Reflection on Religion

The concept of religion has varying definitions depending upon the context and what can be easily compared with it. To me, someone who was raised a Methodist Christian, but spent many years of his life switching from church to church with his parents, trying to find the perfect fit, religion, is more than just something that you can believe in, religion has and always will be a way to define ourselves to others and a way that we can influence and make sense of our perception of reality.

Despite my belief in my own Christian faith, I am constantly plagued by the feeling that there must be an even greater truth beyond the words of Christian Scriptures regardless of the denomination. I feel as though I should not be compelled to choose a single faith as I have seen the proponents of organized religion do. However, it is not possible to choose what religion you want to follow when you are born. Christianity is the religious tool that I have been given as a base for understanding my own reality, and I view it as just that, a base. In a world full of great religious and racial schisms, it is very easy to exist with a closed mind, recognizing and deifying the things that separate us from the sinners, or the infidels. I think that the greatest truth to be found in life is available through an exploration of the religious views of others.

Throughout history, it has been common for major religious groups to be the catalyst that leads to war, conflict, and hate. The Christian Crusades, The Arab Israeli conflict, the Muslim Conquests, the Genocide of World War II, and many other terrible tragedies find their roots in the garden of Organized religions and the differences that they poignantly emphasize. I do not view organized religion as a bad thing however, I merely feel that organized religion helps small minded people continue to think in a small minded way. It has also provided nations with identity, and just rulers, with equally just causes to fight for. People are not perfect, thus by nature, our religions will always be inexorably flawed. It is for that reason that we must not restrict ourselves to a traditional Organized religious belief. We need to look outside the box, or the cross, what have you, and look for truth in the religions of our peers if we truly seek enlightenment and peace.

Ha.

Yeah, that's right, ha. im laughing at you, not with you, at you. Why? because i feel bad for you, i think your way of life is depressing, and your outlook on it so common i feel like you're not even a wallflower, more like wall paper. Its surprising to me that people notice you, pay any attention to you at all because you spend your whole life trying to fit into the molds manufactured by your peers. You used to be so cool, i could talk to you for hours and not get bored, and you didn't give a shit about what anybody said. But now, you're selfish, and egotistical. You cover up your own insecurities with fake tanning and makeup, and i barely know who you are anymore. Then again, i don't think you do either. You won't know when you read this, you won't ever know.

I don't even know who I'm writing this to, because i haven't seen the real you in so long its like you're just all gone.

Maybe this is to everyone who just gets along by hiding behind things that define others and hope to fit the shape of the shadows cast by the spotlight on their golden idols.

So maybe i'm preachy, but someone had to say it.

today i might lose the one thing in my life that has been a constant for the past 5 months. I cant imagine what im going to do if everything thats been going on comes to fruition. Its one thing to realize faults about yourself, and another to have those same faults hurt those that you love to the point that they want to be far away from you, want to seek out someone else to make them feel good. its strange to look at myself in the mirror, and know that the one person who could have made a difference is looking at me, he is me.

She has been a girlfriend that i didnt deserve. Not from day one. I think sometimes that i was dreaming when i look back on parts of our relationship.

i hope this works out.

There doesn't have to be a title

Because no one needs to know what you're going to say before you say it.

No one but yourself.

Recently i think i have realized something about myself and yet i don't quite know what it is. Its that feeling that i get when i walk into a room that ive been in hundreds or even thousands of times and yet i see it in a different way than i have ever seen it before. i look at my life up to this point and i see a path leading in thousands of different directions, criss crossing itself and leading up down backwards sideways and yet leading up to this point. its a line i could never trace, and would never hope to trace. looking back i wish that i could change actions that led to the end of certain realities. the things that i did that i thought would have the largest impact have often had the least. the ones that seem to be insignificant seem to define me as a person.

My life and the laws that govern it seem to defy the universal law of the universe that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction because nothing seems proportional. It occurs to me now that my perception of reality might be so different from that of others that i have no concept of what will dramatically influence me anymore. I think i like it this way. i have to embrace it because i have recently become so fascinated with time, and the way i pass it and pass through it that i dont entirely notice how insignificant the span of my life will be against the universal whole.

There is really so little time given us. and yet we never know it, because all of what we perceive and interpret is relative. Everything we see, regardless of if it is old or new is compared in some way to something that we have already experienced. Its this constant relativity that causes our past to live on in our present, because certain aspects of the past that seemed so unlike anything else when we first experienced them, only become more similar to everything else as we live more and more of our life.

No one will read this, not all the way through anyway. so really what i have to say here could be as meaningless as the brand of toothpaste that i use. but the act of using the toothpaste, or the act of blogging, is what is really significant to me. Not what comes out of it, but the fact that i am doing it for the sole purpose of my own well being and health. I have a pile of all my clothes on the couch in my room, and i need to clean it up before i will be able to earnestly begin studying for the last two finals of my first semester and senior year. Time has not passed quickly, nor has it been slow. Time has passed, and our perception of it has changed, in addition to the things we value, hate, and love. There will always be moments we wish for again, and moments we wish had never happened, but the true significance of those moments comes from our ability to accept them as what they are, and then move on with our lives in a way that brings the past as a resource, not a ball and chain.

Snow yo

I dont know if its the movie scores Pandora station im listening to right now or the snow on the ground, but I do know that right now I'm feeling super nostalgic. I love watching the snow blow off the trees, do little loop-de-loops and fall onto the ground, only to take flight in clouds again like flocks of tiny white geese. I just watch it and think about the times at recess, when all that mattered was finding the biggest ice crystal, or making that catch in snow football. I cant help but think of the days when all that mattered was making sure our snow fort was invincible against all comers, and we would stay out there for hours in single degree temperatures digging networks of tunnels, piling up snow, and making snow balls for the inevitable confrontation with the girls and the parents. It all seemed so simple back then because it was. Life did not really ask a lot out of little kid me, and my imagination and creativity flourished because of it. Its weird for me to think that there are kids who never got to play in the snow because they didn't have any, because seriously this stuff is the shit. I'll probably be bitching about it when its still here in March but right now, I am well pleased.

Only at the sheffield house...

can you be grounded from working out,

can you get in trouble for doing homework,

can you be grounded for attempting to speak your mind

can you hear a 9 year old asking if he looks fat

can you trip over a 200 year old dog who gets lost in the house he's lived in his whole life

can you get in trouble for leaving out dishes after dinner

can you be accused of not being productive when you leave the house at 5 30 am and get back at 930 pm

can you be expected to text your every location and plan despite the fact you are now old enough to go to a strip club

can you find 5 of the strangest white people youve ever met

can you find parents who incorrectly pronounce names and places just to piss you off

can you find the fattest cat youve ever seen

can you find enough food to turn the kenyan track team obese

can you find enough love to change the world

Welcome back

So, i begin again, the art of blogging to the public. this post here is about a collection of things that i want to talk about relating to the public.

Public transportation? well it sucks here in indiana , i think we should say fuck busses and make a bunch of like air taxi hot air balloon type things, to declutter the road ways and use less fossil fuels because theyll be electrically and solar powered. it will be sick

just you wait

Public Displays of Affection? always gross never okay unless the couple commmiting sed action is like model status both ways, then its not as bad, but again thats just me

public libraries? more often than not, they smell like mildew and are filled with creepy glasses wearing people who make you feel sorta nervous whenever they happen to look at you

One of my weirdest experiences in public happened in a library actually, I was in this library in 8th grade, and working at a computer, and theres this old dude next to me logging into myspace and i was thinking to myself, aww thats cool he has a myspace until he logs in

and its all pink and the profile picture is of like this 14 year old girl and i was like AHHH

and got up and left.