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Why Victimization is Killing the Church

I work for an audio publisher. Today I was going through our entire web catalog and pulling info from Amazon for each book. That means about 1500 titles, all either Christian or classic fiction. Going through those numbers are bound to get you cynical. For instance, one author (Gary Chapman) had to have written FIFTY books on the same topic: marriage. Among others:

The Five Love Languages, The Five Love Languages of Kids, The Five Love Languages of Teenagers, The Five Love Languages for Singles, The Five Languages of Apology, The Five Love Languages: Men's Edition, The Heart of the Five Love Languages, God Speaks Your Love Language, Now You're Speaking My Language, Making Love, Love is a Verb, The Marriage You've Always Wanted, The Family You've Always Wanted...

Seriously, he'd better have one VERY happy wife and kids, and be at least bilingual (if not penta-lingual!)

More to the point, though, I ran across a book titled The Criminalization of Christianity: Read This Book Before It Becomes Illegal! by Janet L. Folger. Now, to be fair, I have not read this book (and it seems to be pretty highly rated). But just from the description, I think I have a good idea what she's getting at.

"There is a war going on for the future of our country. Most people know that. What they may not know is that if Christians lose, the result won’t merely be enduring public policy we disagree with—it will be a prison sentence for those who oppose it. We’ve all seen the attack coming. First the Supreme Court said kids can’t pray in school. Then the Ten Commandments were ripped from the classrooms. Now pastors are being removed from their pulpits and put in jail for speaking out against homosexuality (Sweden). And things are only getting worse. How in the world did we get to this place? And why is it that Christians are singled out in this assault on morality? Serving as a wake-up call for America, this book will expose the truth that Christianity is being criminalized—and that we must stand up against it now." (taken from Amazon)

This seems dishonest to me. First of all, the subtitle: "Read This Book Before It Becomes Illegal." Really? In a country where tolerance (an almost insane amount of tolerance) and the freedom of speech is upheld, we're supposed to believe a Christian book will be illegal? The same country that, according to numerous polls, would not elect a president if he didn't claim to be a man of faith? Gimme a break. Secondly, the wording the author uses in her examples. "The Supreme Court said kids can't pray in school" -- no, it said the school won't facilitate prayer, just a moment of silence (nonspecific to any religion). "Then the Ten Commandments were ripped from the classrooms" -- a lame thing for the ACLU to be upset about, of course, but still, a public school in a non-theocratic government doesn't need to quote Scripture. I'd hardly call that an attack. And Sweden isn't our country, so...

Don't get me wrong. I do believe that, in certain instances, people have pushed the idea of tolerance too far. I do think getting highly offended over prayer and the Ten Commandments is silly (even if, in principle, they have a point). I also don't mean to judge this author too quickly, since I have not read what she has to say. But it brings up a trend which, I think, is killing the church's relationship with the outside world. And that's victimization.

There's a huge trend in the church, or at least in the media feeding it, towards making us out to be victims. When the president says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," it's an attack on our values. When the ACLU defends a complaint about prayers to Christ facilitated by government-funded schools, they are an anti-religion extremist group, out to exterminate us. And when contoversial issues like gay marriage come up, books like this come out, telling us that if we don't take action, the government will soon make our beliefs illegal. Persecution!

I think the fact that we get so upset about this, is a slap in the face to real Christians suffering real persecution in the world. While others are forced to meet underground to worship, and face jail time for translating a Bible, we get in an uproar because our kids won't be led by a teacher to pray in schools, and instead are forced to pray at home, or at church, or at the top of their lungs on a street corner while holding a sign saying "Obama is the Antichrist," with zero retribution. And yes, I've seen that many times at Berkeley, the most liberal place on earth.

We live in a country where religious freedom is respected, almost to insane extremes. It's respected to the point where the ACLU will fight to defend the outrageously hateful Westboro Baptist Church, of GodHatesFags notoriety, purely on the merits of free speech. They are free to picket the funerals of homosexuals, with signs saying "(name of deceased) is BURNING IN HELL", "GOD HATES FAGS", and "THANK GOD FOR AIDS" without legal recourse. Every sane citizen deplores them, countless vigilantes try to hurt them, but the government and groups like the ACLU still defends their right to exist, and exist loudly. It's also respected to such an extreme, that when the government appears to be playing favorites with any group (including the majority, Christianity), it changes. Even when the reasons seem silly or trivial, any favoritism at all is eliminated. Meanwhile, it funds our places of worship, lets us congregate publically, and even gives us the freedom to publish books about how they refuse to give us freedom.

Imagine being a Muslim in this country less than 10 years ago. It's September 12, 2001, and the majority of the country distrusts you. You're stopped and searched at airports, people are afraid of you, you're called names like "towel-head" because of the garments you truly believe your god wants you to wear. You may possess the brightest legal mind and the greatest diplomatic skills, but you have absolutely no shot at being elected president (honestly), solely because of your personal beliefs. You're the minority, in a country where another religion, Christianity (at least professed Christianity) is the majority, and makes up the biggest voting demographic any political leader needs to win. You'll hear Christian radio programs on the way to work, pass 30 Christian churches for every 1 mosque, and see books by Joel Osteen making bestsellers lists in every bookstore. Can we really say that we, against all other religions, are being discriminated?

That's not to say everything is perfect. Sometimes poor decisions are made, people stretch the limits of "tolerance" too far, and things get muddled. But overall, we live in a country that gives us more personal, religious freedom than anywhere I can think of. To paint ourselves as martyrs in this regard makes light of true suffering everywhere, and makes it hard for others to take us seriously. Instead of showing joy and freedom in Christ, we seem short-tempered, whiny, and unable to see anyone else's point of view. When a real injustice (even a small one) does occur, we refuse to peacefully disagree, but instead stir up controversy and villify everyone, evoking the name of God.

In the New Testament, Christians are constantly under siege by the government, being imprisoned and put to death for preaching. Even then, in the face of real persecution and true injustice, I don't see a hint of the bitterness the church has today. Instead they peacefully accept it -- Paul, unjustly imprisoned, even remains in his jail cell after an earthquake breaks him free (Acts 16). No badmouthing the government, no revolts or protests, just the continued Gospel message. I hope the church can do likewise. There are too many real, important issues worth dealing with.

[Sorry if that sounded like a rant. It's late, and I'm tired and didn't take the time to pick my words as carefully as I sometimes do.]

My Mid-College Crisis

Something is changing about me this summer. I can sense it, and it's exhilarating.

Life, in general, has come easy to me. That might sound prideful; if it does, I'm sorry. Growing up I was always a straight-A student, and that infuriating kind who you knew wasn't even trying. I always had a close group of friends, never had a major tragedy hit me, always had a loving and fully-function family, never been deeply depressed. I knew the things I wasn't good at (sports, public speaking) and easily steered clear of them. Breezing through life, no problem.

Except for this last semester. If you've read my blog, you already know, that weird things started happening (and if you don't like the redundancy, you can skip this paragraph). Problems breathing, a racing heartbeat and dizziness, an inability to focus or relax, and a general sense of unease haunting me at random times. Suddenly, far from breezing through life, I was crippled. I ditched most every discussion section or group meeting, to avoid embarrassment should those symptoms appear. I couldn't study before exams, and was only half there while I was taking them. Of course there were plenty of great days, but so many awful ones. I downplayed the awfulness to everyone, including roommates (if you're reading this), but it was there. I really felt, at times, like it would effectively ruin my life. That I'd fail all my classes, retreat from my friends, and completely crash and burn.

You've heard it before. Diagnosed with panic disorder, got treated, doing great now, blah blah blah. The point is, at the worst moments of last semester, I felt like life was impossible, even the most rote activity. Now things are tipping the other way.

As cheesy as it sounds, I really feel awake right now. Completely. And, with only two years left before I'm out of college and working a 9-5 job, I feel an urgent need to stretch myself as much as I can.

The day before I left Berkeley for summer, I got an e-mail inviting me to apply for the Honors degree. Only 10-20 people are generally admitted, and with no extra-curricular activity of any kind I didn't really think I had a shot. But I figured I'd write a 15-minute essay, fill out the paperwork, and turn it in just in case. Now I'm admitted, and instead of a lazy schedule next year, I'm taking 20 units.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail asking if I'd write a program for the Athletic Department. Normally I'd be too lazy, but now I'm going to do it, for no particular reason.

Tonight I got an e-mail from a professor, asking if I'd be interested in doing research with him, working with making AI for auto-flying stunt copters, robotic insects, and even auto-surgeons. In the past professors have invited me to participate in extracurricular things with them (never this cool), but I always ignored it. I didn't need it to get a degree, and since it might require public speaking (which I hate), I figured it'd be easier to reject. Now, I just turned in my resume and transcript, and am excited to hear back. I'm also going to contact another professor about paid tutoring.


During the low point of last semester, I was in and out of the doctor's office and convinced I had a heart problem. So I took up running. I've never been an athletic person, but waking up before class, putting on headphones, and doing a 2-and-a-half mile run felt incredible. Now I'm playing soccer and tennis on a weekly basis, and going on excruciating bike rides with my dad. I'm sure I'll never be ripped, but I feel better than I have in years. I'm considering joining an intramural team next year.

Last year I wasn't very active in the church. I didn't feel like I related well to people in the college group, and I had a good batch of friends outside of it. It was easier. Now I'm going to everything I can, trying to meet new people, and almost certainly looking for a group in Berkeley to join.

I hate public speaking, and have for years. Especially hearing it recorded; I hated having speaking roles in movies, and still refuse to watch the tape of my valedictorian speech. Now I'm occasionally guest hosting The Spoiler Warning podcast (http://www.thespoilerwarning.com), and finding it's really fun.

In short, something is changing in me. In trivial ways (podcast, sports) and important ones (honors degree, research), I'm striving to take every chance that comes my way. I'm working 4-5 days a week, booking every night with some activity or commitment, and feeling great. Next semester will be insanely busy, and I'll probably be in way over my head. But the rush of pushing myself so hard is intoxicating. Bad metaphors include: running a marathon, coming up for a breath of fresh air after being under-water, seeing the sunrise after a long night, that long hilly bike ride I did last week and nearly fainted from, and Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill.

Goodnight.

A Memory

I was just trying to fall asleep, but with no success. I figure I'll go in to work an hour late (it helps when you can set your own schedule!) and blog instead. This one will be personal.

Life is so uneven. I know that's a really vague thing to say, but it's true. Most of my days are pretty low-key. Important points are: where to eat lunch, what am I learning in class, who will I hang out with tonight? Personal comfort is pretty much all that is at stake, and I'm sure everyone is about the same. Of the 7,350 or so days that I've been alive, maybe 400 of them have been crucial enough to remember, and that's a very generous estimate. That's not to say they aren't important: big important things (like life) are made up of seemingly insignificant small things, which is a point I've beat to death a lot on this blog.

But, on very rare occasion, things are different. Something happens, and suddenly you've got real issues at stake: your future well-being, the well being of a friend, eternity, survival. There are moments when everything life was made up of seems trivial, the fight-or-flight response kicks in, and weighty issues are all there are.

Right now I'm remembering a Sunday 4 and a half years ago. Halloween actually. I was at the high school group at our church, and a very close friend (who had been struggling with depression and suicide) had vanished, leaving a note saying "goodbye." It was terrifying. His girlfriend fainted, and people crowded around to see what was happening. I and a few other guys immediately started searching the church, and couldn't find him, or anyone who had seen him. My brother and another friend ran into the sanctuary to get someone with a car. Others contacted church officials and told them to start a lookout. In hindsight those were the obvious things to do, but I couldn't think straight. Instead I left the group, and just ran. Blindly, manically. I ran out of the church and into the street, without any real destination, just this intense desperation. I remember thinking I was about to lose a best friend, that the seconds were just ticking down before a gun would go off or a knife would be used, and all I could do was shut my eyes and run. I was crying, gasping/shouting prayers, panting, and hopeless.

I'm not sure how long it took, but Google Maps tells me I ran a little over 2 miles, to Grand Ave, when I found him. He was walking, and I joined him, and waited for an adult to pick us up and take us home.

Now I don't want to twist the story to be anything more than it was. Odds are, nothing would have happened, and all my running did nothing. No heroics here. There was no weapon, no clock to beat, and certainly no immediate threat. But at the time, that life-or-death mentality was more real than I can possibly convey. I can't imagine, at that moment, caring about any of the things I usually occupy myself with. Certainly not my comfort, or the future, or even the absurdity of my plan. The present was everything. I'm not sure I've ever felt that so deeply.

Those sort of moments are extremely uncommon, but they stick with me. There's a reason I still remember that afternoon so vividly, even though, in hindsight, it wasn't any sort of milestone in my life. It was a complete abandonment of pretense and reason, and in its place a completely clear purpose, and a driving motivation to fulfill it. I think there's something very meaningful, even spiritual, in that sort of base desperation. You see yourself, in the rawest, most human, form.

The friend, obviously, is 100% fine, and possibly even reading this. Meanwhile, I've been buffing up on my running skills. So if you want to see how fast I can go, just leave a note.

Memes, Streams, and Telephone Wheels

Apologies for the week-long delay between posts. The summer has been quite busy, and it can be hard to find time to blog sometimes. As you may notice, only one of these 14 blog posts has been done before midnight.

Apologies also for the annoying diction. To make up for the boring personal nature of the last post, a promise was made to cut the first-person tense entirely from this one. And, since honesty is key to any good relationship, that promise will be kept to the 'T', including: first person singular, possessive, AND plural. As a side-note, according to a quick Google search, "to the 'T'" is short for "to the tittle," which is an older expression. A tittle apparently refers to a minuscule stroke or mark, particularly the dot above an 'i'. So it's not about crossing 'T's like you might have thought, but it IS about dotting 'i's. Weird how that works.

Language and it's evolution is pretty interesting, isn't it? All gradual change is, for that matter, but language is something very fluid and easy to spot. Consider that phrase "to the tittle." Over a hundred years or so, it became "to the 'T'" (according to trusty Google.) But how did that happen? When did one person, out of nowhere, invent a phrase, and have the entire culture use it, to the point where most people have no idea what it was originally meant to abridge? Or go back a step: somewhere, at some point in time, someone was trying to convey the idea of "very precise", and came up with the phrase "to the tittle." He/she used it in a conversation, someone else heard it, started using it in more conversations, etc. Somehow, that grew into a household phrase, but I doubt the originator was given any credit, or even realized what was happening. Or go back a much bigger leap. English grew out of Old English (which, as anyone who's tried reading it can attest, is almost completely illegible.) But there was never a definite moment when everyone voted and decided to use new words in lieu of old ones. Most people, probably, would have hated that idea of change. But slowly people just started pronouncing things differently, hearing them pronounced by native speakers of other languages, and gradually it just shifted.

It's like a game of telephone, but instead of just going from person to person, it's going from generation to generation. Everything starts out clear and easy to the person at the beginning of the line, but by the end it's completely scrambled. As an example, here's a line you might recognize: "Si thin nama gehalgod." It started in maybe 1000 A.D., and passed on through, say, 25 generations. Now it's 1500 A.D.,and a person is saying "Be thy name hallowed." 5 or 6 generations later, a scribe is writing in the King James Bible "Hallowed be thy name." Of course, it's a line from the Lord's Prayer (Old English translation couresty, again, of google). Something happened. Aside from "si" becoming "be" and the words being rearranged, you can still hear traces of the original. It's just been scrambled, passed through the telephone, each time slightly misheard.

Dawkins has this idea of the "meme": an idea, which exists and propagates through societies the same way a gene propagates through generations. They are born (invented/coined), reproduce (spread from person to person), and mutated (like the Lord's Prayer above). All the ideas about natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc. seem like they fit memes too. the difference between that and genetics, of course, is that a child can't pass his genes onto a parent. But people can go back and forth, letting the genes mutate and mutate; like the above game of telephone, but in a circle, instead of a line. It's only an analogy. But it's a pretty powerful one.

The existence of "fads" or a "Zeitgeist" is really a pretty amazing thing. Every person is an independent agent, but somehow in society, it seems that everyone changes at once. A certain thing becomes "cool" or likeable, another thing becomes ugly or stupid. A political sentiment that older generations wouldn't ever relate to, newer ones do. A politician who loses one election, might win the next 4 years later, even if he hasn't changed at all. Ideas and feelings, like language, spread through groups of people, and, for lack of a better word, mutate. All with people who don't feel the sway. Like a stream of water, which is made up of individual molecules colliding randomly at high speeds; but it still flows and moves through a specific course. The spread of anything, from Chuck Norris jokes being funny to Democrats beating out Republicans in the elections, is the same. Each person is making decisions on his/her own, but over time, huge, clear trends can be tracked, put on a graph, and seen as smooth. Individuals are unpredictable, but groups are slow and obvious. It's the same old idea of meaning arising out of chaos, but in a new guise.

That's all folks. And just for the record, the topic of this post (or any post) was not planned. It really did come from looking up what "to the 'T'" meant, and the super lame Planes Trains and Automobiles title added at the end. So if the segways seem lame, you can blame train-of-thought associations. But hopefully they're not too lame. No 1st person, by the way. Success!

As Close to a Diary As I'll Ever Get

I said from the beginning that this blog would be for "thoughts" and not really personal stuff. I guess that's mostly still true, but I'm going to break form tonight. Sorry everyone (Miles and maybe someone else?)

This summer has been pretty great for me. To start with, I finished my last semester with a 4.0, and just got into the honors degree program at Berkeley. That sort of thing definitely makes it easy to relax over the summer, feeling like I've earned it a bit. I really don't want to seem like I'm bragging, since I know if I read a blog (or Twitter) with someone talking about that sort of thing, I'd be annoyed. But, especially with all the crap I went through last semester (see earlier post), it's a huge relief to me that everything turned out so well. Like the calm after a storm, or something along those lines.

Then there's work: I've been working 5 days a week at a great job. While other friends are stocking shelves or flipping burgers, I'm in an office designing a catalog, or a recording studio with a narrator, or at home listening to a book. Really fulfilling stuff, getting to use some actual talents (programming, writing) at a job and see the finished product, especially for a good, Christian company. Next Monday a few thousand catalogs will be printed, and seeing descriptions I've written and stylistic decisions actually being used, is going to be a good feeling. It's not much (anyone could do it), but it definitely beats Dairy Queen.

Outside of work, I've been spending a lot of time with friends. I've been a lot more active (weekly soccer, tennis, beach, etc), which feels great. I've spent plenty of time with old friends (who might read this blog?), but I've also been getting to know a lot of people from church, which has been incredibly refreshing. Probably moreso than I let on. I only went to church a handful of times this last year at college, and I'd forgotten how nice it feels. When I do go back next month, I hope to keep in touch.

Compare that to last summer. At the beginning of the summer, I broke up with my girlfriend of three years (who might actually be reading this.) We had gotten very close, to the point where it was almost assumed by us (and parents) that we'd eventually get married. Now, with no teenage angst or emo tendencies in me, I'll say that it hurts to do that to someone. Very much. And the month or two afterwards, sharing the same group of friends and needing to learn to adjust to everything, arguments and all, was rough. I spent plenty of time alone to leave some breathing room for it all, and things were much quieter much more often. It was definitely a new feeling for me. Something most people will feel many times, and to a much worse degree, than I did, I understand. But still, they weren't the cheeriest of times.

Weirdly enough though, my memory of that summer isn't really bad. The opposite, actually. There's something about sadness and solitude that's sort of pure. The best way I can describe it is cathartic, or rejuvinating. The same reason I like driving alone overnight, or listening to sad music or watching a sad movie, on occasion. Or the same reason I want, in the near future, to leave early in the morning and take a solo drive to the desert before sunrise, and just sit there. It seems cliche and silly, but I really think those sort of moments are worth pursuing...in small doses, of course. Being a generally sad person is an imbalanced way to live, but I think constantly surrounding yourself with people and happy thoughts is too. We need both, at times.

So, there's a healthy dose of personal stuff for you. I feel a little guilty writing it, to be honest. There's no analogy or neat underlying theme to tie everything together, just some unrelated thoughts. I'm very sorry. That's as close to a diary as I'll ever get, I give you my word on that. Next post I won't even use the first person!

Fighting Selfishness

I remember, growing up, thinking at times "What if everyone else is a robot, and I'm the only real person?" Aside from showing my absolute nerdiness, I don't think questions like that are really very useful. It's impossible to disprove, like "What if this is all a dream?" or "What if I'm in the matrix?", but in the end, it's just silly. We know it's not true. But I think, more often than we realize, we feel that it's true, or something like it.

One of the greatest aspects of human intelligence, and a big field in AI research, is our ability to categorize. We take specifics in our surroundings, and apply them to a general category, matching patterns and making predictions. When you pick an apple off a tree and prepare to bite into it, you have a good idea what it will taste like. You've never tasted that specific apple, and know nothing about it, but you've categorized it. You have reason to believe it fits the "apple" category, and will have all the flavors that go with it. Sometimes that sort of reasoning leads you astray (there's a bad apple in every bunch, OH the puns burn), but we couldn't function without it.

We do the same thing with people. You can never be sure, whether you're just meeting someone or have known him your whole life, what his next action will be. But that doesn't mean everything has to be a complete surprise: people, like anything else, can fall into categories, and from them we can make educated guesses about their behavior. The more you know about someone, the deeper that category gets, but it's always going to be a little shallow.

So we have these categories: Republican, Democrat, Christian, Atheist, black, white, etc. We try to fit people into boxes of useable size, and in some sense feel like we've "figured them out." As an extreme, take political propaganda. Republicans as naive gun-toting hicks. Democrats as pansy snobbish idealists. Christians as willfully ignorant, out of touch with the world. Atheists as evil conspirators incapable of a selfless act.

Contrast that to what we see in ourselves. That inner light we have, consciousness, is an amazing thing. Within your memory is stored an innumerable amount of thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. You are constantly evaluating the world around you, weighing millions of hypotheticals, and making difficult decisions without batting an eye. You are (or at least, feel) completely free, to think and act however you wish. And you try (for the most part) to take the best actions possible. You see yourself as inconceivably complex, beyond any stereotype. Whether you'd admit it or not, there are times when you feel much more real than anyone else. It's only natural: you know yourself best, and can see your innermost thoughts, while in everyone else you just have rough actions to guide you.

But imagine a world where we saw everyone in the same light we see ourselves. If I could walk through a crowd of strangers, and really feel that all of them are experiencing thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories, as deeply as I experience my own. That every action they take and belief they hold, has been thought through and carefully chosen. That they share the same light of consciousness that I do. It's an overwhelming thought, but a powerful one.

How could we begin to shrug off the enormity of suffering in the world? How could we see a person in need and, knowing that they feel pain as deeply as we do, not help? How could we buy the partisan crap from either side of any argument, telling us that all opponents are blind to obvious answers, are fueled by only selfish motives, or are simply "stupid"? Political parties, unified only in strawmen and cliched phrases, would crumble. Wars fought over abstract ideas like "country" or "race" or "religion" would be impossible: those convenient categories would be empty, and not worth the snuffing out of a single human life.

Of course, that will never happen. It's too easy to put a person's humanity in a shallow box, to manipulate or ignore as we see fit. And if we do manage to put everyone in simple categories, we can feel completely sovereign. The temptation is too strong. That it's even possible, in any degree, is a testament to the miracle of love.

I may never completely practice what I preach. But to the best of my ability, I'd like to try. And that means recognizing that everyone around me is of the same infinite worth, and warrants the same respect I'd give myself. It means forgetting the slogans and hateful bashing, and fighting to see the good in everyone, and the merit in their opinions. It's hard to do, especially in a world full of cynicism. But it's the truth.

In the Face of Infinity

This afternoon I found a large spider in my pants. Tonight I found a black widow next to the toilet. Clearly, nature is out to ensure I can never have kids. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

I remember one night in particular, at Indian Hills summer camp, sitting in an amphitheater under the stars. The speaker told us something along these lines: "Compare yourself to the size of this amphitheater. Now compare that to the size of this camp. Compare that to the size of California. Compare that to the size of the US. Compare that to the size of the world. Compare that to the size of the galaxy..." and etc. He had a point (other than to depress us), I'm sure, but all I remember from that night is an overwhelming sense of smallness. In the face of infinity, I was absolutely nothing. Mathematically that's not an exaggeration: the ratio of any finite thing to infinity is zero.

That sort of sentiment isn't nearly as abstract or esoteric as it sounds coming from a math geek. We've all heard despairing remarks like "Why bother feeding children overseas, when the death toll is so high? It makes no difference, not even a dent, in the issue." That's numbness in the face of overwhelming figures, and it's hard to avoid.

It's not limited to pessimism either. Selfishness is another basic effect. You're waiting in a long line at an amusement park, and what do you think? "If only I could just cut in front, I'd save hours of time, and everyone else would only lose a few seconds. They wouldn't even notice." Or a typographical error adds an extra zero on your paycheck: "The company has so much money, it won't even feel the lack. But for me, this is huge."

The number can be anything; even, and often most dangerously, time. In the face of an 80-year-long life, my actions today seem absolutely trivial. In the face of eternity, I'm dumbstruck. I can't imagine simply not being (nor do I want to), but the prospect of eternity is so grandiose, it makes me dizzy -- should I say scared? -- just thinking about it. Some, taking it for granted, live however they want, knowing everything will be washed out completely by the infinite.

To get a visual of the point I'm making, take any bar graph (on infinite paper, of course!) Take the roughly infinite number of bars to be: children overseas, people in line, paychecks, days of your life, etc. Let the Y axis be: health, waiting time, money, goodness/badness, etc. Make it as steep, jagged, tumultuous as you want. Then start zooming out. The further away you get (the more of the X axis you "take into account"), the smoother it becomes. In the end, no matter how jagged, it will always look like a straight line. Everything is washed out. Even though locally (one bar compared to another) there's a tangible difference, universally (taking everything into account), there's not.

But we live in that local realm. Differences are felt, and things matter. How do we reconcile that with the "big picture"? Two different things come to mind.

The first is that large numbers are made up of individual parts, and in the real world those parts are always, always connected. And there's a sort of ripple effect in that. Even if helping one individual didn't, in itself, have any effect on the scheme of things, that individual will have an effect on others near it. And even if living, holy, today, won't even be seen from an infinite vantage point, it will be seen from tomorrow. As individuals influence individuals and tomorrows beget tomorrows, that singular act will be like a wave, rising and rising as it moves forward. The scheme of things, in the world, in lines at Six Flags, in businesses, or in life, will be shaped by trends, which every small part helps create. That idea is what Immanuel Kant had in mind with his "categorical imperative": you should act in a way that, if it were universal law (everyone/thing behaved that way), the universe would function well. Even from an ardent skeptic, that's a complicated way of affirming the same truth.

The second is that there is a beautiful duality, in us and in God, where meaning isn't only in the "scheme of things" but also in the tiniest of parts. We simultaneously can live in a world where we recognize our smallness, and can live in the moment, where emotion and beauty reign. More to the point, we were created with an infinite worth, whatever the paradox, with value to God. To continue the nerdy math analogy (please forgive me), the ratio between any finite number and infinity is zero. If we were nothing more than well-oiled physical machines, the product of chaos, that would be our scenario. But as infinite souls, the ratio is between infinity and infinity, which is undefined. I don't think there's any wacky new age meaning behind that metaphor, but the word is still a fitting one. Undefined. There's something going on, in us and our interaction with the world, that can't be measured objectively, and isn't prey to nihilism or apathy. Something tantalizing, which logic can't quite capture.

Sleep time. Post your thoughts.

Necessary Deception?

No joke, I was seriously going to start this blog with "The older I get..." Yes, let me pass along the wisdom from the ripe-old age of 20, as I lean back in my rocking chair, smoke a pipe, and reflect. I must have a crazy pretentious blogger side of me, fighting to come out. Maybe starting this blog was a mistake...Anyway...

I was thinking today, and...

Great, now I'm pulling the "deep thinker" card. I wasn't spending the day thinking, today I worked, played soccer, ate dinner, went to a friend's house, watched Conan, and went home. I give up. There's really no easy segway here, so I'll just skip the intro altogether.

In most any subject, there's one thing you can be sure of. You'll start taking a basic course on it, then at some point, the professor will say "Well...that's not entirely true." In physics, you start with Newton's laws of motion, and the world is made up of interacting objects in static space. Then one day you're introduced to relativity or quantum mechanics, and suddenly you find that every (and I mean every) equation or concept you learned wasn't quite true. They were approximations, and because they are useful and easier to digest than the harder stuff, you're taught them as fact. In Math you're taught simple Euclidean geometry; till you learn about non-Euclidean geometry, and suddenly everything you were told is impossible, isn't. In Geography you learn about countries with clear-cut borders and well-established capitals; till you delve in deeper, and get tangled in the mess of international affairs, with hazy boundaries and ever shifting allegiances. In English you start out learning that poems are rhyming and metered, as opposed to the plain text of prose; then you start reading poems that break form, don't rhyme, and sometimes (see: e.e. cummings) can't even be pronounced.

There's nothing surprising about any of that. Just the simple fact that learning takes time, and no one is capable of understanding a difficult subject without building up to it. Where would we be if we learned E=mc^2 before F=ma? Or learned about hyperspheres and Kaluza-Klein manifolds without knowing about straight lines and circles? Or learned about the Israeli-Palestinian struggle for the West Bank without having already learned, on a map, where the Middle Eastern countries were? Or having the first "poem" you're ever introduced to be this:

                             r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
                   who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
               PPEGORHRASS
                                     eringint(o-
aThe):l
          eA
              !p:
S                                                         a
                       (r
rIvInG                         .gRrEaPsPhOs)
                                                      to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;

(r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r, by e.e. cummings)


Obviously, you'd go insane. There's just too much there, and it's too hard to even begin to appreciate complex things before you start with your simpler estimations. (I'm still not sure I appreciate that one...though I'm a big fan of cummings' stuff, at least when it's readable). Simplifications help, and we all need them, at least at first. And it's hard to question the ethics of it; we all know, going in, that what we're learning isn't the whole story.

But there's one field where that simplification can be dangerous -- life. Just like any other subject, life is too difficult for a child to grasp. The complexities and subtleties of life, like the "grasshopper" poem, are overbearing. But you can't put life on hold while you sit and ponder it. We're rational agents, and we need to make decisions immediately, even as kids. So parents and teachers do the only thing they can. They simplify. Moral greys become black and white, difficult theology is glossed over in favor of Bible stories, and whatever political or doctrinal affiliation the parent is a part of, is made to seem obvious and unparalleled.

I've already written about some of those simplifications. In politics it's particularly easy to see what I mean: Republicans villify Democrats as overly tolerant or downright immoral, Democrats villify Republicans as greedy or ignorant. On the other hand, we see our own side as reasonable, obvious, commonsense, or moral. It's how I grew up (no fault of my parents), even if I didn't realize it, and I'll bet it's how you grew up too. Were we really Republicans or Democrats when we were 13? It's easy to laugh now at the idea, but at the time we were pretty sure.

My question is, to what extent is this sort of sheltering necessary? And to what extent is it ethical? Some parents try to avoid "indoctrination" and end up raising confused, ruined kids with no guidance, shown too much of the world too early. Others justify everything with the ends (having a happy kid who shares your values) and shelter to the point of almost creepy deception. There has to be some sort of middle ground, but I don't see what it is. When the truth itself is difficult or offensive, but glossing it over is deceptive, how can you win?

Those aren't rhetorical. I really have no idea. I'm just glad I'm not a parent yet...as far as I know, anyway.

Update

Sorry for barraging my reader(s?) with such long posts. I have a tendency to write a lot when I get to it. But as a reward, tonight's blog will be pretty short. Maybe I'll write a longer one tomorrow.

I just wanted to update a little bit. Earlier I wrote a post about recently being diagnosed with / treated for a panic disorder. I really hate calling it that since it conjures up images of geeky kids hyperventilating when the cute girl walks by them. I'll try to come up with a new name: really weird sensations similar to a heart attack, happening at random times, usually when trying to sleep, disorder.

Anyway, I had written about being in a haze from the medication I was taking, and wanting to quit. After some really lousy days and sleepless nights, I went to the doctor and got prescribed something much weaker (to the point where it is virtually nothing). Since then the haze has been lifted, and I'm experiencing things much more fully. Unfortunately, with that has also come withdrawal symptoms like massive headaches, nausea, and just a general sense of unease. Some days have been pure hell, and others have been great. Regardless, I'm happy to be myself again, even if that self isn't in premium condition. I'd rather feel everything, pain and all, than be drugged numb. Please keep me in your thoughts and/or prayers, since it's so unfathomably draining to feel like you're at war with yourself. I worry sometimes that things won't improve, and all my potential as a straight-A-student will crumble, because of some stupid physical ailment. Other times, I'm just angry: at God, at myself, at life in general, for throwing this at me. Call me emo, but I really have rolled up the windows in my car and yelled at the top of my lungs. Last night, for instance.

As a side note, it's really hard for me to write about something like this. It's embarrassing to show signs of weakness, especially when it's something that can so easily be perceived as pathetic or crazy. I've been considering deleting this (and the other post), but for the sake of that transparency I long for, I'll keep it. Honesty is cathartic.

Since it's sort of relevant, I think I'll throw in a short story which was previously posted on Facebook. It's a true account of what it felt like when the attacks first started, with my usual nerdy-analogy twist.

---
Feedback
The room is dark. You are lying in bed, your eyes closed, your face pressed firmly against a black pillow. You are attempting to shut off your wandering mind. You are lost, speeding in motionless transit.

You are sitting in a red cushioned chair and it is twelve hours ago. You are exploring a replica, its blueprint a motion-blurred snapshot of an infinite sea of photons. You swim through the intricate model, bending and rearranging pieces into useful, meaningful shape. You are watching the professor, the pale blue of his slightly wrinkled shirt, tucked into ironed black slacks at a careless angle. In his right hand is a piece of chalk, pressed against a green chalkboard. As it glides across the dusty backdrop, there is a subtle motion in the air surrounding it. The tiny wave propagates through the air, colliding with a circle of black foam clipped to the collar. The motion of the foam begets a current. The current moves through a coil of wire, across the stage, into the wall, and up, up to the speaker above. The speaker pulsates, and like a cannon, fires the rhythm through the sea, into your ears. You recall the dull force with which it collided; the tap of chalk against board, the crisp scratch of gliding motion, the squeak of friction, the nearly silent echo. It bounces off of you, swims down the steps of the lecture hall, across the stage, up the ironed black slacks and slightly wrinkled pale blue shirt, to the circle of black foam clipped to the collar. The machine, having heard its own voice, is trapped in a cycle. The gentle vibration becomes a quiet low whir, becomes a loud boom, becomes a high pitched shriek, becomes a deafening screech in an endlessly rising crescendo, accelerating manically to infinity.

Your eyes open. You are aware of your breathing. It’s too shallow, too quick, irregular. Why? You try to pace it; deeper, slower, longer. You notice your heart. It is beating quickly, loudly. Had it always pulsed so loudly? How had you never felt it before? Uncertainty incites fear, and you take another breath. Too deep, too much; you are lightheaded and your heart is accelerating. You exhale slowly, calmly, but continue a moment too long, and end in a wheeze. You gasp; you are drowning; your room is filling with water and with every exhalation you are sinking. And your heart – no, your entire body – throbbing. You try to contain yourself. Nothing is happening. This is nothing. It is 2:38 in the morning, and you are lying in bed, and this is nothing. You tell yourself to calm down. Focus. Breathe. Remember to breathe. You cannot catch your breathing; it is teetering between shallow and deep, quick and slow. You are trying to balance a needle on its point, and every kick of your heart tips it further from equilibrium. Gasp, kick, gasp, kick. Your heart is a heavy ball, each bouncing thud louder and quicker than the one preceding it. Gravity is pulling it down and with each gasp you fight it, but the thud thud thud thud thudding heart shows no sign of slowing. Fear creates adrenaline, adrenaline quickens heartbeat, heartbeat induces hyperventilation, hyperventilation amplifies fear. Don’t be afraid. This is nothing. Don’t panic. Panicking is acceleration and you are overthinking. Stop thinking. Thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and you are trying to slow down. Try to stop thinking. But trying is thinking, and thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and you are moving much too fast. Try to stop trying. But trying is trying and trying is thinking, and thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and how much speed can an immobile body take? Try to stop trying to stop trying. But trying is trying and trying is trying and trying is thinking, and thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and you are buried under the weight of your thoughts and nearing critical mass. Try to stop trying to stop trying to stop tryingtostoptryingtostoptr

yingtostoptryingtostop—

The speaker cannot take the noise; it gives out, halts. The message is silenced; you and the room are shaken for only a brief moment, and the world again is still. The gaping infinite which threatened to engulf you has been subdued by the feeble machinery that encased it, leaving only a menacing growl. The professor resumes his writing. He is drawing a circuit; a battery, wires, resistors. Physics tells us, he explains, that if one end of the battery is fed into the other, an infinitely growing current will arise. Of course, batteries drain, wires break; all you will see is a spark, a momentary glimpse of the power of the ideal.

—tryingtostoptryingtostoptryingtostop trying to stop trying to. Stop. Relief. You are fine. Your heartbeat is steady, your breathing effortless. You look at the clock. 2:38. You are in the same room, same bed, your face pressed firmly against the same black pillow. Something has happened, but nothing has changed. What was it? Just a fluke, you suppose, the mind playing a dirty trick on the senses. Nothing to lose sleep over. You’ll tell someone about it in the morning. Maybe write a story about it. You smile uneasily to yourself and drift back to sleep, your feeble machinery subduing the growl of an ideal soul which has seen its reflection.

Poem and a Story

This is a poem I recently rediscovered, which I like quite a bit.

For context, there's an apocryphal chapter of Daniel which tells the story of Susanna. According to the story, Susanna was a Hebrew woman who was spied on while bathing by two elders. The priests tried to force her to sleep with them, and when she refused they accused her of adultery and she was sentenced to death. Right before she's killed, Daniel comes to her aid (12 Angry Men?) and has them cross-examined, proving them fraud. The elders are put to death.

For more context, Peter Quince is a character in Midsummer Night's Dream who is trying to direct a play. He's a storyteller, not very good, but passionate. In the poem he's sitting at a Clavier (like a piano). The poem is by Wallace Stevens.

Peter Quince at the Clavier

I

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna;

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II

In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned --
A cymbal crashed,
Amid roaring horns.

III

Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind --
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

Something about how the words go together ("Death's ironic scraping","a wave interminably flowing"), the changes in rhyme scheme, and the different levels of story (Stevens writing as Peter Quince, telling the story of Suzanna) I really like. Section IV especially.

There's not really a point of posting that other than to share it, but I guess I'll try to make one. "Beauty is momentary in the mind[...] but in the flesh, it is immortal." What does that mean? The way I take it, anyway, is that thought alone can't produce beauty: cold logic can examine the world and try to understand it, and can to a "momentary" degree, but only "in the flesh" is it really understood. It's felt, not thought through; once you experience it, it stays with you, defying reason.

This past weekend when I was in New Jersey, I spent a little while reading my late uncle John's journals / sketchbooks, and looking at his paintings. He was a really talented guy, and went to art school. Some of the things he drew and painted are incredible. Then paranoid schizophrenia came on. I don't know if it can be acquired, but it feels like he did it to himself. Reading through the journals, you can sort of follow his scary sense of logic (especially if you're familiar with math or physics). He wrote about special relativity, math, and philosophy, and from them started "deriving" this proof that God doesn't exist, and everything is nothing. It goes on for at least 50 journals worth, and reading through them, you get a glimpse of his pain. Sometimes the proofs would break off, and he'd draw a tormented looking picture of himself, write hieroglyphics, or write a poem. Like this:

"My subscription is up
I have succeeded no less
in destroying in myself all that I respect.
I have disgraced my self
my family and my God.
I have no right to renew.
Please try to understand"


I took a few of the journals home and have been reading through them, and it's very sad but very interesting, to see what can happen when you get so wrapped up in thinking, you destroy yourself. And he did destroy himself, like his poem said. He drank himself to death a few years after I was born.

The mind is a powerful tool, but it's a very scary one. It leads people to great discoveries, but it can also lead to a dangerous feedback loop, where knowledge propels more knowledge, and soon in a high-pitched shriek, it spins out of control. You prove that you are meaningless, and think yourself out of existence. He knew he was going crazy, and even writes it a lot. But he just couldn't step out of his head. Beauty is momentary in the mind.

But in the flesh, it is immortal. My grandparents basement are filled with his artwork (a few museums have some too). His times of humanity, and drawing and painting for the sake of beauty and not an insane quest for truth, shine through. Even though he's dead, the beauty plays on the clear viol of my memory.


I don't really know if anyone reads this blog. So you should comment if you do. It'll be fun.

God and Occam's Razor

Subtitle: Rambling thoughts on a plane about why I believe God is a defensible hypothesis, even while I respect and understand the atheist worldview.

This is pretty long. Sorry. I guess I bit off more than I could chew. Plus, this plane ride is insanely boring, and writing is a good distraction. Comments, of course, are welcome.

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins has a chapter titled “Why There Is Almost Certainly No God.” The previous chapters had been spent (rightfully) shooting down the prototypical arguments for God’s existence: Aquinas’ Ontological Argument (a silly word game), Pascal’s Wager (the pros of belief outweigh the cons), Miraculous Revelations (“I saw the Pope in my piece of toast!”), etc. This chapter, however, is the only one which goes on the offensive, against the God Hypothesis. His argument is as follows: the existence of God is often argued by appealing to the complexity of the universe, the random formation of which is famously likened to a whirlwind creating a Boeing 747 in a junkyard. But throwing God into the mix doesn’t help things; to create the universe, God would need to be more complex, and hence they are replacing an unexplainable Boeing 747 with a similarly unexplainable “Ultimate Boeing 747.”

The analogy is, of course, only half serious. Dawkins knows that no religious person is trying to give an explanation for God as a naturally created being. His point is a much simpler one; the same as Russel’s Teapot, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc. Occam’s razor, the rule of theory preference which says the simplest theory which satisfactorily explains the evidence should be preferred. By fabricating the idea of an unseen “God” which governs the forces of nature, theists are adding an extra assumption which does not, by Dawkins’ standards, have any fundamentally predictive power. It’s a powerful criticism of all religion, and not one that should be easily dismissed.

It’s tempting to blow it off with “Who cares what Occam thought?” or, more seriously, “Even if it isn’t logically preferable, I can still believe it’s true.” But consider a world where this type of reasoning was practiced. Every natural phenomenon could have a scientific explanation to look for, but it would be just as easy (easier) to say “Zeus wanted it that way, and Zeus always gets what he wants” and leave it at that. There would be no scientific progress, nothing propelling us to ask “why?”

Things seem to get worse for religion when you look at the history of science. A few thousand years ago, most everything was explained in simple, ad hoc ways . Things fell to the earth because matter was evil, and the earth was more evil (Aristotle). Natural phenomena were caused by warring gods and goddesses. The earth was the center of the universe, and heaven surrounded it, past the planets and stars. Species were varied the way they were because they were specially, individually created that way ten thousand years ago. But slowly, natural explanations have been put forth – Newton’s theory of gravity, the interaction of charged particles, Einstein’s relativistic universe, Darwin’s Natural Selection. You’ll probably disagree that some (particularly, the last one) are really sufficient, but in the very least they show a clear tendency towards unification. Things previously thought to be unexplainable acts of gods are not always immune to natural explanation, and as our gaps in knowledge vanish, it stands to reason by induction that the gods of those gaps will too.

So how can my belief be reconciled with a deep appreciation for the natural sciences? Is God really just an unnecessary hypothesis, explaining the existence of one Boeing 747 by inventing a bigger one? I don’t think so. My reason is that there are at least three things, as far as I can tell, which stand in the way of a purely naturalistic worldview: the existence of the universe, the existence of consciousness, and the perception of beauty. These are, in my mind, unexplainable in principle, and are indicative of an insufficiency in science.

Scientists have managed to trace the universe back to a single event, The Big Bang. At this point in time, the universe was compacted in a very small space; if you believe String Theory, it was on the order of a single string (about ten to the negative thirty meters, if memory serves…I’m on an airplane, I don’t have internet). But to go from that singularity, to absolutely nothing, is a gap that we have no tools, physical or logical, to bridge. Nothingness cannot cause anything, by any stretch of scientific reasoning. If nothingness were given the power to “act”, it would be a purely ad hoc theory made to accommodate the Big Bang; we have no way of measuring, or verifying, anything on such an abstract level. Some theorize an overarching law, much like Natural Selection, which would cause says something along the lines of “The Universe Tends to Be”. But eternal laws in a vacuum are very much a philosophic idea, and really don’t seem too much unlike an eternal God. At the very least, they are both in the realm of metaphysics.

A naturalistic explanation of consciousness is something that, even though I do not believe in, intrigues me to no end. One of my current favorite authors, Douglas Hofstadter (Godel, Escher, Bach; I Am A Strange Loop) deals extensively with the subject. His claim is a reductionist one: in the end, consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon, and the illusions of free will and selfhood arise as epiphenomena of such complexity, but do not really exist. It’s not really a very startling idea; anyone fully committed to natural explanation must believe something similar. It’s very interesting, and makes for very beautiful analogies, but to me it is simply not convincing. Hofstadter adamantly believes it, and even in the face of the death of his wife, he determinedly argues that we are solely physical, solely deterministic. I applaud him for being so committed to his ideals, but it rings hollow to me. The inner “light” of consciousness we all feel eludes explanation, and, in my mind, it must always. Even if the brain is fully understood one day from a physical standpoint, that inner light will be no less mysterious.

Finally, I’ve said before that beauty seems to arise from complexity, and in a deep sense, it is truer than the mechanisms which underlie it. I don’t see that as an illusion, but rather indicative of a higher meaning than the physical universe. I’m not arguing, as some do, that the complexity itself is evidence (the Boeing 747 argument); it’s what the complexity seamlessly blurs into, the abstraction over and above the chaos. It’s easy to call it an illusion, but, like consciousness, we each experience it. If Hume and Kant are to be believed, our observations are of the utmost importance. To ignore such a deeply felt observation is to go against the spirit of inquiry, and natural law simply does not explain it.

Those were very brief, and I’m sure more posts in the future will ramble about them. But this post is already getting bloated enough. It might sound like I’m playing the same God-of-the-Gaps game I accused others of, but I’m really not. These “gaps”, and others like them, are simply not in the same realm as the natural sciences. They are phenomena which need explanations beyond natural law, and I say that knowing full well that natural law is always expanding. If the God Hypothesis can explain these things which a naturalistic framework cannot, then to append it to our natural explanations is not a violation of Occam’s Razor, but a unification. One hypothesis doesn’t, and shouldn’t, preclude the other.

Equilibrium

Last November, I was trying to fall asleep and realized I was incredibly aware of my breathing. It wasn't too deep, it wasn't too shallow, it was just...wrong. Since 1) I used to play trumpet, and 2) I have asthma, I'm used to pacing my breathing. But this time, I just couldn't get my mind off of it. I woke up the next day and was still always consciously regulating it, and spent the next week (including a night at the airport and flight home for Thanksgiving...not fun) feeling like I had to always control my breathing. Eventually I managed to distract myself, and it went away.

This February I was studying for a midterm at a coffee shop, and the left side of my body felt numb. I figured I was just tired, and went to bed. The next morning, in the middle of my midterm, it happened again. I called the University Health Services, and the nurse on the phone freaked out and made me go to urgent care (missing another midterm). She thought I was having a stroke; of course, I was fine. For the next few weeks it would happen when I was sitting in class, walking, or laying down. Weird, but again, I managed to ignore it after a while.

About a month ago, I was trying to fall asleep, and suddenly there was a rush of adrenaline. My heart was racing, my breathing felt like gasps, and everything was spinning. Time seemed to stretch on forever, and after a few minutes it'd end, only to start again. Those panic attacks would hit me at random times, including when I was driving, studying, and even taking one of my finals. They'd also hit me when I was trying to sleep, making me almost perpetually tired. I managed to nab a 4.0 this semester, but I feel pretty confident that, had the semester been two weeks longer, I would have failed everything. I was not there, at all. I felt like a zombie, with some sort of haze between my mind and the rest of the world.

All three of those stories can be linked back to one very recent diagnosis; a panic disorder. When you say that, people get uncomfortable. They picture something mental like depression or anxiety: being afraid, being stressed, or being easily tipped over the edge. What it really is, is purely physical -- symptoms, without any mental effect or outside trigger, caused when your body randomly produces all the adrenaline of a "fight-or-flight" situation for no reason.

Since I was diagnosed two weeks ago, I've been taking Lexapro to treat it. Unfortunately, that's the same sort of drug they use to treat anxiety or depression (the doctor, kindly, didn't tell me that). Which means it has all the side effects you hear about; tiredness, nausea, and just a general feeling of being absent. It's really a lot like movies like Garden State portray it as; you feel slow, and everything around you is moving in fast-forward. It's enough to make me determined to stop taking it, and try to beat this cold turkey. But the internet tells me I have potentially massive withdrawal symptoms to look forward to, including something called a "brain zap." I don't even want to know what that is.

I don't tell you all of this just as a confessional (though it's also that.) What it's really made me think about, lately, is how broad a spectrum there is between the physical and mental aspects of human experience. There were days, like the ones in November and February, where every waking moment was concerned with base physical phenomena. Even though I knew better, it felt like pure survival half the time: trying to keep breathing, trying to slow my heartrate, etc. Other times, like the medicinal haze I've been in lately, I'm fully on the mental spectrum, partially removed from the world around me. I'm more aware now, than ever, of how much I take for granted the perfect balance we have.

In daily life, we strive to find that equilibrium. We're conscious and aware of our surroundings, but we leave the most physical of activities (breathing, heartbeat, etc.) to the body to take care of. Our brain is regulating them, but our mind is concerned with loftier things. We're able to think in the most abstract of terms, while walking around with a coordination that even the best machines still can't achieve; it's incredible. When we're tipped one way or another, we can recover. Sometimes we feel too physical (after, say, a day of strenuous exercise), and all we need is to sleep, dream, and be fully mental. Other times we feel too mental (after, say, the stress of schoolwork) and all we want is to exercise, run, and be purely physical.

Because mine isn't a mood-altering disorder, I know I can stop taking meds and kick the symptoms on my own. But I also know that some people don't have the luxury. Some, with real depression or anxiety disorders, just can't reach that equilibrium, and are stuck taking pills for life. After experiencing the absence and haziness, I've come away with a newfound respect for those who do need to rely on medication, or struggle without it. Just from the few glimpses I've had of tipping one way or another on the mental-physical spectrum, I can honestly say that the last few months contained some of the most uncomfortable, terrifying feelings I've ever experienced.

In the meantime, I might have awesome withdrawal symptoms in my future. So look forward to some sort of post on my epic "journey to freedom", complete with Garden-Statey images of standing on a car and yelling in the rain, watching the sunrise after a long night alone in the desert, or other cheesy, hackneyed metaphors. Maybe I'll even take a solitary road trip up the coast to "find myself", or go rock climbing during a thunderstorm. Hey, I'm only human.

A Criticism from my Younger Self

Last night I spent a few hours getting coffee / Denny's with a friend of mine. Somewhere in the late night rambling conversation, it came up that someone or a group of someones were under the impression that I was "losing my morals" up at Berkeley -- sparked, I'm guessing, by a Facebook note I wrote about why I wasn't voting Yes on Prop 8.

Obviously, whoever it was didn't mean anything by it. I'm not going to tirade against "gossip" or martyr myself like that; it happens to everyone, it's no big deal, and it didn't even really bother me. But it did get me thinking about changes in my life, and how a perception like that could come about. In particular, what the 13-year-old Stephen Miller would think about 20-year-old one. His opinion, I'm sure, would be at least as harsh.

At 13, I was perfectly content with my beliefs and my lifestyle. I was a strong Christian -- never, for a moment, shaken or doubting. I was a Young Earth Creationist, armed with plenty of arguments to defend my position in debates or discussions. I was a Republican, the only sensible thing to be. My beliefs were set in stone, and I not only knew they were true; I knew I could persuade anyone else that they were true if the need arose. Anyone of the opposing viewpoint was clearly just stubborn. I was more sure of myself, at that age, than I have been ever since.

Looking back, that sort of cockiness seems unreasonable -- it was presumptuous to think that so much of the world was willfully ignorant, and that all of their so-called difficult questions could be answered by a 13-year-old with braces and a bowl cut. But it's hard to criticize myself for it. It's how I was raised, and I imagine how most people were raised. We're taught our parents' values (moral or political) and until we're old enough to learn the subtleties of the issues, we're left with only black-and-white sketches. We think that those sketches, a summary of the issues through a biased lens, are really all there is to the argument. With that mindset, one side will always seem obvious, and the other stupid or immoral. I don't think it's indoctrination, it's just a necessary part of growing up. If any child actually limited himself to proper evidence and argument, he'd have no convictions at all; he just doesn't have the wisdom to sort through it all.

Anyway, that's a tangent. Back to the point, 13-year-old Stephen doesn't approve of me. He sees my political leanings as wishy-washy and pathetic, a compromise of my values in an effort to seem "open". He sees my views on the age of the earth as a distortion of the character of God, and a picking-and-choosing of Biblical truths. He sees the entertainment I expose myself to and the people I surround myself with as disgusting and unchristian. He is indignant about some of the sins I've committed, and how many standards I've abandoned. He sees me as just another person with such potential, wasted to the empty skepticism college brings. He knows I still have faith, but sees it as carnal and hollow.

Not all of those criticisms are misinformed; some of them are real, and I seriously need to consider them. What image do I portray of myself? Do I live out what I say? Was the confidence I used to have, flawed as it may have been, better than the state of my life now? Was my de-sheltering process worth the loss of innocence? How will I raise my kids to see the world? What will I think of myself in another 7 years?

Comments welcome.

Beauty of the Unknown

In American Beauty, there's a famous scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu8_8TJC9E8) in which a character plays a tape of the "most beautiful thing he's ever seen." It's a plastic bag, blowing in the wind. As it blows, it seems (to the speaker and, at least, to me) to have emotion; it seems to be dancing.

In reality, of course, there's no such emotion. It's just random gusts of wind, moving it around. If we knew, exactly, the state of the world (namely, the air molecules and their velocity), we could predict, entirely, the motion the bag would take. Deep down it's all just the product of billions of chaotic collisions at the particle level. But that misses the point. The beauty isn't in the literal truth, but in the illusion -- what it feels like. Thought on the matter kills it.

The same is true for any art. Last post I said watching a movie on a pixel-by-pixel basis loses the meaning; it also ruins the beauty, by breaking the illusion that what we're seeing is real. Similarly, you can take any song and, with Fourier Transforms, analyze its frequency content and see it as the wavelike motion of air molecules. These things are true, but we'd prefer to not know them; they aren't at the heart of beauty, even though they alone seem to comprise it.

Science can tell us a lot of things. It offers us a deeper look at the world around us. But at the same time, it seems that with each new discovery something of beauty dies. Imagine the world as the ancient Greeks and Romans saw it. The stars were constellations, telling stories. The forces of nature were acts of warring gods. Heaven was in the sky, Hades underground. There's a reason their mythologies make for good literature; it was a beautiful picture. Our true, naturalistic explanations of celestial bodies and forces of nature seem dull and lifeless by comparison.

That may seem like a small price to pay for social progress, but now things are getting scarier. Science has turned us inward, looking at ourselves; how the body works and, more frighteningly, how the mind works. Some people (including me) don't believe there will ever be a fully naturalistic explanation for consciousness -- but even stopping short of that, so much about mood and psychological response seems to be explained by natural phenomena. It's easy to fall into the cold trap of intellectualism, and separate yourself from what you are studying; even when what you are studying is yourself.

There's nothing wrong with scientific progress. Despite what some preachers seem to suggest, we should never be afraid of the truth. We were created rational beings, and to ignore reason is to go against our nature. But we need to be able to put it on hold at the appropriate times. We know, in principle, that the bag isn't dancing, but we choose to limit our conscious knowledge, and feel instead. We know the stars are gaseous masses in the sky, but at night in the wilderness, the bright lights against the vacuum of space feel like pictures on a black canvas. And in a sense, what we're feeling is as true, if not truer, than the underlying cause; science can't account for this beauty, and yet it remains. To abandon our "mirror dimly" pictures of the world is to make it ugly and sterile.

Keats famously said "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." There's a sense in which I agree. In principle, I think our understanding only adds to the beauty of the universe; its complexity, its enormity, the way such grandeur can arise as the epiphenomenon of a few basic laws. The whole idea is beautiful, and knowledge and truth only deepen it. But in another sense, I think this limits the scope of our humanity. Beauty is often found in the abandonment of logic and reason, allowing ourselves to simply be, false perceptions and all. Without this temporary abandon, the truths of the world have nothing to offer. Truth informs beauty, and beauty breathes life into truth. We should never lose sight of either.

Meaning in Chaos

If there's anything that's stuck with me and continues to drive me through studying Computer Science and Physics, it's this: there is power, and beauty, in abstraction. If you don't care about reading about physics or computers, you should keep reading anyway. It does get more personal.

An almost infinite sea of particles, randomly jumping from place to place, colliding and attracting and repelling. That's the world we live in. Everything follows an extremely complicated formula (the Schrodinger Wave Equation), which tracks probabilities; the world is, by law, unpredictable. If you look at a single electron, you cannot possibly know where it will be an instant later. It could be a millimeter away; it could (with some low, but nonzero, probability) be fifty thousand miles away. Taking the world as the sum of its parts, it's a chaotic, completely unfathomable mess.

But we don't see the world at that level. We don't see trillions and trillions of quarks and electrons; we see a chair, a person, a beautiful picture. We don't remember a barrage of photons hitting our eyes; we remember scenes, faces, expressions. And amazingly, even though the world really is governed by unpredictable and immensely complex laws, at this higher level view, it's meaningful, predictable, and often beautiful. If you look at a movie too closely, all you'll see are dots, completely devoid of meaning. But stepping back, choosing to ignore things "as they really are", you see something that can make you laugh, cry, empathize. This incomplete, semi-blurred picture of the world we see, is somehow more meaningful than the truth.

Now take the computer you're reading this on. Deep down, it runs by physical laws alone; it knows nothing about what it's doing. NAND gates are pieces of equipment which, by electric repulsion and attraction, produce a low voltage if two high voltages wires are fed into it, and a high voltage otherwise. This doesn't sound useful; till someone thought: "Take a high voltage to be 'true' and a low voltage to be 'false'." Suddenly it's logic: you feed in two things (A and B) which mean true or false, and out comes true if A and B are not both true: "Not AND". Combine them in different ways, and you get OR, AND, NOT, etc. Take "true" and "false" to represent 1's and 0's, and suddenly you have math. You can combine them to make something that adds two numbers, subtracts, multiplies, divides. You can combine those to make something that works like a calculator: takes a command, performs the right math, and outputs the response. You end up building an entire CPU (made up of nothing but these meaningless NAND gates), which takes a program and executes it.

Then go up on level, to the software; which, really, is just turning this huge collection of bits and wires on and off. Small, simple programs are made. Bigger ones are made by using the smaller ones. One huge program (Operating System) puts collections of 1's and 0's in "Files", puts the files in "Folders", etc. All of a sudden, you're looking at a screen, Skyping to a friend on another side of the planet, reading the news, listening to music. Billions of bits, 1's and 0's, wires flowing with an electric current which has no idea what it's doing, and you have something real and meaningful.

In a very real sense, we're no different. We're made of the same chaotic particles the rest of the world is. Although there is more to us, we are by nature physical creatures, governed by the same laws that govern the world around us. I've felt especially aware of this physicality recently, as I've started taking medication for panic attacks, which would hit me when I was trying to fall asleep. No stress, no depression, no fear or anxiety; just faulty wiring keeping my heart beating quickly and my mind from shutting off. For months I was in and out of the ER for physical symptoms with no cause; I felt like a fragile machine, and one day I was sure I would just stop running. The draining effect of that made me miss classes, do poorly on tests, and fail to reflect my true potential. Taking a pill, and having a series of chemical reactions actually make things better has been incredibly embarrassing and humbling. How much I love to flatter myself as something strong and consistent. How easy it is to forget that our souls, immortal, are for the time being living in finite, faulty machines.

But, like the chaotic world of particle physics, and the rapid electric pulses of wires and bits, this faulty, chemical-driven body, from a higher vantage point, can have purpose, beauty, and meaning. I am not the sum of my parts. The meaning of the individual dots on a painting are not in what they themselves mean (nothing), but that which they, taken as a whole, are created to reflect. The meaning of this blog entry is not in its individual letters, or the 0's and 1's which encode them, but in the message its symbols are taken to communicate. And my meaning is not in my physical framework, chaotic and weak, but in the conscious soul which underlies it, and the truths it was created to convey. Beauty is in the abstract whole of my chaotic parts.

Putting the Cards on the Table

Once of the goals I have in blogging, as I mentioned before, is to go towards consistency. I want to elaborate on that. Despite the fact that this isn't meant to be like a journal, now it's story time!

I grew up in the church. My brother and I were incredibly active in the church growing up -- we won all the awards, memorized all the verses, went to every camp, joined every Bible Study. Most everyone knew us as "the twins." Most of our friends were from the church. In Junior High, I started a Christian Apologetics website called Dolord.com (which, thankfully, no longer can be found unless you're good at digging through the archives of the internet, which I won't tell you how to do). I would debate evolution with people twice my age, and I was sure I was right. I went to a very conservative high school, where I was surrounded almost completely by conservative Christian friends.

When I went away to college, things were another story. I went to Berkeley knowing no one. One person from church, a year older than me, who I barely knew, was attending. Otherwise, absolutely no link to home. Since no one knew me, no one knew anything about my upbringing. I was free to "reestablish" myself, rethink my life, strengthen my views or abandon them. I meant to become active in a church, but I never did. I found a place and attended the main service about five times that first year. That's it for Christian influence. In its place was an extremely prevalent intellectualism, where the idea of God is laughable. That's not an exaggeration. In my Philosophy of Science class this year, any time a theory of knowledge allowed "God did it" as an explanation, it meant the death of that theory. It's simply a joke.

When I would go home on breaks, I found myself wanting to avoid certain groups of people, particularly those that knew me from church. I never abandoned my faith (never even came close), but my distaste for the Christian culture grew into almost pure cynicism. Worship services felt too fake. Messages felt too shallow. And the people I used to feel such a connection to, now felt incredibly distant. Their happiness and sureness was something I couldn't relate to (and believe me, I wanted to). But you wouldn't have known it by looking. I acted the same. I played the part well.

I played a part in Berkeley, too. People would openly mock religion, and I would nearly agree. Except to a select few people, not a word about belief in God. It scared me. Even if inwardly I was the same, outwardly I had changed.

Since those two extremes, I've tried to find a balance. I've seen plenty of friends abandon their faith completely, and I don't want that. I've also seen people willfully shelter themselves from the world we're meant to be a light to, and I don't want that either. I made a decision about a year ago that I would not divide myself or be a social chameleon to avoid confrontation. Part of that has been more practical (going to church regularly at college, speaking honestly with friends from home), but most of it has been about transparency. Openness is not easy, but it's necessary. I want both my conservative Christian and liberal atheist friends to know my beliefs. So, finally, here is a list of things which could potentially lower your opinion of me.

THINGS MY NON-CHRISTIAN FRIENDS SHOULD KNOW:
- I am a Christian. I believe in an active God and in the resurrection of Christ. I believe in the truth of the Bible.
- I am not against the Church. Even though I disapprove of many of its actions, I am a part of it.
- I do not think people in general are stupid. Even when I disagree with them, they aren't stupid. The meanness and snobbery of intellectualism is disgusting to me.

THINGS MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS SHOULD KNOW:
- I do not believe in a literal creation account from Genesis. I believe in an old earth and universe. I believe evolution may well be the mechanism used to create us; guided by an active God, not a Blind Watchmaker.
- I am moderately liberal. I voted for Obama (though not with the enthusiasm of many voters, and so far have not been particularly impressed with him). I voted against Prop 8: I believe marriage, in God's eyes, is between a man and a woman, but I don't think the government should be a tool for the church to enforce it.
- I agree with the separation of Church and State, in general.
- I drink (moderately) on occasion. I also curse on occasion. I'm not proud of these things, but they are true and I don't want to hide them.

That's it. I really didn't mean to spend this long writing tonight, but there you have it. You probably disagree with me on some of these things, and I hope in future posts to elaborate on them. In the meantime, feel free to comment.

Introduction

It's 2:00 in the morning on my birthday. For no particular reason, I thought this would be a good time to start a blog. I've been meaning to for a while, but just never got around to it. I guess I'll lay out a personal plan for what I'd like the blog to be about.

WHAT THIS ISN'T:

- A way to tell humorous day-to-day stories about my life. Sorry everyone (no one?), it's just not that interesting to talk about. If you want to know, I'm sure Facebook and/or Twitter will tell you more random things about my life than ever need to be shared.

- Personal. Sometimes I might write about my own life and feelings (particularly in this first post), but I don't want this to be all internal. It's not about me. No emo.

- Inspirational. I am a Christian, and plan on talking very honestly about my faith. That may include the peaceful and emotional aspects, but it also includes doubts and struggles.

- Focused. I have a wide range of interests, and I don't plan on sticking to one theme. Even though this first post deals a lot with my beliefs, I don't expect all or even necessarily many posts to. I'll probably want to talk about nerdy things like AI, or Math, or Physics. I'll probably also want to ramble about Philosophy. Maybe I'll talk Politics...but hopefully not. I like keeping my friends.

WHAT THIS IS:

- This blog will be a way for me to think out loud. I don't want to come off as an authority on anything, or as someone with an agenda to spread. I'm a fallible person, and my beliefs and ideas are riddled with mistakes, I'm sure. But I want to put them down and, hopefully, dialogue about them.

- My life is pretty divided. I've always felt like friends from school may see a certain version of me, and friends from church another. But if there's anything I hate, it's a lack of integrity. I'd like to be honest and consistent, which means being open about my life and beliefs, even though it will probably let some people down.

- An excuse to write. I'm an Engineer, school certainly isn't giving me that excuse.

WHO I AM:

My goal, as of the last year or two, has been complete honesty with myself. On the one hand, I'm a big nerd. I like Science a lot. I like Math. I like Logic and Philosophy. I like academia, even when my own beliefs are the subject of ridicule. I have immense respect for people who question things.

On the other hand, I'm not secular. I believe there's more to life than scientific discovery, progress, or existence; namely, I believe in God. Not Einstein's deistic God, and not some ultra-spiritualized pantheistic essence called God. The Biblical, Christian God.

For years, the scientific community and the religious community have diverged. Christianity is almost universally viewed as irrational by academia, and many Christians in turn vilify and mock the skeptics. Most people in either camp are able to ignore the issues raised by the other. I don't want that gap. I don't want to trust the scientific community when I'm flying in their airplanes and taking their medicine, and deem them lunatics when they tell me the age of the earth. I want to face the issues, and part of that means understanding exactly what the issues are, and the science behind them. If my faith is true, it will be able to look The God Delusion and Quantum Physics in the eye and not flinch.

But all that for another time. I have plenty other interests. In particular, since I plan on studying the field of Artificial Intelligence, the relation between the mind (soul) and the brain (body) is very interesting to me. I'm a conscious soul, but my thoughts and feelings seem to be governed (or at least heavily swayed) by neurons and chemicals. Simultaneously spiritual and physical. Free will meshing with a world governed by deterministic laws; or, theologically, free will in a foreknown, predestined world. Art and beauty, and where they can be found. Abstracting an almost infinitely complex world into simple, meaningful shape. Morality and gray issues vs. tradition. General Relativity, Quantum Physics, and String Theory.

Yeah...it should be fun. For me anyway, probably not you. If you even got this far. If there's even a you to read this.