Sing for Salvation

Your eyes are not deceiving you, dear reader, it is indeed I, returned to the Blogging realm once more…

Fantasy-esque narrative aside, I decided I would write a short update since it’s been quite a while since my last post. In some respects, much has and has not happened in my life since then. Towards the end of October, my eldest sister got married and moved into a new house with her husband. In mid-November, I started a part-time job (which became full-time about four-months-ago) and towards the end of December, I became a fully qualified car driver (getting my first car one-week-ago). To be honest, I wish I could say I’ve been sailing the seas, or taking to the skies, but I’m afraid I can’t.

At the moment, I am working in a bicycle warehouse/factory (the company sells bicycle and non-bicycle components as well as full-spec bicycles). My job currently is that of replenisher – in other words, I refill boxes in the warehouse with stock that customers have returned (provided the stock is in “resell-able” condition). Perhaps cynically, I have often viewed my job simply as, “Putting things into boxes” and (grandiose aside) that is, essentially, what my job entails. It is a job I have been doing for quite a few months. To be honest, at times it’s a pleasant job – it’s not “heavy” when it comes to pressure – in fact, if anything, it’s quite a laid-back job (that’s not to say that I’m lazy but that the job, at least in my opinion, is not mentally burdensome). However, saying that, while the job is not burdensome it is, more-often-than-not, boring. The work is so mundane that there are many times I find myself drifting away into other thought (I even heard one supervisor in another department describe my job to his workers as, “boring as Hell”; quite a contrast to Mark Twain who said, “Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company”!).

The reason I got the job was simple: one day while in town my Mum walked past a recruitment agency, went in, told the people about me and a few days later I then visited them for an “interview”. I am “employed” at the bicycle company as a temporary agency worker; in a sense, I do and I don’t work for the company: I do in the sense that I work in their facilities and wear company uniform; I don’t in the sense that my wages are ultimately paid (and determined) by the recruitment agency. When I first entered the job, I worked three nights a week – three and a half hours each night. After a few months, that was then extended to full-time. While I have appreciated the job (and, in many respects, I still do appreciate it) it is by no means what I want to do with my life.

I suppose, like many people, I do my job purely because I “have to” – I have to do something with my life at the moment and I need some means of financial income and, while the job may not be my ideal job, it is something in a time when it’s hard to come by anything. A part of me doubts that I’m the only one who thinks that and, from my experience working with others, many people view their job purely as a financial anchor. In a way, I can understand the mentality behind such thinking: it is important to have a stable financial income because, let’s face it, money is required in order to buy even the essentials of life: most food, water, medicine and clothes are not free (although some may believe that they should be free because they are “essential” to sustaining human life).

Saying that, however, I find it somewhat sad that many people (including myself, I’ll admit) do their jobs purely out of financial considerations. Are we really slaves to our jobs? Do we all grudgingly walk in to work five days a week thinking to ourselves, “Back to this hell-hole”? I understand that we all have our ups-and-downs; days when we feel on-top-of-the-world and days when we feel down-in-the-dumps but are we forever in a vicious cycle of viewing our jobs with disdain? I will fully admit that when I started my job, I was genuinely thrilled and excited about it. At the time, I had gone through quite a few weeks (if not months) of unemployment (the situation of many people) – looking back, I think my excitement was ultimately due to the fact that, simply, I could now say to others that I had a job (albeit a part-time one).

Now, about seven-months-later, resentment towards my job has very much set in (I must stress that I resent my job, not my co-workers; my co-workers are wonderful and a pleasure to work with). I honestly can’t help but think that my job is a dead-end job. Indeed, it strikes me as the type of job one could only do for a couple of months before moving on – there doesn’t seem to be anything more to the job than what there already is. Even-so, I am starting to have doubts about the longevity of my stay at the company. Perhaps every Temporary Worker (or “Temps”, as we are so-often called) has doubts of one sort or another over the security of their job (even if it’s just that: temporary). I’ve even tried to convince myself that my feelings of resentment are only mood-swings but, alas, I can’t bring myself to believe such a conclusion for the feelings towards my job remain constant.

I’m not trying to be smug, nor am I suggesting that I’m “too good” for the job, but I honestly can’t help but think that I am grossly over-qualified for my job. Even-so, academic qualifications aside, I think the job is too little of a challenge for me.

I will fully admit that I have strongly considered leaving my job. Indeed, I am considering leaving my job. I am very tempted to throw in the towel and walk out. So then, what’s making me hold on to my job? Firstly, the fact that I have to pay off my car and its insurance. Secondly, the fact that it’s hard in the current economic climate to find any sort of sustainable job and, thirdly, I don’t want to disappoint friends and family by giving up my job, despite my unhappiness with it (perhaps that’s an odd reason but it’s nevertheless one I have).

I honestly don’t know what to do at the moment. Quite frankly, I feel frustrated, unhappy and stuck. My enthusiasm and passion for my job is gone and while I have sincerely tried to be positive and to “look on the bright side”, I can’t bring myself to do so now.

I am hoping a resolution occurs soon…

The Human Code

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

[The Beatles are] more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.

John Lennon

One of my favourite television programmes is that of “The Universe” on the History Channel (if your television is HD, I recommend watching it on History HD). In one episode, a computer animation was shown comparing the size of Earth to that of our Sun, the size of our Sun to the size of even larger stars, and the size of larger stars to the size of, well, even larger stars…It was like big fish eating smaller fish, or a series of matryoshkas. Watching the segment made me feel very small but it’s also something which staggers me.

We live on a tiny planet in one galaxy out of millions (if not billions) of other galaxies, which themselves could (and, in my opinion, probably do) harvest some sort of life. What makes us think we are of any great significance or worth in the cosmos? Why should we think that our little piece of cosmic dust has any great position in the grand scheme of things? Most Human Beings don’t reach past eighty or ninety-years-old and yet there are stars, planets and galaxies which have lasted for thousands of years (indeed, you don’t even have to go into Outer Space – there are trees on Earth which have lasted for hundreds of years).

I have been thinking about how we, as Human Beings, measure success, or what gives us meaning and purpose in life. What makes, or what is, a successful person? The answer, no doubt, is different for everyone. Some people find success in their career or business and the revenue they generate from it; others find it in marrying the love of their life and starting a family with that person; some find it in achieving well academically and still others find success in simply tidying the garage or nailing the perfect recipe for a cake. To many people, success is what “floats your boat” – what makes you happy in life.

Success, for some people, may even be the answer to the following question:

• What does it mean to be “Human”?

To some people, being Human means having a special “place” in the cosmos. To others, being Human means having a unique genetic code, or biological blueprint. In a post I wrote about two-years-ago, I said:

For some people, Life is just one of those things that we just happen to be a part of – that we’re just forms of Matter wandering about and that we create the meaning to our own existence. For others, it’s a belief in a supernatural God or gods who made us and who have a plan for us and our lives; and still for others, there is no meaning or purpose to Life and there is no such thing as reality.

Summer is now over and Autumn has arrived. While Autumn and Winter can be very cold, I often find that Nature displays its greatest wonders at such times. I am often awe-struck by the gold and red of the leaves and the snow as it descends onto the the Earth (although, what is nice for one may be nasty for another: snow may be nice to watch while beside a roaring fire but it’s maybe not so nice if you have to drive in it or work in it. Sometimes too much of something can be a bad thing and snow, in vast amounts, can be deadly).

My epiphany towards Autumn and Winter can, I think, be summed up in one of my favourite poems by Robert Frost entitled, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The Book of Ecclesiastes, much like some of Frost’s poetry, can be read as a depressing book and, in many regards, such a statement is true (although I would call it more sombre than depressing). However, what fascinates me about the book, and why it is one of my favourites of the Bible, is that it’s realistic – a sombre take on life (not that the other books of the Bible aren’t realistic – it’s just that Ecclesiastes seems to have a particular Human quality to it). The writer, in my mind, certainly has a “here today, gone tomorrow” mentality – he acknowledges that life is a fleeting thing – here one minute, gone the next:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build…

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no-one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3 v 1-3, 11

Reading through the chapter, what also intrigues me is how the writer, in a sense, puts Humans on the same level as animals (at least, with regards to mortality):

Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; the human race has no advantage over animals.

Ecclesiastes 3 v 19

What I’ve highlighted in bold is often seen as the anti-thesis of Human thought. We like to think that we have multiple advantages over animals – we like to think that we are vastly superior and can outwit them, whether it be in speed, strength or mental capabilities (a cheetah can run faster than a professional athlete sprinter). Indeed, many Theists like to think that Humans are more special than animals because they were made personally by God. However, I don’t think the writer, in this case, is referring to speed, strength, mental prowess or even the idea of a personal God creating Humans – if anything, he is stating the fact that Humans, like animals, suffer from mortality – we may be superior to animals in our mental, scientific and engineering capabilities but, like animals, we are still affected by Death.

Some people plan their lives out in military fashion – they will plan what they hope to do next year or in ten years time (such as: be married before reaching thirty-years-old or travel the world before reaching fifty-years-old). While I don’t think it’s particularly wrong to plan ahead, I do think that the future is somewhat obscure. When we think of the future, we think of ten years from now, or fifty years from now, not a day from now or a week from now. Indeed, the “future” is not limited to tomorrow – the future is thirty minutes away, fifteen minutes away and even sixty seconds away. When you started reading this Blog post is now in the past.

History is often, if not always, outlined in a finite time-scale. Historical events, whether they be somebody’s birth or a battle, are given positions on the time-scale; but not just any old position – they are set in a particular order in relation to each other. Using a “line”, we can trace (or represent) the history of Man right back to the Beginning of Time (or recorded history).

All of us are accustomed with finite Time. We measure Time with our clocks and we live in days, weeks, months and years (months being associated with different seasons, or drastic changes in climate). In the West, most people begin their year in January and end it in December. So, most of us associate Time with some kind of structure. What makes the concept of Eternity interesting (or confusing) is that it’s structureless – there is no “A to B” in Eternity – no “Beginning and End”. Such a lack of linearity throws us off guard when we then begin to “imagine” what Eternity must be like. In some regards, we will never fully be able to “imagine” Eternity until we break out of the cycle of linearity (a feat which may be impossible).

In a finite time system, things grow, become older, start to decay and then finally die (or wear away) – in other words, numerous changes take place. Even though there is no Beginning and End in Eternity, does that mean that things, or people, don’t age? To age is to imply that there are “Start” and “Finish” dates. I am not the same age I was ten-years-ago, because months and years have passed since then. Even-so, I have aged biologically (maybe “aged” isn’t the right word. Maybe “developed” or “changed” would be better). To most of us, we associate old age with wrinkles and losing our physical vigour; to most of us, that is a sign that we are nearing the end of our biological life (that’s generally true if the person in question has been healthy throughout their life and has not been involved in, say, major accidents which have severely altered their body for the worse).