where E is today

Dear Mary Angel

I'm tired of just about everything. I can understand Luke 21:26 though it doesn't apply to the present; there is still a great deal of fear in the world today. I spend too much time worrying about the direction of this country than I do the direction of men's souls. I place too much value in the intransigencies of life than I do in life itself. How has this happened?

All I want is to be all that God made me to be, and to be loved by someone God would approve of. I don't think that's too much to ask.

I'm so tired and distracted I haven't been able to focus on work for a week now. There have been no looming deadlines, and those making their approach are nothing to worry over, nevertheless I can't focus on the tasks before me; they pale in comparison to the crisis currently facing me-- my own personal midlife crisis. And I have no one to share it with it.

What will that shore look like when I get to the other side of this? I think that answer worries more than anything else. This world is going to shit in a ziplock, And yes, that worries me, but I'm worried more about where I fit in all this. God doesn't make anything without specific purpose. Each of us have specific purpose, something we are meant to do. How many of us ever discover that purpose? I want to know my reason for being. He's given me so many talents... so many... but I've never known what to do with them, let alone use them for His glory. I wish I had done things differently when I was 17, 18, 20, 23. I wish I weren't the kind of person I was then. But I did meet you, didn't I? A blessing in every brier patch? And what's the point of having a midlife crisis if you don't even have cash enough for a motorcycle?

Something I've considered lately. We are all stimulus junkies; we are sensory beings owing our daily perceptions to the things we see, hear, taste, yada... and it is through these stimulus-imprinted perceptions we categorize it all: good days, bad days, and everything in between. And that's all a motorcycle would be, something mostly in between. I'm tired of being 'in between.' I just want to know who I am in Him.

There's a song getting some air on the radio where I'm at, something about ten-thousand fireflies? Well, the song is silly, but the last line speaks to where I am:

Because my dreams are bursting at the seams.

And my dilemma? Not enough net in which to catch them all.


Thank you for listening,

All my love,


Eric

outliving the culture

"You spend your life fighting depression; it's the default human condition. The shit we buy, the people we hang around with, fuck and even love are just means to an end, a way to stave off the crushing loneliness that is to be alone and unloved.

"We buy into the idea of happiness as portrayed by the mass media, that happiness is found through social engagement, through the expenditure of the money we earn working for multi-millionaires that don't know us, don't care. If we live or die, we haven't made a mark on the world.

"We check Facebook compulsively, Twitter about our breakfasts and talk to our friends and coworkers about wild parties, prospective mates and expensive purchases: Attempts to show our sociability, our ability to fit in, our willingness to buy into this great corporate dream.

"If you want my advice, write something. Draw something. Tell someone something. Do something, ANYTHING, that will outlive this culture, that will transcend its boundaries and touch someone."

There is but one way I know of to outlive this culture, and that is to free yourself from this culture; do not let it shape you, do not let it affect you spiritually; do not let it define your soul's focus or path. You must rise above-- or transcend, as the anonymous writer exhorts --the ugliness that is this life. How do you do that? Choose for yourself who you are and what relevance you hold not only for yourself but for the world. Choose your legacy-- define it, quantify it, then build it. You can't escape the culture, but you can certainly outlive it.

In case you had forgotten, You are free. That's right, FREE. Now go out there and act like it. Go out and tell the world who you are. Don't let the world tell YOU who you are.