On displacement
Wikipedia defines "Displacement" as an unconscious defense mechanism, whereby the mind redirects emotion from a 'dangerous' object to a 'safe' object. I've given some thought to this and uncovered a surprising connection between it and my religious concerns.
First, my primary beef with Mormonism is that it has kept me from embracing my individuality. It's true, my individuality is underdeveloped and unclaimed. But when I take it out on the Church for being responsible for this...how much of that is me attacking the Church because it's an easier target than, say, confronting the complexity of life and the fact that it takes years to develop an individual, artistic vision...Mormon or not. Or simply confronting the fact of my insecurity and self-consciousness and the fact that I haven't practiced enough. Maybe instead of targeting the Church, I should take responsibility for not practicing more and not taking risks. The Church didn't keep me from doing that per se. It's true that the Church does project a conformist message just to keep things uniform. But no one forced me to subscribe to that, and the Temple questions certainly don't. If I suffer under the Church, then I'm just a weak fool inventing constraints that don't exist. After all, believing in God and Joseph Smith is not a constraint. Who thinks that being with their family eternally is a constraint? Well, maybe on some days :)
Constraints that don't exist...do they, or don't they? There is an existant, superifical Mormon culture, and I think it is too prevelant in a Church that is Christ's church. I can't deny this. But I don't have to buy into it.
Secondly, one could argue that to accept doctrines and standards is a constraint. Arguably, acceptance and implementation of anything implies a form of control. However, belief and implementation of ANYTHING implies control. As I try to liberate my music from confining ideas, one could argue that an agnostic perspective could be equally confining. The point is that you can never escape the consequences of what you commit to. There is no "freedom," i.e, no realm where ideas and practices don't have power over you.
And who wants art that is uneffected by ideas and practices? I want my music to take intellectual and creative risks. But do I want this to happen in a total vacuum from religion, the economy, society, etc.? All the institutions that define human life? On the one hand, I hate institituions and societal obligations, but, on the other, to engage with them is to engage with the ideas that define human life and therefore the ideas that will be meaningful to myself and my audience. Again, commentary/criticism/support or whatever of these institutions is what makes art interesting.
Besides, there is no way of escaping institutions. Sometimes, I lament my birth in the Church and wonder who I would be if I were born somewhere else. And then I think about the alternatives. They would be equally challenging. Sorting through Islam, Catholicism, Hinduism, you name it, would be problematic in terms of individuality and free will. Then there's economics. Everyone has bills to pay and their debt to society, etc. If had been born poor, that would have been another pound of rocks to sort through. No one escapes the inevitiblity of participation in the pressures, institutions, and responsibilities that come from being a member of any society and culture. So the name of the game is not to escape but to carve out your own niche and do what you can to change things in accordance with your values. To do so though, you have to participate at some point. No one changed the world brooding away in a cave.
So maybe I should stop complaining and start practicing. Too bad...I can no longer believe that it's easier for everyone else to write great songs.
First, my primary beef with Mormonism is that it has kept me from embracing my individuality. It's true, my individuality is underdeveloped and unclaimed. But when I take it out on the Church for being responsible for this...how much of that is me attacking the Church because it's an easier target than, say, confronting the complexity of life and the fact that it takes years to develop an individual, artistic vision...Mormon or not. Or simply confronting the fact of my insecurity and self-consciousness and the fact that I haven't practiced enough. Maybe instead of targeting the Church, I should take responsibility for not practicing more and not taking risks. The Church didn't keep me from doing that per se. It's true that the Church does project a conformist message just to keep things uniform. But no one forced me to subscribe to that, and the Temple questions certainly don't. If I suffer under the Church, then I'm just a weak fool inventing constraints that don't exist. After all, believing in God and Joseph Smith is not a constraint. Who thinks that being with their family eternally is a constraint? Well, maybe on some days :)
Constraints that don't exist...do they, or don't they? There is an existant, superifical Mormon culture, and I think it is too prevelant in a Church that is Christ's church. I can't deny this. But I don't have to buy into it.
Secondly, one could argue that to accept doctrines and standards is a constraint. Arguably, acceptance and implementation of anything implies a form of control. However, belief and implementation of ANYTHING implies control. As I try to liberate my music from confining ideas, one could argue that an agnostic perspective could be equally confining. The point is that you can never escape the consequences of what you commit to. There is no "freedom," i.e, no realm where ideas and practices don't have power over you.
And who wants art that is uneffected by ideas and practices? I want my music to take intellectual and creative risks. But do I want this to happen in a total vacuum from religion, the economy, society, etc.? All the institutions that define human life? On the one hand, I hate institituions and societal obligations, but, on the other, to engage with them is to engage with the ideas that define human life and therefore the ideas that will be meaningful to myself and my audience. Again, commentary/criticism/support or whatever of these institutions is what makes art interesting.
Besides, there is no way of escaping institutions. Sometimes, I lament my birth in the Church and wonder who I would be if I were born somewhere else. And then I think about the alternatives. They would be equally challenging. Sorting through Islam, Catholicism, Hinduism, you name it, would be problematic in terms of individuality and free will. Then there's economics. Everyone has bills to pay and their debt to society, etc. If had been born poor, that would have been another pound of rocks to sort through. No one escapes the inevitiblity of participation in the pressures, institutions, and responsibilities that come from being a member of any society and culture. So the name of the game is not to escape but to carve out your own niche and do what you can to change things in accordance with your values. To do so though, you have to participate at some point. No one changed the world brooding away in a cave.
So maybe I should stop complaining and start practicing. Too bad...I can no longer believe that it's easier for everyone else to write great songs.
posted by Kristin @ 10:15 PM
1 Comments:
At 11:49 PM,
Anonymous said…
MUCH wisdom here, on several points: 1) learning to take what you want, what you buy into and making that part of your unique self 2) being a member of an organized religion makes it difficult to be a true Christian (you were kind of making that point). Kierkegaard said that it was almost impossible to become a true Christian if you were born into a Christian church. A little hyperbole perhaps but a powerful point is there which is that there is a thick veneer of human culture, or the dark, wet womb (safeness) by being born a member of the Church and just following along, whereas he taught, you had to really struggle to embrace it from without. There is real truth to this and why you alway see more passion from converts and the farther you get away from SLC. 3) The struggle is the point. You were headed in this direction it seems. My life has become much more interesting since I've started looking at my challenges as just that, challenges in a game and it is the struggle from which we learn. This is rooted in Mormonism as well as many other philosophies. Hegel's dialetic, Marxism to name two are world philosophies that are built on the concept that the struggle between ideas breeds the better idea. In the case of Hegel the fated movement toward the perfection of the world spirt of Geist and in Marx's case the inevitable transition from Capitalism to Communism. All of this "progress" was to be borne out of struggle.
Anyway, I absolutely agree with your post. An inspirational thought for the day....
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