It’s a known fact that I’ve been terrible at blogging for a while now, but that’s hopefully going to change soon.

My therapist has been trying to get me into meditation recently. I think he just wants me to calm down, but I don’t understand what that means. That phrase just does not compute. That’s like when boyfriend suggested I try listening to smooth jazz at work…I was like, nope, that’s definitely not a thing I want to do. Classical, sometimes. (Rare, but it does happen.) But definitely not smooth jazz.

Anyway, I downloaded a meditation app. It’s called “Breathe, Think…something.” I’ve opened it a whopping four times, never actually meditated, but did once read the descriptive text about mindfulness. I reported that back to my therapist, who responded that it was further than he thought I’d get, so I guess I do get at least a few mindfulness points. He laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair when I proudly reported that to him, as though reading a few pages somehow equated to the consistent study of meditative mindfulness.

I went to a retreat for people with BFRBs a couple weekends ago (bodily focused repetitive behaviors…skin picking, hair pulling, and such, for you noobs who don’t know what that is [I didn’t know they were called that until last week, so I’m also technically a total noob as well]), which was very intense and very wonderful, but in doing so, was reminded that journaling is a form of active meditation.

Ha! So really, I don’t have to actually try to sit still for 8-12 minutes, and can instead focus on journaling as a way to increase my mindfulness. I laughed, because even though I’m a typer – I don’t actually think when I’m writing, I just go into auto-pilot and let my fingers and brain communicate while the rest of me is elsewhere – they recommended that people do the whole journaling thing as a handwritten exercise to increase the calming, mindfulness-y benefits. I immediately raised my hand and disagreed, because for me, handwriting is a painfully slow endeavor. (I’m one of those people who types far faster than I write, so ideally, I can throw down 100+ words per minute typing and like 25 if I’m attempting to write with some semblance of legibility.) At one point, someone asked how we (as pickers or pullers) can make sure that we’re not picking or pulling while we write, and I responded that typing requires two hands on the keyboard and allows for zero hands on the skin/hair. That got a good laugh.

I was pleased to report this to my therapist, who agreed that I do need to do more active meditation. We discussed the picking, and I will discuss it more with you, dear readers, at some point in the future. It’s interesting. I know that for people who don’t have those compulsions, skin picking or hair pulling is an entirely alien concept. I’ve been at it for 15 years…in some form or another, and while I’m definitely not super hardcore about it, it’s definitely something that detracts from my life and causes self-esteem issues. (For me, it’s a perfectionism issue, which is weird, because I’m somehow trying to make my skin perfect while totally destroying it in the process. Oh the joys of being human.)

The main takeaway from the retreat was that there’s a whole wonderful supportive community of us who engage in these behaviors, and that it’s a lifelong struggle to recover from them. It was also interesting to see them reframed from a cognitive behavioral therapy standpoint, although I had many great intervention suggestions that no one else seemed to have thought of. (Trained therapists who do this for a living were curious about my exfoliating/lotion techniques, which I find to be massively successful for destruction avoidance.)

Therapist and I discussed the ADHD element. He had just read an article about skin picking in Additude magazine – it discussed the ways that impulse control issues inherent in those of us with ADHD may contribute to the gravity of the skin picking, as we are potentially less able to stop ourselves before and/or once we get going. I did agree about that. I had asked one of the therapists at the retreat about the prevalence of these disorders in the ADHD population, and he gave me a very long and inconclusive answer about it, although I would be willing to bet that among the ADHD population, the occurrence of skin picking would be at least statistically verifiably higher than the regular population.

This article has everything and nothing to do with this post — I digressed immediately and did not go back. My original point was lost, and I’m okay with that. Settle in. It’s a long, nonsensical journey.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about choices and the meaning of life. Sometimes together, sometimes separate, those ideas are the very core of our human existence, naturally.

I’ve been discussing religion often of late, and in doing so, I’ve realized how far I’ve gone from the “religious” identity that I once held onto so dearly. And yet, even though I’m not a “believer” in any one religion, I find that I do still believe in some force stronger than myself. The agnosticism is strong in this one, and to be fair, I do have a serious amount of respect for the religious, because I find that the practice of religion is in itself the embodiment of much that I hold dear.

I hate not knowing everything. I want to be well-informed about everything, and I want to know that the answers are there if I choose to seek them. If I can’t know, I am comforted by the fact that someone, somewhere knows and that the questions have been answered. Therein lies my biggest problem with the idea of God and simultaneously why I avoid spending any significant amount of time theorizing about what might have created our universe and where we might be headed after death.

I can’t think about that too much, because the innate inability to know tears at me and causes an immense amount of uncertainty and fear. I understand, at my core, why religion is something that people cling to, and why religion has been a constant between all sorts of civilizations and has remained ingrained in our societies as we’ve progressed towards a more technologically-based and scientific understanding of our world.

We cannot deny that there must be something greater than ourselves, and in doing so, we cannot draw certain conclusions about the nature of us as beings. I understand how much the “Doubting Thomas” aspect of this is present in my life, in my thoughts, and in my being, and I understand why my more religious family members are distraught by how far I’ve strayed from my Catholic upbringing.

But I disagree, on many levels.

Boyfriend and I had a wonderful dinner date last week in which we spent the better part of two hours discussing the idea of Christians as viewing God as a logical being. My arguments were concise – 1. I view much of religion (whether it’s the practice or the doctrine) as being a social construct, meaning that it was developed, created, and continues to be enforced by humans, and 2. I believe that humans are at our most basic animals who have the gift (and curse) of being creatures given the ability for rational thought. It is in our ability to understand the brevity and importance of our existence that we are allowed to feel fear — and it is that fear that leads us to try to ponder and explain our own mortality so that we feel better about our lives.

Basically, we are gifted animals who possess an innate fear of death. Of the unknown. And in knowing that we cannot know, with any certainty, the trajectory of our souls, ourselves, after death, we are consumed by the need to explain. It is not merely death that leads us to the need for explanation, of course. Our lives themselves must have meaning in order for us to remain “good” and for us to strive continuously towards some goal, and the pretenses of religion offer a convenient explanation for both. For everything that comprises our existence.

If are created in God’s image, we are godly beings. We must act as God would act; we must work for good so that we can go to heaven. And if we do not, we will be consigned to the eternal torture that is our version of hell.

And yet, I find that I can’t get behind that.

In arguing with boyfriend about the logical nature (or illogical nature) of God, I found myself returning to the fact that humans wrote the Bible. There is much theological discussion about the fallibility of humans, and I find it to be curious in our re-tellings of our greatest stories.

I also find it curious that we as Christians (my life framework is that of a Christian, and it is from that viewpoint that I attempt to make my point — I am denying any religion at this point, merely attempting to select the most applicable and understandable, and work with that…) pick and choose what we like, and what we don’t like, from the Bible as guidelines for our own spiritual and religious lives. It’s okay to eat pork, and we probably shouldn’t rape women, but we’re totally fine to dig in on the gay thing… I don’t get it. I don’t like it, and I’m certainly not going to be a part of a religion that changes its tune based on the current societal fashion.

But wait, that’s the thing holding most Christians back. And that’s the thing I detest the most. The hypocrisy of the whole Church, as we’ve constructed it. (I understand that I’m coming from a very Catholic standpoint, but I think most Christians are the same in many ways.)

We’ve heard of so-called “Cafeteria Catholics,” who pick and choose as they like, but isn’t that exactly what we’re all doing? How do we reconcile Old Testament fire and brimstone God with New Testament love and peace God? How can we make those two drastically different identities the same being? How can we subscribe to a specific set of religious guidelines and allow those to be the laws that guide our actions, beliefs, and behavior? We cannot – and we do, continually – throw out what is “not” in favor of certain interpretations of the Scripture. (The letter of the law versus the spirit of it, I guess.)

This post isn’t actually about religion, it just strayed.

My real point was that even though I don’t define myself as a religious person, I still abide by a certain set of principles. Lately, I’ve been very curious about how and why I came to be that way.

My therapist often says that based on what I’ve experienced in my life, he’s surprised that I’m such a kind and understanding person. I am not sure that I’ve ever been any different, which leads me to believe that we must be born this way — eternal optimists who believe in the core good nature of mankind.

If we argue that some people are born evil, then we are arguing a pre-destiny that isn’t in line with our beliefs. If we are argue that all people are born good, and then torn asunder by the work of the Devil, then we are arguing that we don’t have the free will we’d like to imagine.

And why would any God allow us these things — force us to act in a way that pleases him in order to attain eternal life — if he’s also allowing the opposite? What kind of God would create this kind of world only to revel in the joy of saving people and watch others be condemned to eternal hell?

“Forever never seems that long until you’re grown.” Outkast was right. But why would God give us this earthly life (brief as it may be) only to show us that eternal life is based on our own choices?

Think of the gray areas.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that life is not full of the black and white, right and wrong clarity that we were led to believe. Life is full of mess. Life is chaotic, and unpredictable, and any given situation is wrought with the potential for grievous consequences we could not have anticipated.

We are not capable of knowing everything. Sometimes I wonder if we’re actually capable of knowing anything. Everything that we perceive, assume, intuit, and deduct is based on our skewed view of the world. Our perception is the thing that gives us that magical human existence, and it is the same thing that guides us, leads us, and allows us to function. But it is nothing. Because it is all of our making.

And yet it isn’t, of course. The ways in which we perceive love and anger and fear are the ways that we were taught to feel those things, and even then, we are gifted with the incomprehensible ability to do all of that from birth. We are sponges of experience, and we must seize every opportunity to absorb our surroundings and attempt to wrap out feeble minds around them.

After our disconcerting dinner discussion about God, I ranted for several blocks about my own life and motivations. I attempted to explain to boyfriend that I seek love and joy. Those are my baser motivations. Those are the things that I hold in the highest esteem. To love, and be loved, is my ultimate life goal. To be understood, and to understand. To give, and to receive.

The past two years have brought my life, my dreams, my motivations into stunning clarity. Only in letting go of the presuppositions about how I was supposed to be and act and live was I able to fully come into my own, and to love myself fully. Only in realizing that I had nothing was I able to try, once again, to claw my way back up into the world. Only in realizing that nothing earthly mattered was I able to reconcile all of the seemingly disparate parts of my personality and actualize myself as I was meant to be in a way that made me feel whole again.

In having no job, nothing to speak of from a career standpoint, as my own career stood in ruins was I able to realize that my “success” wasn’t built on my ability to attain economic wealth. In having a shitty job managing a Dairy Queen at 25, I was able to realize that in giving 100%, I was able to get that back, in the form of satisfaction. It was no longer about the status, about my level of professional standing; what mattered to me was that I did my best at anything, the littlest thing, because the joy that I brought to the people around me was worth more than a title or a paycheck or a LinkedIn notification.

I have never been amused or astounded by the rich. In fact, I hold a certain contempt for them. It’s not that they themselves are the thing I dislike, it’s that the circus, the circuitous cycle of success can’t be about money and power. I don’t want to be rich; I never have. Even coming from a standpoint of being the poor kid in a rich school, I have never desired physical wealth. Trust me, I’d love it. But I don’t need it.

Being unemployed gave me a stark look at my life. We work. We work hard. We work for years for seemingly unfair wages, and then what? We retire. And we die. There is no joy in that. I went on and on to boyfriend in the alleys that we walked that night about how I seek joy. Being depressed and heartbroken and inconsolable about where I was made me realize how beautiful each and every single moment is. I made very serious attempts to seek joy in the smallest moments – the sunlight on a beautiful day, the grass and smell of summer, the way I felt when I felt fleeting happiness. That was what brought me back to me, the core of my being. Joy. Gratitude. Love. Life.

For me, the most beautiful part of life is the adventure. I have been terrified of a great many things in my life, tangible and intangible, actual and distorted, and of it, I have made little. Living a life of fear does nothing for us, any single one of us or us as a human people. A single unit. Watching the markets in China disrupt the entire world has made me realize how much speculation and fear are detrimental to us as a population — when we are hedging our bets in the hopes of something different, we lose out on so much of the present.

I killed it at Dairy Queen. I made children smile; I made delicious treats; I decorate fantastic cakes. I remember once, the guy who had been washing our windows since I was in high school told me that I was going to go far in life. And to this day, I think of him when I have tiny moments of success. I am the sum of all of the positivity that this world has to offer, and I thrive on that. My only goal is to have lived a life that brings joy to others, and regardless of where I am going after my time on this earth, I am confident that at my passing, I will have led the kind of life that I had always wanted to lead: one full of love and joy and happiness.

We may not always get back what we give to this world, but I firmly believe that it is in the giving of joy that we are able to see the world for what it truly is, and what it could be. By sharing our fears and our hopes and our dreams, we allow others to feel connected, we establish and create networks that sustain and nurture the very best feelings. If each day, everyone sought to spread love and hope, we would have a much better world.

I may not believe in your God, but I promise you that I embody his spirit. I am, at my core, a good human being, and in knowing that, I am content. I was discussing this with one of my grandmothers a few years ago, and she was so upset about my lack of faith. I told her that I see God in people – for me, giving comfort to a child is God in action, smiling and holding the door for someone struggling is God in action, and sharing goodwill wherever I go is the epitome of meaning for me.

How I came to be this way, I do not know. I know that at times, I am surly and discontent. I know that there are times when I dig in on issues that I know I should not fight. But my hope is that the sum of my radiance is more than the darkest parts of my being, and that in existing, I have given something to the world as we know it, even if we cannot comprehend its immensity.

I choose the things that I feel – I let my gut make my biggest choices, and in doing so, I have faith that all will be well. There is nothing worse than a life not lived fully, and I intend to live this life to the fullest extent possible. I cannot say where I will go after this, and I cannot wish to know, because knowing would change the way I act. But at the end of the day, I do believe that good will prevail, can prevail, and is present in all of us.

Take the leap. Let your life unfurl.

I stumbled across this tonight and, speaking as someone who collected quotes (and spent hours making ridiculously clumsy collages full of those quickly scribbled quotes and magazine pictures of my dreams during my adolescence), I was struck by how magical it is. It immediately cemented itself into the space in my brain cluttered with endless amounts of word-related things, jumbles of song lyrics, and twisted plots from escapist literature.

I am pleased that I happened across it, and I hope you will be too:

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

That’s fantastic. I love it when you find a beautiful quote (maybe in the form of a fortune inside a fortune cookie — those things can sometimes be profound) that somehow perfectly relates to your present situation.

That said, all quotes are much like horoscopes or those shows with a medium from Long Island — it’s all generalization and the remarkable ability of people to need to make something relative….which I’ve just done beautifully, whilst madly enjoying the evening that’s now become night, and if this is the life that was waiting for me (even as far back as) earlier today, I’ll soak it up contently and be willing to wait for what else is yet to come.

I think the greatest tragedy of maturing into the massive mire that is adulthood is the realization that good doesn’t always trump evil, and that sometimes there is no “right” answer, action, or outcome. It’s been so hard for me as the eternal optimist, the idealist, the ever-hopeful to have to grapple with the fact that justice isn’t as pervasive as I was led to believe.

I still cling desperately to the idea of karma, because it can’t be proven (and therefore can’t be disproven), and as such, may still exist as some ultimate force of actual justice in the world.

The disillusionment I feel stings at my very soul, and I’ve found that even I’ve settled into the acceptance that all is not right in the world, I may never be fully immune to the waves of heartbreak that I feel from time to time as the recognition of injustice rolls through me. Our world is one that is so full of beauty, from the smallest acts of kindness to the sweeping majesty of nature, and in between, I wonder if the darkest places are starting to get darker.

Maybe the acts of violence, hatred, or greed that I hear about and come face to face with on a daily basis are merely a side effect of human nature, the result of our inability to remove ourselves completely from our most basic, animalistic state. But I don’t think that’s the case. I understand that violence among animals is a given, and thus will be present in humans for as long as we walk this earth.

Humans are so tethered to emotion, even when they vehemently deny it. Our constructed social hierarchies don’t come with an instruction manual, and the navigation of all of the different subcultures and systems that comprise our ever-changing world is damn-near impossible. We are told how to act and how to be from birth. It’s very restricting, but it’s not without reason – even animal groups have hierarchies to maintain order and provide protection.

We act or we react. There’s very little else. One can argue about motivations, but a healthy dose of mindfulness can get reactions under control, and most actions are based on a desire or a need, so if we can get a handle on those, we’re in theory in a good place for creating and sustaining fructuous forward progress.

(Haha, it’s almost Thursday and last week, I chose “fructuous” as the word of the week this week. I was going to try to work it into as many protests as I could possibly write at work. My friend is in on it too. So far, neither of us have used it. On the plus side, it’s like the word of the week warded us against the specific types of protests we were going to use it for, so that’s definitely not the worst thing. But dammit, I’m going to get it into a protest this week. Watch me.)

It’s not that clear at all though. It can’t just be actions and reactions. It’s actions and reactions influenced by any number of things, everything. And it’s terrible, because in all of my murder mysteries and romance novels and crime thrillers during childhood, the bad guys were easily identifiable. Their color schemes, their sweeping entrance music, their purely evil motivations. You never saw the Walter White character – the one who starts out “good” and eventually turns “bad-but-with-semi-legitimate-and-complex-conflicting-motivations.”

You saw stories describing pure greed and heartlessness, with nothing redeeming about them. You saw redemption and hope, but mostly, you saw the ultimate triumph of all things good. Justice was a thing – the thing – in the stories I consumed as a child. I’m not sure it’s something that exists sufficiently in the world around me. It’s heartbreaking. We’re given a very modified, whitewashed, exfoliated version of history and we imagine how happy our diverse, multi-cultural, fully functioning society is, where we can trust police officers, follow our dreams, buy a modest house, retire, and live happily ever after, too! Wouldn’t that be magical?

But it’s not the truth. The stories I read were much like social media – a glimpse of an ideal world, where anything is possible, like being tan and having abs and still eating brunch every day. (Oh man, I want in on that — or at least the Instagram filters to make it happen.)

We’re weighed down by conflicts: internal; external; political; social; emotional; financial; ….I mean I could just keep adjectiving until I’ve got early onset carpal tunnel. We aren’t part of a single event at any point in our lives. We’re a tangled web of thoughts and feelings and obligations, and often, doing one thing means sacrificing another. We have murders, wars, hostages, racism, greed — all of the things. All for what?

My wish is for storybook happy endings. My wish is for clarity in intention, for neatly wrapped-up story lines, and for justice, everything we get so often but rarely get in the real world. That’s not how it’s going to be, but it never never hurts to imagine that’s how it could be. It wouldn’t be the worst thing.