My First Academic Conference

Last weekend I participated in a panel at a communications conference in upstate New York. It was a great experience. The conference itself was small and regional, and a few professors will take graduate students there to cut their teeth on the conference-going and research-presenting activities of academic life. Everything went so well the entire weekend. The two profs and the other grad student I traveled with were fun, interesting, and intelligent women and we had a blast together. That was unsurprising, as we were all brought together by similar interests in media and education and we all are living in New York after coming from more provincial places. The conference itself featured panels on interesting topics. The surrounding area was gorgeous - we were in the Catskills while all the fall colors were peaking. I was reminded after my cross-country travels this summer that upstate New York is one of the most beautiful areas of the country, especially in fall, and I don't get up there nearly as often as I should. We ate, drank, talked, went on a hike, swam, and giggled at our group versus the other conference of country line dancers that were sharing (well, dominating) the hotel space. It was a nearly perfect weekend.

Because the conference was so damn fun I'm glad I wasn't there four years ago. Over the past 5 years I've been out of college and in The Real World, I've learned to approach all new professions with caution. I foolishly jumped feet-first into the world of "art department" on-set work after one or two jobs, thinking it was the best career ever and I would always love it and always be happy doing that for life. I was aware of the job's negative aspects, sure, but I wasn't aware of how they would affect me. Well, maybe I wasn't so foolish to do that, because I learned that I shouldn't idealize. Four years ago I would have attended the conference and left in some misguided blissful reverie, certain that I would become a professor and have this amazing life. But now I've become rather aware of the limits of such work (most of these limits include money and nasty politics, and egos). If I choose to go down that road, I won't do so with some rosy vision of an impossible future. And I may not choose that path at all, but I'm glad to know that it's a possibility for me anyway. My new found caution does not distract from my good time, though. For now I can take these events as they are and enjoy those moments when everything goes so well.

Expanding on That Last Post

Dan wrote: I've also often wondered how the less than fortunate deal with their lives as well. I find it curious that many people who seem to struggle the most in life are also the most religious. I wonder if they turn towards religion willingly because it's the only thing that gives them a sense of hope, or if they're simply more vulnerable to the parasitic clutches of organized religion. Perhaps it's a bit of both.

I can understand how people who are struggling may find hope in a religion that promises a rewarding afterlife. After all, if this life isn't going so well, there is opportunity to experience something better after death. My desire for a clean end comes from a fairly privileged perspective: I feel that I can try to wring the most meaning and joy out of this life before I'm ready to go. Assuming I have the chance. If you don't have nearly as much opportunity to experience comfort and security now, why wouldn't you hope to have it later? I think this hope and desire for some divine justice will lead a lot of people to embrace religion. Personally, I still think "just dying" would be just fine, because once you are dead you have no desire or regret. But whatevs.

Jeff wrote: If there is no Hell or Heaven yet we, as a species, either individually or collectively, can manifest reality from thought, would we then create a Hell or Heaven where there was once nothing? Does this make us Gods?

Can we, individually or collectively, manifest reality from thoughts? Jeff did not define exactly what he means by "reality," so I will be forced to assume that he is referring to our common experience of "reality*": that which we can experience with our five senses, in 4 dimensions (time being the fourth, of course). Can we manifest "reality" using only collective ideas? I believe that we can to an extent. Yet that requires more action than just collectively thinking about something - it requires communication, technology, even physical labor depending on what it is we are creating. That's how we've created most of our cultural traditions and ideas about how to behave and what people are like. It seems to me that outside of the actual potential reality or unreality of Heaven and Hell, our culture shares a common understanding of these concepts. Heaven and Hell as a concept or cultural manifestation is "real," in that it exists within our collective minds and ideas. But whether or not we can experience it the same way we experience our day-to-day existence remains a mystery. So I dunno, I wouldn't consider people Gods because they can come up with a collectively-understood concept such as Heaven or Hell (assuming people did invent these ideas themselves). And I don't have at my fingertips any evidence that we can manifest what I would consider "reality" from thought and I am lazy today so I'm not looking it up.

In other news: hooray for fall! Also, next weekend I'm going to be presenting a paper at an academic conference in upstate New York. Hooray for new experiences!

*Please excuse my lazy definition of reality. I don't even want to get into a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality because I am woefully undereducated when it comes to these common philosophical tropes.

I’m Still an Agnostic

Sometimes when I get down about the world, I think the Buddhists are right that there is no hell, because we suffer enough throughout life, and karma punishes for our transgressions by forcing us to continue existing after death. If we’ve been very bad, we’ll be reborn into a worse situation than the one before. That makes a lot of sense to me. I’m certainly not suicidal or anything so don’t take this the wrong way, but it seems like a real, finite death would be a welcome end to a tumultuous life. If I feel this way with my fantastic life full of comfort and safety and love and luxuries, then I can’t possibly imagine how it would feel for someone who faces far more challenges and hardships. I understand why people believe in a heaven and hell – heaven cancels death, and we fear death, so not only would you be free from all the suffering in life, but you would also be free from death. Hell is punishment for those people who’ve made the world the difficult place that it is. I’m not fond of the hell idea but I can understand the heaven concept. Yet, why does a clean, finite death seem like a better option to me? Maybe this is because I can’t imagine an existence where only contentment and pleasure exist without any kind of negativity, and I certainly can’t wrap my head around the concept of “forever and ever.” It all seems unbalanced. I don’t know if there is a heaven or not – how could I possibly know that? I think there could be a God. But if I was given the choice between heaven and death (if hell were an option, who would choose that?), I’d pick death.

This post about death has been brought to you by the fall, aka, autumn.