Truth is inherently Exclusive Otherwise, it’s only an opinion.

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How I felt superseded all things.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