faith

Someone who reads this blog and knows me very well asked me a good question regarding my last post:


You talk about women not having faith in you. But you never state what it is that you yourself have faith in.

Well? What do YOU have faith in?


Of course, I didn't have an immediate answer. The question has never really popped into my head. I had to go to lunch, eat, smoke and deliberate on it before I could come close to having an answer.

This is what I came up with.

I have faith in the humbling of the ego. Whether it is a "higher power" (religion) or belief systems (family, friendships, trust, values, moral codes) or just a hunch that someone has regarding the unknowable, it is all a part of our human consciousness and its attempts to keep our egos in check.

Believing in God says more about the person's ego than it does about their beliefs. Most religious people are smug about their religious convictions, which is an amplification of their ego. But every now and then you meet someone who knows that all of humanity is folly, because it is predicated on mankind's inherent hubris, the belief that man is the ultimate ideal. Their belief in God stems from having lost faith in mankind.

I have always maintained that any system of beliefs that helps an individual to become a better human being is not bad at all. I'm not talking about on a mass scale-- the mob mentality is too pervasive and uncontrollable to be reckoned with in the same light as, say, my uncle's conversion to Christianity, which keeps him out of jail and places him where he belongs: in the midst of his family and loved ones.

I have a massive ego, and I'm aware of this, but it doesn't mean that I can always control the urge to put myself above all others. But rather than have faith in something like my ego, which is fallible and inconsistent, I invest my faith in knowing that the desires and wishes of my ego have little to no bearing on my overall happiness.

I indulge my ego plenty, but I have no faith in the ritual. It leaves me feeling temporarily satisfied; eventually I tire of it, and sometimes I regret the things I've said or done while my ego was running rampant.

On the other hand, the times when I humble my ego, or have my ego humbled for me... those are great moments, always welcome (even if they are occasionally painful and humiliating) and never without some sort of message or lesson to be learned.

I was going to answer the faith question by focsuing on petty things, like having faith that traffic will always be a drag on the 5, or having faith that no matter what I do I'll always be me.

Those are cop-outs. They don't really answer the question.

So what do I have faith in? I have faith in knowing that my faith will always be tested, and that sometimes I will pass and sometimes I will fail.

That's the only answer I can give in all honesty.

And now, let me ask YOU: What do YOU have faith in?