Naked Humanity

I couldn't get everything out that I want to say on one blog. Much like I can't fit everything I want to say in one moleskine. So, I've decided to restart this blog for some amateur exposition of life and love and why. Or something like it, anyway.

One of my roommates has gotten me into a public radio show called "This American Life". I've always been a bit suspicious of NPR or anything like it, having heard it been called "communist radio" growing up. However, the show isn't a political platform. It just tells stories of American lives. It's a pretty honest title, right? And it's the honesty that I love.

I'm not talking about telling the truth. I'm not talking about simply not lying. Honesty is much too massive an idea for those correct, but ultimately parochial, assumptions. Honesty is sincerity. Stated negatively, honesty is not pretending to be something else. Honesty is one of the most attractive things in life.

I love it when a person is honest. I love it when a book is honest. I love it when a movie is honest. Honesty is naked humanity and humanity is messed up and creative and capable of wonderful things. It honestly makes me praise God that He made creatures like us. Creatures that are so capable of emotions and actions and thoughts and words that effect each other in such trivial and profound ways.

On the flip side, I hate it so much when I fail to be honest. I hate it a little bit less when other people fail to be honest. I'm mildly disgusted or moved to apathy when I see a piece of art (a movie, a song, a book, a poem, etc.) that fails to be honest. This is just a piece of honesty.

The ritual of asking "How are you?", when we see a friend, has become so trite. It really has lost all its power as a question. It just doesn't perform its function well at all. A question is an interrogative sentence used to gain information in reply. Ideally, the information sought should be true. It should be sincere. But "how are you?" doesn't cut it because nobody ever wants to answer truthfully. So we answer with "fine" or "okay" or "living" or something equally banal. It's just another facet of life that has lost all vestiges of honesty.

I honestly hope that I can do better at my sincerity. Good afternoon.