’Do not worry! Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they give it security and freedom from worry. But in truth, they are what cause anxiety. The heart which clings to goods receives with them the choking burden of worry. Worry collects treasures, and treasures produce more worries’. -Bonhoeffer, Works, iv.165.
epiphany
Weapons of Mass Distraction: a Christian’s manifesto
It’s recently come to my attention (perhaps again?) that there is a tool the enemy uses that we seldom pay attention to but it could be one of his greatest methods of triumph, if not the greatest: getting us to waste energy trying to get things we already have.
I never noticed it before, partly b/c I was falling for it myself. And also because it was subtle and kind of strange, something that is fairly alien to human deception b/c we so often deal in what is seen. But there’s so much evidence for it that I’m forced to see the pattern.
The other day my mom was telling me about this sermon that she was listening to about the garden, and how the serpent was trying to tell the woman that they would become like God if they ate the fruit. “But they already were like God,” my mom paraphrased. “Huh,” I thought. I thought it was a good point, even if it seemed a little weak. I knew the nature of the devil was to lie but he didn’t seem like the kind to go for technicalities. But what seems like just a technicality is really just a distraction.
And if you haven’t noticed, this world is full of distractions. Mainly of the media persuasion. We all know the media tries to create a void in order to sell you a product, they openly admit this. And we give them a certain amount of respect for it. We see a persuasive technique played out for our benefit and even though we can see the strings, if we end up wanting that thing there’s a little part of even the smartest of us that goes: “well played sir. fetch me my credit card.”
I’ll save the conspiracy theory about that whole system another day. But the point is, if this kingdom belongs to the prince of this world, it would make sense that the highest officers of this kingdom would be so b/c they prescribe closest to its methods. But if you are a Christian, you are of another kingdom, yet the same holds true. Only problem is, we’re taught to believe that we have to contend for this kingdom that we’re already a part of.
I listen to this guy Jon Crowder a lot. Many people take issue with his theology, but I like him b/c he’s always got a Word that’s fresh and stimulates the mind renewal process. And as I was watching him talk about unity the other day I thought, “Where have I heard this before?” Essentially he was talking about how we should stop contending for unity in the body of Christ b/c we already have it. I realized that a lot of his messages are on this theme of “stop asking God for what you already have.” Stop asking God for faith, for a spirit of love, for the Holy Spirit. You already have those things. Know that you have them. Then use them. “The man’s right,” I would think. The Word says we already have access to this b/c of Christ. Let’s think on this everyday and see if it doesn’t change how we behave. And if it works, we should then find out where we got this notion of working hard for something we already have, and beat that person (kidding).
Then, I was watching Bill Johnson. Say what you want about Bill Johnson but you can’t say he isn’t doing his thing. He preaches it, practices it, then teaches others to do the same. And he was talking about the garden as well, only this time he talked about the serpent’s first statement: “Did God really say?” And he talked about how the enemy gets us to question the validity and/or understanding of what God says. He then went on to twist God’s statement but the point was, the seed of doubt is planted that you don’t have all the information.
Here’s God: “Hi. You are like Me. Here’s the information you need.”
Here’s the devil: “That’s not all the information. You aren’t like Him.”
The strange thing about those two statements, just looking at them they both are pretty compelling. Both declaring a way of things. And it is tempting to want all the information, even if it isn’t relevant, who knows where that stems from. I want to engage the latter statement. I want to know why someone would say that so I can use my knowledge to combat it. If I cannot combat it, then I must entertain it. It’s the Western way. Surely the devil knows that, and he uses it. But as I get older I’m getting to the point where the former statement is enough and has proven to be true more and more, and I lose interest in the latter statement, which tends to mislead me and waste my time.
Another thing Bill Johnson brought up was the temptation of Jesus and how Satan opened with, “If you’re the son of God…” I’ll get to the profundity of all that in a minute, the point is that God had just said a chapter before, in front of a buncha people, “Ya’ll, here go my son. Right here, there he is. I’m pleased with him, he’s doin’ good.” Even put a compliment on it. And here comes the devil, just putting a spin on something that’s already been said, b/c he can’t come up with any new statements, “If you are…”
If I am? I am. What are we talking about? God himself told me that I am. In front of witnesses. Not even like… I mean this is crazy. It would be one thing if God said, “You are the son of so-and-so,” and he had to take His word on that. But God says, “You’re my son.” I mean… there’s no higher verifiable source than God on who His own son is. But the devil still goes for it. And you know what? It almost kinda works, obviously, b/c here’s Jesus undergoing one of the craziest spiritual battles of his life, and what’s the root of it? His identity.
So, okay #1: Wait a minute, are you serious?!?! Did he like, not know who he was???? Come on!!!
And #2: Sound familiar?
So with my mom and Jon and Bill all swirling about the same issue without any prompting I had to go, “okay… this is real.” And I started to think about the implications of this type of lie. We’re dealing with invisible things so I can see this getting dicey. If the enemy can get me chasing and questioning something that I already have… then a couple things can happen. I can go to God for something I already have, then think He isn’t giving it to me, then think “well, He must have a reason for not giving this to me,” then go around thinking that God doesn’t answer all prayers but you never know which ones but you gotta trust Him, then go telling other people that.
The other thing that can happen is I start thinking I gotta do something to get it. So I’m trying harder and harder to get something [that I already have], feeling like I’m just not there yet b/c I don’t see it. Then I look around at other people and I start comparing myself. “Well they’re not doing as much as me.” Then I tell other people that they’ve got to do better if they want this thing [that they already have], then I can look at people not doing “good” or doing “bad” and draw conclusions i.e. judge them.
I could undermine the work of the cross. If Jesus paid the debt, the whole debt, of everyone who’s ever been, and we really believed that, what would happen? Are we ready to live in a world where we believed that? Do we even know what that would look like? Do we know how many deceptions and lies, great and small that we’ve been told over the years from this or that, get in the way of that reality and have to be uprooted? Could we us and our doctrines out of the way and let God do His job? Are we ready to offer freedom with no strings? Have we ever even been taught such a thing? But it makes sense, if the gospel means “good news.” And “eternal life through Christ” sounds more like good news than “eternal life with stipulations.” I mean duh, right? That’s what everyone expects. That’s just like, “regular news.”
So my point is, people going around thinking they don’t have what they already have is not only a prevalent deception, it is a primary, fundamental one. Meaning, you ought to always stop and question this type of thinking. Just today I was on YouTube watching this forum for black men and women in relationships, and this guy, bless his heart, got up and eventually said something like, “we as men want more power, more strength, more influence…” Now we could argue about his priorities all day, but when I heard that I just wanted to scream [Negro] YOU ALREADY HAVE THAT!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW WITH THIS!!!
But you know what? If you go around deceived, thinking you don’t have that, then how are you going to behave? Not well. And you might be thinking– supposing you understand exactly what I’m saying with all this– “If this is happening why doesn’t God tell us?”
That’s the thing. He is. He had to tell me three separate times through unrelated, unbiased sources before I would even see it. Before that He would tell me all the time. And guess what? I didn’t believe Him. Because I couldn’t see past the deception. If I complained about me and how deficient I was He would tell me, plainly, “You’re fine. You have everything you need already.” Case closed, right? But I would either think He was doing that rose (blood?) -colored Jesus glasses thing where He just thinks I’m great no matter what, or I’d think it was some hallucination induced by my inner desire to live complacent without challenges, or some theosophist leaning that seeped through my brain after too much Wizard of Oz or something.
Thing is, He wouldn’t stop there. If He knew I wouldn’t trust His voice He’d get me to open up the scripture to Corinthians or something, and have Paul say the same thing He just said. And that would sorta work, but it would just get me praying to Him to get more of this stuff that I already got!!!!
The deception was like a web over my eyes. I wasn’t completely useless while it was there, but it was hindering me. Didn’t help that everywhere I turned were people living in the same deception, reinforcing it.
So this blog is an entreaty to the Christian: please question this idea of trying to plead for, earn, or even claim, that which you already have. Notice how I’m not even saying ENTITLED TO. You are not “entitled to” life and life more abundant, YOU HAVE IT. I promise you, you do. But a great deception can diminish even the most tangible miracle. How much more the invisible kind? Keep watch over what has your attention. “I don’t have” is the silent, swollen chant of this heavy, insatiable country. How much of it is true, and how much is it a spell? If we, who have the power of heaven, can consciously remove ourselves from the clutches of this seduction, it could be our consecration. Faith in the truth, in what God has sent forth through His Word, an agent of eternal, unlimited power and life. It might be the only thing separating us from true holiness.
Eureka! Men! I’ve figured you out!!
This whole thing started when I discovered this website, verysmartbrothas.com. The site is great: smart, funny, witty to the point of biting. Engaging. But sometimes, and only sometimes, there would be a sentence here or there that would betray a certain bitterness towards women, downright hatred in some places. And I would be like, “really?!”
I used to be a little merciless towards men when I was younger. I used to say, “what’s the point of men? I don’t see the point of them.” I don’t know how long it took for that to go away but it’s gone now. Maybe it’s ’cause I read my Bible more, maybe I just met enough good men, maybe a combo. It’s funny because the information itself is no different. There really seems to be no point to men. So says the woman, whose creation was almost entirely utilitarian. Maybe it’s my nature to ask “what’s the point of you?” Not as an insult, merely a conversation piece. But men were created on a whim. Literally, God was like “hey, you wanna do something cool? let’s do this.” And it was good! Yay God, yay man! No one disputes that.
Anyways, I came across an entire article that was pretty damn hurtful. It was entitled: Why (Some) Women Are Reluctant To Accept That “Game” Works. I was drawn to the article b/c I was its target audience. Game doesn’t work on me. At least not very well. Sometimes a guy is running game on me and I just let him, either b/c it’s easier than having to embarrass the poor dude or b/c he’s trying to get me to do something I already want to do. I’m not talking about sex or anything but I could just as easily be. I think a lot women are in this boat. But there are sometimes you come across a smooth one. In some circles, you could call him a “sociopath.” It might take you 3 weeks, might take you 3 years to realize you fell into a trap he had set for you. And you’re like “sonofa…”
But according to this article I was in denial. I’d seen game work on other poor women of ill repute, so I knew it worked, just not on me. Well, this article set me straight with its first point:
1. Admitting that game works completely contradicts one of the most prominent and protected tenets of womanhood: All women are unquestionably and undoubtedly unique.
Ever since the day they were born (or, if you’re a woman from Harlem, The Hill District, or Lincoln Heights, ever since their mothers decided to name them “Shauntananique“), most women have had the idea that they were extremely special and extremely precious repeatedly beat into their heads. Now, this isn’t a bad thing. Any good parent is going to do everything they can to make sure their daughter has a healthy portion of self-esteem. I mean, if I ever decide to have a daughter and she comes to me crying about not getting invited to a classmate’s sleepover, I probably won’t tell her “Hey, young daughter of The Champ, don’t worry about it. You weren’t invited because you’re not really all that special, and, well, you’re not really all that special so get used to disappointment.”
But, with this perpetual positive reinforcement cunninglingus comes a natural aversion to accepting the idea that game works because, well, game works by reinforcing the idea that each individual woman isn’t really all that special. The sense of ”Well, maybe that happened to her…but that damn sure aint gonna happen to me,” doesn’t fly because, with slight variations, the same techniques that worked with Debbie in Des Moines work just as well with Tisha in Tampa, Brittany in Boston, and Changpu in Chicago (she’s an exchange student).
Well, after reading that I had a choice. I could’ve taken the information to heart. Had the statement been subtle, I might’ve taken it in without knowing, but this wasn’t a flaming dart, this was a meteor. It was big, it was slow, and it was coming towards me. Was I going to dodge it, or was I going to let it hit me? I decided to dodge it. I said, “no. I see what he’s trying to say but it’s unfortunately not true and ill-informed.” But it wasn’t the end. I even left a comment thinking that a little truth combat would resolve this feeling I had. But it didn’t. I had dodged the meteor but it was now lodged in the ground, smoking, killing the plants. It was an impertinence, and I couldn’t help wondering, “where did it come from?”
The comment I left was something like, “the schemes of the devil work too, don’t make it right.” Which was true but kind of beside the point. It bothered me that this guy thought we were truly predictable and refused to admit it, to give up this illusion of uniqueness because we’re so delusional and irrational. But it bothered me more is that I didn’t know how to prove him wrong, I just knew that he was wrong. Yes, there are a lot of people who eat McDonald’s, yes there is a high rate of success for people who own a McDonald’s for this very reason. Does it make the people who eat there predictable and average? No. But sort of. And the fact that diabolically tricking women to get what you want out of them seemed to not be an issue was really flooring me. The funny thing about using tricks to get people to do what you want is that the more you do it, the more you lose respect for them. They do become less like individuals in your eyes and more like pawns, easily led by…whatever. Surely there is a choice guys can make. Is this really what guys have to do to get us to see a good thing? Are we really this contradictory and complicated?
Luckily, I had a random guy message me the other day so I was able to ask him what he thought about it. He went on about the old tennet that hot guys don’t have to do much of anything, and yet some guys who are average or less than average manage to get these attractive women so “game” is the missing link between these outliers that makes sense of their world. Then I responded:
I have to say, that just seems like a terrible way to go about things. I’m pretty attractive, smart, funny, interesting, easy going, I like sports, I cook things, blah blah. I’ve been single for a long ass time. But from what I can gather, all that goes under the category of “that’s life.” That shit builds character.
Right then…RIGHT THEN. I figured it out. That…shit…BUILDS……
CHARACTER.
Believe it or not, that is what we’re looking for, whether we know it or not. Why? Because that’s what we’re made to do. We are not only man’s mate, but we are helper. We are incentive to do good and to be the best. When man is struggling through this shit world, and they want to quit and they think “what’s the use?” we are the use. We say “yaaay, go man go.” And they are made to love us, therefore they respond positively to that type of reinforcement. It’s a beautiful, natural synergy.
But somewhere along the way, something happened. Some man said, “this is too hard. How can I just get the beautiful woman?” Maybe they saw how easy it was for some other guy, or just decided they were never gonna be good but they still wanted a mate. And call me crazy I’m just gonna throw this out there, maybe at some point having women became a sign of personal power, strength, skill, prowess, etc. etc. So some men decided to forego the natural way of things and decided to make the prize the main thing, over what the prize can do to benefit you and others. It would be like if the old proverb about “teaching a man to fish” became so highly regarded, that everyone lied about how many people learned by their hand and fishing pole sales went through the roof.
At some point, word got out that desperation in a man is unattractive. It’s annoying, I know. I’ve been desperate for things I wasn’t able to get. Seems like when you’re desperate for something, that’s precisely the time you should have it, right? In most cases not really. What should you do then? Stop being desperate. How do you do that? Wait. See that not having what you’re desperate will not kill you, not even a little bit. That’s very hard. But life responds to this way, which is the natural way.
What you shouldn’t do is pretend to not be desperate. Unfortunately this is what most men do. So when men say things like, “when you see a beautiful woman, pretend like you don’t want her,” what they’re really doing is mimicking something that looks like good character. Because men who have the experience of being around beautiful women realize that all that glitters ain’t gold, so they stop trippin. This is known as developing character. But perhaps you have not yet developed this. Perhaps you know the truth about beauty in theory, but are still desperate to test said theory out. So you run game. Let’s say game works. Well guess what? That character trait you’re faking? You can’t maintain it very long. And surprise! The relationship doesn’t last.
Is this how the average modern relationship is built???!?! *shudders*
No wonder everything is a mess.
My recommendation to men would be this: build character. It’s harder than just scheming, it’s true, but in the long run, it will be much better for everyone. Because at this point, the current system is filling this world with deceit, and you don’t want to be reaping all that for the rest of your life (or in Buddhist terms, karma is a b$*#!
And you might be saying, “well…building character is hard and it takes a long time.” ding ding ding! That’s why it works. And guess what else? The harder your life sucks, the faster your character will grow, especially if you do it intentionally. Don’t have a woman right now? Every day that you deal with that is building your character. Worried about what to do when you do get a woman? Challenge yourself. Do something that scares you. Pick a fear then conquer it. Then you won’t have to wonder if you’re the man nor not, or wait for me to say it, you’ll know. And I won’t matter so much. Take a ballroom dance class. That will help you with about… 80% of all women-related things you’ll need. “But that’s totally weird and I’ll feel like a weirdo doing that.” Hi, did you just get here?? SUCK…IT…UP. CHARACTER.
Listen, I can’t speak for everyone obviously, but the women out here are building character themselves. They’re learning, growing, getting better, getting over themselves, being single and learning to love that. And if guys are doing nothing of the sort, then relationships are going to be forever unequal. What we’re asking for doesn’t take long to build. Quit complaining that our standards are too high. You wouldn’t ask anyother institution in life to do that. Juliard is not lowering its standards for you, nor is Burger King. Yet take solace in the fact that nothing is fixed. If you’re not good enough this year, try again NEXT YEAR. THIS IS HOW EVERYTHING ELSE IS DONE. And surprisingly, the person that didn’t make it last year can, with time, be the golden standard the next. Why is that?
Because people grow. They develop. They build character.
If we expect this from every aspect of society from performers to pee tests at Fed Ex, why should we make an exception for what is supposed to be the most important thing we’ll do in life???
I’m trying to be new.
A good friend of mine who also writes for the blog Black Girls Like Us refers to the last ten years of her life as “the vault.” The stuff in the vault doesn’t get brought up, or if it does, you’re not allowed to feel any kind of way about it. It’s like evidence inadmissible in court. Yeah, it’s there, but it can’t be used against you. I don’t know if both good and bad are in the vault, mostly bad I assume, but the metaphor is a powerful one. It’s really stuck in my mind. What are vaults? Visually they’re pretty arresting. Thick titanium or some other intimidating alloy, complicated locks, frighteningly secure, made to hold much more than that of a safe, and far more inconvenient to go digging around in. You can almost forget about what’s in the vault once it’s in there, and even why you put it there. It frees up your brain to think of other things.
I do not have a vault. I carry anything I’ve ever said or done good or bad, what other people did about it or felt about it, with me everywhere all the time. You might say I’m a hoarder. Why? The same reason why people hoard in the natural– you never know when you might need it.
I might need that scenario that happened when I was 16 because if or when it happens again, I can compare the two incidents and maybe get further to the reasons why I do what I do, so I can learn and thus grow.
I’m obsessed with self-improvement. I was thinking today that a good bit of my life is devoted to it. Immediately after that I was trying to think of ways to remedy that. If there’s a way to stop doing it I haven’t found it. But I’m thinking about this vault. And I’m thinking, what would it be like to put everything in a vault and just… Because it’s not like my techniques have really helped me. I don’t know that any self-imposed behavior has actually helped me. The things that have helped me have almost always been external.
This whole job thing that happened, for instance. It still sucks. But I’m going to be fine. Mostly because I’ve been through similar things before, and I just have hope. That has almost nothing to do with my self-improvement system. The frustration of each circumstance was because I didn’t have control over anything.
Forget a vault, I think it’s time to take all this stuff to the dump. I don’t think I need it at all. I think perhaps at some point, someone said, “If you don’t understand your past, you’re doomed to repeat it,” and I took it and ran with it. Context is one of my strengths, after all. I’m also strategic. I think I’ve tried to use my strengths on myself too much. Maybe any is too much. In fact, it might be that I think that I’m only entitled to try my strengths out on myself. People give you funny looks and get all out of shape when you try your human stuff out on them. They like when you can make them laugh or be otherwise moved, do something for them, and…I don’t know. Answer their questions or something. Actually, they don’t always like the last one. So I try these things on myself to try an help myself. After all I know me, I understand me well enough, I know where I’m coming from.
A lot of it’s fear. Fear fear fear. Fear is stupid, in theory. Fear in the moment, however, is a door that’s always open, a light that’s always on, an option that is always…ALWAYS available to you. You can always run away, always say nothing, always lie, always do the easy thing. It’s a choice that you know will always yield, often immediately. Like everything else, there are consequences to fear, but they are often far less complex and/or abrasive for you. Judge me if you want but I, for one, like that. Fear might be the only thing that gives me that. Fear is addictive. Or at least… a force of habit. It’s sad really. Because fear was once my worst enemy. And now it is an ally of sorts. Fear is really desperate for me and longs for me. Fear has been after me. I don’t know why. Seriously fear, just like, let it go. It’s so tiring. But I don’t know just what is responsible for that.
I’m trying to be new. I was thinking about the fact that a lot of my interaction is just me mimicking other people. I’m not actually interacting with you necessarily, just recreating a scenario that I saw or was once in, one that I think you would understand and/or appreciate. It’s me offering something that is perhaps familiar, but is not actually me. Sometimes I am actually myself and there’s a noticeable difference. If I were to make a vault, this would all have to go in it. This whole “self vs. semblance of self” thing. A couple things have happened lately that made me think of how I’ve been shaped through life and I’m an unsure person. I’m unsure of myself. It’s a permanent place that I’ve made to make things easier. If your personality is strong enough, you could probably get me to tell you that the sky was some other color, either because I’d just concede or I’d be partially convinced. I generally don’t like it because I don’t think it’s a good thing. And I don’t think it’s a good thing because I feel like one of those paper table cloths at Macaroni Grill. Everyone just draws on me, just draws whatever, frivolous or not. And I offer them a blank spot on me because I feel like I can spare it. And maybe I can, maybe I can do that forever. But then I see that other people are drawing on themselves. And then I’m angry. It’s not fair that you get to define both yourself and me. People don’t see it, they don’t see it a privilege to get to draw on themselves, nor a they feel like it’s not okay to draw on someone else. I see all these other people with fully formed personalities and traits and identity, and I think “I want that but I was denied that. I’ve got all these other people’s graffiti on me and I don’t feel comfortable. I’m showing you me, telling you about me, but I’m just showing all the things other people have written. Is that me? I don’t think it’s me.” Unless everyone else is right about me. But should I be putting my faith in other people? If I told you what I’m really like you would laugh. I would laugh. Because it contradicts what’s already on me. It’s too late for new graffiti. It’s been years and the graffiti has already made a pattern.
Could I really be new? A brand new tablecloth for me and only me to write on? Or maybe not even me, not anybody to write on? No evidence for me to consider, really a new person? A clean slate? My God. My God that would be… beyond anything I could ever think to ask for.
Stuck on Repeat
There are so many things wrong with me right now. Where to begin?
It all started with this stupid job that I saw last week.
I’ve been looking for a job. The one that I was counting on fell through, so I need something by the end of the month. I was looking for something part time, but if I found something really good full time, I wasn’t about to turn it down.
I don’t really want to go into the back story of why the job I found was like beyond any dream of amazingness, let’s just say that it was. I told God I really wanted the job. I understood that I could not get it, but I also understood that if I didn’t, it would be a really difficult thing for me, though I didn’t know how. I didn’t want to think about that at the moment, I just wanted to focus on getting it.
So anyway, I applied. I tried to use some networking skills that I felt I had acquired, I still don’t know if they affected anything. All I know is, that when I went to look up the job on Tuesday, it had been removed.
Could it be that they took it down because they had enough applicants? Sure. Could they still be deliberating this decision? Possibly. Could it not be the great job I’m thinking it is? Yeah. But the reality is more than likely that the position has been filled and, more than likely, here’s another desire of mine that is absolutely no match for the reality that life IS, and that you are utterly powerless against the numberless decisions, possibilities, likelihoods, and destinies that make up life.
It’s not a reality that I want right now, or should I say, one that I want to go back to. Before I was at Belmont, before I was working, I was not. I was emphatically devoid of any action words. That was two years ago. Now, I’m out of school again, out of a job again. Not the only one, but a crucial one. The uncertainties of life out to crush me again. Will I survive? Yeah. But what’s that about? What makes my odds for success so dismal? Is it me? Don’t think I hadn’t thought about that. And of that, it could be many factors: my inability to follow through with anything, my virtual invisibility, my abhorrence for my own natural talents, my complete and utter lack of proper self-evaluation, I’d just need one of these to explain it. That is, if life is completely the result of one person’s actions.
But it isn’t true. It just isn’t. Some actions bring about results, and others just don’t, and it’s not up to you. If it were, I’d be reaping a lot more, both good and bad. Forget that I don’t understand any of it, the fact of the matter is, I really didn’t need that thing to happen, because it took all of the elasticity out of my will to dive into this new year. I should never have seen that job, I knew something like this would happen. The level of discontent that I have right now is immeasurable. You probably don’t understand, but God knows me. He knows me. But He still made the decision He made. And I know His infiniteness makes it futile to argue but that only adds to the overall “over it” feeling I have. I’ve got to stop trying, I just can’t try anymore. I was really optimistic when I didn’t think there was something that I wanted out there. I thought, “you’re going to hate it all, so you might as well find something that you’ll like for awhile, until you don’t anymore. And just do that about 100 more times and then you can die. And maybe you’ll learn some things.”
It’s stupid for me to keep trying to do this. Nothing works. Nothing has worked. Why would I keep trying to do something that doesn’t work? People need a sense of accomplishment, a sense that it matters what they do in the world. A lot of the people I know that are happy have this. Some have had it so much they think they can actually tell you what is wrong with your life based on the affirmation life has given them. Well, let me tell you what life has told me over the past seven years. That my efforts, are so tiny, so insignificant, that they can barely make a dent in the universe, let alone cause it to actually stop and respond to me, and tell me why what I did couldn’t have worked. It’s also telling me that there’s some magical component about being in school that makes it ideal. Truthfully I don’t know what it is. I thought it had something to do with the sharing of ideas or something… I think it just has something to do with the fact that I paid out the ass for it, or that it has no actual real world equivalent that matters to anyone else. But it worked. I had this, like a blanket, for two years. Now that it’s gone, I don’t know which life was the reality. Do I have the capacity for success or not?
There’s something fundamentally wrong with the way I look at things, and I know that. I know that for every person in the world, there is another way to see it. Would it help me? That’s the assumption. Problem is, no one seems to be able to tell you a better way to do something without tearing at your own psyche first, without “correcting” you first. And the 1/6billionth percent more knowledge I would get from such an encounter just doesn’t seem worth it to me anymore. There was a time that I believed so strongly in diverse opinions that I would listen to practically everyone, which I’m sure was just an extreme that ended up doing more harm than good. But again, too much effort for me to correct right now. I also know there’s a cornucopia of invisible things going on, and part of this is a last ditch effort to be proven wrong. I don’t like to make an ass of myself, I don’t like to go back and apologize for some faulty idea. Maybe if I go off the deep end about it, none of it will be true. I’m willing to have every person shake their head at me in the end, even laugh, if it means that my life can be somehow different than it is. But the fact is, I’m tired of dreaming, tired of hoping, I’m officially down for the count. Maybe life will make something of me, maybe it won’t. But it certainly won’t be at the hand of my own efforts, because I am now embarrassed to the core to continue believing in anything that I can do. It was a fear that I thought I overcame, that has now become a truth that I fruitlessly tried to ignore. Or perhaps a prophecy. Maybe even a curse. The key is now to try and not self-destruct. Apathy is helping a lot with that. It’s not ideal, probably not even healthy, but it’ll have to do for now.
On a side note: It’s come to my attention that I think much much further ahead than most people. I unfortunately have no way of conveying this to anyone. I always suspected that but now I know. It doesn’t help me, or change anything, and I can’t make any money with it, and ironically it doesn’t make me any smarter. Just early. Painfully early. And thus often misunderstood. But oh well. As far as I’m concerned it’s just another random puzzle piece in my humiliatingly insufficient bag of resources. No offense God. Although, I have to say…what the fuck, Man?
Girl, Hand me My Sandwich Board 