To Be, or To Be Like

Today a young family came into Ruby Tuesday to catch lunch during their holiday travels. The mom wore trendy jeans and a brown leather jacket and seemed like the hip mom that all hip girls want to become. Her husband sported a woven, long-sleeve red shirt which accentuated his bulging muscles and transformed his buzz-cut from an "I am hiding my balding scalp" look into an "I work at a bar and ride my motorcycle to work" look. They were polite, engaged their son lovingly, and demonstrated peaceful confidence. My short interaction caused a strange desire to grow in my heart: I wanted to be like them.
Realization of my desire to be like these strangers caused me to pause and consider what about them I found appealing. They seemed cool, and fun, and confident. They were good parents but didn't sell the richness of their lives to purchase family life. A brief inspection of my motive revealed its superficial root. How could I want to be like them when I dont know what they are actually like? "Who they were" came from an imaginary personality that I had extrapolated based on their external appearance.
I bought into the notion that external appearance reflects a person's nature, even though reality opposes this idea: cool clothes = a cool person. I think we need to reverse this "outside->in" model of character construction. We need to cultivate character traits and dispositions so that our soul aligns with who we want/ought to be. Once our souls obtain the nature we desire, the external image will honestly reflect who we are.

Difficult Living

"Enjoying life is difficult" -Dave Strobolakos


Immediate, hedonistic gratification proves frightfully achievable. Some people drink, some people follow lots of rules, some people have sex, some people pretend to like everyone they know. Immediate pleasure often drives each of these actions. Such individuals dismiss or ignore the long-term effects of living to experience emotional happiness in each successive moment.

Passive, disengaged voyeurism impinges on our ability to experience creation. Television, facebook, videogames, and reading function as means of escapism through we we avoid the world in which we find ourselves. We simultaneously fend off deep relationships to avoid work and pain while religiously devoting ourselves to fictional dramas provided by American media.

Subtle, erosive addictions deplete our capacity to interact relationally. Although drugs, alcohol and smoke could be such addictions, other, less often recognized social barriers prevail in our society. Work takes precedence over family life. Raising children results in a competition to produce the more intelligent scholars, fitter athletes, more gifted musicians than our neighbors.

Unfortunately, each of these responses to life unfold more naturally than conscious, determined, intentional living. Loving your family well requires intense labor. Freeing yourself from the slavery of our entertainment culture takes discipline and foresight. Maintaining a healthy balance between each facet of daily living demands temperance and adaptation. However, humans find fulfillment through this difficult struggle and ultimately, this fulfillment makes life enjoyable. In short-enjoying life is difficult.

Kalanism

"Life is for living"

Finding Rest

Last night I ventured into the wilderness of my yard for another night. Two words summarize my experience: peaceful and cold. Many of my fears from the previous night had completely dissipated. The sounds of the neighborhood gently settled around me. I distinguished between jumping squirrels and falling leaves, and during each burst of noise my heart rested calmly in my chest. Without paranoia pressing me down I enjoyed the world around me and could love it.
Sleep found me quickly and watched over me most of the night. I stirred only to readjust my limbs between positions respectively conducive to warmth or comfort. Without the winter air nudging me awake occasionally, I would sleep undisturbed. I think I will repeat my experience one more night before I leave for New Orleans tomorrow.

Residue

Last night residual thoughts from recent reading resulted in a strange (some would say ludicrous) action: I slept in my backyard in my sleeping bag. Another section of THROUGH PAINTED DESERTS lingered in my psyche from a few nights ago. Miller lived in the forest near the country club at which he worked. He says, "I suppose it takes about a week to get used to sleeping outside. But once accustomed to it, a person cant easily go back to having a roof over his head." I romanced the idea of sleeping without the comforts of a mattress, although some would argue my mattress offers little comfort. Would it free my soul slightly? Would being exposed to nature put me more in touch with its Creator? I longed to know.
I small gained insights into life, but as is often the case with life adventures, they were far from what I expected. I hoped for peaceful slumber, but suffered irrational fears. I do not fear bear attacks in the woods. I do fear homeless men attacking me for money. I hoped for communion with nature, but experienced assault by the restless city.
In spite the division between expectation and experience I value what I learned. Living without the luxuries of 'basic living' free the soul in a small way. Doing something difficult provides reward (such as fulfillment) that can outweigh the cost (sleeplessness). Being part of the world in which we live-including the city-surpasses the voyeurism of modern media experience.

Commercials

In chapter 26 of Donald Miller's THROUGH PAINTED DESERTS, Miller reflects on the spiritual ramifications of his journey from the urban jungle to nature's wilderness. One of his thoughts particularly struck me:

"I think the woods, being away from all the clingy soot of commercialism, have taught me life is enormous, and I am very tiny in the middle of it...It strikes me how far the commercials are from this reality, how deadly they are, perhaps."

Considering the effects of commercials and visual media on my own life pushes me to agree with Miller. Commercials are deadly; I am visually stimulated to death. Not physical death, but spiritual death. Unrelenting entertainment inhibits me from refreshing my soul in the live-giving world around me. May I [exit stage right] from the stories of other people's lives and walk through the door of the life set before me.