The Narrow Path

I have been pondering about the narrow path. In the New Testament, Jesus says that the path to Heaven is narrow. Traditionally, people have most interpreted that is following one set of extremely strict rules, and that all deviants would go to Hell (or at least not reach Heaven and get eternal life). However, it seems awfully cruel to me. Why would God exclude so many people from His presence? Is he not supposed to be a God of Love, and not the God of Discrimination?

I’ve pondered this for a while, and at one time, came to believe that there were many many narrow winding paths which led to the same destination in the end. That didn’t seem quite right either, so at last, I have come to a conclusion. Acceptance and love for others, no matter how much they deviate from your set of beliefs, is the only way to Heaven. We find it hard to love and accept those who are different from us. In fact, many of us (including myself) do not quite manage it. Since it is so difficult, then is it not the narrow path? If we can all practise acceptance and love, then we won’t have to wait until we are dead to get to Heaven. If you truly love someone, you try your utmost not to hurt them. If we all care about one another to that level, then we will have created Heaven on earth. And that, my friends, is a wonderful thought.

The mini-philosopher in me.

I just finished my essay, but I’m getting a sense of doom, possibly because I feel that my essay is horrid. It always happens though; I finish a piece of writing (done in a style with which I am not familiar) and I am very insecure about it. I get reassured when others tell me it’s good, or when I get an A (that does not happen most of the time, so I suppose my worries are not over the top, mostly).

I despise academic subcultures. Actually, I despise having to conform to any style. Perhaps that rebel in me is still not tamed, because whenever anyone adamantly argues for one thing, I feel the urge to argue for the opposite side, even though I might not agree with my own arguments. I don’t know why, but I feel really irritated when people are very certain that they are right. It seems to me that no one side is right, although all sides can be wrong, but we don’t see how wrong we are until something goes really badly in our lives, and we have to revise our opinions.

Don’t know what’s gotten into me, because that was really philosophical. Usually, I’m just a ditzy girl who likes to look at pictures of good looking actors and cast them in my stories. Perhaps it’s the influence of Kingdom of Heaven, since I’ve just finished the movie. It makes me wiser and more thoughtful than usual.

Anyway, considering I’ve just finished Kingdom of Heaven, I’m going to write Baldwin V’s coronation scene, and that court drama concerning Guy and Sibylla. Not sure how I missed it last time; I think I was too busy with the creosote bush and a sulky and hot knight.

Idiots and…wise people?

The other day, I was making up a statement concerning freedom and wisdom and I needed a group noun for wise and smart people. Being the relatively studious sort of person, I went and got my Oxford Thesaurus off my bookshelf and tried to look for something which would suit. One of the few words I knew which meant someone smart was ‘genius’, but as there was such a fine and fuzzy line between genius and madness, I couldn’t use that for my saying. I looked up ‘genius’ in the Thesaurus. That didn’t yield any good results (‘Einstein’ wasn’t exactly what I was looking for) so I went and looked up ‘intellectual’ instead. There were very few synonyms, but after a while, I chose ’sage’. The word ‘intellectual’, while appropriate, didn’t have the right rhythm. The thing is, I didn’t find many nouns which meant ’smart people’.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the word ‘fool’. That was the other word I was using in my statement. There were so many synonyms listed there that it would take a while for me to type them all out. I found ‘idiot’, ‘ass’ (very insulting to donkeys, in my opinion), ‘halfwit’, ‘blockhead’, ‘dunce’, ‘dolt’, ‘dullard’, ’simpleton’, ‘clod’, ‘dope’ etc. just to name a few. The most important observation was that there were a lot more synonyms for ‘fool’ than there were for ‘intellectual’.

So what does that tell us about society? It was just a curious thought. Why are there so many words for a stupid person? Do we live in a society of idiots, or are we just a defamatory society which delights in putting people down? Either way, it doesn’t look great.

Practicality vs. Imagination

Ah, it is a bad start to a new term. I fell asleep in Linguistics for the second day in a row. Okay, I know I can catch up with the work by just reading the text book, so why do I even bother turning up to class? Still, maybe I should make it a rule to have coffee before Linguistics.

I feel like writing something. To tell the truth, blogging is becoming addictive. I hardly ever used my blog for the first couple of months, but now, I do it every day of the week. Perhaps it’s the lack of real life friends, but I find it hard to find acquaintances who share my interests. I love discussing the implications of religion and history on people. I talk more about theories and fiction than I do about who’s going out with who and that sort of gossip. I’m not what they call a people person.

Fiction does seem a lot more interesting than real life, and more free. I make my own rules, and everything that’s supposedly impossible becomes possible. I suppose that’s what drew me to it in the first place. I’ve always been accused of being a daydreamer, and I’m proud of it in some ways. Dreaming helps me to stay young, and to not lose trust in life. I love my life, even though there are those occasional down moments.

I should be studying History at the moment. I’m trying to learn the first three crusades, and then there’s so much other stuff like starting on my essays or studying for my tests. But I’m just not in the mood. I wonder what is better; to be governed by the heart or by the mind. The heart, even if it does not make the most sensible choices, is the more free of the two. The mind has logic, but it is limited to what we are certain of. That has its uses, but it is very boring, in my book. What is life without imagination? We might as well be robots if we are always stuck in reality. Robots are realistic, grounded, sensible, efficient. But without imagination, who would be thinking up new designs for robots, or even the idea of a robot?

Science is governed by logic, but science itself was discovered through the imagination, and asking questions that no one else has ever asked before. I’m sure the people who invented wheel, the chariot, the stirrup, gunpowder, the cannon, and all those other things, both wonderful and not-so-wonderful, had loads of imagination. It takes innovation to make something new. Being a daydreamer isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even though my thoroughly grounded father makes it sound like a sin. I guess that’s the problem with modern urban society. Everything is based on production, on efficiency and mostly on money. Money is a means to life, but not the meaning of life.