If there is anything I’ve learned these past few days, I’ve learned that the world is mad. But this deafening cry of craziness is so alluring that we are all caught up in it.
I say this because I happened to walk in on a presentation today at the conference. I missed the title, but the presenter was absolutely brilliant with his words and the entire time I was mesmerized by his wordplay and logic. Don’t expect much from my recitation, as I won’t be able to do him any justice. I’m still trying to fully comprehend what he was talking about. Here is only my interpretation and thoughts.
His prose was littered with allusions to Hemingway (I’ll list the most obvious ones here, but I definitely missed a few):
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.
I know only of what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
Likewise, from my understanding, it seemed like he was taking bits and pieces from Lao Tzu as well, but don’t quote me on this. I’m not nearly well read enough to say.
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.
Be the chief but never the lord.
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the ways things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
The message is as simple as it is profound: love.
What is it about intelligence and talent that attracts itself to unhappiness? Those who have it, are bound. They are bound by societal and self-implemented expectations of excellence and success. Why? Because they’ve been birthed the resources to do so.
Ambition is thrusted on them, and this can either be embraced or rejected entirely, but there is hardly an in-between, and if there is, it results from a fear of rejection that stems from losing the adoration from talent into disdain from wasting it. “The hard-working goody two shoes genius.” “That lazy son of a bitch who doesn’t work, but always gets the grades.” “The bastard who works behind everyone’s back and says he or she didn’t study.”
Why is there always a need to strive for this ultimate goal we set for ourselves? Do we really want to attain excellence and success in its purity, or is it something more?
At the core, what we need, what we desire, what we crave and lust for, is love.
We know what we want, but rarely do we acknowledge it. Why? … Why! Why? Why!
Our lives can’t ultimately be about love, right? It’s so radical, so unquantifiable…what will I ever have to show for it? Does love provide money? Does love provide comfort?
Love only brings me pain. Love only breaks the relationships I have with people. Love only hurts. Love only despairs. Love is broken.
Yet…yet…love is beautiful.
Intelligent people think too much. What if? They connect dots that don’t exist, sending them into a frenzy. Sometimes the hypothesis is true, but most likely it isn’t. There is a need to stop thinking, because at a certain point, thinking too much will send us spiraling down into a never ending series of questions and doubts - callousing the heart and forcing it in a jail where it will lose it’s ability to love fully.
It is not immoral to love. It is not immoral to abandon some of the false ambitions. Live. Love. The flesh desires it. The soul desires it. We desire it. You desire it. I desire it.
Listen to what the heart wants, and not what the mind’s been told.
Redirecting this into a more Christian perspective, it really resonates with me that the idea behind everything I want and could ever want lies in this one idea that I can’t comprehend or feel - love.
Is God’s love so infinite that I’m incapable of feeling this, or is my heart hardened to a point where even an all powerful force can’t shake its core? There is doubt in my heart, but is this doubt rooted in fear that I am incapable of love, fear that I’ll lose my identity, or doubt in such an existence?
Personally, I won’t be too bold and pretentious to make a radical claim, but it is my sincere belief that God, at His core, is love. He gives us space in His heart, which brings forth the ability for us to wound it just as much as we can bring joy to it. If this is not love, then what is?
The Lord’s love gives me strength, and the love I receive through him gives me courage.
Ultimately, I know what I want. I do what I do, because I know who I am. Sometimes I’m very content to allow myself to enjoy the pleasures of sin, but other times, I am not. Do I really want Jesus or do I just want the pass to heaven His name provides?
Sin is tempting. Sin is great. Sin is attractive. This is because I don’t know how to love. This is because I don’t understand it.
I don’t understand love. I don’t understand God. The moments He gives where I can glimpse into what it, He, truly means, I feel immoral. Is that love? Is that God?
No matter the emptiness I feel sometimes, there is nothing I lack, for God, in his mercy and love, has already provided. Therefore, I must rejoice.
Remove the nail that is my ambition, and liberate me with your unfailing love.
