Perhaps the Romantic impulse has been dominant in my life, since adolescence. For most people this is a phase, or else they stick with their first conviction. For me it has been lifelong, and unstoppable.
Consequently, I invariably trend towards becoming a minority of one, since that is the natural consequence of the individual, inner driven Romantic temperament.
I have, several times tried to draw a line and stay within a group identity, but it is impossible. Intuition always drives me on, because it is self-evident. Hence intuition undermines every other type of evidence.
The movement is always towards beliefs that are all self-evident and intuitive, and whose coherence is also self-evident and intuitive.
By such means I now realise that Christianity is the inevitable - because the only coherent and real and permanent and fully-gratifying - terminus of Romanticism.
But it is very unlikely that you will agree.
2 comments:
Ted asks: But what if we do agree? I answer: Then you know for yourself.
The thing is, to know the truth of it, one has to derive a non mainstream understanding of both Christianity and Romanticism. And unless you a are a Romantic, that will seem like dishonest and wishful thinking. But to a Romantic it is the only honest and convincing procedure... Everything must be rooted in intuition.
I agree with you, and in fact, it seems to be the only thing that works for me. If I allow it, I can be swayed and bullied by materialistic arguement that deny the spiritual. I have been raised and educated to defer to Intellectual authority and in the current zeitgeist there is a remarkably oppressive and hostile attitude to even think or question these things. I find the modern world extremely claustrophobic as a result and struggle to find a satisfactory outlet to my very strong romantic impulse, which -like you - has driven me on a lifelong quest for a satisfactory meaning to this mortal life. Over a period of years (and in no small part thanks to reading this blog and others) I have developed a strong conviction in valuing my intuition and attempting to honour the conviction of my conscience over what the world might tell me I should be doing or what I am. I fail constantly to live up to the standards my conscience sets me (if I am honest enough to listen to it) but I repent when I fail and ultimately the experience that returns to me over time (again, when I listen) is one of feeling that I am loved by a patient parent, who wishes me to develop as fully as possible as a spiritual being and not as just a highly evolved primate, with no other function except passing the time pleasurably until inevitable and permanent oblivion, as the world would have it. My conscience and my heart tells me there is more to aspire to and I try to live by that impulse. Nothing else has ever really made any difference, nor could it. For me, there is a higher love to follow humbly or there is nothing. That is my conviction, albeit lable and weak at times. In my most powerful and lucid moments, this is the truth that shines through.
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