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I have found embracing the paradoxes & weirdnesses & sadnesses & awkwardness of Mormonism & Mormon history to be a great defense against other ideologies, conspiracy theories, habits, & politics of the World. And I wish more people had found/will find the same.
Now, it's not an end in and of itself. I do try to counterbalance that with engagement with both the gospel and the Church as well as the World. But to me the fallen nature of mortality means the wholeness of the gospel needs balancing out.
I admire (but don't fully understand) those for whom this isn't needed. You know, those who are all family, church, and DB media and then leaven that w/maybe some sports, some PG-13/PG films and then a hobby like fishing or something. But I'm just not built for that.
It's not like I'm all emo, sturm & drang, or whatever. (although to be sure, I find listening to Joy Division inspiring rather than depressing) And I find a lot of via negativa stuff empty. I'm not a horror fan, for example, although I understand what religious people see in it.
Maybe it's growing up in the desert. Maybe it's genetics. Maybe it's carryover from pre-existent me influencing things. Maybe it's that my family has a history of being insider-outsiders and outsider-insiders. Maybe it was all the fiction reading. Maybe it's a thousand things.
But whatever it is: it pains me to see us be such suckers, dupes, and sell outs. And I don't excuse myself from this. And I'm probably being too harsh. And I also highly mistrust moving in the other direction--being a nationalist or isolationist of any sort in 2020 is just silly.
So once again I find circle back around to the messy middle and contemplate how to make it a little more radical, more weird, more interesting, more nourishing. Hopefully it's a spiral rather than circling a drain, though.
