It happened early on...

I was travelling home from downtown tonight. There were a few young men, which after more closely observing I saw were really boys, probably not even in post-secondary yet. One of them who was standing said to the other two, "Do you guys realize we've been together for over twelve hours?" I thought it was funny and sweet, but I didn't look too much at them, I just started to eavesdrop. The talkative one went on about watching a movie every night, so he had a bunch of late nights the past week. Another got off the train when I noticed the one who was sitting down had his student transit card around his neck.

These were just boys, dorky boys to the fullest extent. I gathered they got good grades and spent most of their time studying, watching movies, and playing games of sorts. I don't even think they were consumed by hormones. And I realized I was nothing like them: I was meant to end up where I did, way off course. There is absolutely no point in me wondering "What if", because there were no other options, because I am diseased and I had no tools to even recognize it let alone manage it during those formative years when I needed to be on point the most.

The loss of innocence happened fast with me, but I didn't want to acknowledge that up until now. I was hurt by others, I hurt myself, I hurt others, and it all left me where I am today, nearly crippled. It is a relentless world, but today I no longer feel the need to match up to anyone. By God's good grace, in His good timing, I achieved in truth everything I needed to attain, and now the rest is up to me to make the most of it, and enjoy sitting at the table with whatever hand is dealt to me.

I come from a cold city, a mean city; and it made me strong. I know what honour and dignity represent, and respect is earned, not assumed to be received. Now I know that the past is in the past, and everything must pass. Everything. I am almost mid-life, and I have spent almost half of it lamenting poor decisions, while continuing to make the same intrinsic mistakes. Insanity ruled me, and it still tries to but the difference is today I see it and I call it by its name, and that means it no longer controls me.

I am proud that I made it up to the point that I did. Sins are just coping mechanisms, nothing more. I used my pride and arrogance to get to where I am with absolutely nothing but a delusion of grandeur. It is no longer relevant that I barely made it by, that I am not really where I want to be, because I couldn't have known what I wanted during the time when I needed to make a decision and follow through with it. And that makes anything I have ever wanted worthless.

It also makes it comical. No wonder Dante's famous work on the process of our transition from life into death is called The Divine Comedy. Life is, at least my life is, absurd. I thought God had no sense of humour because Jesus only ever wept, but I can see now that some verses have been left out from that part of history. I've never been fond of history, and now mine will no longer rule my present, or define my future.

Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, Illustration from Dante's Divine Comedy, 14th Century (Manuscript)

In the world

It has been three weeks since my last post. A lot has been happening, most of it conflict. My perception of people and the world has shifted and while one could say it's now negative or jaded, I feel it's more realistic and helps me continue to establish healthy boundaries, be more resourceful with my energy, and to be more careful with who I give power to.

There is a lot less fear in my thinking and acting now as a result of my new experiences, which were a long time coming. People seem so much less threatening when I recognize that they are just living their own lives and not really concerned about what's around them. And consequently I have learnt to mind my own business. Unless something directly affects a person, they are entirely uninterested in me and what I have to offer, and so I rarely place myself in others' circles now.

It is a demoralized world, and being ignorant in my belief that I could be of service hurt me in more ways than I wish to recall. It is not my right to place myself in people's spaces, even if I think it's something as seemingly harmless as a pleasant comment. It is God's decision to choose who will enter into mine.

What helped me see this was not a burning bush revelation, it was many years of desperate attempts to connect with others and inspire them, this painful lesson finally coming to fruition this week in the heart of the city. But this week was merely the final stage, and during the growing phase I had to be let down by people ad infinitum, to finally learn to MIND MY OWN BUSINESS.

Ultimately, people want to appease the flesh, and character-building is left only for the odd who then become isolated, forced out of communities for having habits that make the pleasure-seekers uncomfortable, painfully aware of choices better left unmade.

But I will not let this dull me. Sometimes I lament over the state of the world in the most basic sense - the weaker must succumb to the stronger, all life is sustained by the loss of life. As a statement, it seems like a paradox, as all things which are true are, but in its most basic form, one has to perish for the survival of another, going all the way down the vegetation. Today this no longer bothers me, because today my faith is strong enough to know that this world is passing, and I have 2,000+ years of wisdom to give me the STRENGTH to now be in the world, but not of it.

My life has truly been a luxury, having had the time and freedom to have spent the past fifteen years contemplating spiritual matters, debating hypothetical problems with unrealistic (or typically no) solutions, communicating with like-minded people behind the comfort of my computer, half that time in my pajamas. But that sabotaged me two-fold: 1) Without actual worldly experience I projected my will and incomplete theories into God's plan, and 2) I relied on a distorted impression of society - I cultivated my values into a world that is in reality cold, crass, fast, mean, weak...the list goes on. And that is not a human fix.

I am no longer interested in the undisciplined, in the tasteless. I know that I am the salt of the world, but as Oswald Chambers said, my job is not to bring others to relief, but to accept this world for what it is, and to go on my way. In that sense, I will attract who the Lord wills to be drawn to me, just as I was drawn to God, without any will of my own. I erred by not going on my way, instead making lots of little stops in a debased belief I was making uplifting social calls, not even realizing (or dismissing when obvious) they were being spat on behind my back. I placed myself in the business of others, not in the business of the Father. I never sought out God's will, I sought out my will, how to feel as good as I could in the depravity of day-to-day living.

I have the power to loose and to bind, but I don't have the power to go off and decide who will be my "friend", or who I will assuage (or vice versa). That is the opposite of God's will - it's my will, and deciding who "needs" my attention, opinion, or observance, has never once ended well. Now I know that all I am to do is fight my own battles and keep to myself. That is hard to accept, but I now concede unequivocally that is the reality, and is necessary.

If someone is drawn to me I need to ask in prayer and meditation what their purpose in my life is to be, instead of recklessly making impetuous decisions in this world - a world which is not mine to participate in on my own terms. I am sincerely grateful for a handful of life-changing developments that have in truth been a blessing to this unwitting participant.

Time to get to REAL work.

Until next time, dear reader.

Being elementary

I believe that I have made the error of assuming that people are no longer primordial. While some have made unbelievable advancements in the natural and applied sciences, I suspect now that as humans, we are not much more enlightened than our tribal ancestors were. And even so today, as I progress my efforts of ego balance, I am returning to the most primal of culture - symbols. Not even words, not even full sentences.

What precipitated this line of reasoning of our under-development as a species was an image that I saw on social media last week, which was these fantastical clouds, long ballooned lines, real as life in almost 3D, covering the sky like sheets that nearly touched with not much space between them. I felt afraid of them, and I realized it's because they were so unusual, and I didn't know what they would "do".

The ancients used tactics that we today understand as the origins of magic, to try to control the forces of nature which terrified them, and they also illustrated these forces to be the work of gods who were so much more powerful and who could in a moment, without warning, destroy them. So rituals were also contrived to appease or repent to these outer-worldly beings, in order to attract favour or avoid rebuke.

I was in discussion several weeks ago that fear no longer serves us. Since we are no longer at the mercy of the elements, or of predators in the wild, it will soon be phased out through evolution, and that the enlightened of us can catalyze this process through meditation and work. Now I see how wrong I was. We as humans are not afraid of this world, because "nothing is new under the sun". But is that true? Once something unusual happens, or even uncommon like a natural disaster, fear is just about the only, I think appropriate response.

Fear is no longer objectionable to me. It is who I am at my very and pure core - a fearful, primitive person. Yes I can work to attain a degree of perfection to the one true God, meaning that I spend every waking hour in service to Him and therefore the people about me, which I can only achieve by overcoming my primal instincts that keep me in a place of stagnancy and boredom, or on the flip side, panic and chaos, but being afraid is no longer to be combated and condemned. If I miss the mark, if I choose complacency over the perfect objective which is God, the consequences no longer need to be dire. I simply try again.

There is no shame in being primitive. So long as I respect myself and others, I am doing just fine.