I Am Not Hamlet

While listening to the always excellent Mars Hill Audio in which Ken Meyers was introducing a historian talking about the unintended consequences of the Reformation, he briefly mentioned how we Westerners think that limits are ridiculous.  I think about my friends (and in many ways I detest dividing people up by their political beliefs--but here goes) who are more leftish and how many of them would see limits put on an unfettered corporate capitalism or on the unjust use of the Earth either through extraction that pollutes or destroys or over-harvesting some natural resource.  Rightly so, I think.  I think about my friends on the right who would say that there are natural limits to human nature, including sexual expression, and we should respect those limits.  I'd agree with them too.  The problem comes with ideological blinders, however.  None of us (or very few, anyway) seem to see the big picture that with limits comes freedom and human flourishing....

Do you have this problem: you check your look in the bathroom before leaving--not bad, you think. You go somewhere, someone takes your picture, you see the picture, you feel wretched. Why was I even allowed to leave the house? What happens to your appearance between this mirror and that lens? Better yet, why do you choose to photograph me as horribly disfigured? Is this the same as hearing your own voice on a recording? People tell me I have good vocal quality, I believe them, and yet when I hear that horrible nasal sound on some playback device I ask, "WHY? WHY DO YOU FEED ME LIES FROM THE SULPHUROUS PITS OF HELL?"