Writing Is Liberating And Keeps Me Close To God

Future Time
Persistence

"So that was it?" said MV, "No more searching? No more struggle?"
"In that direction, yes," I said. "Synonymous with struggle is family,
however, and that never quits."

"But you never stopped writing. Why?"

"In a way, I was forced to continue," I replied, "CMU was trying to
privatize my job. With a family to support and seventeen years of
seniority about to go up in smoke, I decided to go back to school. As
a Sociology graduate student, you might say my metaphysic got socialized."

"Why Sociology?"

"Why not," I replied, "it was an extension of Philosophy, and I needed
a degree that I could sell. I had the support of the faculty too,
particularly the politically left leaning faculty."

"Did they support your metaphysic?" said MV.

"No," I replied, "In leftist circles God is not a popular subject. In
fact, I never brought it up. It was, however, mentioned once, at a
critical point in writing my thesis, and I was told to stay sociological.

"How did you do that?" responded MV. "I mean, how do you write about
the experience of God sociologically?"

"Writing a thesis is about using authority figures to back up your
ideas," I replied, "which is what I did; and further, it's about
gathering statistically significant data to back up your hypotheses,
which is also what I did."

"I must be missing something, or are you a magician too?" said MV.

"It wasn't easy, something like walking on broken glass, but I got it
done," I replied."

"What was your thesis about?"

"I titled it: Prejudice: Empirical Data Beckoning Toward A Theory Of
Self, Ambivalence, And Tolerance," I said, "and except for the data,
which wasn't as strong as I would have liked, I pulled it off. I was
able to say what I wanted to say and back it up with data. It didn't
happen overnight, though, and, like I said, it wasn't easy. In fact,
my first two thesis topics were rejected. They weren't sociological
enough I guess. One, a paper on Structuralism, written in a class that
was supposed to help students prepare for their thesis, I got credit
for, but it still didn't fly as a thesis topic. But, I haven't really
answered your question, have I? The fact is I can't stop writing. For
me, it's an expression of freedom."