joy-loss

I've had a realization of the most obvious yet horrifying kind. Mankind is disgusting and evil. This is the sort of disillusionment those greater than me have endured but not survived, for I have seen them carry it to its seemingly logical extension of understanding. But I am not prepared to accept nihilism as the final conclusion to my despair. Nonetheless, something must be done, intellectually and practically speaking. For not moving beyond this realization through understanding and applying it in some way results in paralysis. And to ignore it or pretend it is not reality is to live a life not worth a breath or a moment.

Man is essentially evil and depraved. This is a biblical reality I have always accepted. Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection is the only remedy. This is a biblical reality I have always known. But in moments when considering daily relationships, daily life, what are we to do? That Christ's redemptive power is whole and complete, I cannot dispute, but even believers are left in their sinful nature and, indeed, they dwell in it more naturally and consistently than in their redeemed state.

All humans are self-centered, greedy, and deceitful. I myself act in my own best interest, at the expense of any and all others, 99.9999999% of the time, and even those rare acts of sacrifice are not without personal gain. So who is to be trusted? What are relationships but mansions built on fragments? For nothing can be known or believed. The truth is entrenched, buried beneath the dark nasty stuff of our self and desires. How is intimacy even possible? Purity is fraud. Honesty is falsehood. Relationship is farce. And even in the midst of those whom we think we love and who think they love, we are isolated and alone, apart from anything real or true. When you say you love me, you mean that you want me to love you, or you love it when I love you, or you love the feeling you get when you say you love me. Likewise when I say I love you, I mean that I love being a lover, or I love the way you make me feel or I love it when you find me your lover. When you tell me fact, is that truth? What are you hoping that I will not discover or suspect? What am I hoping that I have concealed from you with no seams?

I feel that a deep and dark shadow has enveloped my world, your world. My idealism and hope have been suffocated, dashed against the jagged rocks of the known unknowable nature of reality. I wander about in a permanently precarious state, knowing the evil of my own heart and how it pervades my every action and also the evil in every heart of every man. I would willingly give my life so that you may find me a martyr. I would willingly give my house so that you may call me a saint. I would willingly post this blog so that you may call me enlightened. I would willingly bare my soul so that you may call me deep and chaste. And yet in so doing, I am none of those things. And I ask, how could you be also? I am not better than you, most certainly, but neither am I worse. And so there are no heroes; there can be no heroes. Any belief otherwise is willful idealism and self-deceit. So now I just want to be alone in my confusion and unsurety.

note: i found this unpublished post of mine from about a year back and thought it worth putting up. even though i am currently in a better place, i still believe and remember these feelings. there seems to be something beautiful and hopeful in them. perhaps you will agree.