C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity
This struck me as I read it. I find, in my own life as well as in others, often we spend very little time searching for the truth and a whole lot of time searching for whatever justifies how we wish to act. Our lives are full of "grey areas" where we've said to ourselves "normally, this is wrong, but in this case, it's unavoidable"; Others decide that they do not subscribe to some idea of right or wrong or absolute truth because the idea of being held to such things is uncomfortable; It is an admission that we are not in complete control of our lives.
I find it even more interesting that many people who think this way do not think so after long soul searching and pursuit of truth, but rather as a simple evolution of living the way we want over the short span of our lives. We shy from that which contradicts what we want and adopt that which tells us that "business as usual" is quite alright.
And then we wonder why our lives are train wrecks, our relationships typically fleeting, painful affairs, and our satisfaction with what we have accomplished so short-lived.
This is not to say there is no such thing as a grey area or that strict adherence to a set of morals will somehow solve the world's problems. Neither of these would be true. It is simply that, as humans, we spend very little time trying to figure out what is right or true and a whole lot of time trying to figure out what makes us feel good.
3 comments:
You know, when I first started reading this, I figured I was going to have a nice rebuttal to all of it, but by the end, I think I decided I was in agreement. To an extent, anyway.
I do think people can find happiness in their lives if they find a philosophy or "truth" for themselves that works that they can adhere to. However, in order to arrive at this philosophy, one must naturally go through the trial and error process--what you call "figuring out what makes us feel good." Eventually, when a person has gone through enough good and bad experiences, often, a life philosophy emerges. We learn what makes us unhappy and we avoid it, and those things become the enemy to our life philosophy. It becomes easy to adhere to this newfound truth, because one has developed it based on his/her own experiences.
It seems kind of unnatural, in my opinion, to create a truth first and force oneself to live by it. It's like going on a fad diet and ultimately failing because you haven't chosen a diet/philosophy that works for you.
I wasn't asserting that you need to pick something and run with it. That's not searching, that's arbitrarily picking. Interestingly, CS Lewis wasn't asserting that you need to pick it either.
The thing we tend to do is shy away from things that we don't like. However, no amount of not liking the color blue will make the ocean purple. I think we've gotten this strange idea that "truth" is some sort of fluid thing that conforms itself to us.
We also tend to take our interpretation of our experiences as some sort of final authority. Is what we're doing a bandaid or a long-term fix? In my own experience, I see a whole lot of band-aids and not a whole lot of corrective surgery.
If "truth" is really whatever strikes our fancy, then it's not really truth at all, is it? It's an opinion.
I know you expect a comment from me but I haven't gotten through the entire post yet... I keep getting interrupted and it's one of those posts that you have to really read... not just laugh and read.
But we had this conversation on the phone anyway... so maybe I don't have to post.
I'm not feeling all that philisophical at the moment anyway.
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