Take Your Time

This quarter more than any other i have been faced to challenge my beliefs and how i view the world that i live in. While taking Soc 1 with O'Connel and taking IS 11, with two Marxist professors, i found they bring very good points up about life in a capitalistic society or a colonialist society where one must suffer in order to keep another on top which give birth to the idea of Social Darwinism. Therefore you can say Americans are born into a competitive world, but the question is why? 

In trying to understand this point i find myself facing my beliefs on Christianity and how they affect my perception on life. In class i had learned that Christianity was a tool that politicians used ever since the formation of our country and i initially was very upset thinking Christianity is perfect in every way no matter how much i struggle with it. However, the question transformed into what makes a religion a religion and i believe that you yourself create what you believe and therefore the only person that tells you what is right and wrong is yourself. This lead me down a path where i started to think that institutionalizing Christianity does nothing for faith but hinder it by giving the religion stereotypes. This broadened my scope to think about national religions and how those seriously take away from what faith is all about, for example the numerous wars that have been fought under a religion when most religions go against the very idea of war. Therefore at times it makes no sense spiritually to gather and meet other than to support one another in your faith which is a positive thing, but in actually all it does is put people against each other because they want to be right. However, the definition of right is so controversial to begin with. 

This brings me to my next point which is how the word "right" changes so much based on your perspective that is attain through time. As a child i use to think my grandpa was wrong in stating the church has so many hypocrites and how he refused to go to a church. This was due to the fact that i had been raised since birth to always attend church and thought it was a place of fellowship and worship, but i could not see the politics behind the church that provided these things. In this sense i do not blame the church because as much as they want to be available for everyone it is hard when you must pay for rent and facilities in a capitalistic government, therefore stressing about having enough money to support the church. Therefore the part about my grandpa which i disliked so much after 5 years has become something that i had learned to understand and the biggest eye opener is that neither of us were right, but the fact is that the way our system has been set up it is inevitable to do much without money. The church which was suppose to be a place of support became a place of reliance on others donations and the government that was suppose to help its people relied on the money of its people in order to function. This brought me to understand just how unforgiving our country is when you don't have money yet when you do everything seems wonderful.   

Once again from that thought my mind shifted gears again to knowledge and how it changes you as a person. From when you were little and did not understand the workings of the world so in blind ignorance you would follow what you were taught. To rebelling against the world because you learn for yourself that this institution you have been breed into has fed you falsehoods and half-truths. To finally, you in a journey to find out who you are and throw away all those preconceived notions in order to for the first time step out and figure out what you, yourself want to learn as your truth. This is the on going journey that i have found myself in as i would constantly think of many random things and connected one dot to another in order to try and paint a complete picture but always fall short. I had dinner with my family last night and my grandpa was talking and once again i listened to the man who i thought was half hysteric and came to realize that he is a very wise man who i would not be able to comprehend but am slowly starting to in the slightest of ways. This was a scary thought for me as  i realized how vast the word knowledge was and how the only way to understand it is through time. Therefore as i start my journey to let my brain explore within itself and dig for the truth that i desperately search for, i start by taking a deep breathe and telling myself:

                                          take your time because that is what it takes! 

P.S. - Sorry my thoughts are pretty scattered and i'm sure it is hard to follow but that is really how my brain thinks and how i come to the conclusion that i do =0p