Like breakdancing

In a land far far away (Silver Spring, MD), in a long long time ago (like 4 years ago) I had a conversation with two frum Jews about their experiences in college. Like my Mir buddies interacting full time with goyishe society was a bit of a culture shock. While there were a few things and people that they admired, for the most part the world "outside" the bubble was just as horrible as they'd heard. Sex and drug obsessed boys and girls whose feelings of self-worth were totally negative abounded despite clear consequences to living a life without a stronger moral structure.

As an aside: A Mormon friend of mine echoed the same feelings, and I imagine those who ascribe themselves to any system of moral belief might have similar feelings.

But what they missed was that western society is very two faced about the messages regarding sexual behavior, drug taking, and mental health. On one hand there Is MAAD, Just Say No, abstinence campaigns and failing that exhortations to be discriminating about ones partners; yet when a character on a TV show breaks up with a significant other they are often encouraged to "go out, meet someone new" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and men that choose to be a little more chaste or not drown their problems in beer are denigrated... And I won't even go into women's issues (sadly the western ideas about women's value are leeching into the frum world). So while my friends had "positive" outlets for their frustrations and consistent messages about how they should deal with stress, their compatriots in school alongside them didn't have a similar structure. So rather than thinking that the people were acting like behemahs because they were behemahs, I told them to be dan l'chaf schus that if many of their classmates would have been less deviant in their behavior if given the right structure.

So in dealing with my life at the moment I feel a pull back to the "outside"... I want to go and get an ego boost by hitting on people and getting a positive response, go dancing at nightclubs and get drunk at parties... but I don't. I read "The Garden of Emuna" and try to improve myself because I know that the idea is to tunnel my frustrations into productive "self-improvement"... But my yetzer hara is strong, constantly screaming in my ears, "leave the yeshiva, find someone to snuggle up with forget everything!"

Don't get me wrong, what I'm doing here will make me happier in the long run (and short run honestly, Rabbi Akiva Eiger is geshmach), and one's ability to make decisions based upon long-term planning is one of the things that separates us from monkeys, but I don't think I've ever been so conscious of the taivos that the world or my "animal nature" gave me. Manifesting the full human capability to bend ones' nature based upon a more sophisticated understanding of how to interact with the world and Gd is like breakdancing with a broken arm.

I've been wondering why I'd admit to the world that I have a yetzer hara and it screams into my ear, especially seeing as I plan on trying to get a date one day... The only rational that I can think of is that by writing it out I cement my own resolve and perhaps reading my little post will give someone else a bit of encouragement. Or as Michelle says "Would you rather bury your head in the sand and pretend these issues don't exist?"

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Labels: yetzer hara