“Consciousness is better than consequences.”
This was what Judge Amy Gray said on last week’s episode of Judging Amy – which is in its sixth and final season – when she delivered the verdict in a case involving an early teen as plaintiff, charged for his excessive pranks in school.
That line grabbed my attention so intently; it literally jolted me up from my post-dinner carbohydrate-induced slumber on the couch in the living area at home.
Consciousness, as she defined it, involves an awareness of the implications of your actions. But it would be reasonable to contend that for somebody to be conscious in this sense, one would first need to be self-reflexive.
Being self-reflexive is the ability to “de-centre” one self – stepping out of yourself and not only consider things from another perspective, but being able to see the point of the other perspective, which involves a higher level of acceptance in a sense.
Yet, somewhat paradoxically, while such an ability to de-centre helps expands my scope of the world, it also paralyses me, and increases my ambivalence. This is exacerbated by my lack of clarity about my beliefs system and what I subscribe to.
What this translates into is my inability to surrender totally to God’s scheme of things. At cell group Friday night, I was just reminded that this is precisely the reason that I am holding off being confirmed in church.
But more than that, this has manifested itself in many different forms in the last few weeks.
xxx
A few days ago, I decided to read the term papers I did last semester just to get an idea of the kind of standard I need to replicate for the slew of term papers for this semester I am supposed to start on this weekend.
I thought it might be good since I have not written any for this semester yet, and since it has been quite a while, I might have forgotten what it takes to write a quality paper.
Instead of giving me a much needed boost of confidence, I wondered how I managed to write such sophisticated arguments. I wondered, for a moment, whether I actually wrote those pieces.
Well, the straight answer was and should be a categorical “no" despite conventional human logic.
It was at that time, I realised once again that God answered my prayers last semester by giving me those words to fill my essay with. I distinctly remembered giving up and telling God to take charge last semester – to clear my mind, and to fill it with whatever he wants me to write.
But instead of encouraging me, I had a mini panic attack.
So should I therefore, start praying and doing as before? But doing so does not quite “count” as it was before – since I am now praying with the specific aim of maintaining those excellent grades. Wouldn’t that be praying with wrong motives?
But even if I do pray with the right motives now, the desire to want to get those exceptional grades would still be lingering at the back of my mind. Unlike before when I prayed simply for God to help me do my best, I cannot honestly say now that my heart and desire is pure in that regard.
Quite simply, I want those A+ grades again. Praying then becomes a means to an end, which really should not be in any case.
Calling this a catch-22 situation would be a total understatement.
xxx
And then there is my critical spirit getting the better of me, especially in church or Christian-related events.
I get very affected whenever a sermon is preached in a very myopic/judgmental manner or when the song choice or music arrangement is just plain bad during worship.
It gets so bad that I cannot worship at all. During sermons, when I have the energy, my mind would go into overdrive questioning the basis for the speaker’s assumptions; on a bad day, I just simply switch off.
The only people who have commanded my total attention in church lately have been Pastors Rennis, Joshua and Stanley – somehow these three men are able to preach in a way that reflects an acute awareness of the nuances of their words and the socio-political context of whatever topic they are preaching on.
It is important to develop a critical faculty, but it is quite another to allow it to get the better of me in these situations.
While relying on church sermons for spiritual growth and worship services for my “dose” of worship is not the way to go, I still see the value of church since it might be the dose of divine inspiration or encouragement I need every once in a while.
xxx
I have also detected a trend in my emotional state of mind – the first semesters of all the three academic years since I matriculated in Aug. 04 as an undergraduate has been hell for me.
For this year and the last at least, I have been getting quite emotionally dependent on some people around me. I get very affected when they do not do things the way I expect them to – the only difference about last year and this year, is somehow I better know how to manage my emotions this time round.
But it still does not remove the fact I should really not be dwelling on what could be when I should not be thinking this way – things are more complicated because I spend quite a substantial amount of time with these people.
I should really project my needs on God, but it is really easier said than done since God is something so “intangible” compared to people whom you hang out with so much.
I think I would do what I usually do in these situations – stop hanging out so much with these people. It might be quite anti-social, but I am just running away from what could potentially consume me – because after what almost happened last year, I really do not want to put myself in that position again.
xxx
I blame sociology for my heightened self-reflexity.
But Diana, my social work friend in her fourth year contends it is not discipline-specific. Rather, it has got to do more generally with our level of education.
In essence, knowledge and wisdom are not mutually inclusive. While we might gain more knowledge by being in university, we might not be gaining more wisdom by studying so much because in knowing so much, we lose our “simplicity” in a sense.
Yet this “simplicity” is not something we conventionally understand it to be. I guess it is a positive simplicity, as opposed to a negative simplicity which implies an uncritical acceptance of the status quo and being utterly oblivious.
While consciousness is certainly better than consequences, the presence of consciousness does not necessarily prevent consequences, since it is also a matter of choice – since in order to render consciousness effective, I need to choose.
And I can only do that if I know where I am coming from.
It may sound like a truism and a circular argument, but if you can get over that fact, maybe there can also be some amount of truth in this.
This was what Judge Amy Gray said on last week’s episode of Judging Amy – which is in its sixth and final season – when she delivered the verdict in a case involving an early teen as plaintiff, charged for his excessive pranks in school.
That line grabbed my attention so intently; it literally jolted me up from my post-dinner carbohydrate-induced slumber on the couch in the living area at home.
Consciousness, as she defined it, involves an awareness of the implications of your actions. But it would be reasonable to contend that for somebody to be conscious in this sense, one would first need to be self-reflexive.
Being self-reflexive is the ability to “de-centre” one self – stepping out of yourself and not only consider things from another perspective, but being able to see the point of the other perspective, which involves a higher level of acceptance in a sense.
Yet, somewhat paradoxically, while such an ability to de-centre helps expands my scope of the world, it also paralyses me, and increases my ambivalence. This is exacerbated by my lack of clarity about my beliefs system and what I subscribe to.
What this translates into is my inability to surrender totally to God’s scheme of things. At cell group Friday night, I was just reminded that this is precisely the reason that I am holding off being confirmed in church.
But more than that, this has manifested itself in many different forms in the last few weeks.
xxx
A few days ago, I decided to read the term papers I did last semester just to get an idea of the kind of standard I need to replicate for the slew of term papers for this semester I am supposed to start on this weekend.
I thought it might be good since I have not written any for this semester yet, and since it has been quite a while, I might have forgotten what it takes to write a quality paper.
Instead of giving me a much needed boost of confidence, I wondered how I managed to write such sophisticated arguments. I wondered, for a moment, whether I actually wrote those pieces.
Well, the straight answer was and should be a categorical “no" despite conventional human logic.
It was at that time, I realised once again that God answered my prayers last semester by giving me those words to fill my essay with. I distinctly remembered giving up and telling God to take charge last semester – to clear my mind, and to fill it with whatever he wants me to write.
But instead of encouraging me, I had a mini panic attack.
So should I therefore, start praying and doing as before? But doing so does not quite “count” as it was before – since I am now praying with the specific aim of maintaining those excellent grades. Wouldn’t that be praying with wrong motives?
But even if I do pray with the right motives now, the desire to want to get those exceptional grades would still be lingering at the back of my mind. Unlike before when I prayed simply for God to help me do my best, I cannot honestly say now that my heart and desire is pure in that regard.
Quite simply, I want those A+ grades again. Praying then becomes a means to an end, which really should not be in any case.
Calling this a catch-22 situation would be a total understatement.
xxx
And then there is my critical spirit getting the better of me, especially in church or Christian-related events.
I get very affected whenever a sermon is preached in a very myopic/judgmental manner or when the song choice or music arrangement is just plain bad during worship.
It gets so bad that I cannot worship at all. During sermons, when I have the energy, my mind would go into overdrive questioning the basis for the speaker’s assumptions; on a bad day, I just simply switch off.
The only people who have commanded my total attention in church lately have been Pastors Rennis, Joshua and Stanley – somehow these three men are able to preach in a way that reflects an acute awareness of the nuances of their words and the socio-political context of whatever topic they are preaching on.
It is important to develop a critical faculty, but it is quite another to allow it to get the better of me in these situations.
While relying on church sermons for spiritual growth and worship services for my “dose” of worship is not the way to go, I still see the value of church since it might be the dose of divine inspiration or encouragement I need every once in a while.
xxx
I have also detected a trend in my emotional state of mind – the first semesters of all the three academic years since I matriculated in Aug. 04 as an undergraduate has been hell for me.
For this year and the last at least, I have been getting quite emotionally dependent on some people around me. I get very affected when they do not do things the way I expect them to – the only difference about last year and this year, is somehow I better know how to manage my emotions this time round.
But it still does not remove the fact I should really not be dwelling on what could be when I should not be thinking this way – things are more complicated because I spend quite a substantial amount of time with these people.
I should really project my needs on God, but it is really easier said than done since God is something so “intangible” compared to people whom you hang out with so much.
I think I would do what I usually do in these situations – stop hanging out so much with these people. It might be quite anti-social, but I am just running away from what could potentially consume me – because after what almost happened last year, I really do not want to put myself in that position again.
xxx
I blame sociology for my heightened self-reflexity.
But Diana, my social work friend in her fourth year contends it is not discipline-specific. Rather, it has got to do more generally with our level of education.
In essence, knowledge and wisdom are not mutually inclusive. While we might gain more knowledge by being in university, we might not be gaining more wisdom by studying so much because in knowing so much, we lose our “simplicity” in a sense.
Yet this “simplicity” is not something we conventionally understand it to be. I guess it is a positive simplicity, as opposed to a negative simplicity which implies an uncritical acceptance of the status quo and being utterly oblivious.
While consciousness is certainly better than consequences, the presence of consciousness does not necessarily prevent consequences, since it is also a matter of choice – since in order to render consciousness effective, I need to choose.
And I can only do that if I know where I am coming from.
It may sound like a truism and a circular argument, but if you can get over that fact, maybe there can also be some amount of truth in this.
1 comment:
We are living in an age of reflexive modernity.
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