Religion
I finished up my Blockbuster Online stint with A.I., What Dreams May Come and Schindler's List...light viewing all around. All three movies deal with the theme of existence in different ways, which is as deep and complicated a concept as there is. It's stories like these that make you reassess your own life and wonder where your individual potential lies. I was raised Catholic; Andrew and I were altar boys and went to CCD (weekly religious education classes) through high school. We were fortunate to have an incredible pastor at our hometown church; Father Martin is the man. Like most people, while growing older I've questioned the church and sought answers for individual issues of morality, and this has often created conflict with the Roman Catholic doctrine. But there's no religion out there that is always going to fit 100% perfectly with all my personal beliefs, which have changed with age, education and environment.
The story of Schindler's List was an extraordinary situation, but the fact remains that Schindler's actions were responsible for saving over a thousand lives, which has multiplied to four times that today throughout family generations. All religion aside - holy crap, that's an incredible way to spend a life. Sort of makes you feel guilty playing Mario Kart and watching a Laguna Beach rerun.
I don't know what's in store for me after death. The end of my existence, the start of eternal life, or another adventure altogether. I can't comprehend any of them, and it scares me if I try to. I do believe in God. I've seen the best (parishioners building homes for the poor in Haiti) and worst (a priest embezzling church funds for a vacation home) of organized religion at the very church I grew up with. Whatever the case, I want to live my time here to the fullest potential. And yeah, Mario Kart has a place in that picture, because it's making me happy, and sometimes keeps 1-3 other people happy if we're playing battle mode. Life is made up of individual experiences that continually change and shape us, hopefully into a better person than we were yesterday. The failures and the successes each have value.
The high demands of Portfolio Center have disciplined me into more of a workaholic than ever before, but I also feel that I've created and accomplished more here than ever before in my life. That includes a heck of a lot of necessary failures. I hope that every remaining day of my life challenges me to become a better person and somehow make the world a little bit of a better place, no matter what the final outcome of life.
Wednesday, October 5 at 7:42 PM
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