One Freakin' Thing at a Time

I was discussing yesterday with Friend the issue of submitting to an entire religion or philosophy whole heartedly, believing (and presumably also adhering to) every aspect of it, as opposed to taking what you want and not worrying too much about the rest. Friend suggested that maybe this was a Western thing, this feeling that participating in something that you only kind of mostly believe is insincere, or deceptive, or at least an incomplete experience. A spiritual path would be diluted if it were only guidelines, left to each semi-adherent to adjust it as s/he sees fit, no? What are you looking for if you want to keep your own ideas whole and just sort of be affected or moved by something - you're certainly not looking for change or for god, right?

Well, I don't know. I love that I can enjoy Buddhism without having to worry too much about samsara and karma. I love this so much that - bear with me here - I got myself all excited about going to divinity school. Really. I mean hell, why not? I'd love to study the Bible for reals, and if I can enjoy it for what it offers and shed the rest, well, that would be great! Actual Xtians already do this - it's not like all those Xtians wear strictly single-fiber clothes as the Bible commands, etc etc all that other crap that nobody pays attention to. As the secular world so frequently likes to point out to crazy bigoted fundamentalists, there's an awful lot of cherry picking of the Bible that goes on. And sometimes it's evil and used to justify meanness, but sometimes it's great - HERE is an awesome radio story about an evangelical preacher who decides that there is no hell. And his revelation is really persuasive and moving and makes me like Jesus so much more, and makes the crucifixion make so much sense that it goes beyond sensible and back to magical. But anyway thinking about the take-it-or-leave-it part of religion and philosophy made me excited about being able to actually enjoy Xtianity stuff (because whoa nelly believe you me normally I wouldn't really want to be associated with all the stuff that goes on under that umbrella), especially if I can just make it my own.

So yeah back to this - right now in my fantasy life if I could go to divinity school and become a pastor-type thing that would be awesome. Which at last brings me to my actual point: one freakin' thing at a time, pal. This is a kind of curse of the contemporary purposeless human (which is me, so maybe it's just me), this feeling that there is something really huge and complete that you can/should be working toward, and that whatever you're doing at the moment isn't really what you should be working on unless it's part of this bigger thing, and you should maybe hurry up and figure out what your bigger thing is so you can feel peacefully ready to die someday, and death, by the way, will happen before you know it. School is so handy for that feeling. You get to have the manageable task thing from semester to semester, and it's all part of Your Important Degree, and everyone agrees in our cultural that Education is Really Important, and it's just a highly credible long-term thing to be doing.

But right so with this potential new permissive kind of belief I started letting all these things about myself take form in a litte spirituality orb, adding pieces of my philosophical self (law degree! totally read part of a book by Aristotle that one time! I have completely heard of Plato and the Situationists!); my spiritual self (read most of a book by a real live Buddhist! totally learning about yoga! meditate sort of!); my other hobbies (playing music! and I took some Latin in college, those are totally religious things!); and my personality (kind of a talkative know-it-all, enjoy writing a blog, so perfect for a preacher-type!), and made a little fantasy about becoming a woman of the cloth and quoting Joseph Campbell and just digging life and having something really big to be working on, and feeling finally like all the freakin' hats I've tried on in the last 32 years will actually make one cohesive outfit. Of hats. Whatever.

Okay, slow down. Not even one third of the way through my yoga training. That half of that Aristotle book was kind of boring. Still have to finish the Buddha book anyway. Need to get a job. I sometimes can get myself worked up about a big purpose to the point that I can't even actually take the steps required to finish one tiny component part of the fantasy. It's like this: "I can't read this book on yoga, I'm too busy becoming a yogi." Anyone picking up what I'm putting down, here? So my mission for the foreseeable future is to do one thing at a time and actually enjoy it and not worry that too much time is passing without me making important strides toward my Real Big Purpose in life, and that I'm not losing time or progress or anything if I don't start on a Bible-reading regimen or start a philosophy book club or brush up on my Latin all by next month. Chillax. One freakin' thing at a time. My actual life in this actual moment is really nice and has the benefit of leading me toward something big, yoga teaching! That's big enough. Hell being happy is big enough. That's what I'm going to work on.