Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Breaking the Law
Hoo, boy. My mood just collapsed this afternoon, and after that the Snark-O-Meter headed for the sky. As usual, I didn't want to know why.
God has infiltrated my life so much now, though, that the separation hurts. People talk about dark nights of the soul, and I think I'm beginning to get the picture. It isn't that God turns from me, but that I try to hold the door closed against him.
And I had some things to do when I got home, so the distraction continued. I almost got run over by an idiot driver, but why mention that? Daily occurrence in L. A. so that no one notices, including the idiot drivers who almost run people over.
Finally I got a chance to be quiet. Where? In the shower, as usual. Nothing to do but wash the day's sweat off, and wonder why I washed off a better mood earlier.
Happiness is against the law. It brings attention to me. And it's against the Christian law, too. How many times have we all heard the statements about happiness not being the reason for life, and if you go looking for happiness you won't find it, and suchlike. The implication is that happiness itself is a Problem.
Well, I solved that problem by cutting it off. God is trying to teach me to allow it. It's an uphill battle.
I've been feeling pretty good of late. I know that feeling good isn't the reason for living, but life is far more enjoyable when I feel good than when I feel bad. Seems pretty basic. To me it isn't. This is advanced life management, I guess, and deals with things I thought I'd never need. But it turns out that life without happiness is pretty close to death.
Of course, an ability to feel happiness brings with it the ability to feel other and less pleasant things. To me the trade-0ff was worth it because of the vanishingly small chance of ever feeling real happiness that would stay for longer than a few seconds.
So, some echo of the old Junkyard Dog, or his more powerful cousin who has a death grip on the emotion controls, just pulled the switch and it felt as if the bottom went out from under me. In the old days I'd have panicked and ... well, in the old days it never woud have happened. There wouldn't have been a switch to pull, most of the time. In the few times I did lose touch with the bottom, I just closed up and prepared to survive the fall. Now... the floor disappears but I don't fall. I look down, nothing there, start running, but it's different.
Habit dies hard. At least this time it only took me a few hours to realize what I was doing and let the door swing open. This kind of thing must make God very sad: He knows what I need, is prepared to give it to me... and I hold his hand away. He tries to feed me but what he's holding looks, in these scared moments, like poison. Anything looks like poison. Gargh. I wonder why he's not sick of me.
But, damn, I'm sick of laws. Some laws make great sense: Don't run stop signs, don't rob banks, etc. Other laws make no sense: you may not feel this because it'll make you weak, you can't enjoy life, you must be hard as stone. I want to break some laws. I wish changing my soul were as easy as jaywalking.
God has infiltrated my life so much now, though, that the separation hurts. People talk about dark nights of the soul, and I think I'm beginning to get the picture. It isn't that God turns from me, but that I try to hold the door closed against him.
And I had some things to do when I got home, so the distraction continued. I almost got run over by an idiot driver, but why mention that? Daily occurrence in L. A. so that no one notices, including the idiot drivers who almost run people over.
Finally I got a chance to be quiet. Where? In the shower, as usual. Nothing to do but wash the day's sweat off, and wonder why I washed off a better mood earlier.
Happiness is against the law. It brings attention to me. And it's against the Christian law, too. How many times have we all heard the statements about happiness not being the reason for life, and if you go looking for happiness you won't find it, and suchlike. The implication is that happiness itself is a Problem.
Well, I solved that problem by cutting it off. God is trying to teach me to allow it. It's an uphill battle.
I've been feeling pretty good of late. I know that feeling good isn't the reason for living, but life is far more enjoyable when I feel good than when I feel bad. Seems pretty basic. To me it isn't. This is advanced life management, I guess, and deals with things I thought I'd never need. But it turns out that life without happiness is pretty close to death.
Of course, an ability to feel happiness brings with it the ability to feel other and less pleasant things. To me the trade-0ff was worth it because of the vanishingly small chance of ever feeling real happiness that would stay for longer than a few seconds.
So, some echo of the old Junkyard Dog, or his more powerful cousin who has a death grip on the emotion controls, just pulled the switch and it felt as if the bottom went out from under me. In the old days I'd have panicked and ... well, in the old days it never woud have happened. There wouldn't have been a switch to pull, most of the time. In the few times I did lose touch with the bottom, I just closed up and prepared to survive the fall. Now... the floor disappears but I don't fall. I look down, nothing there, start running, but it's different.
Habit dies hard. At least this time it only took me a few hours to realize what I was doing and let the door swing open. This kind of thing must make God very sad: He knows what I need, is prepared to give it to me... and I hold his hand away. He tries to feed me but what he's holding looks, in these scared moments, like poison. Anything looks like poison. Gargh. I wonder why he's not sick of me.
But, damn, I'm sick of laws. Some laws make great sense: Don't run stop signs, don't rob banks, etc. Other laws make no sense: you may not feel this because it'll make you weak, you can't enjoy life, you must be hard as stone. I want to break some laws. I wish changing my soul were as easy as jaywalking.
# posted by Larry @ 18:57 
