The Scream, by Edvard Munch has become the universal symbol of the modern condition. These visual rhythms suggest the resonating sound of the voiceless cry described by Munch in the notes to a preliminary drawing for the painting: "I walked with two friends. Then the sun sank. Sudenly the sky turned red as blood. . . . My friends walked on, and I was left alone, trembling with fear. I felt as if all nature were filled with one mighty unending shriek."
"But there is much to be said for giving up such grand ambitions and living the most ordinary life imaginable, a life without the old longings; selling stocks and bonds and mutual funds; quitting work at five o'clock like everyone else; having a girl and perhaps one day settling down and raising a flock of Marcia and Sandras and Lindas of my own. Nor is the brokerage business as uninteresting as you might think. It is not a bad life at all" (9).
Sometimes I wonder how humans are supposed to make decisions. I feel like I'm guided by everything, everybody, nothing and nobody.
So at the end of the day, what is it that compels you to do things? The Holy Spirit (and are you sure it's the right one)? The Bible? (which interpretation?) Mentors? Parents? Habits? NY times bestselling authors? Friends? Freudian subconscious psyche... (oh god)...
In historical consciousness, there appears to be two extreme approaches to man's "search for guidance."
1) The first is dogmatic. The socialist, the Marxist, the communist, the Islamic terrorist, and the crusader religionist... all of them sacrifice freedom for the sake of order--whether it's through textual dogma, a vision of a purified race, or whatever.
2) The second is relativistic. These are the existentialists and the Nietzsche supermans who say, "We're really just making it all up." You gotta create your own reality as best you can.
But today I discovered a rich little grain of truth in Genesis that sheds some light on the whole discussion. It made me believe that maybe man was never intended to be held by the hand of God--never intended to be slaves to dogmatic principles and orders, or have one supreme nay sayer about what to do and what not to do.
In Genesis, we see that we were originally created to be "imago dei" decision makers and rulers over the earth. We were glorious. We still are glorious.
BUT, sin has added ambiguity to that authority we were created to exert. We're fallen. We screw it up sometimes.
So the truest description of human nature bridges tensions between our inherent glory and our ruined-ness. The glory part of us wants to rule, but the ruined part of us makes reality, information, and human action distorted, disordered, and confusing.
The problem is...our glory is still rooted in sin and earth.
Nothing will ever seem 100% clear 100% of the time. But we still have to make decisions and exert authority. So I guess we just have to cope with the reality of being glorious and ruined--always hoping for perfection but never expecting it.
"In 1927, Heisenerg's principle of uncertainty stated that the more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known. In scientific terms, this idea replaced the absolute and rationalist model of the universe. Einstein's theory of relativity revealed that time and space are intervals of duration and length that cannot be described as absolutes."
If science can balance the predictable and the unpredictable, theology can put it's big boy pants on too.
I like the Bible - especially it's apparent contradictions. It's much easier to be a reductionist, which is part of the reason why I can't take certain academics seriously. They drive home in the classroom what they don't teach to their children.
The Bible isn't about figuring out the HTML code of morality and inserting it into the universe. It balances tensions well, because it would rather us be wise than stupidly clinging to a narrow-minded set of principles.
"Society, according to the socialists, should operate entirely in the interest of the needs of the people, communally and cooperatively, rather than competitively."
"You are just like a flower, So fair and chaste and dear; Looking at you, sweet sadness Invades my heart with fear. I feel I should be folding My hands upon your hair, Praying that God may keep you So dear and chaste and fair"
