Several months ago (November, to be exact) I talked about a post I wanted to write called "Why Jurassic Park is Like Christianity." The premise of it was derived from one of my late-night Wikipedia excursions where, instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour like a sane human being, I flitted from link to link about random, disjointed subjects; from people who have recently died to string theory to GWAR; like a bumble bee of information, pollinating anything bright and colorful that seemed interesting to look at. I had landed on the entry for Jurassic Park (the book) and spent some time thinking about what a great book it is and how long it had been since I read it and wondering whether or not I could find it in the avalanche of books and papers strewn about my home due to an extreme lack of sufficient space to organize them all.
The thing that stuck out to me most, though, was a statement that the article made about the idea of Jurassic Park (the fictional place) being "an unsustainable simple structure bluntly forced upon a complex system." Maybe it was due to the fact that I was 10 the first time I read it, or maybe it was because the last time I read it was five years ago when I was high, but I never really thought about that as being a major theme of the book. I always kinda just read it as a really creative story in which a lot of people get eaten. In fairness, the novel never explicitly states the "unsustainable" idea in those exact terms and it's difficult to latch onto something so abstract when you're 10 (or high). But, thinking back on it, I think that's pretty much the whole point of Jurassic Park. The entire story is a description of a very tightly-controlled and closely monitored operation descending into complete and utter chaos for no other reason than the simple fact that things don't always go according to plan.
I thought about that idea in relation to my faith: "an unsustainable simple structure bluntly forced upon a complex system." I really like that phrase. I think it's a very accurate description for how I tend to view a lot of things. I want to have a very "A + B = C" kind of life, where it doesn't take too much brain power to figure out how things add up. I want to have successful relationships solely through making friends with the right kinds of people who are easy to get along with and add value to my life because of how rich and powerful and generous and kind they are. I want to be wealthy and comfortable without having to put in more than 40 hours a week or operate outside the boundaries of a dead-end job where I punch a clock and get paid to stand around and look busy. I want to get all the things I want and give up very little in return and have everything work out for the absolute best in the end, without pain or misery or suffering or loss. In short, I want everything to function on the terms that I determine to be best and never be outside of my control.
But life doesn't really work that way. Like, at all. Nothing cooperates. Nobody listens. Every conceivable change I've ever tried to make has met with incalculable, and in some cases unconquerable resistance. On my best days, I can make it about fifteen minutes without a real problem. Something always comes up. There's so-and-so who I was supposed to e-mail back and never did. There's that thing I've been telling myself I would do for days/weeks/months/years, but continue to put off until later. There's that one friend who I made plans with that flaked out on me. There's that other friend who keeps bugging me for time I don't have or money I shouldn't spend or kindness I can't fake. There are a million other things that, for a million other reasons, are asking for more than I can deliver and stretching me beyond what I can bear. And that's not even mentioning all the "God stuff." So I keep going back to my system, keep trying to reduce things back down to my "A + B" way of living, and keep telling myself that one day it'll work.
I've been sticking with the CR stuff and it's been helping a lot. Not so much in the "I'm a totally different person now who operates in a completely different way than I used to" sense, but more in the sense that I feel like I'm finally starting to get my head wrapped around this idea of accepting my life for what it is, not what I wish it was or what I think it should be. In the book, the people trying to control Jurassic Park didn't realize that there was a problem because their computers were programmed incorrectly. Since they assumed that the dinosaurs couldn't breed, they designed a tracking system based on the total number of dinosaurs they were supposed to have, as opposed to tracking the total number of dinosaurs they actually had. It was only when they calibrated the program without a predetermined limit that they realized that the dinosaurs actually were breeding and the situation was a lot more dire than they originally thought. The CR stuff has been kinda like that.
I don't really know what all of this means, and I think that's why I never finished the original post. I really want to resolve everything with the helicopter flying me off the island and away from all of the people-eating craziness. I believe that one day I'll get to that part of the story, but I won't be around to 'blog about it when I do. And, given everything that this post is about, I think I'm okay with that. I don't need to have a neat little story arc that works itself out in a predictable way. I can exist in the middle, where everything is up in the air and genetically engineered killing machines may jump out of the bushes at any moment. That's just life, I guess.
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