On Faith

The current circumstances of my life have placed me in a prime position to begin understanding what faith really is. I'm not talking about religious faith, because I'm definately not in a place to understand that yet. I'm talking about faith in general, which is a kind that I hadn't really acknowledged the existence of until now.

I have just left a job so that I can take a trip. The trip is a leap of faith in itself, but even that is not what I mean to talk about.

I'm talking about faith that is not in God or luck, but in things--and eventually people. I guess I never realized that you still need to put faith in things that surround you every day. I didn't realize that part of a thing's existence is me believing that it is there. And now that I'm thinking about it, maybe putting faith in things actually involves the bigger risk than faith in ideas (God, luck, etc.) because the farther you reach out into the cosmos, the more difficult it is to prove that something does not exist. Putting faith in a person or thing incurs the risk that that person or thing might fail you, even if that person is yourself. Yesterday, the rear view mirror of your car was attached to the windshield, your computer worked, your friend said he cared about you and meant it, your grandfather was alive. You went to bed believing that these things would still be true in the morning, but when you woke up they were not.

I guess you could say that having faith in people and things is something that I have struggled with and only the recognition that I'm allowing myself to have faith again recently has led me to these musings on the topic.

Faith is a necessity for change and progress. I think that a little bit every day in little ways you are given the choice to believe that you are alone or to believe that the people that you love are with you even though you can't see them, supporting the same ideals even though they've never shared them with you. You can believe that your friends are thinking about you even though you haven't spoken in a week; that even though your ex-boyfriend hasn't spoken to you yet he might someday; that an old friend who maybe ruined your life and broke your heart a little bit, but you still can't help missing him a little bit might miss you a little bit, too; that a trip will change your life; that your roommates will still love you even though you are moody and unreliable; that there is something behind every relationship that you can feel but can never explain. You can beleive in the significance of friendships formed in chocolate stores; in strangers and magazine editors; in the possibility of changing people's lives. Or you can not.

Maybe it is because it is spring. Maybe it is because daylight savings time is doing its thing and the moon is slowly giving way to the sun making the light shining through my window a little brighter. Maybe it is because I quit my job and think it is impossible to consider an ending without thinking of the pursuant beginning. Or maybe it is because the alternative to not believing is stagnancy and I've had enough of that. For whatever reason, faith looks pretty good to me right now.