Lurgee

There is no obligation in compulsion. There is only opportunity.

The strength of my feelings for you provides no script, but a theme. A broad truth. Maybe you don't know about my feelings, or maybe you don't care. Or maybe you do care, but not in wished-for forms. Regardless, I've learned something from them I didn't always have. Something important. Something better.

There is no one to one ratio for desires. There is no magical formula for fulfillment, one calculation for catharsis. Strong feelings do not require translation to specific circumstances. They are invitations, not needs. I should feel strongly about more of you. For as many of you as I can.

A few of you punch through my old habit of avoiding strong feelings for fear they'll fall short of the hopes and expectations that inevitably attach themselves. Those punches have hit me enough times that some sense is starting to settle. Thank you.

I'm in love with you. You're not the first, you won't be the last, and from moment to moment, none of it will ever be quite the same. But I am grateful for it. It means the world to me (just like you). There are no absolute truths following this, but there are some enduring implications, and I like those, too.

In humility, truth, and love,

I'm yours.

I Am One Of Many More To Come

(Rolling Stone, Jack Bruce didn't write lyrics for you)

Today (and each day afterwards)

I embark on a new agenda:

Flying the flag of psychic diversity

And preserving the soil conditions

For creativity.

Not all its fruits will be to taste,

But they will be allowed

To grow.

I'm A Mountain

Fundamentalism (of any kind) troubles me. The world is too big and too intricate to conform to our ideas of what it should be like. In my experience I've found that most fundamentalists aren't so much attached to their professed ideologies as they are to the way in which these ideologies try to make sense of a confusing world. But the world is confusing, and just because we invent myths and theories to explain away the chaos we're still going to live in a world that's older and more complicated than we'll ever understand. So many religious and political and scientific and social systems fail in that they try to impose a rigid structure onto what is an inherently ambiguous world. I'm not suggesting that we stop trying to understand things. Trying to understand the world can be fun and, at times, helpful. But if we base our belief systems on the humble assumption that the complexities of the world are ontologically beyond our understanding, then maybe our belief systems will make more sense and end up causing less suffering.

~Moby (Richard Melville Hall)

In one sense or another, I very frequently feel like I'm at a crossroads in life. This being the case, I feel the need to celebrate (however subtly) when I feel that I've definitively stepped off in a particular direction, even if the new road is raising more questions yet; it is still progress.

This particular decision is related to the above quotation, which I first encountered shortly before I embarked on several years of earnest study and contemplation on the topic of religion. It resonated in a particular way then, and does so again now.

For a matrix of reasons, I know now I cannot associate myself with any one particular faith if it in any way requires a dimension of a priori exclusivity. The truth, while often presented as a singular term, is far from that. The universe is composite, and in our current state, ultimately incomprehensible as a whole. An environmental biologist does not rail against the conclusions of a particle physicist. Each may not understand the work of the other, but they are each capable of discovering and working with truths. Each can benefit from the other's conclusions, and nothing about fundamental truths are exclusive with one another. It's just the way things are.

We are unique in our ability to signify reality. I say ability, but I think maybe I should say our lack of other options. Our greatest evolutionary advantages (language, symbolic reasoning) also present our greatest challenges, and greatest opportunities. They are amazing, imperfect tools. Anything that encourages a belief in an 'inerrant word' has just committed to oxymoron, and I can't get behind it. Anyone who stands at the foot of a mountain and refuses to acknowledge that erosion exists will eventually be buried beneath the landslide.

We must fly beyond the mountains, for immortality is in movement, not a promised land.