On Cogs and Wheels

How I think has been passing through my head, lately. Perhaps it is all this focus on the many dreams I have been having lately, along with the constant sense of wanting to keep moving. In any event, I find I have tried to explain to people on occasion how I think, so I decided to attempt to explain it in a coherent fashion to myself.

It was once asked: Through what lens do you see the world? Is it a world moved by politics? by relationships? by economics? by religion? by something else? I stopped and considered the world, for a moment, and my approach to it. Every category suggested seems accurate and inaccurate all at once. And then it occurred to me that I view the world, existence, as a story.

In this story, there is an all-powerful, all-knowing being who exists outside of time and is called God. God can do anything He should desire, and this means that anything and everything is a possibility. And by that, I do not just mean it in a theoretical sense, but there is an active awareness that aliens could land, the mountains could dance a jig, the sun could remain fixed in the sky, the ground could open up and swallow a great population and close again as a great mouth. Sure I don't expect these things, but they are entirely possible and I have no issues accepting their possibility.

Along with that, there is an over-arching storyline to the tale of existence. Every life, every happening, and that which ties it all together -- all of it, on every level, has a storyline of varying complexities. And as with all stories, everything happens for a reason; everything advances the plot in some way, or develops character, or does something to bring the story along. All pain, all suffering, all joy, all peace happens for a reason and nothing is truly meaningless. No, God does not control this all like puppets on a string, although He, like all the other players, influences it and helps to direct it. Although, unlike any of the other players, He knows how it ends.

And so when tragedy strikes or anything happens, it strikes me as tragic, but part of me feels a detached excitement to see what will happen next. This may seem a bit heartless, and perhaps it is. I deeply and powerfully love individuals whom I come to know, but care little for those whom I do not come to know. Perhaps this is why I take little interest in biographies and instead prefer to read fairy tales.

Yet, really, I am not so heartless. Even as I type this, it reads as a characterisation of who I really am. And I believe that it is. But perhaps it gives voice to that great part of me which does not see things through the same kind of emotive lens that others often see the world. Questions of "how could this happen?" do not matter to me, and the question of "why?" voiced to the heavens so rarely crosses my lips.

"What next?"

"What should I do?"

"How?"

These, when I have not been blinded by pathos, come sooner and matter more to my understanding. But maybe I have merely described an ideal, and those who know me will tell the imagining from the truth. But in this moment, before my remembering fades again, this is my worldview. This is the lens through which I view the world. Through the eyes of the book.

Post, the First: In Which I Realise that Lent is but a Week Away

Today I decided to take a look at a liturgical calendar to see when Lent begins this year. I knew that Easter was early -- as early as it can ever be -- but I hadn't quite realised that Lent begins next week already.

This meant that I needed to start thinking about what I would fast from. At first nothing came to mind, as usual. (The past few years nothing has struck me until pretty much Ash Wednesday.) Well, something came a bit easier, this year, somewhat to my dismay. And it came in that resolute manner which means it was already decided almost as soon as I heard it. I am to give up webcomics for Lent. And beyond that, for that was not sufficient, being sacrifice for sacrifices sake (and with something so difficult, it would be a frustration more than anything), but to instead pray the rosary to restore my relationship with Mary and with God. And I am to pray the rosary when I feel myself itching to read webcomics and unable to focus on my studying. I can only hope and pray that I will be able to stick to this well and trust that I will grow deeply in the Lord, and the Lord, in me.