Tragedy as Freedom.

Tragedy is pleasurable because, at the end of one's rope, when one is utterly out of control and realizes that nothing, truly, is "under control," one finally begins to become comfortable (he/she has no choice!) with and resigned to the basic uncertainty, the basic ambiguity and fundamental groundlessness of being. To be human is to be constantly in flux. Nothing is fixed. Fixed ideas and our egos make us suffer tragedy more intensely than if we accepted our human condition and predilection to change. And when tragedy snaps us out of our comfortable bubbles, our comfort zones, we finally see that our dogmatic beliefs and rigid assumptions, in fact, cause us to suffer more than chaos and the realization that all of life is, indeed, messy and chaotic.

When the bottom falls out, I see with new eyes. The paradox is that when the illusion of being "in control" of things falls away, I realize that there is a weight on my shoulders, a burden, that gets removed.

Not as much of "eat, drink and be merry" as it is the dire urgency to help people, help oneself. If nothing and no one is in control, which is a thought many have when suffering tragedy, then all the more reason to help others as if one's life depended on it. Do what you love. Be who you are. Do what makes you happy (but never at the expense of hurting others), and help others accept and celebrate the human condition.

Even Ram Dass says "we are all just walking each other home."

I lost my faith, in the narrowest sense of the word, and now life feels, or is beginning to feel, that much more meaningful, even if I am the only one who creates that meaning, utterly and completely.

I was scared at first. I am still working things out. But life feels so much more rich and complex and beautiful than it ever did before, when I did good out of obligation, with an agenda to "please God" to get brownie points and "get blessed."

It is more noble to do good with no expectation of anything in return, even from a deity, than it is to do good with ulterior motives.

I am ashamed that it took me so long to realize this. To truly see it in myself.

I woke up one day not believing in God anymore.

I shouldn't say I don't believe in God anymore...I just don't believe in an organized religion's view (Christianity's, at this point) view of God. I believe in a higher consciousness, an energy, a God that, if He is Jesus Christ, is love. And if He is judgment at all, it is a judgment for the things we do that hurt each other and ourselves, NOT because we didn't "believe things the right way" or "respond correctly" to Jesus.

I am a believer, but in REM's way of putting things, have lost my religion.

And I finally feel free. Freer, at least. I am still learning.

We are all, really, just students of life. Perpetual learners.

Student: maybe I will write that on the palm of my hand every morning to remind me.