Passion

God, rage, books

God is the source of all goodness.  He created the universe.  He created all that exists.  He created me and you.  Maybe he’s not a he.  Maybe he’s an it.  The universe, itself.  The universe is creating stars, and time creates people from stardust.  The big bang was made by who or what?  No one can say.   The reality, existence, history, or presence of God is inferred, possibly in error, and no one knows, really.   It is uncertain.   It is conjecture.  Is time infinite?   How could there be a before a beginning?  Or a who, before a what?  It’s madness, really.   God is good.   God is all-powerful.  God is love.  Maybe that’s all you need to know.  Relationships end.  Life ends.  All die.  Do what thou wilt.  But love.  Life is not worth living without love.  Love is a drug.  Love is bliss.   Love is the reason for all things.  You can take heroin.   But heroin is not true love.  Life is a roller coaster.   Roller coasters are exciting.  There are ups and downs.  You can flatten the curve.  You can be equanimous, stable, placid, calm.  You can be a Buddha.   You can be content, no matter what.   You can relinquish attachment.  You can substitute enlightenment for love and hate, desire and aversion, greed and disgust.  Life is simple.   You eat, drink, piss, shit, wake, sleep, fuck, raise a family, work, play, and think, meditate, write, talk, create, exercise, read, watch, listen, love, hate, fight, dream, and die.  Maybe you vote, or lead, or follow, or pray.   Maybe you fish, hunt, hike, go camping, enjoy nature.   Maybe you’re rich, maybe you’re poor.   You’re happy, you’re sad, angry, bored, tired, in love, apathetic, curious.   You go to school, and travel, go to restaurants, and read the news, watch television, go to movies.  You ride a bike.   You walk a dog.  You give up.  You play sports, you win, you lose.  You play games.  You do puzzles.  You watch sports.  You cheer on your team.  You go to bars, you drink alcohol.  You get old, get sick, get tired, are stricken by the meaninglessness and absurdity of life.  You do what you can.  You struggle until the end.  You hate yourself.  You are a mortal.  You are fallible.  You are not god.  You aren’t even good.  And you are the same as everyone else.  At least you tried.  You are like all the other animals.   You are a tube, you are what you eat, less what you excrete.  You happen to have a big brain, and words, and hands, because you are human, but your are no different than a worm.  Maybe life was better for you because you can talk and write, and watch tv and listen to music.  Cultures and languages and personalities provided variety, to sample and enjoy.   Life is good.  Death is inevitable, so it must be good, too.  It doesn’t have to be bad.   It just is.   Accept it, and go with the flow.  All good things must come to an end.  And with that, I close my reverie.

Rage against the machine? You don’t have to give up, or be at peace with all the evil in the world.   You can fight.  You can be a cop, a lawyer, a soldier, a politician, a priest, a writer, an activist, a voter, a teacher, or even a criminal, like an assassin, or a street-fighter.  You might end up in jail, but you had integrity, you fought for what you believed in, you made a stand, and maybe you can keep fighting the evil around you, be a source of virtue in a rotten world.  You are free.  You can write your own story, be the hero of your own epic journey.  Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.   All you need is some sugar (and water).  H, too, oh.

Life gives you a human body?  You go to a library!  Books are time travel, space travel, into the future, past, other places, other people, other cultures, other minds.  Escape, and immerse in entertainment and imagination and experiences, beyond your limited ken.  Humor and creativity and conflict and criminality and horror and philosophies, to expand your perspective, to enlarge your world, to fill your time.  It’s all good.  Fiction, biography, history, news, romance, cookbooks, drink it all in.   Libraries are free, and almost unlimited, in wealth of bliss.  Read everything.  Learn, and laugh, and love, and live!  Read every award-winner, best-seller, librarian pick, bill gates recommendation, and selections from favorite authors.  Learn languages.  Read encyclopedias, and dictionaries, and slang dictionaries, and an atlas, and compendiums on your favorite topics.   Read all the world’s corpus of religious scripture.  Read what the college professors are assigning their students.  Read about nature.   Be a bookworm.  Read until you go blind.

You’ll never be omniscient.  Don’t even try.   But you can be well-read, an expert, an authority, an educated and informed and interesting resource for others.   You only live once.  Books are compressed experience.  The more you read, the longer you’ve lived.  That’s how I see it, at least.  Fill your days with books.  Like Dr. Boox.   Or skoob (scoobie-doo).  Or ghost stories (that put the boo in books).   Or Terry Pratchett (who puts the ook in books).  Go on, get thee to a library, and read about astrology, like libra and aries (libraries!).  Do your homework.  Take your leisure seriously.  Follow your passion.