The Letter

Dear lovely person, my name is Jake and I want you to read this letter I have composed. It might be a little long. Some of it might be focused, but I definitely don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me so lets just say that most of it is a rant. I put periods in there to end thoughts once and awhile but it may as well be one long run on sentence. I hope it is not too serious. But I really don’t care at this point. At any rate, good luck, and thank you for your interest.

What I have written below is an expression of an underlying belief that I hold pertaining to several concerns in which I am highly motivated to understand more thoroughly. Often times I feel terribly inadequate to speak out on any of these things, but other times I see no reason not to if my main concern is to become more aware of what may actually be true. Fear of criticism by those who may be much more learned than I, admittedly, often times consumes me and causes me to stay as quiet as I can on certain topics close to my heart. That said, I have realized that criticism, both constructive and harsh cause an individual to learn in one way or another if one is genuine in their motives. So with the emphasis on learning, being fully aware and as prepared as I can be to whatever reactions may fly in my direction upon evaluating my words, I present to you, the reader, my thoughts on a few very fundamental ideas of which I hold.

Begin.

Over the years I have started more than twenty different blogs all with different ideas and emotions underpinning their purposes. Of which, nothing has come of any of them. They linger now aimlessly as shades in the endless ocean of forgotten blog land on the interweb somewhere.

I wish I could say that this blog will be different. I hope it will. But alas, I cannot in confidence say that it will rise to anything greater than what has gone before.

One difference that I am going to implement in this blog is that—I am going to promote it. Yes, I am actually going to ask people to read what I’ve written, whereas all of my other blogs have only ever existed ephemerally within the glints of memory of those who may have had some sort of association with me once upon a time. Another difference is that this new blog has a long-term goal in mind. One I will explain shortly.

You may be asking a question, one of which I ask myself everyday. That question is why I should start another blog. Well, the easiest answer is that I simply want to write, and to resurrect an old blog at this time doesn’t seem to me very sensible. Their time has passed and I am hoping to start fresh. But what sort of content am I going to write? This is something that I have thought long and hard about as well. What on earth do I have to offer that a million people before me haven’t offered in already exquisite fashion?

Well, in truth, I don’t know what I could write for others specifically. However, there is one thing that I want nearly more than anything else for myself. It is something that I am not only intrigued by, but also, there stirs a great sense of obligation within my soul pertaining to it. This thing would be to learn all that I possibly can about this life, this universe and this reality that I am so unalterably bound to. There are several fields in which peak my interest, but sadly, my pursuit in obtaining knowledge through standard academic means has left me only frustrated and in debt. I have written about my thoughts on education before so I will leave them out here. Suffice it to say, I love school. I appreciate the things that I have learned there, and I am absolutely blown away by and respect whole-heartedly those who can make use of their hours spent there. However, school could no more teach me all that I desire to learn than a religion could save my soul.*

Simply, I desire to learn. And I intend to use this blog as a catalyst to do so. Hopefully it will be here that I can, brick by brick, build a body of knowledge that I can share with the world and be proud of. I have established a method of educating myself, one I will explain soon enough. After all of my desires though, there is one great barrier that hinders my progress. Tangled up in my chest in wisps of strange energy that seem to at the most peculiar of times lay waste to my confidence, happiness, peace, and simply good sense, there lies my poor heart.

I find myself here at this point, at a sturdy 28 years of age often times mulling over the defeated nature of my state of mind. Be it some runaway attention deficit disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or simply depression with one of its many devilish faces, I could care less. However, the thing that I care greatly about is promoting the idea that a person can learn through unconventional means and in spite of darkness and the billowy clouds of mental illness. And not only learn, but come to the awareness that actively learning in the manner in which a person can learn most efficiently is in large part a contributor to the overall wellbeing of those struggling with mental or emotional ailments. There are few things more rewarding than learning some new principle that a person can directly apply in his or her life.

This unconventional means for me, I believe manifests itself in the one quality that I feel I have in abundance: perseverance. I have found myself more times than I care to count in the depths of what I can only consider to be the abyss of hell from where I have often thought of ending my life. I have time and time again shuddered at how easily the thought creeps into my mind, I could just end it all. 

One especially stressful day at work, another bad assignment turned in, an issue with a loved one, or simply a poor night’s sleep, among other everyday stresses are some of the things that an otherwise healthy individual could and should be able to manage in an appropriate fashion. These things tend to from what I have witnessed in myself and in others whom I care for cascade one upon another compounding each individual issue until eventually the go-to thought becomes to just screw life and be done with it since there seems to be within the pinched perspective of the one experiencing it no foreseeable means of ever accomplishing anything of worth in the life given.

At this time in my life, I feel I have come to a great awareness of this issue in me. I feel stronger than I have ever been, and I feel like I have learned a lot over the years of persevering through depression. Writing, mostly, solely for myself has helped me to release and process many hardships that I have overcome. All of that said, I still, daily do war with this demon that is depression.

To delve slightly into this facet of life, from what I have thought on the matter, when a person finds oneself continually in the midst of pain with no signs of it letting up, a person ends up doing one of three things in any sort of combination or extreme. A person either commits one’s life to the ultimate ends of an untreated mental illness and commits suicide, or a person dulls his or her senses to such a degree by indulging unabashedly in base, harsh, trivial, and degrading activities to drown out the pain, never quite committing to end it all. Or, on a more optimistic note, a person learns from it and moves forward even in the midst of the unceasing sorrow. If one, for whatever reason finds oneself in the clutches of incessant mental anguish, terrible thoughts, the victim of seeming malevolent abuse from otherworldly plains, or for whatever neurological, emotional, or physiological reason is incapable of feeling well in the heart or the mind for extended periods of time, one might still even in the most trying of circumstances make the active decision to learn.

However, and to digress for but a moment, from my own analysis of the problem of pain, all of this suffering, to me, begs the question, what is the purpose in it? Why does it seem the lot of some to be continually stricken with hardships, to be depressed, or to simple feel heavy all the time? To gain experience? Goodness me. Though I assert that it is absolutely true that based on our experiences we will build our character, however this answer seems like such an inadequate one that leaves the inquisitor wondering what good the experience is if the grief kills him or her before anything can be done with it?

To introduce a subject nearly always on my mind I’d state that, one regardless of belief, might at a certain point of despair conjure up in thought either consciously or subconsciously that the blame for all of this pain belongs to God.

Here it is, faith, the one thing that I cannot ever fail to mention after I’ve summoned the will to write. I advocate its true meaning to the ends of the universe. An aspect of faith is love. To love others is what we simply should do regardless of how we feel, or regardless of what God we believe in or even if we are an atheist. It simply is right. To love, even when stricken with heartache builds not only character, but a depth of understanding that many may never receive otherwise. And I assert, that though, not the primary purpose in pain, but a role in it, is to stir up the hearts of those content with the everyday routine of life who seem to never give a second thought to the majesty and mystery underpinning the reality of life itself. If thought on in the correct perspective, pain may serve as a reminder that exercises ones intellectual capacity to understand things which are at times terribly difficult to understand.

As is apparently my nature though, being strapped paradoxically with weights which pin me to certain shifting emotional states, and deliberating into near oblivion upon how to answer the question of pain more thoroughly beyond that of merely gaining experience, I have come to only one conclusion. However this is a conclusion that I must forego for the time being and one that I do not feel necessary at this time to introduce. Perhaps though, it will manifest itself in the manner in which I convey my thoughts in this blog in the future course of this undertaking.

To love others is important but perhaps not any more important than truly loving ourselves. And if we are to love ourselves I say that we must—and to bring us back on course—engage in learning. We must learn anything and everything we can by any means possible and is ethical as if we were still little children first exploring the strange world around us and before we knew that such terrible feelings could ever be felt.

To grow and expand the mind in active pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment is not limited to those adept in the academic setting, and by no means more or less attainable depending upon one’s faith. And faith in this manner, meaning the religious precepts one holds to, for otherwise, faith, in the other manner is absolutely essential to learn anything in the first place at all. Faith is what we all must have and do have anytime we ever come to any conclusions that are true, spiritually, empirically or otherwise. But that is another rant for another day.

After it all, I have studied my own heart and have found what I consider to be a reasonable course of action to undertake for my personal education.

I have established a systematic means of learning all that I can in a fashion that I believe appeals to the idiosyncrasies of my mind. And I would love your support in this pursuit.

In attempts to learn to my own methods I have in the past tried to simply focus staunchly on one topic so that I might have a large degree of understanding in one area. However, upon finding that within the fields of which are the most intriguing to me, there lies no easily defined border between one subject and the next. Looking into the history of physics one will find oneself engulfed in the sometimes profound but often terribly odd precepts of the philosopher. Than again, historically, astronomy finds itself straining to free itself from the dominating grip of theology during the early period of western scientific development. Biology the same with chemistry and once again chemistry with physics. The further we go back to the foundations of these disciplines we find ourselves within the realms of mysticism and supernatural ideologies from where spring gods, creation myths, bizarre explanations for natural phenomenon, and more interestingly, albeit complicated things pertaining to the nature of the relationship between man, nature, the soul, the gods, God, and heaven.

It all just gets really hazy real quick. I want to know physics, but I can’t just forget about its founding philosophers and mathematician who grew as little buds stretching toward the light of truth out of darkness developing the scientific method, whom of which many held simultaneously religious and otherwise unscientific views in their hearts. Ah ha! It is this. It is this paradox that truly fascinates me, the proverbial canyon estranging science and religion. Surely, two established methods for discovering what is true must have some sort of long, albeit hidden relationship that ultimately binds them endlessly together. How can it be though and where is the common ground? This is what I want to know.

Rather than study one specific topic I feel like I have come to quite a unique solution to where I should begin my research. There is one topic that underpins all of the body of human knowledge and has a precise point of origin, though expanding.

It is the written word. Literature. It is a category that allows me to lean back and chronologically absorb all of the contents of each tablet, scroll, parchment, stele, letter, paper or book, be them focused on physics or faith, astronomy or philosophy, and everything in between, I can systematically read about all of these topics one record at a time and therefore slowly but surely tease out the origins of every topic known or written by man.

There are gems of knowledge hidden almost everywhere within the realms of ancient literature, from where I begin this course. For example, a conflict that has troubled me a great deal is the age of the earth as seen in the eyes of those of various religious backgrounds as opposed to those of science.  How old would you say the Earth is? Some minority of Christians hold the staunch belief that the Earth is merely six thousand or so years old being attested to by a literal interpretation of the Bible’s chronology of the Old Testament. I, knowing full well that science is a continually progressing body of knowledge tend to believe that its views are more accurate in that the Earth is actually around four billion years old. Now, just think of how this conflict would be different if instead of the typical biblical interpretation of the timeframe from The Creation to The Flood of a thousand or so years, we, as it may have very well been the case had the Library of Alexandria not been burned were all familiar with Berossus’ accounting of events of there being nearly a half million years between that time.

We are only spared a couple very obscure accountings of the 3rd Century B.C. Babylonian Priest. And this is why I feel inclined to take such a course of action. To find these sorts of gems one at a time, these bits of knowledge that have the potential to change the course of human discussion if but we only knew about them and hammer out my own personal understanding first hand from where all of our ideologies derive as best as I can.

And so, with the aid of that website so looked down upon in academia,(Wikipedia) I find my myself drooling over a list of ancient literature of where we find ourselves in the Early Bronze Age which is quite predominantly made up of Sumerian Cuneiform writings. The Egyptian Pyramid texts supposedly lie within this timeframe as well(2600-2000 B.C.) and boy, if I do say so those Pyramid Texts are just as fascinating as they are tedious, repetitive, and slightly mind numbing, if it’s possible to be both, and it is, strangely enough…

Anyway… In short, I desire to learn. This blog is dedicated to expanding that horizon of knowledge for myself and hopefully any who follow me. I would love your support. So, if you are intrigued as to what you’ve read and or, have actually made it this far, than, I shamelessly inquire your support. Let me know you love me.

I tell you now to be sure, that there isn’t a person I have ever met that I haven’t loved in one way or another, so rest assured you’re support is greatly appreciated whomever you are. Below is a list of topics that I most certainly will be writing of and most likely creating content for to learn for myself and to create awareness for the things that I am passionate about. And hopefully I can present them in such a way that you will find educational and interesting as well.

Skateboarding

Photography

Literature

Mathematics

Theology

Astronomy

Chemistry

Physics

I hope to see you around. Check out the About page. Take care and come back to see if maybe I’ve posted anything newish, possibly, hopefully. Goodnight.

-Jacob Winterfeldt

*Certainly I raised some eyebrows with this statement. And it is by no means meant to promote atheism or encourage inactivity in ones religious practices. But most certainly, I’d state that should there actually exist an omnipotent Deity that is deserving of worship, it seems slightly absurd that that being would promote a religion as the fundamental order in which a man is to be saved. Religion is merely a byproduct of men trying to wrap their minds around divine truths of which derive all sorts of strange precepts which may or may not have anything to do with an actual omnipotent being’s desire for us. If I could be so bold as to say a word about what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent God would have us do I’d say that this God, in its very nature of being omnipotent would establish firstly before the foundations of anything that we humans are capable of understanding, that its doctrines and principles are indeed the underpinnings of reality as we know it itself, and would set forth ordinances that teach one to align oneself with continually cultivating behaviors that coincide with ever refining points of reality. A church is not true in the sense that we think to speak of it as true, but rather it is true because those who built it used true principles of engineering, mathematics and hard work to establish the physicality of the building in real life. A church, meaning the building, is a manifestation of true principles coming together to create something, and what is taught within this church may or may not be true at all. It is along these lines that we understand that evil by means of simple logic cannot overcome good, for even evil deeds are done by means of true principles given to all who posses the ability to choose one thing or another. A further extrapolation of this can be read in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.

Also to say that a certain gospel is true is to me quite redundant, since, should there be a God who promotes a Gospel, when we say that the Gospel is true, we are essentially saying that truth is true. The Gospel is true, yes, but instead of wasting needless words to affirm something that everyone intuitively already knows, (meaning, to liken unto the fact that everyone intuitively knows that one plus one equals two,) I would recommend actually acting upon what you already intuitively understand to be true. This makes much more sense. When faced with actually doing something instead of wording something over and over again, we may find that our understanding of true principles will grow at exponential speeds. And just maybe our words of admission of grace might begin to establish a grounds and a case for it actually saving our souls.