The Imagination - Bigger Than Me

 Atheists, like myself, can run the risk of protesting too much. It gets very Freudian, almost like a defense mechanism:

"Why all the atheism? Huh huh? Why all the mistrust of religion? Huh huh? Who hurt you? Huh huh."

Still, I do think about this stuff...and have since my late teens and my first philosophy class, back in 1990 or so.

One theme with the theists is the ole something as opposed to nothing. I won't tackle this one head on but I will morph this theme into something I consider kin:  the something bigger than me theme.

I think a fear among theists is that if there is no sense of something bigger than me, then there will be no order:

Mass hysteria will rule unless we humans accept something bigger than us. 

An interesting context here is, Alcoholics Anonymous and step 2 of the 12 steps (or traditions if you prefer):

"2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

So what is an atheist to do in the midst of such a, let us say, predicament/quagmire/conundrum? 

Maybe this atheist realizes something bigger than him, alone, in his closet studio every night. 

Stay with me.  

At night in my studio, I will play along to a rhythm track and solo. 

"Is this guy about to tell us he touches god with his stratocaster?"

Stay with me.

As I am playing I begin to hear things I want to play; sounds I want to realize and bring into the world, birth if you will.

"Is this guy about to have a guitar baby or some shit?"

Often times my technique will prevent the sounds from being realized - my fingers won't fly like I need them to, and the sound idea, parishes, if you will.

I tell you this because this sound idea, waiting to be born, is my imagination at work, and it is bigger than me.

This is the crux - my imagination is bigger than me - my imagination creates. From nothing - ex nihilo.

Let there be sound.

And here is the public health angle: I othered not a single person. I condemned not a single person to hell nor did I promise eternal salvation to like-minded folk. 

I simply found the head space to listen, and IMAGINE something not yet here and try to will/birth/create it. 

This is bigger than me. This is enough for me. The precludes mass hysteria and allows me to remain sane, whatever AA means by sane. 

"Is this guy actually going to try to save humanity with a pentatonic scale? Is this some bullshit fundraising in disguise for the National Endowment for the Arts?"

Of course not. I'm simply showing you that you can recognize something bigger than you without anthropomorphizing or indoctrinating or othering your fellow sapiens to hell. 

I like to think I'm offering you a public health opportunity. Because personal beliefs are a public health issue.

You're welcome. 

If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, you can help others create something bigger than themselves.

 "I knew it, this motherfucker is after my money."

It's A Shame

 Joyce Carol Oates Masterclass Writing Assignment

 

4.  Write a story about an unsolved mystery in your life. Use Joyce’s phrase “An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart” as your first line. Then, in an entirely new paragraph, begin explaining the mystery while keeping the first line in mind.

An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart. 

 

Why I can’t bring myself to like myself is a thorn in my heart. I even tell people, “I’m a decent person,” as if to remind them, but it’s really to remind me. I don’t know how this came to be. Well, other than growing up poor, and internalizing the poverty and equating it with character failure and moral worth. So maybe it’s more of a riddle. Disliking myself (hate is such a strong word) is why the words of an adjunct professor, Andrew Stypinski, have stayed with me all these years (30 yrs): If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else - there’s no analogy to draw from. This thorn has impacted my relationships (no friends to speak of at the age of 50), a troubled marriage, and parenting that won’t win any awards, or even honorable mention. So there’s a thorn, or maybe it’s a switch-blade, or the Conan Sword in my heart but I guess I’m lying when I tell you there is this big unsolved mystery. There isn’t. My early life (Freud was right about so much shit), my parents, my surroundings, my choices, my zeitgeist, my biology, my culture, my nature, my nurture, my wiring, my education, my lack of education, my intelligence, my lack of intelligence, my experiences, my being a late bloomer (as in weighing 95 lbs in the ninth grade late bloomer), my early sexual experiences, my lack of early sexual experiences (see late bloomer info above), my cramped childhood household (eight people in a two bedroom ONE bathroom home) my potty training, my living thirty yards from an interstate highway, my contracting scabies as a kid, my parents’ and uncles’ and brother’s alcoholism, and my goddamn self are the reason(s) I dislike myself - this shit isn’t a mystery or a riddle or a limerick or an amusing anecdote, to paraphrase George Carlin, it’s a shame.

Set. In. Stone.

But am I not shackled by the past? Am I not living out Freudian mommy and daddy issues from the…past? Why is the arc of my life replete with turbulence mainly derived from my past? What else can one draw from but the past? Am I nothing but my past? The reason they tell you the future is wide open is because it’s not the past. My future, like yours, is wide open: nothing but an infinite number of choices that lead to nothing but an infinite number of choices. You and me, we are doomed to choose. But you and me, our past, is sealed, shut, closed, locked, determined. Set. In. Stone.

And that wide open future you are pining for?
Just give it a second.