Based Love.

Mormonism.

Last night I thought about God again.

I was sitting in my chair, contemplating, as usual.  This time, my thoughts turned backwards in time, to the days in which I was one with God.  I thought about all the time and energy I had spent developing a relationship with Him--countless hours of prayer, scripture reading, and meditation.  I was great.  I was serious.  I was holy.

Then what happened?  I started searching inwards for truth rather than just in the holy books.  I started listening to my own reason.  I started to doubt.

Doubt is a slippery slope indeed.

Last night I began to yearn for God.

I thought about how much security God provided me.  He gave me the surety of the immortality of my soul: that this life is not all there is.  He gave me a clear path to follow.  Most importantly, He gave me the surety that I would be able to see my grandparents again.

My grandparents.  I love them more than anything (except my family that's still here).  I would give up everything if I could have the chance to see them one more time.  That being said, I can't even imagine how I'll feel when a closer family member dies... I really don't want to experience that pain.  That pain, coupled with a lack of faith in the hereafter, will be the hardest trial of my life, by far.

I am not nearly as scared of my own death as I am of the death of a family member.

Last night I saw God.

In the midst of what I know is now the deepest I've ever meditated on the existence of God and the truthfulness of the Mormon Church, I was overcome with an immense power that literally squeezed tears from my unfaithful eyes.  Before, I would have said this feeling was the Spirit, and that it was testifying to me the truthfulness of the Gospel.  This time, I cannot tell.  I want it to be the Spirit.  I want it more than anything in the world.  But I know I don't believe.  I know I can't believe, at least not now.  It's too confusing for me.  I cannot lie to myself, even though I would love more than anything to be able to.  I absolutely approve of any other person's conversion to Mormonism except my own.

I was suddenly back in my room in my parent's house, weeping like a baby while reading 3rd Nephi.  Feeling the love of God surround me like an eternal blanket.  Safe, secure, peaceful.

I've felt my grandparent's spirits before.  Or at least I've thought I have.  I don't know now.  I wish I could say I have.  I wish I could say that they're still there, somewhere, looking down and loving me and calling me back to God.  I wish it more than anything in the world.

I wish everyone could see their grandparents again.

I don't believe that they're not there.  Thank God I'm not a complete atheist.  I don't believe in God, but I also do not not believe in Him, if that makes sense.  I don't believe in Mormonism because of logic.  But I want to believe because of my desires.

"Families can be together forever."  The most beautiful idea ever crafted by man.

Things Kids Say.

"TIMMYCHONGA!"

"It's Tiiiiiiimmmmmmyyyyyyy!"

*walking in front of a group of his groupmates* "My boys!"

"Tim, why are you always here?"

"Beedo is a bad word.  Anything that has an "ee" and an "o" is a bad word."
"Ee-ai-ee-ai-o!"

"________, did you tap her shoulder?"
*shaking with rage* "NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

"The Incredible Hulk is like ______; he gets mad at the tiniest things."
*shaking with rage* "NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

"_______, please get off me."
"But I like you so much!"

"Tim, can I be in your group?"

"Can I climb Tim mountain?"

"Hi ______.  Under my umberella!"
"I still don't get it."

"Daddy!"

"This is my meteor-right.  It only goes right."

"Where's my flip flops?"

"Where's my clip clops?"

"Tim, where were you??  You're always late!"

"That is like offering someone ice-cream, then slapping them in the face."
"Do you want some ice-cream?"

"Tim, you can do better."

"Tim, remember what I said."
"Yes, I know.  I can do better."

"Guys, what's the most important rule of legos?"
"No biting."

"What's wrong?"
"Society has failed me once again.  People are so incompetent!  INCOMPETENT!"

______ singing the National Anthem.

Anything ______ says.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I get to hear things like this everyday.  My job is the greatest in the world.  Seeing and talking to all the kids is such a great privilege and responsibility.  There is just so much positive vibes and energy.  It's so easy to love those kids.  If only that was the case with adults.

Drunkenness.

I'm going to be ok, right?

Yes, of course you'll be ok.  Don't worry, everything will be all right.  Just rest and you'll feel all better in a short while.

Lies.

It won't be ok.  You'll survive this night, but it will still hurt.  It will always hurt.  No matter how happy you are, no matter how good you feel, this pain will always be present in your psyche.  Deep down, like the pit of a cherry.

I'm so tired.  Ever since he puked all over my floor I've been tired.  Real life smacked me in the face and I had to take responsibility.  I'm not scared of trouble; I'm only scared of causing other people pain. If all that happened was a slap on the wrist, I would be fine: it's the knowledge of disappointment that knaws at my soul.

I want other people to feel safe.  I want the world to be a safe world for everybody.  Safety means trust.  It means that a person can trust another not to harm them physically, emotionally, or spiritually.  Life has order and there is nothing to fear.

That's why I strive to do good.  Not because I want to please anyone--but because I don't want to be the cause of anyone's displeasure.  I want my existence to validate a person's sense of security in this world: that people can be trusted and that they will be taken care of.

So that's the ideal I follow when a boy pukes all over my parent's carpet.  I will take any punishment my parents deem fit to dole out upon me, my ass is exposed.  I just care about the boy and his health.  If it need be, I will let my parents know that I had alcohol at the house when they were away.  I do not keep secrets if they need to be exposed.

The smell of vomit fills the air.  I begin to have a headache--maybe the first signs of a looming hangover.  How much did I drink?  I don't know--it was enough to feel the heavens and leave the earth far below for a couple of hours.  Was it worth it?  The few hours of elation for the toxins that accompany it?  Well, yes it is worth it.  I learn so much from it.  I learn abandonment and bliss.  No worries.  All over the place.  How things should be.  How things should never be for long.  Drunkedness is a blessing and a curse.  If experienced rarely, it gives insight into the most beautiful forms of being; if experienced too frequently, it can become a crutch and lead to illusionment and sorrow.

Charlie's fine.  He's young and learning.  The body is an amazing thing, and so smart!  It rejects that which is wrong for us.  If only our minds could do the same.

a bear with a fish in its mouth.

A bear catches a fish,
and the river flows beneath it.
I suffer a great sorrow,
and the world continues to turn.

A bear with a fish in its mouth.
An ego under a mountain of suffering.

Which is greater?  Which is more worthy?

Those who suffer are ignorant.  They are ignorant of the Greater Knowledge, of the Tao.  They are the ones with eyes to see, yet are blind--with ears to hear, yet are deaf.  They are the seekers who will never find.  The finder never seeks.  The Greater Knowledge is spontaneous.  It cannot be grasped and will only slip through you fingers if you try.  It is there, ever present, ever friendly, ever waiting.  It is nowhere, ever elusive, ever malicious, ever fleeing.  Good and evil.  Yin and yang.  Nirvana.

Experiential.  That is the key.  All your intellectual exercises and hours of deliberation will get you no closer to the Greater Knowledge.  Only experience will bring you close.

Rule of thumb: Be humble!  You know nothing.  You are nothing.  Accept that and let go.  Let go of ego, etc.  Give yourself to no ideology, god, or man.  Accept the merit of ideas, but never believe in them.  Engage in intellectual exercises and debate, but remain one step removed.  Be God.  Accept the paradox of your own insignificant nothingness and the fact that you are God Himself.  It is only when you have reached the very deepest level of the Void that you will know this.  It is only when you have reached the very deepest level of the Void that all will become light, and the darkness will disperse.

This is the demolition of ego.  Retain individual identity--be yourself--but be humble!  Once you have killed God, so to speak, your soul will be open to the sincerity of a spontaneous existence.

A side-note on the "death of God":  The death of God is, superficially, a completely atheistical concept, BUT it is not as opposed to theism as you would think.  It is, on a deeper level, an abandonment of ego itself.  For what is a better representation of man's ego-centric view of the world than his creation of a God?  Man placed himself in the center of the cosmos when he created the gods.  He established himself as the chosen species.  The Israelites went so far as to believe themselves to be the chosen PEOPLE.  The god-creators fulfilled a great need that virtually every person experiences--that of existential meaning--but they also created much bigger problems because by filling that need they made it valid, relevant, and ever-permeating.  The need for existential meaning is, by my assumptions, the very root of all egoism and the cause of most of the anxiety which the Western world faces every day.

On the other hand, rather, in the other hemisphere, the East has handled the problem of existential anxiety in a very different way--by calling it stupid.  More exactly, they have broadly defined all of existence to be "suffering."  Now, this can be--and for the most part has been--literally interpreted, and as a result many people subscribing to Eastern thought have turned to lives of asceticism in order to "escape" the body.  However, if taken with a grain of salt and Taoist philosophy, the "suffering" that the Buddha talks about becomes nothing more than an expression of the absurdity of life itself.  This absurdity is manifested in the petty sufferings that man goes through every day in the broader context of the great eternal scheme of things.  In this context, even the most horrific acts of human atrocity are reduced to insignificance.  For those of more philosophic temperaments, this is an absolutely relevant issue, and requires a solution of sorts.  This is exactly the crisis of existential meaning every intelligent human being experiences.  As mentioned above, the West has reacted to this problem with the creation of gods, goddesses, and other imaginary ideals, and the East has solved it by resorting to reductio ad absurdum and admitting that the question is unanswerable in any intellectually significant way.  Either way, the problem has been addressed adequately enough that most of the population, East and West, are able to move along with their lives and direct their attentions towards more intellectually appropriate and socially important things--like politics.

Ok, the two preceding paragraphs definitely could be more organized, but give me a break--I'm making this up as I go.  Maybe I'll revise it later, but for now, whatevs.

Most of my small audience believes in God, and I respect that.  I would not change that belief if I could, and I encourage everyone to explore and learn and grow in their own ways, and in their own faiths.  My truth that I preach is mine, and I like it.  You don't have to, and I'm open to criticism because I enjoy being proved wrong even more than being proved right.  I, unlike so many on this beautiful planet, have acquired the ability to laugh at myself.

A bear loses a battle
and walks away in shame.
A boy makes a mistake
and loses himself in laughter.

A bear walking in shame.
A boy shaking in laughter.

Which is greater?  Which is more worthy?

Man alone determines his own fate.  Man alone can choose his own course.  Man alone can laugh at his own follies.  Man is greater.  Man is more worthy.

We are Man.

The Black Beetle

I see the long black beetle climb the freshly painted bamboo, and I wonder.

Why does it climb?

I see a small friend slip, struggle, and fall before he reaches the top, and I wonder.

Why did he fall?

I pull my sore body back onto the freshly painted bamboo, look up, and I wonder.

What's at the top?

Oreo.

They're putting our dog down right now.  I knew this would happen, and I'm not gonna say I didn't know it was gonna be this hard, because I know it's so much harder for so many others.  A few tears, a few sobs--these never hurt anybody.  I don't have a fancy photo montage or anything like that to commemorate his memory, and I won't sit here and say he was "the best dog ever" or "one of my best friends."  I honestly didn't appreciate him as much as many dog owners appreciate their own dogs.  He was just kinda there.  But hey, I loved him.  I'll miss him.  I'll miss seeing his sorry butt sunbathing out on the lone patch of grass in our backyard, like nothing was wrong with the world--even towards the end, when he was getting real bad, he could still be seen at least once a day just enjoying life like nobody's business out in the sun.  Just yesterday he was barking at a damn cat in the backyard.  He showed me--no matter how little I payed attention to him, how little I gave him walks or cared to even play with him--he showed me that life was too good to fret about the small things.  That no matter what our condition, or how bad we feel on one level, we can still be happy and live a pure existence.

But aside from all that philosophical mumbo-jumbo, there's really only one thing to say of any importance: Oreo was a dog, and he Lived.

Goodbye dumb animal, I love you.