"Him will I drag through life's wild waste, /Through scenes of vapid dullness," Mephistopheles says, and it might describe the experience of endlessly perusing Twitter, anesthetizing yourself as you doom scroll.
A flash of inspiration is both evidence that we come from Eden and that we no longer live there; a brief reflection of what it feels like to create as God. A divinely imparted gift. A dangerous present.
I'd posit that there is a bit of Larry David in Socrates. They both puncture hypocrisy, force us to question our own moral platitudes, and deign that we must defend our presuppositions, even if doing so seems rude.
Coming to love Puritan poetry is an odd aesthetic journey, for poets like Edward Taylor are not easy. It's the sort of thing you expect people partial to bowties and gin gimlets to get involved with.
If our religion is capitalism, then our theology is consumerism and our God is the Invisible Hand. Our prayers are "Have It Your Way," "Think Different," and "Just Do It;" our avatars are Ronald McDonald, Mr. Peanut.
Living on a heating planet filled with dying animals and governed by either the inept or the insane, it's hard not to feel a bit strange going to work, buying groceries, saving your salary, as if everything were normal.
Heaven and Hell have always been located in the human mind, along with God and the Devil, but the mind is a vast country, full of strange dreams and unaccounted things.