Philosophy Journal
How A Pixie May Think… Pixie’s Journal of Thought
Philosophical Monologues & Rambling Thoughts
(Summer project for my philosophy class.)
Sonja Diane “Pixie” Tierney
July 12th, 2011
Nothing like an ice cold cranberry lemonade flavored Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a can of ravioli, some garlic bread, and the Beatles to get you thinking about philosophy! Haha, so I’ve been thinking about compartmentalizing the philosophies you live life by. How does one do that successfully?
I’m so ridiculously irritated by the copious amounts of life I see being lived for no reason. I’m certain everybody has a purpose, but most people don’t even think to tie their own thoughts together to establish a belief system much less live by one, or just live for something. What are all these people doing? How can you go every single day of your life without thinking about where you stand on the topics that matter either in your society, community, your future, health, spirituality, any of these things and so many others? I don’t get it. How are so many people blank?
Hooray for the horrid stink of American life. I like to call it a Microwave Society, a world of newer, shinier, brighter toys with better apps, quicker processing, faster food, & a convenience store on every street corner. We treat our minds that way too. Lets watch another movie with the same plot as the last 38 we watched just because we are comfortable with it, just like our relationships, we have our “type” and its based primarily on surface level components in most cases, not to mention how often we change partners and bail on difficulties, don’t bother with anybody who needs work because by the time they get passed their issue or fix whatever it is, well I could have hit it and quit it with seven other pretty guys… Divorce is way out of control these days, we do everything online, no body saves money, we get angry waiting in line for more than two minutes, nobody remembers the last time they wrote a letter and mailed it, or went to visit somebody rather than facebook them, and if they don’t have facebook, just forget them, and when is the last time you cooked a real meal with your family? Or entertained your guests with board games and served food you actually went to the store, bought the ingredients, and prepared?
American minds are no different than American bodies. We catch the entertaining news programs chocked full of fluff and opinions, governed by a ridiculously bias media, and dusted with bull crap, topped with a funny human interest store, to make us feel like we care, and that is the extent of most “well informed” persons being informed. More people than that don’t even watch the news at all, nor do they listen to the radio programs, and surely don’t actually read the paper, they just regurgitate the already recycled opinion vomit of the last guy they heard say something, but cannot answer any further than the memorized snippet because there is nothing original there. No actual opinion or idea, just a voice recording.
This brings us to the problem of compartmentalized beliefs. If you bark at a poor black woman that republicans hate poor people, black people, and women for long enough, she is going to believe it for no reason other than that’s what they say, but probably cant point out a single person that has hated her just because they were a republican, that wont stop her from always voting democrat straight ticket though. Only problem is what if this woman also is a devout Christian, believes every baby deserves a chance and every life is a gift from God, believes in the spirit of adoption and that abortion is murder, believes in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, believes we should arm ourselves, just as the Bible says to do, and has very conservative values.
Because she doesn’t think things through, or spend any effort evaluating her own belief system, she really honestly believes that she believes in something solid, but supports all these things with her vote that her faith opposes. Its sad that she doesn’t even know she is doing it, all she has ever been fed is that Republicans hate her. Self education would show her that simply is not true, and that Jesus was the poster child for conservative belief systems. He wasn’t a capitalist, and therefore not a republican, but His platform is almost the polar opposite of that of the democrats she’s been electing all her life. The worst part is that she doesn’t even know. People don’t look deep into things and compare / contrast what they say they believe and how they live.
My boyfriend is well educated, well informed, very opinionated, and we disagree greatly on a lot for the simple fact that I do not believe you can ever actually justify a compartmentalized world view. He spends time with God, reads his bible every day, sets aside time for prayer, goes to church, avoids things he considers sin, gives to charities and tries to life like Jesus, but yet he can shut that off and talk about how great abortion is, it solves problems, women have the right to do whatever they want, and how I’m a bigot for calling it murder. Yet in the Tora & Tannak abortion was called murder, and they sacrificed them to Baal, and it was sinful and disgusting, and it also says at conception that life is a human, that YHWH knew your name from that moment, not your fetal tissue, but YOU. We are also taught nobody has the right to take another man’s life so if he does, by man should his life be taken. Yet my christian boyfriend is a liberal, and they don’t support capitol punishment…
The difference between the woman I molded my earlier example about and my boyfriend is that Maimie is an old country woman with a simple way of life, dealt with real racism, and has no idea that she is so divided against herself, my boyfriend however knows he is a walking oxymoron, and though he has only dealt with modern racism, holds on to the type of thing that Miss Maimie put up with as justification for being so knowingly oxymoronic rather than just admitting that he needs to either vote from what he believes, or re-evaluate his core faith principles. I just cannot condone his broken logic. I don’t blame the Holocaust for voting for a candidate that supports capitalism, yeah Nazis where national Socialists, but I vote conservative based on a principle that I should be consistent in my heart, as a messianic believer I hold that just as Yeshua’s followers write that a double minded man is tossed to and fro, I should sew all the ends together in life. The philosophy I adhere to for living, politics, faith, love, how I treat others, what I should do in my community, how I should care for myself, or even my dog, should all be consistent. I only have my own mind to understand myself and know myself from birth till death, why confuse things and not know myself? Not have my own opinions, values, and beliefs? I am fine with Tor and I disagreeing as long as he forms his own viewpoints and uses his mind, but the self inflicted ignorance associated with knowingly compartmentalizing your values is just sad and sickening.
Intellect is the ultimate aphrodisiac, depth and substance is the best turn on, and when beauty fades, our minds can still be as attractive as the first day we met. If you’re double minded now and your core values are dispersed, how do you know who your self is to begin with, much less who you are, who you will be, and who am I going to end up with when we are old? I’m willing to wait and see, but if you’re on a fence between your own thoughts and justifying actions that do not support those thought, well who do you sell out to completely? Do you chase your political prerogative? Or live for a faith of love and complete sacrifice? I’m only with you for your mind, and your heart…. Are they even connected?
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July 4th, 2011
I almost died this morning, asthma so bad I didn’t have the oxygen to move, couldn’t speak, and laying in an unfamiliar room at the Hilton in Greenville. My boyfriend shouldn’t have been asleep at that time, I thought he was awake, but I got no help from him until I finally cupped his mouth and nose so he understood that I couldn’t breath. At first he thought I was playing with him, trying to get him to wrestle and play, then he noticed I was blue. He then sat there asking if I was OK while I slowly start passing out, all the while asking if I needed my inhaler. Now I personally do not quite understand how a thirty year old man with a masters degree can actually think that asking a person in that state if they need their inhaler was actually a good and proper course of action. Why yes, let me place my asthma on pause sit up and explain to you that I require albuterol to open the air passages in my lungs that are closing from inflammation due to unknown factors at this time, and it would be most pleasant it you could procure this substance for me at your earliest convenience. I mean, here I am, with a man I started seeing because he actually formed his own opinions and ideas instead of regurgitating the talking heads all around us, and even though we do not agree on a lot of political or ethical fronts, the fact that he was a thinker and not a sheep was the important thing, and he isn’t thinking clearly enough to just grab the damn thing. So I manage to whisper “Kitty bag.” and he starts digging through my Hello Kitty bag until he finds it, at this point he says “The red one? This? Is this it? Pixie, the red inhaler thingie?” I cant even roll over and turn around to see, but more importantly, its the only inhaler thingie I have! So finally I get to use it and I get to the bathroom, where hotels keep their coffee, and make a cup, when I come out he is well asleep. I was so hurt that he didn’t care and acted so blah about the whole thing. I said to him “why is it that when I’m about to die, I’m always alone with someone that would just lay there and let it happen?” I know it wasn’t a fare question, and was quite cruel, but I was serious.
My mother let me lay in the winter cold, homeless and hungry, in her barn, turning blue and dying, I suffered for almost nine hours until she called a person from my church. I was so weak I almost didn’t care by that point, every breath was excruciating and I just wanted to go to sleep. Then they got stuck in the ditch. My mom’s response was “Aint that a bitch.” and refused to take me to the hospital because she didn’t feel like going out, and all day wouldn’t call 911 because its apparently illegal to live in a place with no stove and toilet or something of that sort, and I was staying in her barn as she wouldn’t let me live inside. So she let me suffer while Miss Pam’s husband got out there with our pastor’s truck to pull Pam out of the ditch.
The reason these things matter to me so much right now is that I just found out last Wednesday that for the the last three years I believed my mother came through for me in the end and took me to the hospital after Miss Pam cursed her out. But That didn’t happen at all. For three years I thought she might actually be human, but I was wrong, she really is a little Jewish Gollum after all. Haha…
It makes me feel broken. Not because life sucks and crap happens, because those are just facts of existence and don’t mean much in the long haul. Everybody has a ghetto, loss, tragedy, broken heart, or maybe just a skint knee, but that’s something too. But I’m really just bothered by it for the simple fact that I have been lying to myself all this time.
What is self? Who is Myself? Who is My? Anyhow it just strikes me as the ultimate low blow because I already don’t trust people, or attach myself to them, I don’t miss them when they are gone. I mean, I love people, and I live to help others with anything I can, but I don’t let any of them into my world. I can count on my fingers all the people that ever mattered in my life, but seem to know hundreds of people, and am known everywhere I go, like a second rate celebrity. Even though I can’t get fast food without having at least five different people say my name when I barley remember how they might know me, I have always been a loner. I have God, my dog, & myself. These are the only living beings I thought I could explicitly trust. Now I see that I am a liar.
If memories do make up the self, as some believe, and the loss of them changes you, or the sudden recognition that a very important or vivid one actually never happened at all, does that mean I am now changed? I feel I am, now that I see that I am untrustworthy. Just like everybody else. I am broken. My self is a broken self, that has a broken memory.
Its interesting to think about I suppose but in the end, I don’t believe that your self is made up by memories, I think memories are only a brain function, and its the significance or meaning we give to them that evokes self and that autonomy in being. The memory was significant for me because I thought my mother showed a form of maternal love in the end, the actual memory of the trip (hallucination trip, not just trip to the hospital it would seem, haha) is about as entertaining as a movie with no soundtrack and worth as much as sparks in anyone’s brain is worth, not that I know the blue book value on them, but I also don’t know too many people that try to sell them on ebay.
Memories aren’t physically real anyhow. I think that only the present moment is actual, you cant go into the past or future like its the next room then step back into the present. Now experiences makes real impressions, give you ideas, memories, ect that hold meaning and in that sense are quite real. I see it like a decoder ring. The little plastic part with the window is the physical, me sitting here jamming out to Led Zeppelin typing this up, living in the current actual present, I see the little symbol in the window, telling me that this is me, here, right now, TA-DA!!!! But that’s just part of reality, and its the least important part because it’s so limited and fleeting, a world of facts. But the world of truth, God’s reality, the spiritual part that connects every moment ever as one thing that isn’t past, present, nor future, because it isn’t a time line, it’s a place, called eternity, that’s the cardboard part of the ring that has all the symbols and knowledge on it. We are stuck trying to grasp understanding of it, and the connection that holds them together, or judge one by the standards of the other, and honestly, we just aren’t able to get the whole view, or else we would be God, and we aren’t.
Whats the connection between the brain and mind? The spirit, soul, & body? Memory and self? Then, now, and later? To me, it’s simple, The physical and spiritual worlds are different detentions, and just because you cant see the way the cardboard and plastic grasp each other from our side of the ring doesn’t mean it isn’t obvious on the inside….. Its like a two way mirror or whatever they are called, we look ay see our own reflection and all that’s around us, but the spiritual world, that’s more real, can see itself and us too. We aren’t made to act independently from each other. Science can not even prove that light or color exist, we only know the reaction things have to light, and our reactions with our eyes to light hitting an amount of pigment, light doesn’t follow Newtonian physics, but we just accept it… What if light is the spirit, and we just never took God as literally as He meant it when He said it?
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June 22nd, 2011
I realize that my internal struggle to express my mind and be understood by other is an uphill battle that can never be fully achieved as one may never fully relate to another due to language barriers and internal interpretation of things said. Nothing you say will ever have the same meaning to the hearer. Well, then there is that truth vs fact thing and 2+2 will mean the same thing, but ideas are truer and hold deeper meanings, like trying to express feelings, emotions, or sensation, you really cant. You cannot explain Japanese to a French man using Spanish if you only speak English… Even if you both think you have communicated successfully, there are so many internal buffers, conditioned responses, anxieties that keep us from saying things, baggage that projects meanings (false or accurate) on other peoples words, then there is still yet propriety, not speaking our mind fully as to not offend others, shaving off the edges and trying to summarize rather than fully express an idea, language barriers, and social/cultural differences that gives different weight to things…. You may have asked the Frenchman to see if a nearby shop sells pencils, he looked like he understood, you both even pointed to the shop, nodded heads, smiled agreeably, shook, and he even walked off to the shop all the while thinking “That’s odd, why would he ask me to go set fire to shopkeeper?”
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June 20th, 2011
What makes up a belief? How can one say they have “faith” or a “belief” in something that they cannot tell you the first thing about because they haven’t looked into it at all. They avoid the tougher questions and act like their self inflicted ignorance is proof of unwavering faith in a thing. I do not find this to be so. Quite the opposite. However some of these people believe so firmly that they believe in that they really don’t that they will get super upset if you question it!
If you can’t ask questions about what you “believe”, engage in an open dialogue with someone of a contrary stance, or seek to answer a challenge on your faith because you fear the very idea that you may be wrong or suffering from Sartre’s “bad faith,” then my stance is that you do not have any faith in the topic in the first place. Since the fear of finding out you were wrong is bigger than your actual “faith” you must not actually believe it. If you did, why would you be so afraid that you’re possibly wrong? How is it even a belief if you do not believe it enough to address a challenge made upon it? You obviously think there is a greater chance for it to be dis proven than you have faith that you can back up or substantiate your platform, thus showing you have not any faith in the topic anyway.
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Tuesday June 7th, 2011
Tell me why so many people believe that Christianity has anything to do with religion? Or why all these authoritarians who used the power of the gospel to rule tyrannically over people and grew powerful are supposed to be some sort of spiritual authority? Yeshua clearly only ever condemned the religious rulers of his day, fought against the zealots who wanted a political messiah, and spent his time being followed by a crowd that only treated him like a celebrity instead of the messiah. They didn’t actually follow His teachings or love Him, they swarmed him like some sort or crazed paparazzi convention hearing that Lady Gaga is in town.
He says he came with a sword, that the kingdom is a warfare, yet people thing somehow that being humble and meek, and having the discernment enough to know when not to speak, but knowing when to die for your beliefs means that its wrong to live competitively, yet I do not understand these people’s viewpoints. Love, true agape love, is the action of putting others first, giving to those in need, getting your hands dirty with reaching out to others, not being homophobic and going to church. YHWH hates the traditions of men, yet all these skewed versions of the truth have seeped into every plane of being. People in general assume Adonia wants to give you rules to follow, a list of dos and don’ts, but that’s ludicrous! He desires a personal relationship with you. The torah is here to show us how impossible it is to be perfect, that’s the point of the law, those that walked with God and desired a relationship with Him loved Him enough to follow His laws as best they could, this was counted as faith, He welcomed them to Heaven, those that denied Him rejected His laws, they were punished to keep this attitude from seeming justified. Adonai poured out all His wrath on Yeshua on the cross and no longer punishes us in this way, now we live in the age of grace, mercy, and love. Yeahua bore all of God’s wrath for us so that we may have relationship with our Abba without the confines of the law and religion. This does not mean that we should go out and break the laws, this means that if we do, we are still able to repent.
Yeshua put it like this, all the laws and the prophets are fulfilled in saying love God, and love everyone else. If we love our neighbor do we cut him off in traffic? If we love out enemy does this mean we give him chocolates? No it means that even though we must fight a battle, we fight in spirit, we pray for them and pray about the situation, but when Sargent says fire, we fire. We love them in prayer for them. We love them by turning the other cheek when Sally says Bob had an affair with you instead of saying Sally has sipholous from being a stripper. Basic discernment tells you when to fight and when to not. Why do people act like being messianic (or christian) means to be beat up without a fight? Yeshua told his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy a sword.
When Messiah Yeshua was here, he was here as an example, to show us how to live, He was bold, daring, and still humble. He said we should go boldly before the throne of Abba God, have an interpersonal relationship with Him and not be afraid while still yet fear Him. Somehow society is stupid enough to think these cults like Catholicism, and mainstream religious leaders who ask you to go to them as a connection to God is the heart of true messianic Judaism, or Christianity for those who are not Jewish. This face is not her heart, nor even her real face. Her face is that of a bride, beautiful and wise. Her heart is one of love.
Let me ask this, do you know the difference between religion and relationship? Religion has to do with fear, its all about power, control, and its all very political. Relationship is about love, partnership, trust, or faith if you will, and teamwork. God promises to do His part no matter if you do yours or not, but don’t expect flowers on your birthday if your out cheating. You don’t get all the bonuses if you don’t do your part. Sure He will never leave you or forsake you, but if you walk outside the covering He provides by living a lifestyle of sin (notice I said a lifestyle, not by just messing up) then all the covering wont be there. A good example is that he asks us to pray for both enemies and rulers, yet conservatives who say they are christian cuss and gripe about their president. This is clearing disobeying YHWH, so when anti-christian laws are passed, they have to deal with the issues. YHWH says not to cheat, if you do you might get an STD, its just sowing and reaping, or karma to some, and most faiths will acknowledge this principle. Tithing was never a law, it was a principle, those who live by it tend to get more income and see fewer financial upsets, if you chose to walk outside of it thats fine, but you will deal with those issues. But how does one tell the difference?
Let me use some exemplification if I may, in sexual relationships. Say there are two sets of couples. Couple number one is Benny & Barbie. One day while Benny is working Barbie gets a phone call from her smooth talking ex-boyfriend and he sweet talks her into phone sex, she know its wrong, her conscience is telling her the whole time not to, but she actively chooses to do it anyway, he even almost gets her to agree to have him come over, but she ends it and gets off the phone. Later at dinner she admits to what happened, she says that even though she didn’t cheat with her body, she did with her heart, and understands if Benny wants to break it off. There is no denying that Benny really hurts over this, but he says “Hey, you lived that life before me, and I know the past has a way of showing up, I’m not happy about this, but I forgive you, I love you.” He lets it go and they move on. This is a relationship, this is what faith is all about.
Our second couple, Jack & Sara, have a buddy named Rex. One night when Jack and Rex are playing pool Rex’s younger sister comes out in super short jean shorts and a tank top, her body is calling jack’s attention all night and he represses the urge to hit on her, however, he finds himself thinking about her, adding her on facebook, and spending more time with Rex so he can look at her. He even jacks off to thoughts of her a few times, and brought those thoughts to bed more than once, yet never so much as makes a verbal advance, much less tries anything physical. Meanwhile Sara is off at work and knows about none of this. Inwardly it consumes him, she is so hot, wide hips, flat tummy, perfect long bronze legs, pouting lips and a cute face, perky chest, she’s bouncy and a couple years younger, oh these things are like vultures circling his brain. Outwardly he seems to be at less fault then our first example’s girlfriend, I mean, she engaged in phone sex! But lets examine this a little closer. Why didn’t Jack cheat? Was it because he was a good boyfriend? He honestly didn’t cheat because he knows Sara works a good job and pays the bills, she doesn’t mind it either, sure she’s a few years older, and maybe not to perky anymore, even goes to bed early most nights, but she is making things happen for him, after all, xbox games and internet aren’t free, then there is the matter of her big bad daddy who would pulverize him if it ever got out…. But oh my God, if there is ever a clear chance with no way for people to find out… That’s religion, that’s being made to keep a law by fear of punishment, that has nothing to do with true messianic beliefs. However those in charge, the same type of religious leaders Yeshua cussed out in His day (standing up to fight I might point out, he even made a whip, flipped tables over, and kicked people out of the temple) were the religious leaders, Yeshua never cussed out a hooker, just the Pharisees, scribes and the like. The “church” here in America, and the “church” throughout history just used the Word of Adonai as a tool to rule with. Look at the crusades. This if not faith, this is religious regienm, and it breaks my heart that even those who say they are “christian: cannot tell the difference. Sheep. Snap out of it. Love and pray, spend time with God, not a man telling you what ever he says God is saying to you.
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May 27, 2011
Why is it so hard to see from another person’s perspective? Is it really just as hard as fully comprehending another reality? If perspective dictates reality, then trying to fully comprehend the motive, thought, or emotion of an other and attempt to explain it is not much different from trying to translate Cuneiform to English if you only speak, read, and understand Spanish.
Perspective is so important. How can somebody who makes thousands of dollars understand how hard it is to put back five dollars out of every pay check when your check is always between thirty and eighty five every two weeks? How could somebody who eats whatever they want, however much they desire, however often they please, ever truly comprehend what it’s like to eat from the same supply of stale cereal without milk, instant grits, or instant cream of wheat every single day if you’re lucky enough to have time to eat anything at all before leaving home to go to work or go to school, at which point you have no way of eating anything?
Alternately, how could I understand what it’s like to have a girlfriend that never seems to have improved her situation no matter how much she promises that she is doing all she can? I know it must seem so redundant to hear every day… “May I borrow some gas money? Can you help me get some food?” What a strain, what an unimaginable leach I must seem? Of course he has never had to make it by himself and has never lived on his own, so how could he understand what it’s like being divorced and fighting to find a home when you’re homeless and broken as young as I was then… Does he know how hard it is? When he was in college was it anything like this for him? Has he forgotten or was it all paid for? Of course that was just college anyhow, he was never homeless, divorced, or struggling. How I could I ever understand what he sees from the comfortable seat so high up?
I know I must look like such a user at times. But from my perspective it’s so different, I’m so proud of pulling myself out of homelessness, buying a car, getting my GED, going to Tech, and the spiritual journey that gave me so much strength to keep fighting.