Aquel

"Isn't an agnostic just an atheist without balls?" - Stephen Colbert

Without labels, Homo sapiens wouldn't be able to function on a daily basis. We wouldn't be able to lump things together, put things in "pretty little boxes," or choose what to focus our attention on. Without labels and filters and other methods for categorizing, we would all be autistic (a disorder that is in part characterized by the inability to distinguish the important and the superfluous) or perhaps we would all be best-selling authors like Malcolm Gladwell (who says that to be a writer is a daily battle to "convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell"). 

This classifying has spread to even the most private parts of our lives. I can tell you that every long-running television series has an episode where a character (or characters) is pressured into defining the sexual relationship they are currently in. Recently, this plotline has morphed into the concept of "Facebook official" which essentially suggests that no one is off the proverbial market until their online relationship status is no longer set to single. 

And while this labeling may be all well and good, I refuse to paint myself into a corner when it comes to my religious beliefs. I still haven't found a word that comes close to describing my core philosophy (but maybe I should trying searching in German, language of the all-encompassing, 30-letter words). I shudder to think of assigning myself to any religious tradition -- mainstream or obscure. While I see all religions in as complex and colorful terms as any other open-minded first- amendment advocate, I can't suppress the less-than-positive thoughts that spring into my head when people say they are Christian (homophobic? self-righteous?), Buddhist (oh, right, like you actually give up everything), Scientologist (really?). 


And on an even deeper level, I just don't know if I am certain. The religious seem so certain. I feel like I'm bopping along, doing my best, trying to reach my goals without hurting anyone along the way. I don't think that I can say with 100% certainty that our Father art in heaven or that His kingdom will come, or that Allah hands out at virgins at heaven's gate, or that there are many gods, or just one God. But this means that, by my own logic, I cannot say that there are no gods. I suppose, having eliminated all other words, I am left with two labels to choose from: agnostic and aquel.

Agnostic is a common term for a religious philosophy of "I just don't know." Aquel is a Spanish word meaning "the object farthest away from where I currently am." It was used as word for God by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in his famous story "The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths." While aquel could be seen by some as a romanticized word for "I don't know," I see it as both an admission of ignorance and the embrace of it. 

In the end, what I will try to do is live by the Golden Rule, work to transcend, work to change the things that I can, remind myself that all human beings are divine, and be loyal to who I am. And the rest can go to aquel. 

To Rest in a Hollow

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash between right and right. - Amos Oz

The first episode of "The West Wing" after the September 11th attacks was called "Isaac and Ishamel" and it focused on a group of touring high school students who discussed terrorism with the White House senior staff. In one scene, the students and some of the president's men sit in the basement cafeteria, where the story of Isaac and Ishamel, the two sons of Abraham, is told. As the First Lady tells the students, "And so it began: the Jews, the sons of Isaac. The Arabs, the sons of Ishmael. But what most people find important to remember is that, in the end, the two sons came together to bury their father."

The situation in the country known as Israel is nothing new. Since biblical times, the Jews have lost and regained, and lost and regained, their claim over a plot of sand in a highly volatile region. The problems have been going on since the Jews were given this land by God. Then, in the 7th century, the Arab Muslims came and reigned. And after the Holocaust a thoroughly downtrodden people returned once again, this time triumphant. They created their own state and forced the Muslim population (49% of the country's total population) into settlements. 

When it comes to resolving this issue, one will find it difficult to take land from people who believe their Creator bestowed it upon them. And one will find it equally challenging to take land that one man's family has been living on for over a thousand years. It is undoubtedly an issue between right and right. But if the Israelis and the Palestinians don't work it out soon, the only thing they will have to bury is their country. 

Muggle Magic

For me, writing is natural.  When I sit down and get into the groove, my fingers whiz across the keyboard, moving so nimbly as to call comparisons to time-elapse photographs or Dash from "The Incredibles."  On more than one occasion I have astonished myself with the words on the page in front of me.  The ideas flow from a place so deep inside, I am not even cognizant of the idea's arrival until I read my work. 

Surely this is the peculiar experience that led to the belief in the Muses so long ago.  As much as I would like to, I cannot take responsibility for these strokes of creativity, so I give it up to a higher power.  (And yet, I have no problem taking responsibility for the writer's block that comes as frequently as the textbook Csikszentmihalyi flow state.) 

But this remarkable feeling of other worldliness, however electrifying, is not the only reason I want to make a career out of writing.  I want to be a writer because I believe in the words of Albus Dumbledore who said that "words are our most inexhaustible source of magic."  This is illustrated scientifically in studies carried out by Philip Davis of the University of Liverpool, whose team analyzed the chemical processes carried out by the brain in Shakespeare's writing. 

The je ne sais quoi of arguably the greatest writer in history can be summed up, much less romantically, as filled with "moments of grammatical ambiguity but semantic revelation." When we mere mortals read works by the Bard, our brain reacts almost simultaneously with confusion and understanding.  The juxtaposition of these two feelings gives us pleasure, visible on an EEG scan, and on our faces.

But this magic is also illustrated qualitatively in the things, both good and bad, that words do on a daily basis.  Everything from carefully crafted phrases that stick with us for years ("if it doesn't fit, you must acquit") and slimy requests that still needle us today ("define what 'is' is"), to words that unite us ("ask not what your country can do for you. . .") and make us look inside ourselves ("I have a dream"). 

In the end, writing is a way to find and spread truth, love, hope, and all the other intangibles that are the hallmarks of humanity.