faith evolving

on some random day in my past, probably about 11-12 years ago, i woke up, looked around and screamed out loud to no one in particular, "this is fucking chaos! none of this makes sense! anyone who believes otherwise is a fool!" and just like that, i was an angry atheist. i had went to sleep the night before as a bright eyed believer. not anymore. now i didn't believe in anything.

and it felt great. i felt unburdened. not believing in anything was a very light load to carry. takes a while to get exhausted. i'd frolic through everyone else's maps of make believe and cackle at everyone's feeble attempts to make any sense out of life, or out of anything for that matter. all i knew is that all was chaos, nothing made sense, and i couldn't feel happier or more free about it.

i had struggled with all sorts of belief mechanisms before that. i had my weird hippie /transcendentalist / taoist / karma is the way phase. that eventually gave way to a born again christian phase. and some time after that i eased back in to my more hippie-ish ways. everything was gonna be alright... man. you just gotta go with the flow.

i look back at that cartoon and laugh. what a sucker. he fell for anything that would help alleviate him of his biggest fears... those being death and that the world is a cold place. he had no idea that all he had to do was sorta embrace what he feared, and he'd feel a lot better about it.

so there i was, the angry atheist. angry at the world before the world could give him something to be angry about. this new found freedom would soon become a burden. at a certain point, it ached to look at everyone i knew and see them all as empty vessels. if life has no purpose, then surely people don't either. everyone around me was a purposeless being.

and that started to seem insane. especially when president bush's second term was about to end. all of the sudden i started thinking differently. maybe there is some purpose... just a little. i can't just stand back and let the world fall to shit. i gotta care about something. and there i was.... ready to put my faith back into people. i'd probably never go back to invisible deities, but people on earth, physical people you can feel, hear, and smell... they were real. and it was time for me to invest in the good ones.

and i started to lighten up. i wanted to love again. i had stopped believing in love for so long. if people are real, then surely the connection between two people can be real also. there's gotta be a such thing as love, right? i wanted to love my friends and family. i wanted to have a girlfriend to love and to love me back. i wanted all to be love. and soon i got lost in this idea that we, as people, could make the world a better place through love.

i'd look around and see a world of strangers and i'd try to see the best in everyone. i figured everyone had some good in them to share with others. and i started to lose sight of myself. and soon i started to feel slighted. here i was seeing the best in everyone else, and no one was giving me their best in return. i had over compensated. i had raised expectations too high. people can be good, there's the potential, but they'll eventually let you down... over and over and over and over. and i'm not exempt. i'm just as guilty of letting others down as anyone else.

and then i stopped believing in others so hard. i crawled deeper inside myself. i started running. i started writing more. and soon i started to believe in me. i figured i'm as good a vessel for my faith as anything else. i figured the only thing i have any control over is myself. there's no power in the cosmos or hope in humanity that's gonna make life any better. i'm responsible for that. everyone is, but everyone is responsible for their own contributions to life. i can't let the disappointments of a sometimes cold existence mired in chaos slow me down. in the end, i'm all i got and i'm all i'm allowed to believe in. to believe in anything else seems insane.

that's where i stand now. i'm sure things will change again though soon enough. it always does. faith's always evolving.