Here’s the main reason I’ve gone 2 1/2 weeks without updating my blog…
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Where’s this going to go? Dunno. Always torn between digital records for editability and paper for concreteness. I just make sheets and sheets of notes, ToDo lists, calendars, checksheets, job forecasts, creative nuggets, and self-examinatory journal thingies. I need to get them all together in one place. Need to make a site – if for nobody’s use but mine.
I also need to learn to play the drums. Like, need.
Sat down to get a bunch of e-mailing and Paris Project accounting done while Marg and her mum are out shopping for Mary, et al. Fiddled around forever, wasting time and brainwaves. Then prayed. Then wasted some more time. But THEN – sat down to do accounting… got sidetracked by an e-mail… sidesidetracked by Jordan Petersen’s blog… then consumed by the contents of his blog : clippings of some significant articles covering the recent (sorta failed) democratic elections in Iran followed by his commentary on the situation and a testimony as to the attention that issue requires of us.
He’s right. I was proud to see him using his unassuming Google Blogger page to take on a truly relevant topic partly, I assume, as practiced autoreflexion and healthy journaling, but also in case someone might happen upon it and derive any useful motivation from it. Elder Ballard (one of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints) encouraged us (Jordan and I are both members) to courageously include statements of belief in their blogs, amongst other types of journaly documents both private and public. Jordan’s take on Iran is hardly a profession of his religious beliefs, but I think it’s that very habit of using whatever platforms we have to share our convictions (spiritual, political, æsthetic… no need to distinguish as they’re all interwoven in each person’s heart, right?) to which Elder Ballard meant to give approbation.
Anyway, it got me analyzing myself some more – something which, as a newly-married, ready-to-graduate, multipluripanintrested young renaissance man, I thought I was already maxed-out on.
So I read my patriarchal blessing. This is where I drop more spiritual breadcrumbs for those who’re hungry (and for those who aren’t hungry… free bread never hurt… go feed the ducks, bake some croutons… great on salads). I believe that God continues to communicate with people on the earth, and those who’ve got faith for it can receive a special blessing from a church leader called a patriarch, which usually contains specific bits of guidance as to God’s will for him/her, in addition to affirmations of general gifts and promises. I’m not typing this part for Elder Ballard, but because this is one of the supercoolest parts of my faith which has proven to be quite the lifeline for me many times over. While I hardly want to seem pushy or preachy, it’d be worse for me to become inauthentic by leaving out the mormonocentric vocabulary words which relate to important aspects of my life and philosophy.
AAaaaanyway. I read my patriarchal blessing because I’ve been steeped in concerned thought regarding my plans for the next few years – what to accomplish in my last year of undergraduate, what I need to do to build a resume, what kinds of postgraduate studies and/or careers I want to aim myself at, in which global and cultural directions I hope to take the family Margaret and I will eventually have, etc. On the one hand, I’ve got loads of time to change my mind, make mistakes, and try things out before settling down, but, on the other hand, it’s all incredibly imminent, the world and its opportunities are moving at lightspeed, and the political and moral sectors of the world are in desperate need of conscientious, hardworking people. I dunno that I’m all that great, but I am both conscientious and hardworking, and I feel a responsibility/desire to get to work on some consequential thing on the world’s stage. The question is which.
I started out with a course set for humour. In secondary school and the first bit of college, I contemplated the possibility of doing good in the world as a comic satirist of some sort. The Pythons, SNL, the Daily Show, and folks like that inspired me to do things which dovetailed nicely with the spiritual truths of which I was becoming convinced. God exists, loves us, wants to help us become wise and capable like himself, and simultaneously respects with utmost care our right to ignore him and create messes for ourselves. I wondered if my calling might be to poke fun at the messes, implicitly or perhaps explicitly declaring what I saw to be the methods for sorting them out, and sneakily testifying of the truths I held dear all the while. I still haven’t given that up, but I have sort of lost my motivation to impress the “thems” in the world. Operating on a huge international media stage would be cool, but some kind of impatience leads me to want to interact more directly with people. Or maybe I’m being a self-deprecating quitter. Who said that? Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll be famous. Just to show you. Neener neener, wag wag.
Then came the patriarchal blessing. It gave me some leads about my potential for musical contribution and especially about teaching others. I’ve been at the bass and guitar for 6ish years, now, and I’ve written a dozen or so songs. Still need lyrics and cohesion, though. Then I’ll try it in front of people and see if anything catches fire. That’s plan C. Or D. Maybe I should make it A while I can, before jobs and babies and stuff consume my days? If it hasn’t been A, it’s because A and B have been schooooool. I love school, but it requires writing with that many Os, maybe more. University is so exhilarating and enlightening, but taking 15 credits (4 or 5 or 6 classes) simultaneously is like a hot knowledge enema in every orifice at the same time. You get so cleansed and stimulated and fulfilled – but the pressure!
Got stoked about the potential potency of turning my film studies major from a hip, self-indulgent I-want-to-grow-up-to-be-Wes-Anderson-like-every-one-else bend into a more historically-informed and socially-significant trajectory. So I took film history course after film history course and seriously considered the current and worldwide need for media literacy.
Then answered the call to serve a full-time LDS mission, which meant putting on a suit and tie and skipping from Swiss to Luxembourgish to French city for two years, trying to share the treasures I’d found with people who very rarely wanted to examine them, let alone accept them. I did practice teaching, though. Taught the heck out of my colleagues, local church members, my family, and especially myself. As I didn’t leave with much “evidence” of “success”, I had to fight depression pretty tenaciously until I really embraced the idea that most of the successes I achieved wouldn’t likely become evident for a generation or two, if ever.
Back in the USSA. More university. More difficulty selecting just which part of the universe to focus on. Should’ve gone to a monoversity. Fractoversity. Aliquosity. Verbosity? Started teaching TMA 102 : Intro to Film Art & Analysis. Calling found. Well, part of it. Media Literacy a definite pandemic necessity. Hardly anyone stays for the credits, reads subtitles, or tries things outside their comfort zone. Even fewer take time to ponder what they’re consuming in aural or visual form. Laugh tracks on sitcoms, airbrushing on food ads, pornography on cell phones… give it about 5 more minutes and we’ll have terrifying propaganda from all sides flooding our holographic wrist communicators and brain chips. This generation needs guidance and thought provocation. Sounds like a cause worthy of devotion.
So far, devotion’s taken a back seat to more self-indulgence, if a productive and edifying kind. Well, meeting and marrying Margaret was an act of devotion, but I hardly see it that way, as I feel I got the sweet end of the deal. Otherwise the last year of university careering has been dominated by learning personal lessons not figuring on the syllabi of the 11 courses I’ve been taking : learning to cooperate with professors, learning to apply for grants and scholarships, learning to organize myself and my household so as to function healthily while taking on projects like honors thesis and international field studies. The teaching’s advanced, but most of my time and energy has been spent sorting out my time and energy. My my my.
So, here we are at the end of my big Parisian project summer, on the cusp of my last year at Brigham Young University and the rest of my life. What to lap up in these last dozen months before the appetizer’s lifted away and I’m meant to invest in an entree? How to accurately gauge my metabolic needs and weigh them against the prices of the various menu options? Do I spring for something like NYU or USC? What if, in spite of the reputable deliciousness, I find it’s not to my taste? Something sensational like a band project or film endeavour? Huge personal investment, high risk, low stability? Or something logical yet alluring like lawschool in England or language study in someplace “else” (that is to say, not the intermountain west of the USA)?
This brings me back to my patriarchal blessing and Iran and Jordan and my afternoon of significant, life-changing unproductivity.
Just got back from a few days in Belgium and Germany. I feel like I’ve got a beginner’s grasp on Europe to add to my barely-more-than-a-beginner’s grasp on the United States – their foundations, their importance, their problems, the needs for their future. The Middle East, though? Asia? I haven’t even tried to scratch the surface of these cultures, and, while it’s not that I’m not up to the task of doing what’s necessary to get to that point, I can’t currently foresee what sorts of problems I could hope to solve in those arenas without a fullish command of their languages.
GYYYYyyyyyyehhhhhhhhhhhhblah.
