Hey Josh, thanks for your insightful comments. I agree with you in terms of your reading of Thoreau. He definitely ends up in wisdom bringing hope and an answer to our desperation. I don't necessarily resonate with his belief that building a Utopia, isolated from all society and culture, is necessarily the route to wisdom, but I do like where he takes it. At the same time, I wanted to say that I was simply making a point, digging down to the core of our beings. I think, at the core, we are all desperate and hungry. We acutely feel our separation from our Maker, and we long for that reconnection. Moral, selfless behavior and the activities of human depravity are not even on the same playing field in terms of values, mental health, and the condition of one's soul. I'm making the point (leading into a lot of other points) that we work, sin, celebrate, eat, sleep, grow addictions, become liberated from addictions, perform acts of altruism, hurt others, have sex, and worship God all out of a core place of desperation. I assign no value to that at this point in the conversation. There is right or wrong thinking and acting. I believe that the desperation of our souls exists a priori and value neutral to the outworking of value-laden behavior. Does that make sense? Thanks, again, for reading and commenting!

I am now going to do "5 Simple Steps to Completely Fix All of Our Internal Drives and Live Happily Ever After". Maybe I'll just call it, "Your Best Life Now". That title is much easier to handle. Thanks, Freshly Pressed writer! ;)

Thanks! And thank you for reading!

Excellent question and thoughts, Gerard, as always! I am just starting to chew on all of this, but here's where I am at with it so far: No, I am not advocating or working out of a sense of moral relativism. I am focusing directly on the question of instinctual drives - almost animalistic in nature. When studying human behavior, we always look at motive, and we foolishly believe that we can discern some neat explanation for why one chooses to save people and another chooses to kill. We look at upbringing, learned habits, educational level, race, values, faith system, and all other socioeconomic factors. We say things like, "Ah, well, that kid was bullied, so of course he brought a gun to school and shot all of his classmates." "See, that's what happens when a child is not parented well." It's strange, don't you think, that when they interview friends and family of people like Dahmer, they say that the killer was kind, friendly, quiet, etc. People are always shocked. We never interview the friends and family of heroes, seeking an explanation for motive. Why did they do such an incredible act of goodness? I am sure that, if we did, we would hear some stories of how much of a selfish jerk the hero was for most of their life. I think we are such a convoluted mess of factors, that it is impossible to figure out why we do what we do. I think, in order to truly find our humanity, we need to go to the core of what makes us biologically human. There is a hunger and a drive that we all share. I am poking right at that core place of passion and fire. It makes us eat, pray, and love, in the spirit of Julia Roberts. One person responds in violence, and another in selfless love. Today. Tomorrow, they may respond completely differently. Our desire for neat, moral answers and tied-up-with-a-bow motivations comes from that same place. Suspending judgment as to behavior, what does that core place (the heart? the soul?) look like?

Hmmm...yes, yes yes. I am in sober agreement with your assessment of the inner critic. That voice screams SO much louder than all of the affirming and supportive voices. It brings one down to earth in a hurry. Weeding out the word Perfect definitely helps. My new bar is one of integrity. Am I being truthful in this piece of writing with myself and my readers? Am I playing games with my writing to induce a response or make people like me by presenting a false self? If I can truly say that I accurately communicated an honest piece of my heart, then my inner critic can have no foothold. Anyway, hang in there, Xeno. You expose that inner critic for the little bully it is, and you will begin to win those battles.

I love what you said about job vs. vocation. I read this great book called "Quitter", and it was all about not jettisoning your day job, until you are fully prepared to pursue your dream. There was some great stuff in that book, but I think it's a balance. I am one who will keep looking for day jobs, pouring out all of my resources in that pursuit. I will keep doing that, thinking, "I will pursue my dreams and calling, as soon as I accomplish x in my day job. I'll be secure enough then." That is the thinking that kept me from going for my PhD right after my undergrad. It has kept me doing stuff that was "kind of close" to my dream without actually forcing me to invest or take risks. It is a very careful balancing act and is different, I think, for each person. Good stuff!

HAHA! I love what you said about God's stack of brains. Brilliant! Why do we think, when God gives us gifts, that God is always cruel enough to make us give them up? God wants us to surrender them. Die to clinging to them. But that is very different than sacrificing gifts and leaving them unused. I seem to remember something in some holy text about God no longer being interested in our burnt offerings... I also remember reading something about being LIVING sacrifices. Great stuff, Chris. Thanks for sharing!

Yep! I love this. Brilliantly stated, Chris.

I like what you had to say here, Chris. There seems to be something in the process or journey through the darkness and brokenness that is, in itself, redemptive. Even if it ends in death and loss, that death and loss is temporal at best. It is not, in effect, "The End". It becomes, then, a new beginning. I'm not sure it is a "lesson" in Job, as much as it is a symbolic and important metaphysical truth. There is no real tragedy in Christ. God, by God's very being, renders actual as-the-final-note-of-the-story loss to be impossible. Great stuff!