grinninfoole (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
grinninfoole) wrote2010-09-30 10:51 am
grinninfoole) wrote2010-09-30 10:51 am
Entry tags:
Gifted
Probably boring whinging:
I don’t believe in a personal deity, or a vitalist universe, or any other interested consciousness to which I can, in general, direct my prayers. The world, and particularly the circumstances into which we are born, are all random, so there’s no point in thanking or blaming “God” or anyone else. Yet, I find myself thinking about my life as if there were, because I have been thinking of my life as a gift.
Specifically, along the lines Marcel Mauss wrote about in The Gift. One thing he illuminated for me was that gifts must reciprocal. It doesn’t matter how big or small the gift is: if it matters to you, you must return something of equal value. If you don’t do that, the imbalance (karmic, psychic or otherwise) will eventually poison and kill you.
My life has been an extended gift of prosperity and privilege and advantages that I didn’t earn, but were given to me by virtue of my skin color, ethnicity, accent, and so on in general, and by my parents’ affluence in particular. And this sense that I don’t deserve it, that I have been given a gift that I haven’t returned, feels like it’s slowly killing me.
I need to find a way to pay this emotional debt before it’s too late. Which is why it’s too bad there’s no God; not only can I not ask Him what He’d like, I also don’t have a simple set of parameters on which to fix as a change my life. How much do I need to reinvent myself? What will actually feel worthwhile?
I don’t believe in a personal deity, or a vitalist universe, or any other interested consciousness to which I can, in general, direct my prayers. The world, and particularly the circumstances into which we are born, are all random, so there’s no point in thanking or blaming “God” or anyone else. Yet, I find myself thinking about my life as if there were, because I have been thinking of my life as a gift.
Specifically, along the lines Marcel Mauss wrote about in The Gift. One thing he illuminated for me was that gifts must reciprocal. It doesn’t matter how big or small the gift is: if it matters to you, you must return something of equal value. If you don’t do that, the imbalance (karmic, psychic or otherwise) will eventually poison and kill you.
My life has been an extended gift of prosperity and privilege and advantages that I didn’t earn, but were given to me by virtue of my skin color, ethnicity, accent, and so on in general, and by my parents’ affluence in particular. And this sense that I don’t deserve it, that I have been given a gift that I haven’t returned, feels like it’s slowly killing me.
I need to find a way to pay this emotional debt before it’s too late. Which is why it’s too bad there’s no God; not only can I not ask Him what He’d like, I also don’t have a simple set of parameters on which to fix as a change my life. How much do I need to reinvent myself? What will actually feel worthwhile?