Word of the Week #404:
Am I spiritual?
Before I answer that, another question comes to mind. What does it mean to be spiritual?
I do try to live my life based on a certain self-defined set of beliefs. Basic stuff, really. Kindness and hope and all that goody-goody stuff. But is that the same as spirituality?
To be really honest, I don’t like most interpretations of spirituality. They just feel like an abandonment of the real world that is right in front of us. While we may have a consciousness beyond the material world, we cannot disregard the responsibilities we feel towards the institutions that sustain life here on earth and towards our peers who are trying to live their lives by our side.
It just feels convenient to be able to overlook everything that we can do to make things better right here if we remain overly convinced that a better existence awaits us that is unrelated to the one we experience right now. How is that any different than the standard garden-variety escapism, which is another of my areas of expertise?
Life has to be more than an entrance exam, right?
Then again, I have always been great at handling entrance exams without any kind of preparation, so… bring it on, I guess.
