reading

I feel as though I ought to feel some hesitation in writing the following in a blog whose dedicated purpose is to discuss theological and philosophical ideals, but as I yearn to express my voice to some ear - imaginary though it be for such as I within this vast technological realm - I cannot help but herein write out a more personal thought which now besets my mind.

The thought, in question, concerns the manner in which my own sense of value so easily tilts back and forth upon the fulcrum of intelligence, and my sense of intelligence upon the fulcrum of such petty and irrational marks of intellect as to how many books and of what sort I happen to have read.

For one who loves truth, or whose heart yearns to love it, facts themselves prove to share a great deal of importance with the manner of their expression. Indeed, truths and untruths can expressed, although not logically demstrated, not just through propositions, but also through how one chooses to deliver them. My observation on my self is such an expression, because it uses accurate language to make a very silly idea look as silly as it really is, even while I can go spend much time almost fully believing it.

Upon such silliness I can, and should laugh. However, my intense need for justification of myself by claiming the somewhat arbitrary title of a well-read individual becomes impossible to satisfy if is not properly evaluated and dismissed accordingly. In other words, my drive to read more old and famous books is really built, a great deal of the time, around an attitude of "one-up-manship", in which I am in I cannot consider myself a satisfactorally intelligent individual without being "better read" than the next person. In such a situation, I do not easily remember that there will always be a next person maliciously standing as a foil to my humble ambition to become the smartest (i.e. most well read) man alive. (Let alone the smartest human.) Nor do I stop to ask "why is the read man read," from which I would in all probability conclude that it is, in the best scenerious, because of an intense enjoyment of reading, and in worst ones, because of an overwhelming compulsion to attain some kind of status via association with smart people who read a lot. I certainly have no desire to be part of the latter group, and therefore should be like the former in that I do something I enjoy for its own sake without attaching strange kinds of associative importance to certain types of activity, particularly when I do, after all, happen to greatly enjoy reading for its own sake after I have forgotten that doing it is critical my self worth.

I should at least take note of my friend in 10th grade english class who did not did not meet his own expectations of brilliance according to the results of a rather challenging vocabulary quiz, and as a result cynically stated that suicide may be an appropriate recourse. His reaction evoked my pity and sorrow, that he so little respected the wonderful mind which God had given him and that he so needlessly sorrowed himself because of the sense of pride and the false measure of self worth which are so often fellow conspiritors in the downfall of many beautiful gifts of God. I realize that I have done the same, and wish no more bring such sorrow to others, nor before God because of my pride.