Change is Good

Since starting this blog roughly 3 years ago, loyal readers will note that the tone has been decidedly negative.  Almost each new post contained a new wave, sometimes tsunami, of  bad news and ill feelings.  These were honest reflections of my life and not some trumped up version of negativity.  I can't say that the feelings have changed but I am now trying to take a different, more balanced approach.

Yes, I still am unemployed, subject to ill health and financial ruin.  However I recently read that mental health is closely related to expressions of gratitude and reflecting on positive experiences.  So I resolved to improve the mood and tone of my posts.  (This isn't like a news program whose ratings are depressed by an absence of bad news.  I for one would be overjoyed.  I don't really look forward to absence of challenges but I just want to emphasize the positive.  No one else seems to hit this anyway so I'm not worried about a loss of readership.)

Positive Item #1:  Good Health

I find myself almost afraid to talk about this since so many have expressed the notion that bragging about the good inevitably leads to bad.  Forging ahead in spite of the internal struggle, as I reflect on my health, I have to say that I am very happy with the known state of my health.  Yes I am fat, possibly obese, but that is at least within the realm of control.  My eyesight has always been poor but that is correctable (even though I don't seem to be able to wear contact lenses and so am stuck with glasses all the time.) 

What I don't have is diabetes, (a) missing limb(s),  dementia, heart disease, cancer or the like (again not to my knowledge.)  Also I'm not blind, severely hearing impaired, and the other senses (olfactory, touch, and the others I can't remember right now) seem to work fine.  Also my mind, while not as sharp as I would hope, seems to be able to comprehend things as well as the bulk of society.  Of course it goes without saying that many, many people especially many of my peers are far more capable than I am in this area, I have no just basis for complaint.  I have only been sidelined by health issues once and it does not seem to be a recurring issue.  It appears to have been a once and done type of thing. 

Even things that are very common like back problems, foot problems, frequent stomach problems, are not a big issue for me.  I am relieved since these things have often plagued others around me and I see how they suffer. 

I hope I never get the idea that somehow I am a better person as a result.   That's not the message here.  It is rather to verbalize my appreciation for the state of my health.  I know I should be more grateful, but maybe this is the start of a new round of appreciation for the things I do have.

Next:  the rents.

Bad @ Start / Good @ Middle / ?? Remaining.

It's early afternoon and after the day started out with a really poor night's sleep the morning proceeded with a session of masturbation to porn (what I used to call nrop because I couldn't bring myself to spell out the word heretofore.)  This is much the way yesterday ended, with me watching porn in stereo and masturbating along the way.

Yes, it is something of which I am deeply ashamed, but this day and age everyone watches porn and masturbates (I learned that from watching TV; who says TV is not educational.)

Later this morning I finally got around to working on my bible education (really strange eh?)  I had planned a whole series of errands to run, but i think that I opted to study the bible because I didn't want to do that less than I didn't want to leave the safety of my apartment to go do errands.

I really hope I can pray to God more because I am so far off the course he set for mankind that there is no way I could possibly close that gap without his help.  Of course the bible teaches that we always need to be praying no matter if we are spiritual zeros, or spiritual giants.  Even Jesus is recorded to have been praying many, many times to his father in heaven (a conundrum for any divine trinity adherents out there, though I am sure most such would protest.)

Now if I could only do this every day instead of just once a quarter.  Fat idiot fucker (mentally at least.)  Oh and I have to do something about this damn cussing.  I don't usually use such language when I am talking to someone else, but it bleeds through occasionally, probably more often than I realize.  I would be mortified if it bled through when talking to someone of the religion I am trying to crack into.  I'd be blackballed by so many families and individuals, I would just might as well just hari-kari myself.

Of course that isn't what God would want me to do.  (On the contrary, I am sure Satan would be most pleased.)  God keeps telling his people to put trust in him.  It is really  significant to me that when Job was dealing with all his losses, his house, family (except his trash talking wife) and his assets, he did not know that he was being specifically tested by Satan with God and the rest of the angels looking on to see how he would fair.   That's why there was such an intense debate at the time about the reason for his suffering.   I'm not sure he ever found out what was going on behind the scenes.  The point is that he kept being faithful to God.  I am certainly not that good.  I stub my to and ask "God, why do you bring this great pain and suffering on me?"  OK, well that's an exaggeration, but only mildly so.

So here I sit, 5 weeks out of work and no closer to getting another job.  Spending most of my time watching TV (including porn) and frequently masturbating to deal with the great struggle.  I truly hate myself.

False Catharsis

I am still flopping around like a doomed fish in the bottom of a poor man's fishing boat.  (I say poor man because I perceive that this diminishes the likelihood its of being thrown back.)   I am still struggling to identify and (more difficult) follow a reasonable pattern of work, entertainment, rest, networking needed to find another job.  And that continues to be the focus, finding another job rather than take advantage of this opportunity to serve God more effectively.

My shame is preventing me from the most basic thing needed to form a relationship with God, prayer.  I feel totally ashamed of what I am now.  In the last 4 weeks since I lost my job I have been laying around the apartment eating, sleeping, watching TV including nrop.  And of course many times (surprisingly not most times) this ends in a session of self arousal.  After years of pride over my virility I know realize that I can't ejaculate as I used to, giving fluid flight.  Not it is just a damn dribble.

Reflecting on this (not just the act but how I have chosen to put it into words) I am again reminded of how very far I have fallen from the standard God sets for humans in this day and age.  Not that his standards have changed, but his apparent expectations for behavior certainly seem to have changed.  (Consider that polygamy is no longer a tolerated practice based on Jesus during his earthly ministry.)

Anyway, I find myself in digression.  The point of this post is that I am still not doing God's will.  I was hugely surprised when I asked for a bible study and was turned down from the big dogs in the congregation.  My best guess is that they felt they are wasting their time.  They convinced me to do FS a couple of times but now they have just dropped me off again to roll around in the bottom of the congregation until I fall out again.  I don't want that to happen but I am not finding success in doing the things needed to get the help I need.  Not that it is so hard; I just need to study, go to the meetings, pray and do FS.  But that is just several bridges too far.  I can't seem to get there.

Death is the end of all this.  Unlike what most people seem to believe, God's love is not unconditional and interminable.  It certainly wasn't with the nation of Israel.  After he tolerated hundreds of years and many, many rulers defying his will, he finally called an end and destroyed the nation as an independent people.  He isn't going to tolerate me for multiple generations though, I had better get this right or tomorrow, next week, next year or in a coming decade, God will call and end to his patience and I will die outside his mercy, forever gone and forgotten, but not so as to spare the grief that will certainly ensue on the part of my family, including (most likely) my mother, the single most kind person I know personally.

And yet that prospect is not enough to fuel me with the motivation, the energy, the will necessary to stop laying around this damn apartment and do something about the sad and sorry state of my spiritual situation.  Shit!  You f*cking moron!

I just heard a TED talk where the speaker, Sean Anchor, espoused a theory about how to motivate people through positive energy.  It  constitutes:

1. Daily notes of gratitude
2. Writing (as in a journal) about positive  things,
3. Exercise,
4. Meditation, and
5. Random acts of kindness such as a note to someone in your social network thanking them for something.

I heard a good explanation for the other component (apart from logic) that guides the decision making part of our brain.  I can't articulate the arguments but I believe it comes from the things we feed our brain.  What we watch, with whom we associate, what we read and what we dream about.

I am trying to stop watching TV cold turkey.  I am also trying to give up my newly budding addiction to "strategy style" video games.  Fortunately the latter is only a few weeks old but it has already claimed several hours each day of its existence.  It is like a rapidly growing cancer and if I don't cut it out soon, it will be yet another monster growing inside my brain further entangling my logic center.  Although it would probably just hasten my death which might be nothing more than a blessing, still I have the urge to fight for my life, rather than surrender.  So I am trying to quit.

So right now, as I type I am falling into heavy metal.  Evanescence, Delain, Within Temptation, Epica, Nightwish, at elevated volume.  I forgot how cathartic that can be.  Oh yes and escorts have really worked in the past.  Shit, there is no escaping is there.  It's like I'm in a maze wearing a suit of loops and where the walls are covered in hooks.  The passages get more narrow as the entrance nears.

I feel like praying but that never seems to work.  I know logically that it is a critical component of the only possible plan of escape, What a perfect trap.

Trapped!

So, the worst of the worst has happened, I lost my job.  Well, not really.  I could have been df'd.  But something worse has happened, my son was df'd; that was a while ago.

It has been a really, really bad quarter.  So now, I have found the trap, the crucible I am currently in.  You see, spending the last 12 years of my life trying as hard as I knew how to to make a success of a dying company, I have exhausted myself and driven myself into depression.  Of course the latter intelligence is far from new.

I haven't blogged in a bit.  But lots of sh*t has been happening.  Maybe I'll cover that in future blogs.  Maybe not.  I am not sure this is really helpful at all.  But I don't want to forget to cover it (for some unknown reason.)  Here are some of the high points:

1. My kid was df'd again
1.125 My job got really bad with the new salesman as a boss.
1.25 I used an escort again; the date with Sid wasn't much fun, I almost missed her due to confusing sign on the restaurant door, and her cell phone not working.  She somehow got started telling me stories about her friends that I didn't really want to talk about.  She left the envelope on the table and we had to call the place to get back in to retrieve it, what a mess.)  I still like her though, but not enough to overcome the obstacles to seeing her, at least not at this point.
1.5 I was terminated from my lousy job (lousy except in terms of compensation.)
2. I tried to restart my study and was turned down.
3. I actually went out in FS not once but twice (and then I promptly missed multiple meetings 2 or 3 so far, I lost count.)
4. I am back looking for an escort to go out with.


So I am still avoiding using dating sites and speed dating.  It is hard to do  something like this so it isn't a great thing to avoid doing so.  There is no question though, if there wasn't this issue with the religion banning (effectively) such activity, I would end up doing so.

I had long recognized that I was in a really bad way with every weekend beginning and ending with long tele-viewing binges.   But now, with no job to go to, my life is one long weekend.  I am getting some things done but I would say that I am operating at about 8% efficiency.  A few things are getting done but, mostly it is just binge watching anything remotely view-able.

One thing I wish there was a convenient way to address.  The truly bad feelings that accompany a job loss, particularly when there was a great deal of invested interest and passion involved in the creation and promulgation of the work products.  It is hard to disengage without something with which to replace it.  It is like the old adage:  "The best way to get over a lost woman, is to find another."  Of course the wisdom of that statement may be debatable, especially if one's own actions and attitude resulted in the loss.  That having been said, maybe it is good to reflect on the mistakes I made in this past job, painful though it may be.

I remember the first truly traumatic job loss.  I was so stricken by the event that it was as bad as the death of a close loved one for many people.  Having lost close people before,  I can say that for sure.  Of course I do believe that my response to death is typical.  I also don't think my response to the loss of a job is typical.  Otherwise Hallmark would have a whole new line of sympathy cards.

Back

Well I wouldn't be surprised if a strange reader were to conclude I had done myself in.  It has been a long time since any new post.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective regarding my existence) my situation is little changed.

I am still sitting outside my congregation looking in on how much fun people are having inside the church.  But I myself keep doing things that keep me on the periphery.  My job is ending, that seems like a really bad thing.  However I think that God may be giving me a helping hand by dumping me off the bandwagon that is  my current employer.  In some ways it seems like a circus parade.  But, when you work for the circus, it is your livelihood.

My son, who currently lives in sin with his current bitch is finally (again) planning to leave her.  She is no match for him and the cliche "I don't know what he sees in her" is abundantly apropos.

My place is a mess, I spent my holidays ironing shirts.  (What!!??) Yes, you read correctly.  For cryin' out loud.  I'm such a freaking mess.

I did up my monthly gift to the church to 6 c-notes a month.  That and the 2 c-notes to help my uncle is probably the best use of the money I have coming in.  I still employ escorts occasionally but just for dinner and lunchtime company.  One I met named Syd tugs mightily at my heart.  Tall, beautiful in spite of her age, gentle and with a warm heart.  She is intelligent and very kind.  I can't see her anymore.  I know I would continue to fall in love if I did so.  I hope God shows her his will for people today.

When I visited my brother he told me of another guy I just barely knew when I was a kid.  The guy grew up and focused on doing God's will in his life.  But his mother was poor.  She is dead and gone and he is poor today.  But he is strong in the church.  I sort of wish I could trade places.  Anyway, his computer broke a while ago so he can't access a lot of the media the church now distributes therewith.  I think about the money I spend on escorts and for just one visit I could get him a really nice machine to use.  How can I justify the continued spending.

Of course I came home from my visit and after a couple of days I tried to make another appointment with an escort.  Thankfully she hasn't responded.  It's been long enough that I can feign schedule change if she does ever get back to me.  (I don't think she will.)

It's the loneliness.  I really want someone of similar intellectual capacity to talk to.  Actually I want a woman to talk to.  But, I suppose that's just a long way of saying that things haven't changed much.

My son decided that he wants to go to another congregation.  So I go to the meetings with him there.  That's good since I had completely stopped going to my own congregation.  I'v been to the congregation now 6 or 7 weeks in a row. Almost all the time (and definitely for the last 4 times, my son comes with me.      I hope it continues to work out but then I think about the last 40 years of my life and I realize that it probably won't.  I haven't given up but I am not succeeding either.

Did I mention I am loosing my job?  My new manager thinks I am expendable.  It should be a good thing but I feel stuck to this damn company.  It is like I just can't fathom to leave.  I have to though.  I need to get out of here, this place is a death trap.  I've watched the company shrink to half its former size.  The new parent company still has a straw stuck in this company's jugular and is sucking with nearly the force of a full vacuum in an effort to extract more cash.  All the while flogging middle management and providing niggardly wage increases.

I just can't imagine what it must be like to work for a successful company.  One where you aren't constantly worried about job loss and you can reasonably expect a raise of 3% or more most years.  Seems like a pipe dream to me now.


O yes and I still despise myself with deep and abiding passion.  I still clutch my head ramdomly during the day as I think of some incredibly stupid thing I did a few decades, months, years, days or hours ago.  I just can't fathom a pleasant life anymore.  Being accepted in a crowd of people who see me as a real and acceptable associate, one they would like to get to know,  well that just seems to be beyond hope.  I'll always be an outcast.  At least until I die.  Life is so discouraging.   It sucks the go juice right out of me.  I so very abhor what I have grown up to become.  And I am deeply ashamed of myself.

No wonder my son is so messed up  .  .  .  I suppose I'd turn my back on myself if I were my own son.

Reprimanded, Scorned As the One Who's Bad

So for the second time in as many months I've been censured again.  Since the issues I engaged in were not public, they won't make any announcement.

I feel like a bullet just went whizzing by my head.  However in actual fact any of the punishments available to God would have been appropriate if God was in agreement with its application.  So I didn't want to get the boot, but I was prepared to accept it.  I think so anyway; who knows how I would have taken the news.

So they say I have to start going out in FS.  They actually set a date for the next meeting.  I think if I do all the things they want, 1) improved study 2) keep coming to meetings 3) FS and of course 4) Prayer (without which the first 3 could not be sustained) then I'd get the duct tape ripped from my mouth.

I suppose at some point later, the banishment from the MS would go away as well, then finally this 10 (or so) years of punishment would be over.

So for now I feel better.  I think God has finally forgiven me for my crimes against him.  I'm just left with the stinking fetid situation that all that sinning has left me with, but if I put God's will first in my life, I can deal with it with God's help.

I still hate my life and the mess I've made of it.  However I'm glad God was willing to forgive me.  I suppose for now, I should be thankful for that and working hard to continue repairing my relationship with Him.

Am I able to do that though?  I have been "trying" for some time now, years in fact.  Of course I put it in quotation marks because while there has been some effort, it isn't like I was digging in soft earth where I knew there to be a million USD buried that would be lawfully mind if found within the next 10 minutes.  Nope, I'd be digging a lot harder than I am working to get myself back into good standing.  (Good standing means that you are not on judicial restrictions.  Basically where I am now means that I couldn't even work on building a new KHall.)

I know I need to pray more.  Heretofore I haven't managed to make myself pray like I need to.  I don't know if it is related to last night's judgment but it seems easier to pray now.  Well now that it's easier I should try to take advantage of it since I know I haven't done so lately.  Hardly at all.

Looking back at the escorts, I have to just not look  back there.  I should pray for help to not look back.  If I do I'll cave.  No question there.  Honestly the world looks bleak.  No entertainment, no fun, no association.  I suppose it would be good to go out in FS and get that positive feeling again.   The association would come back related to the amount of FS I'm doing.  It's hard to see myself happily associating with people who ignored me years earlier.  But that's a matter of forgiveness IF they really did something wrong.  Knowing who I was and where I was spiritually, I'd advise many against associating with who I was back then.  In any case that's not a situation I need to fix.

It's going to be a very unpleasant ride back to spiritual activity.  A lot of:  "I have to do this no matter how much it hurts" moments are in the near future.  Oh well, I have to do this if I am going to survive so it might as well be now.  Doing myself in would be easier.  After all, "Seasons don't fear the Reaper" right?  But that kind of thinking would probably land me in a lake of fire from which there is no resurrection.  Besides, the only think I may have possibly done right is raise a kid.  While the jury is still out on that, I really like doing so and I know I won't be able to do with that option (as much as one can know these things.)

Thursday

I am seriously behind on my work due to the vacation day and a half.

I feel like I got a boost from all the counsel from the deacons.  That's a real plus.

There is just so much that needs to be taken care of.  Maybe God will help me now that my sins have been forgiven.

Friday

I'm kind of numb.  Work is very busy.  The meds make me jumpy like they did before.  Jittery sort of.  My hands shake when I am trying to keep still.  My voice is wavey like I am really nervous even when I'm not.  Oh well, It's still better than being in the bottom of a well.

Goin' to my shrink this afternoon.  I was tellin' her I'm gonna break bad a session or 2 ago.  Now that I have a reprieve,  I'm not gonna do that.  I continue to have an easier time praying.  I was really having a lot of trouble doing so before.

Life is still unpleasant.  I feel alone most of the time.  People haven't changed.  I don't fit in anywhere, work, church are both dismissive of me as an individual.  Of course it's worse at church.  I still have my ups and downs but generally speaking the trend is no longer down.  I should be thankful for that.  The deacons were really helped.  I'm just going to have to wait for changes I made to ripple through my life.  I imagine it will be 6 months before I perceive any difference.

I'm going on PTO next week.  I haven't made ANY plans for what to do with my time.  I suppose I had a mild notion of doing some filing and working on the house in Martinsville.  I still feel like a zero.  I can't seem to do anything other than what someone standing over me is telling me to do.  I'm such a sh*t.

Written around April 2015 published much later.

Monday AM

Today finds me still waiting for word of my punishment.  One of the deacons on the committee is out of town so I won't hear anything until he gets back.  I'm not sure when this will be but likely a day or two at the most.  I think a lot about ess eee cross but once the depression meds get here, I shouldn't have that problem any more.  I am looking forward to that.

I don't know if I will keep looking to make a date with the escort again.  I cancelled them both earlier.  I know I still need some kind of companionship.  They have this snuggle/cuddle service now but precious few people are available for that kind of engagement.  Obviously I can't spend the night with them but dinner and a movie would now be a lot cheaper: 80 dol/hr rather than 500 dol / hr.

So regarding my case, I remembered that I took a bath once and showered once with this df'd person.  I don't know if this makes any difference or not.  And if I remember something else, I suppose I'll have to go through this process again.  So even IF they decide not to kick me out for spending the night so many times, I have at least these two issues to discuss and I don't know how many other things I did that could be considered a df'ing offence.  I suppose if I remember any other df'ing issues, I'll have to go through this again.  I suppose the big issue is I thought ess eee cross was needed to kick someone out and I never imagined that spending the night was "loose conduct" (that's one of the things you can get kicked out for if you do it multiple times.)  In spite of that there is nothing I am continuing to practice so it may still go OK for me.  But given that there are so many and varied instances of trouble, I think my goose is cooked.  I already told my kid I'd probably be df'd.  I actually think that I will although I hope I don't.  I don't want to be kicked out, I just think that's what's going to happen.  I think God sees the need for me to be punished this way to get myself in gear and motivated to do His will.  I think maybe df'ing would do that.  However it would also give me the sense of freedom and the thought that I can finally have ess eee cross without consequence.  I think that would be disasterous.  I think I am at a point right now that the only path back to God that I will follow, is to get df'd and then to be good, and stay focused on getting reinstated until I get back in.  During that time I'd have to prepare for FS.  On letting me back in I'd have to immediately start back in FS until the restrictions are lifted and beyond.

This is not what I want to happen.  I want it just to be that I am reproved yet again, and then I do the same thing.  I just don't think that would happen.  I am growing accustomed to being reproved.  I still don't want to get df'd since I really believe that I will handle that badly.  The temptation would be too much to go the wrong way with it.  Still, if I had to choose, I would say no, I don't want to be df'd.  Of course it's not my choice, it's God's.