I wish I could tell you that I made that up myself, but I don't think I did. I seem to remember it was the title of a movie I saw, but the title didn't seem to have a lot to do with the story line. Maybe the movie people didn't make it up either, maybe they were quoting somebody else, but I don't know who. Anyway, I thought it would be an appropriate title for this blog. People have always associated emotions with the heart, and they still do, even though we now know that emotions originate in the brain. Maybe it's because emotions can make your heart beat faster, probably to prepare you for flight or fight.
When I said that I left the Christian faith, all I meant was that I stopped going to church. I still believe in God, although I'm not so sure about Jesus Christ. He kind of lost me when He promised those people that He was coming back to establish God's Kingdom on Earth in their lifetimes, which He never did. To be fair, though, I don't know for a fact that He said that in so many words. He may have been misquoted or the original meaning might have been lost in translation. That's why I try to keep an open mind about things like that, you never know if the version you heard is what really happened.
Faith is sometimes defined as believing in things not seen, and this is supposed to be a good thing. Truth is, you can't always believe what you do see, without trying to believe in what you don't see. Perceptions are not always reliable, logic is not always reliable, but emotions are the least reliable thing of all. We ignore our emotions at our peril, but that doesn't mean we should blindly follow them either. It's all a balancing act, what we think we perceive, what we think we ought to perceive, and how we feel about both of them.
I guess I was being kind of flippant when I said that the meaning of life was life. What the hell did I mean by that? I think I meant that the meaning of life is to be found in life itself, not in some pie in the sky philosophy. As much as I take pride in my cognitive and communicative skills, I do believe it is possible to overthink or over communicate some issues. Sometimes it's best to just be, and let it be. Of course you can err in the opposite direction too, another balancing act.
According to the Bible, God has, on occasion, spoken verbally to certain people, but most religious people will tell you that God speaks in your heart. I used to believe that too, but I eventually came to the conclusion that, when something appears to come from your heart, it's probably an emotion, which really comes from your brain. If you are thinking evil thoughts, you will likely have evil emotions. If you are thinking good thoughts, you are more likely to have good emotions. You can control that to some degree. Sometimes thoughts just pop into your head, but you can decide whether or not you want them to stay there.
Jesus told his disciples that the way to tell a true prophet from a false prophet is by his behavior. He said something about an evil tree bearing evil fruit and a good tree bearing good fruit. When evaluating your thoughts and emotions, it's a good idea to consider what the consequences would be if you actually acted on them. If you think that God or somebody is telling you to walk into a church and shoot a bunch of people at random, common sense should tell you that's wrong. No god worthy of the name would tell you to do something like that, so it must be coming from Satan, who is the personification of evil in popular culture. Even if you don't believe in the literal existence of either God or Satan, common sense should still tell you that it's a bad idea coming from a bad place.
Oh yeah, the "lonely hunter" thing. What I think I hear you saying is that you sometimes get the notion that life should be about more than eating Italian beef and painting pretty pictures that don't look exactly like their subjects. Well, maybe it is, but maybe the meaning you seek is within those sandwiches and paintings, or the potted garden on your balcony, or the blogs you write for the institute. Maybe it's really within your own heart, or mind, or whatever. All you need to do is grab hold of it, jerk it out of there, and hold it up to the light for all the world to see.
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