clips

1. Lately I've wanted to walk around the city late at night. I'm not sure why. I often walk by houses, or other buildings, and wish that I could go inside and see what is there. I'm not interested in stealing anything or in actually doing this, I'm just curious.

2. I've thought for a long time that I am an elitist snob, and maybe I am, but lately I've noticed that I'm not as much of an elitist as many of my friends, and that a lot of times their elitism, their disregard of music or novels or people or food or activities or ideas bothers me. I am skeptical of elitism or of the desire and the attempt to be high class, even if most people would not say that's what they are trying to be. Some of it I just don't understand. Small example: recently I was at a desert theatre where nice deserts were being served. During this experience, I realized that a lot of nice deserts, fancy foods, are expensive, have smaller portions, are not necessarily more nutritious, and don't taste very good. This is when elitism fails me, when it doesn't result in anything that's actually better. Then again, other times I'm angry about the shit that I see other people reading, especially when this is all they read. I feel like I'm accepted in both worlds.

3. Over the past quarter my life has been pretty predictable. This isn't necessarily bad, since my life has been pretty determined by what I've chosen to do, but it feels more boring sometimes, or lonely.

4. I am supremely frustrated when people appeal to law for an ethical standard, or as an argument with someone about what is right or wrong: "Well..it's illegal [therefore wrong.]" Along with this is my frustration with those who want to return to origins, whether this is the original intent of American government ("Just follow the constitution") or the early church, or translation, or anything. It can be useful, but it really shouldn't determine the way we live now.

5. I am skeptical when I hear people talking about revivals, or the need to spiritually revive the church, or a city, or a country, a school, whatever. Once again, this is a question of returns, where merely returning to a previous (perhaps non-existent) state will guarantee future success or growth of some sort. Similarly, I don't want to be a child again. I don't think that childhood was the best time of my life or that I was a better person as a toddler then than I am now. I don't mean this in the total depravity, original sin sort of way. What I mean is that as a child I really didn't have to make moral decisions, or at least the choices that I have to navigate now are much more complicated and ambiguous than in childhood.

6. Ethical approaches to history are meaningless, or at least are no longer historical. What I mean is looking back on history and asking whether a choice that someone made was right or wrong. These questions are meaningless. It is useful, meaningful, to ask what the results of a decision were, but trying to decide whether one choice was right or wrong means pulling that decision outside of its historical context. Talking in that way is just nonsense.