cognoscere's Xanga

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 05:32:58 GMT

Sometimes I feel like I'm on the verge of realizing something great; I get to thinking, and it seems things start to make sense, and then all of a sudden I realize I'm thinking of nothing at all. Its like a man gets up as if to speak, clears his throat with a thoughtful look on his face, then just belches and sits down.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 04:44:29 GMT

okay i'll put it back up...

My name on here, Cognoscere, is Latin for "to know". My life's drive is to know. Nothing in particular, just know. Maybe not to understand, but at least to know. What a wondrous being we are, humans, when we can know something and not quite understand. In the 'wild', things seem so simple: live! But humans, we've a whole complex system of life: not only to live, but to love, to hate, to help, to hurt, to create, to destroy, to learn, to forget, to understand, to not care. Sometimes when I despair I wish I was a simpleton, someone living only to survive without a care. But then as I think this, I wonder "Why do I want that?" and the whole process of knowing starts and before I know it I've shunned any chance of a simple life. I'm the type that wants truth, the kind of truth that hurts, because I can't stand to not know. I find solace in that pain that can be found in truth, because for me that is the purpose of life. I've said before that there is no real point to life - there is only what we make of it. To some, life is about money, or family, or love, or charity, or personal ambition, or God. To me life is about seeking truth, or what ever shadow of Truth God grants us. I believe the search for truth is the search for God; and to bring that another step farther, is a search for yourself. We want to find God in truth, and indeed God is Truth; and through God we want to know ourselves. I believe we all know ourselves - no one else knows you better than yourself. However, knowledge and understanding are different, and I seek God through truth to understand myself. Of course we know ourselves, we know how we act, what our beliefs are, what our reactions are, and what we would do in a certain situation. But we (well, me!) are at a loss to understand why we do these things, especially when they are things that hurt others or ourselves. To know that if presented with a situation you would do the 'wrong' thing, or you know that you would do it again, unleashes a flood of emotion inside yourself if you pay attention. People who carry out affairs, steal from others, or skip out on their responsibilities do these things conciously. These things aren't spur of the moment, or instinct - they are planned out, to a certain degree. People who do these are likely to do it again and again, whenever the oppurtunity presents itself, while many will resist the temptation, to their benefit. And whatever bad things we do, we still consider ourselves good people. Everyone has given in to a temptation at one point or another, maybe not those listed above, and would do it again if they could. One thing that reassures us we are indeed good people after we do a bad thing is guilt. Some thrive on guilt, they nurse it and they grow it, as if guilt creates virtue. I am one of these people. I do things I am ashamed of - I let people down, a set a bad example, I don't do all that I could do, etc. - and though I'm not ashamed of much that I do, those things that I am create an acute sense of guilt within me. I don't do it to feel bad, I actually do it to feel better. I need to know that I am not some being void of feeling or decency. Guilt reassures me that I have a conscience and that guilt gives me the impetus to be a better person, though God knows I often fail to answer the call to rise up. What's interesting is when we do things that we know are wrong in other's eyes and yet don't repent or have guilt. Does this make us bad people? I guess it all depends on what was done and who, if anyone, it affected. Often times the things that we do that are wrong, but that we have little or no guilt for, are gratifications for the self, whatever those actions may be. For instance, lying to your parents about where you're going to go see the one you secretly love- you've betrayed your parents trust, though they may not know it, and gratified your heart (or maybe something else - love and lust are sometimes hard to distinguish in early stages, and often they come in a pair) by seeing the one you crave. Is that wrong? If you were the parent, you'd think so; but if you were the one who snuck out, would think it was wrong? How could it be wrong when it feels so good, and if your parents never find out? That's tough, especially for those who love their parents very much. But let's complicate matters - what if you subsitute your parents for your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or husband, or wife? Certainly, in my mind, there is no doubt that if you sneak out to see many people behind your significant other's back. That's just lust. But what if its one single person? Does that make it better, or worse? I know the vast majority will say both are wicked, and I am inclined to that decision - but then again we have never been in that situation if we feel that way. The thing about the heart is that you cannot help it. You cannot force yourself not to develop feelings for someone, though you cn try to pen your heart in by avoiding that someone. Fairy Tale notions of love will say when you're truly in love, you will never be attracted to anyone else, and that if you develop feelings for another than you must not love the one you're with. But let's get real - life is not so clear cut. It is not black and white, it is complex, and this complexity makes life wonderful, though it can also confound things. I believe that you can love one to pieces, with all your self and still become attracted to another. (and no D I'm not, silly, I'm just moralizing in my head :P) Love will not be reigned, love is an entity in its own that seizes us by the very fibres of our hearts and souls and caresses us while stabbing us at the same time. It will do what it wants, it will grow or dissipate as it desires. So I could see and even understand someone's position that I just described. Even when you are single, and you have a budding love all you want to do is be with that person. You become infatuated, and infatuation is a sort of elated madness, where the fires of love burst - true love starts when that fires catches and doesn't go out. But infatuation is a burst of feeling that completely immerses you, and though a person may love another to a point they cannot even understand, if infatuation arose for someone else it would consume them. However, I believe there is wrong done when someone acts on that infatuation - but I don't think we could rightly blame one for how they feel. They honestly can't help it. Life is inexorable, unavoidable, a force that cannot be meddled with. We are like a musical instrument, a harp or a violin. The instrument itself is us, our bodies; the strings are our hearts, our souls, our feelings; Life is the hand that plays us. When you play a guitar, it doesn't fight back, it reacts to what your hand does to it. It makes music, and music is our daily life, our emotions, our feelings - sometimes it is a very simple tune, with single notes following a simple scale; sometimes it is a complex system of chords, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in chaos. We are instruments; instruments of life, of God, of others. Everything affects us and we cannot help it. Therefore, I think if I were to ever have someone tell me that they had feelings for another, I would not get mad. I'd get sad, and worried of course, but how could I rightly be mad? If those feelings were acted on, and stuff happened, I would be hurt, and perhaps, depending on the situation, mad. We can know how we feel; we can know we have feelings for another, or we can know that we love only one person; we can know we are trustworthy, or we can know we are not; we can know everything little bit about ourself, but still not understand. For instance, take Gordon Lightfoot's song "If you could read my mind": " never thought I could feel this way, And Ive got to say that I just to get it. I dont know where we went wrong, But the feelins gone, And I just cant get it back." He knows how he feels, he knows what's happened or is happening, but for the life of him he cannot understand why. Some things we may never understand, especially about ourselves and others. But when we do understand something, we are awed. When we know why our heart does what it does, we see things more clearly, we are humbled by the fact that we are just puppets to ourselves.

And to know God is to humbled. One cannot ever hope to know and understand God without humbling their self. The same goes for knowing and understand yourself. The more you find out about yourself, the more you are humbled, for you realize how flawed you really are.

And after all this dribble, what do I now understand? What do you now understand? I personally don't think I understand anything more clearly now. But I am perhaps closer to an understanding than before, and that is all I can hope for. I know that I know myself, how I feel, who I love, and who I am. I have done things that I am guilty of, but some of these thing I would not repent of them nor wish I hadn't done them; for it is when things go wrong that we learn about who we are; when we do things that are wrong, and we are guilty about it, we have to look deep into our selves and ask "why did I do that?" And if we can answer that question, then we can learn that much more about our self. A life of purpose is one driven by self-reflection, as well as reflection on God, the world, and others. They are all interconnected, all affecting each other, all making music through us. Through reflection on the self and others we can gain understanding; through specific self-reflection we gain humility for we see just how flawed we are, as an individual, and as a race; yet we also see that despite these flaws we are good people who have been thrown into this life that works on us, forever plucking our strings.

finis

History is a mistress...

Mon, 08 May 2006 04:28:55 GMT

History is a mistress of the world. In Her lie secrets and truths so profound they reveal humanity's deepest undercurrents. Some of these she is willing to devulge, some you have to search for, and some yet she will never reveal. Try as you may, caress Her as you will, History will never share Herself without considerable effort and sacrifice. Like a modest lady does History need encouragement to open Herself to the curious mind. Sometimes what is found is horrendous; sometimes it is touching; sometimes it is baffling; but always is it experienced with a sense of discovery that drives every historian to court this mysterious mistress and to learn all of Her ways at whatever personal cost.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 04:00:59 GMT

Yes. We are all born to die. ACCEPT IT! You might die tomorrow. Heck, maybe by the time you finish this your time may come. If you believe in a God or some higher power that provides life after death, you may find comfort. If you do believe thus, but don't feel thus, than you are too attached to this life. That is a reason I really dislike it when people try to convince Christians or what not that God does not exist. Okay, if he doesn't, fine. So what? They suffer absolutely no harm believing in it, in fact, they benefit from it. The power of faith is as mysterious as is the working of the brain. Why would anyone want to destroy someone's only solstice in life? That's simple cruelty; its done with the knowledge they may suffer.

But, I have digressed. We are all born to die. However, I chose to live before I die. Death is inevitable. Who knows what is beyond it? Why not laugh, love, and live?

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 06:06:01 GMT

an old post...
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love to write. Its a good way of expressing my ideas. One I can think of is my view on Fate in the realm of love. Most people I know of believe that Fate controls love. "It wasn't meant to be" or "It was meant to be". Those are referring to Fate...fate is what's meant to be, usually as destined by some higher Thing. Now, I know this is peachy-keen for most and that really is good because we all need something to believe in. But it just doesn't work for me. In my mind, Love is an expression of ourselves, of who we truly are. Therefore it is a free choice, a free choice of expression. I just cannot see Love being pre-destined. Where's the expression in that? Its like Tim Allen said in Jungle-to-Jungle..."I'm obligated." Is that Love? Well, technically if Fate destined you to Love someone I suppose you do. But then again, marriage is a union of love and do you think arranged marriage - pre-destined marriages - were unions of Love? I doubt it. I apologize for the coming quote...its from something I'm working on, but it was written almost 2 years ago:

"Morich took his leave as they fell in love over again, his heart happy and his head feeling light. He left the Great Hall and wandered about, thinking about nothing and fully caught up in it. He found himself on the ramparts of Postaria, with blackened fields below him and grey skies above. He and his lord had survived yet another battle and now could hopefully enjoy a few years of peace. For years he had been promising them to Serena, and every time he did, she smiled and kissed him saying, “I know. Soon.”
His love for her was great, and no word of description could ever do true justice for it. Since the development of vernacular, poets have written about Love, so beautiful and perfect that only Fate could have been the cause. It was Fate who brought two lovers together; Fate who decided they were the only ones for each other. Each lover was made for each other and no one else. Fate told the heart what was right; Fate told the heart it was made to Love their one and only. Fate and Fate alone brings soul mates together, fixing events so that they may meet.
Or so the poets wrote.
Morich’s love was more true, his life more beautiful because he saw beyond this preordained romance. It was not Fate that had brought him and Serena together so many years ago; it was chance.
Morich no doubt believed in Fate and its powers, indeed it had shaped many events in his life. But calling an event an act of Fate is to say it is predestined, and Love is something that simply cannot be so. The heart that one is to Love cannot be predetermined at one’s creation, for Love is never idle. When one claims a Love to be owed to Fate, then by Fate it is destined to fail, for to call it Fate is to only hope that it is indeed Love.
But it is not so. Love is not planted at birth, to lie dormant until it may sprout. Love is a collection of moments, each one cherished reverently by both the lover and the loved. It is not a seed set by Fate, it is an instant when two eyes meet. An instant when Love explodes in such a fashion that one thinks it was stored up for years.
Yet, alas, no. Fate has no credence over Love, for it is free. Some may say that chance is no more than Fate, with a little less Providence.
Indeed?
If it were Fate whom decided Love, then our eyes could meet thousands more and still find not who they look for. For Fate would have ruled it to one person and that person alone. But Love is free and mustn’t be chained as such. To love because of Fate, and to be loved in return because of thus, is to love and be loved by obligation, an obligation to Fate.
But the beautiful truth is Love is free. It is up to chance that our eyes meet a thousand before we fall in Love. And what decides upon whom we fall into Love with? Love. When Love chooses you, there is no doubt, and even if there were a way to avoid it, you wouldn’t want to. You fall in Love with someone by chance. It could be anybody, not just one person – anybody.
Morich understood this, and from this understanding he had experienced so much more than the chained-down lover. In the winter, his Love warmed him deep within; In the summer, his Love quenched his heart; he awoke in the morning with gratitude for one more day of moments built out of Love; he rested when the sky was gold in reflectance of his Love, he slept with sorrow for it being the end of the Love-filled day and he dreamt of no other but Serena. And he was blessed in that never did he grow weary of this; never did he wish for someone new, something exciting, for Love is neither. Love is sustaining to its own and will suffice your heart for all time.
Although he and Serena were soul mates, he was not destined to be with Serena. He was lucky to be with her and for this he could not be more grateful to be with her."

To clear this up right now, I am not attacking Fate. Fate exists. Fate works its powers over us everyday, even with Love. What I am saying is that I see it as acting in bringing two people together only - the rest is up to the individuals to seize the oppurtunity given to them by Fate. So I'm sorry if I upset anyone with that. I've found that holding to the perception that Fate brings people together often keeps them together something which is destructive to those involved...and yes, yes I do speak from experience...

http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibran2.html . It is brilliant. And true. you might wish to read the rest too. A very thought-provoking piece of literature.
Okay. Here's an admition. I am a romantic. I believe in Love. Love does not conquer all. Love is the *means* to conquer all, but Love is not always enough, unfortunately. I know of nothing more humbling at the personal level. Nothing is so wonderous as truly feeling Loved. That someone could hold ME in the center of their universe is beyond me, same as why someone would. I am but a speck, another passing mortal. Oh, yes I am a human being, I have thoughts of my own, blah blah blah...does not the rest of humanity? And yet, that someone would actually pick ME out of that jumble...le sigh but I find it very humbling. Don't you? I sometimes feel as if the wonders of nature were created by God or Nature or whatever you might believe in to describe that one special person. But what can describe Love? Words can be very close, but not even Kahlil Gibran hit it.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 15:09:30 GMT

"Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to purtrefaction, and the sould of a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgement. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour, and life is a warfare a stranger's sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion. What, then, is that a which is able to conduct a man? One thing, and only one --- Philosophy."

* Marcus Aurelius, II, 17.

Everything, it is true, is in Flux. As the theologian Hans Kung said, one era cannot dictate the Truth for a future era. Thus, the only static Truth is that Truth is always in a flux, being molded and mended by the currents of time & modernity. And yet, with this in mind, how is it possible that the works of the Ancient Philosophers still rings as true? Is there, in fact, an underlying Truth contained within the calming grasps of Philosophy relating to Humanity, Kinship & Morality?

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 01:00:20 GMT

At the end of the day, do you feel lucky to be alive?

Friday, February 25, 2005

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 07:01:22 GMT

How do you see the Devil working in today's world? How do you react to the phrase "WE HAVE BECOME SATAN"?

Monday, February 21, 2005

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 04:52:11 GMT

Is it bad to be selfish? in all instances of it?

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Sun, 20 Feb 2005 17:59:11 GMT

Alright...I haven't posted publically on here for a while. My thoughts have been consumed elsewhere so I haven't had time to do my random and sometimes odd thinking.

I recently changed my minor to Religious Studies, my major being history. This reflects my interest in religion but more specifically my interest in Good and Evil. Up until recently (recently meaning 17th to 21st century) these two ideas held great interest, even obsession, in western civilization. It was the development of humanism that really beat the obsession to the ground.

But anyways, my particular interest is focused on Evil. This is the part where people usually get freaked out. Yes, I am fascinated with Evil...but clearly it does not mean I am! I find it extremely fascinating that, despite how secularized we've become (and that religion has been relocated to a more personal affair rather than a communal one, to the point where one can at times feel embarressed to have faith) Evil still holds such a tight grip on us. Its even more interesting how litle people understand it. For instance, I was looking through a book called the Necronomicon yesterday with Diana - its a "spell book" that calls upon the Ancient Ones, old Mesopotamian gods - and I realized that, even though I do not believe in its ability AT ALL or in "magic", I could NEVER actually do one of the incantations. I know - or believe, I should say - it would not work...so then why won't I? Its because its so evil to me I don't want to touch it. I think thats true for a lot of people...for example, take black magic. I'm sure not too many people believe in it, but even so if they met someone who practised black magic it would creep them out. I just find it interesting the power that Evil holds over people.

But I find that Evil has disappeared from religion, even though it is the core of it. The Devil seems to have disappeared from the Church! I watched Constantine last night, and one of the girls - a devout Catholic - said she did not believe in the Devil! How can you believe in God and not believe in the Devil? I do not mean to give Christianity a dualistic description, for its far from dualism - but if you believe the bible when it says God exists, then you MUST believe that Satan exists. The Bible is not something you pick and chose beliefs from - you either take it all unquestionably or throw all it has to say out the window, in a religious setting. Yes yes I know I can't use a movie to get a perspective of theology - but the one thing the movies are good for is portraying popular belief. I think many Christians have chosen to forget the Devil.

I see Good and Evil in the same way that Plato saw his Forms. I believe there is a True Evil, that cannot truly be defined because it is an Ideal, but nevertheless is known by everyone. Then there are Manifestations of Evil - this I find interesting too, because what one defines as absolute Evil is to another absolute Goodness(ie. bin Laden or Bush).

I have many many thoughts on this stuff, especially Evil - but at this point in time they are mostly a jargled mess, a distant truth on the edge of my reality wating to be exposed. But I plan to focus on this in my PhD studies so I have plenty of time to put these things together. A lot of people in the past 100-200 hundred years have tried to write Evil off as a means of human adaption, a means to explain the bad things that happen in the world. The err in this attempt is the failure to acknowledge the two forms of Evil (True and Manifestation). These things that we create, like taboos for instance, are manifestations. They are human applications of True Evil to objects and events in the world to help explain existence.
But I believe there is a manifestation of True Evil out there, ie. Evil in its purest form. I don't mean a human imposed manifestation - i mean, I guess, an incarnation of Evil. I think writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stoker have touched on this idea - there is an evil out there that is so terrible, so horrifying that it has been kept on the edge of the shores of our conciousness to keep us from madness. As Lovecraft said, "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contenst. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinty, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation of flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." These thoughts could all just be a part of my wildly active imagination - or maybe my wildly active imagination is a product of my understanding of this? who knows. I love to write fantasy, and if you take the time to read it (http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/libr/m/a/malek/malek.html) you will see I focus a lot on Evil and I'm trying to grasp or portray this manifestation of True Evil.

Anyways, enough about me and my crazy thoughts - what do YOU think is evil? How do you define evil and who do you think is/was evil and why?

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Jon's thought of the day:

"Why does God let bad things happen to us? Because He is our Lord, we are not His. God does not exist to serve us, we exist to serve him. And if he gave us the world on a silver platter, got rid of disease, hardship and made living life a breeze, I doubt very much we would love Him for the right reasons. If you give a wild animal scrap food, its going to keep on coming back. But does it keep on coming back because it loves you? Because you help it meet its primary needs and you help it to survive and you give it support and the knowledge that there is a higher power looking out for it? No, it does it because it knows when its hungry you will feed it. There is no gratitude in this; so too with humanity and God. If we prayed for God to do something for us and He always delievered, we would only go to him when we wanted something. That is not Faith."

Comments?