i spend two days talking about doubt, and, getting nowhere, conclude with a barely relevant bible verse

TUESDAY, JULY 30

there are some people who enjoy things without thinking about them. i do not understand these people because i have never been able to do things that way. when i am introduced to something new, like fast food or video games, i can only enjoy it for so long before i get bored and detach myself from the experience and start examining it. you can take any idea or experience and hold it in your hand and look at it from all sides. all it takes is a seed of doubt. a mustard seed of doubt, and you do not have to move mountiains, because you can pretend that they do not even exist.

i like being able to despise things. i call it “criticism.” some people think of criticism as a genre of nonfiction writing, but i prefer to think of it as a state of mind, where i take some thing and throw its identity, and maybe even its right to exist, into question. you start by doing it to music or literature, but you can also do it to little pieces of culture (like fast food or video games), or even to entire cultures (scholars call it “anthropology”). you can do it using a system or a method, or, if you are like me, you can just use your intuition. the downside of methods is that they are artificial and therefore frequently dishonest, and the downside of intuition is that you end up tying everything to the same ideas. fast food becomes a symbol of laziness or the endless evils of corporate culture, or our youth’s fascination with video games can be read as a symptom of cultural decadence. everything ends up being the same, and you end up projecting all the same ideas on a host of easy targets. and if you are smart (arrogant) enough, anything can be a target.

yes, that is right. you can question anything. kids start doing it as soon as they learn how to say the word “why” but even they are smart enough to get tired of asking questions, and they go right back to living their life. but there is an entire stream of philosophy concerned with asking “why” and “what does it all mean,” imagining that maybe reality does not exist outside the self, or maybe the self does not exist at all. we have the ability to doubt ourselves into oblivion, into a dark and lonely state of paralysis. i think there is a big word for that. i think that word is “existentialism.” i have become pretty familiar with this paralyzing doubt, and i think i am tired of it.

doubt is depressing and paralyzing, and, in spite of its roots in logic and reason, completely unreasonable. it is also tempting. i suppose it is flattering, too, in a way, because in order for you to be able to question something, you have to be bigger and smarter than it. it takes an inflated sense of pride to be willing to doubt everything. and it is not like i think that humans should never doubt anything, but so many people admire doubt and see it as a sign of strength instead of a particular sort of myopia. i said recently that there is something beautiful about a life cut short, not realizing that such a premature death is more sad than beautiful, and its beauty is nothing compared to the beauty of a full life, lived well. cutting something off before it is finished gives it more credit than it deserves.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31

all i want for my birthday is a bottle of bombay sapphire and a scanner. and also maybe some stylish ties? i have not always been a fan of ties, but recently i have come to appreciate the value of accessorizing. there is so much variety in the world, and if i do not embrace all of it, all at once, then i am guilty of a horrible crime. the only unforgivable sin is to speak against the holy doctrine of carpe diem.

sacrilege!

people do not appreciate sacred things anymore. it is much more stylish to mock belief than to believe something sincerely. people do not understand belief anymore; they are not even familiar with it. the only thing people are familiar with is doubt, but that hardly implies that they understand it. doubt is a road that only leads to paralysis. doubt is where you become aware of your ability to choose, and worship the ability instead of the possibility of making a good choice.

g k chesterton said that you cannot admire the will in general because it is by nature particular. he wrote that in a book called “orthodoxy” which is the book that saved me from nietzsche. nietzsche was a man who hated Jesus and God and ideals and religion and morality and everything that is good. he is also one of the smartest people i have ever read; he is such a bold and convincing writer that i find it strange that i am deeply unwilling to believe anything that he says. eventually i became convinced that the root of his philosophy is the same as the root of satan’s philosophy in the garden of eden story. i am not exaggerating. nietzsche is satan. i might not ever finish reading ecce homo.

a lot of people think that once you find religion you are not allowed to enjoy life anymore. they probably believe this because there are a lot of religious people who are full of self loathing and fear, and they cast that shadow onto their faith. but faith is not about stifling life, it is about living live in the most proper balance. self denial is not just about saying No to self, it is also about saying Yes to God. and as much as there is an ascetic quality to Christianity, that is expressed in the solitude and humility of the monks, there is that strain of saints who were on fire, men and women who talked too loud and lived too much. Christianity is not one extreme, it is every extreme, and all of it is tied together with doctrine that has been negotiated over centuries with a nearly preposterous attention to detail. it is a polarizing doctrine because it is complete and brutally true. it is a complete train of thought, a series of definite affirmations that exclude as many logical possibilities as they include. a lot of people are afraid of ruling things out because once you start to be specific about things you start walking a very narrow path and, it is very difficult for humans to do the right thing with any consistency. we are not rational creatures. we are not even very honest. Christianity does not always agree with me; it often splits me in half. it does not flatter my intellect or my pride, but if i was looking for flattery, i would just read nietzsche all the time.

John the Baptist did not go around eating and drinking, and you said, “That man has a demon in him!”
But the Son of Man goes around eating and drinking, and you say, “That man eats and drinks too much! He is even a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet Wisdom is shown to be right by what it does.
matthew 11:18-19