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| november 2001 |
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| Others | 12:11am friday, 30th november |
What a world it would be if we could look through another's eyes, to hear through another's ears. What would we look like if we saw ourselves through someone else? It is not a new question, but still, no one knows the answer. We have a brain, though. We can imagine. We can also work on how we are to others. It is a small thing, but perhaps a saving grace, if one were to say of you, "At least he/she tried." What does it say if you don't even have that? You have a heart. You can care.
Why should I care? What's in it for me? I should look out for number one, after all. Nobody cares about me, so why should I care about them? ... You know, I think it would surprise us, maybe even shock us, if we were to see out of the eyes of those close to us. I think there are very few people out of the billions in the world that understand how loved they truly are. And if we all were to see us — just for a few seconds — out of the eyes of someone close to us, I think I would find not a dry eye in the house.
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| Become | 12:01am thursday, 29th november |
You know, I didn't find God — God found me. Or another way to put it is that I wasn't looking for Him, but He is what I found. I feel like I am a leaf in the wind at times, and I don't know where I'd be without the Hand to guide me, to lead me. The following is a quote about how I believe I always should be, and in moments of lucidity what I feel I have become:
"Make me what Thou wouldst have me. I bargain for nothing. I make no terms. I seek for no previous information whither Thou art taking me. I will be what Thou wilt make me, and all that Thou wilt make me. I say not, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest, for I am weak, but I give myself to Thee, to lead me anywhither."
- John Henry Newman
I deeply regret, sometimes, many things of what I once was, but I make no apology for many things of what I am today. To God, the victory.
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| A parade? | 1:04am wednesday, 28th november |
So, what did I want, a parade? I don't think so. I mean, when I finally snapped out of it — back in spring of '97 — I mostly wanted quiet. The last thing I would have wanted was to be the centerpiece of cheering people on either side of me, waving their hands and blowing kisses. The one thing I did want, this last time as well as back then, in '97 — which I never really thought I got, either time — was understanding. Maybe that goes deeper, though, deeper than the madness itself. Maybe that's part of the human condition, if we look at it. We want that; perhaps we all want that: we want someone to say, "I understand," and for that to be true.
I don't know why. I don't know why I would expect it, as I probably don't even understand myself very well. But that's probably not it, at all. We all have a sense of ourselves, somewhere — sometimes buried so far down we don't recognize it for what it is — but it's most likely there. There is also, somewhere in time, a moment in my history which captures me, which is me in the quintessence. I must reach back, but I have the feeling it's there, and that I didn't even notice it like that when I was at that moment. And there is probably more than one. Hm. Here's what I can make out that was most me (at least, what I have become): having mixed in far too much sugar and half-and-half in my coffee, I bow my head in Starbucks before my first sip, praying a little prayer of thanks for coffee.
That's me, I think. So, "Hello. How do you do?"
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| Silence | 1:05am tuesday, 27th november |
Silence is the loudest nothing that you can ever hear.
Silence is to walk where millions have traveled and not left footprints.
Silence is time laid bare, when time is its most mysterious.
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| Some recovery | 12:01am monday, 26th november |
From before, after I got out of the rehab center, I started going to Korean language classes at a local university in Seoul. I remember the real effort was trying to have a conversation with people. I remember it was like grasping at straws to find something — anything — which would progress the conversation on, and I remember settling a lot on my choice of questions and answers, unable to come up with what I really wanted to say. All I had been used to was talking to the little pictures in my head, or thinking at them with the words.
I was still the Archangel Michael at the time, and my companions were still Rosanna Arquette and Jesus in my head. There were also little pictures of me which came and went — I had believed that there were three parts to every individual, as we were made in the image of the triune God, so I could see my other two parts. That was the running theory, at any rate. I was, however, quite stable for several months (we now go from September of 1995 to about March of 1996). I had gotten a job teaching English at an institute for about a month from February to March, but I had to quit. For after those several months of stability, I got my hand on some cannabis in the form of hashish. I smoked it mixed with tobacco.
As punishment, I went through some doses of terror when the forces in my head turned on the Antichrist trip a couple times. Lots of fear, but there weren't too many of those. And I slept this one time for about a week, only getting up for food and the bathroom. Seriously. I slept for a week. After those minor trials were over, I felt was okay enough at this point to go back to school. Back to college. It had been five years. I had gone through much. But the Lord had worked a wonder in this poor soul, that I had recovered enough, now, to hold conversations with people and to function in a classroom environment again. Not just a prisoner of my own private world, but able to act in the real one. Stay tuned. One more big weirdness to go.
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| The tune | 12:02am sunday, 25th november |
What would it sound like if someone put a soundtrack to my life? Every life, if so done, must span across several genres: adult contemporary on a first date, classical when solving some difficult mathematical equation, heavy metal when we're reveling in some excess or another, perhaps a single flute when we're alone and just thinking.... I wonder when our favorite song would play, if at all? What songs truly define who we are?
Our songs are not alone. It joins in the tunes of others, in a harmony when we agree, in a cacophony when we argue. Sometimes we can hear some of our own tunes listening to the music of others: the way they laugh, the way they cry, the look in their eye when they wonder. It may be profitable to listen for the turns of the melody in others that we have heard in ourselves, so that we may kindle in those others the glad songs we have heard our own soul sound. In the end, more often than not, we may find that the other person and you have been singing the same song, just in a different key.
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| A prayer | 12:01am saturday, 24th november |
Thank you, my Lord. I may look back, now, I may see: thank you for giving me a heart. What an unfeeling soul I was, a blind eye to all concerns but my own. I care now. It is a wondrous thing. And let me never settle — let my greed be that I shall hungrily grope towards selflessness. Let me not ever think "I am good enough", for we all fall short of the Glory. I know, now, that suffering comes and goes, but Your love remains forever. Even the madness falters and falls in the face of your light. You have brought me through where no other measure might. When I settle into that good night, I shall know that my life was not life without Your hand, gently leading me home.
Amen.
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| Figuring | 12:21am friday, 23rd november |
Here is the back cover of a notebook I was using from 1997-98, where I was trying to figure things out, the little monotone cartoons which had been running around in my head:
Sorta name-dropping, here. Forgive me. 
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| Rapture | 12:01am thursday, 22nd november |
God is love. I find no other phrase in the English language comes close to the sublimity of these three words. God is love. It makes it plain and clear the most mysterious of wonders, distills to the quick the essence of the most profound, it bows the heights of Heaven down into our meager hearts. God is love. It is church bells resounding, it is dawn across a thousand places, it is a lone star to guide the way — let it be etched in my soul.
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| More meat | 12:07am wednesday, 21st november |
Previously, I was hanging out at my aunt's house in Seoul, Korea, more or less living completely out of my head. Everyone was concerned that I'd never recover. At about March of '95, my aunt, on the advice of my parents, put me away at a rehab center — mostly recovering alcoholics. My constant companions were Rosanna Arquette and Jesus Christ, both as monotone cartoon images in my head (Arquette was light blue, Jesus was yellow).
Man, I hated that place. It was like a prison — I mean, there actually were bars outside the windows — and no one spoke English, so I was mostly walking around the couple halls I could, talking to Arquette or Jesus in my head. Now, let me tell you what Arquette did to me. This is why I believed that I had schizophrenia, and not manic depression, which I had previously been diagnosed with: the cartoon Rosanna Arquette kept me from pissing. I mean, she would reach down, grab something down there (according to my mind's eye view), and I couldn't piss. I mean, I had to struggle. Struggle to piss, fail to piss, leave the bathroom humiliated, whereupon Arquette pulled some strings in my head so that I would feel like I wanted to go again, go to the bathroom, struggle, fail, and again. Of course, I finally would go (struggling the whole way), but there was this one night when I tried to piss unsuccessfully from 10 pm to 4 am in the morning. This went on for like 2, maybe 3 months. Psychological torture, if not physical.
And oh, yes: the War in Heaven. Really, nothing much to it. Jesus in my head covered up Jim Morrison (he was Lucifer, remember?) and his pair match for about a month, so he was good and fuming. I set up a trap, like a body suit which they would fall into if they curled up into the fetal position at all. Then, on the appointed day, Morrison and company were let loose, whereupon Arquette (on my instruction) repeated to them, "Your time is short, your time is short...", and they, their anger giving way to weakness of the heart, succumbed to that fetal position which was the trap, and they were out of Heaven permanently. Like I said, not very exciting, but it was one of the high points of my stay at the rehab center.
This was the place. This was the place where I had gotten to the point that I couldn't turn it on and off anymore. I was too used to living in my head. I had to struggle with that, too, my appearance of sanity. By the end of August, though, I convinced my aunt that I was okay again. I stopped myself grinning that mad grin, which came from no source that anyone in the real world could see. You don't know how happy I was to get out of that place. And that was the worst of it, though the last part of my long episode came close. After that place, I started reconnecting with the human race. Story's not over.
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| Visions | 12:01am tuesday, 20th november |
Once I dreamed the end of the world — I saw it on TV.
I discerned the bright and smiling evil overtake the cities:
not even in the fringes, not even the children were spared.
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| Therapy | 12:28am monday, 19th november |
Part of the self-created therapy I put myself through after my first breakthrough was a series of poems praising God and Jesus. The following is my favorite:
"To the Lord, with Love"
Slight understatement, each superlative I use;
meek slices of thought are they all. I may
say, "Holy, Holy, Holy," to the end of the world
and not have understood a finger of what Thou art.
What can I say to the sky to comprehend the
blue it is? Thou, the Infinite Love,
where can I find a poem grand enough to robe Thee?
What wrought phrase frames the unspeakably Good,
what coined conceit can fly close to Thy Flame?
I am but a beggar in my prayers, my Lord.
Forgive me this try. Forgive me this try.
Let me never forget, my Lord, how deep was the pit was you pulled me from.
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| A poem | 12:08am sunday, 18th november |
This is a poem I wrote after my first breakthrough. It was not immediately after; I had to heal some for this to come out:
"Out of Madness"
Scratches on the mirror lose the certainty of pattern;
the underlying randomness peeks through.
The voice which speaks in silent, profound meaning
fades into the horizon as the distance from divine purpose
yawns — the electricity of one being one dims.
The eternal moment ticks, and is over.
The sky is not the color of your thought,
the earth was not raised to your step.
The dream subsides and the ghosts whom you befriended
were only shadows of unknown instincts.
It is like dawn when the sky is gray.
The doomsday clock that never rang.
Maybe I'll write another like this, soon.
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| Five things | 12:01am saturday, 17th november |
I think I understand all the questions that go, "If you were stranded on a desert island, what five [blank]'s would you bring?" Now that I've gotten to the meat part of my psychosis (last entry), I can safely reveal that I pretty much know the answer. I spent much of my "meat" time sitting alone in a room with a TV and a stereo, with a handful of books. That was my island, the land in my head where I was stranded.
Let me share some of my top picks. Of TV shows, I remember foremost The Simpsons, and no other ones came close. Movies, Forest Gump was with me, as well as When Harry Met Sally. Of Music, John Lennon's "Imagine" song was up there, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Of books, Kurt Vonnegut's stuff kept me the best company, with Dostoyevsky something which I wanted to read but had to wait for a clearer head. Food: remember, I was in Korea, so what was at the top of my list of imported American food? KFC. Love those 11 secret herbs and spices, man.
I found something out. However well you pick out your top five of whatever, guess what? You'll find if the situation ever comes up, you grab whatever's closest. You grab them and you make the best of those split second decisions, the things you save. And the things you leave behind? You try not to think about them.
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| Some meat | 12:15am friday, 16th november |
Like I said last time, this is where we get to the stuff. I became officially insane again when I began to believe that I was the Archangel Michael, born on earth. I wasn't the only angel, either: Jim Morrison was Lucifer (before the fall), and Philip K. Dick was Gabriel. And not only that, but everyone who ever lived had an ideal match for them somewhere in time and space. Mine was Rosanna Arquette, who was called Michelle (the Archangel). Even Jesus in my head had a perfect match — in Brigitte Bardot, of all people.
I was the Archangel Michael for a long time, from about September 1994 through April 1997 (when I finally had my first breakthrough). Intermittent in that time period were the times I thought I was the Antichrist. I don't really know where that came from. The part where I was Michael, that was building up from my old apartment days (here), when I was reading the Book of Revelation and thought that Michael lost the War in Heaven. I didn't want to be him, so I had to be him; this came back in the best way it could, I guess: that I was Michael, but I won the war (and I really did, with Arquette's help — let me tell you about that later — it's actually not that exciting). But being the Antichrist: maybe it was just my paranoia. In fact, the Michael part and the Antichrist part may have been two sides of the same coin, the former from the part where I thought I was destined to die in the War in Heaven (but which was turned around for the better), and the latter an unfathomable doom, to be thrown into the Lake of Fire for all eternity (the thought of which served as a kind of punishment from up above).
Anyway, I went along fighting Jim Morrison and his significant other (not Pamela Courson, some woman I never knew who she was) for a few months, in my head. Rosanna Arquette did some stuff, too; there was this stretch where we were trying to be God, both of us, before we settled into Michael and Michelle. The forces of evil, I could defeat. Rosanna Arquette, on the other hand... I'll get to her, and what she did to me. I know; it wasn't really her. I'll get to what happened, there in Korea, when I was locked up for six months in a rehab center. That was where we won the War in Heaven.
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| My dream | 12:17am thursday, 15th november |
I think I have a simple dream. When people talk about me when I am not there, all I want is that they say, "He is a good man. You can count on him." Really, that would do it for me. I think I could give up any of the grand visions that I have imagined for just that.
The battlefronts of my mind rest. Time to be quiet. Time just to be.
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| Makeup | 1:32am wednesday, 14th november |
My Lord, what shall I do? Within the turbulence of my mind I come up with schemes and ideas: many half-formed, too many to do at once, and many already have been done by others (I am beginning to discover). I have no wish to re-invent the wheel, as the saying goes. But that really is not that I am asking about. What can I do to make it up to You? You gave me life, but for its greater portion, I shat it all away. No polite term to cover what I did with those years. I remember all throughout my teens, I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen — to me, to the world. Something has; something has got me off my sorry butt. Is there anything I can do, Lord, within what is my capacity, to make up for even a fraction of it? Or is it just to say to You, "I'm sorry," and be truly sorry for it, and to move on?
I gave up my quest for magic when I understood that thing You told me: "Work is magic." I remember back when, when I wanted to do nothing — I wanted everything to be brought to me on silver platters, aglow with enchantment. That person: he was perhaps someone else, though I know it was I. After all of it, maybe it is just this that I should say:
"I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am."
- John Newton
My Lord, I guess all I can do is thank you for bringing me where I am today. I know the road ahead is still long, but I can look back and smile at the stretch of highway I have already traveled. Let me dream my dreams, and I will be happy. And amen to You.
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| A heart | 1:01am tuesday, 13th november |
What is a heart? It is, I think, something as fragile and profound as a single candle in the darkness. Each heart is a candle against the world. And if there is no other light, let it be said that even one candle can serve as the focus of a multitude within the deepest black. One candle may serve as a guiding beacon through the thickets of the night. The catch: if you do not see a candle ahead of you, then you are that lone candle. You may be the one who must discover the trail.
What then? It never ceases to amaze those who discover the secret: try. Surprise yourself. Be kind, if nothing else. Ours is to impart such a treasure, this thing we call kindness. In spite of the overarching cruelty of the world, people have been able to perform this wonderful idea. A kind word here, a kind gesture there — some change in the pockets of those who have nothing — and that so, we find something quite precious in ourselves. It is not always easy to keep a candle lit, but it might amaze those who do how profound a light even a single candle may be.
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| Life, again | 12:17am monday, 12th november |
You know, it's not just how you look at life. It's how life looks at you. To speak of control is perhaps more an illusion than the solidity of choice, and the decisions we make are mostly reflex actions to the circumstances presented us. Gut instinct is our main guiding principle, especially in the heat of the moment. In the decisions I have made in my own life, I feel that when I was left to myself I made only the wrong choices. It may just be this: anything that I have done right I have He who is above to thank for. I do nothing right of myself. Perhaps I exaggerate. Perhaps that is just what it means to be human.
And how has life looked at me? Do you wonder how has life looked at you? "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back." [quote by Marcus Aurelius, I get this from the movie Gladiator] But yet, life must be the stronger, n'est-ce pas? If death were the stronger, there would be no life left, would there? That there is any life at all means that life is still the victor in the struggle. So what if death smiles at us? Maybe it is that life smiles at you, too — smiles at everyone. We have an ally in life, which is stronger than death. Does it seem like there's no smile for you, though? Then perhaps this is it: "Life smiles at us all, too. But most of us don't know what we're looking at."
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| Prayer | 12:31am sunday, 11th november |
What is the power of a prayer? I think it may have something to do with what's Step 3 of Alcoholics Anonymous' 12 Steps (though I was never an alcoholic, I use this out of relevance):
[We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
There's something very comforting in that. Prayer is giving oneself to someone, something greater, because the situation we are in is beyond our means to understand or correct or both. I remember that even before I was a Christian, I prayed. We who are in the world are very small, if you come to think of it. Sometimes, we need a hand to pull us out of depths that are beyond the limit of our fingers' reach.
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| Stepping along | 12:17am saturday, 10th november |
To continue from the previous entry of the chronological tale, much of the time from when Jesus in my head shut off the cartoons and voices (for the most part — every once in a while a little flurry, but not really anything), it was pretty mundane, that time. I had a couple of crap jobs, one as a data entry clerk, and another as an administrative assistant. I hated those jobs. In fact, I hated being an administrative assistant so much that in April of 1994, I took off from work and my parents' house, cashed in the current paycheck, bought a bag of weed and visited a massage parlor in Philadelphia. When the money ran out, I checked myself into the mental institution I had been in previously, making up a story that I was having suicidal thoughts. It was so easy to play them, those "doctors".
Again, I had a really good time. I hooked up with a woman there, and I had sex with her. She was an ex-prostitute. Not very attractive and we had nothing in common — I don't know what I was thinking. (I dumped her later, in one of my biggest moments of insensitivity.) About the whole affair, my parents were pissed. I had taken the only working car. They had to walk to one of their friend's houses because they had no car, and that took them more than an hour. They had had it. They told me that they were sending me to Korea, and that I was going to work on a farm. A Christian farm.
Really, nothing I could say in my defense; I went that May. It was on that farm where, this one night, during when a group of (mostly) kids were visiting from the 'States and Canada, that a man (I wish I remembered his name) just hit all the right buttons, mostly the feeling that I was as lost as I was. I went out with him on a dirt path out in the forest, woods outside the building where the group was staying, and I prayed, really prayed for the first time in my life. I converted that night, and I never regretted it. Note that the cartoons and voices had not yet returned: I converted during a time of sanity.
I was outta there, free of the farm, by September. But before that, late August, I got my hands on some marijuana. (In Thailand. Went there to renew my visa in Korea. Great food there.) Anyway, this would come back to me — I'm pretty sure that was it, that and not having any medication — in September of 1994 the voices and cartoons came back. This was where I became sure I was the Archangel Michael born on Earth, and this was where Rosanna Arquette really came into the picture in my head.
And the next part — that's the fun part. That's the meat of it all.
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| My cup | 12:22am friday, 9th november |
What I am lacking, I know the Lord will fill. I don't think I can even remember how I felt back then, when all I was full of was the emptiness. I don't think I remember how I felt when I was lost. I remember Jesus in my head asked me, "What do you want?", and I couldn't think, couldn't think of anything that I truly wanted: "I don't know." And He said, "That means you're lost."
I may never solve the mystery of what truly went on with all the cartoons and voices in my head. Yes, psychosis, but of a caliber which helped me through some tough times. Like I said a couple weeks back, I feel sane again; I've had the breakthrough. Before that day, I wanted dearly to be a prophet, and I was afraid I was the Antichrist, but now the former doesn't seem so important, the latter nowhere near so certain.
I am back to a normal life. I'm researching a project of mine, which I won't go into (it's computer related), and I'm looking for a job. And the Lord Jesus Christ is watching over this poor fool who wanted always his cup to overflow.
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| Stranger | 12:15am thursday, 8th november |
My thoughts are scattered into a barren land where snow falls.
The white wind scratches my skin, its old hands wise with suffering.
I will remember these things, everything this place forgets.
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| Dreams again | 12:08am wednesday, 7th november |
I think that I will dream again, that I will let myself dream again. I will dream like I did before this last affliction that I have been through; I will hope again, like a normal man. My Lord Jesus Christ will guide me — He has been guiding me this whole way, this whole, winding road — He has been with me without fail. Something has changed in me since that last episode happened, something good has come from it: the brunt of what I did wrong I no longer do. These trials make me stronger, after all, and all trials must pass. Perhaps I have gained some wisdom, too, the stuff that stays with you.
I know what love is. And since that is so, I know God in the little ways that I can, for God is love. If you think about it, you know what love is, too. In fact, even if you don't think about it, you know what love is. The latter is better: don't think about it. Just realize you have known all along what love is, because you have. It is that unspoken hope which keeps each one of us going day by day. It is the light at the end of that long tunnel, but yet, it is here — right here, right now. It is the unqualified yes. And I ask you this, the answer you know before I am finished breathing the question: what is death compared to love? Before any of those troubling brain cells interfere, your heart jumps at the answer.
Lord God Almighty, have mercy on this fool. It took me too long to realize what I know. Amen.
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| And more | 12:49am tuesday, 6th november |
On from the last time, the most poignant moment was when I stood in court at my hearing, basically to determine my sanity:
The judge: What's your name?
Me: Lucifer Morningstar.
The judge: Where were you born?
Me: Heaven.
And that was that. I had a pretty good time at the mental institution: after half starving for a couple weeks, three squares a day; after being alone for months, a bevy of interesting people to talk to. And when I wanted out, all I had to do was act normal. I could turn it on and off, depending on my mood.
So, I kicked around a few months at my parents' place, but they gave me no money for the partaking of the marijuana — which really sucked as far as I was concerned. Then, I visited my younger brother in California. My dad gave me some money to spend on the trip, and of course, I got stoned again there after a three-month lack. Was definitely addicted to it then: I remember I only started feeling normal again after taking a few hits of the stuff.
The Rosanna Arquette cartoon popped in and out in my head, but she wasn't too big a part of it, yet.... Let me tell you about the weird thing happened in California, though. One day, as I lay high there in my brother's apartment, Jesus in my head decided to shut off the better part of the cartoons and voices. I don't know how, He just did it. So, that was how I was for about a year — for the most part, I was basically sane, basically myself from about August of 1993 to September 1994. Sane, but not happy. Sane, but still lost. More later.
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| One thing | 1:09am monday, 5th november |
I remember one thing Jesus in my head told me back when I was in that old apartment, those years ago, before I was kicked out of it: "Work is magic." Only years later did that phrase make sense to me, after I had my first breakthrough that made me sane again, after the whole of my first, prolonged madness. You see, I became so very used to failure, of not being good enough — that in everything I tried to do I fell flat on my face, in the real world or the world in my head — that I was amazed by everything.
Let me explain further: in the simple act of pouring myself a glass of water, I was amazed that I could do it without spilling the entire contents of the bottle all over the place. That I could walk without falling over. And even more amazing was the idea of complex machines, like cars, which had all these hundreds of things acting in unison to propel you forward, or a computer, which had millions of switches all in harmony so that I could pull up the simplest page of the internet. All of it, all of it was a wonder. "Work is magic."
It faded, of course, faded like all kinds of childlike wonder must fade, I guess. Strange, though, how things are revealed like that.
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| Wisdom | 12:01am sunday, 4th november |
I am a hero in my mind. In my mind I have rescued lives, in my mind I have battled the forces of evil and won. But yet, what am I really? What has the world truly borne in me? I think I know it: all the accomplishments I have done which only I partook of, deep within myself, which nobody else saw — it was as if I were a child given some toys so that he would stop crying.
I think the greatest success I would have if I were to have a child of my own would be that on some secret day far into his adult years, my child would look back and see. That he would see some little wisdom I imparted to him without he knowing it, not then: not as a youngster. That in his early days I would make him a hero in truth but just between he and I, and that would be forgotten as he grows away from constant nurture, the notion only to return at a distant date as an image of me, his father, winking.
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| Treasure Hunt | 1:52am saturday, 3rd november |
My treasure is here. Ever hear of the Treasure Hunt theme in literature? If I remember correctly, it goes as follows:
- You must go alone.
- You must go at night.
- You must travel to a strange land.
- You must leave some blood behind.
- The treasure is never what you expect.
I'm not sure what to do with it, this treasure of mine, except to share it with you. It makes sense to me on some level, but in the grand scheme of things, I have no idea what it means. The question is, is it really over? Is my treasure hunt complete? Maybe. Something tells me, though, that this is a beginning, not an end.
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| The mystery | 12:09am friday, 2nd november |
God, I think, lets us in on things only when we are ready for them. It is somewhat like the belief that He only grants us trials that He knows we can handle. The mystery of my psychosis, my madness, is how so many of its elements make rational sense. The last episode — it happened when the angels in my head were wanting me to quit sinning, to quit the vices I had gathered together in my heart. Guess what? Because of the fact that they basically kicked my ass, I have done so: I have no pot, I have quit smoking cigarettes, I have thrown away all my porn. As I have asked before, what do I make of this?
Perhaps it is just that I should wait, and it will be revealed to me. But it is very strange that something which has been as debilitating as it has been (at times) can have so much wisdom to impart at other times: to live a good life would be the gist of that. Now, I shall try not to jump to any conclusions, as I have done so many, many times in the past. I am weak, but I have strength in my God, and in my Lord Jesus Christ. May my Lord look favorably upon me from up there, and forgive if I have made too much of the cartoons and voices which have visited me.
Omnia vincit amor. - Love conquers all.
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| Life | 12:06am thursday, 1st november |
We do not know where it is we will be led to, but something inside us presses us on, lets us endure. I remember reading an essay of Camus' in The Myth of Sisyphus, that people decide to commit suicide once a trigger happens in the world — someone says an offhand remark, the bus is late, something small and seemingly insignificant happens — and the person believes at that point that life is just not worth the trouble. I thought that profound: it is not despair or desperation that does it, but sheer apathy.
I found correlation of that theory in a class I took on the Holocaust. The people the survivors knew wouldn't make it were those who had given up on trying to groom themselves in some way, of not caring about how dirty they got. Perhaps we see that it is the little things which help us. Hope is not in the grand gestures of the universe, but a good cup of coffee, reading a well written newspaper article, someone saying "thank you" when you hold the door open for them. Thus, we keep on, we fall asleep at night with the soot of the day fresh on our skin to remind us of the little victories that make survival a life.
And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good...
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
[from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]
Indeed. Let the good bolster us, let the bad only make us stronger.
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