wickedflea | (no subject)

How did it get to be Thursday afternoon, for crying out loud? Same way it always does, I guess. Duh.

Not much going on. Or I guess there is, just don't feel like I'm moving very fast. Kinda sleepy today. I keep thinking I'll go home and sleep like mad, but for some reason it never happens. I did get over feeling crappy the other night, though, so I'm glad about that. Don't need another string of that shit.

Good plans on the horizon. Won't say anything more about that right now.

/cryptic

What are your thoughts about things happening for a reason? I always totally rejected the idea of pre-destination, and I still do for the most part. I'm not religious, and honestly I'm not sure about the whole God thing. However, despite the rational, evidence-based side of my mind, I do see things that make me believe that there is some greater force at work. Maybe it's the clouds or the sun, or maybe it's something inside each person. Or maybe just some people. Or maybe it's Joe Pesci, the man George Carlin prays to. But whatever it is, I have noticed things happening in my life that seem to suggest some kind of order. Now, it's definitely a fucked-up, paradoxically haphazard order, but still. This is in the past four or five years mainly that I'm talking about. The string of events amazes me when I think about how one thing wouldn't have happened if not for another thing that was unlikely and came about because of a third thing, etc. But who knows? Maybe it's only because it actually happened that I see it that way. If it had happened another way, then I'd see a connection between that string of events. And just because there are connections between events and cause-and-effect action going doesn't mean that everything's laid out beforehand. You make choices and meet people and things happen and build on one another. Freaky how these things work, huh?

But yeah, whaddya think? I myself am cursed by the ability to see all sides of an issue, so I can never figure these things out. Not that there's necessarily any right or wrong that absolutely applies the same to everyone.

/philosophical

HTML humor, bet ya haven't seen that one before, huh? Yeah.

This is me, I swear, I'm just in an atypical mood. :) Not bad, just different.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Parts of that argument up there sound exactly like me thinking out loud...are you a Libra? ; ) I am unsure about it all because of the whole bad things happening to good people thing. I don't think there is any reward that is given out by the universe, or any punishment, for living a "good," or "bad" life. The only reward for good behavior is self-satisfaction. Although at times I DO believe in karma. On the other hand, if the stray dog didn't come along and cause my boyfriend's mother to fall and break her elbow, she never would have had a reason to go to the hospital where they incidentally discovered cancer that needed to be found at that moment to (hopefully) keep it from being lethal. But why did a sweet little lady like her she have to get cancer to begin with? Ooo, it all makes me head ache.

Be honest, did you cheat and look at my info page before you said the Libra thing? =) Yep, 10/1/71. I honestly am not much into that stuff, but another friend posted a thing about Libras yesterday that was pretty much right on base, especially the part about being objective to the point of indecisiveness. That's me totally. I always harp on the fact that I'm cursed by the ability to see all sides of an issue.

And yeah, it does all make the head ache--especially when you think about the fact that we're never going to figure it all out. But hey, the un-examined life is not worth living, right? As long as it doesn't make you crazy. :)

to quote jboy:

The unexamined life may not be worth living.
But what's the point if you forget to live it in the process of examining it.

i think you've got it when you say:

"Maybe it's only because it actually happened that I see it that way. If it had happened another way, then I'd see a connection between that string of events."

... and there probably would be a connection. one thing happens, makes other things possible or impossible. it may change the way you think. new possiblities, new mode of thought; these present options different than what were there before. and so on.

i don't believe things happen for a reason in that it's all preordained. sometimes it's easier to accept certain things if we tell ourselves it's happened for a reason. but there are definetely lessons to be learned and/or opportunities available when 'things' happen. (taking the time to figure out what you can learn is an opportunity - many of us don't open that door)

yak yak yak

Very good thoughts--thanks! I think you're right about life not being preordained even though it can give that appearance sometimes. It's just human nature to try to impose an order on things, often above and beyond the order that actually exists. But that's not to say there's NO order. *mind boggles* :)

Also thanks for the thought about looking to learn from events--that's definitely a good thing to remember.

ooh you're so deep and cryptic tonite :)

What can I say? Wickedflea gets deep. Who knew he would show such range? Interesting cat, that one. ;) ;)

I'm kind of in a similar boat. I have absolutely no belief in any organized religion (be they Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, etc.) simply because there isn't a good reason to believe any one creation myth or set of rules for living over another. There are some moral lessons you can learn from any of them, but only after sorting through piles of contradictions and bullshit.

However, I also don't believe that we are just sacks of DNA bobbling about trying to produce viable offspring. One thing I keep getting exposed to at school, especially in my philosophy courses, is that modern people of some education (even the fairly conservative, religious types) tend to treat science as a sort of religion, while science tries as hard as possible to pretend like the two fields are completely unrelated.

For example, if the majority of scientists come to the conclusion that the universe started with a "Big Bang," then we eat it up without really questioning or understanding it. If we ask "why did the big bang happen?" we'll probably get an answer like "because all matter is drawn towards other matter, and eventually it just got too dense and exploded" or something to that effect (I'm no scientist).

But science can't really take it to the next level - Why is all matter attracted to each other? Why are there negative and positive ions? Why why why why why? Eventually science just kind of points towards religion and says that's the answer. Our largely unspoken modern viewpoint that "all religions are right, it's just someone's opinion" doesn't jibe with this at all. I also don't think science will be able to delineate itself so strictly from religion in the decades to come, with biotechnology and the patenting of life looming on the horizon.

I guess what I'm saying in a long, extremely drawn-out way is: I believe in some sort of SPECIFIC higher power or higher purpose, I just have no clue what the fuck it is and don't think it's within our capacity as humans to ever understand.

Wow, well said. I honestly hadn't thought much about the science-as-religion thing, but certainly it is in some sense: it's all about trying to explain existence on this planet (or in this universe, or whatever).

And I tend to agree about the specific something behind everything. Even with all the chaos and uncertainty and bad shit going on, the notion that everything is completely random just seems incomprehensible to me.

Whoa, heavy shit, eh?

i think carlin and pesci are best friends or something.