My Interests Lately

an update on life

If you know me at all, you probably know that I switch hobbies like rockstars move from relationship to relationship. Some fixations last longer than others, of course. When I was a teenager, I was all about magic tricks and guitar. During that time, other hobbies and interests popped up like public speaking, Bible study, and how to solve a Rubik’s cube. I also worked on my jump shot, tried to get a five minute mile, and did honey bees.

In the last 13 years since school, I’ve messed around on a skateboard, picked up the mandolin, and have invested a lot of money and time into studying the Bible deeper than I ever have. Video games, cooking, hiking, kayaking, and running have also occupied my time here and there.

As usual, I’ve kept around a few books to read. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been trying to read one biography (or other historical work), a theology book, a book of poems, and a novel.

• Theology: New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

• Poetry: Collected Poems (1957-1982) by Wendell Berry

• Novel: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

• Biography: John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit by James Traub

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This last book has been especially captivating. John Quincy Adams was one of the early politicians who spoke out against slavery in the new world. While he had his flaws (and curious contradictions within himself, such as his support for Andrew Jackson), he was a fascinating character who strove to maintain the moral high ground, be above reproach, and make decisions based upon iron-clad principles which ruled his life from a young age.

He was a gifted linguist and orator. He mastered French at age eleven and picked up several other languages as well, translating poetry and ancient documents from Greek and Latin into English. But the thing that I love about Adams is his tendency to jump from interest to interest.

In the course of the biography, the author will be documenting some important political debate concerning the construction of roads, slavery, or questions of foreign policy, but he has to take a break to inform the reader of Adam’s intense study of weights and measurements, swimming, or poetry.

He kept a meticulous journal which has inspired me to keep my own in a notebook Laura gifted me recently. I’ve always kept a journal to some degree, whether by making quick notes, writing blog posts, or actually writing an entry or two, but I’ve never kept a consistent daily journal.

One of the major things keeping me from doing so is how my hand hurts whenever I write. I can only write for so long (a paragraph or so) before my hand cramps up and becomes almost unbearable. Writing a paragraph at a time is hardly efficient, so I usually let it fall through the cracks. Typing a journal out on a computer would seem like the obvious alternative, seeing that I’m usually not far away from one, but writing with a pencil on a piece of paper seems intimate, and keeping a journal is an intimate affair.

One solution I saw online was to change the way you grip a pencil. For my whole life, I’ve been a lateral quadrupod kind of guy, but I’ve found that if I hold it the “correct way” by using the dynamic tripod grip that I can write freely with no pain. The only issue is that my handwriting is abysmal, as if it wasn't bad enough already, so I need to do some worksheets or drills to get it up to par, if not better than before.

The book by Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, has been phenomenal. I just finished reading a chapter entitled “Hell as Hatred” and it was just excellent. Much of what he writes on in this book are things I’ve picked up on through some of my own reading over the last six years, so I can’t help but think he must be one of the most influential writers for some of my personal favorites: Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren.

Here’s a few quotes from the last twenty pages or so:

On the risk of writing and originality…

If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn. (105)

On peace and war

The peace the world pretends to desire is really no peace at all.

To some men peace merely means the liberty to exploit other people without fear of retaliation or interference.

To others peace means the freedom to rob others without interruption. To still others it means the leisure to devour the goods of the earth without being compelled to interrupt their pleasures to feed those whom their greed is starving. And to practically everybody peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their animal appetities for comfort and pleasure.

Many men like these have asked God for what they thought was "peace" and wondered why their prayer was not answered. They could not understand that it actually was answered. God left them with what they desired, for their idea of peace was only another form of war. (122)

On Love as Hell

Our God also is a consuming fire. And if we, by love, become transformed into Him and burn as He burns, His fire will be our everlasting joy. But if we refuse His love and remain in the coldness of sin and opposition to Him and to other men then will His fire (by our own choice rather than His) become our everlasting enemy, and Love, instead of being our joy, will become our torment and our destruction. (124)

Anyways, that’s about it. What have you been up to lately? How do you grip your pencil? What books are you reading? What do you think of these quotes? Do you agree, disagree, and why?