Waiting for a Higher Power

This week has been about my search for a "Higher Power." At the same time, I was searching for a kitty name.

On Tuesday, I texted a lady from S-anon:

Me: Can your Higher Power be "randomness"? 

Her: How about chaos? Hee hee. 

Me: I'm serious, tho! Can things like that be a "Higher Power" Or what about just "the universe"? 

Her: OK. Seriously. You get to define your HP in any way that works for you. There are no rules. None none none. You also get to change your definition or allow it to evolve. Bottom line, your HP is YOUR HP. I know several people who think of their HP as the universe, btw. 

Me: Hmmm. Thanks. It's something I've been thinking about cuz I think if I can't get past that hurdle I won't make much progress with the program. 

Her: It's definitely really hard to work the steps without an HP that works for you. 

Me: I blv that everything happens for a reason but somehow I also blv that it's all random so I'm having trouble marrying the two. I'm sure it will come to me in due time. Trying not to rush it...

Later that morning, I talked to my mentor. We talked a little about randomness, and he recommended I read the book "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (totally NOT related to the movie "Black Swan")-- it's funny he recommended that because I'd started it a while back but got distracted by life and never finished.

Rather than trying to explain the premise and butchering it, I will let Amazon do the talking:

"A black swan is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them."

It's an interesting proposition (and a great book). It's one of those that I will have to start completely over because it builds on itself and requires a great deal of attention (at least for me).

I asked him about his religious beliefs. We had never discussed it, but I could tell from our previous conversations that he was a Christian. I explained to him how it is so hard for me to latch onto the idea of religion, God, etc. He recommended that if I wanted to get a good start on it, I should try some reading from Romans or Corinthians.

When I got back to my desk, I texted my friend and coworker, who is very, very religious (her father is a pastor). She just had twins so I knew she wouldn't have time to go too deep into it. But I was having trouble understanding how Christians believe that God gave us free will, but at the same time it's like they believe that God has a plan for us. I wanted to know how much of it is predetermined by God and how much of it is a result of our own decisions and actions. I didn't really get a satisfactory answer, but I knew I couldn't within the context of texting a woman who had twins no more than 2 weeks ago!!

Last night I was watching a re-run of Criminal Minds and one of the quotes was:

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.

"Damn straight!" I thought. I can't force myself to accept this God stuff. I just can't. I'm like Fox Mulder, "I want to believe." But the only reason I want to believe is because I just think life would be easier that way. But wanting to believe isn't enough for someone who needs proof. And I am one of those people.

(Another reason that I can't bring myself to believe in God or be religious is that the only time in my entire life that I have believed is when I was manic and psychotic. And, boy, did I believe it. I read the bible. I saw the devil. I talked to dead people. I had stigmata. God sent me psychic messages through the television...It's difficult for me to accept the idea of God when the only time it's ever made sense to me is when I clearly made no sense at all.)

As far as other religions, the only one that has appeared remotely interesting to me has been Buddhism or maybe Zen Buddhism. I downloaded several books about it and did some research on internet, but nothing really "grabbed" me. I won't rule it out as a possibility, but for right now I don't think I am ready to go down that road. I am trying to practice more "mindfulness" in my daily life, though.

I don't know what day it was that it occurred to me that I might want to revisit the Tom Stoppard play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." I was lucky enough to have a veritable all-star line up of English teachers throughout high school. I can't remember which one to credit with introducing me to this book, but I owe her one!

For those of you who are unfamiliar, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" is the story of Hamlet, told from the view of two very minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. For the most part, the "action" of the story (if you can call it that) takes place outside of the context of Shakespeare's play: it's what R&G are doing when you don't see them onstage in Hamlet. Every once in awhile, you see them cross paths into the action of "Hamlet."

The play, which I have been re-reading, is absolutely hilarious. Much more so than when I read it in high school. Wikipedia (widely known to be the most credible reference website) sums up the play's major themes as "existentialism, free will vs. determinism, the search for value, and the impossibility of certainty."

Ahh...finally something I can believe in. For clarification's sake (for those who may be unfamiliar with the concepts), existentialism and determinism are defined as (respectively):

a modern philosophical movement stressing the importance of personal experience and responsibility and the demands that they make on the individual, who is seen as a free agent in a deterministic and seemingly meaningless universe; and,

the philosophical doctrine that all events including human actions and choices are fully determined by preceding events and states of affairs, and so that freedom of choice is illusory.
(definitions taken from www.dictionary.com).

At one point in the play, Guildenstern says:

Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one-- that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost.

So where does that leave me in my search for a Higher Power? And, more importantly, what should I name the new kitty?!?

I don't know if I can put into words what my Higher Power is. It goes back to the day I set up my Facebook page, and under religious views I put:

Everything happens for a reason.

That's my Higher Power. I believe that things happen to us, around us, and within us, for a reason. That reason is not clear to me, but I don't think it's all up to destiny. I also don't think it's all under our control. I believe that the choices we make affect our lives, but our choices can't be the end all, be all, because there are things that we can't explain. Improbable events happen all the time, events that we could have never expected to be the result of a choice that we have made. There are coincidences that happen every day that have no explanation. Do I have to understand it? Not really. There's no point in trying to understand it. It's futile, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.

So what did I name my kitty? Well, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were just way too cumbersome for this teeny cat. I knew there was another play with similar themes to this classic, one that I have never read but that I am aware of. It's a classic, it's next on my reading list: Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"

As I said, I have not yet read it, but I am aware of the basic plot: two characters waiting for another, relatively unknown to them, to arrive. But he never shows. That character's name is Godot.

And so, the newest man in my life is named Godot (pronounced [guh-dough]). And I was going to post a picture of him for you all, but (for some reason!) I seem to have misplaced my camera. I don't know how that is possible in such a small space, but I have managed to do it. Or maybe I never brought it from home in the first place. I can't even remember. And you know what?

It's OK.