of course there's tons of work stuff to be done, but i'm not at all concerned with that.

i have been researching thomas merton, and i think i would like to get "the seven storey mountain" and see what that's all about. i really wish i had better words for the spiritual things i feel. i mean, it seems strange to even call them that.

"spiritual things". what's wrong with me.

how am i supposed to have both in me, the fine toothed comb of my faculty of reason and then all this other stuff.

this messy stuff...i can't even work out very well its quality. how frightening it is to have a whole (assumedly important) part of you that you have uncomfortable access and understanding of.

i don't want to say that this part is, by nature, inaccessible by reason. i don't even know what it would be to have a part of oneself that is completely inaccessible to reason. that almost seems as though i would be saying that it is outside of my experiencing self, in which case, how would i be aware of it at all.

however.

i must recognize that i have deep, deep, fundamental problems with this. 'this' being the figuring out of this other part of me that at least appears (on the surface) to be completely at odds with everything that i find important and that i respect about myself.

meaning:

if i hold my intelligence and my ability to reason mindfully without being hampered by things like emotions when thinking about important issues as important and, in a lot of ways, central to my personality, this me-ness, what am i to think of this other part of myself that i can't even find the ground rules for such that i could use my reason to figure it out?

i take 'this part' to be the part that is, for lack of a better term, completely unsettled and not at all conducive to critical scrutiny.

perhaps it's only my emotional self. the part of me that is all that gross messy feeling junk.

but i don't know that that is really it. it seems almost more fundamental than that.

every time i try and work this all out it seems as if i am missing an integral part of the discussion or information.

any time i try, i hit brick walls, i find myself ashamed, i find myself feeling childish. as if the notion of god and the longings i have for contemplative life were foolish in and of itself, as i am unclear as to whether or not the question of the existence of god can even be answered.

and these feelings and confusions are deep, painful...they often pull at me harder than any yearning i may have for romantic love. no, they definitely do. i can't even put the two in the same universe of thought/feeling.

one of the people i trust most on this subject contends that the longing for romantic love is really a longing for spiritual love; that is, when one falls in love, they are really reaching out to god. or something.

i don't think i got that right. i'll have to email her and see if she can give me the idea again, or at least the name of the book.

wait, i think jason knows.

in any event:

if i am sceptical as to whether or not one (or we, as thinkers) can answer the question of whether or not god exists, why am i so preoccupied (in the deep parts inside) with the contemplative life?

i. don't. know.

what makes things worse is that i have yet to find a tradition with which i resonate. i feel utterly isolated in this belief/longing/desire/search, even though obviously i am not.

i wish i could take what i like from various traditions to try to work out some sort of spiritual belief system, but one must be very careful to not slide into the salad version of religion or spirituality.

so, over and over again, i find myself at a loss.

perhaps i should read some buber. or cs lewis.

perhaps i should get over myself.

i wish i knew what to do, or what direction to point myself with.

i wish, also, that i didn't feel so alone in this.

most of the people i respect are either hardcore atheists or catholic. or krisna devotees.