Emptiness

Right about now I am taking in the shock of some realizations that I probably didn’t want to have. well, I know that I did want to know, but now that I know I don’t know what to do about it. I kept telling myself to wake up from this dream of mine, and now that I am awake from it, Reality is harsh for me, and the dream that I was living in prior to now seems like paradise comparably.

what I realized is that everything I’ve lived for until now was an excuse. well, as you know I had already realized this- but it wasn’t until now that the meaning of this realization registered- kind of like when a lover dies, for a while the widow(er) doesn’t accept that they’re dead- then after a week or two the shock wears off, and natural anesthesia gives way to the painful truth.

my first conclusion was that everything I do, I don’t do because it’s right or because I want to, but because its natural. It bugged me though- “why are these things natural for me?”– now I realize, it’s because living my life the way I do was a necessity, to fill up the emptiness within.

Remember when you asked what I thought others thought of me, then when you said that wasn’t the case- and I wasn’t surprised? when you asked why I thought it even if I knew it was wrong, I said “because even if it’s wrong, at least it’s something.”- that pretty much sums up my life- or at the very least, my dream. I don’t know exactly when the dream started, but I know that sometime in my life, who I was died inside of me, and I began dreaming up a fake me, because I didn’t want to accept that, in some way, I was already dead. I wish I could explain it better, but at the very least these are my true feelings.

I tried really hard to establish an identity for myself, taking the opinions of others, and of that which I perceived myself to be– in all likelihood, the me of now is the product of the internet, since for the longest time that was my sole resource in defining myself, other than my own logic. by giving myself an identity, building on myself, embarking on a journey of self-discovery, from the surface I improved, got to know myself, and got to know others– leveraging the resulting passion to start living what I perceived to be a normal life. I had a dream- one that I knew could not be fulfilled, and I loved that dream for that very reason.

But now that I have woken up from that dream, I don’t know what to do. I know what is right, but I can’t find the courage to do it. I’m afraid that, no matter what I do, it will be an excuse. And because I know it is an excuse, my fears are validated.

Depression and anxiety are caused by fear, chaos, and doubt- in this case, I fear myself and doubt myself- the only thing I have left is control- and I fear that even that will slip away. I fear God himself, and I hate myself for it. God has become another excuse to me, and that belief is validated- it is something that I know to be true.

Have you ever felt something to be absolutely true- to the point that there is absolutely no doubt in your mind– and that something cannot be proven true empirically, nor validated logically or emotionally- something that you just know?

I have- and it is something that Aristotle called intuition- transcendental knowledge. So if my fears appear to me to be absolutely true, and fear is not of God but of Satan, that would mean that I’m being influenced by Satan.

Originally I never had such experiences, but the last few months, I have had several such experiences, with them increasing rapidly as time goes on. The way I see it is that, since the first several experiences were positive (to the point that at one point I fancied myself a god) that in accordance with balance, I have had these negative experiences- that I feel to be equally without a doubt, and even stronger. What’s more, I predicted that all of this would occur, several months ago- when then I never imagined such things would actually happen to me. If there were prophets in the Bible that did not want their prophesies to come true but knew they would, I can empathize with them.

For my entire life, my greatest concern was a lack of friends- I remember that part of my life clearly, so I know that this concern has consumed me since the very first day of grade school. I never thought about myself or others- I was only concerned with getting attention, so that I would not feel left out. I got that attention, even if it was not healthy attention, and picked up bad habits because of that. These habits did serve their purpose- even if it was negative attention, or attention given for the wrong reasons, I did get a lot of attention because of it. I stood out from others, and so have been unique my whole life. Once I realized these things, I continued to develop characteristics that set me apart. Eventually I gave up on friends– I had lived without them for so long, that I did not need them- or rather, the need was not worth the effort. After over 10 years of effort, I wondered why I even bothered. By now, I have adapted to the point where friendship is not a necessity- the illusion became enough.

Lacking friends all this time, I had given up on all worth of myself- I found that it was better not to care about myself. Because I don’t care about myself, I can’t be hurt- I can adapt to any situation- I’m psychologically invincible. Seeing it in such a way- living this dream, I could go on, building my passions on it. Even if it was illusion, it was one that I had believed in for so long, that I could go on with such a foundation. Because such a dream was unique, I could forget about my true feelings, and just let my dream sweep me away.

I suppose that I began waking up from my dream when I realized that others were getting hurt by my dream. If their actions were not compatible, I cut them off, deciding that it was for the best- saying that I was the one at fault. It’s very easy to handle it in such a way when you think of yourself as nothing- and so it’s also easy to hurt other people when you cannot respect yourself.

I know what is right, but I cannot do it. I feel guilty, because I know that Bible verse to be true. While most Christians might insist the Bible to be true in its whole, I can tell which ones are really true- that is the gift God has given me. While my emotional intuition is not good, my intellectual intuition- that is something that I can believe in. Though I know not what form, I know God exists, not because of proof or validation of any kind- I just know, from the bottom of my heart. When there is not trace of doubt, there is no need for proof or validation. I finally understand how Christians- no, any believers of God– I can understand now how, what faith truly is- how one can know without a doubt, even though otherwise he might not exist. This must be what it means to experience God.

Even though I might not know that I can move on, I know that God is here, and that he is just waiting for me to open up to him, so that he may impart upon me more wisdom- that which I will also know beyond any doubt to be true.

To be frank: Sometimes I do think suicidal thoughts; but whenever I do, I always cut myself off mentally, because I get this strong ominous feeling, that if I give in to such thoughts for even a moment, that I will lose control of myself, at which point I don’t know what I might do. Thinking about it now, it does feel like “a still, small voice” is warning me- and each time this occurs, I get this sort of shock, like suddenly coming out of a trance. That’s another type of intuition I know myself to have- every once in a while, I feel like I hear or feel a sudden jolt- and for some reason I know that this jolt means that something significant is going to happen.

People around me probably think that because I tend to take an anti-Christian approach, or disagree with fundamentally accepted aspects of God, that I do not experience God, but I know that, having experienced God more than most people, I have all of the reason a person could ever need to believe in God- it’s more like “how could I not believe?”

Because I know certain things about God- and I know this knowledge must come from God, I also know that God is with me, and that I will find my way as long as I believe. Even though I’m very confused right now, I know that God will work things out.

So although I may have failed other’s expectations this time– though I may have lost this battle, through God I will definitely win the war.

The Importance of Relativity

The most important lesson I have ever learned:

One word, Relativity ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity )

But for others to fully grasp the crucial and important implications of that word, I will elaborate.

This theory, contributed to by several philosophers and scientists (the most notable being Einstein and Galileo), is actually very simple, and easy to grasp.

To put it simply, relativity is simply realizing the fact that how you see things is limited to your perspective. The amount of applications for this are infinite, and can play an important role in answering the many questions about life. I will list the many applications I have found:

1. The most radical application, is the fact that the entire world may be in fact entirely different than it seems to be, and our not knowing it is only the product of our limited perspective. I think that it is very probable that this is true, except most likely not to that extent. For example, Many animals see in black and white, and some see better than others- which means that if we were to evolve further, eventually we would come to see things very differently. In addition, assuming aliens exist (which I believe them to) they would see things differently than we do.

2. It helps explain the radical differences in behavior, decisions, emotions, and personal standards of human beings. For example, It is not an evil person’s fault they are evil, since who would be evil if they knew a better way. If a person were to stay evil for the rest of their life, it is only because they didn’t know any better. In many cases, they learn early in life to do evil, and their behavior causes good people to stay away. In the unlikely event(s) that a good person bestows goodwill upon an evildoer, the evildoer does not accept it, since they have learned to be distrustful. Thus, in most cases, evil people are doomed to be evil, and nothing can change that.

3. Regarding the definition of evil, relativity has helped me to understand that morality can’t be truly defined, since it is simply a collection of opinions, those opinions vary from country to country, culture to culture, and in many cases even person to person.

4. Applying relativity to emotions greatly encourages an emotional calmness. For example, if a person says something hurtful and degrading, or commits an action that is hurtful, normally anyone would become either angry, depressed, or both. But if you were to put things into perspective (for example, it doesn’t matter what they think, or things could be worse, or it’s in the past, or they only acted that way because they don’t know any better, or getting angry about such things is what they want, etc,etc,etc.) At this point you would realize that you are in total control, since you have assessed the many possibilities and come to several likely conclusion. Having control over the circumstances brings a great peace of mind, which nullifies the potential emotional instability involved. In addition, each time you thwart the negative emotions, the peace becomes greater, since you self-empower yourself by being able to control your emotions.

5. Understanding relativity allows you to assess your personality, skills, and life-experiences with infinite depth, since you have the realization that your life is the product of your experiences. It also allows you to move forward to correct your weaknesses, since you life experiences allowed you to have both your weaknesses and strengths. Most people fail to realize they can improve on their weaknesses, assuming “it’s part of who I am”. that is a correct assumption, but although it is, who we are is the product of our experiences, and although we gained ourselves over years of living, if we were to improve who we are over years more, we may gain improvement in the weak areas as well.

6. To apply relativity to personal tastes, regarding the question, “how could they enjoy such awful entertainment?” This falls under the same idea of “why are evil people evil” The reason why they enjoy those things is because they learned to through their experiences. The same applies to all interests, food included.

7. I’d say one of the most important applications of relativity is the fact that at least for entertainment, the level of technology has no bearing on the level of fun experienced. If we were to look through history, black and white tv was just as entertaining as the internet and video games are today. The same holds true with the radio, and before that books. The reason why is that the amount of fun experienced is in direct ratio to the stimulation of the brain. If the stimulation is higher, for the moment the excitement will be greater, but eventually, although the excitement remains, the amount of fun is the same as it was with less exciting entertainment, since the brain adapts and adjusts to the new environment. The bad part of this is, that the lower forms of technology that were entertaining before are not as fun, since our brain has been exposed to more exciting activities. If we were to lose our technology, we would have to deal with the lack of entertainment, but eventually we would adapt as our level of brain activity adjusts.

This concept can be applied not just to entertainment, but also to just about everything else. For example, If a rich person lost their riches, they would eventually adjust and enjoy their new life, although probably not as well as before. But note- eventually a rich person’s life may become just as empty as that of a poor person’s, since as their brain adjusts, their life becomes no more than ordinary, since for them, it is. The same applies to a dumb person vs a smart person, beautiful vs ugly, the list goes on. Since this holds true, I would conclude by saying that a person’s life is not determined by what they have, but how much they accept what they have. Because everyone has a different perspective, How well they live life is determined solely by how well they perceive themselves to be living it.

To apply this to relationships, if a person loves another, and they are separated, their love will be greater than it was ever before, because of the excitement caused by their separation. The same can be applied to people, animals, and objects. Yes, even objects. for example, if a person loses something, then finds it several years later, after they had lost interest in that which formally gave it significance, they would still experience the same excitement, simply because prior to that moment they had not known of it’s whereabouts.

In summary, it is important to understand the importance of relativity and its applications to daily life, since by the words stated above you can see it has a vital impact on it.