What I have seen (Methinks!)

There is so much ugliness in the world, so much to hide from. Yes... But also so much to embrace. And I used to believe that the world had learned to simply balance all these things out, the almost unbearable burdens of the darkness, and the quiet grace of the light, and create its own form of justice. And it does, I suppose, but what would be the purpose if it did just that and nothing more, equal good and equal bad. I've been reading the great French thinkers Montaigne, Descartes, and Pascal (and I'll throw Voltaire in there too even though I haven't actually been reading him) and I was particularly distraught with Pascal. Why can't we be both happy and lucid? Can't there be a middle ground? I think that perhaps Montaigne and Voltaire are the closest to understanding the freedom of knowing that we must find an active philosophy that can be both lived as well as contemplated. Descartes realizes this to a certain extent in his personal maxims (his temporary residence whilst he destroys his previous dwelling). But then Pascal is the only one that demands certainty or at least the illusion of certainty. I mean, take the Wager, the essence of it is that we develop absolute faith, not necessarily as a genuine act, but as a confident bet with the knowledge that it is low risk. What kind of faith is that? He distrusts both the intircate methodology of science and reason, as well the innovation and imagination of the mind and the ability of the self to be anything but wretched. He hates both method and the lack of it, and that frustrates me. I prefer Montaigne who says that the world is a perpetual see-saw. "I do not portray man's being. I portray his passage" (or something like that. And why does Pascal so despise Montaigne's acceptence and indeed optomistic outlook on his own wretchedness. My favorite quote of Montaigne is "come what may, I am glad that the world will know the height from which I will have fallen. Because Montaigne's wager is of a different kind, recognizing both the joys and pleasures of a humanistic life AND the possiblilty of the kingdom of God on earth while we are still a part of it.
I understand pessimism. I really do. I even allow that it can be constructive, forcing us to look inward and face our vanity and selffishness, revealing our hypocricy and shortcomings, and we would hope that these revalations would bring about change.
But when does this same pessimism become counter-productive? I think that Pascal's stance on certainty and truth and faith is not freedom at all, but a bondage of the worst kind--within the self. I am much more keen on Montaigne's living by learning or even Descartes living by questioning. Those seem like much more genuine faiths when put against Pasl's faith in based on an arguement that essentially says, "Being the a useless wretch no matter what, what have I to lose."

This is my faith...where I find my place of honest living...the way I have a chance and trascending the equilibrium of good and evil.

Unmistakable joy...

I have seen the morning sun creep up from behind the pine trees when no one else was watching. I have heard the sounds of laughter so many times that I could categorize them like buttons. I have felt the cool hand of my mother on my forehead when the rest of me was boiling. I have cut the three-veined cord of a baby, and watched her open her eyes for the first time.