Once you've bounced off the bottom a few times, you acquire a sort of metaphysical altimeter that beeps red when you start to drop again. These beeps often show up as thought patterns - meaning when certain thoughts arrive, your survival instinct recognizes them as dangerous and tells you so - but not always. Sometimes the alarm is external, a 'sign' to you to change your current path, and quickly.
It's funny how guilt and subconscious desires work... Some theorize that our actions are just a product of varied internal pressures, that free will is not free at all but at the whim of our biochemistry. Others think the opposite, that too much attention is paid to the details of action and thought, and not enough paid to the grand cosmic force that is our ability to Choose.
As usual, I think the truth lies somewhere in between.
One thing I am sure of is that when my altimeter starts to spin and whine with mechanical stress, I need to stop and examine what I am doing - physically, mentally, spiritually.
Caving to your worst desires is a death of sorts. Paradoxically, being a paragon of virtue and continuously denying your own twisted ideas is a kind of death as well.
The French call the orgasm petit mort, meaning 'the small death'. It's an apt description, since any and all of Life's rich array of emotions can be found in this window to eternity, depending on the situation...
One of the more overlooked concepts in religious texts, specifically the Bible, is the concept of the temple of worship. Jesus said something to the effect that external houses of worship are unnecessary to see God; that, in fact, God resides within us all.
Actually, a lot of what Jesus 'said' (flip through one of those Bibles that has all Jesus' actual words in red) was awesome: don't kill, don't steal, don't try to nail your friend's wife, etc.
Solid advice... and He hates interest charges too.
I think the bit about no temples of worship is one of the most revealing and important ideas in the Bibes. And since I think that the Bible is an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different allegories, tales, truths, distortions, and fiction - I think it is fair to say that some of it's strongest messages need not only apply to Christian thinkers. If you are critical and selective, you will discover that there is something to be learned in every text... Even the National Enquirer.
Knowing that there need be no mediator between us and God is a giant fucking relief. To know that speaking with God is means simply opening your mind and connecting with the infinite energy source that Is All Things is empowering, humbling, and eternally refreshing.
Priests, Imams, and Rabbis are people who have somehow been convinced that they are closer to God than you or I; that they have his ear and his blessing.
This is one hundred percent bullshit, wrapped in a costume and housed in a mansion of suffering.
God, simply, is our Higher Nature. It is the spark of divinity that humans are blessed with.
It is your conscience, your inspiration, your compassion and your reflection.
It is your shame, your mistake, and your remorse.
It is not your cleverness, your intelligence, or your cynicism. It is not your ability to manipulate; it is your ability to inspire. Not your ability to kill, but your choice to show mercy.
When we Choose Well, we harness the power of the true God that resides within us.
The root of all Choice is Morality - a human construct, necessary to our survival as a species.
Morality - an intangible manifestation of our inherent sympathy towards ourselves and our fellow life forms - is what keeps the majority of us from killing, raping, stealing and torturing - ourselves, as well as others.
When we subvert morality, pretend it doesn't exist or dismiss it as an archaic, intangible concept... We enter the gates of the real Hell, the Hell that exists just a few minutes from you..
The Hell found in a crack rock, or a hate-fuck, or a nuclear explosion..
Debasing morality is what 'progressive' culture is about - whether it be through porn or corrupted environmentalism, the idea is to scrub away any notion of human divinity... To reduce us to no more than the lizards and moths - eating, fucking, killing, dying - and to keep us seeing ourselves that way...
Because then, we can do anything.
Once we allow ourselves to believe that we are simple animals, all is lost. Why would we care to help each other? In Nature, its survival of the fittest. That means if I can kill you, there be no consequence - it was mandated by the divinity of Nature.
That means you can have sex with your daughter - why not? Animals do it. To do otherwise would be 'unnatural'...
Extreme? Yes. But how about a concept a little less insane - role-play.
We have been slowly conditioned to believe that if it happens in a role-play setting, then it's 'not real' - that we are just pretending, and by extension anything that happens within the scenario has no consequences.
Rape role-play, pedophilia role-play, even animal-play and pretend-incest - this garbage behaviour has been gradually introduced to the sexual mainstream under the guise of 'being free' and 'ending discrimination'.
The idea that these kinds of behaviours have no impact on the moral and social fabric of reality is absurd. To believe so is to employ the same logic that calls the invasion and occupation of a country by armed soldiers a 'peacekeeping mission'.
A rose, by any other name, is still a rose.
The way to defeat this sick philosophy is through cultivation of morality - through treating each other well.
Furthering this concept, since there is no middleman needed to speak to God, the true house of worship is in fact our own body.
This castle of flesh is our Temple, within which we reside.
When we treat ourselves or others with impunity, we are disrespecting the homes that we live within, the construct that we cannot escape for the duration of this lifetime...
Every person is at war with him or herself, and the experience is relative - For me, to not drink for a week is no feat at all; for the alcoholic, such a challenge is a matter of life and death.
Keeping this concept in mind, it is our own weaknesses and flaws that we must challenge. To truly live, we have to reject our base animalistic desires in favour of reflection, calm, and deliberate actions.
And on the days that we fuck up - the days that we smoke crack rocks, get hookers, or drop bombs on strangers...
Those days must be followed by days of remorse and regret.
