Sacrifice
I spent a good deal of time yesterday, while traveling back to California, reflecting on the horrors I had caused during my visit to my home state. In hindsight, and in a larger context, things make a great deal more sense now.
A person who reads my last blog post might wonder why on earth I suddenly ventured across the country in an effort to explore the possibility of romance with a girl I barely knew. This is the honest truth: something told me to pursue that course.
By "something", I have no idea what exactly I mean. I felt the calling to do it. I recognized that I am an idiot about two years ago, and that the sheer volume of what I don't know about the entirety of this world inspires humility in me. I learned quickly the importance of deference to something other than myself or my urges and emotions...but deference to what I cannot say.
I often retire to the mountains, to be among nature, for long stretches of time, during which I commune with this something, this otherness, separate from myself. It might be nature, it might be God; it is something I know that I don't understand and cannot define; and this is itself important. It is a constant reminder of how important this deference is, because I don't know everything.
My roommate asked me before I went back to my home state for this visit why I was going. I replied, quickly, simply, and with conviction: "To be judged." That was all I said, and he felt this was cryptic enough that he didn't need or want to inquire further. I meant this; the journey I was supposed to go on was to reveal something about myself. If I explored the possibility of romance with this girl, then there would be an important lesson for me to learn from her response. Perhaps, if the whole thing did work out, then I perhaps I was meant be a faithful partner to her. Perhaps I would be killed in a car accident on the drive down to see her. If things didn't work out, and we weren't compatible (and it turned that out we most certainly aren't), then there would be something to learn from that as well.
Or, perhaps, I really was just seeking after some carnal desire, and I was using this sense of a "quest" as an intellectual justification. The hardest thing to understand is oneself.
I've always been something of a rebel; whatever the established rules and order are, I like to do the opposite. I've come to learn that the world is largely full of selfish people, who largely care almost entirely for themselves. In rebellion against this truth, in the last year I have made every effort to be kind, generous, and caring with others in every walk of my life. I do things that people don't understand; they do not grasp my motives. Paradoxically, this has actually led to more rejection in my life than being self-seeking ever did, because people shun what they don't understand. They might appreciate it; some take advantage of it; but almost all shun it.
So I went back to my home state to meet with this girl, and, as I said, "to be judged". What was the verdict? That I can be an evil person capable of causing evil to happen to those around me.
In the last year of trying to do good in this world, to be a counterexample to the general rule of terrible human nature, it has been a mistake for me to think, even for a second, that I should be working to overcome the evil that is being wrought in the world by others. I am not the shining counterexample of acting altruistically in a world possessed by those who are selfish. Instead I must strive diligently to overcome the evil that exists within myself. Because it is there, fully present inside of myself, and unless I focus all of my efforts on eliminating that, I will always be incapable of doing anything truly good in this world. No one, however much good they are trying to do, is above the rules.
Before I went on this trip, I only asked for one thing: that whatever happened, I wouldn't leave anyone behind me worse off than I had found them. I didn't care what happened, because the point of any kind of spiritual journey is not to get what you want, but rather to accept truth as it is revealed to you. I never want to do anything bad to others; this is, above all, my sole mission in life: to leave others behind me in my wake at least no worse off than I found them, but ideally better. In this case I failed spectacularly. While I feel terrible about this, I can't change what I did, so the only thing I can truly do with this information going forward is to learn from it.
Even if it was just me seeking after a pretty girl, well, I went into it knowing that it was a girl I truly knew nothing about, so I couldn't actually bring myself to hope that things would work out. One doesn't try to stack the deck without knowing what's truly at play in the game. If this was all it was, then I got a pretty simple answer, both from her directly, and from the errors in communication we experienced that clearly indicated how constructively our wavelengths interfered with each other. I hope she never sees me again.
The biggest lesson I took away from all of this is this: that it is a grave mistake to confuse the desire to sacrifice for others as any kind of romantic love. I do feel the urge to be compassionate in this world, and to do good for others, but this is clearly very separate from romantic love. I don't know the difference between the two, and at the very least, I am not ready for or capable of romantic love. That I see this distinction plainly now is liberating.
I deeply regret my actions and the terrible manner in which they affected others. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I'm a resident in its clutches for the foreseeable future.
A person who reads my last blog post might wonder why on earth I suddenly ventured across the country in an effort to explore the possibility of romance with a girl I barely knew. This is the honest truth: something told me to pursue that course.
By "something", I have no idea what exactly I mean. I felt the calling to do it. I recognized that I am an idiot about two years ago, and that the sheer volume of what I don't know about the entirety of this world inspires humility in me. I learned quickly the importance of deference to something other than myself or my urges and emotions...but deference to what I cannot say.
I often retire to the mountains, to be among nature, for long stretches of time, during which I commune with this something, this otherness, separate from myself. It might be nature, it might be God; it is something I know that I don't understand and cannot define; and this is itself important. It is a constant reminder of how important this deference is, because I don't know everything.
My roommate asked me before I went back to my home state for this visit why I was going. I replied, quickly, simply, and with conviction: "To be judged." That was all I said, and he felt this was cryptic enough that he didn't need or want to inquire further. I meant this; the journey I was supposed to go on was to reveal something about myself. If I explored the possibility of romance with this girl, then there would be an important lesson for me to learn from her response. Perhaps, if the whole thing did work out, then I perhaps I was meant be a faithful partner to her. Perhaps I would be killed in a car accident on the drive down to see her. If things didn't work out, and we weren't compatible (and it turned that out we most certainly aren't), then there would be something to learn from that as well.
Or, perhaps, I really was just seeking after some carnal desire, and I was using this sense of a "quest" as an intellectual justification. The hardest thing to understand is oneself.
I've always been something of a rebel; whatever the established rules and order are, I like to do the opposite. I've come to learn that the world is largely full of selfish people, who largely care almost entirely for themselves. In rebellion against this truth, in the last year I have made every effort to be kind, generous, and caring with others in every walk of my life. I do things that people don't understand; they do not grasp my motives. Paradoxically, this has actually led to more rejection in my life than being self-seeking ever did, because people shun what they don't understand. They might appreciate it; some take advantage of it; but almost all shun it.
So I went back to my home state to meet with this girl, and, as I said, "to be judged". What was the verdict? That I can be an evil person capable of causing evil to happen to those around me.
In the last year of trying to do good in this world, to be a counterexample to the general rule of terrible human nature, it has been a mistake for me to think, even for a second, that I should be working to overcome the evil that is being wrought in the world by others. I am not the shining counterexample of acting altruistically in a world possessed by those who are selfish. Instead I must strive diligently to overcome the evil that exists within myself. Because it is there, fully present inside of myself, and unless I focus all of my efforts on eliminating that, I will always be incapable of doing anything truly good in this world. No one, however much good they are trying to do, is above the rules.
Before I went on this trip, I only asked for one thing: that whatever happened, I wouldn't leave anyone behind me worse off than I had found them. I didn't care what happened, because the point of any kind of spiritual journey is not to get what you want, but rather to accept truth as it is revealed to you. I never want to do anything bad to others; this is, above all, my sole mission in life: to leave others behind me in my wake at least no worse off than I found them, but ideally better. In this case I failed spectacularly. While I feel terrible about this, I can't change what I did, so the only thing I can truly do with this information going forward is to learn from it.
Even if it was just me seeking after a pretty girl, well, I went into it knowing that it was a girl I truly knew nothing about, so I couldn't actually bring myself to hope that things would work out. One doesn't try to stack the deck without knowing what's truly at play in the game. If this was all it was, then I got a pretty simple answer, both from her directly, and from the errors in communication we experienced that clearly indicated how constructively our wavelengths interfered with each other. I hope she never sees me again.
The biggest lesson I took away from all of this is this: that it is a grave mistake to confuse the desire to sacrifice for others as any kind of romantic love. I do feel the urge to be compassionate in this world, and to do good for others, but this is clearly very separate from romantic love. I don't know the difference between the two, and at the very least, I am not ready for or capable of romantic love. That I see this distinction plainly now is liberating.
I deeply regret my actions and the terrible manner in which they affected others. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I'm a resident in its clutches for the foreseeable future.