Saturday, May 26, 2007

Default

The CD exchange across from Steep & Brew is going out of business, yielding a $4 CD sale. I didn't have the packrat patience to read every title in those boxes today. But I did grab R.E.M. "Green," which I always wanted to own, and Nirvana "In Utero," which I formerly did. At some point I decided it and a few others, I can't recall which, didn't give enough glory to God and they found themselves in the trash. Just like Greek knowledge and any other pagan media.

I can't remember at what point I drifted away from such thinking, but I've been thinking a lot about how fast your worldview can change. Yesterday at Vilas Park I read a Discover article about what the earth would be like if instantly depopulated of humans -- in addition to bridges and buildings tumbling down, horses, without humans breeding them, would devolve back to their original wild state. One day I was going to church multiple times a week, and then I moved. Without the Baptist Hegemonic Enforcement System around, I reverted to a somewhat more mature version of my suspicious 15-year-old self. "In Utero's" anger doesn't connect with me in my current Zen, but I still have a terrible time stomaching authority.

At Christmastime I was poring effort into my UW application, still throwing together my MIT papers literally on the last day. Then I got my UW rejection letter, and walked the streets in purposelessness. Then, due to some clerical error, I was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now I'm going to live in Ashdown House, a wonderfully academic colossus fully deserving its old money name.

How has my mind, I wonder, wandered such a labryinth of different default setting in five years? I was a snob about music that didn't hail from the rockist pantheon, a snob about music that didn't praise the lord, only to peel the scales from my eyes and buy Huey Lewis and Prince LPs. I was an atheist, a wannabe Buddhist, a would-be evangelical Christian and finally a theologically indifferent secular humanist, but one who looks down on militant atheists for technical reasons. What are those technical reasons? Just listen to old time Americana music, or at least Prairie Home Companion. The Bible makes incredible folk metaphor, and that's coming from someone who has badmouthed metaphors many times prior. Just stop treating it like a one-way Dear Abby.

I would worry that I might start to level off, but that isn't likely either. I'll soon set aside the lobe of my brain that indulges building house and country music for the side governing dress shirts and linguistic pretention. This is why I don't understand hip-hop, what with the constant anality over street cred and defending your reputation. Who are you, really? Probably not who you think you are.

In the foyer of Nordiska Museet there's a giant statue of King Vasa inscribed with the phrase, "Be Swedish." If you are, fine, but don't try to become something to make King Vasa happy. Doubt isn't a theatrical test of your faith, it's evolution at work.

3 comments:

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett said...

I feel smarter after reading your blog. I just wanted to let you know that you have that effect.

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett said...

Er ... affect? I'm a fucking copy editor and how quickly I've devolved being out of the job :D Appropriate for your blog, hah.

melanie.feyerherm said...

I feel cool because I've seen that statue.