Thursday, September 15, 2005

when the possibilities do more than beg the question.

There is one thing I abhor in life and that is the alienation forces that are out there. Sure, I grew up rather innocently. My parents sheltered me from a lot. Sometimes my mother would talk about despicable things she had seen and heard in hushed tones and with a look of horror on her face. Now I can flick on the TV and watch the very same things she spoke of. Heck, I can get the same education from observing the lives of my neighbors now. What happens when the fringe of possibility becomes the normative example?

Yet, what I was going to say was that I hate alienating forces. Belief systems or new ideas that put rifts between two or more people who are experiencing an enriching and mutually edifying relationship. And very often the fringes of possibility are those alienating forces.

I used to hate the mentality of my single friends who were always on the hunt to find a significant other in anything of the opposite sex that walked. I used to speak scathingly of this odd species of human singleness, until I figured out that “the couple in love” was regarded the only acceptable form of human community in this society. Even a close family is a weird and strange thing. Only couples could be close or in other words, “in community”. And by the time one was old enough to become a couple with someone else, one would be so starved for “community” or “mutual relationship of a ‘free’ and enriching type” that they would forsake all others, literally, and become two isolated, starved, pieces of humanity, sucking the life out of each other, which leaves us with the former state of affairs multiplied by 2, exerting the force of x squared upon the world (x representing the amount of children they decided to have). This state of affairs and the people caught in it seriously impeded with my opportunity to have an enriching and mutually edifying relationship with the opposite sex. I despised it. And I still do.

However, now I am discovering that even same sex friendships are becoming prey to the same sort of distorted judgment and possibility. The possibility of gay relationships introduces the same structure to all parts of society. The Christians I know protest the gay and lesbian agenda because they say it attacks the foundational principles of family. The sort of family which I described above. I say it attacks true friendship, eroding the possibility of an enriching and mutually edifying relationship with the same sex, which distributes the opposite sex complication to the entire human race, aside from consent issues with children and elderly. Resultantly, it leaves the single human being entirely isolated. We are stripped of the possibility of close or meaningful relationships of a non-sexual sort. The white male in politics or in the lime-light, knows better than to have too close of a relationship with another male, unless they are openly gay male artists or actors. Police officers, especially in my area of St. Paul, are known to stop and to question congregating men. Those of other ethnicities suffer most. Religious groups of a more communal sort are cults. Friends can only affirm each other. And therapists can only give positive, friendly advice, if I have enough money to hire one. What options do I have, if I desire to be a developing human/in community? which ironically IS the definition of being human.

7 comments:

Blorge said...

Espiritu,
The church is supposed to be a subversive community. We should just say to the world, I don't need to to play by your rules, but instead we've caved in.

espíritu paz said...

Well, said.
A very, very sad thing for me today.

Blorge said...

Espiritu,
I find it hillarious that the commentbot you got for this particular post was one that goes to a dating service website. classic.

espíritu paz said...

Yea!
I'm so excited that Johney Ricks left his immeasurable assistance in response to my small dilemma. You think it might be that this is the 88698616th answer to all the 88698616 dilemmas that one could possibly blog about? If so, maybe I shuould try it.

Anonymous said...

bl**dy idiot. Wait, I'm being judgemental. And not very eloquent. Soit.

As to your remark that same-sex relationships suffer the same problems; it's obvious. Only difference between hetero/homosexual is the lack of gender difference. Not more, not less.

One relationship you may have seen from close-up is your parents. Did their relation suffer the problems you describe? Did they consider that problem so big it wasn't worth staying married? Or is it just with the youngsters in your vicinity you notice this?

Is the alternative a 'laissez-faire' relation, in which persons are relatively free, even as to relations with other people?

One quote that quite shocked me once and caused some 'emotional distress' was this one:

There is no hope of joy except in human relations. (Saint-Ex.)

If this is true....

As to the comment of Blorge: if there was one subversive person in history it must have been Jesus. What happened on the way to the present?

Anonymous said...

You said 'which ironically IS the definition of being human.'

It is a definition. Not THE definition. Not even the best one; consider the example of a person stranded on a deserted island; does he stop being human because he can't develop a meaningful relationship? (excluding a relationship with god, should heb be religious).

asdf said...
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