Hey, Look at Me, Causing a Catastrophe

At the end of his writing entitled Harijan, Mohandas Ghandi wrote the following passage:

"Indeed the sum total of the experience of mankind is that men somehow or other live on. From which fact I infer that it is the law of love that rules mankind....and yet the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence. It gives me ineffable joy to make experiments proving that love is the supreme and only law in life."

Many would read these words of Ghandi and only see some idealistic vision of flower-children who only desire peace, love, and happiness, but Ghandi saw that the best of mankind could be found in this devotion to the needs and goods of others. Jesus talked about the same thing when he was asked about the greatest commands found in the body of scripture. I am not sure if this idea of love is so revolutionary because it is in contrast to our nature as humans to selfishly seek our own self interest or because it is really how we were meant to live all along, and we find this immense sense of joy and danger in becoming who we were always meant to be.

Current Listening: "Welcoming Home the Astronauts" by Flickerstick.

I finished reading "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" by Aron Ralston today. The story of his survival is incredible, and the account of his struggle against powerful internal voices in the midst of what could have potentially could have been a situation where he simply accepted his fate and died in the canyon, but he constantly took care to prepare for rescue. Eventually he did the unthinkable in amputating his own arm, and he only arrived at that point because of the work that he did in not allowing himself to lose hope during his entrapment.

Today, I began "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" by Dave Eggers. I was a huge fan of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", so my expectations are pretty high.

One of my favorite parts about writing on this blog has been the variety of topics that I have written on in this space. Sometimes I will go on long stretches writing about personal experiences and thoughts, but other times I will focus on issues that affect us globally. Sometimes I have no idea what I am going to write until I sit down each day, but I trust and believe that the words that appear on the screen are there for a reason. I hope this blog/journal has been a blessing for those of you who read it, I know it has been for me. I look forward to the time each day when I can write, and I am very glad that I will be able to continue through the summer. May you be blessed today.