A life of worth

I hear the words. I want what's right. I hear about all of the warmth and light that supposedly comes from God. I bend my prideful knees to pray, but the words ring false in my ears. I want good things, it true. But the voice of the burning woman echoes in my mind. The smiling monsters linger behind my eyes as I try and cry to the God that created them.
I muster up the faith I need in order to see the miracles that will confirm my faith. But maybe I do not have enough. Maybe the miracles do not exist. I do not know. I do not know the difference anymore. They cite and quote and preach at me, throwing words like daggers, shoving sugary scriptures down my throat, thick and numbing like a syrup. I want to believe. I try and turn off my brain, bar the thoughts that scream "no" and accept the illogical, rely on faith.
I can't. I'm not strong enough. I don't have the faith. I am faithless. Godless.
"We must be worthy!" They howl and throw their arms to the skies, proclaiming their own filth. "We are not worthy!" They moan and rub their faces into the dirt. Without the help of the divine, they will never know how to love who they are. Will never believe they are worthy.
They see me. I stand straight and tall. I know nothing, but want everything. I believe not what they believe. I believe that I am good. Worthy. They spit on me. As they smile. Their hands pull on my clothing, beckoning me to the dirt.
"It is a sin to love yourself." They croon and tears stream down my cheeks. I want to be worthy. But not this way. Not in the grime and the muck. I am reaching for the skies. The stars are my goal. How can I reach them by groveling in the mud? I do not understand. Neither do the bodies flopping in the grime.
This is my crime. I want goodness. As they teach. But I am incapable of understanding their methods. Why can I achieve nothing on my own? Why can nothing come of my own hard work? I cannot lean unto my own understanding? But what of my understanding of God? If I am a vessel of Godliness, can I not lean unto my own reason, my own judgement. My own light?
They groan like corpses animated with something other than life. If they are the worthy ones then let me be damned. Mine is a philosophy of living. I do not worship those who are already dead. Who have chosen never to live for themselves at all.
I will not live a half life. My soul aches for the comfort of divinity, but I know no God could love a creature such as I have become. I need no God. I ask none for help. I want no Heavenly aid. I seek only my own life. I love only my own life. The people around me are beyond my help. They are all as the burning woman, sacrificing themselves upon the alters of the supposedly divine. I cannot. Pride prevents me from committing such self immolation.
So with tears in my eyes and an aching heart, I will leave it all behind. The bodies groping blindly in the dark after their faith, crawling on their bellies like starving savages, are not mine to save. They have made their choice.
And this is mine. I chose to live. For me. For those I love. I chose to be myself and to exist in happiness and joy until the end of my days. I reject guilt and shame as unholy and profane. I demand nothing of anyone but their own worthiness. Worthy of themselves. Worthy of their potential.
So with my head held high, I forsake Heaven and all it's commands. I will not live a life of endless debt. I will pay the price myself and live for no other purpose than my own joy in this life. My happiness as a means and end above that which they preach. Above the stars, knowing I have every ability to reach them and beyond. Above a God that would limit my life to the earth in exchange for some pretended reward.
With my head held high, I choose to be good. I choose to desire that which is right. Worthy of it all. I will live my life in such a way that no God could command otherwise.

Good enough

-Ramblings from a month ago. Feelings remain relatively the same.-

So what is this? Am I not fucking good enough for God? A creation that he forgot? An unfinished story shut in a drawer to be continued never? A black sheep that wandered too often and too far?
Clearly, something in this equation is wrong. If God exists then where is he?
If he exists then he's left me.
Better not to believe. Better that I grow up and grow out of this faith.
I must take arms against this rejection by deity. This fairytale cannot be allowed to control my life, cannot be allowed to continue.
I wanted to believe. I desired that faith.
I sat and watched as others received answers, as the same seeds that I have watered with my tears, grew orchards for those around me. "Faith." They promised me. "You're seeds will grow. Ours did. ours have."
Guilt and doubt filled the space that I had cleared for my faith.
I have been promised.
I have been lied to.
Am I not fucking good enough for God?
My saving grace, my creator, my Heavenly Father and friend?
Better to believe in myself.
I exist.
Santa Clause will not bring me what I need each December, and God will not say a word.
His silence on this front speaks volumes about what he will not say.
His silence speaks of what he dare not admit: his existence.
Heaven forbid that Heaven acknowledges itself. God forbid that God tip his hand.
Faith alone must carry us through this darkness.
Faith in a voice that will not speak, a hand that will not help, an eye that refuses to see. A heart that will not be moved to feel.
The Justice and Mercy of God would be unending, extending on forever.
The Mercy of his sacrifice, steeped in our guilt and soaked in the blood of the innocent, made necessary by the demands of Justice in a universe where the unjust hold the reins, would mean nothing at all without the blind followers of his own creation. Created for the worship of himself.
Better to see, to open my eyes to the ways of the world that a God created to forsake. 
Better to believe in myself, to know who I am and that I am good, than to bear the pain of a Father who no longer cares.
I am fucking good enough.
I'm here God. I am here and I am good. So where are you?

Possibilities

In that dark the night was alive with the dead. Crisp leaves, dragged by the wind, scraped themselves across the pavement, clattering like skeleton bones. The air was electric. Anticipation. Her silhouette could have appeared from around any corner, behind any tree. My heart raced and the howling wind whipped my hair across my face, tickled my lips.
By the time I entered the building and blinked against the bright lights, my hands trembled.
The elevator chimed and that one thought, that solitary, dangerous, forbidden idea slipped peacefully back into the shadows of a dream. 

Guiltless

At the risk of being risky, I'm going to tell you the truth. About me, about my life, about what I believe. I don't know who reads this blog, and that's part of the thrill I suppose; not knowing. So here it is.
I'm a Mormon. I was born Mormon, raised Mormon. That was my identity. In Texas I was the Mormon. In Utah I became a Mormon. But it was something I never doubted.
For all my pursuits of truth, for all my affirmations of objectivism and reason, I never looked beyond what I knew to be true. I estimated new knowledge only so far as it agreed with what I knew to be Universal Truth. I did not doubt it, and therefore anything true must agree with my personal knowledge of the Universe.
And then I experienced something.
For the first time my eyes were opened. I saw what my life had become, I saw my beliefs and faiths reflected in the eyes of a woman on fire.
I watched a woman, the same as you or I, destroy herself. Willingly. Happily. She carried a guilt that threatened to crush her. The only way she knew to rid herself of it was to brand herself a sinner. Her hope was that honesty would triumph over the power of her family's secret darkness. It did not.
Like Hester Prynne herself, she was branded. Like a Saint of old she was burned. Like a criminal she was crucified. And the people of the congregation sat there and watched.
Tears streamed down the woman's face as she confessed the sins of her husband. Sins that bore her down like an anchor and tied her to his guilt. Sins that proclaimed her guilty by association.
I watched her sacrifice herself. She tore out her heart, the little personal bits and pieces that are sacred to one's self, and she cast them in front of us to be judged and scorned. She tied herself to her own pyre. She threw herself and her family out into the mercy of our judgment. And the people watched.
I was horrified.
As I sat there I witnessed an act of moral depravity. Altruism taken to its extreme. Her self immolation was supported and expected by all. Her personal family affairs were the business of every do-gooder and nosy busy-body in the room. Her husbands actions affected them all in such deeply personal ways that her punishment was deserved for what she had done to them. Her family's personal decisions affected them all. Her punishment was just.
I was horrified.
In atonement for her egregious crimes against the community, she and her husband sentenced themselves to travel the state telling their story. Nothing could be so humiliating, so heart wrenching, so shameful as sharing their story with every soul who did not deserve to hear it.
I was horrified.
My hands shook. My heart raced. It was as though I were watching a gruesome self torture, surrounded by those who thought it good. To my left and to my right were those who would have stoned the Adultness, who hung Salem's witches, who crucified the Savoir and passed judgment upon every living soul other than their self.
I was horrified.
And there sat the people. My people. Smiling and nodding. Taking notes. Seeing nothing wrong. Seeing nothing. It was agonizing.
I sat there in my seat, muscles clenched either to run for my life away from the monsters that would tear out my heart and eat it while I watched, or to save her. The burning woman. To scream and shout and tell her that her guilt was undeserved. She had done no wrong! By what right could they punish her?!
What I saw next will forever be seared into my memory.
She looked at us, and she smiled. A smile so full of agony, so full of guilt and self hatred and loathing. But there in her eyes, was approval. She! The victim! She approved of it all! She thought it to be good and just! She, the woman on fire, tied to the cross and staked through the heart, believed that she was deserving of this hell! She was a monster too.
I sprang into action.
I sprinted away as though from the very gates of Hades. I trembled and found myself sobbing as I ran.
By what right?! I cried. By what right?!
Before I fully knew it, I was standing at his door.
When he let me in, I wonder what he saw in me. I had seen something that I had not thought possible in our modern day. I had witnessed something medieval and wrong. Those smiling faces danced behind my eyes.
He let me in and I cried. First in horror, then disgust, then bewilderment and anger.
By what right?! By what right?!
It was her face. That womans' face. The face of a cannibal.
I cried, and he let me cry. And when I was done we talked. And when we talked I learned something important. The most important thing I have ever known.
Every since I was a little girl, I've been guilty. If I wasn't committing sin, then I was not doing something that I could have, committing a sin of omission. If I was doing everything right in my life, but thought one inappropriate thing, I was guilty. If I thought nothing wrong at all, but rushed and did not read my scriptures that morning, I was guilty. If I was too busy loving my best friend to convert him to the gospel, then his soul was in my hands and I was damned. If I drank the wrong drink the ambiguous voice in my head whispered of my guilt.
There was never a moment of freedom. I lived on my guard. I put up walls in my life, walls in my friendships, walls in my head. In order to protect myself from evil, I boxed myself in. Walls and walls of guilt.
My face had been the same.
The only way to atone for my sins was to try harder. And when I failed again and my guilt grew, so did my desperation. So did my secret agony. So did my smiles. I began to pretend as I began to realize my imperfections. I began to know that I would never be free of this weight. Even if I did everything right, even if I followed every rule, even if I went to my dear loving bishop to atone for my sins previous, the result would be the same.
The only consequence that lay ahead of me was sacrifice. The only presence that was sure in my future was guilt. There was nothing else.
And then it happened.
My eyes opened and I saw what I had never been able to see: The guilt was mine. It could not be distributed by another, only accepted by me. No other, no person nor organization or God could make me feel what I did not willingly take. And just like that, like cutting the rope from a heavy anchor, the guilt fell away.
I was free.
I saw the blind futility of it all. The entirety of my life that I had spent feeling so alone, so lost, so ashamed, it all meant nothing. I looked at myself and I liked what I saw there. I saw a good person. I saw a girl with values and morals and a lifetime of good decisions. I saw the potential for whatever I wanted that girl to be. I saw happiness in her eyes and goodness in her heart. There was no more guilt in that face.
I am free.
The consequences of what I have done are still largely unknown to me. I do know, however, that I can never go back. The door to what I once was has been closed forever. Only an uncertain future awaits me now. But I am not afraid.
Will I be able to return to that organization that demanded my own immolation since my birth? Will I be able to one day reconcile myself with a church that supports self sacrifice? I do not know.
I do know that my relationship with Deity has never been stronger. I do know that I am, for the first time, entirely made up of only myself. I do know that what tempted me previously holds no sway for me now because GUILT is not my motivator. GUILT is not my natural state of being. I was born, I was created to be happy. To experience joy. And I feel that now like I have never felt it before! My life is in my own hands. I am sailing this ship alone now. There is no one to tell me where to go.
My life is now uncertain. In some ways, I am afraid. But that is a fear of the unknown, not of hellfire and damnation. That is a fear that I will conquer.
I am free.
I am happy.
And I am guiltless!

A Revelation

Reality cannot be escaped. Existence is real. It exists. So when someone offers up the irrational as their wish, it can only be allowed existence by faking reality. It is our duty as worshippers of logic and reason, to vehemently deny the irrational, the illogical, and refuse them existence. We cannot presume that "good will out" or that evil will destroy itself so that only good can remain. To do so is to slip into a victims complacency. It is our obligation to ACT.
So when our politicians offer us up philosophies of good intent, we cannot sit idly by, trusting that one day they will see the error of their ways. By doing so we give them permission to continue on deceiving themselves and denying reason, forsaking thought. Doing so damns us as victims of a non-reality that we allowed to exist. One that is doomed to destruction and bloodshed at the hands of good intent.

Existential Flu

I seem to have caught a bit of Existential Flu.
I should get over it in a week or two but it's quite annoying, let me assure you.
The basis of it is this:
What's the point?
I mean, I don't mean to sound arrogant or anything, but I'm intelligent. Not only that, I'm resourceful and determined. I plan to do things with my life. My family looks at my To Do list and they laugh at me, but it's only because they can't see what I see. Not yet.
But even if I accomplish that list in full, if I get all my degrees in History, Business, Philosophy, Physics, Law, if I get my Mechanics license, become a lawyer, own a successful business chain, write a million books, change the world, EVEN THEN. What's the point?
My life, even if I accomplish every great thing that I intend to, will be nothing more than another ordinary human life in the never ending chain of humanity. Escape is impossible. I've felt since I was a little girl that the only way out would be to run away and join a circus, but even then, to never taste greatness...
And it's not for glory. Well, it is. But not the kind you'd think. I have to reach my potential. I've just got to. I could care less what other people think of me, they're not important. I just have to know that I've done everything I possibly can to become the greatest person who's ever lived. For me personally. Nobody else need ever know, ever speak of me again. I just have to know it for myself.
To top it all off, I'm bored. I work, I read, I write, teach myself French and Quickscript and writing backwards and guitar and piano and calligraphy and mind mapping and philosophy, but what's the point?!
They already cured Ebola without me.
I'll never be able to afford a trip to Africa.
I'll never reach the level that I want to, that I need to.
Last time I felt like this it lasted for more than a year. A year long Existential Crisis. Jolly good fun.
Anyways, I suppose I deserve it. I should care more about other people and serving and getting lost in my service. But I just can't bring myself to care. They'll manage on their own. Just like I will. I don't have time for their constant complaints and endless need for coddling. And if they need help, that's what friends and family are for. I'm not really a "friend" to anyone so that let's me off the hook there, or at least it should. What's the point? Of all of it?

 

Here's a journal entry for you

Haha ok. So it turns out that I do have feelings. I am perfectly susceptible to human emotion. I had a funny example of it this past week. So I ended up writing this really entertaining (at least to me) journal entry and I believe that journals are to be shared. So I'm going to post it here. Heh. Be prepared. It's pretty snarky and sarcastic all the way through.  Oh, and I'm using names and things. I believe in that too. Be warned. These are my personal thoughts and feelings, uncensored and unedited. Do with them what you will.

"Dear Kooper,

...My whole life I've always thought that I was an excellent judge of  character. Over the years I've realized that I am actually really terrible. Then yesterday I discovered that I was absolute crap. But now I think that I'm not too far off the mark. You see, my story begins with Michael Fletcher.
Fletcher is attractive. He's tall, tan, has dark curly hair, rippling muscles and a smile to make Chris Hemsworth blush. He's an actor, singer and dancer.
Fletch is the type that knows all women love him and loves to be loved by them. I've always thought that he was an arrogant dog who wasn't worth a moment of my time. well, I've always told myself that anyways.
On principle, I have never liked men like him. A pretty face, even great talent, has never been enough to attract me. Normally when these personalities discover my immunity to their charm, they work extra hard to make me fall for them. This never works, but is fine by me. I love the attention. But with Fletcher it was different.
I always thought he was ridiculously attractive. I've probably told him that a few times too. At the same time that I knew he was a dangerous womanizer and nothing but a pretty face, I liked him. I liked his arrogance. Even though I knew he did not meet my qualifications in a man. So I avoided him like the plague.
Turns out that wasn't too hard to do. He was a year ahead of me with only a few friends of mine in common. Soon he graduated and I gratefully left him behind.
Until, that is, I volunteered to work the Stadium of Fire. I discovered after a few days that he was working there too. Only, I worked in the offices making copies and running errands, while he spent each day in the sun doing hard physical labor.
For some strange reason Jill and I were talking about crazy parties and she began to explain that Fletcher could make out with anyone and then just walk away without it bothering him. Without thinking twice. This was true to everything I knew about him but it still made me feel uncomfortable. She sensed my hesitation on the subject and began to push me on it. She eventually joked that I could ask him for a kiss and he would give me one without a second thought.
I could not hide my reaction from her. What she saw was revulsion. Revulsion that, even in jest, she would ever think that of me. Revulsion at the thought of stooping to such a level, of asking him for a kiss. Revulsion at what he would have thought of me. And revulsion towards myself. Towards the little part of myself that entertained the idea. She did not see that part.
Elated at having found something to use against me for her own amusement, she ran to Michael Fletcher to plan evil schemes with him.
My next few days were filled with his suggestive glances and wicked wiggling eyebrows. I only saw him a few times, but it was enough. Clyde talked to me about him, laughing. He said that Fletch had asked him, "How am I supposed to seduce her if she's never here?"
You're not! Was my ferocious silent reply. Well, half of it. The other half was a desire to quickly run down to the field and make myself available for his seduction.
Instead I bolted to the women's bathroom in the other direction, the only safe haven that I knew. I spent the next hour there fighting with my reflection.
He's just a boy! I told myself. A petty obnoxious boy. He posses no real intelligence, no cognitive genius for me to admire. why should I care about his looks? I'd met more attractive men before and reacted in the appropriate way. Why should it bother me now? I, who have always prided myself on the ability to find someone attractive and not be attracted to them, was falling like an idiot for some playboy I hardly knew, who I knew would never like me. How absolutely, ridiculously illogical!
I decided to end that foolishness. To crush it before it escalated.
"He is attractive." I admitted to myself. "But I am a woman." A woman such as myself would never fall for his tricks. I assigned this to be my mantra, to give my strength in weakness. He is attractive, but I am a woman!
I steeled my resolve and finally pushed open the bathroom door, ready to conquer the world.
At the same time he stopped, three feet in front of me on the way to the men's room.
He lowered his sunglasses and looked and me approvingly. Then he flashed a brilliant white smile and said, "...Hi."
Horror paralyzed me for a fraction of a moment. But then, I gathered my wits and found the appropriate response, rolling my eyes and walking away. However, the muscles in my cheeks didn't get the memo. It wasn't until after I left that I realized I had been smiling like a loon the entire time. The only reason I did finally realize it was because the grin was still there, plastered to my face.

That night, I dreamed of him. There were no zombies, no rainbows, no machine guns, no space travel, no flying, no magic. Nothing the identifies my usual dreams.
There was a dance.
With a sparkling red evening gown and music from a 20's speakeasy in Chicago, I saw him. He wore a vest, dazzling as ever. He passed blonde after blonde, dress after gorgeous dress, and came to a stop in front of me.
He looked me over and wiggled his eyebrows. I stared in disbelief. Then he held out his hand for mine. Without a word I took it, he spun me close to him, and we danced.

The next day I texted Ryan for support, to help me shake my insanity. He said something to the effect of, "Fletch is trouble. Don't waste your time." As if I didn't already know.
During this time I was in the middle of reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Her writings gave me strength. I was looking for Fransico d'Anconia, Henry Rearden, John Galt and Howard Roark. These were the men I wanted. The only sort I would ever accept: Men of intelligence and ability and joy and a love and respect for life.
Throughout my time there people would ask me what it was that I was reading. The either didn't recognize it, hated the writer, pretended to know it, or said they were just impressed that I was reading a booThis is Rachel again. I'm having some car trouble, so I'm running late. But I don't think it's too serious so I should be on my way soon. Is there somebody I need to call or something?k so big, which wasn't exactly encouraging.
Anyways, I was talking to Michael Edwards. He wanted to know why I was so against love.
Feeling like a hypocrite but stating ideas I used to deserve in order to convince myself once more, I explained myself.
Fletcher joined our table just as I began.
Good. I thought. Let him hear.
I told them how I was a complete being, a whole entity in and of myself. I would never need another person to feel complete. I did not have a "missing piece." There was no hole in me to fill. I was happy by myself, independent and strong.
Fletcher laughed and said that he loved relationships. Or, that he would if her ever found one.
He perplexed me. I knew what he was, yet when I was around him I could never reconcile that player I knew him to be, with the man in front of me.
Mike gave in and explained that he never went into an argument looking to win, but looking to be convinced. And since his mind would not be changed on this matter and neither would mine, further discussion was pointless.
Fletcher and I looked at him like he was crazy.
A little let down, I went back to reading my book, feeling like I had cast my pearls before something worse than swine. Something truly indifferent.
I looked up to see Fletcher staring pointedly at the pages I was excitedly underlining and scribbling over.
"Oh...um." I grinned sheepishly and saw all my colorful annotations. "It's my favorite book." I held up the cover for him to see. "Atlas Shrugged."
"By Ayn Rand." He nodded with a smile. "I love that book. Have you read The Fountainhead?"
A part of me knew I should have been shocked, but I was too excited to notice.
"Of course! I loved it!"
"And Anthem." He acknowledged. "I love her philosophy. I mean, it's a bit extreme for me, but Stalin didn't exactly get it right either." He chuckled.
Someone at the table asked what Anthem was.
"It's like a condensed version of her other books. Like Objectivism made easy. It encompasses her philosophy, but it's much shorter."
"It's the cute version." I agreed and we looked at each other with laughing eyes.
It wasn't until afterwards that I realized what had happened.
Shocked, I asked Clyde and Jill if that was normal for him. They laughed and told me about all his amazing test scores, the endless books he was always reading, his incredible intelligence.
My last barrier shattered.
I don't know how long I sat there trying to process this new information. Michael Knight sat next to me the entire time, finding my reaction hysterical.
That was it. I had nothing left to fight him with. Everything that I had known about him was a lie. Every reason I had to hate him was blasted away. I was left powerless, knowing and dreading the implications of this information. In the end, all I could do was store it away for future processing. I didn't have the capacity to deal with it just then.
I resolved the next time I saw him to ask him why. To force the truth from him.
He sat down next to Clyde. The two passed his phone back and forth between them. They were playing chess. Fletch was winning. I groaned silently.
"Fletch?" I asked. He looked up. "Why do you pretend you aren't as smart as you are?" He leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin with a quick laugh. "I don't know." He shrugged. "It's fun.
I shook my head. "From the moment I met you I thought you were just a player. And you let me think it too!"
He grinned.
"You know what that makes you?" I realized aloud. "Fransico d'Anconia. The playboy that wasn't."
"Thank you." He said sincerely. "If there is anyone in the book that I would dream of being compared to someday, it's Fransico d'Anconia."

So, you see, maybe my judge of character isn't so bad. Maybe some part of me knew what he really was.
But the funny thing is, rather than this sending me into a fanciful obsession, this realization has only set me free of him. Because he is Frisco. He really is. And Frisco was a great man, everything anyone could ever dream of. But he was only step number one.
Step number two? Hank Rearden.
Then, finally, my John Galt, my Howard Roark. The best man. The only options that matter.
And that's my story. :)

-Rachel."

Heh.
Anyways, I just realized how brilliant he is. He plays the fool that every girl thinks she wants. That's his mask. And he's hiding what he really is, which is what every girl actually wants. It's brilliant. The perfect cover.
But yeah. There ya go.
My super special journal entry. Aren't I hilarious?
Thanks for reading! Until next time ;)