College and Userpations

College is a great time for students such as myself, a time where I can learn about myself and about God. Over the past month that I have been at college I have learned so much about God, but I feel that I am in the same predicament as I was when I was at home. I am too comfortable. Philosophers of the 19th century were focussed on transcending about human expectations, above human culture, and above human society. The only way they were able to accomplish that goal was to go into nature, pure, wonderful, untouched nature. While studying such philosophers I have often wondered why our culture does not practice the philosophy of the 19th century writers. The idea has great value and when practiced it has provided intended results, unlike the experiences that we face today. In order to answer said question I must discuss the philosophy, along with the society of the 19th century. After I have discussed the situation I then must compare the both today's society and the society of the 19th century.

The philosophy of the transcendentalists was that in order to gain happiness or enjoyment for life one must go back to his roots and experience nature and existence for himself. The way that the 19th century writers experienced this was to go into nature and find true beauty, they must completely live in nature and experience life in the way that the first men experienced it. The belief is that the original homosapiens did not experience trivial problems such as fear of recieving a promotion fear of not providing for your family. The belief was that the things created by humans to make lifes easier in turn made life stressful and the only way to get rid of that stress is to get into nature and simply be. "Be" without worrying about ones job, "be" without worrying about the community, "be" without the man made objects that have caused so much comotion.

This belief seems radical to the people of the 21st century because we live in a time where most of the world population lives in urban or suburban areas. However, in order to understand this philosophy one must look into the life of a typical 19th century writer and his society. A typical philosopher of the 19th century was of the elite culture, he was educated, probably gone through years and years of schooling, and possibly living off the wealth of his family. Truthfully most of the 19th century philosophers lived a comfortable life and they were able to coast on their families money for quite a while. When a philosopher would go and try to discover the simple things that make him a human and that make him unique, essentially when he tries to discover himself, he has trouble, because up until the point that he is able to question who he is, he has not had the opportunity to be himself, but rather the person that his parents and university proffessors have made him to be. Thus he must find a way to discover who he is. As he looks into society he constantly sees a barage of people telling him who he should be, what he should, and how he should act: society presents "manners" as a necessity and not a simple commodity which helps society function more appropriately and thus "manners" force one to act in such a way that he must immitate the actions of everyone around him. Where would one look? because one did not live in a world where he could fly himself to the jungles of south america, or drive north to a culture that is far different from his own. He must dig deep to a place where life is not defined by what one does and how he acts but instead look to a place where he can simply be. That place is nature. nature would not be a far off choice, in the 19th century there was still accessable nature where one could rome safely contrary to our culture where if one does decide to live in nature he must face harsh cold climates of Alaska, or be in fear of undeveloped cultures attacking in the jungles of South America. Nature was present and not hard to find, though scary, it was accessable by many.

In our 21st century culture we are not confrontated with as much livable nature, much of the nature that we can see has been set aside and used by the government as a tourist trap to allow its citizens to see beauty which had been discovered previously rather than allowing us to observe beauty for ourselves (refer to the Phiolopher Berger). But though we do not have an abundance of nature we have transcended beyond the need of nature. We have created for ourselves situations that seem far off and crazy situations that allow us to "be" and "be happy." In the United States of America we are able to experience many different cultures in a way that allows us to choose which culture fits us, which culture makes us happy. Not only do we have this in the United States but at this time continental travel is becoming easier and easier (which due to politics is now becoming slightly harder, but still much easier than it was in the 19th century). As humans we long to find out who we are, and it seems that due to the beliefs of the transcendentalist we must become uncomfortable by leaving the life we have become accustomed to and go to a place where we can simply "be."

Though must of this has nothing to do with what I am going through, I think it is great to think about as I process my choice of where I will end up next semester. I have come to Manhattan Christian College because it is close to home and it allows me to live comfortably, if I ever have a problem I can either be home in two hours or I can find someone who i knew from highschool and be comfortable again. As I think about the transcendentalist I try to imagine myself leaving the culture which I have grown accustomed to and leaving to a very cold culture where I do not have to ability to drive two hours to see family or where I will not have friends from home to talk to, I simply cannot bring myself to do it, even if I do it to transcend. I cannot see myself transcending but I can see myself leaving Kansas. I guess as I write this I have realized that my entire reasoning behind college is based on what I want to do with my life, and how I should live it in order to gain true satisfaction, though I am not looking at the bigger picture here. There is a God who has seen it all, who has seen me stay in Kansas, the same God has also seen me move to Minnessota, and the same God has seen me move to California. I should not be looking for my own satisfaction, because I do not know what will happen no matter where I go, if I go oneplace my life could be completely destroyed and I will live in pain for the 70 years. If I go another palce I could be happy, but I don't know the outcome of anything that I do. Only God knows what is best for my life, and I must seek his direction in anything I do. I shouldn't worry about transcending in order to find out about who I am but instead I should just listen and Go! I will learn so much about myself and God will teach me so many great things if I just listen to him for he has a plan for my life and I know that he is a perfect God.

So basically disregard everything and listen to God

AMH