The Givens: Mood Swings

The best laid plans may often go to waste, but I hope for the sake of my own sense of purpose that the content of this blog does not suffer such a fate. I have for quite a long time desired to write routinely on subjects that intrigue me philosophically. My approach for this blog will differ from most in that personal irrelevancies will be mentioned at a minimum, while instead I will focus my thoughts on matters of philosophy, religion, emotions, intelligence, and the will. Personal anecdotes will ideally serve only as illustrations of my thoughts. Honestly speaking, this blog is simply an outlet for me to organize these thoughts, but perhaps they can serve some purpose for others as well.

The title of my first blog is the first in a (hopefully) short list of givens that dictate what and why I write. As I grow older, one of the glaring realities of life I perceive is the myriad of moods each person experiences, how these utterly shape our interactions with each other, and how they affect every aspect of our lives, whether we want them to or not. The very material I will be writing about in the months ahead is on one hand already planned out—I think of these things constantly, and these thoughts carry me through dreary days as well as nostalgic afternoons. They free me from the mechanism of routine, yet how I have allowed these thoughts to languish unwritten, unloosed!

On certain days, I am inspired to carry out my ambitions without a care. On others, I am weighed down by the collective motivations of everyone around me—I cower in silence, or boredom, or disdain. Isn't this true of all of us? We know what we should do—we should take control of our emotions with our mind and our free will. But the struggle is difficult, and as old as time. Is this not what Paul was writing about in Romans 7? Is this not what Jesus told us about ourselves when he said, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak"?

Those biblical allusions serve a dual purpose for this blog entry, as I will certainly be confronting certain issues about Christianity in the future. I want to be able to address questions that I sometimes feel are forbidden to ask, but I know in my heart that God does not dislike when someone searches honestly for truth. As a Christian, I believe firmly in God's existence and in the claims made by Jesus Christ, who alone is the fulfillment of a person's quest for truth and joy. I will, however, pose questions in the months ahead regarding the inspiration of the Bible. What exactly is the extent of it, and what do people mean when they use the term? Can we satisfactorily explain anomalies such as the conflicting accounts of the thieves on the cross in Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Should we accept Paul’s teaching about women and head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 on the same level as more prominent doctrines in the New Testament? I vehemently believe that the Bible is the most valuable item we can tangibly possess on earth—in my mind, the reasons for believing the Bible far outweigh any reasons against it, but as a Christian I cannot just avoid the fact that certain parts of the Bible seem as though they might simply be the words of devout men, rather than God-authored revelation. Did not Martin Luther wrestle with the subject when he debated the veracity of James in his own mind? This is an issue I should be allowed to address freely, and I will in the months ahead.

Returning to the primary issue of mood swings, I have desired to begin this journey for months, but only now am I taking the initiative. As a college student, I am swamped with work, and I have a natural bent towards detached observation rather than enthusiastic initiative. But eventually the time comes, such as tonight, when I realize that all of my observations are perhaps meaningless unless I commit them to writing. Thus, my mood has swung for a time in a beneficial direction, and though I feel like I am taking some measure of control tonight, the fact remains that moods are most like pendulums in one primary way—timing is everything.