I love it when newspaper headlines mean something different than what they're intending. It usually ends up being a good laugh. For example, while leaving a convenience store one day, I pointed out a newspaper headline to a friend. It read, "Dead Man Seen Walking Out of Bar". We had a hearty laugh and moved on.
Today, while I was sifting through articles, I came across this one: "Millions of Christians Pray to Become One". Now while the point of the article is vastly different than the immediate reading of the headline, I enjoyed the laugh anyway.
13 comments:
The post that I was interacting with is gone....
That sucks....
Sometimes I feel like my way of thinking about the world must be the cause of a lot of the worlds problems.
Random note: I'm watching the obama inauguration on tv and the lady being interviewed just said something about Obama being the end to ideology. hu?
on cynicism
I think that once a person has gone through the solitude of deep introspection and sadness, they can come back from it and play the worlds cynical games and not feel so bad about it.
It's easy to look around at other peoples failures and say something to yourself like, if Bush can be the us president, I can do something with my life too through cynicism. Maybe I don't have to feel unconfident because look at some of the screw ups of great leaders. Maybe I am more justified than all the other people in leadership who have strived forward, driven by their own cynicism. Maybe I wont screw everything up as bad as them because I have seen solitude, and suffering and have felt the lack of confidence and the fear of pursuing power.
This is pure cynicism. The choice to not be crushed by the world.
Craig said,
"Maybe I am more justified than all the other people in leadership who have strived forward, driven by their own cynicism."
Do you mean they want to change the world because they are cynincal about what already exists? I always thought of certain leaders such as Harper in the last election being Mr. Positive about the economy or whatever. He seems quite insincere to me. But maybe...Obama actually believes in real good future possiblities. What do you think?
Craig said:
"This is pure cynicism. The choice to not be crushed by the world."
What do you mean, I don't follow?
Suneal,
He's referring to cynicism in its classic Greek sense: to cast off the material absurdities of the world.
Sometime when I wright, it makes perfect sense to me and other people can't follow what I'm saying. That's what usually happens when I'm writing from a poetic mindset or just spouting out my perspective without trying to organize it for comprehension.
I was talking about myself, but trying to use a general phrasing tense. Basically, I was saying that I feel like I'm a cynic because I feel the most encouraged when I see other people fail. Then I add another level of cynicism to that by assuming that everyone else who gets ahead is just as cynical, but I am somehow more justified in my cynicism.
I guess that if I can keep the desire to really help people, that is some sort of justification in a way...
I guess that I was feeling like there is virtue in being a selfless, non-strategic, and self loathing person who doesn't pursue power or a sustainable life and then contrasting that with the cynicism of going through life being pragmatic rather than being ripped apart by the reality that we live in.
Right. Okay. I was wrong about the way Craig was using the term 'cynicism'. It seems he means it in the more connotative post-existentialist-cum-nihilist sense. ;)
I mean cynical like if you were to somehow resurrect and lock the late Keith Green and the late Notorious B.I.G. in a room together; through the conversation that would follow, most listeners would find one of these two late poets to have a much more cynical way of talking about the world than the other one.
I guess that I'm stewing over the cynicism of pretence and how it imprisons humanity.
We live in a world where people do what works.
Ya, Suneal, like the insincerity of leaders.
Doesn't anyone else ever feel like saying, screw doing what works?
Like, for example, Keith Green. He seemed like a man who wasn't cynical in the sense of doing what works.
He was alive and transparent and not worried about achieving anything with his life except worshipping God.
I admire that.
I sometimes wish that I had a dimmer switch on my inhibitions.
Craig,
I personally struggle with the balance between being "in a system" which right away implies to some extent "doing what works," so that one can engage in "worshipping God" more effectively, or else one is left as a "lone ranger" or "in the desert."
Right now I am leaning towards making "what works" workable as a forum for "worshipping God." Do you think there is any hope for me?
Well, I guess that there is one hope for all of us, isn't there.
Ya, it's hard to live with or without the system, isn't it...
Therein lies the rub.
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