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Archive for February, 2005
Life is usually better inside my head.
In here, I can usually convince myself that when pretty girls look at me in restaurants they are noticing my wonderful taste in clothing and my pretty green eyes, and are going back to their table to whisper and point me out to their girlfriends. In here, I can usually be Mr. Brightside and focus my attention on the things that matter, the things that are good and beautiful and (at least to my knowledge) true. In here, I can usually be anything, anyone; a rock star or a songwriter, a Grammy winner, a popular, well-liked individual.
I’m currently reading Douglas Coupland’s Life After God and for a whole section in this book, he envisions nuclear holocaust and what it looks like from about 10 different people’s perspectives. It’s a “I was at the mall with my kids, saw the blinding flash of light, then watched as people standing outside the Gap’s skin began to peel off from the heat” kind of thing. Seriously, like 10 times he does this to 10 people in 10 different places. It’s nauseating and compelling and repulsive and fascinating and, for some reason, you can’t stop reading it. I’m not sure why it’s even in there, honestly; I think Coupland is maybe trying to prove to the world that he’s completely neurotic and totally OK with that.
But I finished reading this section and I felt sick. And not just because of the skin thing; it was somewhere deeper than that. I felt like everything was broken, like there was a terrible curse that somehow befell us all, and that suddenly, for the first time maybe, I realized I was in on it - that I was cursed, too. Nothing was right anymore, it all felt wrong. I was sad and angry and even the sunshine looked sinister.
I realized that there was a conflict in the way I knew God, but that wasn’t the result, really, just a side effect. But it was a big side effect.
Being raised an evangelical christian-type, it seems like I often thought I was somehow granted some kind of diplomatic immunity from all this normal people trouble, just because I believed certain things. Like I was one of those psycho terrorists in a movie from another country who came to America to move drugs or something, and there was nothing anybody could do about it because I was a diplomat. But it’s not true anymore, and I don’t suppose it ever really was.
The conflict happens for me because I really am very confused right now. You should know that I’m one of those crazy people that believes things happen for a reason; that somehow there’s a bigger story of human history being written I’m playing a part in. And I kind of like that idea. I also tend to think we can more or less understand what our part is, and that’s the component of me that’s confused right now, because this isn’t working out at all like I thought it would. When I left the radio station back in Sept/Oct of last year, I thought there’d be something else. Sure, I might have to seek it out, but I’m a hard worker, a “go-getter” as they so eloquently say, and so I didn’t think it’d be any problem. But there hasn’t been anything. Not only that, but I’ve been constantly and consistently rejected for everything I’ve applied for. What does that mean? Well, for me, it meant that I was wrong. Something about the way I understood the story, life, and God was/is clearly WRONG.
That’s OK with me, I suppose; I can usually admit when I’m wrong, but these deep philosophical tenets that hold the framework of my sanity all together… well, it smarts when they get fractured.
I’m still trying to work this mess out. I’ll let you know when God sends me an email and explains it all.
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Just like everybody else, I suppose, I have good days and bad days. When I woke up this morning, I was pretty sure this one would be of the “bad” variety. I don’t really know what cosmic force determines what type of day I’m to have, or if it’s simply my own attitude/outlook/perspective, but right now I’m not sure it even matters, because today isn’t looking so hot.
I got back yesterday from my very quick trip to South Dakota for my Grandpa’s funeral, which was Saturday. Like I thought it would be, it was as good as can be expected, although I must say it was harder for my family than I anticipated. I still have a hard time being sad about this, for the reasons I explained in the last entry, and because however cliche, I do think he must be in a better place than the place he was in on this planet, which was, frankly, horrible.
Family, especially extended family, gives off this frustrating aura of paradox, because they’re your family (thus implying that you should be very close to them, emotionally and otherwise), but I know for a fact that most people’s families aren’t so much like this. Mine is no different. I’m at these large gatherings feeling like I should be able to share my soul with these people; that, of all people on earth, these people of flesh and blood relation should understand where I’m coming from. But they don’t. They’re just like everybody else, too, and they want to talk about themselves. And it ends up being a bunch of “small talk” everywhere: in the corners, around the dinner table, in the cars around town.
I’m not sure how “small talk” evolved or if it has always existed, but a critical point within it is always about your job, or what you “do.” Since I do, effectively, nothing, I had the pleasure of being reminded of this fact — by myself, of all people — about 36 billion times over the 27 hours I was there. And you know, everyone’s really positive about it and everyone says that they’ve “been there,” but nobody seems to remember how terribly frustrating it is to hear 36 billion people tell you 36 billion times that they’ve all, apparently, “been there.” And that “something will come up.”
“Well, Mr. Smarty-Relative, since you seem to know so clearly that ’something will come up,’ perhaps you also know WHEN that might be? Because if you’ve got some kind of exclusive connection to the meaning behind all this, I’m going to be very upset that you’ve been holding out on me.”
And that’s what I say in my head. 36 billion times. While, at the same time, making small talk. Like most of us, probably, I’m horribly efficient at maintaining a glorious facade of contentment while the hope inside me gets surreptitiously chipped away like Tim Robbins digging his hole through the wall of Shawshank.
And I keep yearning for the day when I can look back at this entry and say to myself, “Wow, Josh, you were a total MESS back then!” And then I’ll laugh, because I’ve put it all behind me, locked up in jars on the shelf, as unmemorable and pointless as all the small talk.
If you liked that, then try these…
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I just found out that my Grandpa died this morning. It’s really OK, though; I mean, as OK as it can be. Death always seems misaligned with reality to me, like it’s just really not supposed to happen. But if it ever can be appropriate, in this sense it really is. Grandpa was mid-nineties and has been sick for years, literally. Since he got old-sick, he’s been diminishingly communicative and but a shell of his former energetic, beautiful self (which is true; I’m not sure I’ve ever met a person more beautiful or as much like Jesus as my Grandpa). In any case, he’s not here (in the traditional sense, at least) anymore, and I think that’s OK, because I think he must be somewhere else. Where, really, I’m not sure, but I’ll bet it’s somewhere nice, with a pretty view out the window and lots of steak for dinner.
I can’t help thinking sometimes that some time periods have it better than others. What I mean is that, like with death for example, back even a couple hundred years ago people weren’t nearly as removed from the idea of death as we are now, in America. I’m also sure that there are places in the world right now, as I write, who are in very near proximity to death, spatially. But in any case, I’m definitely not whenever/wherever that is, and I wonder sometimes if our technology and individualization of quite damn near every service known to humankind (e.g., mortuary services) has done us a disservice in terms of our construction of reality. Like maybe we would have a better grip on what life is about if we had to deal with things like death more hands-on, more personally. Not that I really want to, mind you, I just wonder about these things.
But then I’m pretty sure that time periods and geographic locations aren’t superior or inferior, just different. I tend to consider anything I’m involved with, anything I participate in, any time period I’m in — anything I put the official Josh-Allan-Seal-Of-Approval on — (obviously) better than everything else. It’s just the way I think. The thing is, though, I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking. I’ll bet your friends do it, I’ll bet your parents do it, maybe you even do it: live in this highly evolved, self-absorbed mindset.
I guess I’m just still very much high on this notion of brokenness in people. We are a pretty fucked up bunch, if we’re being honest.
And why is it at this point in my writing that I feel I need to offer some answer, some conclusion? I sure don’t have any answers, just ideas. And I find myself not as concerned with whether my ideas are right or wrong anymore, but I sure do hope they’re meaningful. In any case, there’s either something clearly wrong with me that I desire resolution so badly, or maybe that’s another thing we’ve got in common, you and I.
I hope it’s the case that we’re all seeking an interpretation, an explanation, of this mess; it sure would make me feel a lot less lonely right now.
If you liked that, then try these…
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I wish I could say this post is about me coming back from Hawaii or something glamorous like that, because I’m feeling a bit cold (and weather.com says it’s 73 degrees in Honolulu right now), but unfortunately it’s just the title of a new song.
At least, I suppose, the guy in the song gets to go to Hawaii. But it’s just not the same, you know?
Hawaii is basically a story about a guy who runs away from love and finally stops running, only to find that love has passed him by. It’s a real feel-good song, just not at all. I deliberately wrote it as a juxtaposition of happy and sad, somewhat bittersweet, because obviously that’s what love is. The way it works is that guitar riff is funky and fun but the story is really quite sad. It almost contradicts itself, but I like that about it. I mean, do we even need to talk about how much humans contradict themselves?
Love seems so complex, so indefinable and unexplainable to me that it’s no wonder probably millions upon millions of songs have been (and even more will be) written about this “one” subject. Crazy.
If you liked that, then try these…
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About 10 minutes ago, I just finished a new song called “Broken.” You’re all probably sick to death of my whining about my unemployment and how friggin’ miserable I am, and I really do understand, but I’m just not through it yet so I’m not going to stop telling. (Sorry.)
I’ve been utterly convinced lately that there is something broken about humanity that must explain all of this pain; ’cause we’re all in pain, even when we’re not, you know? It’s like Donald Miller says in his book Searching For God Knows What — there’s this longing for approval in all of us which is why we try so hard to be cool, to be popular, to get people to like us. It’s maybe the most real thing there is — we, quite literally, need it. And I’m not talking about “need” like I “need” pizza or I “need” sex. What I mean is that when we were pieced together, however that works, we were made with a piece of something that requires this sense of approval from something/someone else. Don explains this concept in much more detail in the book, but that’s the basic idea (so far, anyway - I’m only through chapter seven).
But the thing is, Don also asserts that he thinks this approval we’re all missing is supposed to come from God. I know when we start talking about this shadowy figure, “God,” we all have different pictures of what that means, who he/she might be, etc. But this God that Mr. Miller describes is a big — no, mammoth — God who escapes all definition and is eminently shrouded in mystery. This God is huge and unpredictable and not safe — but good. Above everything else, possibly, God is good. And God likes me. Seriously.
So anyway, this thing that got broken with all of us happened a long time ago with Adam & Eve and what Christians call “The Fall,” which is really just the first people acting like all people do today — doing our own thing in our own way, when we want and how we want. We’re really asses, if you think about it. So, these first people messed up, and somehow our connection - our internal approval - got broken. Not taken away entirely, just broken. It’s not like it used to be, and really can’t be, because if God really is God, then by definition he/she must not have cohorts like us (messy and broken don’t really work with perfect and transcendent), which is why there enters all this talk about a “savior” because I guess we need to be saved from this emptiness and this constant need for approval which we’re never gonna get from other people.
I suppose I agree with this - it makes the most sense of anything I’ve heard. I’m still trying to figure it all out, but I suppose we all are, and I suppose that’s OK. All I know is that I feel pretty broken myself most of the time.
And you know, I didn’t do a very good job of explaining my thoughts, and I don’t really want to write a whole book on this blog, so if you’re intrigued, post a comment, we’ll talk. Or check out Don’s book — he’s an excellent writer.
Until next time…
NOTE:
(The concepts found in this post contributed strongly to the writing in my first book, blur: finding jesus in a fuzzy world. Download your free copy here!)
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