the world will not be changed by the things i think i love
this is a spur-of-the-moment-rant (as Chris Munekawa would say, a "brain dump"). it's the sort of thing that makes me wish that everyone in the world read my blog so that they would know what i think about this. and honestly, it's not so much that i want them to know what i think, but also that i want them to change how they live because of what i think.
and this is exactly the problem i want to rant about.
i just spent time, too much time, browsing online/print journals and publications, looking at all the voices and all the writings and all the arts and all the media and all the PR and all the marketing that goes into these things. and it's a little conflicting because on one hand, these are the sort of people i can relate to one hundred percent (100%). i am the "inwardly-passionate-writer-type"; i can't help but browse, in addition to the publication part of these groups, their job listings because i dream of being part of one of them one day. it's not so much that i want my voice to be heard (/read, nowadays), but that i want to find my place in one of these groups that believe that they are changing the world.
don't get me wrong. everyone changes the world. you just can't help it. every time you breathe you change oxygen/nitrogen back into carbon dioxide. you are a world-changing machine. and i am too.
it would be very easy, here and now, to complain about the simple numerical aspect of world-changing in light of print publications. that's just an aspect of it, though. for every magazine or online source that has a mission and a task force and an audience behind their agenda (and i mean agenda not in the obstinate-political sense but agenda in a they-want-to-do-some-really-cool-stuff-and-i-think-that's-neat-because-usually-i-agree-with-what-they're-trying-to-do sort of way), there is another behind another source. part of this is to say "look, what publication x and all the people there are doing is great until you realize that there are publications a-z doing the same thing." it is also to say that no one is really changing much. i mean, they're changing everything, but relatively, not much. this is also to say that we spend more time talking than learning. everyone is so busy making publications that no one has enough time to read them. so much of this feels like it is done in vain. i almost want to complain that every publication is just a collection of people who are basing their success, their happiness, and their pride off of their involvement in the publication and/or the fact that they have work. this is probably the extreme cynicism side of me coming out, or, just knowing that that is what it would be for me if i were involved. everyone thinks they're the one voice, but they all cancel each other out, and the noise just becomes a sort of restaurant hum.
all this to say, i'm a hypocrite, because i want everyone to read how i think and then go and act like i say to. instead of just acting. i want to write great nonfiction, great fiction, great poetry, and i can, maybe, but that cannot be where i place my identity or my hope for the world. two reasons why not:
1. i worry that we'll just write a piece or create a publication and not do anything else after that, not have responsibility for our actual every day actions. when we are defined by what is in print with our names on it, it might become (i know it does for me) easy for us to slack off in the trying-to-be-a-good-person-holistically department. our work should reflect us and speak for us, but our work should not be us. it must be consistent with who we are, or else we are leading double lives - the writer who creatively preaches, say, environmental propaganda and social justice, and then lives in LA and drives a Lexus and spends too much time in a life that doesn't reflect or support what he or she claims is so urgent in his or her work. part of this is a call to integrity in our charcters and personalities; part of it is a call to discipline - you don't stop working after the copy gets turned in to the printer. you don't yell at your kid after you write a piece on good parenting. you don't go to Starbucks after you go to a save-the-forest protest. or you shouldn't. and if you shouldn't, then don't. having discipline actually allows you to maintain integrity.
2. i also worry that our work becomes our God. we depend on what we create, and what we are a part of (a team, a publication, a job, etc, but especially a publication or company with a society-impacting agenda), to do the work for us. we depend on it to change the world, to save everything. "if only everyone read our magazine." yeah. if only everyone read my blog. do you see this? we transfer our expectations into whatever we create that we think is right. if i think what i have to say is right, i say it, and then expect whoever reads it to get it, and then things will all be better (hyperbolic, but not really). so if i write a great blog post, or a great article, or whatever, i might tend to rely on it to do work for me. i guess it's like the stock exchange, in some weird way: we put money in and expect it to work for us, and sometimes it does, but sometimes (i.e. now), it really doesn't. so what is best? making honest money. to work hard, but let my work be my work and let my God by my God, and "whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do [i.e. in this case anything involving publication], do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). we must always keep in mind that things are always means, and never ends. things are great means, yes; i can write something amazing, i can be part of and have and enjoy and experience the coolest stuff in the world, but only because of and through and for God. if my hope remains in my work and not on God's work through my work, that's not sufficient, nor is it right. if my work only leads people to me and my character and my position or my agenda, or to something lesser that i am representing in that work, that's not sufficient or right, either.
.................................................
is there a faster way to change the world? is there a more effective way to do it? efficient, even? slow and steady wins the race, we learn from the tortoise in the hare. i know i'm just skeptical of technology in general (yes, yes, the irony; this is a blog, after all). but i think what i mean is: if we are going to cling to anything, let us cling to the intransient, the immutable, the stable. the good, the true, the really beautiful - because all these things are one, and all these things are God, in whom the world is already made and changed.
if i'm ever an editor, i hope the letters i get look like this:
We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 1:3)
if not, i don't want it.
oh God, that we would lay all of who we are, all of what we make, and all of what we hope our work accomplishes at your feet, so that you may use it to your great glory, which is the constant and already-accomplished redemption of your wonderful creation. let our ends be You and our means be done in light of You.
and this is exactly the problem i want to rant about.
i just spent time, too much time, browsing online/print journals and publications, looking at all the voices and all the writings and all the arts and all the media and all the PR and all the marketing that goes into these things. and it's a little conflicting because on one hand, these are the sort of people i can relate to one hundred percent (100%). i am the "inwardly-passionate-writer-type"; i can't help but browse, in addition to the publication part of these groups, their job listings because i dream of being part of one of them one day. it's not so much that i want my voice to be heard (/read, nowadays), but that i want to find my place in one of these groups that believe that they are changing the world.
don't get me wrong. everyone changes the world. you just can't help it. every time you breathe you change oxygen/nitrogen back into carbon dioxide. you are a world-changing machine. and i am too.
it would be very easy, here and now, to complain about the simple numerical aspect of world-changing in light of print publications. that's just an aspect of it, though. for every magazine or online source that has a mission and a task force and an audience behind their agenda (and i mean agenda not in the obstinate-political sense but agenda in a they-want-to-do-some-really-cool-stuff-and-i-think-that's-neat-because-usually-i-agree-with-what-they're-trying-to-do sort of way), there is another behind another source. part of this is to say "look, what publication x and all the people there are doing is great until you realize that there are publications a-z doing the same thing." it is also to say that no one is really changing much. i mean, they're changing everything, but relatively, not much. this is also to say that we spend more time talking than learning. everyone is so busy making publications that no one has enough time to read them. so much of this feels like it is done in vain. i almost want to complain that every publication is just a collection of people who are basing their success, their happiness, and their pride off of their involvement in the publication and/or the fact that they have work. this is probably the extreme cynicism side of me coming out, or, just knowing that that is what it would be for me if i were involved. everyone thinks they're the one voice, but they all cancel each other out, and the noise just becomes a sort of restaurant hum.
all this to say, i'm a hypocrite, because i want everyone to read how i think and then go and act like i say to. instead of just acting. i want to write great nonfiction, great fiction, great poetry, and i can, maybe, but that cannot be where i place my identity or my hope for the world. two reasons why not:
1. i worry that we'll just write a piece or create a publication and not do anything else after that, not have responsibility for our actual every day actions. when we are defined by what is in print with our names on it, it might become (i know it does for me) easy for us to slack off in the trying-to-be-a-good-person-holistically department. our work should reflect us and speak for us, but our work should not be us. it must be consistent with who we are, or else we are leading double lives - the writer who creatively preaches, say, environmental propaganda and social justice, and then lives in LA and drives a Lexus and spends too much time in a life that doesn't reflect or support what he or she claims is so urgent in his or her work. part of this is a call to integrity in our charcters and personalities; part of it is a call to discipline - you don't stop working after the copy gets turned in to the printer. you don't yell at your kid after you write a piece on good parenting. you don't go to Starbucks after you go to a save-the-forest protest. or you shouldn't. and if you shouldn't, then don't. having discipline actually allows you to maintain integrity.
2. i also worry that our work becomes our God. we depend on what we create, and what we are a part of (a team, a publication, a job, etc, but especially a publication or company with a society-impacting agenda), to do the work for us. we depend on it to change the world, to save everything. "if only everyone read our magazine." yeah. if only everyone read my blog. do you see this? we transfer our expectations into whatever we create that we think is right. if i think what i have to say is right, i say it, and then expect whoever reads it to get it, and then things will all be better (hyperbolic, but not really). so if i write a great blog post, or a great article, or whatever, i might tend to rely on it to do work for me. i guess it's like the stock exchange, in some weird way: we put money in and expect it to work for us, and sometimes it does, but sometimes (i.e. now), it really doesn't. so what is best? making honest money. to work hard, but let my work be my work and let my God by my God, and "whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do [i.e. in this case anything involving publication], do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). we must always keep in mind that things are always means, and never ends. things are great means, yes; i can write something amazing, i can be part of and have and enjoy and experience the coolest stuff in the world, but only because of and through and for God. if my hope remains in my work and not on God's work through my work, that's not sufficient, nor is it right. if my work only leads people to me and my character and my position or my agenda, or to something lesser that i am representing in that work, that's not sufficient or right, either.
.................................................
is there a faster way to change the world? is there a more effective way to do it? efficient, even? slow and steady wins the race, we learn from the tortoise in the hare. i know i'm just skeptical of technology in general (yes, yes, the irony; this is a blog, after all). but i think what i mean is: if we are going to cling to anything, let us cling to the intransient, the immutable, the stable. the good, the true, the really beautiful - because all these things are one, and all these things are God, in whom the world is already made and changed.
if i'm ever an editor, i hope the letters i get look like this:
We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 1:3)
if not, i don't want it.
oh God, that we would lay all of who we are, all of what we make, and all of what we hope our work accomplishes at your feet, so that you may use it to your great glory, which is the constant and already-accomplished redemption of your wonderful creation. let our ends be You and our means be done in light of You.
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