after an emotional yet much-needed conversation with theodore today, i came to this sudden realization : i am a person of very little faith, or perhaps, no faith at all. this holds across all aspects of my life. i have no faith in god. i have no faith in people. i have no faith in myself or what the future holds. i think my lack of faith stems from my abhorrence of not-knowing. for so many situations, i hate not knowing what happened, is happening or will happen. this is why i don't like optimists; it's one thing to hope for the best, but it's another thing altogether to have faith that the reality of things, past, present, or future, aligns with what one wants and/or believes.
i am by no means a pessimist - i dislike pessimists as much as i dislike optimists - and i have always thought of myself as a realist, while others call me cynical. merriam-webster defines a cynic as: a faultfinding captious critic; especially one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest. well, i do believe that "human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest," but i don't necessarily think that it is a bad thing, and i definitely don't think of myself as being "faultfinding." well, maybe a little (but that's another story).
this is not to say i don't trust. there are definitely people in my life that i trust; more often than not, i trust others more than i trust in myself. instead, i think i'm a pretty realistic judge of people, at least when it comes to my own interactions with them and the aspects of their lives to which i am exposed (obviously, everyone is different in different situations - who i am with my family is not the same person that i am with my friends is not the same person i am with theodore, but they're all true reflections of my self). i don't trust easily, but i do come to trust in certain people, that they will do certain things and act certain ways.
so, where is this going? i'm not so sure. i think what is so surprising about my realization is that about five to six years ago, you could say i was a very faithful person. i was a devout christian, i had faith in people, i had faith in myself and my future even if i had no idea how it was going to turn out (i wasn't an optimist then either, but i just had faith for some reason). i had faith that i would have a certain standard of living, that i would meet a good man, be married by twenty-six and have kids by thirty. the funny thing is, my life is still on track for all of that to happen, perhaps much closer than i ever could have expected at twenty-one, and yet i am more terrified of it (and the possibility of losing it) than i ever could have imagined.
so my faith has been replaced with doubt and fear. i can see why people would choose to have faith in something, because living with the reality of one's fears and doubts without the possibility that some some power greater than oneself, whether god or karma or fate, exists and has some semblance of control over the events of our lives can be utterly paralyzing. but i think i will continue living my faith-less life, and simply hope to be strong enough to face whatever life throws at me, and if i'm not, that my friends and family that i love and trust will lend me theirs.
1 comment:
Hey jennifer,
Beutiful, heartfelt post there. As a former member of a religious community, I too have felt a lost of "faith" after a long time out in the world.
At this point, I have given up on the idea of completely knowing anything. When it comes down to it, it seems we humans are and will always be limited in what we can know (as proved by the halting problem right :)) Ultimately, we can get more and more information on the "reason" for things (and even get pretty reliable theories sometimes), but the picture will ALWAYS be incomplete. Taking positively, it means that humanity will have room to grow for all of eternity.
With this in mind, I see optimism not so much as a belief but as a will. Too often, I feel, cynicism is used an excuse to not invest in the betterment off our species, our country and ourselves. While it has deep philosophical roots, for many cynicism seems to boil down to "fuck everything, nothing will ever get better, Selfishness is easier and more fun anyway."
And ultimately, I think this outlook accomplishes nothing. It doesn't really matter what currently is or what we currently believe motivates people because we can neither change or accurately predict what people's movivations are. All we can really do is try our best to do better at whatever we feel we can personally do better in and hope that these things do make a difference outside of ourselves. This hopefulness is dictionary definition of optimism, but as far as I am concerned that hope is not even necessary. All that is really needed is the WILL to improve. The will to not give up regardless because we choice to evolve, that "good is it's own reward" if you will. For me, that is what optimism is all about. It is faith in the value of improvement.
My two cents. Be well :)
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