I’ve been mulling this post topic over for a long time because it seems that I’ve hit on a topic much larger than I expected. So I’ll start off where I began: the album Heretic Pride by the mountain goats. As I listened to it a while back, I was struck anew by the beauty of it. Not just musically, but topically. The theme that runs through is heretic pride; believing something that is incorrect and being very glad you believe in it. It ranges from San Bernadino’s young couple that have been ostracized for having a child but tell each other that it will be okay to Autoclave where the singer believes that there is nothing good about him and that he is completely unlovable. While these people may or may not be correct in their beliefs, they are all heretic because their beliefs are different than that of the majority. They know it and are proud. There is something fantastic about this concept that took me a while to really figure out.

And so I pondered it. And the concept mingled in my mind with the Bokononians from the novel Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I found something remarkable about them as well for what they believed. There is something fantastic about their beliefs as well. Even though they all kind of know that Bokonon made it up and that there is no truth to it, they still believe. In the face of their own nagging doubt they still believe. Because their belief is the only thing that makes their lives bearable they have little choice but to believe. This group is different from the group from the album because they know they are heretics. They are aware of the truth, yet they live a lie.

And so I thought about the two and wasn’t exactly sure why they struck the same chord to me. What I came to realize was that it was the act of belief that united these two. When we believe something we give it meaning. We give it power. We give it beauty. Now, this isn’t to say that there is nothing untrue and it’s certainly not to give credence to The Secret philosophy that positive thinking changes reality. Rather, I want to say that our actions only matter if they are fueled by our belief. Believing is not a passive act and it should not be understood as something that is done once. I understand gravity. Once I learned it and saw that it was true, I was done with it. I am not motivated by gravity (unless I find myself about to be it’s victim, but then it’s more of a question of my belief in self-preservation than that of gravity). Believing requires constant action. Belief requires a reaffirmation every moment. I think that is the reason that these heretics inspire me like they do; one does not become a heretic through a passive action. It takes actual belief to be a heretic. And even if they are completely wrong, at least they are acting. Passivity doesn’t lead anywhere because it doesn’t go anywhere. We have become afraid to believe because we don’t want to be wrong. But it is better to be actively wrong than passively right. This might seem shocking, because no one wants to be wrong. But consider this: if we do not actively believe something, we do not believe it. To say we believe the correct thing and not act like it is no different than being wrong and not acting like it. Living what you believe, even if it’s wrong, is closer to being right than not really believing anything.

But, it took me so long to work through this concept it wouldn’t be fair to stop there (and you waited so long for me so long between posts, I feel like I should give you more). So I want to address the beautiful power of being wrong. Because, I’m not sure how these stories would hold up if the characters were known to be in the right. But tragedy has existed the entire history of storytelling. One of the cornerstones to a tragic story is that the character has a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall. And it has to be like that, because no one want’s to hear a story about someone with no fault but bad luck that causes them to die. Look at the story of Job. What if he endured and endured until he was finally pushed a little too hard and died. What would we think about that? Instead, tragedy comes from a mistake from a character so that we can share in their experience without having anything of our own at stake. While they may lead to their own downfall, we learn from their mistake and survive. To tie it back to the mountain goats, John Darnielle once said: “Suffering is seldom joyful, but expressing one’s capacity for survival almost always is.” By seeing a character that suffers, we are reminded that we do not. We have escaped. This is the same reason that there is something beautiful about unrequited love; it reminds us what it is to have love by showing it’s absence. There will always be something beautiful about the dark, the cold, the sad. To try and depict the good will leave us with an incomplete image, because in a story we do not have the time nor words to give any more than a caricature of anything real. But it is easy to show the lack of something good and to do so reminds us of what fills the void in our own hearts.