A NECESSARY DISILLUSIONMENT

There are different reasons why we do different things but a single, converging constant... a well of unintended consequences if you like... appear to us over and over again within the actions of our everyday.

A world without Christ, we would assume and believe, would be a world without purpose.

A world without purpose would only be left to its own devices...

I'm not trying to be overtly essentialistic in saying that the world is some monochromatically divided slide rule of significance and difference... where the acceptable measurement is etched onto the metal slide rule with an exacto knife... that would some how suggest that we would offer up room in our brains to entertain the possibility of rejecting such wonderous complexity. Such rejection, I envision, would lead the earth (panoramic wide screen shot from thousands of miles way) to spontaneously implode, shrink and finally disappear with a neat little beep, almost in a Monty Python cartoon sort of way with old English comedians doing the Mr. Bean murmur in the background.

Ah yes... complexity.

I know complexity like Tom Cruise knows psychology.

How God has blessed us with complexity and the associated difficulties that have arisen due to the aforementioned. Some tools I've known have related such complexity and unpredictableness as being the "spice" of life or "what makes life interesing".

Oh Please... if the events of your life till the day you die were to be magically recorded onto a Palm Pilot calender... and if this PDA were to magically be stored in the top drawer of your desk... would you not be tempted to look at it? I know some of you out there will inevitably turn your selves into tools by answering with such post-modern ramblings akin to the ultimate tool of tools... Foucault. I don't know about you... but if I were to know all the disease and illness of which myself and those close to me were to kick the bucket with... and if I had the power to stop these things by simply looking at this PDA calender... I, and anyone else, would probably do the same. The whole disease thing only be one example of which I assume would be many.

But there are no such PDAs... yet... and until we can do what Dr. Sam Beckett did in the hit TV show, "Quantum Leap"... we are sadly bound by our global society's limited knowledge of advanced quantum physics... for the sake of Elvis and JFK to name a few.

So where's the spice in knowing? The whole point is that we can't water down the kimchi by simply dipping it into a cup full of water. We'll always have to have the spice with our kimchi.

Complexity will undoubtedly remain... that is why we are all doing different things and at different times. How would you know if the world was boring if everything were in fact the same? You wouldn't know... because you can never experience such perfect monotony and sameness... not possible... not even by buddist monks... sleeping positions, and the way the poop lands in the toliet... nothing will be the exact same... ever.

But to contradict myself... again... we often end up, in what we percieve, to be the same place. Why?

... (to be continued... like you care...)

DO YOU DARE QUESTION DESTINY?

I would like to believe that we were all made with a purpose.

That somehow... God knew what he was doing when he pulled out his little vile labeled 'drama', only to commence his liberal use of such an ingredient... James Barber style.

Paul said that we should rejoice in our sufferings. I'm pretty sure he meant that it was through our suffering that we built dependence on him (who is within us). Yet, I have a feeling that there's something more to it. Let me 'read out' of such a passage (as theologians would say) and create some healthy speculation on the topic.

Suffering. What is it? I would define suffering as any physical,psychological, emotional, and/or spiritual distress that is caused by a variety of tangible and untangible objects/processes/situations. Let's go deeper into the definition and try to figure an anti-thesis to such a postulation. Would joy reflect an EXACTLY opposing response or definition to suffering? No... a situation that produces joy would more be in line with suffering. So suffering can be described as a situation... regardless of a macro (societal) or micro (individualistic) interpretation of that particular situation in question.

So back to Paul...

Paul pronounces that suffering should be a positive within our lives... not a negative. I would take this further and suggest that the consequences of the experiences of suffering within that 'condition' of the situation that produced such suffering... is what produces this positive... and not the initial emotive response of suffering.

However, I get a sense of an 'organic' nature to the type of suffering Paul is referring to. This suffering is a deep and heavily personalized type of suffering that cannot be easily negated into the simplistic understandings of what we consider to be... whatever situation we may consider to be worthy to produce a consequence of suffering defined above. Paul's suffering was deeply personal. His suffering was associated with the one thing that could create such deeply rooted heartache and sorrow... God.

Through Paul's suffering... I am reminded of the nature of man... or what I will appeal to as being the 'nature of man' (or whatever else you may define it as). No matter what plateau we may reach... and no matter how high we may climb. No height is great enough to escape the basic human emotions and responses that we programmed within us... by him, who created us.

Yes... we learn something from our suffering. But may I be so bold to say that sometimes... we truly don't want to learn. Sometimes... we want to be left alone in our deep set comfort of simply not seeing the true reality that we ourselves have taken part in constructing. A reality that seeks to... brick by brick... construct a wall that will finally separate our futile human existence from him who was never even close to finishing us when we exited our mother's womb.

We were never completed... and we will never be truly complete if we keep hiding the pieces of ourselves that we love the most from him... pieces of ourselves that desparately need his knowing hands.

We grasp... we pull... and we turn round and round... attempting to never let him in... yearning to retain some illusion of normacy within this world that we desparately want to be a part of.

Knowing all too well that the words we speak with all our hearts... are but a fleeting speck of clay that fly into the face of the potter... a speck he wipes from his face with a cloth that finds moisture from the tears he had shed for his lost.

We hope to find our destiny. But we really hope to mold it for ourselves.

We all want different things... but in the end... we really want the same, little things.




Suffer

... not because you know it's good.

But because...

... you know no other way.

In the not-so-Beginning,

God created Elliot.

And it was not-so-good.

Just simply average.

Then God said,

"Thanks for coming out".

If there ever was a story for each and everyone of us, I'm sure it would beginning in such a manner... in my mind anyway.

Life is filled with twists and turns that seem to meander in every which way. "Some" [fools] claim that this is what makes life that much more exciting. Furthermore, they include that those of us who make it are those that have succeeded in this meritocratic society we have built up for ourselves.

I'm told that humans enjoy "smart and easy".

We are all imperfect because we simply are. When we really really think hard about it... we seem to have created this construct that resembles a normal (bell) curve from which most individuals are in the middle and some lucky or unlucky individuals are on the extremes. What is unimportant is in the information that this curve provides us with, especially in terms of where we stand on this merit based curve. What is important is in the fact that we, as a society, have created our own extremes from which we delineate the excellent-please-lead-us-into-the-future from the horrible-why-where-you-ever-born.

The criteria that is used to delinate these individuals is basically non-existent... by "non-existent" I'm basically saying that the criteria asks all of us to be perfect, something I believe is impossible for most of the time.

We as humans were not made to fail. We simply fail based on a criteria that is based on impossible demands that bases itself in greed... or what we like to call "necessity".

We're all living the "Korean Dream" in certain aspects... or at least striving towards it. All our parents expect great things from us and if they aren't, then they've given up and have accept the incredibly catharic notion that we [their children] will never live up to their standards. Then there's the whole "immigrant family discourse" that encapsulates or blames the failure of their asian children on institutional or systematic racism that they themselves help to perpetuate through using it as an explanation for the shortcomings of their children.

Will we ever stop? No. Why? Cause we're Korean.

I contradict myself... and it feels great.

The simple fact of that matter is... most Koreans that do end up attempting post-secondary education are in the top tier of Canadian and the so-called "global" society. We are given opportunities that some people cannot even dream about in their wildest "girls-gone-wild" dreams. For that matter... we are blessed and at the same time cursed. We are blessed because most of us will not starve; but, then most of us will never be too well off either. We will occupy what academia has labelled as the new-middle class (non-skilled focussed labour such as service jobs). Most of us will most likely work in a field that we didn't even touch upon in undergrad... Why? Because the jobs that we get make the bills go away and that's sufficient for us all.

Do we or will we ever strive to be serious history makers in this land?

Do we go through all this bull just to pay the bills or the mortgage?

Are we willing to give up this security in order to pursue a greater calling?

Or are we simply going to turn our backs to it... and just fake it on like we'll make it every Sunday?

Can we really stop owning our own destiny... and give up our dreams of condos on Robson, 1.5 kids, and a Beemer in the underground parking lot?

Can we give up all those things to God?

I honestly... couldn't tell you. I'm too young. I lack wisdom to even dwell upon such things... and yet I do... and I contradict myself at every turn.

I seek knowledge and wisdom... but will it all stop when the ring goes on the finger and I'm stuck wearing a black tie for the next couple of nine-to-fives for the rest of my life?

This merry-go-round will end eventually... I can feel the music slowing down. The laughter has dissipated a while ago and all that can be heard is the falsity that is so inherent in the music box tune that is twinkling out of the speakers. This moment... will never come again. The false promises this ride brought into my heart were so clear and so fresh in the beginning... yet these emotions have become more and more sparse in occurence as the reality of the situation became clearer... as the world outside of this merry-go-round become more apparent.

The music will eventually stop.

And I will be forced to get off.

It ceases to amaze me... just how humbled I am in the presence of children. When really sifting past the preconcieved image or notion we have regarding our expectation of children we encounter, we find raw passion and drive towards the things that they seek... whatever those things may be. To really see from a child's perspective is to forsake all the "mature" clutter that tends to accumlate in the mind of adults. To sweep away doubts and fears that develop out of actually having something that is valued in one's life and in having something that can be lost, whatever those things may be, is to finally see the situation for what it is. The pure simplicity and the beauty of thinking in such simplistic terms may seem to generalistic and optimistic to many. In adopting a cynical and often pessimistic view of the world may be emotionally adaptive and socially defensive. But nothing can describe the feeling of being free from these things that bind us down in our thoughts, in our ability to express our true emotions, and in our ability to dream in an open field that is free from the chains that this world and this society binds us down with. Finding and developing a passion that is born from a raw and unformed fire that exists within our very hearts... now that's intellectually stimulating. (cue slap bass music) The beauty of childhood we were ambivalent to during our own childhoods... ... to find fruition within our hearts under such harsh and unforgiving conditions that constitute adult life. *sigh*

Faith. Forgetting why something is done in one's own life can be the greatest of all wake-up calls. Upon no-room-for-bull type reflection on the direction one is taking and realizing the hopeless end that it encompasses, any discerning individual will stumble upon the notion of how life has become something that holds no room for faith. Especially with lives that revolve around school... where time is roughly delinated into studying, eating, going to the bathroom, playing, and if time allows it... sleeping. A place in which merit is associated with one's ability to barf out information on a page within a alloted amount of time... and knowing fully well how one must behave in order to get the best results... faith has somehow becomes secondary if not irrelevant. In my opinion, this irrelevance stems from our own inability to TRULY accept the idea that most things, if not all things, are out of our hands. To work within the academic paradigm, the application of simple probability equations will point out how "out of control" we really are. Only through a percieved notion of control that stems from an innate need for control, order, and structure do we put ourselves through all this bull. In equating particular types of highly improbable and unlikely behaviours (studying 12 hours everyday and 3 weeks in advance for a midterm or... *gasp* studying ahead), with success... we percieve control. But reality is reality... and life rarely, if not ever, goes perfectly according to plan. Let's just admit it and get it over with. We really have no control over our lives... we're just tagging along for the ride. In reality, through all the tears and through all the "pain we percieve and feel"... we're simply lying to ourselves due to extremely limited foresight. Maybe this limited foresight, which translates to ignorance in my opinion, maybe a blessing in itself. History and humankind's actions within history as discourse is the prime example of how short-sighted we really are. We all have instances and events in our lives we would like to forget that have stemmed from our own short-sightedness. We claim we cannot predict the future, but when we get to a certain point in our lives and we've lived through enough experiences, we can begin to equate that certain behaviours lead to certain outcomes... and no... lightening will not strike the professor on the way from their office to the classroom and spontaneously combust the freshly photocopied test papers they're carrying. Maybe this bliss-filled hope in imagining the possibility of such events happening is this blessing of short-sightedness. The reality of human action is in the fact that life on this Earth will usually continue with or without us. (Sans nuclear holocaust or some other apocalyptic disaster) Sometimes... it's better not to know then to know it all. It's like the Matrix... in knowing that it's all fake... in knowing that actions and consequences mean pretty much nothing. But then again, how can one argue that our lives are that different. Doesn't reality gain validity when we ourselves attribute such validity to it... regardless of it being real or fake? Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is similar to this analogy in the sense that they too were ignorant of certain things before gobbling up the fruit... they were "naked" and they didn't know it... As Christian... knowing that there is "life" after this life... how can we hold validity to this life on earth at all... when it parallels the notion of life on earth being a constructed existence apart from the real life that awaits us after we croak. Do we validate life through the simple fact of short-sightedness and by being preoccupied through such trivially insignificant matters in our daily lives? Then again... why didn't God put us in "heaven" in the first place? For our own good... no matter how you define "good"... we need faith. Through our limitations that we percieve compared to some unreachable ideal, we will never be what we define as being "perfect". The whole notion of a happy and good life is lost on God... we will never be that comfortable and we really never are. In reality... we are in desperate need of him because he brings validity into this life that is fake and irrelevant to the core. Like living within the Matrix... we are ignorantly content in living out lives that hold worth measured on insignificant and invalid measures that should ultimately be rejected because they simply perpetuate negative human interaction and the idea of a worthless existence. In the simple notion of not choosing to believe that there is someone out there... we are in essence, rejecting the fundamental law of existence in itself because in order to be something, we must first come from something... and knowing that all "somethings" are subjectively defined... no truly objective measure of reality will ever exist as long as we reject the concept of faith. Because it is in faith we are able to accept everything as it is, and not as it should be.

I want to be your hands.

I want to be your feet.

I'll go where you send me,

go where you send me.

The days can go by pretty quick and then suddenly it hits you like bird poop falling from the trees.

Fear

Many older individuals that I have talked to during my childhood have claimed that such fear that tends to arise in your heart is normal. They keep clamouring on about how you have to do this and that and be this and that... when at that age all you want is a damn Super Nintendo for Christmas. The memories of being given "the lecture" on how to be successful in life by Korean adults other than my parents remain all too clear in my mind.

But as I "grow older" (my older sis would laugh at this cause to her I'll always be that little irresponsible brother asking for money... which I still am, thank you very much), I've caught myself on more than one occassion... saying the exact words that these Korean adults preached into my little ears many years ago.

Upon reaching an end (graduating), I've figured out that... there really isn't a "cathartic end" that we all envision or even expect in our hearts and minds. That this "future" we keep talking about is really simply about the here and now. Relativity... what we do, we will eventually become.

So what exactly is this dark and wretched mystery that dwells within my heart? Uncertainty is only the absence of a self-fulfilling propechy... the Lord may have made, but also guides us towards a particular destination. So in placing greater emphasis on the journey or the destination is useless because both matter equally.

Let me explain.

Upon reaching a destination... we never really stay very long do we? And while in constant movement toward such destination... an action we like to romanticize by calling it "a journey", we never really remember very much or derive all that much from them... when you really, really, really, really think about it... it is our placement of importance that becomes encapsulated into words such as "journey" or "destination".

Generalizations drawing from subjective and abstract experiences you say?

Sure. So what?

It doesn't matter how you really get there... the road you take... or where you're really going in the first place. We take the road because in the end... we choose to. We arrive because we choose to. Therein the power of human existence... the ability to choose by the grace of God.

Choice.

If you've ever guessed on multiple choice questions and expected to get answers correct... you'll probably find that you'll get most of the answers you guessed marked as being incorrect.

Maybe... just maybe... we make the wrong choices for the right reasons.

An intriguing oxymoron n'est pas?

We choose in life... most often never knowing what lies behind such doors of choice. Usually making all the wrong choices... and once in a while making the right one.

What the hell is it all for anyway... when even after all the choices have been made and forgotten

...you're left with fear in your heart and pain to pay for a failure in something not even real.