Human nature and annoyance

As far as I can see, human beings spend their lives rolling their eyes about how stupid they think other people are. Perhaps it would be more sensible to agree that, yes, people are goofy, flawed, and annoying, and stop being surprised or annoyed by what is the case? There is no reason for surprise at what has always been, or to give in to feelings of annoyance when the source of those feelings cannot be avoided, unless you are willing to become a hermit (which you probably aren’t). Yet, it seems to be human nature to be annoyed at other people’s human nature! Particularly when one is in a bad mood, of course.

The Android God

Our society is so obsessed with complex tools—what else is ‘technology’?—that the role of human face-to-face interactions has been eclipsed by the enthusiastic adoption of electronic intermediaries. One wonders if we could appreciate a naturalistic conception of god, if we were presented with it afresh, rather than as received cultural mythology. Indeed, if god is created in the image of man, one wonders if god is actually an android—or spends so much time with his supercomputer of the divine (accessed by the Holy Spirit of wireless) that he might as well be. After all, do we not make god in our own image, and then say that it is the other way around—that he made us in the image of himself? Perhaps god made us primitive, so long ago, because he himself was primitive; or, perhaps we made god primitive, because we were ourselves. Either way, we are different now—not because human nature is different, but because we are more than human, we are also cultural creatures—and our cultures are overrun with neon gods. Somehow we still give the worship of our lips, out of incongruous habit, to a cultural artifact. After all, the correspondence of Christianity to our society, our way of life, our purposes, our culture, is utterly gone. We do not live in Palestine, 200 C.E., nor in Europe of the Dark Ages.  Either we should remake god in the image of how we are now, saying that he made us to make our computers extensions of ourselves, and to anthropomorphize our iPhones—this point at which the integration of technology into our lives leaves only its integration into our bodies—or call it quits with metaphysics. Shall we worship the neon gods of our distraction with our words as well as our eyes? Or are these, too, false idols?

A few words on love

Love each other when you can, accept each other when you can’t, and tolerate each other when you can’t do more than that. We cause each other so much misery because we dip our toes into tolerance, rather than leaping into love without looking. Everyone has flaws or ugliness, whether you can see them or not, and all people are sometimes annoying, even when you start with love. How much more annoying are those we merely try to tolerate, rather than try to love! To only be willing to love the perfect is to set yourself up for never loving at all. Are you letting someone else’s idea of perfect be the enemy of what is good for you- are you holding the good up to someone else’s mirror, rather than before your own eyes? Try starting with love, and moving down from that when you must- rather than starting with something less than tolerance, and moving up from that if you can. The former is a better way to live. Easier said than done, but isn't everything?- at least, everything worth doing?