Cause and Effect

I really started thinking about the concept of God my first year at Wheaton, around 1996. It was a philosophy course that really started me thinking about it (I failed the course but that's another story). The concept is hard to get your head around until you start thinking about it differently, outside the box, then everything clicks into place. Unfortunately, to reach that step you either have to do some complicated mental gymnastics or bypass it entirely. I had to do it the hard way, which caused something of a mental meltdown that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Most people don't think about God very much, which is probably the best way to go if you want to stay healthy. Even those who claim to pray "without ceasing" like the Bible says don't really take the time to think about it. I have a problem, though: I think too much. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to know how things work. The universe is just another machine, another problem, another puzzle to be solved.

Any physicist will tell you that the universe we live in is a mechanistic one. Everything that happens, happens for a reason, effect follows cause, nothing is random, etc, etc. (I'm not going to get into the "spooky" things that happen at subatomic scales. Maybe I'll blog about it later. Moving on.) Where most people go wrong lies in the reversing of cause and effect which is only possible when you predict the future.

You and I are constantly making predictions about the future. We don't realize it because most of the time it happens automatically. Suppose you're a baseball player, an outfielder, and the opposing team's hitter hits a long fly ball to center field. A good outfielder will analyze the ball's trajectory and run to the exact spot he needs to be to catch the ball without even realizing he's made a prediction about the future. Let's do an interview with our imaginary outfielder:
Me: What caused you to run to Center Field?
OF: That was where the ball was going to be.
Me: So the ball's future position caused you to change your own?
OF: Exactly.
Of course, the whole story is a bit more complicated. It involves photons bouncing off objects and striking the retina which produces a series of electronic signals which are processed by the human brain which, based on experience, makes a prediction of where the ball is going to be. If the outfielder was less experienced, his predictions might be wrong. In any case, because of our intelligent brains, you and I are able to add a third stop on our cause-and-effect run around the bases: a goal.

So the sequence now runs: Cause-Effect-Goal. We, as intelligent beings who can predict the future, are capable of setting a goal and adjusting cause and effect in order to meet the goal. The outfielder can adjust his stride to run faster and in different directions. So even though Goal comes last in the sequence it actually gets evaluated first in the mind.

We humans are biased. We tend give human attributes to things around us because that's how we think. Even inanimate objects are not immune. If my car is unable to start one morning when it's too cold, I say "it doesn't want to start," as if it were a person or animal capable of having a goal. So here's the real question: does the universe have a goal, or are we humans assuming it has one because that's how we think?

Waiting To Die, Trying To Live

Starting in Middle School and then into High School, I spent so much time planning how I was going to die that I never really thought about how I was going to live. I grew up in a culture obsessed with death. Every Sunday they'd ask the same question: "If you were to die today..." Ok, here's a question: what if I don't die today? What if I don't die this year, or next year, or next decade? What if I live a long, healthy life? What then?

So much of my time was spent just waiting, I got really good at it. Most people hate waiting. They keep trying to take an active role in getting things to happen faster. When you're waiting on God, though, there's nothing you can do. So I learned to amuse myself for brief periods while I waited. Books and games that I didn't really care about but that could grab my attention for a little while. Unimportant things. I was taught that nothing on this earth is important. It's all smoke and vapor, a pale reflection of God's glory. So I made sure that nothing was important to me.

From about 6th grade on, I owned nothing that I couldn't part with. I was sure that if I valued anything it would be taken from me and that I would be left heartbroken. It had happened before, I was sure it would happen again. The only thing I could take with me into the afterlife, I was sure, was what I had learned. So I learned everything I could. I read as much as I could, the Bible most of all, because that was supposed to be the most important thing I could learn, possibly the only thing I could take with me into the afterlife.

For the same reason, I started holding people at arm's length. I was afraid to start any lasting friendships for fear they would be taken from me. I wanted to be able to leave whenever I wanted, no muss, no fuss. I didn't want anyone to remember me, to wonder where I had gone.

If I couldn't be a martyr, I wanted to crawl off into the wilderness and starve to death. Let God kill me in His own way.

The only thing that really got in the way of this was my own family. They had always known me and always would. Truthfully, I didn't really want to die, I wanted to never have been born. If I could have taken a time machine and prevented my birth, I would have. I didn't want anyone mourning me, eulogizing me, remembering me. I wanted to cease to exist, forever and always. I could have had my wish, If I'd thought about it, but I never considered the possibility that there was no Heaven, no soul, that the end of life is the end of existence.

So here I find myself now trying to pull myself back together, to gain some semblance of life. After spending most of my childhood learning to die, now I find myself having to learn how to live. Believing that life is something worth striving for is not an idea that I am used to. But I'm trying.

Empathy

So here I am again wondering what to write about next. It's not that I have no ideas, it's more that I have too many ideas struggling with each other to get out next. "Write what you know," they say. Well, I know about myself, but I've already said everything about myself that I care to right now. I know about computers, but this is the internet and there's an abundance of experts who would be glad to share with you everything you might care to learn. There's one other thing I know about: religious fanaticism. I may not have done a study on the concept, I may not have a degree, but I know about it intimately because I was one, and because I came out the other side.

In the Fall of 2001 I had decided to take an art class. So I was sitting with a dozen other students sketching away when the professor walked in a with a little portable radio and plugged it in. The voice from the little box was speculating wildly about the plane that had hit the WTC tower. No one was sure if it was on purpose or an accident until the second plane hit, then everyone stopped drawing and crowded around.

One of the reasons I dropped out of acting was because I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't make myself feel emotions the way other people do. I was stunned when I heard the news, but it wasn't out of empathy for the thousands who died in the two flaming towers. Nor did I feel for the millions who had relatives and acquaintances inside. I couldn't make myself feel for them and didn't try to. I was too busy feeling for the bombers.

A similar thing happened a few years earlier when I heard about the Columbine shooting. Everyone was running around saying "What if something like that had happened in my high school? Where would I hide? How could I defend myself?" My heart didn't go out to the victims or their families. I heard about the shooters and thought, "There but by the grace of God go I."

I know all about wanting to die for a cause because I know all about wanting to die. I saw the world in very similar terms while I was growing up. I saw all those rich, decadent people in positions of power, positions they hadn't earned, and wanted to tear them down from their high pedestals. I would have gladly sacrificed myself to do it rather than spend a lifetime in thrall to their regime. As long as civilization continues on its path, there will always be suicide bombers, for several reasons:

1. The Dead are Glorified
No one ever speaks badly of the dead. It may be for superstitious reasons or just political ones but when someone dies they were suddenly the most wonderful, misunderstood person on earth. Coffins get draped with flags and flowers, thousands gather for funerals. Even moreso if you can die accomplishing something noble. Then there's the heaven myth. If the afterlife is so much better than life on earth, why not blow yourself up?


2. Reproductive Restrictions
This deserves an entire blog entry for itself. It's the sole reason so many suicide bombers come out of muslim countries but we in American are not immune to it. If those boys in Columbine had had girlfriends, they never would have done what they did. In Muslim countries, where wives are purchased like slaves, only wealthy men can afford wives, usually at least two or three. Many rich heads of families have extensive harems, and when it comes time for the sons to marry, only the eldest are so favored because of the cost. What does this mean for the younger sons who will never marry? While many deny it, any honest man will tell you that the primary reason we men do anything is because of sex. Throughout history, most soldiers have been single men. We go to war, we innovate, we struggle to obtain sex. Men who get all the sex they want attain very little because they have no reason to. What does this mean in a culture where thousands of young men must go through life unmarried because young women are valuable commodities bought and sold by old, rich, powerful men?


3. Envy and Greed
Here's another one that deserves it's own blog entry. People are animals. We have the same drives as any other animal in nature. One of these drives is the struggle for territory. It's in our nature to want to take what others have. If my neighbor has a nice new car, I want it. Exodus tells us not to covet, but that's one commandment we cannot obey. We have to covet, it's in our nature. In a culture where so many poor are surrounded so few rich and powerful, we all covet wealth and power. If we feel we cannot achieve it through peaceful means we will use violent means instead.


4. The Power of Myth
Growing up, I used to think I was still living in biblical times. That those times never really existed in the first place is beside the issue. I wanted to live in a time of miracles, where God answered prayer by bringing rival nations to their knees with natural disasters. In the Middle East where the stories arose, it must be even harder to live in the present. You want to believe that the stories are relevant today. A muslim looking at pictures of New York must have seen two great towers of Babel reaching for the sky. Pentagons conjure up similar images. Who wouldn't want to try to gain God's favor by destroying those symbols?


5. Hero Tales
Every culture has its heroes: those who braved great odds to achieve the impossible. In reality such individuals rarely act without huge support networks but in the stories they always act alone. We all want to emulate our heroes, to achieve what they achieved, and the myth of the lone gunslinger who accomplishes so much working alone will never go away.

These are some of the reasons I identified more with the bombers than with the victims. I felt the same drives. If I had grown up in a culture like theirs, I would have acted the same way. The dead feel nothing: they're dead.

The Pitfalls of Self Deprecation

People were always telling me to cheer up.  It got pretty annoying.  "Smile, God loves you," they'd say, as if I didn't already know that.  I didn't see anything in the Bible about facial expressions.  The only other people I knew of who seemed to smile all the time were cultists and people who were trying to get me to like them, like salesmen and politicians.

Maybe I should back up a little.  There's a saying: "Actions speak louder than words."  I had decided at one point that because I wasn't so good at words that I would let my actions speak for me.  It's particularly hard when you're growing up in a society of preachers, who practice the exact opposite: distract people with your words and you they won't notice your actions.  It fits in with the Biblical notion that Christians should be humble: another concept every preacher I'd ever met seemed to have a problem with.  Really, if you read the gospels, it's like every other verse is about humility, but I never seemed to see it in any of the Christians I went to church with.  They never stopped talking, always trying to be the center of attention.  I spoke only to communicate, and then only when I had to.  I always tried for the most humble spot: the foot of the table as it were.  I let other people lead, let them stand in the spotlight.

Then, there's the sense of humor issue.  I read an article that says that we are the same people we were at age 7.  In other words, all our personality traits are set by that age.  I grew up with a set of heroes that influenced my sense of humor toward the dark and self-disparaging.  Charlie Brown was probably the first, along with Winnie-the-Pooh's Eeyore and MGM's Droopy cartoons.  So early on, I developed this "woe is me" demeanor that was supposed to be funny but it never really worked that way.  People seemed to think that I really was depressed and tried to cheer me up.  This led to my actually being depressed because no one thought I was funny.

So here I am in a job situation that relies almost completely on self-promotion.  Career advisers talk about things like self marketing and getting noticed.  Here I am, trying to let my actions speak for themselves and what have I really accomplished?  I'm a thinker, not a talker, and I really do value actions over words.  I just wish others would do the same.

On The Run

When I was about 7 or 8 I read a book about a boy who ran away from home and lived in the woods in a hollow tree.  The book was all about how he taught himself to survive in the wilderness and ever since then I had been fascinated with the idea of running away, living on my own, discovering for myself the tricks I needed to survive.

I should have stayed in cub scouts, and then joined the boy scouts.  I remember really liking my first year but I quit because my brother, David, quit.  He was a webelos, the last cub scout rank before joining the boy scouts and he didn't want to go on, I never learned why.  Anyway, I was completely unprepared for the real prospect of living on my own in the wilderness.  I didn't know how.

The truth of the matter is that the American wilderness is completely changed from the frontier I was raised to expect.  There's too many people now, too many cities, and the land between is crisscrossed by roads.  Even the most barren patch of wilderness is owned by somebody.  You can't go off and live in the woods anymore, you'd be trespassing..  So much for my romantic notion of striking off on my own.

There's A Lot of "There" Out There

In January of 1998, I got in my car and drove to Chicago.  I had already dropped out of Wheaton, so the trip was just a formality.  I had things to pick up from my dorm room and a few friends to say goodbye to.  Chicago is pretty cold that time of year, I know from firsthand.  I slept in my car in the smallest of the student parking lots, where I knew I wouldn't be disturbed, and left the engine off for as long as I could stand it.  I was snowed under in no time and had to start the engine up for heat.  Exhaust was pouring out when the snow crew came by in their little snowplow thing to dig me out, but no one tapped on my window to see if I was alright.  I guess that wasn't their job.

I spent two nights in Wheaton pretending to be a student before my friend Dan finally arrived.  He was the only one I cared to tell what was going on.  I spent one night in a movie theater, two in my car, and one in Dan's apartment, then I took off.  Too much post-apocalyptic literature and I had convinced myself that American civilization would crash on the night of December 31 1999.  I was determined to survive the crash and even come out on top.  Also, I was looking for God.

My car was a white Dodge Omni, I forget the year.  It was a gift from my uncle, who used to use it to commute to his job before he retired and he and Aunt Gertrude bought an RV to go on the road with.  My first stop was Cedar Rapids Iowa.  There was a girl I wanted to meet, but she didn't want to meet me.  We had met via an old fashioned dial-up computer bulletin board.  It was her idea to go on the road first, but then she backed out of it and I had to go it alone.  I went to Cedar Rapids to try to run into her anyway, but I had no idea how to locate her and it was probably for the best that we never met in person.  I slept in my car in a church parking lot.

My car took me as far as Iowa City (I wanted to head down south New Orleans way), when I ran over a box in the middle of the road and started leaking fluids.  I managed to get as far as a service station, then a tow to a Dodge dealership, then a bus to St. Louis and I was already running low on cash.  No problem, I thought, I expected this to happen.  Took a Bi-State to my parents house to see if a paycheck I was supposed to receive had come in.  It had.  My mom had hidden it.  By then, they had figured out that I was missing and thought I might come back for it.  I chalked it down as another loss, shouldered my backpack and mail satchel I had picked up from an army surplus store and walked to the interstate offramp.  I expected to do a lot of walking where I was going.

I soon found out why people don't hitchhike anymore.  For one thing, it's illegal to do it on the interstate.  I should have found a state highway instead.  For another thing, once you get out of the city, nobody stops.  I had believed the myth about truck drivers stopping for rides, but they're not allowed to pick up hitchers anymore.

Though I did manage to find a few rides, I walked a long way that day, the coldest day of the year so far.  The first rest stop out of St. Louis is 50 miles south, and that's where I found myself.  I thought it would be a nice, warm place to spend the night, but the only place to sleep was the hard tile floor and it's not well heated at all.  I couldn't stop shivering.  Motorists came and went, but I was mostly too shy to try to bug them for rides.  Shy beggars (that's what I was at this point) don't get very far.

When my dad picked me up he said that I was running from God.  Funny, I thought I was running to Him.  It occurred to me later that this was a dream come true for my parents.  They wanted me to be a prodigal son.  They wanted to go to church the next Sunday and brag about how I had come home and they had taken me in.  But the prodigal son was a sinner.  What had I done wrong?  Separated myself from the hypocrites at church and school?  I had cast myself into the arms of God and relied on Him alone to guide me.  I had committed no crime, save breaking an ordinance.  My only sin was not informing my parents of where I was going.  This led to a new realization about God.  He doesn't exist if other people aren't around to talk to about Him.  He's a god of society, of civilization.  In short, God is a meme.

The Official Count

258 trick-or-treaters last night before we ran out of candy, and they were still swarming the street at 7:30 pm while we were packing up and going inside  According to Melissa's mom and dad it's the most they've seen for several years, though they would regularly see 300 or more back in the day.  I handed out candy last year at my parents' house and I only saw 3 all evening.

Growing up, Halloween was my favorite holiday, not because of the candy but because of the costumes.  I can't eat candy anymore.  Not diabetic yet, but I've developed enough insulin resistance that any sugar at all makes me drowsy.  Makes me wish I had enjoyed it more at the age when I could enjoy it.

I can still enjoy the costumes, though.  Next year I think I'll try dressing up myself.  Why should the kids have all the fun?