Monday, September 15, 2014

Update on Mar

Hey guys, just giving an update on what's going on with me. I'm in my 4th week of classes at WSU and I've been enjoying them all quite a bit. On MWF I have two philosophy classes: Philosophy of Western Religions, and Aesthetics. Those two are my favorite classes. On Tues/Thurs I have a couple music classes. One is a music theory fundamentals class and it's probably below my level really, it's very easy. The other is an introductory class to the music program where they just give you advice about how to pursue a career in music and they teach you some basic info about the services available on campus. It's also really easy, but pretty cool. On Saturdays I have an introductory piano class where I basically get to choose whatever I want to do to improve my piano skills and we just play around on these nice electronic keyboards that they have. That class is really easy too, and since I love my philosophy classes everything is easy, so it's quite nice. :)

One thing that is quite new to me that I've already mentioned to Sterling, Cindy, and Bridget is my growing belief in God. I did not expect that to happen; I figured that I'd stay agnostic my whole life, but I've had some interesting experiences recently that have compelled me to think God is real. When I say God, I don't really mean the traditional Christian idea of God though. I've been feeling like God manifests himself to people in a way that is unique to each person. I still don't believe in any particular religion either, but I tend to think of religions as devices that were created by men and provide one means of developing a relationship with God. I have heard eastern religious people explain God metaphorically as the summit of a mountain to which many different paths lead, and I like that idea. I've gotten impressions before that God is the sun, God is the cosmos, God is love, God is male or female, or neither, and a bunch of other things, and for now I'm tending to think that "He" is nameless. It seems like God may be everything and presents different aspects of "Himself" to people depending on what that person is capable of believing and what message he is trying to teach you. I feel like I've received a lot of messages from Him which I don't always understand, but there seem to be some common themes that keep coming up. I've gotten the impression that everything can be understood as an energy or a force (kinda like Star Wars haha), and what is perceived as being bad is a resistance occurring in that force. I think that any specific thing that someone might think is good is completely relative and we get to choose what we think is good, but the bad things are the things that we resist and they are the conflicts that arise between forces.

I'm starting to think that everything is literally one thing and the distinctions that we see between things are just an illusion. We are constantly taking in things from our environment: air, food, water, and those things are becoming us. At the same time, we expel waste, sweat out water, hair falls out, skin falls off, etc, and as this happens parts of us are returning to the environment. The only reason why we think that things are distinct from each other is because there is a temporal consistency to them, but everything is constantly changing into everything else. I think that it is important to be grateful for our existence as it is a gift that is completely derived from everything around us. What I am myself is completely dependent upon and caused by everything else around me. Perhaps the idea of individuality is itself an illusion. Anyway, this all might be a bit deep for you guys and I'm still trying to figure out what's going on and what I believe, but this has definitely been the foremost thing on my mind so I wanted to share it with you all. I love you guys. :)

2 comments:

  1. Thank you Marlowe for sharing! I was so so happy when I got on and saw that you had posted. I love that you told us about your classes and your schedule. Now if I can't remember I can get back on here to check.

    I really appreciate that you were willing to share your current thoughts with us. You know that our family has quite a broad spectrum of religious views and I appreciate that we are respectful of each other and look for similarities and our love for each other to keep us connected.

    I agree with you Marlowe, you certainly are a deep thinker!

    Love,
    Mom

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Mar,

    Loved your post! I have really enjoyed our talks over texts lately. Sorry I got busy with my test this last week and stopped but I am glad to see you are still learning and developing.

    Love you bro,
    Sterling

    ReplyDelete