least bring it into the mix of our journey here.

She called the reverse of "The Cinderella Story" the story of "The Beast". Just as some women follow the storybook cues of Cinderella, some men will slip into the role of the Beast in "Beauty and the Beast". A man, scarred by his past love or loves, looks to a single woman to save him, to redeem him, to give him his value. He puts this pressure on her, and she responds to it, largely out of a sense of guilt/responsibility. He says he needs her, and so she tries to fill that need. It's completely unfair, and as I've said before, it's as absurd as the Cinderella story. These problems lie on both sides of the gender fence. No single sex reigns superior to the other.

Now, while her main goal was to help give a balanced view between men and women in the context of the last entry, Katharine hit on a core idea that really hit home for me: this need to be saved. I was having trouble bridging the gap from where the last entry left off to where I wanted to go next. A piece was missing. And Katharine gave it to me. This notion of needing to be saved. This idea of needing to be saved is not unique to the "Beasts"; it is common to a great many people. And it's not just prevalent in our romantic relationships. It's in our religions, it's in our everyday lives. This isn't about men or women. This is about humanity. What is it about us that gives us this constant need to be saved? Are we fundamentally flawed?

This is where our next chapter will begin.

Playing the Game of Love

Up until now our main focus has been on the nature of The Divine Comedy and its source. Now I would like to take an example and explore the manner in which it plays out in our culture.

So for our specimen we'll take our ever-burdening beast—love. Now, all the nuances of love in our culture can become overbearing to accommodate in this analysis and would only cause our main focus to become muddled in details, so I am going to stick with what is considered "traditional" not out of bigotry or closed-mindedness, but out of sheer experience. This traditional perspective provides us a strong example for our analysis, and will more than suffice.

Now, I call this "the game of love" for the very simple reason that the encompassing situations all contain the key components of any game: players/teams, goals/objectives, and pieces of contention.

Let us recall our keystone concept once again: this idea that people believe they are justly owed something. The minute they apply this belief to love, they begin playing "the game". And so we have our players: everyone who believes that they are inherently due the love they desire. And as the players enter the playing field, they align themselves on the basic teams: men and women. (More on this later.) Each player has their goal: to find "The One". "The One" is the person that will fulfill the individual desires of the person that has found him/her. In the game of love, "The One" is the main piece of contention. This arises from an inherent flaw in thinking and an imprinted lack of vision.

The thinking is that there is one person out there, they are "The One", and they belong to me, and me alone. Anyone else that gets between me and "The One" is my enemy, and if I do not get the person I have decided is "The One" then I am being denied what is rightfully mine. See what happens there? The focus shifts from the desire for love, to the desire for the person that will give us this love, as if only using them as a means to an end. It's a subtle shift, but it veers our thinking even further from the path where it should be.

Now, an imprinted lack of vision really serves to further this flawed thinking. In our culture, we are bred to believe that our lives should follow a certain pattern. The end result of this pattern is what is often called "the white picket fence". It's the suburban equivalent of "and they lived happily ever after". Any deviation from the pattern, any substitution for this goal is considered failure, and is perceived as a sign of a tragic fault in an individual. One's life is not validated unless they have the white picket fence, unless they've won the game. And for those who haven't won the game, they enviously look with bitter resentment at those who have. They never stop and see the absurdity of everything, never imagine other possibilities for themselves. The lack of vision that we are imprinted with is this inability to desire, accept, or even see different outcomes of life.

So, what exactly is this pattern that we are expected to follow? Overall, it's really simple. You meet someone, you fall in love, you've found "The One", life turns perfect, you get married, you buy a house, you have kids, there's nothing "wrong" with them, they grow up, they meet someone, follow the same pattern, and you are a grandparent, and then you die of old age. Picture perfect, just like in all the storybooks. Now it's the "life turns perfect" part that really destroys people. People honestly believe that once they find "The One" that all their prayers are answered and all their problems are over. And if they meet someone who they thought was "The One" that they then later decide is not "The One" they feel tricked, swindled, or cheated. And becoming not-"The One" is really simple to do. All it takes is the inability to fulfill someone's desires.

In particular, the "life turns perfect" notion really causes one storybook idea to become an absurd delusion that women really seem to subscribe to: the idea of the "Cinderella story". The basic notion is that some man is supposed to come along and be the answer to a woman's prayers. And even though there isn't a name for it, the reverse idea is just as absurd. This only furthers the already ingrained and flawed idea that we are inherently owed love and the fulfillment of our desires. We aren't, but we think we are. And when we can't find what we want, we turn to others who find themselves in the same predicament.

And this is where the teams come in. Men on one side, women on the other. Now, they are not exactly opponents in the traditional sense, but they end up becoming like bitter baseball rivals. The other side isn't doing what we want them to do, so we call them names, attack their character. The Yankees are winning, and the Red Sox aren't, so Boston calls them "The Evil Empire". And when the roles are reversed, the name-calling is reversed. And so it is with men and women. Women aren't bowing down before men's wishes, and so they are "too complicated" and "irrational". Men aren't doing what women want, so they are "idiots" and "immature". It's stupid, it's childish, and it practically defines our culture.

But what about those that have won the game, that have achieved the white picket fence? Don't they make my assertion that desire will never be fulfilled null and void? No, and here is why. If someone has a spouse, house, kids, and all the money they could ever dream of, sure, their list of material desires has been met, and so they are declared winners in the game of love. But completing a list does not really fulfill their desires. Desire is always greater than what can actually be fulfilled. And the true nature of desire is such that its depths can only really ever be known by the person who has it. So, to a third-party, someone who has the white picket fence has had all their desires fulfilled, and so they want it too. They want what they honestly believe will give them fulfillment, never stopping to realize that such a notion is flawed. But delusion, especially ingrained delusion, is a powerful force, and it seems nothing will dissuade people from clinging to these absurd ideas.

And this is what we call the game of love. It's absurd, and it's a major contributing force in the furthering of The Divine Comedy. And yet our culture refuses to stop playing. How many people have to waste their lives in flawed pursuit before anyone decides to become wise to the futility? I know not the answer, but I see no end in sight....

The Purpose-Driven Tragedy

The mosaic is starting to become clearer. Pieces are falling into place, and certain themes are becoming pronounced. I want to start directly building off of pieces we have already laid in place. Let us first consider this excerpt from a few days ago:

We shape the love we desire, and then we demand it. And when we don't get it, when we can't find it, when we can't even buy it, we scream at the world, curse it for denying us what we believe we are justly owed. But never do we stop and see the whole picture. Never do we stop and see The Divine Comedy for what it is.

The truth is, love is not the only use case of this scenario. Any desire will do. And so I want to go into more detail about the nature of this. I want to add some more pieces to this part of the mosaic. But first let us also consider this, from the same entry as the previous excerpt:

[The enlightened mind] sees [people] try to conceal [their] pain, [their] fear, [their] want with a blinding egocentric mindset that allows them to honestly believe they are inherently owed the fulfillment of their desires. And it is out of this self-created debt that they try to demand love.

With these two pieces in mind, I will now start with the conclusion, and work backwards, pulling the idea apart. I begin with the end because it was a thought that hit me this morning like a thunderbolt. It was a one-line statement, but it brought into focus a large part of our mosaic: "The Divine Comedy is a self-imposed tragedy."

My previous entries had been building toward this statement, and finally my mind was able to make that jump. Now we shall go back and fill in the cracks.

The leap came from the initial idea of the "self-created debt" merged with the imagery of "scream[ing] at the world" to form a more powerful idea. A debt in and of itself does not account for the intensity of the effects of The Divine Comedy. We are talking about an epic struggle here. This is more than simple frustration—this is the ultimate battle humanity fights with itself. It is, by all means, a tragedy.

To proceed any further will require us to gather one piece of information: the definition of tragedy. A quick Google search and a link to Answers.com gives us the following:

A drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.

But we are not discussing a work of fiction; we are discussing the very nature of our lives. And so it is here that we continue working backwards, realizing that art has imitated life. Our creative endeavors are spawned from our actual experiences, and so this definition will work for our real-life introspection just fine.

To further validate this definition, let us look at one of the end results it states: an individual "[suffering] extreme sorrow". This is the very effect of The Divine Comedy that we have been investigating! The link is growing stronger, the mosaic more detailed! Now look at the causes, two to be specific: "a tragic flaw" and an "inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances". This is where we need to focus our thoughts.

The tragic flaw of humanity is actually its inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances. This inability stems from our strong attachment to desire. Desire is synonymous with being human. A person without desire is considered to be lacking something most crucial in our society. Desire is key, desire is central, desire is base. Because of our strong connection to desire, we are unable to give it up, to let it go, even when doing so would be beneficial to us. This inability to let go is what pins us in this position of not being able to cope with unfavorable circumstances. Rather than let go and be free, we cling and struggle and fight. And ultimately, it is a fight we are destined to lose. The universe is under no obligation to fulfill our desires. None. Egocentrism is what allows us to believe that it should. It causes us to believe a favorable event should occur, a particular person should love us, or our god of choice will take care of us and only us. The universe does not work this way, but we have blinded ourselves into believing it does.

And so what happens when the immovable object of our desire meets the unstoppable force of the universe? Pain. Immense, soul-wretching pain. It's a fight literally until death. Only in our final moments will we even consider letting go. And even then there are many who will cling until the bitter end. Death becomes the sweet release from pain, the pain to which we chained ourselves.

And it was from this that the salvationist religion was born. And why not? We know pain in this world, and that pain ends at death. And since we all desire to always exist, and we will not give up our desire, it's only natural that we come to believe in this wonderful, perfect place that exists after death. And since we are expecting nothing but pain in this life, why not use the time trying to ensure we make it to that happy place? And this is where life was given a purpose.

Now, the argument can be made here that salvationist religions tell us to strip away desire. But here's the problem: by giving life a purpose, we have given ourselves the desire to fulfill that purpose. By desire I have never meant sinful desire, but simply base want. Religious desire is the most dangerous desire of all because it creates the deepest kind of fear in people. Unfulfillment of a religious desire equates to the loss of one's soul. And when people are motivated by that ultimate fear, they will do anything in the fight for their beliefs, for their worldviews. Religion becomes the ultimate justification, and no one bothers to question it.

Now, I am not saying that religion is the root of humanity's problems. But it certainly is one of it's biggest issues. By creating a desire in people that they will never question or abandon, religion chains them to a life of pain. And what's worse is that religion further justifies this pain by essentially passing it off as character-building. Religion enslaves people to The Divine Comedy.

But religion is not our main focus, merely a prime example. The main focus is on the nature of our self-imposed tragedy. Ultimately, a tragedy is something that seemed unavoidable to the person involved, but to an outside viewer was preventable. If no one had any control over it, it would merely be unfortunate. We have the power to let go of our desires at any time. There is nothing that makes it impossible. Thus, our tragic flaw is realized not as the existence of our desire, but rather our complete unwillingness to let go of it.

As I bring this entry to a close, I would like to refer back to the definition of tragedy, particularly to the other effect that we did not discuss: how as a result of tragedy an individual would be "brought to ruin". Our desire will literally be the destruction of ourselves if we do not learn to let go. Our worlds will come crashing down around us, and we will fall to our knees, the rain pouring upon us, still no answer from the heavens.

The Mosaic

As more and more entries are added to this project, I have begun to recognize a pattern. I have seen recurring themes and ideas, I have seen pieces begin to fall into place. And I am very pleased at what I see.

In The Story of B, the two main storytellers utilize a certain method of teaching that I find infinitely interesting and amazingly effective. They taught not in a linear manner, but rather by giving pieces of a mosaic. With each story the bigger picture became clearer and clearer. Many times ideas would repeat themselves, reemphasizing parts of the overall image. As each part of the mosaic is put into place, we gain a better sense of understanding. But even once the main pieces of the mosaic are laid, there are still cracks in between them. So we fill in those cracks with smaller, more detailed pieces. But between those pieces there too are cracks. So we fill them in with even smaller pieces. The process is never done. There is always more information, more understanding to be applied to this mosaic. The philosophy behind this teaching method is that nothing will ever be completely understood, and that we should never expect to know or understand anything completely. Instead, we must constantly add pieces to our mosaic to better understand the big picture. And that is what I am doing here: creating the mosaic of The Divine Comedy, one piece at a time.

Who Are We to Love?

Sometimes life will slap you across the face so hard that you cannot help but stop and pay notice. These are the times that force you to reevaluate your thoughts, your life. Tonight was one of those nights. The details of my personal experience are not important here, but the main question is: Who are we to love?

And by posing this question, I mean exactly that. Who the hell are we to say we can love? What makes us believe we are even capable of such? We are all carrying our own burdens, our own weight, our own pain. What gives us the right to say we are capable of loving another human being? When you get down to it...nothing. If you want to be brutally honest, no one has the right to claim they are capable of truly loving any other person. Heck, we don't even really have the right to claim we can love ourselves. We are buried so deep under the layers of our own lives that we can't even help ourselves. So, then, the question becomes, why do we love? The answer, quite frankly, is because we have to.

We are going to get nowhere in this world on our own. Without love we are all going to die cold and completely alone. Friendship, companionship, love...they are the only hopes we have of shedding even a bit of this weight we carry. We say, I will give you imperfect love because it's all I have to give. And we can expect nothing more than imperfect love in return, because that is all anyone can give. And the moment we believe we can give more than that, or that we are deserving of more than that, we only make our burden heavier. This belief, this very arrogant belief, is what leads to much of the frustration people find in this world. But we don't see these people as having a chip on their shoulder, because we have the very same chip on our own. We are all guilty of placing ourselves at the center of the universe. The world is relative, but in our blinded egocentrism we refuse to accept this worldview. Why?

Our world, the one inside of our heads, is each our own. And it's the only world we have ever actually known. When we look at the world around us, we take what we see and we suck it into our own minds, conforming what is around us to our own worldviews. Questions of morality and ethics no longer become questions—they become dogmatic viewpoints. The world is literally forced to conform to not only accommodate our perspective, but to become it. We impose ourselves upon the world. The human ego is powerful in that regard.

But then comes along the enlightened mind, a mind who has embraced the relativistic viewpoint, who has risen above The Divine Comedy, whose worldview is not egocentric. (I am not that mind and do not claim to be. But I have seen hazy shadows through its eyes.) This mind looks at the world and sees all these people trying so hard to be what what they so desperately want to be...happy. It sees billions of souls on their knees in the pouring rain, crying, looking to the heavens for an answer, and finding nothing. It sees them try to conceal this pain, this fear, this want with a blinding egocentric mindset that allows them to honestly believe they are inherently owed the fulfillment of their desires. And it is out of this self-created debt that they try to demand love.

And why love? Why is it that of all things we demand love? Love is powerfully fragrant. Love by its very nature is mysterious, and can be conformed to whatever we want it to be. So we shape the love we desire, and then we demand it. And when we don't get it, when we can't find it, when we can't even buy it, we scream at the world, curse it for denying us what we believe we are justly owed. But never do we stop and see the whole picture. Never do we stop and see The Divine Comedy for what it is.

And so I want to draw this to a close by summarizing my main point: We are all here, we are all stuck in The Divine Comedy, and we all desire love. The desire for love is inate to the human condition, and there is no ridding ourselves of it. But what we must come to realize is that the only love any human being can offer or expect is an imperfect love. Our desires will never be fulfilled. We have to accept life for what it is, and stop demanding it conform to our worldview. We have to accept love for what it is, and stop demanding it be the cure for what ails us. We have to accept ourselves for what we are, and stop demanding we be what we envision ourselves to be. We're all in this together. We're all handicapped by the flesh. The sooner we all realize this, the sooner a sufficient existence can be lived.

The Man Standing on the Street Corner

Have you ever really looked at the people around you as you go through this world? At times, I'm sure you have, just for a fleating moment, but then we quickly go back to blinding ourselves to those around us, because, well, we have problems of our own. We don't want to take in any more than we already have to deal with on our own. But some time really stop and look at that guy on the street corner. Do you see the glazed look in his eyes? Do you see the weight he carries on his shoulders? Do you see the pain that eminates from his very core? He has no one to share that eternal struggle with. No one. There is no one on this earth that he feels can help him unyolk the burden he drags and has dragged for as long as he can remember. This man lives The Divine Comedy as you and I do. He cannot look to help another because he cannot help himself, and there is no one to help him. And so we all bury ourselves as a society, steadily reaching a level of frustration in which we snap. Frenzy is a common way to pretend we have not yolked ourselves to pain. We go a certain kind of crazy, and in that supposedly civilized insanity we keep our minds conciously free of where we are and how we truly feel. It gives us an excuse for why we will not stop and notice the pain of others, and it gives a temporary numbness to our own pain.

But that man on the street corner, the one with the gray beard and the glassy eyes, the one who bears the weight of his world on his shoulders.... Next time you see him, really look at him. Because he is you.