Who Am I? Where Am I Going? Why Am I Here?

Does God have a purpose for my life? How do I know? And how do I find it? These questions asked honestly (more than nearly any others) force us to confront the fundamental realities of who we are, who God is, and the meaning of life.

Though some have suggested that people can bear the sense of meaninglessness, Viktor Frankl argued that humans have an innate need to find meaning in their lives. This need, he stated in his book Man's Search For Meaning, is even stronger than the need for food, water or shelter. 

Albert Camus likewise spoke of our human desire for meaning and purpose. In his view the longing for meaning comes face to face with an apparently indifferent universe. He labeled this fundamental conflict "the Absurd." While the human mind seeks order and meaning, the universe remains silent, hence this sense of absurdity. Thus, in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, there is really only one question that matters. Does it make sense to go on living once the meaninglessness (Camus' conclusion) of human life is fully understood and assimilated?

Understandably, these are serious issues. For this reason such questions are seldom voiced, though deep inside they niggle and churn, unsettling those who have failed to find truly satisfying answers. It is as if we are living in a dark room with no windows, with no light. 

Ah, but what if indeed light has entered the world? What if indeed there were a living God who has not left us in the dark?

This is what the Bible claims. Light has indeed come into the world.

Thomas Paine, who died in 1809, wrote that the Bible would be a forgotten book in 50 years. I'm pretty sure that a majority of young people do not know who he was. 

I found this the other day in one of my 1983 notebooks. It is a list of various responses to the question. "Who am I?" 

Analogies: 

Man is a machine. 

Man is a collection of atoms. 

Man is an animal. 

Man is a bundle of habits. 

Man is divine. 

Man is a living soul.

Once we get clarity on this first question, we can begin to get on track with the others.

From my youth I have been interested in philosophy. I remember asking philosophical questions as early as elementary school while swinging on the swings in the playground. In college I was attracted to both philosophy and art, and there's a sense in which the latter is simply a visible representation of the former. Check out this famous painting by Gaugin: 

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Gaugin asked the right questions.

Are you still seeking answers to the questions rattling around within you?
When Jesus said "Seek and you shall find," the original verb meant 
"seek and keep seeking... and you will find."
Don't give up the fight.

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls. Is Paine Still Relevant Today? You Decide

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Luetze

This weekend the quote "These are the times that try men's souls" crossed my mind. Certainly these have been quite trying times for our lives and our nation, so I decided to investigate further into its origin. 

I knew that Thomas Paine, pamphleteer and author of Common Sense, was the man who penned it, but I recalled little else.

When I found the quote I read the rest of this essay and found it quite illuminating with many passages quite relevant for our own trying times. It is the opening essay of a compilation of essays under the title The American Crisis.

I also discovered that in order to fortify the resolve of his troops, George Washington ordered that this essay be read aloud to his men the night before they crossed the Delaware in their December 26 surprise attack on Trenton. 

Portrait of Thomas Paine by Matthew Pratt

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” 

The American Revolution had one pre-eminent ideal: Freedom.

In the first section Paine writes:

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. 

Does this sound like today? The next sentence amplifies that with the reminder that "All nations and ages have been subject to them."

Next, he points out that panics have value and can be useful. Why?

Their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered.

* * * *
So it is that we are in a time of crisis, times that try men's souls. There are forces at war which have lain dormant and below the surface. What is emerging has been coalescing for a long time. The American Revolution did not "just happen." It had been evolving for quite some time.

I've been reading C.S. Lewis again lately. His book The Abolition of Man sheds light on this cultural rift, a collision of worldviews. In That Hideous Strength, the third book in his sci-fi space trilogy, he uses fiction to illustrate how these ideas emerged and what the intentions are.

Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 point to seeming different dystopian scenes, yet they all have a common denominator, which I hope to elaborate upon in a future post.

* * * *
Paine's essay then outlines events that had occurred up in the vicinity of Hackensack and the Colonialists escape from the Brits there, which sets up this section a little further:

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other.

How relevant are these notions to our situation today? I believe parallels can be drawn. This is why so many voices are being raised. Something big appears to be at stake.

There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both.

* * * *
This document, one of a series, was written December 23, 1776, approximately six months after the Declaration of Independence.

Full essay:
https://www.ushistory.org/Paine/crisis/c-01.htm

Were The Beatles Ever More Popular Than Jesus?

This spring I took a renewed interest in The Beatles, in part due to some of the writings of David Pichaske, author of From Beowolf to Beatles and Beyond, among other things. As a result I've been picking up a number of other Beatles' related books including Geoffrey & Brenda Giuliano's The Lost Lennon Interviews, which I was perusing Thursday evening as a bedtime read.

Early on there are a pair of brief newspaper articles dealing with John Lennon's infamous declaration that The Beatles were more famous than Jesus. The incident took place during the Beatles' last American tour in 1966. One result of this statement was this incident: bonfires were lit where young people could burn their Beatles records.

What's ironic here, if not bizarre, is that some of the bonfires were built by the Ku Klux Klan, as if they held the moral high ground. In South Carolina, for example, the Klan Grand Dragon Bob Scoggins nailed a Beatles record to a large cross and set it on fire. (Source: AllThatsInteresting)

As with many things, the media can be partially blamed for attributing the most heinous motives for John Lennon making this statement. Lennon afterwards stated in another interview, "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying... I was sort of deploring the current attitude toward Christianity."

His observation was that Christianity seemed to be shrinking at a time when pop culture was rising. "I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I was not saying we are greater or better."

But if fanning the flames would sell more newspapers, then let the Beatle memorabilia burn. (OK, that harsh indictment of newspapers crosses the fairness line, so we should be careful not to tar them all with this brush.)

* * * *
The second half of John Lennon's statement as regards being "bigger than Jesus" was that Rock 'n Roll would outlive Christianity. It's worth noting that Thomas Paine made a similar statement about the Bible, that as a result of Enlightenment thinking the Bible would be dead in 50 years. Paine died in 1809.

* * * *
Two years ago Slate published an interesting article on the 50th anniversary of John Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" quote. It's eye-opening because Lennon, by today's standards, violated a whole array of PC language regulations.

All this is on my mind in part because today is the beginning of our weeklong Duluth Dylan Fest and tonight David Pichaske will be giving a talk in the first John Bushey Memorial Lecture Series at Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum. Pichaske is more than familiar with the challenges of having a career in the academic world. Author of numerous books--Beatles to Beowulf, A Generation In Motion and Song of the North Country most relevant to our Dylan celebration--Pichaske's most recent book, Crying in the Wilderness, is a collection of essays, many of them dealing with the shifting sands of post-modern academia and free speech.

Pichaske's dedication should tell you a lot: "This book is a written memorial to the Southwest State University English Department, 1976-2016. blessings upon those who built it, a pox upon those who dismantled it."

His 2015 essay "Speech Cops on Patrol: How P.C. Language Regulations Undermine Communication" details some of the changes he has lived through and had concerns about. How far the pendulum has swung. In the Sixties the fight was for Free Speech, a right established in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Over time, the lit professor was asked to no longer teach "Howl" by the beat poet Allen Ginsberg "because some students were uncomfortable with its homosexuality." In other words, let's only teach things that are "safe." Hence, the Duluth school district this year banned Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird from being taught in its curriculum. Despite the dignity of its message, it contains a bad word, which makes some people uncomfortable.

When Lenny Bruce fought the "status quo Goliaths" of his era, he was made to suffer for it. Today there are new Goliaths.

WWMTD

All this to say that I look forward to welcoming David Pichaske to our city tonight. He begins his book with a quote from David Masciota: "One of the most important challenges for any American in the twenty-first century is to remove the mask and shed the persona that regulates life, to actually work to achieve a fulfilling and freeing identity."

Inasmuch as Herman Hesse begins his book Demian with a similar sentiment, I half wonder whether this is a contemporary issue or a universal one. "I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings that came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?"

The answer here might come from Nietzsche, who observed that most of us are kept in line by our fear of being shunned. As a result, we are weaker people rather than stronger because we're afraid to raise the questions that are rattling around inside our heads.

This is likely what attracted me to Dylan in the first place. When I heard "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" I realized I wasn't alone. There was at least one other person who understood what I was feeling and thinking.

Related Links
The Letters of John Lennon
Lenny Bruce: Challenging the Status Quo
For the Benefit of Mr. Kite: How Creativity Works
Duluth Dylan Fest Schedule 

Will we see you tonight at Karpeles?
Meantime life goes on all around you. Engage it.