I'm Conflicted (For Good Reasons)

Today, my life's motif is "conflicting goals". I'm wasting time that I could spend completing some urgent and important job applications because I want to ensure that I reinforce my discipline for continuing this writing project.

However, when I was paying attention to my job applications, I had to create a statement of less than 250 words so I could apply for a position on Capitol Hill. I wanted to write something political to impress my potential employers, so I wrote about the conflicts between America's concerns for human rights and national security.

Now, I have a real life example of just how hard it can be to satisfy multiple desires with limited resources. That is not an excuse, though. I will keep updating this blog, just as the United States should keep trying to promote freedom. Any backsliding is not an indictment of the idea, but an illustration of its importance through the insufficiency of its absence.

I will find a paying job. I have finally graduated college, and now I'm taking my next steps toward adulthood. I've said a lot of baloney in my life, but now I'm trying to find a way to become someone I can believe in.

I don't want to abandon the joy of my youth, my delight in immature jokes and absurdity of all kinds. I want to add a steadiness and a confidence that will grow over time - that will propel me through many challenges, so my ability to handle crises rises every time I overcome a new obstacle.

My toughest struggle is not a gargantuan behemoth: it is the smallest, most mundane details of my daily routine. Every time I do something fulfilling and meaningful instead of searching online dating profiles or soaking in sports banter, I become closer to the person I envision. Of course, there is a place for me to relax and find pleasure in frivolous things, but I can't let my impulses consume every free moment I have. I am trying to live intentionally.

Thus, this is part of my justification for writing this blog post instead of finishing those other job applications. I want to have an idea about how I'm doing. This effort in writing helps me pay more attention to my moods, my habits, and my desires. When I am constantly worrying about work or my social life, I lose touch with my own awareness. I become less human.

It is difficult for me to talk about myself for very long without generalizing or rerouting my observations to make them about other people and what they should be doing instead. I drift easily from the concrete to the abstract. Perhaps that is why I am a good poet and otherwise a frustrating writer. "Show, don't tell". But I'm so much better at telling people things than showing them!

Now that I've made that aside, I give myself permission to tell you the following: perhaps being an adult, perhaps living, is all about conflicting goals and how you handle them. That's my tentative take. It's for the best that my observations aren't set in stone, because there is no certainty in a conflict between worthy ideas.

Religious Traditions and Individualism

One of my friends posted a New York Times Op-Ed called "Congregations Gone Wild", complaining that members of the American clergy are suffering burnout as members of their congregations demand more entertainment and less moral guidance that could disturb the feelings of the flock. My friend wanted my thoughts, even though I'm an atheist, and I don't have a dog (don't have a sheep?) in this fight.

The idea that any particular religion's primarily about entertainment and good feelings is possible because there's no agreement about the primary purposes of most religious traditions. Most people appear to go to services, then those people feel better about themselves and superior to others for an hour or two a week -- and then continue their normal lives.

Religious ideas have been in flux throughout history - have always been part social, part religious, part political. When the same people run all three areas of a society, maybe you get a distorted idea -- but at least everyone believes a distorted idea in the same way. When different people control different parts of society... then you have all of these wonderful tensions, and eventually, nobody knows what to do anymore.

There's a trade-off between having no hierarchy and little guidance with lots of room to question authority and think independently...and having lots of hierarchy and guidance but little room to question authority or think independently. Of course, lots of people don't question authority or think for themselves at all, but continue to selectively follow traditions that have been handed to them, and over time, those traditions get weaker and weaker as you get farther from the original reasons people believed their traditions.

Can members of religions find ways to instill the principles of their faith in a rigorous, disciplined way -- in the middle of a diverse, pluralistic society that encourages different answers and different points of view? It's an interesting problem. Personally, I hope people will support traditions that encourage critical thinking and grappling with tradition on the individual level. There are religious people who stand by their faith tradition and its teachings while incorporating other opinions and other teachings.

I'm not religious myself, and I'm not sure that religion carries more benefits than harm to the world -- but if you're going to be religious, that's what I recommend. I do feel sorry for the people in those congregations that are demanding more amusement and less substance: those people by and large haven't been taught to think for themselves, but they don't have a tradition to provide them ready-made answers. That's a paradox of our society: is it better to have uninformed people with freedom, or informed people who don't have freedom? Hopefully, we can have people who are informed and have freedom. That's my goal, and I think many well-meaning religious people can help achieve that combination.

In a world with fewer shared values, all is not sour for practitioners of religion: there's an opportunity to reconcile doubt and tradition, critical thinking and moral principles, individual learning and strong communities. Even people who don't accept religious ideas have limited opportunities to find such balance.

Our world continues to change. How will religious beliefs adapt? If you're religious and you sincerely believe in the truth of your faith, then I hope you'll help the rest of us inform ourselves and gain the power to choose the beliefs that most powerfully affirm each of our values. If you're right, you'll gain followers. If you're wrong, you're only postponing the inevitable exposure as a more democratic, pluralistic, informed world continues to awaken and to demand answers.