We're all spectators

Hey, I haven't written in a while. That's not because I haven't had time but more of I've become quite the sloth since winter break began. Anyway, while I have been lazy and slack I realized something. Most people are spectators. And I am for the most part. When we come home and watch T.V., we are watching others fight battles or persuade lovers or win gambles that we have never tried. Why? Why aren't we out trying to change the world, to make a difference, why aren't we winning to take the risks in life?

Sure we all take small risks, but few people are brave enough for the real ones. Sure we can ask girls out, or fight a bully, or maybe even invest (dear heavens!) but what are these things? Why is it that most people are willing to watch others take risks? Why don't we take them ourselves?

I'm tired of it. I feel like any day I could snap and actually try to make a difference. And when I wonder why I don't you know what's running through my mind? Fear. Isn't that pathetic? Fear of failing and having all the spectators laugh, having all of them show their children the intelligence in just sitting around waiting and watching. Fear of telling myself that I should know my place and realize that there is no way one person can make a difference so why try. That's what we all tell ourselves isn't it? "Just one man can't do anything" It's bullshit. This world would be so fascinating if we could all stop watching T.V. and start living our lives. Imagine a world where the most interesting show is the news because all these people decided to actually do something. And better yet, while being the most interesting, it doesn't even get watched much. Only enough to where people know what else needs fixing.

That's the man I need to be. I'm tired of being a spectator.

What are we waiting for?

Death is everywhere. The interesting thing though is that everyone is still alive. We are the walking dead. Animated only by some unseen strings, we puppets try to figure out why we are here and who we are putting a show on for. Ha, well some of us do. The others try to love their life. But trying to love in this fake plastic world with our fake plastic love, well...we break by the banality of it all.

So let's stop trying to cut the strings and finally see where they want to lead us. And let's love fully, but not the people that are our friends and family...that's meaningless since love in that since is somewhat a long term self interest (loving that which/who pleases you). That's it, isn't it? Lost in our fake world, strangled by the strings we ignore, they become nooses. And as we pull away from them, slowly all of our love and hope dies. We need to submit to the nooses, allow them to kill us. We need only to stop struggling to see that they are just strings...but enough of this extended metaphor, I'm sure the one or two people that decided to read this are already tired of it.

A toaster has value only in it's master's estimation of it/ how well it serves it's master. Are we much different in that respect? I think not. So let's try to follow our God without getting burnt. "What are we waiting for?" Don't just think I'm putting that at the end of the post to be clever because it is the title. Honestly, what are we waiting for? Any religious person should be pursuing their god completely if they have any faith at all. So what's holding us back?

Everything Starts Today

I'm not sure what's going to happen to me. I feel I should admit that. I'm not sure my friends understand that sometimes. Spending time helping others leaves you unprepared. But even if you plan your life, that's nothing. From what I can tell Napoleon was one of the best tacticians. His plans were brilliant and yet a silly winter in Russia threw off his entire war. We are so powerless and yet we think ourselves master's of our own destinies. Even including God, we think it'll be easy because He'll just say what's next...but that doesn't have to happen. I have a bad plan at best, a failure in the works at best. I'm not even happy about where my plan will lead me...

So what's my plan out of the current one? No clue. I hope to eventually find whatever it is that makes me happy. Whatever it is that God fashioned me for. But as I look at my gifts, I think more and more that I was built for the purpose of fixing the world and the screwed up people in it. Of course, this is silliness. How can one man change the world when he himself is not perfect? But through my brokenness I will show the world just how lost we are. I feel the world needs to see a beautiful satire of itself. Only then will the people be horrified by what they have become. Colbert is convincing the nation to be more liberal through his awful representation of a conservative, Swift stirred up trouble with the modest proposal, so maybe I should become a powerful political man. Maybe I should strive to be rich and then become a satire of what this world tells us to be.

Have you ever heard of what happens to most of the people who win the lottery? Their lives go to crap. Usually the people site winning the money as the turning point of their lives. The only ones that really seem to do well are the ones who base the quality of their lives on other things like family or religion. Which makes sense to me because if your main goal in live is to get rich and then you achieve your main life goal...what the heck do you do then? Die? We have to be willing to lose, to die, for something greater than ourselves. Otherwise, what's life but just us waiting patiently for death. No, I need to find something to be lost in, to submit my will completely to. And once I find it, I must be strong enough to pursue it to whatever conclusion comes..."on a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero" (Fight Club).

So let's figure out what's worth dying for, and then prepare to be willing to sacrifice ourselves. Let's begin anew, all the mistakes and foolish sacrifices to our morals can be forgotten if we forgive ourselves. So let's forgive...everything starts today.

I need something more

If you have not heard The Bravery's (a band) song "Believe," I suggest you youtube it. That song describes how I'm feeling right now. I've been hiding from while God while waiting for a sign from Him. I've been waiting...forever. The days pass by, tick tock, what are we waiting for? I need some passion, I gotta feel pain. Haha, just yesterday I felt like crap from a girl situation and here I am asking for more, come now God, you created a broken soul that can take the pain you need to inflict on this broken world. We will fix it, but first you need to fix me. The fear is in me, the doubt is bending it's knees prepared to pounce on my patience in hearing your word.

O God, I need more pain. You know I'm too stubborn to learn while I'm happy. Ha, and if I crack? Ha, what if soon my mind is lost? Pleasure, drinking, sex, and pride completely set loose upon this world. You know what the I think the worst trick the devil ever played on us was? He told us we deserve to be happy. That we are entitled to it and if we don't get it, we should fight for it.

That's bullshit. We don't deserve to be happy. And so what if God would like us to be happy? Before that, He would want us to pursue Him and at first that sucks. Haha, it totally blows at first. And sure we will want to turn back to our guilty pleasures: to our video games, our music, our exercising, our friendships, our families, and our desire to get good grades. It may sound odd but none of those things have value in themselves alone. None of us have value in ourselves. DO YOU HEAR ME? We don't matter except in our connection to God. So video games, do they bring you closer to God, doubtful so get rid of it. Drinking? What about your friends? "Well they don't bring me further away from God..." Haha, if they don't actively bring you to God, then the opportunity cost of being with them is enough to leave them.

This life is so completely pointless and pathetic unless it is devoted to God. Our other pursuits are us merely twiddling our thumbs until we die. That being said, I do not go to a mountain top to pray and read the Bible everyday. That's for a few reasons:

1) I am ridiculously weak-willed. I know what is required of me but can not do it...I hold onto my favorite sins like a drowning man to a thrown life float. So don't think I'm some self righteous guy, instead think of me as a self aware hypocrite. I'm so diluted but one day I hope to sift through the crap in my life and have only the important things left, I need to be baptized by fire, by pain, by sacrifice, if I'm too weak I'll need to be baptized through death, it'll be the only way I can master the mind (without the flesh).

2) Society can bring you closer to God... not my society, but in general it's neutral on the subject I'd think. Plus, I can help people in their problems and in growing closer to God. In turn others (usually a lot more people then the number I help) have to pour into me so that my faith isn't so empty.

3) Even to go on the mountain top requires more faith than I have. O God, what I I don't find you there? Should I look for you in the desert where the Israelite Moses spoke to you? Or possibly to the middle of the oceans where no industrial noises will disturb my pitiful prayers? Ugh, or should I look in the gutters of the most sloven cities to see your children look up at me and in them I see you? Or maybe in the African villages where I can see men interact with your world as they should, not as they have. O God, but what if I don't see you in any of those places? I shall simply collapse and secretly hope that in the fallen state I'm in you will approach me, that the predator becomes the prey.

Maybe it seems like I'm rambling and raving. Well, that wouldn't be that far off probably...

Journal Entries Cont.

Journal Entry: 2/24/09

Today was Fat Tuesday. I celebrated by not running and eating some cake. Starting tomorrow I plan to:
1) Run at least 5km. everyday (except Sunday)
2) Refrain from any sweets or baked goods.
3) Not play video games until homework is done (I was quite the gamer back in the day).
4) Use the internet only for e-mail and facebook (by this time, facebook became the way most people communicated online)
5) In general, try to remember to workout my upper body.
I also have been desiring to date a Miss Holder but I find getting her alone to ask quite hard if not completely impossible...
Obama spoke today but I'm not sure if I like what he said. He mentioned trying to get most to every American a degree of some sort but I ask you: If everyone is educated, who will pick up the trash or flip the burgers? Education is good but some people do have to do the crap jobs no matter how high the education level of society is (unless robots could replace them...). I just don't to want to trust him, that's what keeps a republic working properly (suspicion in leaders).
I think I would like to hold an office of some public job (senator).

2/25/09

Today is Ash Wednesday. I was hungery but I lived. I've been wondering why I've been depressed lately and I think it may have to do with my lack of faith in Christianity. Right now, I believe God exists without a shadow of doubt but how will I feel in a week or two? Why is it that with religion, it's all black and white? Either you are a good soul searching for God or you're a stain of sin upon the world. It's always one thing or the other. Do you have faith? Y/N, Do you go to mass? Y/N, Are you a good person? See this question leaves the arena of religion and so the answer can be gray. I was talking to Virginia (a friend) today about how Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all worship the same god. She was perplexed however to why worshipers of the same god would kill each other over religion. But I believe the reasoning behind the holy wars was the same as those that started the wars from the Reformation. And that reasoning is that while we worship the same god, you worship him incorrectly so either change your ways or die (you may not like me now, but it's for the good of your soul). Or maybe it was merely political agendas given the luxury of riding a wave of fanatic religious beliefs. I wonder how I would react to knowing exactly when I would die (and how).

Mad World

This song always calms me. I feel like I've been living in this mad world for far too long. And yet I have so much farther to go. How should I measure it? By how much I grow per year? I did that when I was a teenager, now I realize that the world has found something much more important to measure me by, money.

The piano plays in the background as all ears are truly on the singer speaking what we know to be true but refuse to believe about our lives (seriously, if you haven't listened to this song, now's the time).

My life has past the twenty year mark. That means will this body has been conscious, the Earth has revolved around the Sun in its orbit twenty times. What do I care about that? Every way we measure ourselves fails miserably. But we can't stop it. How does the age of a stream of consciousness describe the depth said consciousness is willing to delve or how understanding it is of the world around it?

How will Death find me? I feel like I will welcome him. No, I will not be hospitable, we have to go, we have to leave this mad world. Why can I feel for others but they don't understand? Love is in all of us but why is it so distorted? Even the selfless are confused by each other. Does God want me to be happy? Since when have I mattered?

The individual is nothing. Yet for some reason, part of me dies at the thought that's true. We are only valued by God. Jesus is supposed to have come for the human race, not for the individual. Sure we are all in that and yet so much is lost in the thought. We are not unique, He saved all of us. God values us as all the same, His creations. We have had a blanket of mercy thrown over all of humanity, yet what if I wish to be cold? Jesus has saved me, but from my own choices. His salvation is to forgive my own individual will. "Is that what God wants, well maybe I'll try something else," we all make this choice everyday (unless I suppose you are ignorant of God or His will). Freewill not being given over to God, that is the root of all sin. And why do we do this, pride?

The angels had it easy. O to just decide once and for eternity if I wanted God's way or my own, how beautifully simple. But no, we must choose Him every single day. Naturally, we will fail in this aspect. But we must try. "And what if after a life of trying He still does not accept us?" Well, again, since when have you mattered? Would life be so much sweeter without God? Would the forbidden fruit stimulate you enough to forget the one who begot you?

Maybe, but brother, if that's the way you decide to go...feast on the fruit for with God there should never be moderation. Let me die, let the hedonist live. This life has shown me nothing spectacular unless I could attach a meaning to it. Even the beautiful sunsets, the virtuous women who give you hope of an actual happiness on earth, the ocean, the children who laughter fills the voids in the house and our hearts, the eternal darkness punctured by the purest light of stars, and our dear fathers and their struggles (good or bad) to maintain their sanity in this world; all of these things mean nothing, are empty unless there is something behind them...possibly a single object they all concentrate to point to. I will wait to die Lord, but help me at least to pick up the remains of my friends and put them back together again. Also, if you see fit, heal me. I've always been proud of my brokenness and my ability to hold all the shards together but enough is enough. I'm done, yes that's right, my individuality doesn't have to go on. Ugh, I'm already tiring of myself. Purge me of this, I wish to be extreme Lord. Let the sacrifice required of a kamikaze be regarded as nothing to me if it will further your will, but before this please clearly tell me what that even is.

Journal Entries

I found my old journal (that I started senior year of high school). I didn't write much into it so I thought since this is essentially my journal now and it had religious stuff into it, I should write it here. There are a few of these though (sevenish).

Intro:

This is the journal of James H-'s thoughts. If he is not dead, don't read this or you may consider yourself dead in his eyes for your lack of respect towards his wishes.

If however, James H- is dead when this is found, please enjoy the thoughts and daily activities of a person who once read this exact line but is no longer here. It is sad but this stupid sentence may outlive its author...(I was a little dramatic at times in this journal...)

J1: 2/23/09 (it's past midnight...)

This is my first entry. I'm not too sure why I bought this journal. I suppose so that if I were to die, some part of me may live on to comfort my family and friends...let's begin.
I had an interesting run today. I ran to the Old Wando (an old high school in the area) and ran 12 laps during which time I prayed. I prayed to Mary, all the saints, and all the angels to do what they could for me (whether it be action or prayer) as well as to each part of the Holy Trinity. But don't think I am some saint, I merely realize how bad I am and wish to improve.
I finished "David Copperfield" today. It was an okay ending but I prefer the sad ones. The endings Steinbeck gives. I'm still thinking about what I want to give up for Lent.

P.S.- If you're reading this because I'm dead, please give all my video game stuff to Brett J- and the rest to my brother, Brad H-, with the promise that it will go into funding or aiding in some way his invention. It is sad to think my days are as numbered as the entries I make now...
"So it goes." - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.