Finding your religion

There's a copy of The Abolition of Man on my desk. On the shelf above it sits a stack of books I think are broadly spiritual: Dark Night of the Soul, The Denial of Death, The Three Apologies, and the Doors of Perception, among others. Somewhere in my library sits a special edition of the bible, you know the kind with the gilded pages. I think it sits next to Thomas Jefferson's bible, which is the regular one absent of all the Jesus-as-magician stories.

In my deepest moments of despair, I found solace in existential works of fiction and philosophy. You know, the whole life is meaningless, you must find your own reasons schtick. I think it's no coincidence that I was pulled into these works over conventional religious texts.

Existentialism emerged in the face of 20th century totalitarianism. It often warned of tyranny and showcased the depraved capacity of humanity. If we're capable of such horror, how can there be a God?  How can we trust that there's an singular being responsible for our destiny if he's letting this happen? How am I supposed to live if God, the raison d'etre, is dead?

It's not clear to me when my adversion to authority began. I was borderline teacher's pet growing up, and all the adults validated that I was a good kid, so I tended to appeal to their authority to keep that stream of compliments coming. In short, I was a rule follower, all day every day and twice on Sundays (not at church, though).

I think my libertarian streak began brewing in 10th grade English class and was cemented in junior year literature class, where the same teacher had us read the anti-authority classics: 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and many others. This built up my preference of freedom, but I was still too young, too inexperienced, to understand the spiritual implications of tyranny.

About a decade later, in the midst of crisis, I found comfort in the writings of existentialism, which took my anti-authority tendencies to their logical conclusion: if you are free, truly free, there is nobody who can grant you that which you most seek.

Man's Search for Meaning and The Myth of Sisiphus really moved me, among other books and videos, like a certain someone's lecture series on Existentialism, which dissected the works of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Combined, whatever bits I gathered from existentialism helped me keep it together, and I'm better off for it.

Still, I'm not satisfied. Existential works appeal to my temperament, but I don't have confidence that they'll ever help me defeat my biggest enemy: nihilism.

If the propositions of existentialism are true (and I'm mostly inclined to agree), it's easy to take life for granted and immediately ask what's the point of it all? Why do I seem to suffer endlessly FOR NOTHING whatsoever?

This is a question I keep asking myself, a single man with no children and no particularly strong attachments to god or country. For the longest time, I was fixated on non-existence (but not suicide). How in the world do you find something, anything to keep you going, especially when the things that you want are merely your imagination talking?

I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made, and others make too, is trying to find that gestalt of things that matter, that will get you out of bed in the morning. You find things that are interesting and make you feel a certain kind of way, and you commit to them. Perhaps it's a lover, or your kin, or maybe a hobby. And for a while, these things work. You assign great meaning to these things, and view the challenges they present as problems to solve on your way to happiness.

Until one day the mirage is broken. Your lover leaves you, the kids go off to college, and an injury keeps you from running that marathon you'd set your sites on. You feel the doubt creep in, and then you feel like a fool for tricking yourself into thinking you could find indefinite happiness.

This mistake you and I made is what's called playing a Finite Game, from James Carse's book Finite and Infinite Games. The gist is that playing to win the game puts you on the happiness hamster wheel, always chasing something you think will fulfill your deepest Desire. Instead, we should seek to continue the game forever. Yes, yes, you will find that which you most seek in the game itself, not at the end of it.

You must see the possibility in all things, even those undesirable things that have been set on your doorstep. All of life is play, and that is precisely why we live: to see if we can handle whatever comes next.

This is where my path leads me back to a previous point in life which I did not mention earlier. Despite my sourness towards religion, I've never felt like there wasn't a god at all. That sort of discussion is irrelevant here, and everywhere really. But it's important because when I struggled early in life, my reaction was often wow I'm terrible I should really read the bible. That's what people do, right? I never went so far as to go to church, because of course I didn't need some old fart who lived apart from the modern world to tell me if I was good or bad. I just wanted to be able to tell myself I was OK.

I forgot about that for many years, while I was trying to outsmart spiritual tradition. But in recent times I've come to learn about rich traditions that rejected organized religion but celebrated the individual's capacity for a relationship with god.

And that's where I am today, trying to figure out how to incorporate Spirit into my existence, and how I can create my own religion.

Perhaps CS Lewis or St. John of the Cross or Chesterson or Huxley can help?