Methodical Musings

So, my recent post about ‘healing’ is begin followed by a period of realizations about how I treat others – and while for a long time I have known my attitude has sucked – I have not known how to deal with it.

Part of the problem is pain. Feeling immense pain about so many things and feeling that so many things are wrong and then just reacting to it. Natural reactions include, but are not limited to, anger, bitterness, defensiveness, excessive offensiveness, desiring company for ones misery, extreme desire to hurt those you have been hurt by, taking out aggression on those who are tertiary players, panicking when you feel like you are losing control, etc.

I just reconnected with a friend from last year that I had been extremely mean to… I didn’t believe her, thought she was lying about some things, and hurt her something awful. The thing is, at the time I was so confused about my own internal turmoil that I couldn’t see what I was doing – or what she was trying to do. She was just trying to help me in her own way. She was being good, and I came across a complete fucking asshole to her because I felt like she was getting too close to a painful subject for me and I lashed out at her.

I’ve had a very hard time understanding emotions since I began to enter my depression around the age of 13-15. The thing is, when I’m suffering emotionally – or feel hurt – it is so hard for me to know how I am coming across to others. Your mind can be screaming at you to resolve the internal conflict and that can make it virtually impossible to allow in any new emotional factors. Intimacy is hard because it opens up the internal conflict.

The mental image I think of is a person who has been physically hurt. That person will generally only let people he trusts touch the injury or do things to make it better. If he doesn’t trust the person, their genuine motives will be perceived as attacks. I’m finally figuring this out.

So this last year I have to confess that I have a lot of broken relationships. Almost every single one of them seems directly related to the pain I was feeling upon leaving Christianity. I would let people close to me and then snap at them when they started to get too close – often coming up with a tertiary reason for the reason I was acting as I did.

The truth is that I did not generally feel genuinely loved. I felt like I was trying to maintain healthy relationships without any input. I distrusted people. Pushed people back. But then I would feel lonely and a massive sense of pain. Then I would get close to someone and forget the pain and pretend like it wasn’t there but eventually my internal turmoil would come out in a fit of selfishness.

The point is, I can’t bottle stuff up inside like I have for so many years. My dad does that. I know he does. He rarely shares what he is feeling or thinking deep inside until it just comes out in an almost passive-aggressive fashion. I can’t be like this… it’s a problem. I have to learn to get to know myself… to be close to myself and understand what I feel before I can even begin to get close to others.

Anyway, so now that I’ve made this discovery, I’m trying to go back and clean up some of the messes I made and restore some friendships that I feel were tertiary damage. It isn’t that bad, but I know that I really, really hurt some people and I’m trying so hard to make it up to them if possible.

I suppose if you’re going to clean up a high-pressure clogged system you have to make a mess before you can really get down to cleaning it all up.

Oh, one other thing. I’ve come to a stronger sense of understanding about my family’s attitudes towards life and it makes me sad. They are so critical, introverted, judgmental, and self-sufficient at every turn – sucking others in with a guise of love only to slowly beat them into submission. It sounds depressing but I think this discovery is really, really good. It means I’m able to now spot the problem in myself. And admitting you have a problem is the first step to a cure I’m hoping.

So I guess all that said, I realize I have some deep-seated, massively damaging attitude problems in my life that I need to work through. I can be dangerous emotionally, especially in relationships with women. I do care about them, but in a typical legalistic attitude, I find myself quickly switch into a lack of care when there is something I don’t like. I really, really hate this attitude in myself. People deserve to be cared about just because they are human, not because they fit into some mold of what I want or what I like. And it seems like the M.O. of myself – some of it learned from my family – is to disregard or shove aside people who do not fit into my idea of what I want or what is perfect. That’s just downright wrong and hurtful.

So if this is the closet I’ll get to an atheist repentance, I guess I’ll take it :)

Cheers everyone, let me know if I’ve ever hurt you and I’ll take it to heart,

- Josh

Read Full Post »

So, it has been approximately 2 years since I left Moody Bible Institute. Hard to believe it has been that long. I feel like it is becoming a distant memory.

I just got accepted at UIC. Why the degree? I just want to get it finished. I just want it over with. Two years ago I wanted to move to England and soon discovered I could not because I was 10 points short of a work visa – 10 points that a bachelor’s degree would have easily gotten me. While my bosses have always told me a degree would not earn me any more money, I find myself thinking that if I do not get it my choices in the future will be limited.

It’s been obvious I’m sure from my blog posts that I’ve been pretty angry recently. Angry and suffering from some sort of epistemic gloom. So I’ve been trying to move ahead in life and still feeling like I’m held back by something. I think I’m still figuring it out.

Some of the epistemic and motivational gloom stems from this feeling that I’m somewhat lopsided. I feel mentally like a body builder who spent all his time on one muscle.

Today at work I was talking with my friend Majid who mentioned that he would like to go back to school to study philosophy. I found myself – bizarrely – telling myself that sounded like a bad idea.

Philosophy? A bad idea? Coming from me? The guy who studied and thought deeply about those questions until my head felt like it was a-whirl with endless questions and trivial answers? I do not think I want to ever study philosophy again. In fact, I look at the title of this site. Methodical musings. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that but I want to move beyond that… I want to move beyond the introspective, analytical mode of life that has been my MO for so many years.

And that is where a portion of my gloom lies.

See, I don’t think there is anything wrong with philosophy and introspection but for me at least I’m just exhausted by it. It may be true that the uncontemplated life is not worth living, but the over-contemplated life will lead to despair. Holy shit, does it lead to despair.

There is one quote from Solomon that I like:

So do not be excessively righteous or excessively wise; otherwise you might be disappointed.

Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool; otherwise you might die before your time.

For the longest time I wondered what Solomon was talking about in that first portion. How in the world can a person be too wise. How is that even possible? If there is one thing a person should pursue, should that not be it? I could not get my mind to comprehend a possible end of wisdom that would be bad. It was almost as if Solomon was saying that it was foolish to be too wise and somewhat wise to play the fool. But I could not see how.

But I get it now. See, I feel like I’ve put all my bank in the former and I am disappointed. I mean, what has all this pursuit of wisdom gotten me? I used to pray nearly daily for God to make me more wise. Somehow I thought I was getting there. I thought it was worth putting my time and energy into. But where has that left me? With a head full of logic, epistemic knowledge, and advice for others but basically a pretty boring and painful life for the most part. I find myself thinking that everything is vain. And that makes me disappointed. I know everything is basically pointless in the end. I mean, if there is a god of some sort, surely he has realized his own existence is just as pointless. I wonder if he is bored and despairing of his own existence too. And that makes me laugh. Somehow this all seems so silly, but silly in a good way.

And that leaves me at a spot where I just want to have fun. I just want to get out and play the fool. I want to go butt fuck crazy for a while. But every time I do I find myself almost incapable of it. I spent so many years building up resistance, building up an attitude of judgment, of analyzing, of care in my every step, that even when drinking it is nearly impossible for me to get where I would just be crazy.

I find myself fulfilling this verse:

I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly–my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

And, listen, I’m not trying to say I’m anything like Solomon, but I know what he was talking about. There are times when I’m drinking – smashed – and I still find that my “wisdom” has not left me. Drinking does not make you have more fun or make you more depressed unless that is what you already are feeling.

See, growing up I was the model child. Perfect. At the time I didn’t think I was, but I followed all the rules, submitting myself to them. I never lied. I never stole. I never cheated. It became habitual. I felt desperately guilty speeding or even playing poker for $10. But it made me miserable. Granted, I’m glad I was not a complete fool, but I’m a 25 year old who feels like I’m 50 in my philosophy of life and 15 in my emotional and social maturity. It does not feel right.

So now what? Well, I don’t know. I want to do something crazy. I find myself feeling like I’m going to “snap” somehow and on some occassions it starts to happen. The other day I found myself feeling like I was just going to go crazy and thinking that whatever I did next, it was not going to be rational. And you know what? It feels good to not be rational. There is this carnal, animal side I feel like I need to learn how to fulfill if I want to truly be balanced in some way.

I sometimes wonder if dirty old men were once suppressed, guarded young men who did everything right. Then they get older and say “fuck it, this is bullshit, I want to release my inhibitions.” Sure, it creeps everyone out, but that’s why they can do it all with a smile on their face.

And maybe the gloom is my fault. I mean, I did – for the longest time – conform to a notion that I could rise above the average human existence. I did not want to be like everyone else. I did not want to have their problems. I wanted to do better than everyone. I feel dirty admitting it now because that was probably the most arrogant attitude I could ever have.

I mean, we’re all human. We’re all going to face pain, to face death, and everything we have we did not really earn of our own accord. We do not have the answers and we cannot find them. I really believe that. We cannot find the answers. We can find some answers, sure, but in the end – in this little, short life – we will not escape being human.

Anyway, there are probably two ways to look at life once you’ve “gone crazy” as Gnarles Barkley said and realized you did not know too little, you just knew too much. You can either say it’s all pointless and get serious about it and despair. Or you can embrace the chaos and take it with a light heart, accept it, and seek to make everyone happy.

And heck, that’s what I want my new attitude to be. And I’m trying damn hard.

A big realization recently is that humans are not rational. We are irrational creatures and expecting rationality is bound to produce disappointment. My parents will be irrational. My siblings will be irrational. I will be irrational.

And I think that is the only way I can ever feel sane. To realize the pointlessness of life and to be daring enough to face it anyway. To realize the futility of ones own existence and to embrace it in a fit of madness. To learn to find the joy in pain and suffering.

There’s a quote from Band of Brothers that I like. The craziest motherfucker of the whole bunch is the most sane of them all, and at one point he says to a terrified, neurotic soldier that best thing a man can do is realize that he is already dead. Only then can a soldier function as he is supposed to. Somehow it’s as if hope is not the realization and expectation that things will get better, but a realization that in the end everything is actually worse – or could be worse.

I could be dead. I could be suffering from cancer. I could still be a virgin. My family could all hate me (they don’t, bless their hearts, as much as I am deeply annoyed at their Jesus-loving ways). I could have stayed at Moody. I could still be a delusional Christian. I could still have voices in my head. I could have no job. I could be broke. I could have chronic depression. Heck, things could always be worse.

I want to explore. I want to see just how crazy I can get. So for the next year I think I’ll make that my goal. Overcome inhibitions and go nuts. Then I’ll probably hit that wall and find myself somewhere in the middle, having explored both ends of the spectrum.

This could be fun.

- Josh

Read Full Post »