{"id":345,"date":"2003-07-15T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2003-07-15T19:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=345"},"modified":"2012-05-05T09:44:59","modified_gmt":"2012-05-05T16:44:59","slug":"random-navel-gazing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2003\/07\/random-navel-gazing\/","title":{"rendered":"random navel gazing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe I should read books twice. Maybe that would be the thing…Take notes and stuff. Nafisi, the professor in Reading Lolita in Tehran<\/em> rad books again and again, making notes.<\/p>\n

She’s a professor. One of those people who get to tell others instead of being told.<\/p>\n

Well, maybe she has the right idea.<\/p>\n

The thing about books is that they have a beginning a middle and an end. They are contained. They are a system, a closed system.<\/p>\n

And a closed system is one that can be experimented on. You know what’s there, you can work within the system, and it remains.<\/p>\n

Once, a long time ago, I closed a book because I was working too much within a system. I had been a very very very religious [in the meaning of unfalteringly regular, as well as the other meaning] Bible reader.<\/p>\n

And I had done this for years. For several reasons, all of which someone or other will fault me, I stopped.<\/p>\n

The reason I told myself at the time, and I still believe that it is the main reason, is that if the Bible is true, and I choose to believe that it is, it is a system that is fully integrated with the universe.<\/p>\n

And if it is fully integrated with the universe, any understanding I have about ANYTHING [because anything and everything is part of the universe] will enhance my ability to understand and interpret the Bible.<\/p>\n

I could feel in my bones, like a draft of wind or a change in air pressure, that I was not interpreting the Bible right.<\/p>\n

And I knew without a doubt that I knew less than nothing about the world around me. I was 21. I consider this precocious of me.<\/p>\n

So I thought, I need to work on the one part and get back to the other. Because I had a feeling that I was propping up a failing system.<\/p>\n

And since I believe that the failing system could not be the Bible’s system, the system that was failing was my understanding\/intrpretation of it.<\/p>\n

So I needed to work on my understanding.<\/p>\n

NOW, this is only an anecdote to illustrate my point about books. The Bible is a book, after all.<\/p>\n

so, do I need to dig deeper into the books? OR back off the books?<\/p>\n

This begs a question. What purpose are the books?<\/p>\n

If the books are part of my lifelong quest for enlightenment, then they are important. That takes me back to the conclusion that I need to maximize my reading and the quantity\/quality conundrum I mentioned before [previous post].<\/p>\n

If the books are just for my amusement, though, then all this is nonsense. I should just read the books in whatever way I like.<\/p>\n

If, however, the books are purely for my amusement, I am become a hedonistic pleasure-monster.<\/p>\n

Which doesn’t make sense, because I seem to only enjoy books that challenge me.<\/p>\n

And this leads to ontological and epistomological tail chasing.<\/p>\n

It’s a moot point. We don’t know.<\/p>\n

Which could lead back to that book I put aside when I was 21.<\/p>\n

Some people do this. They choose a religion, accept it as a closed system, and devote their lives to it. Inside a hermitage or not.<\/p>\n

“This” they say “is the source of the answers. I will bend myself to the answers this system provides.”<\/p>\n

This seems like a good idea. It has the appearance of truth. Perhaps in many many cases it is the truth.<\/p>\n

Except it is dangerous. I believe, as I did when I was 21 and even earlier, that true religion cannot be a closed system.<\/p>\n

Because, who would be closing it? WHo would say, ‘We understand everything now, no more!’<\/p>\n

It would have to be people. People who came to the conclusion that they understood everything.<\/p>\n

That would be impossible. It’s not that I believe everything cannot be understood, I just cannot concieve of a human mind being able to do it.<\/p>\n

Therefore, closing the system will result in it’s falsehood.<\/p>\n

I love truth too much to do that. I will risk a lie, risk being wrong, in an open system. I feel like there is a chance in the open system. But the closed system is a lie from the beginning.<\/p>\n

All this, because I am thinking about my reading habits.<\/p>\n

I think too much.<\/p>\n

Scratch me, and I bleed philosophy. I never stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe I should read books twice. Maybe that would be the thing…Take notes and stuff. Nafisi, the professor in Reading Lolita in Tehran rad books again and again, making notes. She’s a professor. One of those people who get to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookworthy","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}