New Year's Thought...

In four days it will be the two year anniversary of my blog. I wish I had something profound or interesting to say, but I don’t. In fact I’m feeling quite ignorant and uninteresting at the present moment. So if my faithful readers are looking for the answers to life riddles in this blog, I’m so sorry to disappoint.

This last few years my general hypothesis has been that if I deconstruct my life into simple pieces, I’ll be able to figure out why I seem to have such a difficult time with it. As time goes by I’ve discovered the main flaw with this concept is the conclusion that my life is so screwed up in the first place. A few disappointing turns in life mixed with a low-grade depression and all of a sudden everything I’ve done and will ever do turns to shit? I’m an unlovable failure? I have the power to turn everyone’s life to shit? I should just give up?

I do believe in self-awareness and that an unexamined life is not worth living, but life cannot be broken down into simple, livable pieces. I don’t know how to make life less complicated, but I that doesn’t quell my desire to live. There’s the rub, you know. Would life be better if it were less complicated and difficult? I don’t know, but I can’t imagine moving forward if that were the case.

When I was going to church in my early twenties, I was taught that Heaven was the reward for living a Christian life. Heaven was a place where there will be no pain or sorrow and the faithful will be with God forever. Who wouldn’t want that, considering the options? But secretly the concept of Heaven made me nervous as well. Maybe it’s the artist in me, but in a strange way I need the pain and sorrow. I’m not sure how to explain it without sounding cliché, but I don’t know if life would be interesting without those things. In Heaven I wouldn’t be me because I am at times sad, flawed, mean, powerful, good, smart, etc. Why would God want us to get dirty in this life only to wipe it clean in Heaven? We would have to change in a deep fundamental way to enjoy Heaven, because I don’t think we’d like it too much in our current state.

The concept of Hell seems closer to our natural state on Earth. We are separate from God and we feel pain and sorrow. Not much would change really except it would become more extreme and hopeless. I’m not saying I’d enjoy Hell and would prefer to go there, but it might feel more like home to me. If we all started in Heaven and were sent to Hell for being subversive that would be a different story, but we’re put here first and then told we’re supposed to have faith in God’s goodness when we’re confronted with anguish and depression. And any god who would send me to a place for eternal suffering for not loving him or her seems like a whiney loser anyways.

Anyhoo, reasons why I’m an atheist aside, I guess we have to take the good and the bad in life. I’m not saying that there can’t be bitching about it, but it’s really not that bad. We shouldn’t get stuck in the sadness just like we shouldn’t always seek the happiness. Okay, I’m going to be lame and end this with Bright Eyes lyrics, but it’s fitting:

"But then night rolls around and it all starts making sense/There is no right way or wrong way, you just have to live /And so I do what I do, and at least I exist/ What could mean more than this? /What would mean more, mean more?"

--Hit the Switch