At Least It's Almost Over

 

How do I change the trajectory of my life?  How do I make serving God more important than anything else?  The answer is some combination of study, meetings, prayer, service and association.  The big 5 incorporate all the key aspects.  Of course it all falls under love of God and love of neighbor.  However, the big 5 is what love looks like in action.

2 - 3 days later

It is becoming obvious that my depression symptoms are coming back stronger now.  Over the weekend my son posted on the church bulletin board about how badly the congregation has mistreated him.  What really appears to be happening is that he is not happy and he is looking for someone to blame.  Strike that, he finds someone to blame anywhere he looks.  Those trying to help get blamed.  So she posted her treatise blaming the church on a public review board.

That turned into a whole thing.  I read it as a cry for help, but when I reached out, she and her husband declined any offer for assistance.

This has brought home what a failure I have become.  No major area of my life has succeeded.  I feel badly all the time.  With the paralysis brought on by the depression, it seems like there is nothing I can do to fix this.

Super-Funk

 

Super-funk is how I'd describe myself today.  It isn't much different than most days.  I'm just coining a new word for it.  I'm still feeling bad all the time. There is no let-up there.  

Spiritually I'm circling the drain faster.  I'm watching porn again and missing most meetings.  Yesterday I watched just the last part of the Bbl study with the Wt.  So poor.  I'm gonna miss my study today.  

I am so enamored with women these days.  They look so pretty.  I long for their touch, kiss and more.  But only the pretty ones.  Those to whom I have no access without pecuniary resources.  

I sleep too much.  I am lazy almost all the time.  For some reason I don't think about self-harm as much as other times during which I have felt this despondent. Maybe I am finally internalizing what a bad idea that is.  In any case the prospect of surviving Armageddon seems more remote each week that goes by.

My son seems more and more like a lost cause.  He seems to be a victim of his own good looks and intelligence.  It has made him lazy and excessively dependent on others.  I wish I could help, but he doesn't want my help.  He just wants my money.  

I am crushed and useless in every way.  I just can't keep this up.  But then again, I've kept this, or something like it, up for more than 40 years.  It just keeps getting worse and more hopeless.  

I guess I'll just pray some more.  

My Wayward Son (reprise)

 

Recent events have led me to conclude that my son has multiple intractable problems.

1. He is a liar by commission and omission
1. He claimed he did not have the money for needed medical treatment and sought assistance from the congregation.  Later she paid for it with family savings.
2. He cannot accurately assess his role in the challenges he faces.  He is unwilling to accept counsel to that effect.
1. As a result, he chooses to blame others for his troubles.
2. He actively seeks validation for his flawed thinking.
3. Casual attitude to the recommendations & regulations of WBTS in both recommended actions and recommended things to avoid.
1. He is flirting with apostate thinking
2. He has used drugs regularly and I strongly suspect that he continues to do so habitually.  He has admitted that his spouse imbibes daily
4. He overvalues his own or adopted ideas and clings to them despite strong evidence to the contrary.
5. He is greedy
1. On having excess furniture, I sold some to friends who helped me in the recent past.  I offered some to my son.  He immediately complained that I had not offered everything to him first.  He ticked off several items that he wanted but never followed up with any actions to collect them.  

This has led to a very troubled existence.  This includes marriage, employment and spiritual difficulties.  It also includes troubles with the law and threats of self-harm. 

He is a very good-looking man and people all around him want to help him, but the defects mentioned above have limited the ability of others to help him.  

Nuclear War

 

I just finished reading a book about nuclear war.  It is written by someone who has researched the subject extensively, gathering all the unclassified information she could find on the subject.  This includes talking to several highly placed sources (retired) who had first-hand knowledge about how the nuclear deterrence is designed to work.  

To the best of her ability to determine, once a triggering event is started, there is only about an hour before the world is devastated.  While hundreds of millions die in the first hour or so, the remaining 95% is killed from the resulting fire storms, as a consequence of mass electrical outage or nuclear winter's cold and starvation. 

It seems so close and that hanging onto the status quo (no nuclear annihilation) is extremely tenuous.  It is the classic sword of Damocles hanging over our collective heads.  It seems as though it could slip into destruction at any time.  Based on her description, even US presidents just don't realize the gravity of the situation.  

Especially troubling is the short amount of time there is to react to perceived threat of incoming missiles.  In that brief time span whether key personnel are awake and coherent or not (drunk or not), in communications range or not, feeling too proud or not determines whether the world will end up as a smoldering ruin.  

It is soul crushing to realize how devastatingly mad the system is.  And this is where I put my primary trust and effort for the 45+ years of my life.  And this knowing that God has a better alternative than.  He has assignments that we should be fulfilling.  I turned my back on that work and focused instead on my narcissistic pursuits.  I am so damned stupid.  Yet and still the poison I drank in the quest for money and power still inhibits my ability to change course.  

While I spent my life paying relatively little attention to the scenery through which the bus is traveling, this book grabbed me by my ears and forced me to look forward down the way on which this bus is traveling.  It is as though it is weaving drunkenly on a narrow bridge over a volcanic cauldron with the world as passengers.  And there I am on top with all my valuable worldly possessions.

Of course I don't believe God would let it happen; nonetheless this is the best that mankind can do to manage ourselves apart from God.  Generally, mankind does not believe that God will intervene, and yet, with the whole world at stake, he can do no better than to hold it hostage to this potential fate.  How immensely stupid could I be?  

More importantly, how can I fix this?

Wayward Son

Wow, it has been quite a while.  Lots has happened since I last wrote.  

I had sex with someone, even though I was back in the organization.  My conscious bothered me enough so that I admitted my mistake.  As is typical the big dogs were all over me.  But they didn't kick me out again.  I forgot to tell them that I was sad over damaging my relationship with God.  But they coached me into saying something close enough.  

So several weeks later I someone got around to studying with me.  Things got going in May or so.  It is helpful.  I am still extremely lonely but at least there is someone to talk to once a week or so.  

I still get distracted by porn.  I start watching but not for long.  I prayed this AM to hate it.  Of course I'll need to pray several dozen more times (or so) before it takes effect.  That's not a complaint.  I am sure God wants to see if this is what I really want.  

Work is not going well.  The company doesn't have the money to spend on the product I am working on.  So it is languishing.  Sales of the product haven't improved in spite of rousing predictions at the start of the year.  

If that were not enough, the new wave of management wants to change things around.  In typical old school fashion, a small team of executives asked questions, then got together to decide what to do without  further involvement of the people who know the most about the business and technology.  I think I am about to lose my job yet again.  I don't yet have the motivation to look again.  

My son has gone off the deep end.  He is deep into conspiracy theories.  When I had some extra paintings I wanted to get rid of, he got really grabby and started telling me all of what he wanted as though he were shopping in a store where the merchandise was free.  I pretty much decided to curtail the freebies to him.  I gave him so much and he just doesn't appreciate it.  He actually doesn't mind taking hand me downs.  It is like he thinks this is the normal way things are done.  The thought of working hard, eaning money, saving up and buying stuff himself just hasn't occurred to him.  Oh my God, where did I go wrong.  I love him so much but now he decided to stop talking to me.  

I think he thinks that this is really hurting me.  It isn't.  I am sad, but I know that God will give him what he deserves.  I grieve the fact that I didn't give him the best chance of being a godly person.  But there seems to be nothing I can do now.  And giving him more stuff isn't the answer.  He doesn't appreciate the many things I have given him thus far.  

 

I wrote this in winter of 2023 but didn't publish 2024.

Well things have taken a turn for the worse.  I sort of "knew" this would happen.  I quit studying like I had been doing faithfully each day.  I don't know why.  It happened around the same time I started watching porn again.  So, obviously, I am trying to pinch off that habit again.  I also quit going to meetings for a a couple, maybe 3 weeks now.  So yea, It's bad.

It is the same old situation:  I don't feel like doing anything.  When I recognize the need to move forward on something I just can't generate the motivation to do so.  I think that when I started watching porn again regularly, God withheld his HS which meant that I faltered in doing the studying which led to lower HS.  Of course that made it more difficult to stop the Porn habit and also made it harder to get to meetings, which again limited the HS.  In short a death spiral.

3 week break

So I completely quit studying for a couple of weeks now.  I have restarted as of yesterday and today, but it is anyone's guess as to whether that continues.  

Long Break/

Well it is the new year and I started it off with a royal screw up.  Quit literally so.  I was perusing my favorite escort site and happened upon 

Back In

 

I made it back into my religion.  I'm not being shunned anymore.  It came about a little off schedule.  I had planned to resubmit my plea for reinstatement in September.  I figured that would allow plenty of time to have passed since my last transgression.  I figured it would come up during the hearing (it did.)  But for some reason I started thinking of going ahead and submitting the plea.  So, I did.

The committee almost rejected me.  I think it was because I didn't show all the emotion and talk about loving that they were accustomed to hearing.  After deliberating they told me that they were not going to let me back in.  I said   OK.  But for some reason I told them that I am not emotional, and I doubt that a month or two from now I was going to come back feeling all the wonderful feelings that they seemed to expect.  I told them that good behavior is the best I can do right now, and probably for a long time to come.  

I just left after that and started walking to my car.  But crazy enough, someone rushed out of the building and asked me to return.  I did and they had changed their mind.  So I am back in.  There are the typical constraints that come from having just been allowed to return after being kicked out.  But that is expected.  

I have managed to keep up a routine of study and prayer.  I think the study is particularly effective since I had been praying a lot before with limited effect.  So, I don't know what the rest will be like.  They want me to have a mentor that hasn't been selected yet.  We will see how that turns out.