Help

I need prayer. This is a fact. I don't know how many who read here have an active prayer life, but even if you don't the fact remains. I feel like I'm in way over my head. I don't want to talk about it on Facebook... because people who want to counter my actions monitor me there.

I received direct confirmation today that God provides. He provided me tools. He helped me on a very tough day and I survived an audit by our parent company. Every step of the day he was with me, I realize now to prepare me for this. He wouldn't have prepared me for this unless he had a plan for guiding me through. Please. Your prayer will make a difference.

stumbling forward

5 years later and it still hurts. My ability to trust was irreperably damaged. My heart ripped out of my body. 5 years later and I'm still waiting for life to make sense again. Still waiting for the God I thought I knew to return. In this wasteland, yet does God waste anything? I'm told no.

I feel like a zombie, I should have been dead so long ago, what am I doing walking around? I want to not care, but I can't be so cold. I want to act like I'm broken, but he had to heal me... I had to be a good steward of what I have. Why do I feel like I've screwed up so bad, when every step of the way I've made the best choice I could, given what I knew at the time.

Maybe I'll never have it figured out. Maybe I'll be waiting, stumbling, falling and fumbling until I fall into the grave. I'm not sorry for myself, I'm an adult human with way more education than my economic situation deserves. I made the choices. I married the woman, I bought the house, I didn't go to college earlier. I turned down the drugs in high school. I focused in the wrong area, not once but many times. The whole time I prayed, but it seems I prayed the wrong prayers.

I keep hoping he'll make it all make sense. I keep hoping today will be the day. Not because it makes sense. It doesn't make sense. Love doesn't make sense. Faith doesn't make sense. But after a lifetime of making choices that made sense at the time, it seems like being reasonable isn't that much of a ground to stand on. I feel so lost, and only one can lead me out of the wilderness. Only one can take my hand and lead me home, to a peace on earth. To tranquility and a place where dreams are more than just dreams. He can do more than even I can think of. My heart still long and hopes to see it happen.

EU law compliance

Apparently blogger uses cookies to track stats. It also appears that the EU has passed a law that I need to let you know that. So I just did. I didn't build the platform, and I don't know if you can see the notice blogger claims to have put up. This is my due diligence. If you don't trust google then don't browse blogger, or youtube... or any google site. 

The other side of the swing

This blog essentially exists to document my.... journey of the mind. Which sounds more exciting than it is. Realistically most of my brain cells are occupied with 3 things:
Minecraft
Harry Potter (this month, last month was the Foundation series by Asimov)
Anodes and hitting quota

However I do despite my inane existence still have idealistic values, spiritual development and dreams. Today marks some interesting points.
1. First new area in over a month. I got sent to south Tulsa today, though I'm still clearing north Tulsa.
2. I hate my feeble and meaningless day to day.
3. Somehow I totally trust that God will find a way.

The third is the most interesting to me. I remember quite clearly feeling total doubt as to his interest or ability to change or effect my life. Yet now I don't feel that way. Not even a little. In disregard to the facts of the matter that on the surface nothing is changing, my faith remains.

I've come to view this as a marathon that will end with either success or death. Days, weeks, months and even years may be viewed as legs of the journey. The funny part (or the deadly soulsucking part, depending on which side I'm on) is that we have no idea how long this journey will last.

I have stated in the past in both moods that the greatest comfort is that there is an end to the journey. It must be added that the greatest frustration is the lack of knowledge or even tools to gather knowledge as to length of... well sentence. It is much as a prison sentence. I'm trapped against my will..... I don't want to wallow.

At times such as today I feel most positive and affirmative as to the action of the Lord. As previously pointed out this is in the face of evidence. When such a mood takes me I am inevitably drawn to the conclusion that God's action is coming shortly. My duty is to observe that though I have felt so many times, the action has still yet to be. So that we must observe that my conclusion of the immediateness of his love is a creation of my mind, or at the very least a bit of misinformation directed to undermine my relationship with the Lord.

It of course does not need to be immediate. First off I'm quite good at self preservation despite my crying to the Lord to free me from certain agony, the agony is mental, the imprisonment is philosophical and his action seems far more tied to the actual nature of things.

The nature of the journey is more related to ancient sea voyages than a road trip. There is no damn map. The distances though definite are not able to be traveled at a constant speed. In fact I am entirely surrounded by fog. I don't know if I am in the windless place in the center, if I am near the beginning as I remain quite young, or very near the end.

So, yeah. God's got it figured out and one of these days I will get out of him something definite. I might be dead and standing judgement, but even standing judgement would be something definite wouldn't it? It is my eager hope that as I have attempted to seek him he will look kindly on me. Better still would be as I put my faith in Jesus that he would see clear to overlook my mistakes.

And there you are.

Towards spiritual oubliette

The outside world is nothing to me. Once again for at least the third time in my life I descend and drop out of the world. Here are the steps for anyone else wanting to:
Step 1:Escape
Find things to totally occupy your thoughts. It can be anything. Books are great, so are drugs, sleep, sex, rock and roll, you get the idea. For me it is books and video games. This isn't to be confused with actually being enthusiastic about the escape item. The escape item allows the user to be dead to the world. The escape item keeps a healthy mind occupied when trying to have a normal life would be madness.
Step 2:Detach
Let go of everything you thought mattered. Sometimes we can't let go of our..... day to day habits. Like work. But if you have planned well these things don't require emotional involvement. The ironic thing is that the less emotionally involved you become the easier things go outside.
Step 3:maintain
 This is the hardest step. Every day you have to get up and continue not to give a shit. Every time someone tries to compel you to care, don't. Every time you have to give up a substance you have to keep the same lack of involvement. Change is unavoidable. Caring is. Living is.

We're all just drifting through, cast aside tools of a Deity beyond our comprehension. What is a faithful man to do? A faithful man is as meat that must be kept fresh. Working the meat keeps it fresh. Freezing is also an option. When the owner of the meat is not hungry, it must be preserved. "One day" the meat says to itself "One day I will be of use."
As long as we draw breath there is hope, but hope unfulfilled is deadly.
 Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
Our duty is to faith. Our duty is to do the best we can with what we have. The best I can is to retreat. An answer will come. Even if that answer is death, an answer that will still be. If I die without anything productive then there are two possabilities:
A life of faith is futile(because we can't know until it is over)
I never understood, despite seeking wisdom I was wrong beyond wrong about what life was about.

As I said, retreat into the oubliette of my soul. Perhaps I will find enlightenment in the wilderness, perhaps I will die there. Either way interesting times lie ahead.

Where relationships go wrong

Many years after my divorce and I still keep going back to what went wrong. Of course it wasn't just one thing, it was multiple things.

I was listening to a book and some guy completely screwing up a date. I'm not saying it was ALL his fault, there was irrationality on her side. The point is that I recognised the mistakes because I made them. The problem was expectations. I picked this up at a marriage seminar I went to 6 months before mine imploded. It would appear that there are two keys to a successful relationship: communication and expectations.

When I was a younger man I did not have a clue how women worked. Today I still don't, but I understand some rules. Honesty is a big fat pile of horseshit, for starters. I'll elaborate: when I think honesty I think Boy Scout classic rules of chivalry style honesty. It ONLY works if you always do every little thing the way you want others to see it.

The big mistake I made with honesty is oversharing with Lindsay. By the time we'd known each other a year she knew every secret and where all the bodies were buried, and I thought I knew the same amount about her. I don't think I did, I think she edited because in my experience almost everyone edits. Women in my experience are attracted to a sense of mystery. I ruined all of it way too early.

The kind of honesty that works(apparently) is what I call "answer any question" honesty. I have sworn an oath to be honest and not deceptive. I keep my promises. However just because I have to be honest doesn't mean I tell everyone everything. Sometimes I tell people most of the truth(customers and companies especially), with a good dash of that certain things are true from certain points of view. The rest I tell what I feel like and let them ask about anything else. I have more than a decade of adult life behind me, and it would take me years to tell all my stories. Most of my stories aren't even worth sharing(too depressing). To keep my honor pure I answer direct questions with true answers.

It started in recovery, a christian recovery if you can believe it. They told us in group that sharing completely was best done in group, and that our spouses and families wouldn't understand. It took years for this to make sense to me. I mean, my wife would understand everything about me... she's my wife... she loves me.... Love only goes so far, and marriage doesn't mean unconditional support anymore. Part of growing up is learning just because one person has honor doesn't mean anyone else does.

Expectations though are the real big guns of relationships. Take my current set up. My fiance expects a level of emotional involvement I can do any day. She expects a very rational level of support and intimacy. She loves me very much.  I expect rational things of her, she does her best, and I love her very much.

Things weren't always so, because I didn't know how to set the expectation. The minute the first date starts expectations are in flux. Most of it is unspoken and I call it "the relationship contract". Where guys get caught up is trying to impress a lady. They pull a politician move and promise high. Which will impress and catch a certain kind of lady. I have never understood some men's attraction to spoiling naive women. They are convinced they need to lie to go to bed with a lady. I have never needed to lie to go to bed with a woman, though I've met a few who lied to me.

When you're setting up the relationship contract who you are is on the table. Women are attracted to confident men. Confident men see what they want and go for it. If you try for the big sale but aren't selling what is essentially you, women can sense it. Some will give you the time to prove them wrong, but even then you're running against an impossible standard.

If you say you have money, they're going to want you to pay for things all the time. If you portray yourself as compassionate they expect you to be in touch with their feelings. Many of them start building out a narrative of expectations they have. They want a house, they want kids, they want you to buy them a car. As soon as you step off script it is very hard to regain footing, if not impossible.

Summing it up, don't promise what you can't deliver. There are plenty of women out there who all you have to say is something to the effect of "I like sex, you are very attractive and I would enjoy doing it with you. I don't intend to form an emotional bond or relationship, let's just have some fun." Believe it, I've done it and it works(worked, I've been in a relationship for a few years, but women don't change.)

it's time to start re evaluating the nature of reality

For everything there is a time and a purpose, and a time for everything under heaven. So there must be a time to think on the very nature of existence.

In the past I had considered the examining of reality completely futile in terms of applicable philosophy. Here is why I now think it might not be:

God- It always begins and ends with God for me. I have searched this world from end to end for another who is asking the questions that I am asking, looking where I'm looking and defining the problem in the same way. Thus far I haven't found one, and the quest isn't over yet, it's just time to focus elsewhere. The basic tenet of my philosophy is a question: Is it working?
Searching for like-minds isn't working. It may not even have the answers I need.
God is, I admit, beyond my understanding. I must however deal with him in terms I can understand. Our relationship has to function. As with every relationship I am the element I can control, I am the variable. I've tried reason and I've tried prayer. Which leads to my next point

Lateral Thinking-By definition this is solving problems through a creative and indirect approach. The problem is well known. What I have learned is that often the solution to a problem right in front of you is to step back, examine, then look at something else.

Immovable Objects- How do you deal with an immovable object? Well, you can either destroy it or work around it. I am dealing with multiple immovable objects. Okay, they aren't truly unmovable, but I don't have the resources to move them. Further if I could GET the resources on that scale I wouldn't need to move the objects.

Pushing too far- This was my big AHA moment tonight. I have a tendency as soon as a resource is laid in front of me to push it to it's limits. Tonight I was testing a new program, and given only 15 minutes with it I broke it. Then fixed it again, then broke it to the point I will have to start over to properly solve what I was working on. The point is:I want to figure out all something can do, I want to figure it out quickly. Now, it is entirely possible that I have reached the limits of what is possible in the physical world. That is after all why I enjoy programs so much. It's more likely that the answers lie somewhere else.

I've been accepting the answers for what they appear for too long.

1. So what is real anyway?

This is a classic philosophy question and I don't want to get too inky and intellectual about it. For tonight I'll tackle the problem myself. Another day I may read something and bring more evidence.

To begin I think therefor I exist. Which was Descartes' idea. Expanding:
In that I think I sustain a universe(environment) in which the hardware of my brain runs the firmware of my consciousness. My senses and desires drive me to run the software of thought. Which leads into asking questions:
Did I create the(or this) universe?
Unknown. I personally cannot remember coming into existence. Memory is rather fallible as well so I would distrust it even if I did remember. My personal belief is that there is a creator.
What about the outside world?
Indeed, that is the prime question. First off my senses themselves are flawed. I'm slightly deaf in one ear, my eyesight isn't perfect, and my sense of touch is dulled. Further I am told that I suffer from hormonal imbalance which creates additional problems in perceiving the world as it is.

However I propose that perhaps there isn't a world as it is. When I close my eyes I go to an amazing place where I interface with God, my subconscious and memory. Is that any less real? The only evidence one way or another is other's perception. Returning though to the previous point of the fallibility of human senses, why should I trust them?

Every one of us goes through the world gathering memories and experience, forming opinions and influencing others in hundreds of different ways. Every person is born at a different time, has different experiences and sees the world differently. Quantum physics tells us that percieving changes reality. So doesn't it make sense that a person being alive or not would effect not only the world but existence itself.

Even as we speak though millions of eyes are opening, viewing the world for the first time in a new way. At the same time millions are closing, viewing the world for the last time and ending their ride through life.

What really matters? To me? Making God happy and making myself happy. I generally like to make others happy, but it's not essential.
More later, tell me your thoughts thus far.

spiritual desert-the long dryness of the soul

I drank and drank, yet thirsted still. I ate and ate yet my hunger was not satisfied.
I cry out to God, again and again, in the morning and in the night. In panic attacks, in the heat of the day, in the calm of the evening, again and again I bring my plea to God.
I began to troubleshoot my plea. God being perfect the problem MUST have been with my plea.
Could I be greedy? I prayed for his will to be done.
Could I be ungrateful? I prayed for his peace.
Could I be far from his will? I prayed my will be matched to his.
And yet, and yet, agony still.
How is it I am fed and taken care of physically, yet my heart mourns? My mind is stimulated, yet I know in my heart I am not using all my skills....
Then I look up why God doesn't answer prayers, here is a small list:

Reason One: Our Prayers Are Aborted When
They Are Not According To God's Will.

I prayed specifically. Then when I received no word I prayed for God to show me his better idea. It has yet to happen. He is yet to answer.

Reason Two: Our Prayers Can Be Aborted
When They Are Designed To Fulfill An
Inner Lust, Dreams, Or Illusions.

Well, is to be fulfilled an inner lust/dream. I confess, it is a dream of mine that I be put to good use. Yes, it is damn selfish to want to do something worthwhile. What of it? I struggle to find scriptural basis for this.... I struggle though to understand God. To the purpose of not being selfish I prayed to be shown a better plan, as I said it hasn't shown up.

Reason Three: Our Prayers Can Be
Denied When We Show No Diligence
to Assist God In The Answer.

This implies that EITHER: I am to assume his will and act accordingly, or he is to provide me instructions as to what to do. Neither are realistic. When I recieved the vision I did ALL THE FUCKING PREP I COULD. Do you know what I got? DIDDLY. Which is why I prayed for fresh instruction. God knows (literally) when I'll find out about that.

Reason Four: Our Prayers Can Be
Aborted By A Secret Grudge Lodged
In The Heart Against Another.

nope, not that I know of. In this same category is un-forgiven sin. Unless something I'm doing is innately sinful and I don't know.

Reason Five: Our Prayers Can Be
Aborted By Not Expecting Much To
Come Of Them.

Difficult that. The problem is that I am expecting more to come of them than has. I was expecting God to do something... significant. His action (if there is any) so far in regards to my request has been subdued, invisible to the naked eye. What I am saying is that you would have to set up measuring devices to see what has happened, and no one knows what direction to point such devices.

Now of course I don't know what to expect. Obviously I expect things to come or I wouldn't pray.

Reason Six: Our Prayers Are Aborted
When We Ourselves Attempt To
Prescribe How God Should Answer.

Obviously since I said just previously that I don't know what direction to look that I don't know what he's going to do. I have some ideas of what he COULD do. Of course I did make a specific request some time ago... but he's gonna do what he's gonna do. He's god, you know. If he did what I wanted him to do then he'd be me and I'd be him and wouldn't that be a mess? I mean, me, getting what I want, right away? Disaster, obviously. Next thing you know people aren't racist, poverty ends, all kinds of mayhem. I'm just fucking saying that YES, I do have some ideas of what he could do, and those things would improve the situation. I however am not God. Otherwise I wouldn't need to talk to him. Otherwise I wouldn't be in pain.

anger/anxiety realization

I had thought I was over anxiety in that I function without anxiety meds. Lately though I've been noticing that I'm really easy to set off. It isn't that I sit around hating people. Honestly I'm doing my best to just let things go. Yet when I'm sick like this... it seems like I'm angry all the time.

Maybe anger isn't what I think it is. I had thought that if I didn't blame anyone for what bothers me... I wouldn't be angry. That isn't true though. Even though I know that others aren't to blame, at least not in a productive way, I'm not satisfied. I don't know how I'm supposed to be satisfied with this. Honestly, being satisfied with the crap in my life would feel sicker than being pissed. 

as to why

So for those who don't know, I've been having a down few days. I just put my head down and worked through the week. There are reasons:
1: Legitimate and reasonable depression: Things have been tough lately. I'm working my ass off and don't get to enjoy the rewards. I've been waiting for direction from God which means letting go of what I thought he had planned for me.
2: Weather: it is hot and humid here. It has not dropped below a feeling of 100 for more than a week. Worse is that the drugs that allow me to function include heat sensitivity. Which leads to-
3: withdrawal symptoms: I've reduced and almost dropped caffeine for more than a week, it has poor effects to heat sensitivity. I didn't take my ADD meds for 7 days for the same reasons (my doctor said if I could live without it, to live without it during the heat. So energy is way down. Also initiative, hope, productivity, need I go on? Unfortunately my productivity boost I had been getting was negated by the heat, so it's a wash when I do take my meds.

I think that covers it. I'm not writing like I did for those reasons. I don't know when I will be better. Probably September. Which is also when I reach my year mark for my proof I can do without smoking, so I have a cigar coming then as well.