Dear People In General,
This really has been a conquest up 'til now, hasn't it? I mean, life and the endless strivings. I guess I'm referencing all of them. Like, all of the fights for survival for all of time. Since a beginning or a conceptualization of conscious awareness and feeling within humanity. It's been a struggle to figure it all out and to know ourselves and to grasp the reason for it all, hasn't it?
I'm a very melancholy and sentimental type of person. I always have been. I feel intense waves of emotional singularity with seasons and spaces that may echo meaningful experiences from my past. The depth at which I connect with movements and movers had always inspired the need in my mind to appropriate effort to meaning and meaning back again to effort. In my perspective this was the circle; this was the balancing act.
This was the "moderation in all things" I strove to emulate, if only inside my own brain.
However, one course in my endeavors took precedence above all the others. Every course had some sort of value to present as beneficial to my state, to my existence. Every task my hand discovered needing, my heart discovered it chrono-dependent.
To explain, I knew the value of money. I knew, having reasoned from a very undeveloped age, that the love of money was what attributed evil to the middleman of our decadent value system. The value maintained itself separately, though, and a mechanism of time and motion would ascertain for me in it's own specularity the exact moments of chance and significance of allowance. Simply put, money would do its part as I did my part (which I really, really sucked at for a very long portion of my life and, from such suckery, am still feeling shockwaves).
So it had value - realized or unrealized. I hated it. I hated the needlessness of it all. The lack of conductive thinking that made this mere conduit something relied on by society for every menial implementation of thought in action. This routine of necessity also awaked inside me a hope in it's gears. It had value despite it's worthlessness. It could be useful in the time and space that it becomes so, and if not, oh well! Conjuring currency is not the fight of immortal significance. It's simply a course that benefits me in senses of temporality. Nothing good or bad will be the ultimate outcome of it's acuity or obscurity. There was a meaningful value beyond all the little worthless blights that added to the stain of us. The canvas had a shadow of the environment within which labor was applied to it's surface. There was and is a Beyond. These empty routines aren't ends that make an end. These are ends usher the over.
Sex was a motivation. I was internally and covertly vexed that it held only a momentary and insatiably redundant purpose: to make to make. Yet it motivated me. There was a woman out there in the feral wild who would find me as I found her and our love would be impenetrable and intertwined in sweet, eternal, mortal satisfactions and a gradual unification of sacrificial living. It would happen to me as it's purposes of pleasure and reproduction were realized in a time and space that aligned beside my reality.
And then we'd have incredibly intimate and mentally stimulating sex. Mainly that: we'd make babies like few had before us. Because I could think and understand and feel and I knew she was mine like she knew I was hers. It was the ultimate goal. Perhaps it remains of top importance, only in a very different light. As I was saying though, sex was a motivator, not a truly meaningful institution. It had purpose, value, but was meaningless. I hated that it was meaningless. I hated that it couldn't fulfill me. What was it worth if it wasn't absolutely visionary?
So I fought time and space for it.
I took it. I found shortcuts and I claimed little satisfactions. These triumphs mixed with the response of social undertones tore me to pieces. I knew there was a more perfect satisfaction. I pushed for it. I fought the wild. I found the beauty and took from her. Out of balance with what I had preemptively obtained, I felt the pressure to abandon and reset myself. I searched again and found multiple desirables who were nonreciprocal.
I went from one crush to the next. I was the classic, jaded dude, thinking this might finally be the one who notices what magic we could be. Rejection hit me hard again and again and I decided I didn't care.
I had one thing I knew.
The one underlying reality and single course that I viewed without the filter of moderation was Christ and nothing more or less. What was the value of everything else that comes in, around and after or before? That was my one overarching theme that sounded distinctly in this internal war by which all things were made meaningless with a certainty of value. The contradictions inside me found resolution in knowing an absolute end to the ends. An over to the game. A finality to the narrative.
The resolution comes at the end of the world, so whatever will be will be.
Whatever wealth is enough.
I make love to make love and love makes to make.
These are the redundancies. These are meaningless, but purposeful. These are the circles and they go on and on. They round up to mere shadows of the originator, as imprints of the steps that were taken, as images on a canvas in a much larger room in an endless expanse. They were placed into existence for perfection's sake by the Creator and are now meaningless because of our inadequacy. We trudge onward through these cycles to find ourselves face to face with either a glorious new home or a flaming vortex of soul destroying torment forever.
Holy hot damnation. What did I just type?
Well, here now unfolds my confession; I have dreamed to doubt my entire life. Yes, I fantasize about the very act of doubting. The notion of throwing my claim to faith into the winds of self-interest and indifference has tempted the stern of this vessel since I first learned that hell was for people to be burnt in forever and ever. When I learned that heaven is golden and glass, pure and brilliant, and our constant activity will be singing "Holy, Holy, Holy," forever and ever, I was, frankly, disappointed.
But I couldn't tell anyone.
And it's not anyone's fault that I couldn't. It's my fault. I knew what it would mean to some in my circle of Christianity if I had admitted out loud that all those shouts of "holy" sounded painfully boring and repetitive. That all my present shouts of "holy" were laced with a plea to the one I shouted for to prove Himself.
Let me elaborate on that.
Here's the actual thought process that I remember so clearly while coming to terms with this newly discovered future reality for my second life. Since my two choices were: A. hot, white flames licking my everlasting, melting skin while small, writhing worm-like monstrosities devoured the epidermis of my eternal body as I screamed in the blackest, coldest, hottest darkness forever and ever, or: B. God's presence wrapping me in light and warmth and love, and living in a place of joy and peace without sadness or regrets, walking on golden streets and swimming in a sea that looks like glass, singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy," I chose the latter.
I figured it'd be something I would come to enjoy. Eventually I'll just get in there and do it with the team! It's an acquired taste and will be my favorite thing to participate in someday, right? There were several other ideas with which I attempted to convince myself. I tried to apply imaginative narratives to the whole afterlife thing, since it was all very underdeveloped in scripture. Then again, I didn't need to know what it would be like. I just needed to trust and live out my life. God clothes the flowers.
When it came down to it, the greatest freedom of Christianity was that I didn't even need to believe! I didn't need to strive to prove my allegiance. I only needed to accept the gift that was available. And I did.
I sang about it. I sang for Truth. I sang for glory to God. I gave myself over to a belief, a faith, because it was true.
God is Truth. Truth comes from God and is God, so the very act of believing isn't something I have to even try to do because it sustains itself in Truth, rather than a truth being sustained by my belief.
So, it's self-evident then. By the very nature of this Truth, it has to convince any would be believer, because it is not my Belief that is true, but a Truth that compels my belief. Anyone who doesn't believe is in such a state because Truth hasn't been revealed. If it was revealed, I would either gladly believe or scornfully reject it.
Since I didn't lean either direction, I gradually became aware that I didn't actually believe.
This realization brought me to a point; some call it a crossroads. The decision to turn onto the selected route didn't occur in an instant. Just as it requires checking back and forth before proceeding through a 4-way stop intersection, I checked. I looked for the real God. I observed all of these proofs that emanate from themselves. They created truth. The Creator made our awareness. So it must be there. Waiting to be revealed. So... where?
Can I reveal it?
No.
It reveals itself at the right time. To claim belief before being convinced of it, by it, is to stand in my own attempt to myself pull back the curtain that was not mine to touch. I'd rather count myself a fool who says there is no God than to attempt deceit of the same. The fool is the more acceptable reprobate than the one who lies of such convictions of faith.
Add on whatever other philosophical one-liners you can think up and you got a nice little finale here! Because that's about it. That's where I'm at. I haven't finalized anything. As I said in the previous post this past summer, there are no answers. And that's good enough.
Indefinitely?
Yes.
Absolutely?
No.
Nothing is absolute.
Let's just leave it at that: I don't believe in God.
It's not like I don't want to.
Yeah. I'm shrugging the blame. It's not my fault. I am at fault for many errors I have made, but redemption, it seems, is fully dependent on revelation.
So, come on. It doesn't really matter if I don't believe. If I'm predestined for that path, I'll come around to it wholly due to its own nature. I'm more intrinsically bound to the search for truth than ever before. I don't know if I'll find it. I've made peace with that.
Now, to the refinement (...still shamelessly optimistic toward it all...)!
Andrew R. M. Hanson
This really has been a conquest up 'til now, hasn't it? I mean, life and the endless strivings. I guess I'm referencing all of them. Like, all of the fights for survival for all of time. Since a beginning or a conceptualization of conscious awareness and feeling within humanity. It's been a struggle to figure it all out and to know ourselves and to grasp the reason for it all, hasn't it?
I'm a very melancholy and sentimental type of person. I always have been. I feel intense waves of emotional singularity with seasons and spaces that may echo meaningful experiences from my past. The depth at which I connect with movements and movers had always inspired the need in my mind to appropriate effort to meaning and meaning back again to effort. In my perspective this was the circle; this was the balancing act.
This was the "moderation in all things" I strove to emulate, if only inside my own brain.
However, one course in my endeavors took precedence above all the others. Every course had some sort of value to present as beneficial to my state, to my existence. Every task my hand discovered needing, my heart discovered it chrono-dependent.
To explain, I knew the value of money. I knew, having reasoned from a very undeveloped age, that the love of money was what attributed evil to the middleman of our decadent value system. The value maintained itself separately, though, and a mechanism of time and motion would ascertain for me in it's own specularity the exact moments of chance and significance of allowance. Simply put, money would do its part as I did my part (which I really, really sucked at for a very long portion of my life and, from such suckery, am still feeling shockwaves).
So it had value - realized or unrealized. I hated it. I hated the needlessness of it all. The lack of conductive thinking that made this mere conduit something relied on by society for every menial implementation of thought in action. This routine of necessity also awaked inside me a hope in it's gears. It had value despite it's worthlessness. It could be useful in the time and space that it becomes so, and if not, oh well! Conjuring currency is not the fight of immortal significance. It's simply a course that benefits me in senses of temporality. Nothing good or bad will be the ultimate outcome of it's acuity or obscurity. There was a meaningful value beyond all the little worthless blights that added to the stain of us. The canvas had a shadow of the environment within which labor was applied to it's surface. There was and is a Beyond. These empty routines aren't ends that make an end. These are ends usher the over.
Sex was a motivation. I was internally and covertly vexed that it held only a momentary and insatiably redundant purpose: to make to make. Yet it motivated me. There was a woman out there in the feral wild who would find me as I found her and our love would be impenetrable and intertwined in sweet, eternal, mortal satisfactions and a gradual unification of sacrificial living. It would happen to me as it's purposes of pleasure and reproduction were realized in a time and space that aligned beside my reality.
And then we'd have incredibly intimate and mentally stimulating sex. Mainly that: we'd make babies like few had before us. Because I could think and understand and feel and I knew she was mine like she knew I was hers. It was the ultimate goal. Perhaps it remains of top importance, only in a very different light. As I was saying though, sex was a motivator, not a truly meaningful institution. It had purpose, value, but was meaningless. I hated that it was meaningless. I hated that it couldn't fulfill me. What was it worth if it wasn't absolutely visionary?
So I fought time and space for it.
I took it. I found shortcuts and I claimed little satisfactions. These triumphs mixed with the response of social undertones tore me to pieces. I knew there was a more perfect satisfaction. I pushed for it. I fought the wild. I found the beauty and took from her. Out of balance with what I had preemptively obtained, I felt the pressure to abandon and reset myself. I searched again and found multiple desirables who were nonreciprocal.
I went from one crush to the next. I was the classic, jaded dude, thinking this might finally be the one who notices what magic we could be. Rejection hit me hard again and again and I decided I didn't care.
I had one thing I knew.
The one underlying reality and single course that I viewed without the filter of moderation was Christ and nothing more or less. What was the value of everything else that comes in, around and after or before? That was my one overarching theme that sounded distinctly in this internal war by which all things were made meaningless with a certainty of value. The contradictions inside me found resolution in knowing an absolute end to the ends. An over to the game. A finality to the narrative.
The resolution comes at the end of the world, so whatever will be will be.
Whatever wealth is enough.
I make love to make love and love makes to make.
These are the redundancies. These are meaningless, but purposeful. These are the circles and they go on and on. They round up to mere shadows of the originator, as imprints of the steps that were taken, as images on a canvas in a much larger room in an endless expanse. They were placed into existence for perfection's sake by the Creator and are now meaningless because of our inadequacy. We trudge onward through these cycles to find ourselves face to face with either a glorious new home or a flaming vortex of soul destroying torment forever.
Holy hot damnation. What did I just type?
Well, here now unfolds my confession; I have dreamed to doubt my entire life. Yes, I fantasize about the very act of doubting. The notion of throwing my claim to faith into the winds of self-interest and indifference has tempted the stern of this vessel since I first learned that hell was for people to be burnt in forever and ever. When I learned that heaven is golden and glass, pure and brilliant, and our constant activity will be singing "Holy, Holy, Holy," forever and ever, I was, frankly, disappointed.
But I couldn't tell anyone.
And it's not anyone's fault that I couldn't. It's my fault. I knew what it would mean to some in my circle of Christianity if I had admitted out loud that all those shouts of "holy" sounded painfully boring and repetitive. That all my present shouts of "holy" were laced with a plea to the one I shouted for to prove Himself.
Let me elaborate on that.
Here's the actual thought process that I remember so clearly while coming to terms with this newly discovered future reality for my second life. Since my two choices were: A. hot, white flames licking my everlasting, melting skin while small, writhing worm-like monstrosities devoured the epidermis of my eternal body as I screamed in the blackest, coldest, hottest darkness forever and ever, or: B. God's presence wrapping me in light and warmth and love, and living in a place of joy and peace without sadness or regrets, walking on golden streets and swimming in a sea that looks like glass, singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy," I chose the latter.
I figured it'd be something I would come to enjoy. Eventually I'll just get in there and do it with the team! It's an acquired taste and will be my favorite thing to participate in someday, right? There were several other ideas with which I attempted to convince myself. I tried to apply imaginative narratives to the whole afterlife thing, since it was all very underdeveloped in scripture. Then again, I didn't need to know what it would be like. I just needed to trust and live out my life. God clothes the flowers.
When it came down to it, the greatest freedom of Christianity was that I didn't even need to believe! I didn't need to strive to prove my allegiance. I only needed to accept the gift that was available. And I did.
I sang about it. I sang for Truth. I sang for glory to God. I gave myself over to a belief, a faith, because it was true.
God is Truth. Truth comes from God and is God, so the very act of believing isn't something I have to even try to do because it sustains itself in Truth, rather than a truth being sustained by my belief.
So, it's self-evident then. By the very nature of this Truth, it has to convince any would be believer, because it is not my Belief that is true, but a Truth that compels my belief. Anyone who doesn't believe is in such a state because Truth hasn't been revealed. If it was revealed, I would either gladly believe or scornfully reject it.
Since I didn't lean either direction, I gradually became aware that I didn't actually believe.
This realization brought me to a point; some call it a crossroads. The decision to turn onto the selected route didn't occur in an instant. Just as it requires checking back and forth before proceeding through a 4-way stop intersection, I checked. I looked for the real God. I observed all of these proofs that emanate from themselves. They created truth. The Creator made our awareness. So it must be there. Waiting to be revealed. So... where?
Can I reveal it?
No.
It reveals itself at the right time. To claim belief before being convinced of it, by it, is to stand in my own attempt to myself pull back the curtain that was not mine to touch. I'd rather count myself a fool who says there is no God than to attempt deceit of the same. The fool is the more acceptable reprobate than the one who lies of such convictions of faith.
Add on whatever other philosophical one-liners you can think up and you got a nice little finale here! Because that's about it. That's where I'm at. I haven't finalized anything. As I said in the previous post this past summer, there are no answers. And that's good enough.
Indefinitely?
Yes.
Absolutely?
No.
Nothing is absolute.
Let's just leave it at that: I don't believe in God.
It's not like I don't want to.
Yeah. I'm shrugging the blame. It's not my fault. I am at fault for many errors I have made, but redemption, it seems, is fully dependent on revelation.
So, come on. It doesn't really matter if I don't believe. If I'm predestined for that path, I'll come around to it wholly due to its own nature. I'm more intrinsically bound to the search for truth than ever before. I don't know if I'll find it. I've made peace with that.
Now, to the refinement (...still shamelessly optimistic toward it all...)!
Andrew R. M. Hanson
