Faith (I Am Not Doing Well)
I'm not doing too good. This probably isn't a surprise to anyone who's read my blog, or sees the state of the world; or, for that matter, sees the state of my life, barren and misguided as it is that I must look towards the state of the world. I've been unemployed for five months now. I've been struggling against my own sleep schedule, fruitlessly. I feel dragged towards habits I hate, out of a lack of any energy to change them. I just feel so powerless, so out of faith in myself, in anything; I feel reduced to that beggar's prayer, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."
These dark seasons of my life have always had a religious element. I have a weird and awkward relationship with religion, and, consequently, with God. I'm the son of a conservative pastor, so I've been surrounded in it for all my life. I've always been curious, and my father has never been one to shame or belittle doubt, so I was free to ask questions and discuss theology. My own personal beliefs about God are flexible, and changing; I'm not really sure about many things.
I've struggled, perhaps my whole life, with the problem of pain. You know the one, if God is all-powerful, and good, then why does He let evil and suffering exist? It's not a hard question to have, nor is it one with an easy answer. Anyone hoping to put it to bed one way or another is going to have to condend with millenia of intellectual struggle. That being said? I got no fuckin' idea. I'll ask him when we get there. It's not a question with an answer that, if it exists, people like you and me can comprehend. Maybe, to you, that question disproves the existence of God on its own. Fair enough. I can't call my decision the rational one, or the enlightened one. But it's mine.
A lot of the answers to it reside in the transformation of suffering into something greater. Like the struggle to do something truly difficult being worth the reward of the outcome. Or the pain of a child who does not know why they must feel the jab of a needle in this strange place, and ideas like hospitals and vaccination are beyond that child's understanding. Apart from our role, which is to help others and to give them joy, lessening their suffering, we can know nothing beyond that.
It's awful to know that there's a certain point of mentally fucked you can get, this horrible knot you can arrive at where you don't know what name to put on it and it gets so self-referential as to become incomprehensible. You feel bad because you feel bad. And who can help with that? There are labels, maybe, but those labels stop providing guidance and you just feel busted. You lose faith, and nobody else can help you without faith. All you can do is repeat, "I am in an immense amount of pain. I am in an immense amount of pain. I am in an immense amount of pain. I am in an immense amount of pain. I am in an immense amount of pain. I am in an immense amount of pain."
I am in an immense amount of pain.
I am in an immense amount of pain.
I a m in an immense amount of pain.
I am in an immense amount of pain.
I am in an immense amount of pain.
I am in an immense amount of pain.
I am in a nimmense amount of pain.
I have a niece. She's really cute. I love her. When she cries, I get scared. I think that she's figured out the root of all human existence, suffering, and that none of her efforts can make it go away. I don't know if that's the real root of all human suffering. I don't know if that's what she's feeling. All I can do for her is hold her while she screams. Play my guitar, sing my songs. It usually doesn't make her stop crying, not completely. I think it helps, a little. I'm crying a little bit like her right now, or what I imagine being her during one of those crying fits is like. I try to be more quiet than her. I'm not trying to be noticed, I don't think.
I used to write a lot when I got this way. It felt like the only thing I could do. I used to lock it all away, in a blog where only I had the link. I think I was imitating Ludicity, from this post:
On a particularly bad day, I was seized by the urge to get the feelings out of my head, and I figured that onto a page might be okay. So I bought the nicest journal that I could find on the off-chance that'd make me feel a shred better, and I started to write every day. Frequently multiple times a day.
I haven't opened The Book in years until today, because there is nothing between those covers but something verging on madness. The little leather string is always drawn taut, because it makes me feel like whatever is in there will not leak out. I will not share the any contents verbatim because they are too personal. Within a single day, I would swing from feeling better, to self-flagellating over not practicing the piano, to thinking that there was no point to life, to appreciating a conversation with a friend, to obsessing over my diet. It reads like a raging current of insanity from a disturbed mind. Within two months, I had run two pens dry.
Suffice it to say I was not well. I kept a few pages blank at the very end, symbolically, because one day I will be unwell again, either due to bad luck, or grieving, or regular physical illness.
I was there, then. I am there, now. I'm in the book. I want to get out so fucking bad.
As someone who is struggling to have faith, right now: please, have faith. If you can. In something, in anything, in the hopes it makes its way back to God. Hold onto it for dear life. I'm in no damned position to be offering advice, I'm crying in pajama pants after sleeping a total of 1 hour in the past day. I am incredibly unwell. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I will try to have faith.