The good thing about being a victim is, I never have to change, ever.

We’ve all been buried in headlines. Opinions. Perspectives.

How, in fact, could we flesh out our own perspective?

It appears the prolific political pundits, candidates, incumbents, media, newspapers, blogs, vlogs, and podcasts, all have the clearest perspective.

The protesters know best, the church pastors and their congregants all know the best perspective, academics, CNN, Fox News, Trump, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, they all know what is best.

And we all need to make a comment.

If I might make a comment.

Your thoughts, my thoughts, his thoughts, her thoughts, I just thought, you know what I thought, here is a thought, some food for thought.

Defund the police, black lives matter, trans black lives matter, Marxists, evangelicals, Trumpers, Never-Trumpers, conservatives, liberals, progressives, gay, straight, black, white, intersectional, democrats, republicans, libertarians, Latinos, Filipinos, Chinese, Sudanese, Taiwanese, novel disease, read a novel, run from the disease.

The voices are many.

This is wrong, that is wrong, you are wrong, cancel culture, apologies, kneeling, raised fists, graffiti, CHOP, CHAZ, neo-Nazi’s, far right, leftists, racism, don’t sing in church, wear a mask, don’t wear a mask, COVID-19 is a flu, people are dying, surges, spikes, ventilators, close the economy, the beaches, gyms, bars, restaurants, 6 feet apart, sanitize, wash your hands, isolate, facetime, ZOOM, work from home, alt-right, far-right, my rights, it’s not right, you have no right, bar fight, privilege, economy, lobotomy, autonomy, ferocity, monstrosity, curiosity, philosophy.

Start conversations not solutions.

I am glad this opened a conversation about nothing, except for our opinions.

Impeachment, Russia, China, North Korea, eating bats, nooses, the 1619 project, you’re racist, systemic racism, police are bad, liberals are bad, hate, fight, spit, spew, vitriol, venom, vicious, voracious, pandemic, crisis, financial downturn, depression, anarchy, fires, riots, unemployment, payroll protection, elites, working class, evictions, homelessness, addiction, abortion, pro-life, pro-choice, social justice, justice, the oppressive patriarchy, equality of outcome equals equality, insensitive, sensitive, fair, unfair, hire more women, more black people, qualifications don’t matter, go to college, go into debt, get a credit card, take out a car loan, pay interest, don’t save, get sick, get medical bills, be homeless, go to treatment, go to jail, non-violent offenders, stimulus, where’s my stimulus, 40 acres and a mule, genocide, homicide, brutality, non-lethal, murder for hire, Candace Owens, Hollywood, history, no history, 1984.

Slaves in Africa, remember Exodus? Then, African slaves, Chinese sweatshops, sex traffickers, how about minimum wage during a Pandemic?

People need Starbucks.

What about ISIS, the Taliban, North Korea, Boko Haram, Polygamists, cannibals, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Nazis, Navient, American Express, Visa, and Capital One?

The Jews wanted Jesus Crucified and the Romans facilitated it.

Jesus was a Jew.

So, the Jews had the Romans do their dirty work.

But what about this? Check out this video.

Gotcha!

Liar, hypocrite, stand up for churches.

What about the oppressed?

I’m listening, you’re not listening, I hate you because you disagree with me.

The intellectual dark web, 1st amendment, 2nd amendment, life liberty, justice for all.

Burn the flag, keep the confederate flag, shame, young people are getting sick, old people are dying, the governors are bad, republicans are evil, stand, sit, black square, cancel, boycott, batter, bruise, belittle, belligerent, befuddled, baffled, busted, bewilder, BLM, bad, best, do better.

Public shame, outcry. Woke, mob, anti-Semite, Zionists, ’phobes, sports without fans, basketball bubbles, sanitizer, grub-hub, stub-hub, crooked, order weed for delivery, wear my mask alone, in the car, panic buying, no concerts, no airplanes, travel bans, border walls, border security, law and order, I can’t breathe, no for real, y’all are suffocating me, proper, pronouns, cis, gender, identity, man, woman, not a man, biological, dysphoric, dystopian, dysfunctional, disintegrating, denial, demonic, different, dogmatic, disputed, kids in cages, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Saudi’s, oil, gas tax, income tax, death tax, sales tax, blue, red, battleground, warzone.

Apparent narrative with zero comparative variables to help sort out the merit.

I just feel like it is true.

Autonomy equals “self-law.”

That sounds good.

If it feels good, do it.

Maybe you are, or could get sick and infect your elderly parents or coworkers. Maybe you have already been sick. Maybe you get sick, like catch it, but don’t actually get sick.

Whatever you do, do not go to the beach.

But hey man, we know what is best.

Pivot. Do not admit you are wrong.

Never have humility.

Fake it and grovel if your reputation is at stake. But never really admit you are wrong when it matters.

Oh yeah, say you are sorry if there is a chance you will not continue to get paid. Right.

Every sin you have ever committed is on the record and defines you right now. People don’t change. I mean they do; boys can be girls. Sorry means, you will now agree with us. That is how you apologize.

Whatever, wear a mask. Masks don’t help. Wait, yes, they do. Cancel 4th of July. Cancel America. What does the data say? Fox data or CNN data? Because nobody lies. I want it right down the middle.

Racism is bad. As if we need to be reminded of that. So is stealing, murder, looting, rape, infidelity, and lying. Of course, that all depends on your definition of bad, I guess.

You are bad because you don’t agree with my idea of goodness and badness.

You must vote for him because you are Christian. You should not vote for this guy because you are Christian. Stand with conservative republican values. Or is it, conservative Christian values? What are those? Are they what Jesus said? Or are they your interpretation over a modern perspective mixed with an innate bias, resentment, fear, and sin condition? Submit to authority? Only sometimes? Only when it is fair? Love your enemies? Are my enemy’s democrats, non-Christians, Christian democrats, Calvinists, Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostal, devil worshippers, General Lee, communists, or gay people?

But hey, it’s the system and we are all victims.

Persecution, prostitution, revolution, restitution, prosecution, rush hour traffic, human trafficking, panic, pornography. It’s life or death out here.

Liberal social justice is important. Communism is good. Like in Russia, under Stalin? Or in China?

Which time is communism good?

Or wait, greedy capitalism is bad, no liberal hippies are bad, pull up your bootstraps and get a job.

Opioid epidemic incited by people who make medicine to help sick people?

Why does the Mayor live in a mansion? I thought he was a servant.

Also, I will not let my child, adolescent, teen, pre-teen, drive, drink, vote, carry a weapon, go anywhere without a permission slip, track them on their phone, and monitor their grades, but I will allow them to change their gender.

We need to have a conversation about mental illness. We need to have a conversation about racism. We need to have a conversation about: guns, violence, abortion, war, peace, love, hate, passion, crime, punishment, justice, right, wrong, good, bad, evil, marriage, Buddha, Mohammed, L. Ron Hubbard, Indiana Jones, Paul the Apostle, Martin Luther King, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Hitler, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, the internet, twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

If you commit a sin I disagree with, you are worse than me. No matter what. You are the worst. You are the reason things are bad.

Hey man, all religions lead to God. Buddhism has no deity, Hinduism has millions. I mean, essentially, it’s whatever you think is best.

Which makes you God.

Isn’t that nice!

If I am God, then the solution is in me…right?

The answers? Where are they?

Why does it all feel like a ship without a rudder, a compass, a crew, no anchor, and a hole in the hull?

But you cannot make any laws unless you have kept them all, at least the ones that I agree with, or made up. Because I am sinless and have never made a mistake. Oh, wait, no I mean, I just know what is best. It’s common sense, right? Don’t steal. Unless there is a good reason? Violence is bad. Unless it is to win a war, or I have a good reason. And we know all the good reasons.

You better believe it.

We complain about the state of the world as it devolves.

As we circle the drain, we breathlessly encourage each other towards the answers, which we, the causers of the problems, have so thoughtfully thought up.

At least I am not as bad as the Nazi’s.

They were all born that way. Not me. I know what is best. I am not capable of evil. There is evil, but it only exists where I say it does.

Basically, if it hurts my feelings, or I don’t like it, it has got to be evil.

I mean, it’s all so obvious.

It is all so obvious we should all agree.

Is it America or is it me?

Oh, my! What a world we are living in. It seems like we should have seen this coming. Shouldn’t we have known?

Who will save us?

Identity politics, gender identity, sexual identity, self-made, self-care, self -expression, self-actualization, self-help, self-esteem, me, me, me, I, I, I.

The same people who created the DMV also provide “sex education.”

For crying out loud. What do I make of all this?

We can legislate, debate, argue, deflate, persecute, protest, riot, battle, argue, scream, weep, scorn, preach, wax poetic, profane, proselytize, make new laws, remember old laws, elect new leaders, ask old leaders, interview celebrities, ask the queen of England, pray in school, don’t pray in school, go to church every Sunday, don’t go to church, ever. Evangelize, plagiarize, pulverize, prioritize, monetize, demonize, realize, immunize, exercise, or deputize, until we are blue in the face.

The question really is. Can we change humanity?

Can we legislate a moral answer to a spiritual problem?

Wait, wait, wait.

What is our problem?

Do you know what your problem is?

How about WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, the French Revolution, the French and Indian War, the War of 1812, the Armenian Genocide, the Final Solution, war camps, concentration camps, internment camps, operations, missions, the crusades, the KKK, Civil Rights, and Human Rights? What about Stalin, Genghis khan, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Kim Jong Un, Obama, Reagan, Washington, Jefferson, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and Livingston.

Couldn’t they change human hearts.

Some of them made huge positive contributions to this world.

Others, weaponized what we all know to be true. The deepest of Truths. The human heart is violently wicked, selfish, and brutal.

This, of course, does not preclude us from doing good. From helping. It is not that man is not capable of doing good. It is that he is inherently corrupted. Our natural instinct is to preserve ourselves.

Understand, the Nazi party, and those who worked within it, were just regular folks. Trust and believe, they were not, as a group, especially more evil than you and I. Hitler himself, maybe. But we cannot encompass that entire group and surmise them as all born entirely more evil than ourselves. No, they are all as equally evil as you and I.

They had no identity. No real identity.

We must understand this. We must come to know who we are. Without identity, we are lost.

Who are we?

Are we our political leanings? Our sexual preferences? Our ethnicity? Skin color? Gender? Are we our belief system?

Or are we children of the Living God? Wholly corrupted and completely redeemable.

Where should we be aiming? Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Democratic Republic, Dictatorship, autocracy, meritocracy, theocracy? Which one of these will cure me? Catholic? Lutheran? Baptist? Presbyterian? Reformed? Orthodox? Do these systems hold the key to our redemption? Do these, man-made designs hold the key?

If they do, what’s the problem then?

Why is there still suffering? Why is it so bad? What do we do?

Why can’t we fix anything, ever? For all of history. We have never fixed the problem, the simple fact, that anything that involves any humans whatsoever, no matter how well intentioned, no matter how well-thought out, no matter the funding and support, no matter what it is or who it is, it will always fall short. It will fail. It has failed.

Or, it will be successfully evil, catastrophic, and terrible.

As we continue to comb through, and examine each other’s histories, and tweeze out the errors of their ways; as we gaze down from our ivory towers of scorn, judgement and supreme knowledge of what is right and what is wrong; as we consider each other’s sins, take inventory of the worlds flaws, failings, unfairness, fickle, frivolous, fallacious, hypocritical, hypothetical, hysterical, unhinged, heretical, half-hearted, hogwash, it becomes clear.

I’ll never have to look in the mirror and get to the root of the problem. I’d rather spend hours waxing poetic about the innate sinfulness and frailty of every other human but myself.

From sea to shinning, see?

Is it America or is it me?

Nonsense. What could ever restore us. What do we do?

The answer is not WHAT but WHO.

It’s all nonsense. I wish we could all hear ourselves.

I feel like such a sucker for feeding into this madness.

I’m just as guilty for listening to all of you in the first place.

This letter isn’t to excoriate the reader. No, it’s a confession, observation, and expression thereof. It’s a letter to Christians, Americans, non-Christians, atheists, anyone who likes to read.

I’ve fallen into the gossip, fear-mongered, paralytic, opinionated, furious, unforgiving, cold-hearted, unloving, confused, bitter, back-biting, salacious, sycophantic, sour, simple, soggy, spindle of complete and utter bull like everyone else.

Maybe we should all reflect on what unconditional love actually means.

Maybe we should consider the fact the one of the most obtuse cesspools I’ve ever witnessed was on a Christian’s Twitter feed.

What happened to being a peacemaker? What happened to living a quiet humble life, minding our own business.

What happened to living a life that shares the gospel. The resurrected life. As a new creation. Why are we all mixed up in the nonsense?

I’ve been to jail, the psych ward, treatment, I’ve slept outside, I’ve hurt people, criticized, drank too much, lied, stolen, cheated, blasphemed, I’ve worshipped other Gods, namely myself, lived like a heathen, was selfish, self-centered, and completely hopeless.

Jesus was the only thing that has ever helped me change. And change me He did.

Thankfully, there is the Christ. Even Christians can’t ruin him.

The supreme differential between the secular and the religious is that those in the secular world believe that we, as a society, have the minerals to fix this world and re-make Eden. The fix, itself, is society. How counterproductive.

We attempt to solve “the problem or problems” with that within which the problem lies.

How could we possibly represent that the community will be saved by those who have made idols of themselves?

Whole swaths of the country retain groups who’s sole purpose and function is to glorify “self.”

We are taken by the hero mythology. The entertainment industry has made countless millions retelling the hero myths. Good vs evil. The unsung, unexpected hero.

The Hero Myth is not a myth. That’s what changed the world. Evil was defeated. It still exists, but things that are defeated don’t disappear. Losing does not eviscerate things from being. It just makes them the thing that has lost to that other thing.

Jesus is the materialization of the Hero. The carpenter. God incarnate.

The reason the bible stories are profound is because they’re true.

Forgive me, but the old testament Jews are illustrated thusly: the escaped from slavery, then went to wandering in the desert for 40 years, all the while it, (the bible), shows God's chosen people as ignorant, immature, violent, and unsophisticated.

What’s more, is that they, the Jews, wrote the story about themselves that way.

In my eyes, this lends credence to the biblical stories.

The ultimate Truth. The ultimate wisdom, is that said truth and wisdom itself, or the source thereof, lies outside of humanity. The biblical stories are about those who have tapped into this source. They pursued, or were given access to the source itself.

My wife often reminds me not to think in absolutes. I have a tendency to do this. If I were to narrow down what I thought was absolute truth it would be that God is real. Jesus was God. The bible is true.

Everything else is up for grabs. That includes the interpretations.

Truth, demands specificity. It has to be specific and exclusive otherwise it is just an opinion.

Can we discover truth if we act out the manifestation of our God given design?

Is that design to bring chaos into order as God did in Genesis? Is it to defeat evil?

And as a result of defeating evil do we utilize the fruit borne of evil defeated to do good for the world at large?

Doing good is active. It is more than just not doing evil.

Diving into these ideas provides a terrific benefit.

A great friend of mine struggles, as we often do, with the idea of the “work” being the salvific event vs the death burial and resurrection. I shouldn’t say the wrestling match is rooted in salvation. I would say it’s more like a battle with conscience. The battle produces guilt, doubt, and pushes back around to faith.

I wonder if, in fact, because we feel this conflict within ourselves, if it should manifest in some way outside. Maybe we should not only be confronting evil, but be at war with it ourselves. Even though the battle has been won, it isn’t over. We are right in the middle of it.

I won’t even try to lay out specific actions we should take to act out this design. No, that’s up to the individual.

And you should be armed before battle.

Jordan Peterson makes some very interesting points about how it is imperative for a man to carry a burden. To take on some kind of responsibility. What if man's responsibility is that he should bring order out of the chaos and defeat evil?

Of course, we’d then need to look at what “order” means, and “chaos,” “evil,” and “Good.” This is not simple and we should not treat these ideas as such.

Where do we look to define these words? The best source would be a transcendent, omnimpitent, omnipresent, prescient, and good Creator. A source, that is itself, Truth.

If we don’t study the truth. Have a deep relationship with it. Desire to know it’s innermost workings. Then, I would argue, we don’t have a relationship with Christ. We cannot be armed for battle against evil, and just as much as we don’t know Truth we can’t recognize evil either. As such, we become chaff.

Or, we fall prey to the delusion that the divine is us. That we, are the Source of Truth. We needen't look outward and upward for Truth, no, we need only look in the mirror.

Frankly, I'd rather give that responsibility to God. I know He can handle it.

I didn't cry for 3 years after you died.

I was living with Christine when my brother called to tell me the news.

I remember being in shock. I was sitting on the small balcony outside of our apartment, smoking a cigarette.

I remember knowing. I knew I was partially responsible.

Do you remember those nights when we'd sit on the curb outside my house and talk?

I remember when you went in for a heart transplant and I had to hug you goodbye in the street between our houses. I thought that was going to be the last time I saw you.

It wasn't.

I'm sorry I let my addiction swallow me up. I'm sorry for giving you drugs. I'm sorry I never tried to help you. I couldn't even help myself.

I was a poor excuse for a man those last days.

We were in kindergarten together. We grew up together.

I think about you every 4th of July.

I was still using heroin the first time you overdosed. You were in a coma and I'd go and sit with you in the hospital until I had to leave to get my next fix. I tried to be there, but I couldn't.

When you woke up, you weren't the same. I wonder if you tried to overdose that time too.

You always looked up to me.

Remember when your mom threw us in the backyard and told me to beat you up?

You deserved it, but I couldn't do it.

I still talk to you from time to time.

I became a christian and changed my life 6 years ago. I can't believe it.

I went and saw your parents and apologized for the terrible friend I was.

They were so kind and forgave me.

Remember when we were kids? I do.

My fondest memories were summer days terrorizing the neighborhood with you and the other kids. Mitch, Garrett, Kevin, your brothers, and mine.

I often wonder why God took you and not me. There were lots of times I wished I would die.

Your mom would always tell that story about your open heart surgery as a todler. You woke up from surgery and told everyone, "God said it wasn't my time."

Before you even knew who God was. I know you're with Him.

I'm married now.

We're moving in September. Out of California. Her name is Lori and she's from Romania. Can you believe it? I have a good job, we go to church, have a business, and we're trying to start a family. It's a miracle.

I saw your brother, Kenny, and your mom and dad at Tyler's wedding. It was so good to see them.

It always reminds me of you.

I hope you know I miss you and you'll forever be a part of my story. Even though much of it isn't pretty and I'm not proud of it.

We went through a lot together.

I miss you dude.

“I’m sure there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife, and my time on this earth was exactly that, time. No, I’ll close my eyes and that’ll be it.”

Would you tell a child about to die from cancer that?

Why not?

Because it isn’t true? Too cruel?

Would you explain to that child, maybe your child, that their time on this earth didn’t matter anyway? “It’s lights out honey, that’s it.”

In all fairness, would you say that to your dying parent, grandparent, spouse? Does this sentiment or belief bring peace to you or anyone else?

I don't ask those question lightly. This is not arbitrary, nor is it an idea to be trifled with.

I ask the above with the most reverent seriousness.

Can you picture kneeling at the bedside of someone you love and telling them not to worry, they have no soul?

When you hold your newborn baby, do you say to it, "You're beautiful, and I love you, but, you're only a collection of cells solely created for perpetuating our species."

I never believed in God. I always thought it was a farce. Until I didn't.

One has to wonder. Why is it when we stand on a mountain top overlooking a valley, or on the beach watching the sun fall below the horizon, or even stare up into the cosmos on a clear night, why do we fall silent? Is it random accidental beauty? Or is it created perfection? A perfect harmony.

How could I, with any semblance of intellectual humility, stare at this computer screen and know it was created and yet, with all it's complexity, from calf muscles to conciousness, belive the human being was not created?

If there is no God, then why do we need morality? Does it benifit our species, on a purely Darwinian level, to care for the elderly, poor, disabled, or even to love?

Why do we experience love?

Love is trancendent. Truly.

We can love near, far, through time and space.

We can love those who are long dead and gone. Why?

Why do we consider meaning and beauty? Shouldn't we be worrying about survival and conquering the weak so as to manifest material destiny?

I've heard it said, "it's more likely that a tornado blows through a junk yard and creates an airplane, than for the world we live in to have been created at random." Or something like that.

Why do I believe?

Not because of any of the questions I asked earlier or the answers related to them. No, those came after I believed.

I chased the world and everything it had to offer.

I played football and baseball. I pursued pleasure and popularity.

I did fit body boot camp.

I partied. Slept with women.

Tried to go to college. Went to Vegas.

Sewed my oats. Lived my best life. Did and sold drugs. Traveled the world and the US. I had long-term live-in girlfriends.

I tried to follow the Al Bundy, Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, male role model.

I was the charming perpetual adolescent until I was 30.

I went to jail. Was addicted to heroin and methamphetamine. I became an IV drug user.

I used cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, benzodiazapines, opiates, hallucinogens, steriods, et al.

I brought drugs from Mexico. Brought weed down from northern California. Grew pot in San Francisco. I lied, stole, slept outside, in motels, starved, cried, bled, had MRSA, went to treatment 7 times, overdosed, broke the hearts of everyone I loved and who loved me, went to psychiatrists, therapists, did drug court, and everything failed. Everything. I know at least 10 people who have died from overdoses. Including my best friend from childhood.

I had no moral compass.

I really wanted one. I was so lost.

I can remember sitting in the vehicle of one of my crimeys at a gas station. He was panhandling. (I had to stay in the car becuase I was 6'3" had blonde hair and didn't have any tatoos. His words: "you look like a bust.")

I remember watching people going to work. Putting gas in their cars. Drinking coffee from the gas stations. I can remember just aching for that normalcy. Dying to have a car, money to put gas in it, and money to buy a coffee and be on my way.

Every fiber of my being knew this wasn't the way I was supposed to be. And yet, I resigned to the fact that this was who I was.

Then I went to church.

It was terrible.

This wasn't my first time.

I had gone with friends when I was a kid.

My parents didn't go to church and when I did go, I never went seeking Truth.

This time I did. It was July 2015.

We prayed and smoked cigarettes in the parking lot before we went in.

It was an evening service. The sanctuary was huge and cool from the air conditioning.

I hated the whole thing. But, I was so beaten and broken I had to try.

I thought they were all weirdos. I thought the music was awful.

So, I set my psuedo intellectual objections aside.

I had to admit, if I was so smart, and I had everything so licked, then why was I in treatment, again, at 31 with no life to speak of? I was barely hanging on and I had to finally face the fact that when it came to theology, religon, and the pursuit of Truth I was an idiot and I didn't know a thing about it.

Except, of course, what the media, my parents, and school had taught me. That, and my own drug addled, inconsistent, and utterly vapid attempt at spiritual expression.

Frankly, I had no real intellectual objections. I was utterly incapable of critical thought and analysis anyway. No, it was more like, "Jesus gives me the creeps, and so do the people who believe in Him."

I am now one of those people. Sure, there are plenty of things I don't like about church culture. There are things I don't like that Christians say and do. All Christians are hypocrites, including myself.

I haven't done a drug, had any alcohol, or comitted any crimes since 2015. I came to believe in Jesus and my life radically changed. It changed without my permission. I really did not want Christianity to be the answer, and yet, here we are.

The change that has happened is nothing short of a miracle.

I won't even mention the material change. The material is temporary anyway.

It is amazing what the knowing of eternity, forgiveness, and love will do for a soul.

A purpose: living like Jesus would want me to. Living as a Christian. However that looks.

This essay isn't to espouse Christianity. No, nor is it to defend against the flames of those who hate Christianity. This isn't even possible. Because every reason most folks have for hating the Christian faith is because of Christian people and Christian people are, well, people. We are called to live the higher ideal, whilst knowing we are but frail, broken, and stubborn. There is no possible way we can live up to that higher ideal without help. For us, that help comes from the transcendent power of God. It comes from gratitude, hope, love, and faith. Growing in our understanding of this is a process and takes an entire lifetime, and thus, growing in our execution of those virtues is also a process. A very imperfect process. Perfect virtues, a perfect example, a perfect moral standard, for utterly imperfect people. And we, like everyone else, fall so terribly short. Thankfully, we can be forgiven, encouraged by one another to continue the good fight, and try to stand out against the backdrop of culture and the world.

They say: "There's no atheists in a foxhole." Well, there aren't any in the back of a cop car either.

I got saved, (became a believer in Jesus), in August of 2015. That is a little over 5 years ago at the time of this writing.

If you asked me 6 years ago if this could ever happen, I would have emphatically denied the possibility. I believed that religion, especially Christianity, was false. I thought it was silly and made up.

I have to confess, I had no real reason not to believe in something. My life was in shambles. I was addicted to heroin. I had been in and out of jail. Been homeless. Sent to the psych ward on a 51/50 hold and generally tortured everyone who loved me, helped me, and knew me at the time.

Boy oh boy did I love to wax poetic about the state of our society. It was a wonderful exercise to blame everyone but myself for my problems. It was my DNA, I was born this way, my family history, the government set me up to fail, nothing is fair, and everyone else was corrupt which, in turn, excused my behavior. The longer I spent blaming everyone else, the worse I got.

I tried everything the culture suggested. Starting with, “let me do me, stay out of my business, doing heroin is romantic and artistic, do what feels good, etc., etc., etc.”

Truly, there was a time that I really was so self-absorbed, that I rarely thought about the effect I was having on anyone else. I didn’t care that I was throwing my life away. I was getting used to being processed through the Orange County jail. My conscience was going numb. I was losing touch with reality.

The crazy thing is…

I did everything they told me to.

How I felt superseded all things. Be popular, make sure you “sew your oats” I watched the perpetual adolescent male figure on television and in movies, and that was what I thought I was supposed to be like. Everyone experiments with drugs. Be with as many women as possible. That is what will define you as a man. Find a woman who will tolerate and support your charming idiocy and immaturity.

I stayed like a teenager until I was 30.

I became a Christian because my life depended on it.

Then, I found out it was actually true.

Be it sex, fame, fortune, substance, or simply status, man uses these things to satiate the spiritual cypher boiling internally. The eventuality of this declination is inevitable. The very thing used to fill the void exacerbates it.

We, as a culture, have been indoctrinated and have perpetuated the delusion, “I need something more.” We allow insecurity and selfishness to become the catalysts for the erosion of our moral fiber. We have no sense of belonging, gratitude, value, validity, or security.

Further, we have fed each other the fallacy that somehow the solution to our problems lies within us. How can it be that the solution lies within the same vessel within which the problem lies? Like it or not, the reason we all love the “self help” system is because it essentially makes us God. We are become the Divine. Who wouldn’t like that? How could we, the ultimate causers of confusion, calamity, chaos, and crisis, secretly be holding the key to salvation within ourselves? If only we’d unlock our potential.

Just examine the generation that stood against the “oppressive patriarchy” the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” folks. Unloving, unsympathetic, mean, and lacking in empathy.

However, aren’t the two ideologies essentially the same?

Perspectives differ, but the essential problem remains the same. We lack power. We do not have the ability to summon the power necessary to defeat evil. Plain and simple. No matter how you slice it. Evil has thrived, grown, and invaded our existence and we feverishly search for the answer to it.

This isn’t to deride human potential. Humans are capable of amazing, remarkable things. Created in the image of God and given gifts from which society has greatly benefitted. However, we need to understand the level of pride with which we suffer from. We need to understand the forces we are up against. It is of the utmost importance to understand that we are a part of the problem. If we understand this, and we understand that the answers need to transcend ourselves, then we have discovered a good thing.

Ultimately, we gasp and clutch our pearls as we become the victim of a self-centered crisis. This fictitious travesty, our victimhood, devolves from a fleeting thought, to an apparition, and finally to a demonic manifestation and reincarnation of our thirteen year-old selves. Impulse becomes the master. The search for comfort and gratification cloud out any rational judgement from consciousness. We deteriorate into a savages. We allow a warped perception fuel a base and misguided instinct. When these are coupled with insecurity and selfishness, satisfaction becomes priority. The search for pleasure blots out the reality of the harm we will cause from this descent into the darkness.

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Enigmatic and poignant prose from Nietzsche. Can we imagine the countless hours of thought, the pages of literature, the gallons of ink, the exhaustion of breath, and the energy expelled, examining the seeming futility of the human condition? Essentially all coming to the same conclusion. You are the problem, and you are also the solution. I’ll save you the cost of admission to a seminar or the twenty bucks you’d spend on a book.

Countless people have sought gratification through indulgence and chased happiness across a desert of pain and loneliness. This vain transgression of avoiding the worst parts of ourselves accentuates those portions we would like to hide. The veil of comfort is sewn with thread composed of fear and denial. It is during this feverish and self-centered pursuit of, “meaning,” we are separated. This selfish quest is transformative and painful. Our current status, the goings on, and general madness are what it means to become the worst version of ourselves during the selfish pursuit of gratification and comfort.

I have spent a good portion of my time on this Earth restless, irritable, and discontented. I sought peace through chaos, I looked for comfort in pain, I searched for serenity in insanity. As I rummaged for relief I perpetuated my own deterioration and degradation. I became the monster I was fighting. My peers were baffled by my self-destructive and pathological behavior. I suffered from spiritual sickness outside the remedy of man’s faux antidotes. Fear ran through my veins like Mississippi creek water. Internally, a tempest loomed within my heart. A storm surged with tremendous power and I continually surrendered to the disaster. It was in the squall of temptation and insecurity that I developed a selfish propensity to assure that an instinctual need was met. This is always without regard to the consequence. There is never any consideration for the people hurt, the harm that is caused, and the general calamity in the wake of a man saturated with fear and insecurity. It is within this cauldron of self-loathing and ego driven madness that a convenient amnesia sets in.

What really sets man apart from beast is set within the deepest parts of ourselves. The knowing that our instincts cannot always win out over what is right, just, good, and moral. How blinded are we as a society when our culture is driven by instinct and instinct alone. This behavior makes us no better than the bloodthirsty monster. What’s more, is that we know better. We know what is civil, good, just, right, and moral. Save some grey exceptions. Our instincts are kept in check by our morality. The God-given and so defined foundation of our design. It’s is inarguable we are governed by a moral law. Even the most ardent atheist would have to agree.

The Faustian bargain is attractive. It is seductive and pushes men to the edge of morality until they plummet into obscurity. Souls die in the catacombs of despair and are deafened by a harmony of death rattles in a choir conducted by misery. Opposing temptation is warfare and there are lives at stake. This battle rages on and propels human beings to be in collision with one another. The friction is unbearable and the pain is extraordinary. Within this battlefield nomads wander and contemplate, “meaning.” We seek satisfaction and never consider the costs. To one extent or another we all participate in this battle. Our denial will be dressed as a conscientious objector with a white flag in hand, muttering deflated soliloquies about morality and curiosity. The foe is subtle and called many names. Some say it is just human nature, others regard it as a flaw in the mechanics and chemistry of the human psyche, still more believe this foe is Satan himself. This is the human condition. The legacy is a hopeless and painful vacuum.

The perpetrator may be unseen, but the consequences are not. These incidences are sketched almost lightly for entertainment within our culture. They are labeled as great works because of their parallelism with life. The Faustian bargain is cyclical. There is only one choice. We must search for a new pleasure to cover up the guilt from the last one. As his guilt escalates so do the escapades. The guilt, shame, and remorse, become a granite boulder fastened between our shoulder blades. We judge others for their flaws only because we hate ourselves. We pretend we don’t care denial becomes our code and we descend into the black.

The explosion of self-destruction is ignited self-gratification. It is only when the shroud of plausible deniability is lifted and we are forced to look at the destruction from our wrath that we see. Man, is constantly searching for his own definition. Autonomy, or “self-law.” This ideology rules the day. This search perpetuates a fatal disconnection from humanity. When we are consumed with ourselves we are lost. The monster becomes us. We freeze as the abyss stares through us understanding our weaknesses and vulnerability. The Faustian bargain is not a bargain. It is a concession.

Can it be said that looting, rioting, and destruction are a manifestation of what we truly are? Could it be true? Do you think the men who worked as Nazi camp guards were different from you and I? Do you think it is notable when the neighbors of serial killers are interviewed, and they point out that they, the killers, were nice enough, innocuous folks, quiet, and polite. Is it frightening to think of how many of us fit that description? Are we the monsters?

It’s amazing how quickly we humans convert from our faith in the Truth, “…not of this world.” This writer included. It is almost as if we were designed for worship. I saw a discussion recently on Twitter about theology. The young lady made a good point, in my opinion. She said, and I’ll paraphrase, something like, everyone has a theology. This gave me pause.

I’ve never participated in the arena of public discourse in any real meaningful way. I’m really just an observer, a fly on the wall. What I’ve seen is we cling to our belief systems, and world views for dear life. The life preservers for the drowning. Swords for the psudeo valiant keyboard conquerors held afloat by opinion alone. Fighting the ‘great war’ with a “hot take.” Posing as valiant and brave warriors whose powerful prose will vanquish the dragon and save the republic.

I’m not mad at them really. I think I have the same delusion.

It appears as though we embed ourselves within a particular kingdom, under a specific flag, representing a specific value system, and attitude. Through the valley of chaos we ride on horseback into battle. Swords raised, rebuttals, charts, facts, science, quips, takes, and the like raised ready to dispatch the evil hoard charging from the opposite side of the valley.

@QuietSilence

Why do atrocities, acts of evil, and suffering happen? More importantly, who do we blame?

To me, it’s like nails on a chalkboard, “If God is good, then why is there evil and suffering?” Or, some question like this. It’s a good question. One not be be trifled with. But, it bothers me.

Where do we get this logic?: “If there is a God, then there should be no suffering.” I’ve racked my brain trying figure out exactly why the existence of an immovable, divine creator, who is wholly good, and wholly just, would necessarily mean there should not be suffering.

What if the answer sounded something like this: “There is evil and suffering in the world because men don’t do enough good.” Or even, “there is evil and suffering in the world because men don’t do enough good, nor do they have the capacity to eliminate it in any real and meaningful way.” I would never make the argument for nihilism, in fact, I roundly reject it. I make the aforementioned thesis in the attempt to make an argument for the existence of a source of power, goodness, and knowledge outside of ourselves. Concurrently, I’d like to make the argument asserting personal responsibility, when in sync with the divine, has the potential to magnify man’s ability to defeat evil or, at the very least, produce a willingness to try.

We certainly have to explore the idea that the internet has allowed us all to exercise our intellectual muscles to an extent heretofore never done. I’m speaking for myself, but I think this fact is true for many. Never in my life have I been exposed to such a sheer volume of political, economic, philosophical, religious, and ethical, information about the past, present, and of course, all of the related opinions ad nauseum. I think though, as we indulge this digital superstructure and as the media itself evolves over time, we are at risk, and are probably already suffering from the delusion that our opinions are the source of power to be used to defeat evil. From what I’ve observed, merely making a statement about something in this new space somehow gives the individual a sense of power. Probably a false one.

I haven’t studied it, but I would venture to guess, if we measured the amount of one-liner type statements against the actions related or potentially related thereto, I think we’d see an enormous gap. People certainly say a lot, but they don’t do much, myself included. This passive aggressive and stagnant position comes into even sharper focus when we observe it against the backdrop of suffering.

Is it too harsh to assert, that we, as a people, may be culpable for our suffering? May I be so bold? To be clear, I don’t think that we are responsible for all suffering. But I do think we are responsible for the lion’s share.

We observe groups like the Nazi’s, and communist Russia, and China. We’ve identified their leaders and the ideology which through evil disguised as good, some of the most significant stains on humanity were so created. I would argue that the evil in the hearts of men was not an anomaly and further, though, generally, we’d all avoid being complicit in such atrocities, we do have to potential to be swept up and even cooperative with them.

There are some examples we can look at throughout our history. Was it the supreme leader and the nefarious henchmen? A select few influencing millions? Ultimately, I think our search is generally about responsibility. Who do we blame?

There are people today literally called influencers. This is their job. Whenever I hear this term I almost always feel a bit wary. I don’t like this idea.

To me, it is a centralization of power, one type or another, and this inevitably coaxes individuals to sit idly by and become intellectually either dead or hyper fixated, which leads to self absorption and suffering.

Should we blame God? If so, why?

It is relevant to explore the corruption of the individual because these instances and the socio political climate surrounding them parallel our current state. Additionally, this is one of those topics that have been waxed poetic for eons but, frankly, I think it’s interesting and has the potential to be useful. At the very least, I think this issue is not trivial and we should think about it.

One has to consider what it would take for evil to pervade a society like it did in Russia, China, and Nazi Germany. We must identify all of the participants, their motivations, and the resultant actions. This is not an exact science and I would not claim I could understand or even discover all or even most the motivations of individuals who have long gone, but I think a robust investigation could bear fruit. The blue collar, white collar, the poor, the military, and the government.

Whether on the side of good or evil, everyone played a part.

Maybe these atrocities were and are inevitable because of our own cowardice. Possibly, apathy and atrophy.

Jordan Peterson calls it “a common mythology.” I’ve heard him describe this idea a number of times. By no means is he being cavalier about it. Outside of the connotation the word Myth carries, I’d say, in this case, Myth and Truth are the same. Maybe a “Myth” with enough power to change the course of human history is, in fact truth, hence its effectiveness. Conversely, when we stray from the foundational aspects or, rather, ethics we reap catastrophic consequences. Consequences we’ve seen numerous times throughout the course of history.

Men especially, have been cudgeled into thinking that if they simply, do no evil, they’ve done their part. In reality, evil will flourish with this attitude, because who will defeat it? Does it not imply complicity when we do not act against that which is evil?

Frankly, in the world we live in now, it’s much easier to be a complacent, half witted, cowardly, troll, than a brave warrior against evil. It appears likely the two have even been confused. It’s easier to be a twitter zombie. It’s easier to chalk it up to Satan’s work and willfully ignore evil, or at least actively avoid confronting it, knowing God will defeat it eventually. I have to confess here, that I am not writing this seated as a warrior for truth, justice, and the greater good for humanity. This is more like a written diagnoses of my own symptoms, and the common symptoms I see in the public at large.

If this is the case, what is the meaning to life on this earth? What is our purpose? I believe, as beings created in the image of God, we should go to war against evil. Both individually and collectively. I don’t think necessarily this battle would be of the traditional type. Something more along the lines of:

“Take responsibility for your life, and for the lives of those around you. Do what’s right, no matter what. And when you don’t, because you won’t always, admit it, apologize, and keep trying. Don’t lie, have integrity, work hard, and help others. Be willing to stand alone with character rather than do or say what’s popular or won’t offend.”

To think, we’ve trapped ourselves into this manifest digital realm, where the bumper sticker wisdom stretches as far as the eye can see, (or as quick as the finger will scroll).

Couldn’t we be more than just opinions?

I think we were designed for something more.

Where have all the heroes gone?

In the Church, we have Christ. We have the greatest hero the world has ever known. What’s happened to the idea of growing in the image and likeness of our creator?

What would it take for us to go boldly into the black?

Where are the Apostles, the knights, the soldiers, dragon slayers? Where are the bold, ferocious, meek, and tenderhearted? Where are the loving, and the kind, the underdogs who fight for what is good and just and right?

Why are we so taken by the stories of Luke Skywalker, the Hobbits, the Chonicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter?

Aren’t we called to live quiet and peaceable lives, as salt and light? Shouldn’t we shine in the darkness?

The Apostles traveled in the wilderness, went up against a society that thought they were heretics, insane, or just plain problematic, they went up against evil and they changed the world. Or rather, they went out into the world and acted out against evil. Most astoundingly, they did it at the individual level.

The Gospel gives the individual an opportunity to consider their eternity. The ultimate in personal responsibility.

“…Also He has put eternity in their hearts…” Ecc. 3:11 NKJV

This is not a simple matter. The consequences of this fact reach far beyond our human understanding. We can barley wrap our heads around the idea of eternity and what that means. So we are feebly attempting to understand ideas related to the Truth.

What an epic dichotomy we are in the middle of!

Knowing we are destined for something beyond our current reality, whilst honoring that reality while/by/and living in our current one. I struggle with this.

I suppose where we, as a society have lost our way when it comes to defining terms. It isn’t really clear who the enemy is these days, therefore, we can’t agree on what is evil.

We Christians, know that it is Satan. But, the truth is, “For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. .” 2 Corinthians 11:14 NKJV.

Hence, the most evil acts in our history have been disguised and put forward with the lie that ultimately, these policies would bring about heaven on earth. All alongside the evisceration of God.

So, our worst enemy, the one who is literally hell bent on our destruction comes looking like one of the good guys?

The implications of this are astounding. If we can’t agree on the truth, and we can’t tell who the enemy is, boy what a dangerous situation that is. All the while, we, our friends, our children, our loved ones, and many others worship at the feet of “influencers.” These golden calves are built to look like politicians, Hollywood elites, peddling the divine self ideology and the curative power of the almighty dollar.

I’m not saying that influencers are bad. I guess I couldn’t know that, nor would I claim to. But, what I can say, based on what I’ve observed, is that being “influenced,” is bad. Or at the very least, it can be perilous.

And we are headed for real trouble if we being to value one human life over another. As soon as we begin to take the cosmic scales of justice and fairness into our own hands, well, the outcomes are generally catastrophic.

All genocides have done in the name of what is good and just and right.

If our worth is based on something other than, God created us, and He is good, and what he creates has intrinsic value, we are doomed. This transcendent truth is like a superstructure undergirding the human experience.

I think the general idea behind this writing is something about knowing the bible is true, knowing Jesus is the savior, and knowing we are all created in His image, all the while diving deeper into the mysterious psychology that God has given us and how that has been articulated through the scripture, history, science, and maybe philosophy. Through which, we can find a well articulated purpose and meaning.

Many specific areas of thought that God has given us to develop a closer understanding and relationship with the truth. An essential deep dive into the faculties that God has given us. Moreover, it’s apparent God reveals himself within the inner workings of our psyche, desires, motivations, abilities, thoughts, ideas, dreams, creations, the list goes on.

The difficulty lies in our very limited human capacity. And in all of the above characteristics. All of those beautiful parts of us and the world around us that have been touched by the divine, our creator, the living God, and have been warped by sin.

Not to belabor the point, but this is one of those topics that may, necessarily, require the belaboring of it. Essentially, we have to come to the understanding and the conclusion that our society was built on and has, or once had, a sub strata, or rather, an underpinning built on the fact, one albeit self-evident, though is often glazed over, or lost in the social milieu, that human beings have value. It’s obvious, but it’s not simple.

Peterson, makes an excellent point. Our innate worth, as human beings, has been built into our legal system. For example, we have designed a system to treat even though most pathological horrible, monsters, with some dignity and respect. Even those who are scheduled to be executed. Why would we offer a child molester and murderer a last meal?

There is no real societal value in this. It makes no evolutionary sense. In the most sanitary humanistic view, it makes no sense. However, if we are governed by a moral law, defined by a moral law giver. That, of course, would make sense.

I avoid the common phrases, because, well, they’re common. As a new Christian believer, I became desensitized to them quickly. I can also remember what it was like as a non beliver and am in some way am trying to draw a line from my old ideas to the new. I’m using this book as a way to connect myself, to myself, with the greater hope that it will resonate with someone who needs it. Someone who is on the search for truth. I remember how I thought and I’m trying to reach out to the old me…

Love is another one of those strange components to the human experience. Not easily explained. There is no real good reason to love your dead grandmother. On a purely Darwinian level, that makes no sense at all. Why?

Why is love important for reproduction? We don’t see it in the animal world, and for the most part, they do just fine in the propagation of their species. Deep unconditional love is baffling. How does that help with letting “Only the strong survive.” The fittest, so to speak. And for that matter, why do we need compassion, empathy, generosity, and the like? The serve no value really. Other than, we know we should do these things, because they are in and of themselves, the right things to do.

As we search for truth there are unexpected doubts that will surely arise. We can either avoid them, deny them, or ignore them all together. This is a setup for a catastrophic condition. This is how extremism is borne. If anything arises that threatens our belief systems, those of which we hold so tightly and dear. Violence is inevitable, because doubts become a threat, and a threat needs to be eliminated.

This, of course, does not preclude us from doing good. From helping. It is not that man is not capable of doing good. It is that he is inherently corrupted. Our natural instinct is to preserve ourselves.

Understand, the Nazi party, and those who worked within it, were just regular folks. Trust and believe, they were not, as a group, especially more evil than you and I. Hitler himself, maybe. But we cannot encompass that entire group and surmise them as all born entirely more evil than ourselves. No, they are all as equally evil as you and I.

Or, possibly, a set of conditions arose and were cultivated, in which the most evil could thrive amongst the most people. All the while it was dressed in white. It was the new savior. Why did regular people get caught up in the Nazi party? Why did our neighbor become a serial killer? Why do kids shoot up schools? Why do disgruntled employees go back to their jobs and try to kill a bunch of people?

They had no identity. No real identity.

We must understand this. We must come to know who we are. Without identity, we are lost.

Who are we?

Are we our political leanings? Our sexual preferences? Our ethnicity? Skin color? Gender? Are we our belief system?

We are created in the image of God. Valuable, frail, a prey to emotion, selfish, good, clever, kind, empathetic, generous, and supremely limited, while endlessly creative. We are capable.

But, we become willing when we believe. We are not what we believe. We are children of that which we believe in.

Title: Not at the Dinner Table

Genre: non-fiction

Age range: 18-...

word count: 2,800

Author name: Zachary Nilsson

Why your project is a good fit: This piece travels through the philosphical tension between being a Christian, suffering, and meaning.

the hook: “There is evil and suffering in the world because men don’t do enough good.” Or even, “there is evil and suffering in the world because men don’t do enough good, nor do they have the capacity to eliminate it in any real and meaningful way.”

Synopsis: A thoughtful and peaceful walk examining identity, God, suffering, tragedy, and why.

target audience: Christians, non-christians, young people (college age)

Your bio: 37 year old, ex atheist, former drug addict, and felon. Grew up in Orange County, CA went to public school, played football, baseball, burned out at about 20 years old. Teachers told me I had potential, but I was more concerned with social status and popularity than getting an education and making something of myself. I paid the price for this later.

Platform:

education: AA degree in Paralegal Studies

experience: No experience as a writer. I've done some blogging for the company my wife and I are starting. I've written and delivered some speaches and sermons for church and charity.

personality / writing style: thoughtful, I try to think and write differently than what is usual.

likes/hobbies: the beach, the outdoors, hiking, exercising, reading, writing, drawing, frisbee golf.

hometown: Huntington Beach

age (optional) : 37

Be it sex, fortune, substance, or simply status, man uses these things to satiate the spiritual cipher boiling internally. The eventuality of this declination is inevitable. The very thing used to fill the void exacerbates it.

Popular culture perpetuates delusion.  This delusion drives the erosion of our moral fiber. Thus, collectively, we have no sense of belonging, gratitude, value, validity, or security.

We insist on feeding each other the fallacy that somehow the solution to our problems lies within us. How can it be? Does the solution lie within the same vessel within which the problem lies? Riddle me that. Like it or not, the reason we all love the “self-help” system is because it essentially makes us God. We are become the Divine. Who wouldn’t like that? How could we, the ultimate causes of confusion, calamity, chaos, and crisis, secretly be holding the key to salvation within ourselves? If only we’d unlock our potential!

Just examine the “oppressive patriarchy”  or “the self-esteem movement” or the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” folks. Weak, wishy-washy, victim-centric, or cruel, harsh, and insensitive.

However, aren’t the two ideologies essentially the same?

Either way, we place ourselves into the center of the universe. Nothing is our fault or every success is because of our own resolute will.  Or both.

Perspectives differ, but the essential problem remains the same. We lack power. We do not have the ability to summon the power necessary to defeat evil. Plain and simple. No matter how you slice it. Evil has thrived, grown, and invaded our existence and we feverishly search for the answer to it.

This isn’t to deride human potential. Humans are capable of amazing, remarkable things. Created in the image of God and given gifts from which society has greatly benefitted. However, we need to understand the level of pride with which we suffer from. We need to understand the forces we are up against. It is of the utmost importance to understand that we are a part of the problem. If we understand this, and we understand that the answers need to transcend ourselves, then we have discovered a good thing, the greatest of all things.

Ultimately, we gasp and clutch our pearls as we become the victims of a self-centered crisis. This fictitious travesty, our victimhood, devolves from a fleeting thought to an apparition, and finally to a demonic manifestation and reincarnation of our thirteen-year-old selves. Impulse becomes the master. The search for comfort and gratification clouds out any rational judgment from consciousness. We deteriorate into savages. We allow a warped perception to fuel a base and misguided instinct. Couple warped instincts, with insecurity and selfishness,  then satisfaction becomes a priority.  Here is the moment character, integrity, and discipline part ways.  Sometimes this corruption is slow and subtle, sometimes it is almost instantaneous.  The search for pleasure blots out the reality of the harm we will cause from this descent into the darkness.

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

Enigmatic and poignant prose from Nietzsche. Can we imagine the countless hours of thought, the pages of literature, the gallons of ink, the exhaustion of breath, and the energy expelled, examining the seeming futility of the human condition?

All of this work, soul searching, writing, pontificating, bloviating, waxing poetic, and we always come to the same conclusion. You are the problem, and you are also the solution. I’ll save you the cost of admission to a seminar or the twenty bucks you’d spend on a book.

Countless people have sought gratification, or even higher purpose, through indulgence and chased happiness across a desert of pain and loneliness. This vain transgression of avoiding the worst parts of ourselves actually accentuates those portions we would like to hide. This veil of lies is sewn with thread composed of fear and denial. It is during this feverish and self-centered pursuit of, “meaning,” we are separated. This selfish quest is transformative and painful. Our current status, the goings-on, and general madness are what it means to become the worst version of ourselves during the selfish pursuit of gratification and comfort.

I have spent a good portion of my time on this Earth restless, irritable, and discontented. I sought peace through chaos, I looked for comfort in pain, I searched for serenity in insanity. As I rummaged for relief I perpetuated my own deterioration and degradation. I became the monster I was fighting. My peers were baffled by my self-destructive and pathological behavior. I suffered from spiritual sickness outside the remedy of man’s faux antidotes. Fear ran through my veins like Mississippi creek water. Internally, a tempest loomed within my heart. A storm surged with tremendous power and I continually surrendered to the disaster. It was in the squall of temptation and insecurity that I developed a selfish propensity to assure that an instinctual need was met. This is always without regard to the consequence. There is never any consideration for the people hurt, the harm that is caused, and the general calamity in the wake of a man saturated with fear and insecurity. It is within this cauldron of self-loathing and ego-driven madness that a convenient amnesia sets in.

What really sets man apart from beast is set within the deepest parts of ourselves. The knowing that our instincts cannot always win out over what is right, just, good, and moral. How blinded are we as a society when our culture is driven by instinct and instinct alone? This behavior makes us no better than the bloodthirsty monster. What’s more, is that we know better. We know what is civil, good, just, right, and moral. Save some grey exceptions. Our instincts are kept in check by our morality. The God-given and so defined foundation of our design. It’s is inarguable we are governed by the moral law. Even the most ardent atheist would have to agree.

The Faustian bargain is attractive. It is seductive and pushes men to the edge of morality until they plummet into obscurity. Souls die in the catacombs of despair and are deafened by a harmony of death rattles in a choir conducted by misery. Opposing temptation is warfare and there are lives at stake. This battle rages on and propels human beings to be in collision with one another. The friction is unbearable and the pain is extraordinary. Within this battlefield, nomads wander and contemplate, “meaning.” We seek satisfaction and never consider the costs. To one extent or another, we all participate in this battle. Our denial is dressed as a conscientious objector with a white flag in hand, muttering deflated soliloquies about morality and curiosity. The foe is subtle and called many names. Some say it is just human nature, others regard it as a flaw in the mechanics and chemistry of the human psyche, still, more believe this foe is Satan himself. This is the human condition. The legacy is a hopeless and painful vacuum.

The perpetrator may be unseen, but the consequences are not. These incidences are sketched almost lightly for entertainment within our culture. The consequences are labeled as great works because of their parallelism with life. The Faustian bargain is cyclical. There is only one choice. We must search for a new pleasure to cover up the guilt from the last one. As his guilt escalates so do the escapades. The guilt, shame, and remorse become a granite boulder fastened between our shoulder blades. We judge others for their flaws only because we hate ourselves. We pretend we don’t care, denial becomes our code, and we descend into the black.

The explosion of self-destruction is ignited by self-gratification. It is only when the shroud of plausible deniability is lifted and we are forced to look at the destruction from our wrath that we see. Man is constantly searching for his own definition. Autonomy, or “self-law.” This ideology rules the day. This search perpetuates a fatal disconnection from humanity. When we are consumed with ourselves we are lost. The monster becomes us. We freeze as the abyss stares through us understanding our weaknesses and vulnerability. The Faustian bargain is not a bargain. It is a concession.

Can it be said that looting, rioting, and destruction are a manifestation of what we truly are? Could it be true? Do you think the men who worked as Nazi camp guards were different from you and me? Do you think it is notable when the neighbors of serial killers are interviewed, and they point out that they, the killers, were nice enough, innocuous folks, quiet, and polite? Is it frightening to think of how many of us fit that description? Are we the monsters?

I really liked doing heroin.

I didn't even feel guilty about it anymore. Jail, homelessness, alienation, unemployment, rapidly declining health, crime, didn't bother me. These were mere inconveniences. Annoyances. I wasn't scared. At least it felt that way.

I'd seen it all by then. My mother and father weeping, judges, probation officers, baffled doctors, treatment centers, self-help, AA meetings, therapy, unadulterated violence. I overdosed one time and spontaneously woke up on my girlfriend's apartment floor gasping for air.

I know what it sounds like to hear the rain splash on the same square of concrete I was sleeping on.

I know what it's like to feel the cool steel of handcuffs on my wrists.

I've heard a cell door slam shut behind me.

The warm rush of the drug pushes you down deep, past the guilt, shame, and hopelessness. It drags you into the abyss. In that moment, you are convinced this is who you are, how it was meant to be, and life cannot and will not get any better. How could it?

How do you save someone who is knowingly killing themselves?

I couldn't stop if I wanted to. But, I was so tired.

Then I met a man.

He told me I was loved unconditionally.

He told me I was forgiven unconditionally.

He told me there was now a place for me in His kingdom for all of eternity.

I only need believe on Him, whilst learning to love like Him and forgive like Him.

I haven't had the desire to use drugs or alcohol for 6 and a half years.

I have no explanation for this. I wasn't even willing.

I was just tired.

And then I was saved.