Sudden Inspiration: Dissonance

I wrote a post a while back on this blog called "Virginity." That post nearly ended the journey that this blog has been since I started it almost a year ago. I was told to stop writing, that my philosophizing and thinking were dangerous, and some people decided to believe things about me that weren't true without asking me about them.

What's funny about this is how common it is to the human experience.

Some people are assuming things about Rob Bell's new book a month before it's even out, and they're hysterically proclaiming the same things they have been since his "Velvet Elvis" came out years ago. Some say he's a heretic, some say he's a universalist, some say he's a revolutionary. Regardless, people are reflecting who they are out into the world and awaiting a response.

They are proving they exist.

This blog is a method of proving that I exist, because I live in a world where comfort is valued over authenticity, loudness is valued over clarity, and speed is valued over truth. This may not be the case for the entirety of the world, but for my environment, it certainly is. So I feel out of step, and so I come here and I write. To express myself, to be authentic and say what I think is true as clearly as possible.

For a long time I wrote angrily and allowed my passions to guide my words. The problem with that was that I would come back to my posts 3 months later and want to wipe them off the internet, because I thought they were worthless. Furthermore, I didn't benefit anyone by doing that, I only created more of the wrong kind of dissonance, more of the chaos and the misunderstanding and the promotion of ignorance through emotion.

Some people are very liberal, some people are very conservative. Regardless, they all believe they are right, and they all are out to benefit the people they find to be worthy, and they are all trying to prove they exist. Their expression is their way of shining, of being alive, of being with people, of throwing themselves out there, saying "I'm here. I want to connect. Someone read. Someone respond. Someone pay attention, I have important things to say."

To express oneself well, to write or speak or create art so people will see and want to see more, one must rise above their own perspective. I am convinced, through my interactions with people, that some never will. This is not because they can not, but because they will not. Maybe they are too afraid, too broken, too angry, or maybe they just don't care. There is certainly no shortage of apathetic people anymore.

Being united by a common enemy is easy. It comes as naturally as breathing, because humans are meant to stand against something. We don't really know what, so we might try and figure out intellectually what is true and apply logic as our weapon, or we might simply react out of passion or whimsy to what we like and dislike. Maybe some are simply out for themselves, and it works for what they want to do. Maybe some hate themselves, and they've made that work, somehow. But regardless, we stand on something, even if it's in reaction.

The problem with declaring a person your enemy is that to truly oppose a person, you must make them a demon. They must no longer be human, but a force, a moustache twirling evilly intentioned monster out to do the world harm. To appear more reasonable, you can pay lip service and give the benefit of the doubt to them (and indeed, most charismatic leaders of militant forces do just that), but ultimately you oppose them because they are doing something evil.

So maybe some people are monsters. The problem is, to be human is to have some good and some evil in you at all times. To begin ignoring a person's intentions is to stop treating them like they're human, and it is ultimately a loss of perspective. No one is completely a monster, and no one is completely an angel.

I've kept writing here because I began the journey toward not allowing my personal feelings to dictate how and whether I write. I sat out on the driveway of my friends' house one day after realizing that my two biggest desires, marriage and writing, could not coexist, and I simply shut down. I swear to you, I was so overloaded with emotion and so unable to process what had happened that I simply left for a while.

Rebooted. Restarted myself. Dropped everything I could out of who I was and came back.

The spark was still there when I came back. I write because if I don't, I will lose myself. I try to gain perspective, listen to what people have to say, and write about universal human experiences because that is what matters. I admit to my faults at every turn because they are true, and no matter how frustrating they are, I cannot be who I am not.

The angry writers, the people with presuppositions that have no fact behind them, the people that use logic and faith and philosophy and a lot of other good things as weapons, those that can't stop fighting because they'll die without something to oppose, and everything else that gets in the way of perspective, of the truth that Is, regardless of anything else, are all a fact of life.

No one's got this game right, which is why criticism is at once so important and so completely irrelevant. One must walk the line between ego attack and ad hominem to be truly beneficial in the art of criticism, and unfortunately, everyone falls too far on one side or the other most of the time.

I am inspired by the right kind of dissonance, the kind that stands as a harmony with everyone that is yelling that they exist. The people that live this way do so out of choice, and their emotions and logic never quite align with the truth of the way they choose to live, because it's so contrary to our impulse to protect ourselves and to fight to survive. They are not threatened by criticism, by anger, by threats, or by death. They are who they are quietly, confidently, and their strength is usually not recognized because it's not obvious in any way. They find the truth in every person, in every philosophy, in every religion, in every position, because everyone's trying to make some sense out of life, and everyone has a piece of God in them.

This is such a weird way to live because it's upside down from the power seeking norm, and it can never fully align with any philosophy, any emotion, any lifestyle, because it's being in harmony with oneself, and what makes one human.

I am still a Christian because Christ is the only example I can find of a person that could have possibly done this perfectly, and I believe he did and still does, for completely unprovable reasons. The fusion of God with humanity saw completion in him, and in light of that, I simply cannot be the angry person I was anymore, nor can I sit around upset because of philosophies or theologians that spout rage and ignorance. I can no longer be completely offended by opposition and personal attack because I understand it, because it is unimportant in light of what is true about it, what I can learn, and mostly because I have lost the ability to care about it through many circumstances, which I am thankful for.

I am a poor example of the dissonant and objective person, as this post probably indicates, but it is what I aspire to be.

Resurrection

Sometimes, something you love gets so twisted, so distorted, and so bent out of shape that you cannot help but do something about it. Not because you are especially selfless or altruistic or because you know the truth that no one else does, but because you are human.

I had a conversation recently with two good friends about our time in Christian Institutions. Though many of those details must remain a mystery to most of my readers, suffice it to say we've all been hurt, we've all been attacked at the core of our being, repeatedly. The most damning part of it is that this attack was mercilessly carried out by people that genuinely think they are doing right, that they are acting for the benefit of those they have influence over.

There is a belief that is prevalent among Christians that we are somehow different from everyone else, better in some way, though we would probably never say better. The world is this clouded and dark place, and no one unsaved has any wisdom whatsoever, because they don't know God. Some would be more generous and say that their wisdom is accidental and they don't actually understand the core of their knowledge (God), or that they are allowed the knowledge by God, but only to a certain point, only gaining full knowledge when they "get saved."

The problem is, when you are used to having an enemy, you will always have one in some form or another. When you live to fight, you don't stop fighting just because no one else is around, and you probably have a legitimate reason for your need to fight, something that has never seen healing in who you are. I know I do. Sometimes, unfortunately, healing must come from being broken so entirely that you will finally give up your stubborn pride, your sense of superiority, and most of all, your fear that if you don't fight, you will lose.

When you defeat the atheists, you move onto agnostics. When you defeat them, you move onto other religions. When you defeat other religions, you must battle those that claim to be Christians and don't share your beliefs. It's all for Christ that you tear these people apart, you are a warrior for Truth, and you will point it out wherever you go, no matter what the cost, no matter how much you must humiliate and dishonor these people and yourself, they must know they are wrong so they can change.

Constant provocation, constant criticism, constant battling changes a person, no matter how they choose to participate. Even if it was never your intention to get involved in the war, you somehow end up in the middle, and no one involved gets out undamaged.

The result of this is a system wherein the superiors damage the ones they teach intentionally, to create this artificial character, this contrived spirituality and correct theology. Psychologically, you must agree not because it's true, but because of the consequences if you don't. The ultimate trump card here is the brand of heretic, the rejection from the institution, the social and intellectual ostracization of a person.

In other words, I am damaged and have come to the place where my life has been given meaning as a result. I will pass this on to you. We will be damaged, angry, and spiritual together, taking on the role of those that killed Christ, the persecutor, to each other. We will find truth through fear, violence, and fighting.

I am a problem solver. For the longest time, I've tried to fix this thing I love. The truth is, no matter how bitter or angry I've been, I love being a Christian. I'll identify myself as one readily so long as I know people understand what I mean, which is very difficult with the chaos Christianity has descended into screaming behind all of my words.

It's time to stop criticizing, stop being angry, stop allowing the destruction wrought upon us by others to determine how we act, and just be who we know we should be. When I think of Christ, he didn't spend his time trying to control people, trying to correct others' perceptions of him, trying to correct every single person about every single detail, and most of all, I don't see him spending his time damaged and angry because he was so misunderstood. When he was killed unfairly, treated horribly for no good reason, and subjected to the most intense kind of misunderstanding possible, he didn't resurrect and decide to destroy humanity.

And sometimes, when I get misunderstood, when I get cut off in traffic, when someone doesn't allow me to speak or assumes things and disregards me, I feel like he should have. Because I am fickle, I am angry, I am unreliable. It's pretty cool that Christ is not.

My contention is not over the existence of Christ, the validity of Scripture, the 5 points of Orthodoxy, or over any point of theology as we know it. We've screamed about that enough, and you have made up your mind about it. In conversation I will respect every view you have, and I ask the same from you.

My contention is that Christ is the most contrary, subversive, beautifully illogical, upside down, incredible figure I have ever seen. He literally still shines as an example of being the absolute opposite of every religion claiming to follow his name, because the way he lived and continues to exist is destructive to institutionalized religion, dogmatic theology, and to war itself.

Where I have been offered more anger, bitterness, movements, rules, conventions, theological imperatives, threats, and ugliness by the institution I've had to deal with for years, Christ offers honor, respect, love, and a lifestyle that transcends the holy war everyone seems to want to fight.

Instead of fighting fire with fire, we can become tranquility in the middle of war, light in the darkness, literally the opposite of the life that people keep telling us is the way to live.

Theology must be rebuilt again and again, and every time it is systematized, it must be destroyed because the center of the system is destructive to its' very existence. Because Christ didn't decide to unite with humanity to create Christianity, he walked with us to show us humanity as it is truly meant to be. He allowed for his own death not just for a metaphysical regenerative salvation, but because death is no longer the rule. Resurrection is. He disregarded religion because it was never meant to work from the beginning, it was a method that self-destructed under its' own inadequacy like everything else trying to show us what the divine is.

To those broken by religion, hurt by Christianity, embittered and angry and feeling like there is no other place to turn, you are offered the hope of Resurrection. The hope that when everything falls apart, there is always something new, something better, because you are a little closer to the truth, a little more knowledgeable, and you know things that no one else does.

You are someone that no one else can duplicate. You are truly human, in all of your broken glory.

Resurrection is not just a matter of becoming undying, it is becoming truly human, transcending the rules of life as we know them, with death being the ultimate rule.

Why I Like Theology

Once, there was a man. He got a big deal made out of him because of how he lived the opposite way everyone else did. He never compromised who he was for others, he was misunderstood by even his closest friends, and he lived for far too short a time for the world to be just at all, because he was murdered by a government that made things up about him because it was threatened. He did things because it was who he was, not for gain or because of whimsy or superstition or to gain recognition or greatness in any terms that are logically measurable. His honor was impeccable, and that made him enemies everywhere he went. It also made him friends, all of whom profoundly failed him at some point.

Then a religion was made about him, with most of its' Western adherents talking about approximately a week of his life. Approximately 0.058% of his life is revered by people. Of course, only about 10% is known about him, bringing the number up to .58% of what is known. Becoming the focus of everything.

Rather than look at what's directly in front of us, on the pages of an ancient document, we make up metaphysical reasons to be a certain way, encasing it in trappings of religion, which is one of the things that this man was least interested in. Argue away on that one.

A monolithic religion, one of the largest in the world. I doubt he's surprised, but still. It is ironic that it runs exactly the opposite way that his life seemed to. Power, politics, legalistic religion, arguing, gossip, hatred, fakeness, deceit, guilt, and shame. That's not all there is to it, there is also love, social responsibility, truth, discussion, friendship, satisfaction, and good people.

I haven't stepped in a church in 5 years. You can bet it's not due to the good qualities that this has happened. However, one thing is inescapable about how I live: I am terminally fascinated this man that was here 2 millenia before me (approximately), and the way he chose to live. I am intrigued by the way he disregarded death, the redemption that he brought from things that didn't seem likely at all, and the way he became friends with some of the people that are probably considered the scum of the Earth. How he hung out with the rejected when he could've had a religion made all by himself in any religious establishment, power unending, and privilege beyond imagination. Because he could not be anything but who he was.

People focus on his death and the miracle of his continued life, the resurrection of the dead, but I think how he died is interesting. He stared power in the face and said "you cannot take what is important. you cannot stop or defeat me, all you can do is kill me. It was an extension of his life, which a selfish man would've said sucks. He didn't have a home, he didn't have many privileges for his time, and he traveled around being awesome wherever he could. He demonstrated love, he showed people what it meant to give oneself to others, to state what is true without hesitation, and to live and be truly human, as we are supposed to be.

I like theology despite 99% of the discussions I've had about it. It's a fascinating branch of Philosophy because my life has been touched by the divine, and it's part of who I am. Where others see circumstance, I see God doing stuff. Maybe they're right, but I believe myself to be right. Evil exists as a contrast to the way things are supposed to be, and it is everywhere. It is in all of us. But so is the imprint of divinity, and it's so easy to see if you stop looking for people to miraculously heal each other or to see a divine being physically or to have God speak in an audible voice to you.

Most religious people think of me as a universalist or an atheist, because I do not accept their religion as having influence over my life. Most areligious or atheist people, even though I get along with them better lately, think of me as religious or believing in silly things. It's amusing, and it's part of why I try to be who I am all the time. The man I admire, the man that still lives because death could not defeat him, always was who he was, and many despised him. I am nothing like him, I am broken and I do stupid and evil things all the time. I don't treat people how they deserve or in a loving manner, I am flippant and fickle, I have many personality flaws and most are quite evident. But, I try. Because I think it's worth it to at least try to live as a true human, as someone that rises above circumstance and is who they are regardless of others, and as someone who wants to know what the truth is.

I've been hurt by my own religious affiliation, and that's why I pretty much don't care about any religious institutions anymore. I've heavily attended 4, and only one of them didn't hurt me, because I am convinced I wasn't there long enough to be seriously hurt by them. But that said, part of me is missing when I'm not exploring theology, when I'm not discussing, when I'm not hanging out with people and bouncing philosophical and theological ideas off of them. I feel that I become static and never improve myself or my beliefs when that happens.

Maybe I'll write more about this later, now that I finally don't hurt enough to avoid it any longer.

Monster

If knowledge of truth is power, then power leads to isolation. Humanity seeks power, but to those with true power, they hide it because it has made them a monster. Monsters don't live happily ever after, they know too much. They have too much power to live as a human. Their power often goes unused except in the direst of circumstances, and so that is where they end up. Everything around them is destroyed, they end up standing alone, people either having gone on to live life as they will or broken before them, oftentimes without even knowing how it happened.

Truth never set a single person free in the way they want it, and yet they are indeed more free than those who do not seek it. To be free is to be alone. To know, to understand, to see clearly. From the day I met you, I knew you conveyed to me something. It is perhaps a curse, to critically think, to analyze, to destroy the foundations of everything because so many people claim truth and so few people understand it.

How could someone possible live with such a monster? How could happiness ever be found in his company? What point could there possibly be to relationships when one has risen above the lowly fear that pervades everything. To fear nothing is to gain power, and you can only let go of your fear with knowledge.

To know the truth, to understand reality, to seek and find knowledge, it is perhaps to see the darkness spreading more clearly than anyone could possibly imagine. It is everywhere, and it is has become so difficult to see the light at all. Pinpricks, anomalies, punctures through the darkness that are then quickly overwhelmed.

Where is the redemption I've spoken of so often? I see only death. I see only brokenness and people pulling wool over their eyes. I see only rejection for those that are monsters, perhaps because they've awakened to what they truly are, and they cannot hide, they cannot pretend. Because they're proud of what they are, no matter the cost.

It does cost you to be a true seeker of knowledge. More than you can imagine. But where you lose your hope, your naive notions of love and your ideals, you gain confidence, perspective, and poise.

The choice is yours'.

Field of Absolute Terror

"This is the light of my soul, a sacred territory in which no one may intrude."

So essential is this to humanity's continued existence that I can not overestimate its' importance. From the popular Anime Neon Genesis: Evangelion comes the concept of the AT Field, or the thing that separates us from everyone else. This is both literal and metaphorical. Literally, it means our body, our physical form, our very nature as a separate being from everyone else. Metaphorically, the meaning is obvious: humans are fundamentally disconnected from others, and this brings both safety and pain.

We each are sacred beings, and the proof is in our ability to be safe from others. There are some things no one can take from you, no matter how hostile they are to you, how much they think they know you, how much they attack who you are, or how badly they treat you. The converse of this is that because of our nature, we endure the pain that comes from a lack of acceptance, a lack of knowledge, the ability of another person to shut us out completely if they don't want us in. When we love another person and they ignore us, don't give us a chance, and worst of all, claim to know who we are and reject and shut us out...well, few things compare, as far as pain goes.

"Nobody wants me. Nobody cares whether or not I exist. Nothing ever changes. So they can all just die."

It's tempting to be this way when confronted with how people can be, but you must also face the fact that you are fundamentally the cause of your own pain. It's a sure and steady numbing death, the life by oneself, and it's very comforting to realize that you know exactly where your pain comes from, and that it can be managed.

Personally, I have had to accept what I have become because of others, before realizing the nature of human beings. To put it simply, I was an idealist, and I thought things should all be a certain way, people should treat each other with respect, love should be the way we act, and people should listen to each other and care about each other. I used my religion to justify this, and I failed.

I didn't fail because any of that is false, I failed because no one would play by my rules. I failed because you can't force people to act a certain way. Whether I am right or not is immaterial: it is not how people are. By and large, people are selfish animals, and I am no exception. The real deal-breaker came from realizing my own horrid nature. It came from realizing who I am, and that I'm not the ideal, not the nice person I thought I was. Whether through self-realization or the things that have happened to me, I am a pitiful example of what humanity should be, and I have no business expecting any better of anyone else. My business is expecting better of myself.

My job is to do my best, to manage my own sacred territory.

One of the most aggravating things to me of late is when people are apathetic toward others. Ironically, it is one of my most fundamental and often used abuses of others. I imagine if more people realized that what annoys them about others is tendencies they have that piss them off, there would be far less self-righteousness.

I do not post this to whine about my life, and I do not post this for attention. If my comments are any indication, all of 2 people still read this, and they already know me. I post this because I am tired of reading about how pain is irrelevant to how we should be as people and what we should believe.

"I don't want my pain taken away, I need my pain!"

Every single day, someone mistreats me. I am cut off in traffic, people assume wrong things about who I am, I have a comment made to me that hurts, I am disregarded and told in so many words (or more frequently, silence) that I don't matter and never will. It happens, and it's not going to change. I used to be so hurt by every little thing people did, and I'm afraid it's made me a little bit of an angry person.

Now, I no longer care. It is so frequent, so common, that it has ceased to matter. If someone's objective is to speak to me as an equal and make me better, I will listen and interact. If I am being written off, if I am being ignored or "looked out for" because of assumptions, I no longer care about that person. I have no more life to waste on those that would not treat me with respect. I have been in 3 relationships, and I was only respected in one of them. My last relationship was with a person that deeply, deeply disrespected me in every way possible. I'm not going to say it doesn't hurt, but I will say I no longer care. I am no longer that person's, and I can move on precisely because of the light of my soul. She may no longer intrude into who I am, she does not know me any longer because a person is not a static object, they are a changing force.

Let me repeat that. A person is constantly in motion. They are constantly changing. What is insulted one day may no longer exist. The lie that "people never change" is probably one of the most obviously incorrect statements I have ever seen. In fact, people change all the time, and it is the assumptions that one shows when they utter this statement that are shown to be held in stasis, never changing by the force of that person's will.

When you assume about another person, they eventually will stop caring. Because they eventually realize it is not their job to change your mind any longer, because you have made up your mind and they are done caring. Or they get jaded and angsty.

Your soul is a sacred place, and who you let in is entirely up to you. I advise you to let in people that respect you, that will love you in the way that you deserve to be loved. Friends, family, loved ones...they will all disappoint you at some point. What matters is the intent. As long as we are human, we will never stop causing the collective pain of our race. We will never cease being monstrously unjust to each other, but we can choose to respect each other's souls if we want.

Just remember: your respect, your love, will rarely go unpunished. It's much easier, much safer, to shut out everyone else. But you then have to deal with loneliness, with rotting in a dark room by yourself. Fool yourself if you must, but you will fool no one else.

If you wish to live without pain caused by others, by yourself, within yourself, you must answer one simple question: what is your heart for?

Affirmative.

I believe in something greater than myself. A lot of people call this force, this being, God. I've heard him called by other names, but I tend to just say God.

I have to admit, I was raised to believe this way, and part of me pays honor to those that have influenced me by persisting in this belief. But another part of me is an insatiable longing for the world to be better, for people to finally understand love, for the end of ugliness and selfishness. A lot would call this naive and idealistic, I call it a recognition of a higher reality.

I have the highest respect for those that don't agree. I believe those that would disagree with anything I believe have every right to do so. My thoughts, my ideas, are not the measure of all things. My morality is not the measure for a single other person.

I affirm the God of the Bible, because He makes sense to me. The Bible doesn't always make sense, but the God present in it does, on a basic, visceral level. Because he sits in my soul, keeping me alive, bringing me the strength to carry on when every other person fails me, when the world caves in on me.

I haven't been to church in years, because the church as I know it has rejected me on the same basic level that God seems to accept me. My questions have been met with hostility, my differing opinions with condescension, and my feelings with superiority. The church I've met has been an example of how everyone is the same, and this group of Christians is worse than most of the nonreligious people I've met because they've got religion to convince them of their superiority. I fell in for a while with the more "hip" crowd of Christians, and found them to be exactly the same, needing some kind of revolutionary version of Christianity (emerging, hipster, whatever name it may have) to convince them of their superiority.

I have hope for finding the church that serves humbly, that is convinced they're no better than anyone else, that does not need to prove it's more right than everyone else, and that I'd be proud to go to. Slowly but surely, I've been convincing myself to put myself out there and try another one. I will probably be hurt again.

I believe that pain is an effective teacher. It sharpens us like a razor, and it makes us into a better person. Pain teaches consistency, grows faith, and produces character. Every time you are hurt, remember that you can make life better because of it.

I've had the core of my being rejected by people, I've put myself out there and been ignored and stepped on, and very few are an exception to this rule. I am glad for this because I now understand how weak I have been to allow this to begin with. To allow a person, no matter how one feels about them, to dictate a single thing about who we are is to be a sellout, to be mastered by another person. The God that never forsakes me, that preserves the hope I try to stomp out just so I'll stop hurting so much, and that loves me tirelessly despite my inability to love at all, is the one that deserves such mastery over me.

I've rejected others, ignored others, broken the heart of others, always while trying to do what I think is right. I am no different. I deserve what comes to me, but I believe in a better reality, free of this petty bickering, this inability of humanity to live with itself. Redemption is coming for mankind, and I hope for it because I have to. Something will not let me go.

You might tell me I am weaker than ever because of this, you might even read the beginning of this post and think I am nothing short of hypocritical. You're probably correct. But the truth is, I don't care what you think. I do my best like everyone else.

I believe in something greater than myself. Strength and honor.

Some people just want to watch the world burn

The Enlightenment has its' roots deep within us. So deep, in fact, that when people step up to be "nontraditional," they are still on the same playing field. They still create these structures bent on finally answering the questions that burn within us.

What is our purpose?

Why are we alive?

Why do we exist?

We think making a movement, an institution, a religion around something we've discovered will lead us to hope, will lead us to answers, and will force the world to be how we want it to be.

What we overlook is that it's just another expression of power. Expressions of power tend to backfire, and create things we never intended.

An institution built on love and acceptance that is so good at rejecting people that don't fall in line and conform.

A philosophy built on seeking the truth that constructs its' truth and orders others to seek it.

A nonconformist movement that becomes so hip, so cool for people to follow, that you are ostracized if you do not conform.

People that want so badly to be accepted that they do whatever it takes to do so, and end up alone.

Radicals that make everything worse, and become the foundation for more oppression, more intellectual stagnation, and more people following fads and rejecting each other.

Whenever we find something good, we destroy it. We make it into a system that destroys it, we make it a fad, a construction that others must conform to, because we have to prove we exist.

The world has become an alien place, a place where people can't relate to each other. We say we'll do something for another and then avoid them. We become so socially anxious that we do stupid things just to get away, just to relieve the pressure. We go to institutions because we're dying to be accepted, to feel that connection, to feel better about this thing we call life, and we are met with more requirements, more standards, more things we must do, more images of what we must be to gain the thing we're looking for.

Eventually, some just stop caring. They don't care about anything anymore, not even their own survival. They simply do what feels right and don't consider anyone else, because it's easy. Because it's better than what they did have. I'd say they're pretty correct.

Too bad it solves nothing.

You end up just as empty, just as broken, just as alone.

Destruction without creation following it is not beneficial, but to destroy systems to create a new system is pointless. We will have simply traded one set of specifics for another, created a new cage for our hearts and minds to rot in.

Philosophy does not free us. Theology does not free us, religion does not free us, politics do not free us. Social groups do not help, and neither do rituals that used to have meaning that have been repeated so many times that no one cares anymore. We are trapped within our own walls, our own limitations.

Someone will probably take this post and make it into another limitation, another system, another fad.

Brokenness and apathy don't help. We are free, but we quickly find that we are only free to die. There is no purpose, there is no life, there is no joy or happiness or anger or frustration or sadness or anything else. There is no thought, no value, no reason to live, so we might as well die. We might as well set the world ablaze and watch it burn up and take us with it.

Freedom is not its' own reason. Freedom must be responsibly used. We must recognize our own power, our own ability to choose. We must understand reality, seek truth, and realize who we are.

We must be true to how things really are.

It is the business of very few to do this, and that is because they will do it without forming another system and without falling into despair.

The beauty of it is, no one will care. Because the world is sick, and we've constructed our way into rejecting honesty, into fabricating everything for our own protection from the hostile void beyond.

Some people learn to live in that void, and they make it their home. Nothingness as the essence of reality, the true freedom, the ability to become actualized, to understand how things are and who oneself is.

It's rare. It doesn't happen often. You will be hard pressed to meet someone like this, because society doesn't encourage it. Life is hostile toward humanity, and culture has become a tiresome burden. Expectations have become so grossly overstated that the construction of reality is obvious. Our systems are so high level that one need simply ask "why?" and it falls apart most of the time.

It's worth it to seek though.