Anger!

I've been feeling rather angry lately. It seems I wake up angry, spend my day angry, and go to bed angry too. All through the day, my consciousness seems to be white-washed with a thin sheen of steady anger. I know, I know...it doesn't sound like me at all. I'm usually so good-natured, so full of pleasantness. But the truth is that my sunny exterior is all a sham. Like, I try really hard to appear like a nice guy, so that people will like me. I know that in reality it doesn't seem to work all that well, and I still come off as a stodgy, bitter, curmudgeon, but the effort actually does help a little bit towards making me someone who actually is a little bit nice, kind of in the same way that pretending to laugh will eventually make you laugh for real, or pretending to love someone can often blossom into real, albeit highly dyfunctional, love.

But no more! Trying to psyche myself into becoming a nice person is becoming much too great of an effort. Struggling all day long to moderate my inner dialogue so that it is slightly more charitable towards those around me takes a surprising amount of energy and patience, and tensing my naturally-scowled lips into something resembling a smile is starting to give me cramps and headaches. It's not worth it. I seemed to think at some point that being a nicer person would gain me more friends, which would equal more opportunities to have attention paid to me, and to have my fragile-yet-huge ego to be stroked (and I guess also offer me the residual pleasure of stepping outside of my self and tasting the limitless possibilities of ways to express being human through getting to know someone on an intimate level and coming to see the world through their perspective, through really that experience is not the main point at all). Unfortunately, it hasn't seemed to work that way. Being nice hasn't really gotten me anywhere. I have more-or-less the same number of friends as when I was not such a nice guy. It doesn't seem to work the way I thought it would. Being nice does not equal being loved.

So I've decided to give it up. I'm not getting the results I want, so the amount of energy that I'm putting into the project is no longer being wisely used. From now on I'm not going to stop myself from feeling my natural feelings of anger and hatred for my fellow man. No longer will I be an internal apoligist for the foibles and short-comings of others. If I think something that someone does sucks, I'm going to accept that I think that, and not try to hold back the small, steady trickle of anger that accompanies that thought.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start consciously being more angry. I'm simply not going to stop the anger that I already have, that seems to just be naturally a part of my personality. And I'm not going to pretend that I'm not angry either. The whole point of my new outlook on life is that I'll be investing my energy in things that are more important to me, like work and school, instead of wasting it all on being nice. And hey, if I spontaneously just start feeling nice and charitable at any given time, I'm going to accept that too.

Yesterday I went and had my palm read at some outdoor festival that we have here in Columbus every year. I asked her about what she saw about a potential relationship. Her answer was very annoying. She said that, unlike most people, I was fated to be with a particular person, a "soul-mate". (yes, I know you're supposed to put the period inside the quotation mark, but honestly, I think that's totally stupid, and as long as I have no one to impress, I ain't gonna do it!). I was fine with the idea of having a "soul-mate", but then she went on to say that I had already met this person, probably in the age range of 18-21. This annoys me, because I can't think of anyone that I've ever met who I would want to spend the rest of my life with. I mean, I've met lots of nice folks, folks I love and cherish, but no one that I want to be with until the day one of us dies.

She also said that this person would be more adventurous than me, and that he would help me to come out of my shell more. This sounds nice in theory, but again, I don't know anyone like that. As fearful and cautious as I am, most guys I've been friends with have been even more cautious than me. The few guys that I've met who do seem more out-going and adventurous than I, who have tried to get me to do more exciting things, have usually just gotten on my nerves. I would hate to think that I would end up with some annoying guy who was always trying to get me to do things that I don't want to do.

The best thing that she said was that this guy was totally ready for a relationship with me, but that it was me that was holding things back. Thank God! If that's the case, then I plan on being as dysfunctional and not-ready for as long as possible--until the day I die!

Luckily, the places that I lived and the people that I knew between the ages of 18-21 are all very far away now. So probably I've lost the chance to be with my soul-mate forever. With that off my back, I can now focus on having a long series of superficial, short-term relationships, without worrying that any of them will get too serious, or whether any of the guys will be "the one". That, to me, sounds much more interesting. I mean, I don't want to just be a slut for the rest of my life, but serial monogamy sounds very nice.

I tend to have rather tumultuous relationships with folks in the service industries. I don't know why, but for some reason they allways seem especially exasperated or confused by me. For example, today I went to the local gayish coffee shop and ordered some warm milk. The guy behind the counter got very perplexed.

"You mean, you just want some warm milk?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Do you want...coffee in it?"
"No thank you, just the milk."
"So...you want it to be hot? Or warm?"
"It doesn't really matter."
"Oh. So...you want it hot? Like coffee?"
"It really doesn't matter, really. Just do what you think is best."
"Well...Ok. So what type of flavoring did you want in that?"
"No flavoring. Just the milk."
"Oh. Well...."

I mean, I asked for warm milk! Why is that complicated? And it wasn't just this guy. It seems like it happens alot. Take, for example, what happened at a different local coffe shop, just a few days ago. I ordered a small glass of milk, making sure that I emphasized the word "small", you know, because I only wanted a small amount. The barrista immediatly turned around and grabbed the largest size glass that they had, one of those clear glasses that they serve beer in at bars. I said "Excuse me, but I wanted a SMALL." His eyes literally bugged out of his head, apparantly in complete shock, as he yelled "What! Smaller than THIS?" "Yeah," I said, somewhat rudely, "smaller than that." "Ok," he mumbled, "but I'm charging you the same price," and proceeded to mumble under his breath the whole time he was serving me.

What is the big deal? Maybe it has something to do with milk: they haven't been trained or experienced in the art of pouring it in a glass, or heating it up. Without years of hard experience in the matter, how should I expect them to adapt so quickly to my over-the-top, out-of-the-blue, totally irrational requests?

But I guess I shouldn't be so hard on them; I understand that such things are complicated, and take alot of thought and planning. You can't expect just anyone to automatically know the difference between SMALL and LARGE, even if they've been comparing the sizes of objects since childhood. Same for the difference between COFFEE and MILK. I mean, they're both liquids. Who wouldn't confuse the two?

I've been giving it alot of thought lately, and I think I know now what sort of man I'm looking for, and what I want out of a relationship. So I've created a new personal ad to reflect that. I think you'll find that it is very revealing.

Here's to a happy life with my new man!

School starts today. My first class is in 6 hours. Chemistry. But I'm not done from last quarter! Everything is backwards and wrong.

And why am I taking Russian again? I truly am masochistic. Or...it's not that I want to suffer...it's just that all the interesting things just happen to be difficult and painful.

It's like the old Yoko Ono song: "Growing Pain...Growing Joy...Growing Pain...Growing Joy," all set with a bluesy flute and watery vibrations behind it. (she's either 68 or 69 years old in that clip, by the way).

Sometimes I can't see the Joy through the Pain. Sometimes I feel like I'm already dead. Is this why I've been feeling such a strong need to be religious lately? Most religions have an afterlife structured in to them. I'm already dead, so now what? Maybe religion will tell me.

And also about love: what Ms. Ono is outlining in her video above seems to me to be one of the most difficult things imaginable. No one wants you to tell them that you love them, and anyway, do I ever really feel it? And I don't get love either, not that I can see. Perhaps it's all around me, all the time, flashing itself in my direction, but I don't know the code.

God is love, and wants your love, they tell me; and I believe it, because just what choice do I have? Like a series of orderly flashes from a metal flashlight, God is just as abstract and untouchable; I take the leap of faith, and say, against logic, "yes, this is love here, in some way." And I hope that if I spend my days watching those flashes, looking at God's image, saying it's name, contemplating this abstraction, that someday it will become real, and I'll have it, understand it, and be able to give it.

A little too new-agey for 6:30 am? Especially when I have tests to take, and have practical responsibilities to uphold.

Oops!

You know what I just noticed? The title for my blog is misspelled. "Recuring" is not actually a word. It's spelled "Recurring," with two r's. And the song title I got it from is actually called "Dreams Reoccuring." "Reoccuring" doesn't seem like it should be a word, but in fact it is.

I don't know how I feel about the title anyway. I was reading over old entries, the ones right from the begining, and alot of them were recounts of my dreams. At that time the title made sense, but nowadays I don't really write about my dreams so much. And anyway, of all the entries the ones about dreams are the most tedious to read, the least engaging, the most likely to be skimmed over to get to the good parts. But I do like the word "Recurring": The definition seems remarkably appropriate. So I don't know what to do. Any ideas?

I'm not really much of a linker, but THIS is really fascinating. Be sure to view it with the sound on, okay?

I'm on the break between quarters now (the rat-race starts up again on Monday. How horrible!), and I've taken the week off of work. Although I have to study to take make-up finals from last quarter, I still have plenty of time to think about things that are not directly related to school and work (by the way, I've been accepted into the Medical Technology program here at OSU. Hooray for me!). To fill the void, which at first was driving me insane, I've been thinking more and more about art, creativity, and self-expression. I really envy folks who are able to devote their lives to it, people who can make thier living off of thier writing, music, or what-have-you. I'm really looking forward to the day when I'm out of school, and my only obligation is my job, so I can indulge in the more abstract pleasures of life more fully.

Playing Lucifer to My Father's God

Okay. I'll just come out and say it: I think that Jesus Christ was mentally ill. I liken him to Charles Manson, albeit with a much more benign and friendly agenda, because he had the same ability to manipulate people into believing in his grandiose delusions, and the strong desire to do so. Of course, I don’t really remember much from the bible, so I don't have a lot of proof to back this up, but I do remember one story, where Jesus was hungry, and he wanted figs from a fig tree. When he saw that the fig tree was barren, he smited it, burned it to the ground with his godly powers, presumeably to show it who’s boss. This does not seem like the actions of a sane man, nor of a loving man.

I don't know...I don't know much about what Jesus has been purported to have said, but I do know that every time I hear his words being spoken, like during a sermon or what-have-you, I'm often struck by how similar it sounds to things that crazy street-people have said to me. When I was in Arizona, being young, confused, and homeless, I was often approached by older homeless men who would try to act like they were really mystical gurus, instead of just people with mental problems. They'd speak in "parables", and talk alot about god, and would basically construct this atmosphere of being on a higher spiritual plane. They’d answer your questions with further questions, as though they were trying to lead to some sort of revelation, and if you disagreed with them, they would just shower you with a heavy stream of their dogma, until argument really just didn’t seem to make sense anymore. Although I didn't draw the connection at the time, when I think about Jesus now I see him in much the same way: an arrogant, pseudo-spiritual lunatic wandering around after having become too crazy to hold down his carpentry job anymore, preaching at people, promising them eternal life if they listened to him and did what he told them to do, and basically just spouting off nonsense in an enraptured yet commanding tone of voice.

What’s worse, is that the depictions of Jesus on the cross look sooo much like he's a crazy homeless person: long matted hair, emaciatedly skinny body, broken down with the weariness of being, say, manic-depressive, look of dazed abstraction on his face, often coupled with an obviously fake smile. He is not so different looking from the man shaking his cup of change at you as you walk around downtown. This in-and-of-itself might not be so bad. The real problem is that Jesus reminds me especially of one crazy person in particular: my Dad, the bi-polar, shizo-affective jerk who ruined my life. He looks just like Jesus, only with a greatly protruding beer-belly (pictures of him from his pre-alcoholic youth are even more convincing). And my Dad makes a lot of weird “spiritual” comments, and acts like other people are supposed to all supposed to sit cross-legged in a circle in front of him, listening carefully to his every word. He gave me the middle-name of a guru from India that he admired (“Kirpal”), because he was under the impression that under his guidance I would become a great spiritual leader. He often talked (especially when drinking—so pretty much all the time) as though everything he said was of the greatest sprititual importance, that it all had hidden meanings, and if us lowly, dumb-as mortals who did not happen to be sent on a divine mission from god would simply take the time to write down everything he said and study it for centuries then we would all be saved. So when people talk about Jesus doing this, that, or the other, it's very easy for me to imagine my Dad roaming around the desert, spouting off weird bullshit at people, playing like he was divinely appointed messenger sent to free us all. Now, I don't think that many people would follow my Dad like they did Jesus: he's pretty obviously mentally ill, very chaotic, and usually quite insulting. Then again, that would be a good description of Charles Manson as well, and he got a lot more than 12 disciples to follow him, plus he got them to do much worse things than just leave their jobs and work to promote his public image.

So Jesus is my Dad, and my Dad is God. I wouldn't steal from my Dad, because he has enough problems. But if I was in a position where I felt that he was trying to manipulate me into doing something, or trying to get me to think about morality in his terms, I would pretty much just reject everything he said out-of-hand, regardless of what I really thought was right or wrong. And so I think this was where I was coming from with the whole money stealing thing from my last entry: I knew it was wrong, that I should put it back. But every time I started to think of why it was wrong, or tried to tune into and understand my feelings of dismay, I got very bitter and defensive, as though I was being forced by someone that I didn't respect, and in fact hated, to do something or believe in something, because he had a vision that God told him I should do it; and not because it was right or wrong, beneficial or detrimental, but because he was having a religious ego-trip and wanted to exert his power and make me believe in his distorted dream-world; not because it was a good idea to do what he was saying, but because if I didn't do it I would get strangled, or hit repeatedly over the head. God will send me to hell if I don't do what he says and worship his teachings; my Dad will kick my ass.

Basically, the way I see it is that on a conscious level I was like "what is the right thing to do in this situation?", but in reality the issue for me didn't have anything to do with ethics: it had to do with whether someone had the right to control me, whether or not I would let the threat of violence dictate my actions. And I won: the christian church has no effect on me. I do not have to listen to the babblings of a mentally ill psuedo-guru with dreams of fascism, spouting-off about a God whose main pre-occupation seems to be with hurting and punishing people for not doing what he says. I was proving to myself that I don't do what I do out of guilt or fear: I do it because I've thought about it, and have decided what is actually the most beneficial for everyone involved. Or at least that's what I told myself at the time. In reality I based my actions on petty, destructive, rebellion. I looked god in the face and said "fuck you, Dad. I'm sick of kow-towing to your insane bullshit, and you can't tell me what to do." And yes, of course, I'm not doing what he says, but my actions are still just as controlled by what I imagine he thinks and wants from me, only in an inverse rather than direct fashion. It’s still fear that controls me, only I focus on the anger that I’ve created in reaction to that fear to tell me what to do, instead of the fear itself.

I think the most obvious moral of this story is that I should just stay away from Christianity. When I look at the cross, I'm never gonna be able to see anything but a mentally ill white guy who looks just like my Dad. I'm never gonna see God as anything but a big bully on an ego-trip. And because there is still a part of me that believes that God and Jesus are real, and have real power, I'm not going to be able to view anything I do in the context of christianity with any rationality. It's always going to be me playing Lucifer to my father's God, pointlessly rebelling against everything he stands for, not matter what that might be. I don't want to live like that, so I'm going to stay as far away from the Christian God as possible.
Krsna, on the other hand, is a spiritual figure that I'm still quite interested in. I mean, he's frickin' BLUE fer christ's sake

I did something very strange the other day. I've been flirting with the idea of Christianity lately, so on Sunday I went to the nice, gay-friendly Methodist church across the street from my house. This was interesting, but not mind-blowing or anything (they're Methodists, so they tend to focus on practical knowledge and folksy anecdotes, which are nice, but, as I said, not mind-blowing). So I decided to go to the big Catholic cathedral downtown. When I got there, there was nobody there but a couple of homeless people sleeping in the pews, so I spent some time wandering around the place, enjoying all the old fashioned stained glass windows depicting sainted elderly white men, and the cute little pictures of Jesus getting whipped and such. I stopped in front of this really great statue of Mary with a very stern look on her face, probably reminiscent of the look the average nun would give you directly before whacking your vulnerable knuckles with a ruler. I was quite impressed, so I decided to light one of the many candles in front of her, and then prostrate myself to her eternal anger at one of the fancy, upholstered kneeling stations. So I took out a dollar bill, which they want you to donate if you light any candles, folded it up, and went to go put it in the collection box. When I tried to put it in, I noticed that the slot was blocked by another bill. I tried to push it in, but it wouldn't go, so instead I pulled it out. When I did so, I noticed that it was, as far as I could tell, a twenty dollar bill. So here's the strange part: I got very excited, very nervous, and, after looking around to see if anyone was standing nearby, I slipped it into my pocket, then slipped my folded-up one dollar bill into the slot (which didn't go in all the way either, by the way).

I spent the next twenty minutes walking around the cathedral, looking at all the other stuff (which include a few more paintings of Jesus, a couple of statues, both big and small, depicting him suffering on the cross, complete with would marks and contorted facial expressions; and, inexplicably, a big golden cup, with no informational placard to explain it's presence), and asking myself "why did I just do that?" I couldn't really think of a good answer. I'm not rich by any means, but I certainly don't need the money, and how much is twenty dollars going to buy anyway? So I thought to myself "I should just go put it back." Indeed, I would have been much happier, both then and now, If I actually had. But then I couldn't think of any reason to do that either. I didn't understand the theft, but, now that I had the money in my pocket, I didn't understand why I should put it back either. With no compelling reasons one way or the other, I did nothing. Mass started (with the most hilarious priest ever, who sounded almost exactly like the priest who almost married Prince Humperdinck and Buttercup in The Princess Bride), which I sat through and found quite enjoyable, and then I left. The whole time though, the same questions were going through my mind: Why did I take it? Why should I put it back? The problem only got worse when I decided to look at the bill, and realized that it was not, in fact, a 20, but actually a 50.

I don't want to go into the details of why I didn't think there was any reason to give it back, but I will mention them briefly. I didn't feel that I was doing anything bad to the Catholic church, because the Catholic Church is filthy, filthy rich (and the word filthy is appropriate: much of it has been gained by manipulating or out-right stealing from other people, and much of it is used to defend and maintain priests that are chronic child molesters, or else is used to propagate hatred of homosexuals and to stop women from having the right to get abortions), and they won't miss that 50 dollars one way or the other, especially seeing as they didn't know it was there in the first place. And it's not like stealing from an individual, which I feel very strongly is wrong, because even if they don't need it, it is a betrayal of trust, and damages their sense of security, which is essential to happiness and psychological well-being. The argument could be made that I was hurting the person (who for some reason I assume is a woman) who made the donation in the first place. But she had already made the donation; she already got the spiritual benefit of it, because God knew what she meant the money to do. The question, then, in my mind at the time, is if no one is going to get hurt by me keeping it, why should I give it back?

The frustrating thing about all this is that at least one person did get hurt: me. During the whole time at the cathedral, and even as I sit now, with the half-spent money sitting in my pocket, there is a powerful sense of guilt, gnawing away inside of me, like the Tell Tale Heart, constantly reminding of my wrong-doing, making me feel like shit. It's the same way I feel after having sex with 6 or 7 guys in one day: I know that what I'm doing is wrong, I can feel it inside of me, but I can't figure out why it's wrong. I can't decide myself to stop doing it until I'm intellectually satisfied that I'm stopping for a real reason, not just because of my emotions. I talked to The Social Worker about it today over soggy, throat-clogging buttermilk pancakes, and he is of the opinion that I'm trying to justify my behaviour. Well, I disagree, because I don't think that what I did was right, not at the time nor after the fact, and I'm not trying to make it seem right; but I do think he's on the right track: I'm desperately trying to rationalize my behaviour, to figure out just what the hell I did, what it meant, and how it affects what I believe is right and wrong, in a way that my intellect can understand it.

In fact, I don't think that me keeping the money had anything to do with right and wrong, because I believe, both intellectually and emotionally, that what I did was something that I believe is wrong. Even if nobody knows about it, it still is a betrayal of trust. The woman who left the money had the right to do with it as she saw fit, and me taking the money is effectively saying "you don't have rights: if I believe that something else should be done with your money, and if I have the strength or cleverness to take it from you, then fuck you." Which I believe is wrong: I do believe that she has rights, even if I disagree with what she does with her freedom. And the same goes for the Catholic church: it's their money, and even if I don't like their organization, in order to maintain a society that fosters freedom and peace I need to do my part and respect their wishes to do what they want with their money, just as I expect and hope that others will respect what I wish to do with my money, even if they don't like me or disagree with me.

These are very basic arguments, which I've hashed out already in my teenage years, when poverty and homelessness often led me to steal food and other necessities, and lack of work gave me plenty of time to think about the world and what I believed. I came to the very strong conclusion that stealing was wrong, even if I did often feel that I had little choice in the matter. So why did I conveniently forget my beliefs at this moment? I'm rather tired now, so I'll think about it some more later, but I think it had something to do with anger at Christians, anger at my father, and, yes, anger at the mentally ill.

I couldn't take my finals. I was too sick. I talked to my professors beforehand, and they all looked at me and said "Yeah, you're sick. Go to the doctor, get a note, and come take a make-up final within 5 weeks time." So I went to the doctor, or actually a Nurse Practioner (just like My Doctorish Friend, only without a cute nickname; without a cute anything, as a matter of fact--she was one hard-nosed, no-nonsense woman. Although I guess the fact that she was really short was kind of cute). To my great surprise she checked me out, and she told me that I was actually sick. Actually sick? You mean I'm not just a big slacker? I wasn't just unconsciously faking it because I'm inherently lazy and irresponsible? It's strange, but there was a part of me that never stopped believing that I was faking it the whole time. There's a part of me that thought that I should have been able to take the finals, only I was too lazy and stupid. The whole time that I was talking to my professors about being sick, I was playing up my symptoms, because I was positive that I wasn't really sick, and was sure that I just manipulating the system because it would give me extra advantage, not because I actually needed to (which made me feel very guilty, but also very clever at the same time).

So the lady gave me her letter, verifiying that I went to see her, prescribed me some Flonase, and told me to go home, drink fluids, and relax. So I went to work and took care of some loose ends there, went to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled, went to the computer lab to send out some e-mails, then went to drop off my verification letter at the various departments of my professors. And as I was walking out of Celeste Lab, where the undergraduate chemistry offices are located, I was thinking "What do I need to do now? What am I supposed to do?" I thought for a moment, and I realized that there wasn't anything else for me to do, that it was time for me to do what my doctor said, to go home and relax. I had just set off to go do this, when I started to feel rather strange. I stopped in front of my bike, my keys in my hand, and just stared at the ground. I was trying to think about what I was supposed to do to relax, but I couldn't. There were no thoughts. I couldn't think of how to relax. I had no idea what to do. The answer, of course, is obvious: I'm not supposed to do anything. Which makes sense...but for some reason this idea unnerves me. I was searching and searching for a plan of action, and there wasn't any. Honestly, I felt scared. Scared of relaxtion, scared of doing nothing.

What the fuck? What's so frightening about doing nothing? Well, part of it is that I feel like if I'm not doing anything then the world is going to fall apart all around me, that all the things that need to get done just won't get done, and that I'll have heavy consequences to pay for it later. Yeah, that's definitely a plausible sounding explanation. But the REAL reason I'm afraid to not do anything, my inner, secret motivation, is that I know from past experience that if I'm not doing anything, then I'm naturally going to become more aware of what's going on inside of me. I'm going to have to face myself, intimately; hear my voice inside of me, hear my thoughts, feel my feelings, become a part of myself again.

Fuck that. That's scary. I will do anything to stop that from happening. I'd rather fuck all day, drink 'till I pass out, and work myself until my body can't take it anymore, before I let that happen.

Been sick the past 5 days. Sometimes I feel like I'm getting better, usually right when I wake up from a nap, but a few hours later I feel just as bad again. I woke up in the middle of the night last night feeling like I was being strangled. I coughed and I coughed for, like, 10 minutes after that. Each cough feels like something vital and important is getting ripped out of my lungs, like I'm trying to cough something up that's supposed to be permanant. Actually, the things that I'm coughing up look alot like the things I've coughed up when i've quit smoking in the past. Last september, when I quit smoking the last time and went onto the nicotine gum full-time, I was surprised at how little I tar and such I coughed up. I think that what happened is that the nicotine gum, while not adding any more tar to the mix, is still paralyzing the cillia in my throat that make expulsion of tar possible. So there's still alot of tar left in there. Probably what I need to do is stop chewing the gum for awhile, at least for a month. But I can't start now, because of finals. And I can't start over break, because I have to work, and I don't want to be irritable then. And then the next quarter starts, and I'll need the gum to get through that as well. Probably there won't ever be a good time to quit it, and I'll just be stuck with tar in my lungs for the rest of my life, or at least until I get lung cancer.