2/6/2003

It’s just after 8:00AM and I’m having Spicy Cajun Pringles for breakfast and waiting for my car to warm up (cause it’s like -13 outside).

Yes, today is the day of the pastor meeting. I kinda wish I wasn’t so used to just saying yes to people all the time, cause I really have no desire to talk to this guy. He’s not a bad guy or anything, but I know what the subject of the talk is going to be; me and God. I really do get tired of people trying to save me because it’s like waving food in front of a starving guy who has no arms and saying, “C’mon, you just gotta take it!”

Well since I can’t believe (I don’t know why, but I can’t) I guess I’m the starving guy without arms.

Hopefully I’ll be able to eat quick, thank him for the meal, and leave.

Anywhose, last night I was digging through some files on my computer and found something I wrote back on July 15th, 2001. Here it is.

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Everyone on earth has problems. The problems all have different degrees and different effects, but everyone has them. In fact, many people have problems that are so dominating that they can’t get away from them.

This has been true ever since the beginning of time; and ever since the beginning of time people have tried to cure themselves and others of these problems. But the thing I realized is, not a person on earth can cure anyone of anything.

Medical problems can only be temporarily stopped, but no one has ever been able to conquer all the physical ills that plague our race. But then again, why would anyone ever want to live forever anyway?

If we go into the area of psychological problems, there is no difference. People cannot be cured of anything. Counseling, therapy, lifestyle changes, medications, etc. all only do one thing-they refocus the attention of the patient so that they don’t notice the problem so much. And they keep pushing the person’s focus further and further away until they think that they’re cured, but in fact the problem is still there just as much as it ever was-it’s just laying dormant for a time.

Social problems are no different. Human beings are constantly tearing down the moral fabric that governs them, and we always have been. Occasionally, something will happen, or a group of people will bring about some extraordinary patch-up to what is left of that fabric, but it only lasts for a season.

People have turned to religion for help but as time has shown, no one has ever really had any idea what is going on. All through time (even to the present day), people have had such firm convictions that they were right in their opinions about god, and life, and death, and how to solve their problems the “spiritual way” that they have been, and are, willing to die for their beliefs. But if a person tries long enough, they can find holes in the stories of even the most convincing religions (or the ones we most want to have be true).

People tried philosophy and “higher thinking” in an effort to make them more intellectual and put them a little higher up than everyone else, only to find that they spent all their time climbing a ladder with nothing at the top. Eventually, all those well-respected “intellectuals” ended up back at the bottom again.

People have tried to keep themselves busy, hoping to somehow stay busy enough to not have time to think about their troubles, but eventually the body demands rest (and will get it in one way or another). Then, they are forced to confront the very thing they’ve been working so hard at pretending was not there.

People tried turning to the government to solve their problems, but realized that the introduction of the government as “savior” only brought an entirely new set of problems in and added them to the ones already there.

People have pursued knowledge in an attempt to find some answer or solution, but even after landing on the moon, splitting the atom, and manipulating the very building blocks of life as we know it, not a single soul who has walked this earth has ever found the answers.

So what can ever be done? I honestly don’t think anything can.

Personally, I choose to do anything and everything I can to pretend that things are fine. I feel a bit like Cypher from The Matrix who would rather choose a dream world that doesn’t suck quite as bad than to be totally aware of just how shitty the truth is.

So I escape. Be it alcohol, entertainment, inside my imagination, etc. I know some day reality will slap me in the face to the point that I won’t be able to ignore it any more, but at least I can have a little peace of mind before it happens.

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ALright, I gotta go try and get my brother’s friend out of our ditch and get off to work.

“We’re on a bullet and we’re headed straight into God,

Maybe he’d like to end it too…”= Marilyn Manson