The Idyllicist

Studying wisdom of the past to build a better future

  • The Song of the Universe

    By

    Note from the Author: I am in my first of three weeks on rotation for pharmacy school, which means I have little to no downtime. I don’t want to rush a post and publish something not up to my standards. Instead, I will be sharing some of the poetry I wrote in search of these deeper truths. This first one is called “The Song of the Universe.”

    ~~~

    Here begins the story of all things.

    Before there was, there simply was not.
    But then at once, creation came forth,
    Vomited from the vast emptiness.

    Swiftly creation ballooned outward.
    Its inner parts coalesced in heat
    Unimaginably anarchic.

    Matter formed at smallest of scales,
    And from between the particle bonds
    Welled up a force, a conscious being.

    Infant in age but a sage in breadth,
    The lifeblood of the universe flowed.
    Rapidly it branched throughout the void.

    Sluggish notions collided, a sea
    Of such roiling uniformity
    Unfathomable but to itself.

    Within this force, aptly named ‘the Mind,’
    Everything was that ever could be,
    Would be, and even never would be.

    As Time drew on, the universe cooled,
    And seconds became millennia.
    Mammoth structures began to emerge.

    Rivers of stars spun around the eddies
    That were the galaxies, bright and rife
    With the atoms of the beginning.

    The Mind, ever-present, sentient,
    And sapient orchestrated all,
    Fabric on the loom of the cosmos.

    The force was pleased with its creation.

    But the Mind, imbued with fatal flaw,
    Racemic mix of opposite thoughts,
    Came to rest on answer elusive.

    On one hand buzzed desire to create,
    Other inclination, sinister,
    Yearned for naught but to delete it all.

    The Mind did separate these two thoughts,
    But its future it could not predict:
    Two personas spawned in enmity.

    That of creation was known as caste,
    That of deletion was known as wemme,
    Both filled with loathing from inception.

    They went separate ways, the battle raged,
    And the Mind feared for its proudest build
    Against the infection that did spread.

    That plague would strangle all that could breathe.
    Existence would die with a whimper.
    There was but one thing the Mind could do.

    In one fell swoop, the Mind cordoned off
    The lower space to save all the rest,
    But the Mind wept for its profound loss.

    But there was a loophole in the plot,
    A way to save the life underneath,
    One that required a new emotion.

    As the beings evolved, became complex,
    They began to think all on their own,
    And love filled the gaps between them all.

    Yes, it was love that would save them all.

    Only love profound could bridge the gap
    Between the physical and spirits.
    Humanity could live forever.

    However, as they grew and evolved,
    That insipid infection claimed them
    As its own, or tried to. Their minds stung.

    Humans, ever complex and unique,
    Fell victim to the doings of wemme.
    Within all their own minds, they suffered.

    But all the same, they kept pressing on,
    A species proud, mostly self-aware,
    That could never conquer every flaw.

    In vain they tried to conquer nature,
    In vain they tried to settle minds,
    But that human spirit was restless.

    Insatiable and unquenchable,
    The soul craves more, more, and ever more,
    Until bitter end approaches near.

    There is but one simple solution,
    So easy they may never believe,
    But attainable it is indeed.

    All one must do is look on upward.
    The sky of blackest, star-studded night
    Answers all, nothing to be desired.

    The sheer wonder of all creation,
    Infinitely diverse, full of awe,
    That is what the soul does truly crave.

    It is love that binds our creation.

  • The Problem of (an) Evil (God)

    By

    “No one who does good work will come to an evil end.” – Bhagavad Gita 6.40b

    The so-called “problem of evil” generally assumes that God is not the culprit. 

    Now this is a massive topic that many a philosopher have spilled ink on before, so I will not pretend that this little blurb comes anywhere close to the depth of those thoughts. However, I do want to offer my own input based on my experiences with religion. 

    Growing up, I learned that God was nothing but good. He was all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. I was far too young to even understand the concept of evil, so these facts went unquestioned. 

    Eventually, Satan was introduced as the embodiment of evil, but even then, developing little minds cannot grasp what this really means. Books and movies feature “bad guys,” but “bad” is not “evil.” Up to a certain point in one’s maturation, “bad” is more akin to “other” than it is to “evil.” Many people still have not passed this point. 

    I remember in one class – in fourth grade, I believe – my teacher said, “Satan doesn’t want you on his team. He just doesn’t want you on God’s team.” To someone a few years younger, this admittedly quite American analogy might be appropriate. In an ideal world, someone in fourth grade should be on their journey to truly understanding such a fundamental part of their faith. 

    Perhaps this is intentional. 

    See, the problem of evil emerges once reason applies a little pressure to religion. Most are content to accept that God is all-good and all-powerful but allows evil, but that conclusion does not sit well with many. And it shouldn’t. An all-good God who demands sole worship must measure up to his own standard. 

    The simple fact is that God either cannot be all-good or cannot be all-powerful while allowing evil. If God can eliminate evil and doing so results in no harm, then any other action with regards to evil must be immoral. 

    A natural response to this is that God has a plan that we cannot understand. Even if this is true – and it must be taken entirely on faith – it does not hold up to logic. And, if people were made in God’s image, our minds must work in some way similar to his. 

    A natural response to this is that God is not bound by laws, but this still generates more questions. If humans must follow a moral code instituted by God, but God is exempt from this code, then all morality is arbitrary and there is no true “good” or “evil.”

    The notion of free will plays into this as well. There is the idea that God allows evil because evil is a consequence of free will. But, if God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing, what good is there in knowingly and willingly creating a system in which so many are doomed to an eternity of torture?

    In all these lines of thought, evil has one ultimate source: God. And this was admitted by my teachers, that God did, in fact, create evil. He has a plan though, so no need to fret. What never sat right with me, even as a devout Christian, was the knowledge that so many good people would be doomed to eternal torment simply because they picked the wrong God. 

    This is where that quote from the Bhagavad Gita comes in: “No one who does good work will come to an evil end.” It is quite clear that many who do good work do come to evil ends in this life. In both my worldview and the Christian worldview, the end of this life is not the end. But in the Christian worldview, many who do good work still meet an evil end and an evil eternity. 

    The problem is not evil, but an evil God. I do not believe God is evil – I also do not believe he is all-powerful. Immensely powerful, yes, but not infinitely so. I also believe evil is not the result of anything or anyone in particular. It simply is – a natural entity as old as good, and it oftentimes acts on good people of its own volition. And God is powerless to stop it. Again, if God is all-good and all-powerful, evil simply does not exist. 

    But, as it stands, the dominant idea of God in Western civilization is one that could eliminate evil effortlessly yet chooses not to, and in doing so dooms billions of souls. 

  • Holier Than Thou

    By

    “Think not that those who exult in what they have done, and love to be praised for what they have not done — think not that they are secure from punishment. They shall suffer a grievous chastisement.” – Surah 3:189

    They say there’s no hate like Christian love. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to all Christians, but it is unfortunately a very common occurrence nowadays. So, if you are a Christian reading this, please don’t click away yet – if anything, it should be the duty of those within a religion to hold accountable those who pervert that faith’s name. 

    Among the only “true” Christians I knew growing up were my parents. They practiced everything they preached – humility, honesty, morality, work ethic, accountability, and so on. I consider myself fortunate beyond words to have grown up in such a healthy household – and that they still support me through every high and low. 

    I believe people like this constitute a small minority, however. 

    Once I entered high school, it became very obvious very quickly that my peers, nearly all of whom professed to be devout, God-fearing Christians, were downright awful examples of the love they liked to discuss. Knowing what I know now, this is no surprise, but it came as a shock back then. 

    This is the primary reason I left the church in 2019. I never doubted there was a higher power of some sort, nor have I doubted an afterlife or some overarching sense of justice in the universe. But no longer could I associate myself with a community that was so unbelievably hypocritical. 

    Again, this is not all Christians, and this problem is not only a Christian one. Being the dominant religion, however, it should be easy to see why its adherents are the topic of these sorts of discussions. 

    I remember feeling like my eyes were finally wrenched open once I had these realizations, and what was a feeling of both betrayal and awe gave way to sadness and frustration over the years. 

    And those feelings continue to this day. Just last week, I engaged a stranger online in defense of my fiancée’s aunt, a woman I have high respect for for many different reasons. This stranger accused my fiancée’s aunt of cherry-picking scripture, but when I pointed out to this stranger that she was, in fact, doing the very thing she was railing against, she said she saw “darkness” in my soul and said she would pray for me. 

    I quite appreciate it when people say they pray for me, even though I rarely ever pray myself. But those are prayers of genuine concern and love. What this stranger online wanted was to demonstrate to the world just how pious she was. Her response to my showing her hypocrisy was to list as many “good” things she had done in her life that she could think of – volunteering, charity, and so on. 

    And this was all in the same breath she was defending extrajudicial murder in the streets at the hands of the federal government. We’re meant to respect the governments, because, after all, God instituted them. Never mind that Jesus himself committed acts of rebellion. 

    There are a handful of Christians with whom I am close that have truly devoted themselves to their faith and live it out every day. They do this with little regard for optics, but a genuine and heartfelt desire to make the world a better place through their faith. That is nothing short of admirable, and if that was the norm, the world likely would be a much better place. 

    Unfortunately, I believe they also constitute a small minority. 

    Ten years ago, I would have found it quite ironic that I chose a verse from the Qur’an to exemplify this. And, I must be honest, I am in disagreement with much of the belligerence held within the Qur’an. But there can be no justice without consequences and accountability. Forgiveness is wonderful, but when so many speak on behalf of their own God to forgive their own sins, you must wonder who is actually talking to them. 

  • Greater Good

    By

    “Whatever a great man does ordinary people will do; whatever standard he sets everyone else will follow.” – Bhagavad Gita 3.21

    I don’t necessarily subscribe to the “Great Man” theory – no one person can come to such power to be a “Great Man” without the institutions that permit such a thing. That said, because of such institutions, people who would not normally be able to come to power by sheer virtue of lacking the necessary skills are much more capable. 

    The democratization of power is not a bad thing by any means. More minds tend to be better than fewer. But the institutions set up by society are double-edged swords, and it is often easier to cut oneself on the sword than to wield it properly. An educated society is an absolute prerequisite for a functioning society. I would argue a society must be empathetic as well to truly flourish. 

    Alas, there is just something about the human mind that, on a grand scale, tends towards the self. Perhaps it is a byproduct of evolution, but humans are not the only species capable of altruistic tendencies. The more I grow, however, the less hopeful I am that altruists outnumber the selfish. 

    Looking at society currently, it is easy to see why I and so many others are so fearful. It is not that we are fearful of regression – because society most certainly is regressing – but a matter of how much. It takes a long time to build bridges, but only an instant to destroy them. 

    “Great Man” is a misnomer, really. The ability to wield an institution is obviously not inherent only to men, but it has been controlled and abused by them throughout much of history. And truly there is nothing great about any person who redirects the arrow of progress from its most noble goal. But it is often that these “great men” – “powerful people,” perhaps – do leave death and destruction in their wake. 

    I used to wonder how societies fell prey so quickly and easily to these demagogues. Then I watched it happen in my own, and it still baffles me just how many people out there are proud enemies of progress and empathy. Even to remove emotion from the equation, it is simply logical that helping everyone to succeed gives the individual a higher chance of success than going it alone. And with our present institutions, it is only a handful of those who go it alone that surpass everyone else to such a degree they would be considered “great men.” With the exception of a few hundred people at best, everyone is orders of magnitude closer to homelessness than they are to obscene profit. 

    So why do these few selfish people succeed? They manipulate the institutions to their whim, and often these institutions already gave them an advantage. But manipulation of institutions, while it may be profitable, does not give the individual command over millions. This is where the critical piece comes into play: hatred – or, rather, fear. 

    Hatred is really the other side of the coin of fear. Fear and hatred walk hand-in-hand, and their footprints are scattered all throughout history. It is deeply embedded in religion, too, with promises of fire and brimstone for those who refuse to obey – but this is another conversation. 

    The wealthy individuals themselves do not need to hate – though they often do. What they need is to cultivate that fear and hatred in the millions, and only then do they have the ability to take hold of the arrow of progress and redirect it towards themselves alone. 

    The result of this is death and destruction – always. What is pleasurable to the individual is not always good for the whole. Like I said, these “great men” do often hate, or at least possess an utter lack of theory of mind. But they all harbor a deep, unspeakable fear of failure, specifically failure of the individual. Ironically, it is this fear that ultimately drives them – and often many, many others – to failure. 

    A system built on oppression is always finite. There will never be enough resources, enough manpower, enough will to sustain these things forever. So, there is some comfort in that. But there is nearly always a great loss before these systems come to an end, because they must sap as much as they can from their subjects. And this is what the altruists and progressives fear – how much longer?

  • Under the Sun

    By

    “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9

    Two days ago, I finally finished another journal. Journal Vol. VII clocked in at 64 entries and 35,197 words, spanning 938 days. A lot has happened in those 938 days, and a lot has changed.  

    I have been journalling for almost nine years now, with a one-year break during my senior year of high school. With every new entry, my opinion that journalling is an absolute necessity in life is more and more solidified. It isn’t just therapeutic – it’s insightful. 

    I started my first journal on February 24, 2017, in the middle of seventh grade. Around February 2023, when I was in the middle of Journal Vol. VI, I decided to start digitizing all my journals in case I ever lost the physical copies. As much as I cringe at some of my early writing, it demonstrated to me once again just how important it is to remember the past. 

    Not only was I reminded of several memories – both good and bad – when rereading my old journals, but to my surprise, I was able to pick out early warning signs of what would later emerge as my struggles with depression and anxiety. I was fairly social until the end of junior high – though I would still have considered myself an introvert back then – but in my entry from December 21, 2017, was a passage where I lamented how lonely I felt and wondered if I truly did have any meaningful friendships. I had a strange feeling that 2018 would be a difficult year as well, and I had no memory of writing that down until I reread it years later. 2018 was indeed a difficult year — my best friend passed away, and nearly all my other friends quickly showed their true colors. 

    In my entry from February 3, 2018, I recounted what was very clearly my first panic attack just four days prior. I didn’t know this at the time, but the symptoms I described were exactly what I experience with panic attacks now. Once I did realize that what was happening to me were panic attacks, I sought out therapy and got medicated, and they have been under relative control ever since. 

    In my entry from August 6, 2019, I wrote about how I had been bullied for so long that I was starting to believe the awful things my bullies were saying about me and to me. Years later, I was given this wonderful piece of advice: “Don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from.” I passed that pearl along to my younger brother about a month ago. Last weekend, we were at a late-night dinner together, and we were talking about our experiences in high school. I mentioned my struggles with depression, both past and current, and how hearing the same awful things every day starts to take a toll on your psyche. So, my brother quoted that great piece of advice back at me, and I couldn’t help but smile. 

    I don’t think this is quite exactly what the author of Ecclesiastes meant when they wrote, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” But trying to figure out exactly what these ancients meant with their words is not the point of this space – it’s to apply that wisdom to the modern day. 

    They say the only constant thing in this life is change. That has some merit, but it is also astounding how much history repeats itself. They also say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Humans have always been the same — you can find graffiti thousands of years old, lewd jokes written on old walls, a child’s doodles on a piece of wood. 

    And even though it may seem like depression and anxiety are more rampant now than ever, I assure you this is not the case. People are simply more comfortable discussing those things once dubbed taboo. Discussion of these things furthers the conversation not just for the people engaged in it now, but for countless others in the future. 

    While it may seem useless to know these things only after they have occurred, knowing what your own experiences have been and revisiting them from a different perspective can be instrumental in helping others. After my friend died at the end of eighth grade, I struggled for a long time trying to find some meaning in it. I watched a lot of Christian lecturers back then, and one of them said that bad things happen to prepare you to help other people through the same experiences. Of course, that does nothing to solve the problem of evil, but it was still quite a realization for me. 

    I decided to make sure I was prepared for if and when a similar situation would happen to someone else sometime in the future, and as awful as that whole experience was, it has certainly helped others in an indirect way.

  • But That’s Just My Opinion

    By

    “If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – Meditations 6.21

    Opinions are funny things. Everyone has them, but no one has the same ones. It is today as it was thousands of years ago, and probably as it will be thousands of years from now – you and a peer may have ninety-nine of the same opinions, but the hundredth has the potential to make you mortal enemies.

    Those who know me know that I can be quite opinionated. It’s for a reason – if I have my mind made up about something, I feel strongly about it. I have always had strong opinions, and often those opinions have gotten me in some bitter debates. This has been a trend for more than a decade, but I was not always on the side I am now.

    I consider myself progressive, but there was a time when I was one of the most conservative young men you could find. I was proud of what I thought I knew, and I cast empathy aside in favor of cruelty disguised as logic and reason.

    I was young and naive – just twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old – but I was convinced I had peaked in my emotional development. This self-righteousness never exists on its own – there are always consequences to those who must bear its heavy burden. My faith in the Lord and myself meant more than any other relationship I was a part of at the time.

    Then something broke all that confidence – a handful of people took a chance on me. They slowly dragged me out of the pit of misery and hatred I had dug for myself, and over the course of roughly a year – coinciding nicely with the first several months of the pandemic – I re-evaluated every belief I held dear.

    I remember clearly that, when I was just entering adolescence, I confidently told those around me that I would happily change my mind if they could persuade me to with a convincing argument based on logic and reason. Looking back, I think I did accept the possibility that I could be proven wrong, but the door to that possibility was locked shut by a lot of misplaced self-righteousness.

    Six years later, I often struggle to remind myself that these things I find abhorrent in the world, and especially in my country, I once would have supported. Now this begs the question of if that handful of good people had not taken a chance on me, or if happenstance caused that I never met them to begin with. What then? Would I have figured it out on my own eventually, or would I have grown to be what I hate now?

    I believe this is why I still bother engaging in these sorts of debates, as frustrating as they often are. In everyone who “abides in his error and ignorance,” as Marcus Aurelius wrote, I see a bit of myself. It isn’t lost on me that I could still be wrong about the things I believe now, and that my mind might be changed in the future, but my current beliefs are built on much more solid moral ground than those of the previous decade.

    Still, it is ironic that I am so firm in my beliefs now, especially when compared to those of my younger self. I often joke that if my younger self knew what he would become, he would have gone insane. The difference now is in what my beliefs are predicated on, what Marcus Aurelius meant when he wrote, “I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured.”

    This truth is that of the common good, that which is in the best interest of humanity. This is why I don’t subscribe to the idea that there are no “incorrect” opinions. Now if one person’s favorite color is blue, and another’s is green, neither of them hold an incorrect opinion. But when morality is on the line and livelihoods are at stake, someone who acts against the common good is manifestly incorrect.

    But we live in an era where, despite all our progress, the sanctity of human life is still conditional. In this country, it is largely dependent on your opinions, and those who tout empathy and inclusion are being marked for death by those whose hearts are iced over.

    Many of those who appear evil are simply misled and misguided. They have fallen prey to some religion or some politics that validate a primal hatred cultivated by the movers of society. I know this, and I believe this, because I was once in that snare. It only took a few good people to dismantle that apparatus and set me free.

    Undoubtedly though, there are plenty of truly evil people. Maybe they pray for you on Sunday, but on Monday, they’re ready to end your life. I want to believe most people aren’t like this, but it is difficult with the current climate. I harbor no judgement for anyone who has severed ties over such fundamental differences, but it is extraordinarily difficult for me to do such a thing.

    A professor and role model of mine once told me that empathy can be cultivated in anyone, and I am trying to internalize that as much as possible. I still believe most minds can be changed with the right approach. I’m fairly firm in that opinion at the moment, but time may tell if it changes.

  • Hello and Welcome!

    By

    One common thread throughout human history is a longing to build a better world. We have thousands of years’ worth of religion and philosophy all attempting to uncover the core of human existence and purpose. 

    Yet we live in one of the most turbulent moments in recent history. 

    My name is Dylan Hembrough. I’m a writer, a student of pharmacy, and a lover of all things philosophy and religion. I’m twenty-two years old at the time of this writing, but I’ve seen enough of what this world has to offer to know that something is deeply and fundamentally wrong. Heinous atrocities are being carried out in what was once a free society by people who profess to represent a god of love and forgiveness as his most devout and pious disciplines. 

    It’s no wonder so many feel forced to abandon a system of beliefs they knew from birth, and often with little direction forward. I am among those people, and I hope to contribute something new and unique from these experiences. 

    My aim here is to analyze wisdom of the past to put the present into perspective and build a better future. I have read a number of sacred and philosophical texts by now, and though one’s journey in knowledge is never finished, I feel comfortable sharing what I have gleaned from these texts with others. 

    For the sake of transparency, know that I will be analyzing these texts through the lens of the system of beliefs I have built up over the past few years. Of course, no one possesses all the answers, but many minds are greater than their sum. 

    The core of faith, to me, is the soul. Not just the spirit, but the personality, the desires, and most importantly the mind of each individual all constitute their whole. I call this the fith – the ultimate core and center of being that emanates from reality. Everyone has one, and it is more or less imperishable. They move on to a life after death, where they exist as ghosts. It’s our job to keep their memories and legacies alive here, especially those of our ancestors. We are their continuation, in a way. 

    I do believe in a God – not an all-powerful and all-knowing one, but one that permeates everything and everyone. God is reality, more or less, and we are all a part of it together. Each of our minds are small slivers of this ultimate Mind. What I have settled on are three essential beams of living well, those being truth, curiosity, and character. There are certain mystical aspects to my beliefs as well, but those aren’t relevant right now. 

    I also believe that no one religion, philosophy, or system of beliefs can claim moral exclusivity. I do believe there is an overarching “Moral Law” that we should abide by, but that morality is a natural consequence of our common humanity, not an external force’s arbitrary command. Religion should be a choice and an individual experience, not a means by which to control the masses. 

    I embarked on a journey almost two years ago to explore and develop my spirituality through a series of poems. One verse stands out as the core of my beliefs: “The only distinction that matters in regards to my compatriots is their regard for humanity.”

    It is our humanity that binds us together and propels us forward along the arrow of progress. What’s beautiful about humanity is how wonderfully diverse it is, and these are things we should cherish and celebrate. To deny one’s identity is to deny their humanity. In an ideal world, this would be the one trait that is absent from humanity. 

    This is the lens through which we will be analyzing the vast tomes of ancient wisdom from across the world. We have the benefit of thousands of years of knowledge to apply to our modern day in order to build a better, kinder, and more peaceful future. Hate will not be tolerated here, and I want to make that clear now. 

    But, for those who are interested in religion and philosophy, those who are currently deconstructing, and those who may disagree, I extend a heartfelt welcome to all of you. 

    In a world full of hate, let this be a sanctuary of love.