Vanquish apathy!

This is an editorial I wrote for the Beacon, entitled Students should get involved, passionate. It's written in the 1st person plural because it's mean to convey the opinion of the editorial staff as it is an "Our View." This isn't exactly God-, book-, or even tea-related, but it does express something I'm passionate about. Here it is:

Wake up! Take your iPod headphones out of your ears for two minutes, and listen. If you only give your attention to one thing today, let this be it.

Stop going through the motions. Stop living your life as a step-by-step plan predetermined by your parents, our “success”-oriented culture or even yourself.

Care about something. Anything. Please. It’s so disheartening to see you stumbling through your days, hungover from the night before. Yeah, some classes are boring. But, if you dig deeply enough, you’ll be pretty hard-pressed not to find something of interest in every field.

Oh, hey, and stop texting constantly. It detracts from your interactions with others. Yeah, yeah, multi-tasking. Whatever. If you’re too busy typing to some entity on the other end of a cell phone signal, then you obviously don’t care about the people right in front of you. You care, don’t you? You must. We all care about something, right?

Doesn’t something excite you, upset you or otherwise incite you? Do something about it. Spread the word. Tell others why you’re so passionate about it. You’re wasting your life if you aren’t truly taking action against the things that enrage you and sharing the things that excite you.

Don’t you care about yourself enough to live your life passionately? You know the old saying: “You can’t love anyone until you love yourself.” Dive into your mind, discover what matters to you, act upon it and, by doing so, value your own opinions. As a result, your newfound enthusiasm will spread to those around you and inspire them to pursue their own passions.

We’re certainly not perfect and are most likely guilty of texting too often and not always giving our full attention when we should. We just wish everyone at UT (who hasn’t already) would listen to the message of Welcome Week — get inVOLved.

This is not a blanket criticism. We’ve met some amazing, passionate people at UT. This group is a minority though. If you attend major events around campus, you’ll see the same group of about 200 faces at all these events. (Also, maybe you didn’t know, but you’re paying for most of these events on campus. Your student activities fees fund the committees who bring the speakers and performers. So, since you’re essentially a sponsor, it wouldn’t hurt to attend a few campus events.)

Everyone else — Where are you? What are you doing? Sitting in your dorm room, watching ESPN’s commentary on UT’s upcoming football season, while primping for that party and/or pre-gaming with your contraband alcohol? It’s great to be a devoted Vols fan, but, honestly, unless you’re an athlete, your only role on campus should not be that of UT football devotee.

Also, this is not ageist. Many people older than college-age simply go through the motions, living meaningless, passionless lives. They don’t realize, or maybe they don’t care, that their actions affect others. These apathetic adults have served as poor role models for our generation, but that doesn’t mean we should sit back and blame our upbringings, or more largely our culture, for our own apathy.

Don’t be a nameless, faceless entity who blends in with all the other do-nothings of this world. Make yourself known; make your voice heard.

Vanquish apathy. Live. For your own sake.

Another Rendition of My Soul

This is probably more accurate: a heavy, organized set of drawers floating in a chaotic, star-filled abyss.



Go make your own!

My Soul

SoulPancake has a new discussion today, asking contributors to "Sketchify" Your Soul.

I encourage you to follow the directions on SoulPancake's Web site, sketch your soul, and contribute your link to the discussion.

Here's mine.

Doubt

One of the last books we read in my Modern American Literature class this summer was H.D.'s Trilogy. It's a religious epic (in three parts), in which she establishes a new religion (whether she was serious about actually guiding followers to practice this new religion is of course up to your interpretation). Anyway, my professor recommended that we read T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" if we enjoyed H.D.'s Trilogy. During class discussion, my professor wanted to point out all the period details in Trilogy which placed H.D.'s work into the context of WWII England. At least in looking for the lasting, universal message of a work, I think it's sometimes beneficial to divorce a work from its context; I seemed to get something entirely different from Trilogy than my professor did. I feel that my analysis of "Four Quartets" is also probably a bit out-of-context but hopefully relatable.

Anyway, this particular passage spoke to my personal experience of doubt:

"There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,
The silent listening to the undeniable
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation."
-from Quartet No. 3: The Dry Salvages

Over time, a person can become disheartened as they may begin to doubt their faith in God, or more generally the divine. Hence, this "resentment at failing powers." This passage may seem pretty obvious in its meaning, so sorry if I'm boring you in my analysis of it.

The next part really resonates with my experience. "Unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless." I've experienced disappointment in my religious experiences. My bitterness, I suppose, could indicate my "devotionless"-ness, or my unbelief. "Unattached devotion" perfectly describes my desire to define my view of the meaning of life, or God, or whatever it is we're all trying to figure out. This devotion, I think, would not necessarily have to be directed toward a traditional divinity but could instead become a "devotion" to science, or something of the sort. Simply devotion to whatever system of thought a person determines to be true. Mine is still not completely defined. It's a journey, and a long one, too.

"In a drifting boat with a slow leakage." Unanchored, in search of a destination, doubt wears a hole in the seeker's faith, or belief, slowly causing the boat to sink unless the seeker reaches a conclusion soon, the shore, the promised land.

"Silent listening to ... the last annunciation." The last announcement of the descent of the divine. Silent in awe? Silent in doubt? Silent in disbelief? The first or the last options are best for the seeker's mental and/or spiritual well-being. Of course, believers in different ideologies would differ on which of these alternatives is best. Doubt can be helpful, as examining why you believe what you believe is important. I think all would agree, though, that doubt ought to be a transitory state, as it wears away joy and contentment in everyday life.

SoulPancake

SoulPancake: Chew on Life's Big Questions.

This is an awesome site, created by Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office; he's also Baha'i). From what I've read so far, it's more of a forum than a publication. Even the longer posts encourage interaction from the readership. Reading the comments on this Web site is a very different experience than reading the comments on a news site. The community contributing to the site is a far from homogeneous group; they are passionately engaged in conversation. It's refreshing to read such interesting and thoughtful comments, in a virtual world where commenters so often write ignorant, inconsiderate posts.

Anyway, check it out. Here's the explanation of what it's all about.