Monday, December 14, 2009

give ME that Christian side-hug

This is either complete ironic brilliance or the most ridiculous attempt at reachin' the kids these days made by a religious organization ever (yes, I'm including Jesus Camp and those Halloween horror plays that churches put on where girls that drink once end up getting raped and die during child birth)

Ok, so I've been a Christian for most of my life; Lutheran to be exact. In high school through Freshman year of undergrad, I was what I called a theistic existentialist in that I believed in some sort of creator with ambiguous morals that could be found by looking at what makes evolutionary sense and what preserves the species (I typically found that love, trust and integrity kept the world going as well as hard work and respect). Currently, I'd call myself an optimistic agnostic but I still have a lot of respect for what intelligent believers have to offer. The West Borro Baptists, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and these guys... not so much.



I found this on HuffPost if you would like to read the hilarious commentary. Just search "Christian Side Hug." Hope you enjoy.

Still working on the new manifesto. Some deep shit happened today. My new friend went home to Altoona this morning and didn't tell us why. Her hall-mate told us her brother died last night. I can't really think about it right now so I wanted to share happy thoughts like ridiculous religious raps. Just as big a part of romanticism as the happy, beautiful sensations are the sad, grisly, chest-full-of-rocks feelings; it's about how you look at EVERYthing. I'll talk about it later. Enjoy this.

logic reveals itself as a double agent; he's a romantic too!

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” - Maria Robinson

I had the perfect revelation for my first post just now. It's 7:17 in the AM and I haven't gone to bed yet. You can skip this paragraph if you'd like. The important stuff is in the 2nd one but this stuff right here is just revealing a little bit about myself and gives my post and the blog in general a little bit of context. I understand we're new to each other and I don't want you to have to spend any time with my brainnotes that you don't want to; I'd rather you were out living life; my hope is that this will help you accomplish some of hurdles life has to offer (what a stupid phrase; how tired is "life hurdles?") I'm going to sleep 'til lunch I think. Don't worry, my first final isn't until Wednesday. I usually stay up because I'm desperate to have fun and going to bed before I've had an amazing day feels like quitting. The shitty part of that is I'm almost completely ok with staying up and passively thinking about what I should do while watching a movie I don't really care about or reading news articles that, while interesting, could easily wait until morning. I never read when it's this late because that feels like quitting too. I do love to read but when I'm not in the zone wherein I'm already in the process or reading, I have this stigma that it's a passive activity. But some nights, I stay up with a purpose. Some nights I'm struck in the face with the cricket bat of perspective and I must extract every thought on the subject said bat has to offer into a journal entry and pray to whatever that I don't lose the motivation to apply it in the morning. This was one of those nights. We'll see how the morning goes in a while. I'll let you know how it works when I get up.

Now I won't be sharing a lot of my journal entries with you because that defeats their ability to help me; when I know someone's going to read something, I'll try and impress them by being excessively verbose or fudge the details of my revelations to make them more interesting and then looking back becomes fake and I can't take away from them what I need. That brings me to my point. That person I described is, when I wake up for lunch, going to be the old me (see quote at the very top of the page). I've been telling myself I need to be more honest with others for years. This is something that is completely in my control but I say it in my head with that whiny, exasperated voice ("I wish I was more honest") like I'm wishing I wasn't so unlucky or I'm wishing for something beyond my control to change for me, 'just this once.'
One of those impediments for me is I'm constantly judging myself through others eyes which makes me judge people like I judge myself; I look for the things in people's clothes, their attitudes, their everything and I judge it based on what I would have done or said or worn. This is extremely pointless and stupid but I'd never put it into words before now. I have a quote for you that I just got done trying to rip off right but I'll just give you the actual one by Nancy Lopez (I think she's a pro golfer which is awesome that she is an enlightened one; I might also be completely wrong because I just looked at the first page of google when I typed in her name) --

“Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever.”

This is my manifesto starting December 14th, 2009 (written immediately prior to posting this blogpost from my journal which is actually a folder on my desktop labeled "thoughts" that's full of WordPad files)
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” - Maria Robinson

Starting the second I wake up, I will be true. I will not say things that are commonplace to keep a shitty conversation afloat. I will not distill my ideas for school or work or any other obligation in life that calls itself life or a necessary evil or people that come into my life. I will love. I will show love to everyone because everyone deserves love.

Why would someone not deserve love from me? Better phrasing, why would I think that my love is too good for anyone? You need to stop being so fucking pretentious.

I won't be afraid to say something because it will be labeled as pussy, gay, or faggy. I won't be afraid to say something that will be labeled as harsh or mean if said statement is of any importance and worth the sacrifice of feelings. I will stand up for injustice even if that injustice makes me laugh a little bit. Too many times have I heard friends call things gay in reference to something other than joy or homosexuality and said nothing. There's a lot of shit going on in the world of gays and lesbians and perpetuating this elementary school slurs is not helping at all.
When I wake up, I will be all the things that I have always told myself I needed to be but didn't for whatever reason. "...but anyone can start today and change the ending." I'm really pumped to get up tomorrow


Fuckin' right. Today is a new day. It has just as much potential to be the greatest day of your life as the next. The zombie apocalypse starts as just one infected monkey. Will you be that monkey? I shouldn't try to be funny with this amount of sleep. I might add to this in the afternoon. I hope you guys decide to become the person you've always wanted to be today. Not "as soon as possible" because that's a cop out phrase. "As soon as possible" in regards to this kind of self improvement is the moment you decide what's important and you go full steam ahead. I realize I left a LOT of ideas out but this is already way too long for someone to read on a computer screen without getting eye cancer. When I develop some kind of rapport with any of you, they will get more succinct and you can read this without needing to take a nap in the middle.

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”
-Paulo Coelho