About Me - updated

I'm a writer, a schemer, a thinker, a dreamer, and most importantly a hopelessly hopeful romantic. Sometimes I spend way too much time thinking about being romantic instead of actually being romantic. And sometimes I spend too much time writing about thinking about being a romantic, instead of being either. To be honest with you, I'm not sure what to think of me, which is just as well, because the idea here isn't to 'sell me' to me, but rather to 'sell me,' to you. Kind of nice that way, isn't it?

I used to believe in God. At least, I think I did. Maybe I never did and just dropped the charade. Maybe it's the other way around, and now I actually do believe in God, and I'm just bitter and telling myself I don't so that I can avoid the pain of being associated with its double standards and its propagated bigotry. The point is, it doesn't really matter - if God is there, then God is there; I, a mere human who can only see things from my own vantage point, am here. And let's face it, religion is neither here nor there. Some birds just aren't meant to be caged. I believe that the phrase "God doesn't exist" says more about the limitations of the word "exist" than "God," and I also believe that faith breeds complacency. Religion is a semantics game - nothing more. A finger pointing at the Moon.

I made the decision to leave Christianity behind so I could be with a girl without guilt. She ended up cheating on me and making me feel guilty about it. The truth is, however, that I didn't do anything wrong at all, and my conscience deserves a Purple Heart. I made myself believe that I was to blame and that I wasn't good enough, but the truth is, if you cheat on someone and lie to them about it, just to suddenly throw them not only out of your heart, but also out of your life, then you just don't deserve forgiveness. You don't deserve respect. You don't deserve friendship.^[1] That's that. Lesson learned. I'll pick myself back up and step forward a better man because of it. Vindicated.

I'm a Cancer. I fit it perfectly - right down to the mood swings (as will be obvious to you soon, my dear reader). I used to think astrology was complete bullshit, until someone on the outside of all of this described my previous relationship with immaculate detail. This isn't your daily horoscope, yo. Everything happened exactly as it said, and for the rest of my life, the words "inevitable breakdown," are going to linger in my mind whenever I think of the Capricorn I once loved. I've woken up in a cold sweat thrice since she broke up with me with those words pounding in my head. Further developments on that front, but it's too soon to know where it's going, so there's no use in publically counting my chickens before they hatch (even if the eggs themselves cry out promises and vows of undying devotion - another hard lesson learned from experience with Merica - promises just don't mean fuck to some people).

Sometimes I have a superiority complex, but it's usually only when I talk about philosophy, religion, or some other topic that is necessarily pretentious. Don't pay attention to me, though, unless you want to. My chains are not your chains. My goal is to dig. Not just dig for me, but to inspire you to dig as well. I am less concerned with your views than I am with how you got to those views and how you live them out, whatever they may be. It is scrutiny that is admittedly sometimes rude and unapologetic, but it is also one that I subject myself to, albeit without the proverbial safety nets.

I'm an open book if you can get past the pathetically pretentious cover, but I can also keep a secret if you need someone to confide in. In short, you can trust me. I have a knack for being able to explain complex, multilayered emotional situations in a way that doesn't give away any details and resonates deeply within someone. I'm becoming more reliable than I was before; less complacent, more observant. I've been kicked out of my nest, thrown out of my comfort zone, and I'm finding out that I actually can fly on my own. Plus I'm good with finances, and all that good stuff.

And sometimes I have an inferiority complex. I get depressed during the winter, when it's cold, around the holidays. When I was in sixth grade I thought I was depressed enough to kill myself, but who knows what they want in sixth grade? I'm 20 years old and I don't think I really know what I want yet. For the longest time, I thought all I wanted was to be with Merica. I tried to kill myself after she broke up with me, but my mother called at the last minute and had one of my drumline friends come over. So they did, and we talked for long into the night. Now I'm okay. Like I said: vindicated.

This is all just another step in the journey, you know?

I am an existentialist. There was a time when I thought I was turning back to God, but it turns out that I was just desperate to find meaning in an otherwise meaningless life. But I'm okay with meaningless. It makes me responsible for my own fate. Put my life back into my own hands, and puts the blood back into my veins. I am, and will be, no one's slave. My motivation is my own success, and sometimes even the other way around. I'm a percussion major at Missouri Southern State University - it's not the best school in the world, but the percussion department is absolutely bitching. I wouldn't trade my time here for anything in the world. But the point is, I do things because I want to do them, and not because I have to. I don't have to do anything but stay white and die. (Much as I've tried to see things from outside of my cultural upbringing, that is.) But I believe that when we are obligated to do something, it ruins the inherent value of the act itself. This is (partly) why I abhor religion, politics, and the educational system.

That is why I am a little bit of a social anarchist. I laugh at social standards, expectations, politics, and religion because people take them way too seriously and life is just too short for it - believe me, I would know. I've had 32 surgeries in my life. I understand my own mortality. But the sun comes up - I had a kidney transplant. So I lightened up a bit - took a step toward embracing vanity.

I am only just now coming into a mindset where I somewhat care what people think of me, so I'm really the hypocrite here - I'm the bad guy here. You don't ever have to agree with me, but at least I'm an honest person. After all, I would rather have someone tell me the honest truth than lie to me to spare my emotions. You just end up stepping wrongly when you act on a lie. I'm usually a random person insofar as the attempt that it makes someone smile will allow. I like making people smile, especially at my own expense. When other people smile, it means I don't have to stomach myself, I don't have to put up with my own inhibitions. But don't think of me as an idiot, because I'm not. Not completely, at least. I may know a couple of things, but in the long run, I don't really know anything, do I? Maybe you and I should talk sometime and you can decide for yourself.

There are three references to Morgan Freeman above - all different films. I'll bet you can't find them all.
^[1] - Just because someone doesn't deserve something does not mean that they will not receive it,. I'm not a complete asshole, you know. I'm forgiving to a fault, but I will not forgive someone who doesn't give a fuck.

On the Death of Christianity.

Whether Christianity is dying or not depends on how loosely one defines "Christianity." Not only are there tons of denominations within Christianity, but there are several that some people deem are not really Christian. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints most readily comes to mind, here. And as I've seen first-hand, even the Catholic Church has been described as being heretical, by some pretty extreme Protestants - which would make those Protestants theological bastards.) More denominations are being created everyday - so while some may say Christianity is dying, what's really going on is that Christianity is changing, stretching, widening and becoming more liberal, more mystical in some cases, more metaphorical in others, and yet more hermetic / analytical in others.

Given the nature of Christian theology, which is highly exclusive with its idea of Hell and the acceptance of Christ's message (which differs with every denomination, though the dichotomy usually remains), every denomination believes another denomination is going to hell. That means that no one is outside of that condemnation, even if Christianity is the "right" religion. Which means that no one's Christianity is certainly correct; they're all interpretations of something that has been lost under the sand (or in this case, blood) of its history.

Adding to that the more philosophical approaches to Christianity, which include postmodern interpretations such as "Christian Atheism," and "Post-Theism," things are just getting too vague to tell if anything is really "Christian" anymore - there certainly isn't a Christian canon anymore. (Not that there ever was, considering the early Gnostic writings, the Apocrypha, etc. that people just dismiss as heresy, (or worse, Satanic) because it's not in the Bible - which was compiled by fallible man.) So, maybe "Christianity" is dying, if there even is a Christianity anymore. I personally believe that what this all came out of was political maneuvering more than anything that Jesus himself taught. Jesus is kind of the spokesperson, the epitome, the poster boy for everything he preached against, especially in his exchanges with the Pharisees.

Not only do you have the Council of Nicea which made the job of deciding what writings are and are not God inspired to fallible man, but then they couldn't agree on it, hence the Great Schism, hence the Reformation, etc. then after that they killed everyone who disagreed. Not to mention that the "canonical" Gospels that we do have are third-hand sources. (The Gospel of Mark was written by a disciple of Peter in 65 C.E. at the earliest, and it has priority as being the source of both Luke and Matthew. The original Gospel of Mark, the source, has no resurrection stories, which explains why the three are so similar up to that point, where they promptly oscillate into WTF-mode like clockwork.) The Gospel of John, which differs from those three, was written as early as 90 C.E., and used rhetoric and Greek that is difficult to translate - what we call "Eternal Life" is closer to "Life of the Ages," for example - and this is where most Christians get their theology.

The Gospel of Thomas, however, was written as early as 50 C.E. by the actual disciple Thomas, and is considered heresy by pretty much everyone, except those with a(n either overt or covert) mystical approach to Christianity. That's what interests me the most.

I kind of see it the way that the post-theists do: "Post-theism is a variant of nontheism that proposes to have not so much rejected theism as rendered it obsolete, that God belongs to a stage of human development now past." Which cites heavily Nietzsche's cry that God is Dead: that "god" is no longer capable of acting as a source of any moral code or teleology (because it's so vague that it's contradictory and there's nothing substantial in it at all except for the fact that it becomes a fabricated authority on which to project our own preconceived prejudices onto).

I believe that "God is dead," in this sense, but I believe that Christianity is not dead - just meaningless. As the famous §125 of Nietzsche's The Gay Science concludes: "Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners: they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering—it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves!"— It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?""

"That's what she said," a rewrite.

"I just read your note. I don't want you depressed. I want you to be happy; motivated; wanting all of the joy in life."

That's what she said. But in return, I just give her an awkward smile. A simple 'I-don't-know-where-we're-going-with-this' smile. "I'm serious." She says. And when she says it, something inside of me breaks... a million pictures in my head flash at once. Of the last time when I was serious. And she is serious. Right now. With me. She is serious. I try to lighten the mood. The last thing I want is for her to worry about me. It just feels unnecessarily reversed in my head. I'm supposed to worry about her. Not the other way around.

I reply. "I know. I was happy today."

"Yes, but I wish you could be happy everyday. Every moment," she says. And I agree... but still, I'm persistent, because I seriously don't want her to be concerned. "I was happy all day today, at least. I knew I was going to see you. So I was pretty much happy all freakin' day." And now, I try to pull it towards playful again, I put a little zing in my tone. And try for a little bit more confidence. Apparently it's convincing, she comes right back with some more playful. "Wait... you were 'happy?' Like, you know, 'Happy?'" Accompanied by a laugh.

I suddenly decide that maybe playful isn't the right way to go right now. I don't feel playful. And I do not lie to women. I smile as I take her hands in mine, and I say this. "No, dear. A deeper happy. A happy that always sings when you know that the piece of your soul you have left is going to come in contact with the piece of soul that makes everything complete. Because it is perfect, to be as one. To not be apart. Because it hurts so much when you're ripped apart... it's like paper. That kind of happy. The only kind of happy I want." And there are a couple of things about this. One, I'm ad-libbing. Thinking of it as I go... But, secondly, I meant everything I said. I don't lie. Certainly not to her. And what I said couldn't have been more heartfelt. And at that moment, I could breathe again, just a little, because for once I didn't have to censor my tongue from what was in my heart and my mind. I'm not shut away, secluded in some random dark corner of my mind somewhere.

For now, everything of the past two weeks disappears, because in retrospect, it's not even important anyway. When I look into her eyes, I realize that I need to completely leave any and all thought of me behind, because I'm only a piece of a puzzle. And to be selfishly thinking of me completely disregards the whole. It disregards her, and I won't make that mistake again. We're yin and yang. Peanut butter and jelly. And in this infinite moment together, I realize that the word cliche is only a word.

As if romantic cliches like these were invented for the sole purpose of explaining the love between myself and this girl. And they fail. They fall horribly. But I feel it - in this moment.

And here's what she says... "That's... a very sweet kind of happy."

From there the discussion is tapered off into other subjects. You know, the kind of things that people talk about. It's just...conversation. It's not awkward at all: I'm comfortable with this girl. I'm open, but eventually, somehow I get sidetracked... I find that corner of my mind again. Everything is dark around me. Somehow I can't look into her eyes anymore. I want to, but I can't bring myself to do it. Anywhere but her eyes, and I can pass off my behavior as normal, but if I look at her, she pulls it out of me. And she sounds so sad when she's concerned about me; it's heartbreaking, and I don't want to worry her. And before I know it, it's time to go.

"It's that time again..." I noticed: sometimes I swear I can feel the presence of her father behind me - her body language tells me everything. I drop our embrace, almost stoically. "Yeah," I say. I want to say more. I want to say everything. Before I can, she says, "I hate this. I always do." All that I can come up with to reply is, "So do I." Yeah, really original, right? I feel like an idiot.

She says it first. "I love you, James. Like, a whole bunch."

I smile. "I love you too."

"With cherries on top?"

"...Sure."

I sneak a glance, and she catches it easily. It must be written all over my face. Pause. Coming back into reality, she lets out the breath we've both been holding in euphoria for God knows how long.

"Don't be depressed on me. I don't want to leave you like this."

The plea in her voice shakes me. Is it hot all of a sudden, or is it just the back of my neck? My throat, behind my eyes? I can barely say, "I'm trying. But that's how it goes. You leave, and then I'm 'like this.'"

Now she has the look, too. Because I can see that it's true for her just as much as it is for me. Anyone in the world could see that. It's so obvious.

"And that makes me feel like crap," she says. She controls her voice so well. I envy that. But she's trembling. I can feel it. An inch of space between us, and I feel the girl trembling.

I put my hand ever so lightly on her cheek, and look right into her eyes. I'm so taken aback by the immaculately soft skin, that I almost forget the one word I had already picked out to say. It barely comes out.

"...Don't."

I try to comfort her. Like I feel I'm supposed to. I have no idea if I'm really able to, but as long as I'm with her, no matter where I am, I'm going to try to do just that. I continue with a justification, "I'll see you tomorrow." I throw in the "I promise" with my eyes. The tone of my voice. My touch. My body language. Not with my voice. I wouldn't say it if I couldn't make her know it. And right now, she knows that I'm going to see her tomorrow. It's a fact. Simple as that.

"But don't come tomorrow if you feel sick. Okay?" The question at the end makes me feel obligated to give her my word. I don't lie to women. Not if I can help it. But if I have to, I really really hate to. So I leave her with this.

"I will. I don't care how I feel. It would be worth it, just to see you again." And right there, I want to give her a hug--no, a kiss. The one that says everything in the entire world without having to speak a word. The one that can actually stop time to where it's just the two of you and nothing else, forever. But she's already out the door. The opportunity is wasted.

Gone.

And though, I know she's just on the other side of this door, getting into a car, already she feels miles away. So far away. So far away from everything I want to tell her, to show her. To be for her. I would trade everything I have to show her what she means to me, because I'm sure that words can't doing it justice.

But, like everything else in my life, I'm just too afraid to show her. What it could mean if I do. If everything could change. I worry if I'm being too pushy, or too eager to seek a deeper commitment, When love in the world now has been demoted and degraded so much that many guys just want to "Superman that ho."

But I love her. The old way. So much. And I don't know how I'll ever be able to show her.

An Open Letter to an Evangelical

To whom it may concern,

First of all, my dear, dear friend, understand that I do, seriously, honestly, deeply, and most of all, profoundly, appreciate your concern - I love you dearly for the compassionate, selfless effort spent in taking the time to convey it. And I love you for the admirably unwavering conviction in your beliefs that you will continue to have long after you have finished witnessing my reluctant, but truthfully respectful, betrayal. I would only pray that you would not hurt much more on my behalf. Forgive such a bold suggestion, but perhaps you should pray for that as well. I'm not worth the pain of such a sweet, caring person such as yourself.

The sad truth is, you could pray to anything at all and interpret the outcome as being an answer of "yes, no or wait." Even if it's money, a jug of milk, a celebrity, or even the gods of other religions, to name a few. And from what I was taught and experienced, that's all that Christianity really is. Praying to something that might have been there, and bending over backwards trying to interpret everything as being some sort of 'yes, no, or wait.' Yet, I persisted. I was as passionate as anyone should be. I poured my heart - my soul - into it. Into God. I obsessed, day and night, for Divine acceptance. For Divine truth. I begged for it in every breath, in every step, in every syllable in every word of every thought, every second of every day, for four years. (Though, even in my honest attempts, I never came close to what could be considered anywhere near "perfect," so don't take that as any sort of bragging. It's not.) And what came in apparent response to my ceaseless begging is something that could only be interpreted as a booming, resounding, irrevocable, God-breathed, “No.”

I was told, like you are telling me now, that Christianity is not a "religion," but a "relationship." I was told, that the Bible, the doctrine of Christianity, is not a mere "book of rules," but rather, a "guide to freedom." I was told, so I acted accordingly. I loved, because surely I had been loved first. I found someone who, in the deepest part of my soul, I believed that God Himself had hand-picked out for me; it was the "yes" that I was so desperately hoping and praying for. My heart just sang for her then, as it does now. But this girl was not a Christian. (Nor is she now.) But in my boundless, God-inspired, unconditional love for her, I saw no reason for intolerance. And before either one of us knew what was happening, the delicate, "loving" façade of Christianity started to... slip.

"You can't do that," they told me. "You cannot love her. She is forbidden." I was taken aback, cozened as I was. A small, spider crack of cynicism shot through my world-view in an instant. I numbly, though politely, asked them why. I should have known better. "It's against the rules," they replied simply. And you know what, my dear friend? They were right. It was written, plainly, in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In the sixth chapter; the fourteenth verse. However, a friend once told me that when somebody hands you an ultimatum, they've already given you the answer - and they've lost. So, with a polite, but forced smile on my face, I just refused to follow the "rules." I chose to placate the two loves, instead of suffocating them both. Or rather, attempted, as the case may be.

But, as time went on, the pressure continued. What you so fondly call a 'relationship,' had taken it's toll on me. It's every believer I once called a friend was incessantly trying their damnedest to force my “broken” world-view to see things their way, regardless of emotional or ideological casualty. Because to them, tolerance wasn't an option - love wasn't an option; it was either crush the innocent heart that I was entrusted with, or be condemned with mere words; idle threats of burning hell. Such is life. Though, unlike that “relationship” with God that I had previously obsessed over, this other relationship was an experience of refreshingly satisfying vitality; overwhelming conviction. Compared to such truly free love, my religious beliefs naturally paled in comparison.

When the pressure had built up its crescendo, the one person who introduced me to my divine obsession finally labeled me the harshest condemnation that the world-view holds. To him, I was nothing less than the "Antichrist." Now, I've had a long medical history, but none of the many scars on my body could possibly hold a candle to the one that this had left on my heart. Now, my dearly respected friend, as the two had finally come into a clearly hopeless and irreconcilable conflict, I had to make a choice. I absolutely had to - my attempts to stave off the dichotomy were proving futile. And, no, it wasn't easy. Rest assured, it was far from painless. But in retrospect, it was, at the very least, completely and utterly obvious.

Then, I decided that as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly.

Because the truth is, I can not live like that; not in a lie. I cannot love like that. I will not associate myself with people who wear their religious views on their sleeves to be shown off. People treat their views as if they were chess pieces. Playing on a chessboard where the darkest, black squares fade into vibrant blood-red with no clear distinction on where they begin. Things like "love," are just words. Pawns to be used in their so-called battle for our souls, while real blood is shed and real people die so they can do it. Christians seem to care more about the fact that they are Christians rather than what it means to be one. And they're the ones with the obligation to be Christ-like. So much for that.

I, for one, replaced my obligation to be Christ-like with the will to be. Whether there is a god or not isn't a priority to me. But if there is one, and he is truly a god of love, then I have nothing to worry about. A god of truly infinite love would find it literally impossible to create a place of eternal torment in the full knowledge before-hand that his own creations would be sent there, and why. And then to precariously balance the lives of his 'beloved' creations over the acceptance of epistemologically abstract vagaries, especially something as brutally morbid as Jesus' sacrifice? Apparently, even God is not powerful enough to make everything unquestionably right in the world. Well, such a thing is not "love." Though, in your well-deserved defense, it is certainly poetic - but what mythos isn't?

But this story of Christianity is ultimately masochistic. In divine proportions, no less. But even so, if that god is "love," as you insist, then I'm afraid, my selfless, caring friend, I don't want to "love," at all. So, again, I deeply appreciate the motivation behind your words. I value your opinion, and I admire your optimistic commitment to your faith. But you really shouldn't hurt anymore because of me. As I said before, I'm sadly not worth your pain. I'm... just fine. And finally, I apologize sincerely for such a verbose, pretentious declination of your highest truth, and I hope you understand the reluctance with which I offer it. As you so aptly suggested, I have “given it up.” And I've never felt better.

Respectfully yours,

James Elliott

Pariah: "Remember who you are."

A friend of mine on YouTube, dospook, sent me a message in response to one of my latest videos entitled Heretical Aesthetica, wherein I did a highly stylized lip-sync of a Nine Inch Nails track called Right As It Belongs V2.

The reason I bring it up is because there is something very profound about this message. The first thing that struck me was the title, Pariah. This word was completely new to me, so I looked it up. Here's what I got from dictionary.com

Pariah (n):
1. an outcast.
2. any person or animal that is generally despised or avoided.
3. (initial capital letter) a member of a low caste in southern India and Burma.

Origin:
1605–15; < style="font-style: italic;">from a hereditary duty of the caste), deriv. of paṟai a festival drum

So, basically, a pariah is an outcast drummer. :) Brilliant word, yes? Well, I love it.

Anyway, as I said, I used this song by Nine Inch Nails, which is basically a herald of skepticism. There were clips interspersed throughout of myself playing drums in a worship band from 2006, back when I was still a Christian. It was fitting, as a retrospect of how far I had come in thought in the last year, from being what you would call a 'fundamentalist' Christian to being a very liberal type of person, with intricate and complex views on god, that both transcend and embark from Christianity.

At the end of this video, having done my best to make it look like I was making a clear statement against Christianity, I said something along the lines of: "I guess, then, that the question is this: Just how can I exclude myself?" What I meant, was to exclude myself from the standard I had seemingly set, because there is no distinction that would justify my recent, supposedly belligerent path.

Dospook, Mike, wrote this in response:

I think hate and rage against anything common to other people, and moving against their best interests and tastes is a good why to 'exclude oneself', maybe don't interact or speak much at all, get a fake lD, seclude yourself, fake your own death, then actually go to the woods and live as long as you can until you do die.

But that wasn't your question.... JUST how could I exclude myself? well, that seems like you are answering the question to yourself about your historic abandon from the group religion, group choir and human like sing along. questing another pattern, frequency, something honest with your halo's center.

I wish I found the answer to " Just how could I have excluded myself" followed by how do I continue to exclude myself and how do I begin including myself, for my own benefit.

Honestly, I'm so locked into my own head I can barely form tangents of thought, for long terms of communication with people, that don't twist, bend into non-associative ideas, and ether like thoughts of seeing our lives as reflections of our lives. but that is the grand mythos of our religious histories & language, echoed in media and mono-izing in a global 'beat of one drummer' hence common mythos. And what makes the mythos not a real reality where we can spend our time and endurances considering what we sense as the case? I would say a practical view of space and home going through presumed pragmatics behaviors, like chores or common work with common work language.

Az (Azrienoch) has been taking the argument that man is not an island and I sense that to be the case, moreso with sounds & atmosphere and the fact that we speak when we speak and with whom we speak, but spend lessor time assuming that we have all share the same temperance for one another on some pre-modernist base level of human nature.

So is man an island, In my world, no because the island has clouds and water & sky, in az land, i assume, the answer is yes, because I am a head sticking out of the water and so are you, both commonly sharing air with one another.

I dunno. it's a morning ramble.

The phrase "something more honest with your halo's center" resonates, here. (Aside from what I'm about to say, it's interesting because Nine Inch Nails releases albums / singles as "Halos," The song that I used is I think "Halo 27," because it was on it's own CD that was released in Japan only.) Deep down, I think Mike was right; I have been looking for something more honest with my center; my ethereal aura, so to speak, this... energy that calls itself James Elliott.

This is going to be a bit of a complex metaphor, but just trust me.

Imagine a point, like a dot in the middle of a blank paper. That's you, no more, and no less. You alone. Now imagine another point - obviously this would be another person (or personality), so go ahead and project who ever you want to on it. We'll say that this point rotates around you. To follow the metaphor, we might call this rotation 'influence.' In rotation, it forms a circle; a halo. Now, I'm a musician, so I like to refer to this as a fifth, musically speaking - although, it is subjective, and the second point can be anything you like. The important thing is that it has to be an influence.

If another point comes in, you're probably going to want that point to line up on that circle, right? It just wouldn't be an influence if it wasn't in your circle. This is why I refer to it as a fifth - if it's not right on that circle, it's not 'perfect.' If it's too close, there's a dissonance, and if it's too far, then it's vague and unapproachable.

There was a time when my relationship with Christ and my relationship with my girlfriend were both perfect on my Halo - 'sharing common air.' The halo of both of them intersected perfectly with my center, and the edge of my halo perfectly intersected with the center of those circles. But as time moved on, things oscillated. Something along the line thrust itself into my circle, (transplanted itself, if you will) and my circle was unbalanced. It moved - closer toward the girl. Farther away from the god.

I was closer to her, yes, but dissonant, and my halo overlapped her. She couldn't breathe, being pulled into my center like that. Drowning in the inner ethereal of pure commitment of my being that neither of us were really quite ready for. And things spiraled. The fifth became a fourth. Then a third. Then a second, closer until things were so dissonant and I had forgotten how to define myself anything except for hers. On the surface, this would look extremely poetic, and sweet.

And by now, you should know what happened with Christianity, which I moved so far away from that it seemed to have lost all meaning. Yet... somehow those words and memories still have their meaning. Advice from friends whose trust and respect in and for me is long gone by now (or should be), still pains me; still affects me.

Advice is a pretty interesting thing, isn't it? In concept, at least.

---------

I have a letter thumb-tacked my wall, from a woman named Suzanne. Suzanne had a daughter, she wrote, who is only a few years older than I am, and was finishing up college as an international studies major and was going into the peace corps. She had a poster on her bedroom wall that said, "You cannot have a favorite place until you've seen them all." She also loved Starbucks, and couldn't keep her room clean. Her daughter's name was Molly.

One night, Molly got in an absolutely horrible single car accident on a country road with no drugs or alcohol involved. She lived for eleven days on life support in a coma, with almost no chance of ever regaining consciousness, much less living a meaningful life. I bet she had ambition, motivation; made good grades in school. Wanted to succeed, even if it did mean going with the grain of that arbitrary expectation.

"Remember who you are."

On the eleventh day, they took her off life support. She died within the hour (barely), under stable conditions, with a medical team close by to harvest her organs. It is her kidney that I now carry with me everywhere I go; a reminder of the unfairness of life.

"Remember who you are," is what Suzanne had said.

Two years ago, I would never have complained about my medical difficulties; would've never evoked my past as an excuse to evade responsibility. Two years ago, nobody knew even a single shadow of what I had been through. Two years ago, I stoic enough that I could take a psychological bullying with a smile on my face, and not even cared. Two years ago, I allowed myself to be vulnerable enough to allow my emotions to override my rationality; to come to a new place where I felt at peace and one with the world around me and with God, even if only for a minute, even if only til the end of the song. Yes, I suppose words and memories still have some meaning. Consider this bit of lament I received from a former spiritual mentor.

"I will be honest though, it does hurt me deep inside to see the young man who myself (and several others in this church) actively prayed for during a several year period. We prayed that God would intervene and provide him with whatever is necessary to improve his health. When our God answers that prayer in a mighty and powerful way, the young man then gets up and begins to question the existence, the sovereignty, and the infallibility of the very God who healed his broken body. Kinda felt like a slap in the face, like, 'thanks, but no thanks.' But nevertheless, I know that on the other side of this expanse, God has got an incredible and fulfilling plan for your life. I just hope the train doesn’t derail before we cross the bridge."

It impacted me, at one point. But as the Beatles said: "All of these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new." And in retrospect, that memory had lost most of its meaning. Apparently so, since I have since rejected the Christian god as being anything more than poetic mythos. But, still...

"Remember who you are."

Oh, I remember. But some things cannot be taken back. Some things cannot be unsaid. Some broken hearts cannot be mended. Some sins cannot be forgiven.

But do I accept the title of pariah, again. I take up my proverbial cross, still, in the face of everything I've said. I don't need to reject my interests, influences and goals to accept, and commit to another person's world in a deep, meaningful way.

So, now, I do accept my burden. My challenges. My meaningless little games I would play to take my mind off away from thinking about my past and place in this world. It used to be fun to keep that all a secret. I didn't want anyone to think I was weak, but now the word 'weak,' has turned into 'human,' and I'm making excuses for myself, instead of crushing them under my foot when they are offered. Like I used to.

I've become stoic and closed off toward people that I can trust to see my vulnerability. And vulnerable and far too open toward people whom I have no reason to trust. Vulnerable, sure. But I'm kidding myself if I think I'm venerable and worthy of some respect. Because I'm not - I'm a bit more manipulative than we might give me credit for... (I mean, I deconstructed the parenting techniques of my stepfather when I was a sophomore in High School - never shown it to him, though. There's only one person that I'm close to that I haven't been able to deconstruct yet, and it's not for lack of trying. I, thankfully, always get it wrong.)

I live on my own, now. I think independence is key. Stepping back to where my halo naturally originates. Away from dissonance with the girl, closer to our natural, perfect harmony. Her position has only changed slightly in response to my erratic philosophizing (thankfully!), but I can't see where Christianity is, so I don't know if it awaits closer, or if I will manage to elude it. There are more other, deeper types of spirituality that I want to explore, anyway. Maybe pry open my third eye; separate my body from my mind; witness a ua neeb; feel the rhythm. I choose to recursively uncover my own hypocrisy as something profound. I choose to see the man in the mirror as he is and not who I convince myself to see him as.

I'll make you all ask me the hardest questions I see, and have no respectable answer to. Make you ask me why I cannot even force myself to read your truths without considerable anger, while I'm only far too eager to embrace her spiritual truth which she is only marginally indifferent about. So back me into a corner; assert yourself over me. The bullied becomes the bully becomes the bullied. Shove me down on my face. Push the sole of your shoe / boot / heel into my chest / face / throat. Really throw your back into it. I deserve it, for all I've said and done and said I'd do and never did.

One of the few benefits of the painful past I've had... cause me as much pain as possible. Serious. It will be fine with me, because if she and I can intersect our ethereal halos again in just the perfect way... we'll form, again, a common bond, that is entirely devoid of everything else (including painful memories and friends long gone) but us (while retaining our own distinct personalities and webwork of lives and space), from which we can give birth to greatness, and new things. Two points, revolving around each other, in greatness. A vesica piscis.


to part: sometimes at night i wonder if anyone's life was changed by my irreverence to "the system" in high school... i spent five years proving that a grade point average is not indicative of intelligence, in any sense... i wonder if it was worth it... I had a 1.45 gpa (4.0 scale) and the valedictorian of the preceding class told me I should write a book....

did anyone put the pieces together....?
or were there even pieces at all...?

it sucks to hoist up a flag of love with a sword...