Statio Mentis

Everybody is talking about it, it’s all over the news and many would rather already stop hearing about it. The whole net went ballistic, twitter went down for it, wikipedia had a bitter war about it and speculations about the conditions run rampant like no tomorrow. Yeah, the death of MJ. I’m not going to talk about the king of pop though, but rather the interesting phenomenon of fandom and idols.

It’s not unlike religion.

In both people are looking up for something bigger than themselves, something to believe in. In the religious form it’s usually something pure and spotless, but the rock-version can easily be tarnished and rotten as long as there is some suffering involved. Just today it read in the news that Michael Jackson had finally moved to the category of suffering idols. “He’s been through hell!” This could be said about Jesus or Michael Jackson. To us there seems to be something quite interesting and noble about the suffering of an idol.

The word idol originates not as a popstar, but as a substitute for God. In fact the second commandment in the Christian Bible says “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them…” Now ofc the word has a much lighter meaning today, but still if someone is an idol for someone else, the fan can be seen as a devout and a worshipper. The word “fan” on the other hand is derived from the word “fanatic”. That word has also suffered some inflation in the modern language, but the roots are interesting.

R&B star Akon said: “Just to be in the same room [with him], I felt everything I wanted to accomplish in life has been achieved….That aura … that’s how incredible that aura is….The way he thinks….some artists think regional, some think national, I was thinking international. He thinks planets! It’s on another level!” Some other random fan quotes: “He lives forever, he’s not dead”, “He brings meaning to my life”, “He is my everything”. These were said about MJ, but we could aswell replace the target as God. I bet if we were to do a brainscan, the same areas would show activity for both religious people and some other type of devotees.

Naturally there are many different levels of fandom, as there are many different levels of religious commitment aswell. Not all fans and religious devotees are fanatics. Still, the mechanic works just the same. We try to look up for something that is bigger than ourselves, larger than life, and mysterious. We need these higher beings or ideals as points, from where we hang on, to where we anchor ourselves. We cannot attach to something thats our size, or it wouldn’t hold us; the “ground” has to have enough mass. We must be unable to move it. Why that is, I don’t know, we just seem to be built in a way that we cannot exist alone by ourselves. We cannot be gods ourselves.

As for the idol itself, in the end, a human being cannot bear a god-status. He knows that he’s not perfect and the pressures from outside grows unbearable. The idols persona gets separated from the actual person, and ascends as a glorified, mystified and shining icon to heavens. An inner discrepancy forms between this icon and the real self and any number of conditions can follow. In many cases it leads to drugs, as we have seen. (Not to argue, that it’s the only reason for stars to take drugs, mind you)

This blog entry is not here to make any moral judgements about idolhood or fandom. Bible tells us we should not have substitute gods, but i think we all have common sense as to what that means. Most of the idols we have in this life are more like role models and not really competing against God. But interestingly, the mechanic is the same in both and that’s why I can easily understand why Bible tells us not to have these substitutes. We have it in us, that we seek a higher force and thus we should seek it in the right place.

After my last blog entry I began to think, what exactly is the language of the soul? What is the language that all human beings share in our most inner core? Here, in this question we come to the very fulcrum of our existence, for it is the soul, that binds us all together as human beings. Now I postulate here, that we do indeed have a soul, and furthermore, that the soul is an undying entity, which defines us in the most basic level, meaning that it is the very essence of a person. Whether or not this is the case, is a matter of another debate.

So what is it then, that we as people all individually have, but universally share with others? And more to the case, what is the language it speaks? The speech in the video (check out the first part) gives us some thoughts about it. It talks about hope, trust, strength, compassion. It defines the language as the language of the heart and soul, which is used to transmit the voice of our ancestors and our inheritors to come. From that i would continue, that it is the language of our innermost desires and self-awareness.

That language would be love.

And I’m not talking here about the mere feeling of love, though that is a great part about it. I’m talking about the whole complexity of love as something that defies definition, but we still know it. But then you ask, what if our soul is twisted and black? What if our soul speaks evil? How can the language be love? I would maintain, that our soul cannot be evil. I believe that the human being was created as inherently good, and that the image of God, that we carry with us, is indeed in our soul. I believe, that the evil, that resides in us is more like a shroud on our soul just like tar shrouds your lungs if you smoke. And when we ask God to save our souls, we indeed ask, that He saves the good in us and banishes the tar so to speak. But if the soul is hurt, like it more or less is in every case, it begins to desire restoration. And that’s exactly what God does, He restores our soul. Unfortunately in many cases, we humans seek not restoration, but short term retribution.

Anyways, I would argue, that the soul itself is in essence pure and inherently good. Thus it speaks in a language of love. It is something, we share universally with other human beings (and perhaps with other life to some extent). This is why the maxim in the speech is so beautiful – that we must be kind to each other – since its the greatest form of understanding we can share. And what is language, if not transmitter of understanding?

Well, this post has been on the works for a while, as I constantly rethink it. However, I must post it now, for otherwise it will never get published. Please regard it as thoughts up in the air and don’t worry if you get lost in there somewhere, since its not particularly straight thinking this time.

Human mind is such an amazing and complex thing. I never cease to be bewildered about the manner it works and how different people can be. And how coherent many think their “mind makeup” is. We have this word for it: worldview. The dictionary defines worldview as

1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

Now these two definitions are very interesting, and there are uses for both meanings. But while it is sometimes useful to ponder the general direction one is taking in his / her views, I think it’s the second definition, that grasps something very important. Or more to the point, its the interplay of these two different meanings, that spurs my thoughts this time – since we are incoherent beings.

We try to make sense of the world and ourselves by compacting the things we see into some meaningful boxes. Especially we do this to other people we meet. Now instead of taking the whole collection of beliefs, we just pick a few of the most dominant (most dominant we see in a particular situation that is) and make it a neat package we can understand. But that ain’t the worldview by a long shot. Its just some cardboard figure we just spawned from our assumptions.

The oblivious live in a world full of cardboard figures.

And it’s not all bad, since simplification does have some very good advantages. But it is the balance of thought that we should seek after – the balance between simple and intricate. Have you met people, that spend most of their time inside the cardboard world? They are people, that are not easily drawn to the complex perspective hunting. They just see a certain kind of a world, but don’t usually stop to ponder it that much. They sneer or utter a laughter, when you try to imply something which doesn’t fit their worldview. If you insist on the matter, and get them to see things in a new way, their whole worldview gets shaken, since its not particularly flexible. Its a huge change for them, a revelation if you will.

Then there are people, who live in a world of constant complexity and change of thought. You cannot shake their thoughts as easily as you can shake the thoughts of the oblivious. They adapt to new thoughts better, but that is not to say they approve every new thought. They understand, that our world, our worldview and our view of others is a complex matter, a collection of beliefs and views, which are sometimes contradicting each other. But this view can be daunting, for it does not give a minute of rest. The constant complexity takes its toll.

And here we come to the interplay of the definitions, since most people are something inbetween of those examples above. There are many grades of complexity, and different people opt to choose different grades, depending on which setting fits them best. Some people choose to close their mind at a certain age and head for the more simple end of the spectrum. I can’t begin to understand all the different reasons they may have for this, as the mind works in such many ways. But i think its important for us to try to see and feel the variance in the world and in the people – including ourselves. Otherwise we miss so much, and in the end we have lived a life without never knowing ourselves or the important “whys” of our existence.

Where is there a good line between simple and intricate, between assuming and wondering, between cardboard figures and a sea of complexity?