Green Oasis

Lately, I have had for a constant companion an emotion for which I have no name. It defies easy description. I can’t even describe it well to myself, distilling my feelings into words and concepts. It’s easier to describe its effects than the emotion itself. Unlike other emotions which wane when examined too closely, it persists dancing seductively out of reach of my analytical mind. Even as I write this, I feel it.

I look at a coworker’s shirt, and the deep shades of blue conjure this emotion. I feel tempted to daydream in shades of blue and lose myself in the womb of my mind.

I lie sleeplessly in my bed next to my wife. I feel my stomach rising and falling in the slow rhythm of my breathing, the air flowing in and out of my lungs. I feel a knowing connection with my childhood self. I remember dreams and fantasies that occupied my mind when I was young.

I am ailing with a persistent cough and congestion, but I am content. A subtle, soft joy fills my lungs as I breathe.

My heart melts at the slightest provocation: the dimples in my daughter’s cheeks, my wife’s skin under my hand, a child’s song, the taste of my morning tea, the sun on my face.

The halls of my mind feel cleansed of the cobwebs and cruft of years of willful neglect. I feel pleasantly empty, like the scent of a kitchen floor that has just been mopped after months of procrastination or the clear view of newly washed windows. It feels like the lack of something that obscured my view.

I feel poised on the verge of… some unnameable, visionary place full of imagination, love, and joy. I feel like I am rediscovering something I forgot when I left childhood and got lost in my fears and my own notions of reality.

I walked down the street with my nephew. I was maybe fourteen. The complexities of large Mormon families meant that my nephew was only five years younger than I. When we got to the end of the street, two guys about my age rode up on their bikes and blocked our path.

“Where do you think you’re going?” demanded the one directly in my path.

The unexpectedness of this ambush caused me to do something that would shock anyone who knew me then. I was what you might call a nice, meek guy apparently destined to inherit the Earth.

I looked him dead in the eyes. “Kiss my ass.”

The effect of my verbal sucker punch surprised me. The would-be bullies stumbled over themselves to get out of our way. My nephew and I walked on without giving them another glance.

My nephew looked at me with what I imagined was a mixture of shock and admiration. Frankly, I didn’t know that I could do that. My unaccustomed power impressed me.

Flashforward to today. Here I am, the brunt of a cosmic joke. I will live a short life and die. Everything I care about will suffer a similar fate. The absurdity of human life threatens to overwhelm me. What is the point? Why do I even try? Where do I think I’m going? The only rational response to the absurdity of my own meaningless life is to give up and die.

I stare nihilism down. “Fuck off.”

My life is ultimately absurd. But I don’t care. I’m the brunt of a cosmic joke, I refuse to be backed down from continuing on. I will live and love. I will revel in the fragile vulnerability of human life. I will be irrationally optimistic. I will embrace the absurdity.

Maybe fate will have its ultimate punchline and mock my hopes, but I’ll laugh along too, as long as the day lasts.

I’ve heard it repeated in a few places recently that atheists can be happy for theists the same way that parents can enjoy their children’s belief in Santa Claus. If it makes them happy, then we should be happy for them.

Everyone is free to believe what they will, but this comparison sounds more than a little patronizing. That’s probably not how it was intended, but that’s how it sounds. It’s not difficult to imagine the person thinking “I’m happy for those poor believers. They’re so cute when they think God answers their prayers. As long as it makes them happy.”

Personally, I can’t bring myself to be happy for someone else’s mistaken belief. I try to help correct that mistake if I can, without being a jerk. I hope they would return the favor.

My reluctance to play along probably stems from my stance on that old question about which is better: happiness or truth? I would generally rather have the truth than be happy. But that’s a personal preference. Other people would choose happiness instead, and I find it hard to fault them for it. It would be nice to ignore the truth in favor of happiness sometimes.

However, I would never put myself in the paternal position of thinking someone is better off blissfully ignorant in their mistaken beliefs. I respect other people too much. This condescending attitude is one of the things that I most resent about current LDS church practice. The LDS church teaches whitewashed history, presumably because they don’t want to damage the fragile faith and happiness of the body of the church with inconvenient truths.

I will try to be civil and polite with believers, picking appropriate times and places, but I don’t intend to ultimately play along with the charade that Santa Claus lives. I think they deserve better than a well intentioned lie or strategic silence.

Words to live by, the essence of my outlook on life.

I’ve decided to work through the Simple Living Manifesto, a list of 72 ideas to help simplify. I began with step one: make a list of my top 4-5 important things. I reflexively began to rattle off: family, work, school, and so on but stopped myself. Are those really the most important things in my life, or are those means to an end? I paused and tried again.

Throughout the day, I pondered on what my most important things are. I finally came up with this list:

• Life—the survival and propagation life
• Knowledge—learning the truth
• Peace—contentment and satisfaction
• Compassion—suffering with others and working to alleviate the unnecessary pains of life
• Love—to love and be loved

I value these things. I can’t justify why, but I don’t feel any need do so. I just want them. Perhaps I value those things just because I’m human.

On to the next steps: evaluate my commitments and my time. Everything I do should support those goals.