doing, the fault, acts

I wrote some thoughts, though unorganized and heavily scattered, in one go.

It's 3:38 AM and it's a new day and I cannot sleep because I watched Tiktoks until I felt sick of the content of the world and of the Internet as a whole. Essentially I had caught up with some brainrot and trends but moreso some old ideas and what is happening in the world right now.

I think it is easy to feel stressed and depressed and chicken lemon zest (okay I'll be serious now) about it all. The news, our social media, etc — it profits from strongly evoked emotions, activity, and engagement. That is not to say, however, that they are to blame — I suppose we all need to make money, but at what cost and to what interpretable clause (I am interested in all things where we draw the line. What makes this thing hard is the stakeholders and varying competing interests, much like our democracy which is fragile yet may be made strong under good people. But do we categorize good or measure or rank it?). All publicity and promotion is good publicity for making one known? I believe I have changed my mind on that. I also believe that the content I consume greatly influenced who I am as a person, and I have yet to start cutting off negative sources. Not out of a happy-go-lucky ignorance-is-bliss manner, but ones that flood my mind with incapacitating thoughts, evil temptations of things I would not even consider otherwise (there is an English writing term for this but I cannot fathom at the moment), and the like.

All of this is to say that on another unrelated note, the bigger one gets in terms of being known, I would assume the more haters one might get. All within good reason — unexpected jealously, perhaps. Out of earnest, until the end of this year, I did not discover or know that so many women I knew had animosity or deep-rooted hate for another woman due to said woman’s success. Do we envy success? I did not ever feel this way but I appreciate the true confessions of some women. I feel for them, and feel sorry for it, for this sentiment. I could only imagine the stronger feelings men would have — I know, I have rejected you, and all of a sudden you have a strong feeling of dislike towards women who might look like me or come from my background (these are extreme examples, but they are unfortunately true). But do you even know my background? No, you don’t. I probably would not even notice you, or be able to name you out of a room of 50 men. I am neither paying attention or in competition with you, but somehow you do not feel the same. I hope you can end a one-sided dislike for others and one day find peace and love and happiness, for it is only you who can change that. Each one of us are in charge of how we react and project and feel our own emotions, and nobody else can dictate that.

I sometimes want to end it all, to end this feeling — why do we live in a world like this where people are unwilling to support friends to strangers to everywhere in between? We do not live in a scarce winners losers world, or so I would think. As far as I am concerned, I do not live with rose-colored lenses, but a can-do mindset. Regardless I reflect as I have been wrongly accused and a target of stalking and baseless hate. I understand the best way is to keep going and ignoring these inevitably bad components. I could only stand my ground and maintain a good disposition withholding protocol and morals and ethics. If I only knew or impacted 100 people in my life there would be a healthy 1-5% of hate. Maintaining that standard regardless of how hard I might try, in impacting 10000 in my lifetime as a secluded introvert or infinite times larger, there would naturally be 1-5% which would be 100-500 who might hate me. If I am above the introverted average, and say, I go on to impact 1 million, the backlash of opposition costs around 10000-50000 people. That is enough for a small town. Is that number frightening? Am I ready for it?

Last week during finals I went to sleep around this time, the latest I've slept in eons since summer. I was surprisingly not sleep deprived due to having good sleep prior, which I now know reasons for due to recent readings like Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Nevertheless, I could not stop thinking about another slew of essays, including one called “The case for liberalism”. I'll write it soon! Typically ideas will come and go but this one stuck for a while.

Essentially (To preface: this is getting out hand. I do a lot of brain dumps to look back at my state of mind and being, for I evolve quickly at the surface level. This structure of writing is unedited.), I think about my country's future. I think about systems and people and progress put in place; I think of crazy-pragmatic yet bold ideas; I think of how structures can play out. I anticipate new problems and solutions before they occur. But sometimes I would like to shut it all off and become ignorant to it all, so I can focus on something different. It would not matter, no?

Thus I would be starting to feel and argue that due to this I do not believe the issue is lack. I had written on a sticky note to myself half a year ago, “The issue is not lack”, with “lack” underlined. At the time I was collecting and keeping so many resources for something, that I did not put them to good use to create the actual change I wanted to implement. Was I lazy or in a state of comfort?

To pull out Newton’s first law of motion, I had to get an extraordinary interruption to start the actual thing. I would say the same goes for what fantastic internet gurus are criticized for “mental masturbation” with a heavy collection of materials and resources as if we were hauling toilet paper during COVID in March 2020, as if we were entering an apocalypse and that the last man standing would survive. I know this is a largely stretched-out thought, but I am saying that despite abundance, the issue would be kept this way due to human greed and cases like this.

On another note, I discovered we have more than enough food in the world (10 billion) to feed our population (8 billion), yet the leading cause of death for children under 5 is starvation malnutrition, and issues relating to the lack of food. Millions regardless of age die daily due to it. So as a stretched analogy: why are we wasting toilet paper or keeping it to ourselves when there clearly are people who need it more, need it urgently, cannot afford it, and do not know where they are? Does hiding a couple of rolls we will never use make us feel any better or just simply quell our unsatisfied souls?

I had recently consumed a new idea that puts me at fault: I am impatient with myself and others. I am hungry for change, for efficient and successful results, and for impartiality. But this is not the way. I must meet things and people for where they are, for we are all at a different place and progress looks different for each one of us. Heck, we aren't even all heading in the same direction. But that can be a beautiful thing, we don't live on a 2D coordinate plane. We could still be scaling in 3D and into another dimension to be going at all the same place. I think I could visualize and describe this better, but for now, I have lost my train of thought and my head is starting to hurt.

Another idea I was glad to learn of was a misinterpretation of a verse in the Bible. I thought there were many misinterpreted verses commonly marked or overused in contexts that did not fit, but never this one until as of late. It was along the lines of,

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

— Matthew 5:29

And so actually, if I did steal, should I cut off my two hands? And along with seeing something that made me hate in my heart (hatred is murder in the heart), then should I rip out my eyes? And to think negatively and evil, do I remove my brain? And so no, in literal meaning, it is not to remove all these bodily parts, but truly the meaning is that throughout the Bible we are told God will give us a new heart. It would stem from the heart, and we can work from there. We ask God to give us a new clean heart and forgive us our sins because we cannot save ourselves. God says, believe in me, not in ourselves.

Finally, someone dear to me said they had prayed for God to make them not too poor but not wealthy either. Poverty overtakes the mind, and they would resort to stealing and crime. Though it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a wealthy person to enter heaven. But also following the verse, nothing is impossible with God. It is just a thought that many, not all but many wealthy people can provide for many material things and perhaps forget about God who has provided it all. So I think about that a lot. I was going to add something else but I forgot. I remember now, and that is in a nutshell the Bible is misinterpreted as a set of rules but really to show us we can't do things without God. I need God to do it, and he has by dying for me. He loved me before I even knew him and even when I hated him.

For the time being, I would choose the latter. If I don't respond it might not make much of a difference. I would like to go into the new year with a clean new slate to add to my collection. Perhaps deleting a lot of things and restarting and making space for the new. But I think I need to love more. Love people intentionally even when it is difficult because I am impatient and of high standards that are inconsistent. Because it's an act and a command given by God, not a conditional superficial thing that is what is so flooded in the world right now. But God also says I am not of this world.

Love is so hard. I unfortunately find it hard to love, especially those who have hurt me or wish me ill will. I hold people at a distance because of precious skepticism and distrust. I show that I care, but not too much.

I do not love much, but sometimes I feel close to it. At some times. I must understand it is an act and a choice, not a feeling as we are told by society. And I don't mean a vibe, it's deeper than a vibe especially when you see through people, there are just specifics that I avoid because I just feel in my bones they are bad people. I see the devil influencing them. I surmise this sounds like such utter nonsense perhaps to a nonreligious or agnostic person. But I am adamant about it and I know it is the truth. It is not on perception or feeling, because there is Truth and there is the opposite which is not true.

And so I will not subscribe to a theoretical debate on the existence of a God. If there are absolutes, there must be one based on truth. Either it is right or wrong. And I know that I am right on this, the existence of an all-powerful God, and that we are in a spiritual battle in this world. Because I have seen God's goodness, attributed to him, his creation, his people, and his love.

I cannot explain this to a nonbeliever and I will not assert myself to change their mind because that is something they must seek out on their own with an open and hungry heart. But as a Christ follower, I hope to live a life that reflects this and brings more people towards Christ. It does make me sad that the name of Christianity has been watered down in other ways. What does it mean to be a real Christian nowadays?

But completely aside from vibes, I mean beautiful acts temporarily in people where I sense: ah, I see God through you. But then poof, we are back to our old selves when we are not focused on him. Such is a naturally sinful human state.

I don't want to stay complacent. This season I pray for strength this season. I pray for the growth of my patience and love. I pray that when I see others, what I see is someone loved by Jesus regardless of who they are. That when others see me, they see Jesus through me. That's what I'm here for.

4:05 AM