Substack Notes Roundup
God, goals, C.S. Lewis, and more...
This is a new series I consider publishing regularly. Let me know what you think in the poll below.
Although the original note is shorter, here I added a few extra verses.
[3] For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil; [4] But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword. [5] Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of hell. [6] Lest you ponder her path of life— Her ways are unstable; You do not know them. [7] Therefore hear me now, my children, And do not depart from the words of my mouth. [8] Remove your way far from her, And do not go near the door of her house, [9] Lest you give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel one; [15] Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well. [16] Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? [17] Let them be only your own, And not for strangers with you. [18] Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
- Proverbs 5:3-9,15-18 NKJV
Few things I’ve learned from setting all kinds of goals:
If I don't aim high enough I feel unsatisfied by the inferior goals I achieve.
If my goals are too abstract the road to achieving them becomes obscure.
When I catch myself saying "maybe I need to reduce the difficulty of my goals" I immediately multiply my efforts. Once set, goals should stay the same. The amount of effort must be adjusted.
Success is not everything but it is critical. It's more like maintaining the foundations of your house rather than chasing a trophy that keeps running away from you. The former is obsessing over stability, the latter is obsessing over an impossibility.
Always look for ways to improve. The way you talk, feel, think, act, and work. We are inherently imperfect which means the sky is the limit.
Ignore people telling you to slow down because of “doing too much”. “Doing too much” and “not doing enough” are two sides of the same coin. A desirable feedback could be “you are not doing enough on sector X which directly affects my relationship with you”.
Unless the way you pursuit your goals directly impacts your health or pushes away people you care about, then it needs not be modified.
There are always caveats, but in general I've found that the above work quite well.
If everything is God-given, pains, sufferings and the like, or in the very least allowed by Him, what hope can we have that He will cease to permit them?
If the reason He permits them is to heal, what makes us so sure that He will answer our calls for mercy?
To quote C.S. Lewis “A perfectly good God is hardly less formidable than a cosmic sadist.”
Nevertheless, we can still ask Him for the strength to endure.
C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed is a devastating book. Not because of the emotional impact of the things he describes, but his thought process in dealing with loss and the role of God in his suffering.
How can we hope to know if we don’t love? Is this why God knows us completely? Because He loves us fully? Does knowing God mean to unconditionally love Him? First Him, then everybody else?
More suitably, Him and everybody else. Love after all is a state, not an emotion. We deal with love in emotion because we are limited beings trapped in a mortal body attempting to understand the infinite and contain the uncontainable. No wonder it hurts so much.
Brilliant.
Although the original note contains only part of the poem, here I post the complete version:
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Postmodernists have the habit of forcing you into absurd arguments and countering your points by saying “well it’s just semantics”, or “all facts are just made up facts anyway”. Using the same tactic against them is dangerous. The safest way to do so is using the Socratic method. By asking a series of obvious questions, force them to denounce each one of them down to their own personal values. Point out the absurdity of it and declare the existence of truth as fundamental. Your main goal should be to convince the people witnessing the argument. Be calm and respectful, yet decisive.
Changing environments is akin to traversing uncharted territory. It can be a deadly situation as the rug of familiarity suddenly disappears giving its place to the abyss of uncertainty. Like the great explorers of old, one must face the new landscape with conviction and curiosity. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather acting in spite of it.
They say a church is the house of God, but I didn't feel it. They say He lives, but all I feel is the pain of His absence. Whenever I enter a church I get the sense of an empty house whose beloved owner recently passed. Friends and strangers visit His house, sometimes even people who shunned Him, and engage in quiet lament for what was and never will be again. Outside the house everyone pretends that the once beloved peacemaker who brought joy to all the households of the land, never actually existed. Perhaps God truly is dead, and we have killed Him, and His once glorious house is but a monument to console the last remnants of a declining faith.
“Responsibility means telling the truth about whether your own insufficiencies are holding you back from achieving who you could be. Discipline means acting on that truth. Willingness to tell the truth is the first step in the journey for growth. Enjoyment can be found both in achieving a goal but also in the process itself. Will you not enjoy building yourself as a capable, honest, trustworthy and protective individual? Is it necessary to demand constant results? Intentions matter. A seed of truth inevitably cultivates wisdom. A seed of demand, however, leads to a lifetime of dissatisfaction.”
Excerpt from my article “The Case for Monogamy”.
A perennial truth that characterizes reality is that it is full of suffering. As every human experiences joy in the short span of their lives, so do they experience pain, struggle and loss. The latter are always more memorable. How easy it is to lose ourselves when tragedy strikes. To forget the good and the beautiful, dump gratefulness and substitute it for despair and resentment.
The inevitability of suffering doesn't justify inaction; it is precisely because of its inevitability that we have a moral duty to act upon it and attempt to ease our suffering. Maybe by doing so, we can inspire others to do the same. Maybe we can be a leading example of endurance in an increasingly safe and inactive modern world.