it’s funny, in a way—eternity or mortality, they’re a dichotomy, there’s no possible middle ground between existing forever and not. how can it even be possible that they’re both so frightening? if one thing is scary, shouldn’t its opposite, its mutually constitutive notness, be soothing? and if all possible outcomes are frightening, shouldn’t fear give way to resignation, acceptance?
i’m scared of snuffing out, but i’m also scared of the implications of eternity.
reasonably, i know it’s because i’m trying to grasp the ungraspable—heaven—with my limited human mind. of course no human would reasonably want to live forever, because we can only comprehend living forever on earth, full of suffering and sin. a human can’t even begin to grasp the nature of heaven.
of all the animals, humans are the only ones so frightened of our own mortality. all animals are built to preserve their lives, of course, but they act through instinct. they do not fear the state of death itself, or ponder an afterlife. humans have a uniquely painful self-awareness.
it’s our burden of knowledge, i suppose.
i guess what it boils down to is this:
Luke 10:27—Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.
Matthew 16:25—For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
i know what i Need to do—stop living for me, for andrea, and start living for God, become a loyal servant, a vessel by which His acts may be done, forget my selfishness and vanity and personal pleasure—but it scares me.
i’ve spent twenty years growing up in an individualistic culture which says look after yourself, you’re great, and to me there’s something utterly terrifying about losing the Self.
i’m selfish and i’m scared.
i guess the really scary part is that i know i’m not going through a Funk, that this isn’t something i can just move past, that even if i could distract myself with the things i used to love until it doesn’t feel wrong anymore, that’s absolutely not what i should be doing.
i feel like everything’s been made very clear, actually. my heart was vulnerable and God called out to me and finally i heard Him after years of not. i’ve realized things - how meaningless everything i cared about is, how transient and futile life is. even if i get to a point where these things aren’t weighing heavily on my mind every moment of consciousness, it’s not going to undo these revelations, or make them any less true.
God called me and said you’re busying yourself with things that don’t matter. your life is self-indulgent and if you keep going down this path you’re condemning yourself to hell or eternal death, whichever of those exists. we weren’t put on earth to have fun or enjoy ourselves or sit in our rooms all day online doing nothing of consequence. i can’t imagine coming before God and having to account for every minute of my life i spent doing nothing but indulging myself.
(and if God doesn’t exist - which i don’t believe, i do believe He’s there, but i’m the sort of person who can’t go without a contingency plan, without examining all avenues of possibility - i’m going to blink out one day and ultimately nothing i’ve ever done will have mattered, and i guess it’ll be good that i made myself happy because being happy is infinitely preferable to suffering but at the same time it’s not like happiness adds up to anything in the long run, in the end it dies with you too, meaningless.)
the only path that seems meaningful in the long run is the christian one. heaven! an eternity with God - and yeah, eternity seems terrifying, but that’s because i’m imagining it with a finite human mind. no one would want to live forever on earth, but in heaven there’s no sorrow or suffering or sin. just joy and unity and love, forever.
but somehow i’m scared to accept that, too.
i don’t know why i’m clinging so hard to my sin, because i know it’s meaningless, and even when i’m watching anime or whatever i’m not really enjoying it, just taking the edge off. yeah, that’s it, it’s enough of a distraction to take the edge off. i know it’s time that could be better spent, but ha, i guess i’m a creature of habit, and creatures of habit don’t like to give up things that once made them happy, even if that’s hardly true anymore.
it’s so stupid, but i keep thinking things like if only i hadn’t realized, if only i could have gone on blissfully ignorant for a while more and realized this when i was older, when i was about to die, maybe. isn’t that so fucking presumptuous? that i’m essentially wishing God, why couldn’t you have let me sinned a little longer? i’ve already had twenty years of this, of a spiritual candy lifestyle, and while it made me happy in the moment, looking back i’m just like yeah, i was unaware that whole time, i was enjoying life without even thinking about the implications.
there are so many shallow christians who are satisfied going to church and praying every night and otherwise carrying on as usual, but that’s not enough, i think. maybe God trusted me enough to hit me with this all at once, knowledge, awareness, but it’s overwhelming. i understand now why the fruit from the tree of knowledge is what fucked everything up. sometimes knowledge can be too much to bear.
in the meantime i keep trying to take the edge off by listening to music and watching shows and writing fic and what the fuck ever, but taking the edge off is no way to live. these are going to be minutes i’m going to have to account for, too.
i can’t just say hey, let’s happily sin now and repent later. i could die tomorrow. from the way things have been going, my overanxious heart could just burst. besides, happily sinning would be a rejection of God’s grace. it’s not christian way to live.
i’m suddenly concerned for everyone’s souls; out of all the people i know and care for, i don’t know many who actively live a Christ-centered life. i understand why people evangelize now, but no one likes to listen to it. besides, no one would want to take my advice, with the state i’m in. who would say yeah, i want to turn to Jesus, when i’m so clearly unhappy?
