To be or not to be? That is the question. A brief look at why not to commit suicide.

“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” – Albert Camus

I was driving along the road and there was a steep drop on the one side. I wondered what would happen if I had to suddenly floor the accelerator and turn left. I’d surely die. But what of that? Why not commit suicide? Hamlet, in his famous soliloquy comes to the conclusion that the main reason people don't commit suicide is the fear of the unknown. And while that may be true for some, I don't think fear is the best reason for not committing suicide.

When I was driving in the car, the first reason that came to my mind was my dad. I couldn’t commit suicide because he’d be racked with sadness. This was quickly followed by the thought of the grief of my other family and friends. My second reason for not turning the wheel was because of the possibility of good which I could do. I’m not doing much good now (let’s be honest) but I have the opportunity to do good in the future. If I had to end my life no further good could come on earth*.

And I think these two reasons provide us with a template for the meaning or purpose of life - community and the possibility of good (look at Philippians 1:21-24) . Devoid of these two things there is, in my eyes, no reason for life. The meaning of life has nothing to do with my internal happiness because that is fleeting. To me, purpose and the value of life is derived extrinsically rather than intrinsically. Whether or not are we are doing good now is not a reflection of the good we could be doing. 

Understanding this idea of the value of the human life flies in the face of the death penalty, because to kill someone is to say that there is no possibility of good in this person's life. When Jesus deals with the prostitute who the authorities want to stone instead of allowing the stoning he turns and says "go and sin no more". Because for Jesus, value is not derived from the past failings, but rather by the future possibilities that you have.

So, whilst fear is a natural response to death and suicide, I think the positive actions which we could take far outweigh the hardships of this life. Look at someone like Nelson Mandela who could easily have gotten despondent (and I’m sure he did at times), but if he had ‘turned the wheel’ he would never have realised the enormous good that was awaiting him.

*It is interesting to think of this in terms of self-immolation. And if that is not in fact a morally correct decision to make considering the future good which would come of your suicide.

'Love Wins'. A book review by me.

When Rob Bell's controversial 'Love Wins' came out, pretty much everyone I knew got on the 'Rob Bell is a heretic' band-wagon. There were shirts and caps and mugs with Rob Bells face and a big red cross through it. Bumper stickers were printed en-masse saying "Rob Bell is not my homeboy". People went cray-zee.

The book was controversial because Rob Bell was challenging the idea of Heaven and hell that the church has come to believe. He believes that people still have an opportunity to go into Heaven after they die. Bell does well to argue his point, and while I myself am not a universalist, I found his point-of-view refreshing, challenging and very interesting.

Here is what I think:
- Rob Bell is not a heretic. He raised an age old question, one that was and should be debated throughout the Church's history.

- People's reaction to the book really told us a lot about Christians, and how badly Christians want all 'the other people' to go to an eternal torment.

- Maybe God is more gracious than we think. When NT Wright was interviewed about 'Love Wins' he said "I'm not a universalist, but perhaps God is." And I think that is something important to ponder.

- Don't go around putting bumper-stickers on your car about hating Rob Bell if you haven't read the book and actually bothered to study what the writers of the Bible thought of hell. It gets a bit awkward when you realize that the Hebrews (for the most part) didn't believe in an after-life.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Whether you agree with Bell or not, it would certainly be a wonderful universe if Love were truly to win.

Children's Home

At the end of last year I went to this Children's Home's Christmas Party (if you want more details about the Children's Home contact me directly. Just don't want some crazies finding this blog and using it negatively). It was a wonderful day of celebration and gift giving. These kids have so little and they've really been given a hard hand. 

I shot these on a Canon 550d using a 1.4 50mm lens. The lighting was really great and got some really good shots of the kids.

The Meaning of Life

“The Meaning of Life” is arguably one of the greatest questions that have ever been posed by humanity. What is the reason for it all? But more importantly on a personal level, what is the reason for my life?

Perhaps it is easier to take an agnostic standpoint and simply state that I am because I am; there is no reason for life. The fact that there is a universe and that I even exist is simply coincidental.

Yet human beings are endowed with a need for meaning. Not only does the idea of life need to have meaning, we personally have to have meaning. We have to count for something and be remembered. What does it matter how we are remembered if we are only meandering dust?

If this life is all there is, then we may as well enjoy what we can and squeeze the juice out. Perhaps it’s easier to get rid of this ‘meaning’ business if there is nothing after this time on earth. I however, don’t believe that death is the end. One of the most important understandings in Christianity is that Jesus came to bring Life, and this life stretches from Jesus’ resurrection to eternity. Our time on earth is just a part of the Great Voyage.

The universe is not coincidental, for how can something come from nothing? But rather creation points to the fact that there is a Creator. The very fact that we are on a voyage in the first place, proves there is meaning. No captain starts a voyage without a reason. And that reason is to reconcile Creation to Himself.

I believe that if we are to find meaning in this life it would be to know the Captain and accomplish His goal. That’s it, at least in my mind. Therefore we are to work to look after the poor, save the environment, and work tirelessly to show the Captain’s love to the world. Otherwise if we aren’t doing that, well I don’t think there’s much meaning for life.

The Apple and the Donkey

On a warm summer's day, a donkey was walking through the forest looking for food when she happened upon an apple tree where a red apple lay on the ground. As the donkey lowered her head to pick up the juicy fruit, the apple suddenly started screaming. The donkey jumped back, startled by the apple.

"What do you think you're doing?" questioned the apple.

The donkey stood there shocked.

"I was taking a nap on the ground, enjoying the sunshine when I was awoken to see your great gob coming at me. I'm sure you weren't going to eat me, were you?"

The donkey sheepishly replied in the affirmative.

"But why?' asked the apple, "why would you want to kill a poor innocent apple? I've got at least 3 more days to live."

The donkey explained that she was hungry. She had been forced away from her home meadow by builders who were constructing a monstrous factory, and now she was scavenging for food.

"Well that doesn't give you the right to go around harming innocent apples. I'm sorry your meadow fell prey to industrialization, but that's not my fault. You need to realize that apples are creatures too. With feelings and emotions. We have the exact same right to live as you do."

The donkey had never encountered a philosophical apple before. She told the apple that in future she would wait until the apple had died a natural death before eating one.

"Seems fair" said the apple.

And so it was that the donkey sat down in the cool shade on that Thursday afternoon and waited for the apple to die.

Nature vs Grace, And How They Aren't Opposed

For a long time I’ve been struggling to reconcile my acceptance of the theory of evolution and my Christian faith. I proclaimed to hold both together, but there was a missing link, if you would, in the argument.

The problem I found was that if you believed that humans had a soul and were made in God’s image, how then could we share a common ancestor with apes? Surely humans are above the rest of the created order. But then when did God raise us beyond the created order? Was the cut-off just after Neanderthal man or was it earlier?

The problem for me was that humans had souls whilst animals did not. Animals and plants and sand are all part of what I would call Nature, while humans were a product of Grace. Grace vs Nature in this never-ending battle. 

This perspective is very Greek and based on the idea of dualism, that the body and the spirit should be divided. This idea got further advanced by Plato who helped develop Christoplatonism which was an influence in church thought and held that nature is evil whilst grace is good. Yet for the Hebrews there was no divide between grace and nature. They saw everything as a product of grace with nature. There was no ‘and’ between grace and nature as though they were different things, they worked together. As Aquinas said "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it".

There is an interesting Hebrew word ‘nephesh’ which we often translate as soul. This ‘nephesh’ is what makes you ‘you’ and without ‘nephesh’ you would cease to be. In Hebrew thought there was no soul that would float away when you died. When you died that was it, and for the Hebrews during most of the Old Testament there wasn’t a belief in the afterlife. Listen to Dr Paula Gooder talking on this here. When God tells the Hebrews to not eat meat with its blood in it, the word ‘blood’ is actually ‘nephesh’. Animals too have this ‘nephesh’ and it was sacred and it was where the life was.

So my thinking started to change. Perhaps humans don’t have the monopoly on ‘life’ or ‘souls’ or 'nephesh' or whatever. Perhaps all of Creation is an act of grace and reflects a loving God. Perhaps God created the world with the knowledge that Creation would always need Him, and without God there would be no creation.

“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth” (Gen 1). The heavens and earth were created as a place in which His divinity could dwell. It (all of whatever ‘it’ could be) was created by and for Him. As the psalmist wrote, “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19). Perhaps the creation is more divine than we think, and perhaps we are more carnal than we think.

This view-point is a rather new one for me, but I think it is one that we should wrestle with. As a final thought, is it not interesting that Jesus says that “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19). As though all of Creation is aware of God and His beauty, and yet somehow many humans seemed to have missed it.

Below is an interview with Conor Cunningham talking about the division of Grace and Nature.

15 Things I Learnt From 15 Dates in 15 Hours

I set out to go on 20 dates in 20 hours with 20 women for a presentation for PechaKucha. You can go here for more details. I ended up only going on 15 dates, but got some great insights.

This is what I've learnt:

1. 30 minutes is a very short time. And 15 hours is a long time.

2. Girls are more keen for dates if they're only 30 minutes long. I think its something to do with the possible pyscho-weirdness of blind dates.

3. There are a lot of nice ladies in Cape Town. Either I have just been closed-minded or uber-picky or something, cause I imagine some of the ladies should really have quite a few guys who are keen on them.

4. It's possible to get on well with most women. This might be easier for me as I have 5 sisters, but I imagine most males with fair amounts of EQ being able to get on with the friendly ladies I met.

5. The Waterfront is expensive.

6. The 'London Eye' is pretty cool with rad views of Cape Town. It also has air-con which is great on a hot day. Their staff are friendly, despite the part where I tried to get my sponsored tickets and the date had to awkwardly stand there while I fought to not have to pay R160. Not the most gallant part of the day.

7. Ladies will automatically think you're odd if you're going on 15 dates in one day. "Normal people don't do this sort of thing" was mentioned a few times.

8. Most women like sitting down and talking on dates. Not, for example, going to play putt-putt.

9. It gets easier and easier to be entertaining and charismatic the further into the dates you go. During my morning dates I was a bit introverted and self-conscious, but as the day progressed the proverbial tortoise came out of his shell.

10. Ending dates can be awkward, because you have to say "sorry, this conversation is fun, but I do have to go meet another lady."

11. Don't rant about your own weird ideas about child-bearing and theology. Most girls will find that a bit off-putting. Talk instead about all the children you have single-handedly imparted lifelong wisdom to. If you don't have any heart-warming stories from your life, make them up. Jokes. Rather go and do heart-warming things.

12. Telling your life story 15 times can be a bit boring. Yes I have 5 sisters and a brother, and grew up in Cape Town, and went to High School in Joburg and varsity in Stellenbosch. Obviously this is a necessary part of the conversation though, so I just had to suck it up.

13. Some ladies really want the other ladies to be loonies. A common question I got was "were there any mad girls?" And truthfully I can say they all were very sane and very nice.

14. I am bad at remembering to take pictures while on the date. This is probably a good thing cause it means I was focussed on the dates themselves, but forgot to get pictures for 2 of the dates and had a couple of random quick photos before they left and I rushed onto the next date.

15. It's tough to remember specific conversations when you had similar conversations with 15 girls. This is probably the saddest point. The day feels like a bit of a mash-up of conversations and I'm trying to remember exactly who I spoke to about what. I did take notes, but they weren't too comprehensive.

All in all I can say that I had an epic day meeting a lot of very nice ladies. Special thanks to all those who organised dates for me and shared my blog post and got involved. Some people who I have never met, like Emily Vermeulen for example, were great champions of the Date Challenge, despite having no idea if I was a crazy or not. Also thanks to the Cape Wheel for sponsoring a date, cause that was cool of them.

Creativity and Depression: Like Peas and Carrots

This morning as I drove to work I was listening to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It's a rather tortured song about the lead singer's love for Anne Frank. It's beautifully arresting but rather depressing as well. And I started wondering to myself, is the best creative works depressing? And if so, why?

Take film for example, here is a list of the 20 most popular films on IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/chart/top). Not one of them is a comedy, in fact most of them have very serious topics. I had to scroll down to Dr Strangelove at #38 on the list for the first comedy of sorts.

Rank	Rating	Title
1.	9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2.	9.2	The Godfather (1972)
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)
5.	8.9	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
6.	8.9	12 Angry Men (1957)
7.	8.9	The Dark Knight (2008)
8.	8.9	Schindler's List (1993)
9.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
10.	8.8	Fight Club (1999)
11.	8.8	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
12.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
13.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
14.	8.7	Inception (2010)
15.	8.7	Goodfellas (1990)
16.	8.7	Star Wars (1977)
17.	8.7	Seven Samurai (1954)
18.	8.7	Forrest Gump (1994)
19.	8.7	The Matrix (1999)
20.	8.7	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

It's a bit more tricky when it comes to music because people have varied tastes and some people really like Black Eyed Peas and have lots of good feelings about their evenings. Personally I listen to a lot of indie acoustic rock which tends to have more of a lyrical focus, with artists dealing with heavy topics. Interestingly, a recent study analysed popular songs over the last 25 years and showed that music has become more sad-sounding with an increase in slower songs and songs in the minor mode.

While poetry and art tend to express a broader spectrum of emotion, many of the people who have created great works of art tend to be rather sad, with many of them struggling with depression. Despite their tortured personal lives they created beautiful poems or artworks. Their ability to creative beautiful works might well be because many of them felt like outsiders and were able to objectively look at society and draw unique and interesting insights.

Art is supposed to illicit emotion. When we see something creative it should move us in a deeper way, whether it be towards joy or sadness or wherever. Creativity is not there merely to create nice things, but rather to ask deeper questions and explain something of this beautifully awful mess we're in.

Happiness can easily be worn in public, and doesn't require any introspection or greater questioning. But when we get home and have time to think about our lives, and take time to look at an artwork and reflect on what the artist was trying to communicate to us, it can get pretty melancholic. Joy can also be found in these deep places, but it does seem a rather elusive truth.

I think we need to be able to embrace both the melancholic truths and the joyful ones, and not be afraid to be introspective and allow art to speak to us. Otherwise if that's not your vibe, I hear they're making Transformers 4.