Annoy Conservatives: think for yourself.That could go in the "annals of self-awareness" file, except that I got to free-associating about what it means to think for yourself, and decided that "thinking for ourselves" in the manner the bumper sticker envisions is precisely our problem. That kind of thinking for yourself usually precludes learning anything about the topic or listening to anyone.
Which sort of relates to this piece I had in my reader (I am too lazy to make a 2nd post and that's all the segue I can muster) but decided was too funny not to give more attention to it. It's about how "natural" ain't human...or at least about how very selective we are about what we deem "natural." If you read me, you're already familiar with the argument. But the picture captions amused me. And it all winds up to this defense of art and holiness, neither of which is "natural."
Cutting down and processing trees to make paper, grinding bone and plant matter to make ink—all artifice, perfected over centuries. All true poetry is profoundly artificial, a laborious distillation of language: who talks in iambic pentameter?
Even charity is a kind of artifice: we’re not born with the ready-made ability to love our neighbor. Our hearts have to be molded like clay until they start to resemble something beautiful. But that beautiful thing, the thing only achieved in fear and trembling, is our deepest self. We’re made in the image of the great Artist, the great Technician, and our charge is not only to tend the garden, but to complete it.
