the thought experiment

After a long conversation with my friend who is plagued with the same patronizing questions about his course in life in the early hours in a hotel in Tianjin, China…

I decided to articulate my feelings about every conversation that has ever frustrated me. These words flow not only from my mouth, but encompass our collective feelings. I am wasting my life in order to find it. This letter is addressed to those who are doing the same and a call to join them to those who patronize them.

Out of pride and human inadequacies, I consider myself far better than others. I have been known to pridefully validate these claims even to the extent of harming others. I have tasted the glory of man and I am able to envision the world on my fingertips. I know the feeling of having both the capacity and the ability to obtain whatever my eye desired whether it be a woman or the praise of man. I am looked down upon for not fulfilling my potential in these areas. Not becoming a successful engineer, business man or whatever you may define as success especially for a Canadian born Chinese individual. Most would equate greatness with a successful career especially embodied in the number of zero's that arrogantly gleam on a paycheck.

… And this is why I have given it all up.

I study Theology and yes at a Bible College, Briercrest Bible College (although now simply referred to as Briercrest College). The stigma still remains. Why the hell would someone study the Bible in college? What use is that?

"So what are you going to become, a priest or something, I thought you liked girls?"

"Oh Theology huh? That's uhhhh useful. Look at lil' ol me studying pre-med at ______, now what in the world could I do with that? (they say with a belittling arrogant laugh at my expense)"

"Oh Bible college huh? Why didn't you go to a real school?"

"Oh my school has been so hard this week, but I guess you wouldn't understand Bible college boy."

"Bible college, so do you guys pack your bags for a year long retreat and sing Kumbayah at the fireside?"

"I went to Bible college once, but it was a week long and called summer camp."


Meanwhile by being patronized in a semi-intelligent conversation, I show the fallaciousness of their argumentation and the proof-texting of those they quote. This knowledge spawns from an adequate if not, more adequate grasp of secular literary and philosophical giants, which yes, we read in Bible college and not the popular Cliff/Spark alternatives which are widely utilized at even the most prestigious University – whatever that means. I have little doubt that most post secondary students (especially ones I know, regardless of where they study) would fail in a contest of general knowledge. That I would best them in categories pertaining to culture, languages, philosophy, psychology, history, literature, popular culture, and if they dared, theology. I may lose to engineering students in math algorithms or whatever but there was never a time in my life where I needed to use one or cared to learn it in the course of my daily life. I can develop friendships with anyone I like and respect from those I don't. I am confident that I could do a better job in the business world than some business majors. I was certainly not pushed to Bible college because of intellectual inadequacies or lack of potential but by a desire to grasp something. Something that is so evident and is so real that many people don't bother to take it seriously, much like the air we breathe. Fantasy is what people want, but reality is what people need. And this is the reality that we choose to ignore.

I will be forgotten.

… All my works will follow suit, I have long since put to death my childhood ambition of becoming the president of the world and all that which follows. Now, in my post-naive state, even after contemplating the absurd possibility of such a grand position, the futility of such a thing makes me think of it as not even worth the ink of a plume to sketch such events in the book of history.

How many great men of year's past never succeeded to the point of history? A point held only by esteemed kings, queens, nobles and tyrants. I ask myself, do these festering bones have the capacity to receive such distant praise? Where do I fit in this picture? What good is this life? Is it all to end with the absence of purpose or identity? If the world were to fall in the forest of the universe, would there be anyone to hear it, would the universe even care? What
if…

- I was stuck in a cubicle all week long only to live my life as a weekend warrior, filling my apartment with the embodiment of the newest additions in Ikea's catalogue.

- Or what if I boned every girl that my eye desired, if you could claim such a desire originated from that organ.

- I could re-write the laws of physics and put the wisdom of others to shame, or could somehow obtain the fountain of youth.

What would I live for?

Nothing. Except for the futility of my own desires, which I know are perverse and shameful, which I would severe at any given moment if given the ability. For I have come to know this, if there is no God, then life is more than meaningless. My faith comes not out of desperation seeking a shallow hope or lack of intelligence, but from what I feel is design… For I have never visited the Niagara falls or the Grand Canyon in order to feel good about myself or what I have done, but to be lost in its beauty. And there exists not a single soul which could speak contrary to this. You can join Feuerbach in saying that it seems a little too convenient that my concept of God mirrors my psychological need. But I would say what a great God to create in me a desire that only He could fill. One that I had been running from my entire life and this is my way of running home.

I have come to hold dear the living words of a Friend - those who try to save their lives will lose it, but those who lose their life for the sake of what is true will save it. In order to be clear I'll use language that you may understand – I call it the only long-term investment. This is my purpose and this is why I live. There is a God, and you can run from this reality down any alley you choose whether it be cultural, psychological, philosophical, scientific or just plain ignorance, but this reality will hunt you down like a hungry predator and will catch up with you. I am a follower of Christ, a Christian if you will, despite which marred associations you have constructed in your mind. I would rather die with the poor giving them the truth than to live with the rich being a lie. I would rather the richness of loving orphans than the poverty of well to do business associates. I would rather raise a church in a third-world country, than to lower my golf score in a country club. I would rather have freedom of hunger than the burden of gluttony. I would rather die trusting than to live doubting.

And for me and countless others, there is no other reason. I would like to say to those who will continue patronizing me to be left with this final thought. An answer to all the sarcasm and pseudo-intellectual insults, I would like to say - with all the humility this prideful man can boister. WHEN I am but a forgotten memory, not even a scribble in the pages of history, I will know for Whom I am losing this life and the eternal weight of true glory unfolding at the hands of my Saviour, the only One who matters.


Josh Wang and Joshua Elijah Drake.
Sunrise - Monday, June 28, 2004

posted by YF @ 1:25 AM