Happy Fun Cog: Friday Night Fights and Arguing Against God

Friday, February 06, 2009

Friday Night Fights and Arguing Against God

Two disparate thoughts, connected only in that they give me a sense of clarity:

I just came back from a sparring class at my tae kwon do dojong; there were just two students, including myself, and an instructor, so there was more individual work and discussion than usual. One thing that my instructor pointed out was that I tend to get stuck in retreat mode, that I can attack and retreat but I rarely counter-attack. I, like a lot of people, tend to get a little distracted and unnerved when I'm getting punched in the head and in those circumstances I always retreat or freeze up. I felt like this was one of those "A ha" moments, because I do feel like this applies to how I live my life. When I'm going through a tough time or I'm intimidated by or struggling with something, I always react by retreating, whether that manifests itself in being less social or in being very distracted and acting out by doing things like over-eating or over-drinking. I need to learn how to deal with difficult situations by not letting myself get intimidated or mentally locked up, and to move forward.
I'm reading "The Bridge of Sighs" by Richard Russo, which is a great book. There's a scene in the book where a high school teacher who is challenging his students, sort of a "Dead Poets' Society" thing only without the romanticism, states in class, "There is no God." For some reason, this really struck me, and I've been repeating it to myself. I'm very familiar with the idea of atheism, having first awkwardly embraced it in junior high, though I've never fully vested myself in it. And I'm not vesting myself in it now. But for some reason, the way it was presented in this literary scene gave me a feeling of lucidity, and I think it's because the concept of saying "There is no God" can be a strong statement of human suffrage in the face of the cosmos in the sense that we and only we are responsible for our lives, so we are fully empowered, and if there is no heaven then this is the only thing we have so we might as well enjoy it. It's odd, and I can't really articulate what it is about this one rather pedestrian line (albeit a line in a friggin' great book) that got my mind moving, but I feel much less tied down to assumed obligations and preconceptions about my day to day life... I really need to think this through. I hope I can hold on to this thought; I hope I don't slip into my normal routine of emotional distraction and mental static.

# posted by Jack Burden : 7:53 PM