Category Archives: Religion

Journal, Love and Relationships, Religion , , , , 4 Comments

Y’all Thought I Forgot?

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It’s going to be a fast and fucked up week. I’m working twelve hour days every day from now until Sunday. Then one day off and then another three days on and then I’m going to my other brother’s graduation and then I’m going to a Tool concert.

I stopped meditating about two or three weeks ago, whenever Morgan showed up, because it’s hard to meditate in a house with two bedrooms, four people, and three cats. I think I noticed a difference. In any case everything seems more awful than before.

I stopped working out, too, on May 7.

I’m at work looking all fucked up, just wanting a drink and shit. I been drinking a lot at work. The girl I’m obsessed with only works one day a week any more, so getting through the work day is fucking difficult. I’m not even obsessed with her any more because I don’t see her. Out of sight, out of my mind, and all of that, to an extent. I’ve a lot of experience cutting people out of my life. Just moving on. Usually physically moving. Why let anyone get close? Just someone else I’m going to have to hide from.

But you know, I talked to the girl about the whole thing and she made me realize that, while we were playing perhaps dangerously close to a cliff, neither of us had done anything actually wrong. Well, I suppose I had done something wrong by not talking to Molly about the fact that I was falling in love with another woman, but you know what, we don’t even have time to talk these days. She works sixty hours a week now and she works during the day and I work during the night. That’s why I need a new job, you know, so we can see each other.

But anyways like I was saying, here I was all beating myself up about shit, because I was in love with this girl, but I remembered you can’t control how you feel, you can control how you act. I was all thinking in my head that we’re in some kind of sexually charged dance, me and this girl, and that was some kind of sin. Probably because as a super Christian back in the day, the only relationships I could have with girls were exactly this. I would have called this girl my girlfriend back in the day because we smiled at each other a lot and were both into each other. That doesn’t constitute a fucking girlfriend, for fuck’s sake. But there it was, hanging around on the back shelves of my mind, this whole box of bullshit about what a girlfriend is. That’s fucking dumb. No wonder I don’t have a healthy relationship with my wife, I don’t even know what a wife is!

I’m like a fucking guilt factory. Churning out the guilt. Like a fucking goat produces shit. What does a goat need to produce shit? Any fucking thing. A shoe. A fucking heirloom tomato. A bag of dicks.

You know why I’m a fucking guilt factory? A fucking super high efficiency guilt machine? I would have told you it was my parents. I would have told you it was Jesus Christ and the motherfucking bible. But you know why it’s fucking lying that’s why. Weak character, brought on by having no stressors. Only one artificial stressor, maintaining the fucking lie, man, is what.

Say I was to fall in love with this woman. I tell Molly about it and what does she say? Who fucking knows. Maybe we have a long talk about how we don’t fucking talk any more or have enough sex, maybe we modify our relationship, maybe we decide fuck it, I like you as a partner in life, I don’t give a shit about your emotions. Maybe we decide not to act on anything for now, because we’re both busy being broke as fuck, and put that shit on ice for a year, and if nothing changes, then we got to make some decisions. Who knows what the fuck we could even decide because we would both be strong people who knew each other, instead of me being some kind of weak ass bitch fucking creeping around like a depressed little crab.

Why do I curse so much? People asked me sometimes. Probably because I’m fucking angry all the time way down where I can’t even hear myself any more because I built this huge guilt machine to manufacture fucking lies all day to keep me from ever having to experience anything real.

Yeah, so anyway. Me and this girl are just chilling now. It’s not even a big fucking deal. I build it up like its a fucking world changing event, me liking this girl, and really it’s just that she’s super awesome and super hot and she’s attracted to me. Why does that have to be a big deal? Because I’m scared of myself because I don’t even know who I am, that’s why! Is that Molly’s fault? Is that Christianity’s fault? Is that Society’s mother fuckin fault? Is that my parents fault? Nah mother fuckers that’s my fault for lying my ass of for no reason all my life.

Oh shit now I’m going to feel guilty about that!

Haha nah I mean I could, but guilt doesn’t come from taking responsibility for your actions. Guilt, at least the kind I feel, the destructive kind, comes from a kind of self-censorship who’s aim is to keep you down, crammed down inside of a fucking shell so that people will accept you without any effort on their part or your part.

Unlike dumbass indulgent guilt that comes from overthinking and lying to yourself, taking responsibility for your actions empowers you.

Yeah so anyway I meditated and worked out today.

Love and Relationships, Religion, True Stories , , , , , 5 Comments

Dark Part 2

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You can read part 1 here.

I guess, like many children who were raised as Christians, I’ve always had a problem with sex. I didn’t even have actual sex with my girlfriend of three years from the age of 16 to 19 because it was one of the hard lines of Christian morality that I would not cross. All I did as a teenager was think about sex, but I knew I mustn’t act on the thoughts. I even felt super guilty when I masturbated.

When I met the woman who became my wife, she was so beautiful that I couldn’t resist her. I didn’t tell her until months in that I was deeply religious and had felt that all the sex we were having was a sin. She thought that was weird and kind of hurtful. Immediately after that conversation, we had the best sex we had ever had up to that point.

Two years into our relationship, I stopped believing in God. I derided any kind of belief in anything, even that the color of a t-shirt could be known, and prided myself on not being delusional. I began to internalize that life was a cruel joke.

Sometimes after that, my wife would want to have sex, but I wouldn’t feel like it. I would be too busy thinking about how I’m going to get myself out of this hell. I thought the answer was make more money so that everyone could leave me alone, so that I could stay home and brood and not have to do shit.

One of the few things I still enjoyed (with the other things being eating and doing drugs, mostly alcohol), was courtship: the parts leading up to sex that you were technically allowed to do as an evangelical. I assumed it was too late to court my wife, so I would court girls at work. Mostly they were girls I didn’t find attractive, so there was no danger of me getting caught up. Sometimes they were girls I found attractive, but who were used to the game and would play along with no interest in going any further.

But on two occasions, it seemed that I had found a soulmate.

The first girl did a lot of drugs, so we were able to forget about our problems and just live in the moment. Before anything happened sexually, she had some kind of breakdown and disappeared for a few days. In the time it took for her to re-establish connection, I seriously contemplated suicide one day and got fired from my job for blacking out at work and being creepy the next.

The second girl, this recent one, doesn’t drink, so instead of just checking out, we have long talks in which she challenges everything that I believe.

I had to ask myself, did I make a mistake getting married? At first I thought the answer was yes. Slowly, very slowly, I realized that I didn’t really love this girl. I loved the idea I had of her, and what my life could be like if I wasn’t bound by the only thing that kept me in the world of the living: my wife.

Why hadn’t I broken up with my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, when I decided that life was meaningless and cruel? If nothing mattered, why couldn’t I just leave her and do drugs and listen to music and fuck the world?

Click here to go to part 3.

 

 

Journal, Philosophy, Religion , , , , 4 Comments

Dark

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This girl made me think. Why does that happen? There was a girl in Boston who made me think.
Sure I’m always thinking, but I’m usually thinking the same thing. Some variation of the same thing.

But in these two instances, all the lights in my head went on for a blinding few seconds. Then they went out with a hiss and I found myself on cold, damp, soft weird shit, just shivering there.

A neurotic mess: myself, but worse.

The first descent in darkness was interrupted with some real practical type shit. I got fired, so I had to find a job and make money fast and I’m no good at that. Working seven days a week saved me from suicide or enlightenment.

Then this most recent descent.

My inner life was cruising along at medium shitty, nice and comfy. Then I met her and the ride got bumpy. I thought, why these moments of transcendence, mixed with these hours of extreme neurosis and nausea?

I asked: why am I stuck in this marriage, why can’t I just do what I want, why don’t I ever do drugs or listen to music in the dark or jump off cliffs?

Then I found the answer to why I don’t do those things. It wasn’t because I’m married. It’s because I believe that life is stupid and pointless, and I believe that if it was designed, it was designed to fuck with me.

Ten years ago, when I found out Genesis didn’t really happen, I laughed and said, you’ll never fool me again, Culture. Society. White men in long robes. Fuck y’all. I bought a bottle of Chivas, like my new hero Hunter Thompson, and I went to fuckin town.

Ten years I believed in nothing. You don’t know! I said to everyone. You don’t know shit, none of you do because none of you can, and anyone that thinks they know anyone is deluding themselves. And more power to those assholes, because I’d love to be able to delude myself. But I couldn’t delude myself. I had seen the truth, and it was an abyss.

Ten years I worked in restaurants thinking that the reason I didn’t get out of it was that I wasn’t using my free time effectively.

Ten years and longer than that, I lied with abandon, fashioning a chameleon armor around my starving, angry soul to keep everything away, to keep alive in a world that couldn’t give a shit.

But how is it that these two girls broke in where others didn’t?

Probably something to do with sex and something else to do with my mother.

Gotta go, bitches. More later.

Spoiler alert: I still don’t believe, and I’m still married.

Click here to go to part two.

Philosophy, Religion, Thoughts , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fate the Security Blanket

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Blame the gods, the ground has given away beneath us. It’s not your fault that you put the basement in wrong. Nah, what do you know about putting basements in? Anyway, who told you to do it. The gods and the fates.

It was nice, wasn’t it, then, to have someone to blame. That wasn’t so bad. And we didn’t have to get so arrogant and live and die by our decisions and all of that. Some people are into that sort of thing.

William James decided for one year that he was going to take responsibility for everything that happened in his life, and apparently it was the year of his “rebirth.” I’ve heard it worked out well for him. I thought about doing it for myself. But maybe William James was just the exception. How many people take responsibility for everything that happens in their life and then kill themselves.

You never know, right, because all you do know about is William James and Brad Pitt. Worked for them. 

How many amazing writers will never be read? Who knows, who knows, writing well and getting people to read are two different skills and not every golden thing gets uncovered by virtue of it’s glitter.

Love and Relationships, Religion , , , , 2 Comments

Ho Hum

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Bluddy drum. Sittin up in this bitch just waiting for GF to get back. It’s weird because I know she won’t get back for a while but I know when she comes in I’m going to have to stop writing for a while so I didn’t want to get on a roll and then have to stop. And now I’m getting sleepy and I’m reading other blogs and drinking more wine and starting to feel like I’m just procrastinating writing. I was thinking for a while after I wrote The Essay that I might not put it on a new blog because this blog is where it’s at, why start a new one? Here’s where the fun stuff is. But I do want to reach a wider audience with the posts that I actually put time into. Or rather just force myself to stay on topic instead of writing whatever the hell I feel like. I mean it’s the most awesome thing in the world that I can be entertaining to other bloggers. I’d also like to write other kinds of things too…or at least have written them I suppose. Well I feel like it’s a big learning experience the whole thing. I feel like I’m learning so much that I forgot at least half of it. Or maybe I’m just experiencing things and not learning them. Shit I don’t know.

For instance, my mom said on the phone when I thought I was doing the right thing and giving her a call, well she said things weren’t going well with all the other kids because they weren’t doing the Christian things and they were all unruly and it was driving her mad. Well for one thing she has three teenage boys at once so how could she help but be absolutely crazy, but then throw in the high expectations that everyone will be God fearing and so on, especially at that age. And then she throws in that she might be coming up in the middle of the month and she might want to stay with me. Well that won’t be good at all because she thinks GF still lives in Washington DC. But with the blog and all and being open and honest and saying whatever the hell I want all the time even saying shit I never thought I’d say about anything…well I feel like it’s ridiculous to not be honest with people. But I can’t be honest with my parents. It’s not about them loving me or not, because they can’t help but love me. But for all they’ve been through with my brothers saying to their face that they don’t believe in God, well they don’t seem to have grown to be able to really accept that, and so to take away basically the last hope they can hold onto, well shit I can’t do that at all. And yet what am I going to do if she comes up here? GF isn’t going to go hiding because she really hates that and she’s already told her Catholic parents so I’m pretty much fucked. And beyond that, I can’t even be honest with real friends. I can only be honest when people have no idea who I am so there really aren’t any consequences. Hell it’s getting harder every day for me to continue to be honest on here the more I get to know ya’ll. I guess I just think deep down where I can’t automatically turn it off that everyone hates me…or that what I have to say is not valid…or that my existence is inconvenient. Sheeit. Well so now I’ve got to figure out what to do if she comes up here. Last time when they tried to visit me in DC I had to say I got kicked out of the apartment basically, and to continue that story ridiculously for over a year, which means I had to make up all kinds of stuff about where I was living, living on the streets, things my fake roommates did. And I’m still doing that now and the bad part is I forget one of my roommate’s names. I can’t remember if I told them it was Omir or Omar.

I think I’d rather just disappear and never hear from my parents again than have them know who I really am. They are sad that I left town and live so far away, but I tell them over and over again that they wouldn’t be happy with me if I had stuck around. They have hinted at knowing that I’m “immoral,” but they have no idea the extent of this shit. I always thought that parents basically know anything you’re doing. But they don’t, they really don’t. Sometimes they ask me roundabout if I believe in God and stuff, but they won’t ask me directly because they know deep down that some shit is not right, and they don’t want to take the lid off that pressure cooker. They know they don’t want to know. But then they do some shit like this and ask to come up and visit. Which makes me think they really don’t know shit. But then even my brothers don’t know GF lives up here. And it’s pretty bad because come wedding day some shit’s going to get real awkward real fast. But at least her parents and mine aren’t the type of people to mix. Rich Semi-Liberal Catholics vs. Poor Extreme Evangelical Conservative Christians. Ah shit. It’s a real conundrum.

It’s these kinds of stupid ass things that I have to think about sometimes and it ruins everything. I have to stop thinking about it and push it away and focus on the moment, and I’m really good at doing that. I’ll enjoy the fuck out of every day from here to there and then when that day comes it will still be there waiting for me and I’ll have done nothing to stop it. Shit. Fuck it.

Religion , , , , 1 Comment

Why I Don’t Participate in Religious Debates

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Readability Index: Readable

Yesterday I read a Freshly Pressed blog post about Thought Catalogue…wait what the fuck was that blog called? I don’t know shit I’ll look afterwards. The post I read was a reaction by a gay Christian to an article about how Jesus was gay.

I was very interested to read the reaction, as were many other people, and was even inspired to write a pun for the first time in my life. But that’s not the point.

I respect the blogger for his well thought out opinion and engaging post. Ah what the fuck, it’s not like he’ll have time to read every blog post reacting to his blog post, so I might as well stop hoping not to upset him.

The point is I don’t know why a person who’s both gay and intelligent would want to be known as a Christian. I can respect what Jesus said at the Sermon on the Mount, but Christianity in general…as a cultural…thing…oh I mean institution, well I wouldn’t want to align myself with that at all, even if I did believe that Jesus was the son of himself and also the Holy Ghost.

But the point of this post is that I was thinking about it on the way to work, I thought, well shit, I’m going to ask that dude why he wants to, because he’s a smart dude and therefore probably has a legit reason to want to be identified with the Christian Church. I said hell yeah I’m going to ask that dude.

But then I thought shit no I’m not going to ask that dude! First of all he has a lot going on with all those comments he’s getting, he hasn’t got time to talk to me. No actually that’s last of all. First of all is that shit, even if I were to talk him out of being a Christian (not bloody likely) what good would that do him or me? I don’t have anything better to offer him.

Carl Sagan is the mother fucking man, that’s for sure. I watched his series Cosmos last summer and it was the shit on many levels of being the shit. He doesn’t believe in God, but he marvels at the universe and seems to be happy than a motherfucker doing that. Me I’m like shit son that shit is fucking awesome…but what the hell am I supposed to do now? Propogate the species so we can go out and conquer that shit next? Fuck I don’t know. I’m supposed to just sit there and be awed by that shit, and I do…but I can’t say that it’s an alternative to being sure that your purpose in life is to serve God…meaning that you have a firm belief that you’re supposed to be here.

So since I have nothing better to offer the guy (who I’m not linking to on purpose because I don’t want to debate him or his supporters for the reasons I’ve just outlined), I’m not going to say shit about his post and I’ll just wonder idly why he wants to be associated with the Christians.

It’s like Bokonon said about fake religion being better than no religion…can’t remember exactly what he said and for some reason I don’t have Cat’s Cradle in this office.