Futility.

It's not so much what happened, it's how it happened.

If I fail at something, I want to know that it's a part of something greater, and that I could have done better - just not now. I want to know that I made mistakes that I could not have fixed before my failure, but that I will never make them again because of the failure.

I think I'm beyond that now.

Writing this blog has heightened my awareness of just how cyclical my life is. Compare the following posts:

http://jpsdream.blogspot.com/2014/01/on-regrouping.html AND http://jpsdream.blogspot.com/2012/05/death-exile-and-magus.html

That's just one example of the repetition of my problems. In the end, I really believe I don't care that I'm not dating anyone. I believe my present frustration and sadness has nothing to do with the fact I got snubbed again, after 5 months of preparation. I don't think I'm even really bothered that the only person I've been interested in a long time is dating someone now. Other empathetic, interesting, fun, intuitive women exist. I've met plenty (even if none of them liked me like that). But what I do know for sure is that I am so put out by the futility of it all...the futility of this cycle. It seems like nothing I do really matters. I have tried every strategy I've heard of, I've approached it at all kinds of angles, I've pursued women who were friends before I liked them and I've pursued women I just met. I've worked through fear, discouragement, and despair to do all of this, and none of it really mattered.

Is it really any surprise if I say that I would really rather not bother with it anymore, even if I want to get married?

The same goes for anything else, really. The only three things I really care about are friends, love, and God. And of course, those are the three things that I have the biggest problems with. It has never really made any difference how much effort I put into any sort of strategy or lack of strategy. Things always turn out however they were meant to turn out. And the result is rarely anything I'm pleased with.

If I'm supposed to only meet people who really don't live up to what I always hope for in a friendship, then why can't I just be someone who needs different things from a friend? Why did I become someone who craves a friendship based only on how people feel, and not something easy like a love of sports? Why do I want to have friends who reach out to me, instead of friends who stay in their own world? It just doesn't make any sense to me that I would become a person exactly unsuited to their environment, and then find it impossible to escape it.

I have really met my limit many times, and always pushed beyond it. I'm there now. I've had enough of life. Someday, I will be glad I am alive. And then I will suffer disappointment again, and realize that I just reached another point in the cycle. And in the end, nothing will change. Because nothing ever really changes. New job, new city, all the same problems. And none of my dreams have come true. It's hard to believe when I started this blog, I still believed in dreams. That's why I gave this blog the title I gave it, and end each post with a variation of the same sentence. But now, I don't believe in dreams anymore. I think dreams are a lie that serve as a foundation for false hope. I believe some people never get what they want from life.

I believe I will be one of them.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that was no dream at all.

Breaking my idols.

I'm the kind of person who tends to glorify the people I really love.

When it comes right down to it, though, people are actually quite predictable. I build other people up who I love and make me feel good as heroic, idyllic paragons of love, mercy, and justice. But in the end, when it comes down to painful human experience, they really are just like everyone else. Even when I say otherwise. I'm wrong.

It's easy to run away. Sticking things out and doing the hard work of picking up the pieces and figuring out what went wrong is the hard thing to do. I'm not sure why I'm the only one who ever wants to do it. Perhaps no one considers me worth the effort. Still, I'm starting to get used to this. The last time I went through something close to this, it took me over 3 months to recover. I'm already starting to feel better after a few days. At least a little bit. How can someone get used to something like this? But here I am.

I really feel like I saw this coming. I started to make odd predictions out loud that I had no reason to believe. I thought I was being insecure and paranoid, but everything I said came true. I have decided that next time I get these intuitions, I'm going to act on them. I was afraid of self-fulfilling prophecies, but now I'm not sure about it.

Here's the first prediction I'm going to act on. If I can avoid my habit of idolizing people and putting all my happiness and hope into them until well after I move out of my current town, I will be OK and make a long-term recovery...I will change and become happy by myself. If I don't...I'm not sure. My prediction doesn't go that far.

I hope I'm not just going crazy. If I read this on someone else's blog, I would think they were trying to get attention. But this just keeps happening. I'll get a feeling about something and it will end up true.

Right now, I feel like breaking my idols.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of apostasy from my false religion.

On the expression of feeling.

Emotions are a wonderful thing. It seems like everyone has them but not everyone knows what they're for.

Emotions are messengers - they are supposed to send us a message and then leave us in time. When they fester, they become a problem. Momentary anger, for instance, can spur us to the defense of something good or to correct some injustice. Lingering, festering anger leads us to vengeance. Momentary sadness can lead us to seek others or to fulfill a need, but lingering sadness can lead to self-pity, self-hatred, or self-destruction.

I am not ashamed to admit that for a man I am unusually in touch with my feelings. However, this has had its drawbacks as well, because I can't escape them sometimes. I have found healthy outlets for my feelings...but some of them were good only temporarily, or misdirected...see my last few posts if you want to know what I mean.

In the quietness of my life right now, I have returned to writing down my feelings (outside of this blog). I don't really have very many people to talk to at the moment for various reasons, so this is a good alternative. Usually when there aren't many people around anymore, I get all-consumed by my loneliness, and that hasn't happened yet in this quiet space. I feel totally OK. I would very much like to keep it that way.

So, today I wrote a poem expressing my feelings. Tonight, I will be writing a letter I won't send. Tomorrow, who knows? I might write someone an email. Or call someone - if they answer, and if I can think of someone to call.

I suppose for the average person, managing a period of quiet in one's life is probably not a struggle. Not for me. I am weak to my feelings and always have been. My Dad would shame me for crying as a boy, and my elementary school principal told me I wear my heart on my sleeve. If that's a problem then it's mine to bear for good because I haven't yet found a cure.

I am very proud of myself for my progress. At this time last year, I was really a mess from my feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Now, I simply see this for what it is. I accept that if I do not reach out to people, I cannot expect that anyone will reach out to me. I expect that when I reach out, some people may not respond. It's just a fact. For you, reader, this may seem silly but for me this is revolutionary. When everyone left where I live, and no one tried to stay in touch and I was all alone I couldn't handle it. I did not handle it...very well at all. Now I am. Now I can.

I think what also helps is that I now see myself more for who I really am...not completely, but much closer than before. I am really not that great. I am not very special. But I'm worth something and I have dignity. I am necessary and I am loved. I am not always loved by people. I am often not loved by people. But I continue to make my way in the world - the often senseless and thoughtless, sinning, ordinary human being I am has a purpose I still have to discover...some kind of way for me to be a conduit for God's glory in the world...otherwise I would not be here, I would be dead already. I am no longer pretending I know what it is.

I think many times earlier in my blog, I felt I knew my purpose...and that vision led me to despair because I wasn't getting engaged, I wasn't getting a job, I wasn't growing deeper in friendship with certain people, and I wasn't getting anywhere near what I felt my purpose was. Now I know better. I do not assume I know what the future holds, nor do I look ahead. Oh, yes, sometimes I get little fantasies about what I hope will happen. But I try not to entertain them. I am only planning what I absolutely have to plan...because at any moment, God may blow my plans to smithereens and lead me off in a different, wonderful direction.

Who am I? I'm just me. Where am I going, and what's waiting for me there? I really don't know. How do I feel? Just fine.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of true expression.

Catharsis marathon.

I'm really tired, but I need to write this before I forget again.

Catharsis...The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. I've been having a lot of that. Closure type stuff. Over and over and over. My life is bipolar.

Really there is a downfall to knowing lots of people. Your life becomes a little unpredictable especially where love is involved. Mostly I have learned that reciprocated feelings are rarer than unreciprocated, and there is a lot of that going on around here.

A recent rash of honesty with people lately has gotten me into trouble more than once, but at least on one occasion recently it did me a lot of good. Case in point: Something I've been touching on a bit here and there in my last few posts...what I was doing that I knew might in the end really hurt me. And I was right. I finally confessed my full intentions in a certain friendship. And in the end, it was met with an honest rejection. It was good. I handled it really well, I believe, and I'm a wiser person.

I also know that years ago, I never could have handled that situation as I did...and be able to say confidently as I type this that I am doing really well. Just trying to do the right thing and letting go of my desires in this situation helped a lot. That trust has taken a long time to build...the act of surrendering my future to the Lord, as it belongs to Him alone anyway. I know that this doesn't own me.

Catharsis.

Still, I'm tired now and I'm ready for life to be a little more boring for a while...A little less emotional, a little less tense. But that's for God to decide.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for eternal catharsis.

Cabin Fever.

I kind of regret posting some of the things I've posted recently.

Truthfully, I thought that posting some of that personal stuff going on in my life would help me not dwell on it so much, but that wasn't true. The real problem was cabin fever.

A friend of mine knew what was wrong with me the whole time...in retrospect I kind of wish she had just told me, but that's in the past now. The frantic thoughts and anxiety...who knew being alone for too long could do that to me? Certainly not I.

But...as soon as people returned to school, I instantly felt better. No possessive thoughts, no anxiety, no worries. I'm completely in control now and I can take my life at whatever pace I please. What a difference from only a week ago!

I suppose now that my rational mind is in control, almost all of my present concerns are null and void. I can simply continue doing the right thing without any emotional hindrances.

Yay!

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for full control.

The lost virtues.

"Might have to go where they don't know my name...Float all over the world...just to see her again! And I won't show or fear any pain, even though all my armor might rust in the rain! A simple plot...but I know one day...good things are coming our way."
-Coldplay, "Up With the Birds"

I have been wanting to write about something for a long time.

I have a friend I've known since high school. Often when I think of this friend I regress emotionally to the level of a little girl. It's embarrassing to admit but I say this for a reason.

I've spent my entire life doing a lot of things. I think the most profound of these is my own quest for power - Power over myself.

I have lived a life lacking integrity. I've lived in fear and despair.  I was brought up to hate myself and to fear those I lived with. I never thought anything would get better.

My mother was the only person in my family I could really talk to. I lost her at 16. I really didn't appreciate her as I should...she really let me take a lot out on her. The guilt of it stayed with me for a long time. I'm still getting over it.

My friend in high school...well, she has had some kind of strange affect on me. I haven't seen her in years, but I've never been able to forget about her. I still worry about her, and I don't know why.

A long time ago, she shared a lot about her life with me. She has had a very hard life. She had a lot of trust issues with males, but for whatever reason she gave me hers. I blew it. I was impatient with her and said some stupid things I really wish I could take back. We're still friends, technically. But it's been so hard to stay in touch with her. There have been periods many months long where I lost all contact.

She's not the only friend I've betrayed either. With my year and a half long hermitage lasting over my sophomore and junior year of college, I really lost a lot of friendships that I've never really been able to get back.

Trouble is, I never really wanted to do any of these things. I knew what I was doing was stupid and I did it anyway. I lacked integrity.

What's more is, I lacked courage to do what was right. There are so many people in my life who could have benefited from me having the courage to say something they really needed to hear...or, I could have benefited from saying or doing something to make a change in my life.

And over all, my lack of hope for change made me unable to develop any of these virtues.

I have so much regret. I could have made it clear to my mother how much I loved her. I could have made a difference in my friend's life. I could have matched my thoughts to my actions and been responsible with my time...and not been a bad friend.

On a cold November night in 2009, I got a phone call that made me snap. I totally lost it. It took me three months to really get over what I heard on that phone. What I was told made me realize all at once how lost I really was. I'm not really even sure if it was all due to that phone call, but I have to place the start of my change somewhere, and I guess that's it. Maybe I'll never know how or when, but somehow, it happened. My lost virtues...just sort of came.

I know a lot of people probably feel the same way, but the band Coldplay seems to write songs about me. The songs...just get it. How I feel.

How I "Might have to go where they don't know my name...

How I would love to just "Float all over the world...just to see her again!"

How I'm determined not to "show or fear any pain, even though all my armor might rust in the rain!"

It's "A simple plot...but I know one day...good things are coming our way."

I only hope that maybe someday, I can look back on my life and really believe that I made up for what I failed to do because of who I was. That I can say I lived a life of integrity, courage, and hope.

I hope.

Seagulls, my favorite animal, in a picture particularly applicable to this post

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for hope, courage, and integrity to be renewed.