Re: Pilgrim Books

Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Fri, 16 Oct 1998 11:23:03 -0400 

On Thu, Oct 15, 1998 at 08:21:32PM -0700, Erin McLaughlin wrote:
 
> Hey Tim, I have a question. It's a serious one, so don't take it the 
> wrong way. How do you not consider God? I mean, how do you not think 
> about it? I find this whole atheism thing intriguing. Apparently, this 
> mailing list has at least a few. So I'm wondering, what's your meaning? 
> I mean, why do you read and look at art and have kids and buy houses and 
> write poetry? Aren't you looking for something? Or do you just think 
> whatever you're looking for exists inside you and your frame of 
> reference. Just wondering...

I don't take it the wrong way at all -- no problem.

I have been thinking about the universe recently, probably because of an
article I just saw in (I think) Scientific American.  As you know, ours 
is a puny spot in a huge galaxy, and this is just one of many, many
galaxies, some of which are utterly obscured by a vast dispersion of
light between us and the others.  Now, I've been fascinated by astronomy 
since I was a kid, and I've often looked up at the skies in wonder.  But
unless I come upon an article, or some space event occurs, I don't
really think about the galaxies and their components.  I know they are
on the minds of some people for whom such matters are very important.
But I don't often dwell on it unless it's called to my attention.  (And
to make a not-so-obvious parallel with religion, I'm told by people who
are supposed to know these things that all I've said above is
scientifically true, about our galaxy and the others beyond it.  But in 
believing it, I have to do so as an act of faith, since it's no more 
tangible to me than someone's god is.)

There is a bit in PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN in which Stephen
Dedalus writes this in his geography book:

	Stephen Dedalus
     	Class of Elements
	Clongowes Wood College
     	Sallins
     	County Kildare
     	Ireland
     	Europe
     	The World
     	The Universe

Now, that was a lad who knew his coordinates.  I myself devote most of
my energy to the first two or three lines and leave it at that.

My "meaning" -- I don't know how to describe it.  I don't have kids and
I don't buy houses, and when I look at pictures and read and listen to 
music, I don't put it in Stephen Dedalus's framework.  I take it for 
what it is, and try to appreciate it.  I know, for instance, that Van 
Gogh was the son of a religious man, but still, I look at his work and 
love it, but do not think of God as a factor in Vincent's paintings.  
*He* may have; I don't know.  But I do not.  I am grateful that the 
pictures survived, and that he lived long enough to make them.

And when I write, I don't do it for spiritual reasons.  I don't think 
I can put a finger on WHAT motivates me -- certainly it's not money,
because I've never made more than a few thousand dollars in my whole
life from writing things -- but I know that I do it because it's who I
am and it's what I do naturally.

I'm seeking, I guess, to find things that will make a pinging noise that
resonates in me, that makes me feel that I've been touched by the writer
or the artist or the musician.  That there's a common bond between us.
One thing that delights me, the way a baby is delighted by funny faces,
is to talk to a writer and at some later point find bits of what we've
discussed show up in a later piece of work.  

I don't know if I have a frame of reference that's big enough to include
anything quite as big as "god," however one defines one's deity.  It
honestly never occurs to me.  There is a big vacuum there for me.  Other
people might have beliefs there, but I don't.  I don't miss it and I
don't think about it unless it's called to my attention and, I'm sorry
to have to say, it doesn't bother me or make me feel regret.

I have infinitely more regret about the times I've hurt people than I 
do about not thinking about the existence of a god.

--tim