Sunday, February 20, 2011

Epiphany

I swear to God that I can hold onto this train of thought before it slips away. Please bear with me. This might be a fucking weird post but I have to get these thoughts down so I apologize of it comes out all jumbled.

What would happen if you took a kid, whom, due to a quirk of nature and chemistry of the brain, gets super obsessed with ideas, concepts and things and introduced him to a couple of different simple ones at a really early age?

What about sex for starters?

Just as his body is growing and waking up to the reality of itself, in a series of events, he discovers that, Damn! This feels good! The complicated world of his body chemistry is just beginning to fire and the neural pathways are being laid down early. If he does this, than this is the reward. If he chooses to make these actions, than this is the pay off. I am not talking just about in terms of physical pleasure, but also in emotions, social acceptance, position, power and as a basis for relationship and friendship to people? Suddenly every single person he meets is being graded in criteria and worth as a bargaining chip in this new game of sexual pursuit. And then you leave him there. You let him go through puberty, with hormones raging, sexual activity unchecked or influenced by the norms and mores of the people and society around him? Anything goes as long as you are happy and get what you want? Friendships always have this built in component of the possibility of sexual activity and the way he learns to relate to others and gain his self worth is through sex. Everything in life revolves around his penis and what he can offer people or they can offer him. It becomes his second language that always speaks louder than words and lives in a silent world of acceptance and in the blind spot of those nearest him who could have offered a different world view.

Second, all those around this little weird kid continually tell him how great he is, how smart, how different, unusual and unique. Due to their love for him, there is nothing they won't do, no thing they deny to give him, no place they will not take him and no opportunity spared from his grasping mind and hands. He is already crippled in the currency of their world and rarely deigns to interact with others. When he pulls himself indoors out of the wild or will look up from a book to engage with reality, whatever catches his attention is seen as the new thing to keep him rooted in the present, if just for a fleeting moment. Nothing but praise is offered him and no misstep or error is corrected for fear of losing him back into his own little world for days, weeks and months to come.

During all this, the kid starts believing his own PR and Marketing Department and slowly starts building his palace and throne room against the possibility that others discover how small and alone he always feels, so cut off from others. Emotional pain and loss is always coped with in some diversionary fashion. Feel bad? Have sex. Don't like how your day went? Disassociate in a new book about something fascinating. Someone hurt your feelings? Wander off into the woods or the city and explore. Never talk about how you feel. Don't you dare reach out and tell people how your insides are knotted.  If you need to hurt, do so alone. Heavy is the head that  will wear the Crown.You will be King. Remember? You are destined for great things! Don't ever forget that! You cannot let us down. You are amazing. You are a genius. Nothing will ever stand in your way. You can do anything you set your mind to.

And this kid becomes King in his own world while living like a Brat Crown Prince. All those layers and trappings of mystery and silence he builds around himself become his protection from the hurtful world and strangers he meets that he knows someday he will rule. The world is his but none of it is ever let in. People are loved and then discarded. They become the back drop to the amazing story he is writing in his head and then living into the reality of the physical world. Since he no longer feels emotions, if he ever did, then certainly all these other humans are the same way. They love having sex, too! They like nice stuff, too! Give them what they want and they love you. Take what you want and they love you even more. Wait...that one is mad or sad or confused. Destroy them or walk away. This world is your playground, your kingdom. Use it or lose it.

So he starts a new religion. It is called everyone bow down and worship ME. I mean, hell, he is the best thing that this world has going on! Everyone tells him so and the evidence seems to point in that direction. Success always finds him. He is a pretty good god! He can do this! He buys into this new religion and becomes its best new convert. No goal is too lofty. There is nothing he will not do for his new god. He moves from Crown Prince to King to a god in a blinding fashion. Others convert, if for a while, and life seems to be well in his new world.

Then one day he wakes up early for church, gets into the shower, looks over at the wall and realizes he has been sold a lie? All of it He is not god. All this stuff. All the people. All the money, success, things, experiences, partners, sex, relationships, love and career have been nothing but sacrifices to the god of Himself. Pride is written on every page of his life. Sure, there were people he loved, but they stood in his way. Of course there were good times and amazing experiences. That is what life is about.

But...

He doesn't want to be the Prince anymore. He doesn't want the throne as King. He hates being such a pitiful god who is in pain and hurts and cries and can't solve any other persons problems, much less his own. He is imprisoned in the dungeon of his life and for the first time he wants to ask for help but realized he never has.

What if that kid was me?

6 comments:

  1. Abdicating the throne is the only way to freedom. Sometimes it's also the only way to grow out of being that kid and get out of that dungeon. You are saying you want to ask for help, and that won't fall on deaf ears. I am way too familiar with the kingdom in which you lived. It doesn't look so good when we can finally view it from a distance.

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  2. You know you have to die to this stuff but there are no guarantees on the other side. This is the worst part of the Christ-life--the dying part. I think that Jesus Himself had no idea of what life would look like post-cross even though He had faith in resurrection. We want control of our destiny following letting go of what we know and hold dearest to ourselves. The stuff we KNOW at some point that cannot continue on the journey with us. You know that you can let go right now if you set your will to do it because you are a strong person. But...you have to do it unconditionally. Except a person be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom. Being born again is real and really follows losing all for the sake of the Kingdom. Many religious people use this term to describe themselves and they are liars and hypocrites having never lost anything for the sake of the Kingdom. Nevertheless this is the place where you stand now... Praying for you now...

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  3. Interesting post. Sounds like you've been reflecting on your life and finding areas for improvement. I guess what you have to decide now is whether or not you'll work to make any improvements. If you do, I wish you the best of luck, and advise you to be patient with yourself in the process.

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  4. You might end up, like Prince Gautama Siddhartha, becoming the Buddha.

    Ecclesiastes is a fun book, written as though through the life of Solomon, who had everything -- riches, wisdom, sex -- but who in the end found it "Vanity, vanity". Finally he realizes he needs to live his life coram Deo: in the presence of God.

    Nothing you've experienced is bad. "Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory". The adventures, friendships, sex, learning, and popularity are all filled with God -- all the people you've met in life thus far are, strangely, vessels of His presence.

    Perhaps the trick, then, is to see with new eyes. To see Christ in all those things, particularly all those people.

    After all, He really was a Prince: the King of Kings: yet He who was rich became poor for our sakes, that we might receive Divine riches. And He was content to, like a slave, wash His disciples' feet and die abandoned, trusting in the One who held His life and destiny, and the future of us all.

    Love God, love other people. All else is commentary.

    Keep on being the awesome human God made you (that part of your story really is true): just use your powers to love, to serve, to heal: to be Christ to others.

    "It is no longer I who live," says Paul, "but Christ who lives in me".

    Warm regards,
    michael e

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  5. Hey Daemon wow thanks for sharing this very deep and personal post. I dont know what to say really but I appreciate this intense honesty. Praying for you man.

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