What is Faith?

             The answer to the question “what is faith?” is anything but easy to answer. It is a question that can be interpreted in many different ways, by people of different cultural backgrounds, beliefs and social context. This being said, my interpretation of faith comes from that of a Catholic male in his early twenties, coming from a middle class family and with a realistic understanding of what this world is all about.

            While at Mass this past Sunday, I looked around at the people in the Church and really tried to determine what my definition of faith is. As I looked on, I saw mothers holding their children closely, elderly couples holding hands and praying. I saw a teenager who seemed to be troubled and saw myself in his eyes, realizing that when things would go bad I could always find something to aid me in Church.

            This led to one word popping in to my head and sticking with me the next few days as I tried to determine what faith was. That word was “hope”. Faith is hope. Faith is the hope it gives to true believers to find some light in a world completely filled with darkness, bitterness, corruption, disease, disasters, famine and war. When all else goes to complete shit (sorry for the lack of a better word), faith is what grounds people of different religious groups and is what helps us get through an otherwise depressing world. If a person were to lack faith and hope in a world such as this, it would be far to easy to fall in to despair and suffering. Darkness can easily consume us, and as humans we need to cling to things that bring us joy. Religion, relationships, families, children, friends... these are all things that aid us in finding this joy. All of these bonds we create are linked to faith, because faith is believing and we believe in these bonds. Therefore, faith is not necessarily the belief in God or a religion. Because faith is hope and belief, it can be easily adapted to all of the connections I have mentioned above. I believe that we need more faith in this world, because without some sort of belief that we can achieve more then we are doomed as a society to continue down this self destructive whirlwind humanity has created for itself.

Laziness, Pop Culture and Other Rants: Part 1

Movies like "The Social Network" praise geniuses like Mark Zuckerberg for creating such revolutionary and ground breaking inventions that have essentially shaped the world we live in today. However, things like Facebook and Twitter, initially created with good intentions, have become grotesque monstrosities turning our youth and even our adult populations into lazy zombies with no other preoccupations other than how many friends or followers they have.

It feels as if modern technology, this digital age we live in, has made it extremely easy to develop lazy tendencies. It is this "get it quick" mentality which is reflected in our popular culture... music (Kesha, Katy Perry, Soulja Boy, Dougie bullshit dance, etc.), movies with no plot or purpose (Expendables, countless dance movies, etc.), even the food industry (McDonalds, Burger King, etc.). All of these things have made it impossible for someone to WANT to have faith, focus and a desire to finish any given project. The few people who do WANT, and those who don't, waste their potential because the modern fucking bullshit of our generation has made it too easy for us. There is no longer a NEED to succeed. Only a withering dream, a withering want of becoming something greater than what we are. We have become too lazy to succeed at anything more than logging online and chatting with our friends, and stalking attractive women on Facebook.

Although this seems like an incoherent rant (it basically is), there is a bottom line to my madness. There is no NECESSITY anymore. There is no sense of urgency. Aside from those poor and struggling in the world, people with basic commodities who are able to get by have no NEEDS only WANTS. We dream of having fancy cars, bitches, hoes, money and clothes. Who could blame us? When all we see everywhere is a small percentage of wealthy people on television, movies, radio, internet, etc. telling us how great it is to be rich and how we should all buy $600 jackets and $300 jeans because that will fulfill us.

-P