| "So care not for owning books and knowledge, but care rather for the works of goodness"
I try to avoid quoting St. Francis, but I find it to be a wonderful justification for my old selling books on amazon.com.
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| It is strange that whenever I face the blinking cursor of the blank blog text box I respond in kind: with much blinking and blank mindedness. Maybe I am an apophatic blogger, but that is not very interesting.
Perhaps I should brew a cup of coffee and give it another try. A strong cup-o-joe can animate even the most inert phantasms of the mind.
Women lie.
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| I work on a laundry truck. Basically, I sit in the back of a box truck and scan in bags of laundry that Emory students bring to the truck. It's fairly mindless labor and if it is slow enough I am able to get some work done. On Friday I was working on an outline for a paper I am writing on Qoheleth (otherwise known as Ecclesiastes, the topic of a couple of my latest blog entries... not Saw V). One girl brings her bag and while I'm scanning it in, asks me what I'm working on. She asks me to explain some of the main ideas in Qoheleth to her and she frowns and responds, "Interesting... sounds very Buddhist".
It was clear she didn't like the "depressing" message and she may have used categorization to distance herself from it. This is a little difficult for me to fathom because I find the message to be inherently positive and empowering in a very realistic way. As the conversation continued, it was clear that she didn't like the idea that there is no real profit or accumulation that survives past death.
Is the profitless nature of transient human existence a problem or an encouragement?
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| Saw V??? Are you serious?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132626/
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| Well... good.
(Edit, Qoheleth is the "Preacher" character in Ecclesiastes)
It's really popular to psychoanalyze Qoheleth and construe the content of the book to be the ramblings of a depressed man. In saying that there is no profit in life and that everything is fleeting, the author exhibits a loss of motivation and enjoyment of former pleasures. Apparently, Qoheleth has lost his grip, may be suicidal, and needs therapy.
I don't like this reading for a few reasons. I don't believe that psychoanalysis has any place in Biblical Studies. Particularly in the OT, the writings are often conglomerates of materials from several authors, so any attempt to assess the psychological health of an author will fail. Second, the writings themselves are hardly comprehensive enough to provide a basis for determining anything about the author's psychological health. Third, it's impossible to know if the standards for psychological health are applicable to people who lived over 2000 years ago. The way of life and perceptions of reality are entirely different and could have a profound effect on what constitutes a healthy outlook on life.
Most people who psychoanalyze Qoheleth will invariable acknowledge these points; however, they move forward with the analysis anyway, as if acknowledging the inadequacy of psychoanalysis on Biblical texts is enough to overcome it. This analysis is a distraction from the main thrust of the book: there is nothing to gain or accumulate in this life. The only good thing is to work hard, invest your time wisely, anticipate the worse, and, above all, enjoy all pleasurable and good things that come to you. Perhaps those who psychoanalyze Qoheleth should evaluate how they are able to enjoy what comes to them in a consumer driven society. I won't push the criticism any further though, I might be subject to my own criticism.
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