difference is only subtraction with numbers not with people

For some reason we think that our experience of something ought to be the same as other people's. But even for things where there is a lot of commonality, our experience will still be unique because we are unique. 

I always compare myself with others and wonder why I don't produce the same results as they do or why my experience isn't like theirs. Some things are harder for me than they are for other people and some things are easier. 

It's important to honor your differences and not to see them as liabilities. 

When it comes to matters of faith, I tend to judge myself against standards that are based on other people. They are the standard. But I was thinking this morning that I don't need to want to have faith exactly like other people. Just because we have the same faith, believe the same things, live by the same principles (leaving aside for the moment the question of whether that's possible) doesn't mean that we will be carbon copies of each other, but we so often think like that. 

My faith can be real, and it can also be distinctive. It's my own faith. 

art XVIII

the good fight

So much of what gets written and spoken lately seems to me to be pretty pointless because the writer or speaker makes an argument that they know the audience agrees with. So many interviews are like that now. The interviewer and the interviewee have the same view and the interview is just them agreeing with each other and criticizing the other side often in a really scathing and dismissive way. 

The comment section on YouTube videos is full of people voicing approval for what the presenter says. There can be no debate. It seems like you can't just agree with something someone says and disagree with other things they say because you have to adopt the whole world-view and network of stories. 

People have to take sides. The most dire social emergencies become opportunities to wage ideological war. The other side is wrong about everything. Both sides say that the other side is depraved and immoral and selfish and hate-filled, and so....we all become that. Nothing can be done. Nothing can be done to fix real problems. 

I think the Bible presents us with a better model than that. I was reading about one of the Apostle Paul's many trials where he spoke in front of kings and other leaders. Paul understood that God was in control and that everything he went through was according to God's plan and to further God's purpose. Paul had a sense that, whatever was happening, he would be spiritually productive. So, he didn't get bitter or deeply invested in human drama. 

His actions were imbued with a higher purpose. He didn't take sides in the culture wars or politics. You might say, but didn't Paul point out other people's sin? Yes, but whose sin did Paul concern himself with? The sins of the believers. He didn't go on and on about how sinful and wrong those outside the church were - how evil they were and how we are in a battle against them - because he understood that the church is not in a battle with an opposing ideological camp. The church is not in a battle with sinners, but a battle for sinners. Paul wrote: 

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12) 

lists

I want to systematize everything, even creative things. That's why it really suits me to have daily goals that I do every single day. I don't want to have anything that I do 3 times a week. I want to do everything, every day....but not everywhere and all at once. 

I find ways of eliminating thought. Like, for example, with books, I put a lot of thought into arranging them in the order I'm going to read them. That matters to me. I like the idea of not having to think about which book I'm going to read next. I just read the next one on the shelf. But actually I don't. 

I used to do the same thing with CDs back in the days when we used to listen to CDs. I'll arrange the CDs in the order I'm going to listen to them so I don't have to think about which CD I want to listen to next. But then, I always want to think about which CD I'm going to listen to next. Likewise with books. When I finish a book, I want to think about what I'm going to read next. Arranging my 'to be read' books in order has become an activity that is divorced from my actual process of choosing what to read next. 

It's like - once again, back in the days when we used to buy and listen to CDs (and they were ridiculously expensive)...when you're not going to buy anything, you see so many CDs you want, but then when you're actually going to buy a CD, you lose all enthusiasm. 

But I keep building these lists. I spend a lot of time adding to my lists on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I actually enjoy building the lists more than I enjoy watching shows.  

art XVII

art XIV

art VI

art VII

art IX

fiction

Thoughts are like stories. One of the things I learnt from Acceptance Commitment Therapy is that knowing that is very helpful, because it enables you to detach from your thoughts. You can go, oh, that's the self hate story, or, that's the catastrophizing story, or whatever. 

So, you can begin to doubt your self-defeating, toxic thoughts. One of the things that I learnt a few years ago is that those thoughts that I have are not just negative or distorted, they are absolute lies. There's no truth to them. They are a complete deception. They seem true but they aren't.

That's why friendship is so important. Friends tell us the truth about ourselves, or maybe a better way to phrase it is that friends provide an environment where we can perceive the truth. 

The truth is so refreshing and reviving and healing. 

I didn't used to believe in affirmations, because I thought they were fake and unhelpful. They're empty words. Things like, every day in every way I'm getting better and better, and then the idea is that you repeat that statement over and over, all the time and so it becomes true. I don't believe in that. 

Then, when I realized that a lot of my thoughts aren't true, it opened the way for a different kind of affirmations. These are statements of the truth that you know are true. There's also an aspect of aspiration about it. It's true that you can influence your experience by positive suggestion, but that's secondary. The important thing is that your affirmations are statements of truth, and the truth is good. 

The thoughts you have that things are hopeless, that you aren't good enough, that you're breaking down, that things are going wrong. That's all lies. 

So, I write these affirmations. In the last year I've written 480 pages, 144, 657 words of affirmations. Some of it is advice. Some of it is inspiration. But mostly it's just reminders of the truth, that I am making progress. 

words to order and disorder

One of my favorite quotes from Nietzsche is: "That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking."

I don't know if it's true, but it's such an interesting idea. I think it identifies something that is true but we can work against that influence. I feel it when I write. Before I write something, I think it through. I think about where it will go, and if, after thinking it through, there's no question in my mind, I won't write about that. It seems like there's no point. 

If I'm only going to express something that I'm fully convinced of and I'm content with my level of understanding about, I don't see the point of writing. 

I think, even essays, where you're specifically writing to demonstrate your knowledge, should be an expression of learning and engagement rather than just a recitation of information and ideas. That's just how I feel about it, but in reality and in practice, when you write an essay that is being marked, the marker is always looking for certain information and ideas, so if you include the content they're looking for, you will do well. 

But where's the fun in being a machine that spits out the desired results? 

beauty for ashes

Joseph says to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." 

So many things went badly wrong for Joseph, but God had a plan. This and all the other stories in the Old Testament foreshadow the message of the New Testament. On the face of it, it's hard to overstate the extent to which things went badly wrong when Christ was crucified. 

We marvel at how dull the disciples were. Jesus had even told them he was going to rise again and they didn't even consider that possibility. But when you put yourself in their position, it makes sense that they didn't realize. To us it's obvious, but that's only because we know the story. 

Jesus said to his disciples not long before he went to the cross: "Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy." (John 16: 20 - 22)

So, if you are in the pit of despair, if everything has gone wrong, if you are in pain, if life seems unfair, if you're rejected and disrespected, and no one understands or appreciates you, be encouraged because your pain has a purpose. This is always true. It's meant to be like this. Things haven't gone wrong. Things are not out of control. This is the path to joy and the fulness of life, and this new life is permanently yours - no one and nothing can take it away. 

where I am

In my writing on Medium, I'm facing a similar problem to when I first learned how to write a proper essay, and then I had to try to push my thoughts into that structure. 

I have ideas that I want to write about and I have a lot of thoughts or content related to those ideas, but it's so hard to articulate those thoughts in the right format. The thoughts in our heads seem to us to be structured - they are structured - but that structure is different from the structure of a piece of writing or a speech. 

When I think about something, I don't have to explain the whole context. I know what I know so I don't have to articulate what I know. I can focus on making new connections and forging new neural pathways. But writing for others is completely different. You have to explain everything. You have to really create a full picture. 

Writing this blog is more towards the end of the 'writing for myself' spectrum whereas writing on Medium is more about writing for an audience. So, writing on Medium is harder. But lately writing my blog has also been pretty hard. 

I find that, once I get used to writing in a certain format - whether it be letter writing, writing a blog, writing essays, writing my insights from the Bible - whatever - it becomes easier. I know how to do that thing, so when I sit down to write I just do the thing that I always do. But I also notice that during times of transition in my life, it becomes difficult again. I think that's why it's been hard sometimes lately for me to write my blog. 

I'm changing, so I don't really know the me that is doing the writing. I don't know what he writes or how he writes. Like, I'm literally forming new neural pathways. 

Maybe it's like how, when you're depressed, you slow down, because so much energy is going into the central question of your depression. My writing is slowing down because my brain is forging these new pathways.  

twisted hands

Christina Aguilera's song, Fighter, is brilliant and so is the video. I love that sense at the beginning, of someone who has been deeply hurt. The hand gestures and the dance and the hair are of someone who is broken and twisted and deformed, but they are dancing. The hand gestures are expressive of pain and beauty.

Then there's the kickass beat, and the message. You made my life a misery, but I don't despise you. My attention is not on you. I'm grateful that your mistreatment gave me the opportunity to grow. 

the wire 5:5

Sometimes I really like the more modern wording of the NET Bible. It really resonates and speaks in a language that I get. Other translations can sound a bit formal, distant, colorless. Sometimes though, it's really jarring and sounds inappropriate, because it uses terms that are completely out of place in the original context. 

Like, for example, in the book of Ruth, when Boaz goes to meet Ruth's distant relative to see if he will redeem Ruth's property and so marry Ruth or, alternatively, what he wants is to redeem Ruth's property and marry her himself. He has to identify the man without saying his name - apparently that was part of the custom - so, in the NET Bible, Boaz says, in Ruth 4:3, "Come here and sit down, 'John Doe'!" In every other translation, it has something like - "Then he [Boaz] said to the kinsman-redeemer, 'Naomi [Ruth's mother in law] is selling the land, etc'. I think that's so much better, because 'John Doe' is a very modern formulation. 

But, you know what? I'm glad there are things like this. This is what I look for. I look for differences. I like that there are so many translations of the Bible, and that they're different and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. 

the center of the universe

I have endless loops of negative self-talk. I'm always telling myself that people despise me, and maybe I'm right. I can think of lots of evidence that that is the case. It's more likely though, that they just don't care. People are involved in their own dramas. 

I'm learning not to let it bother me as much when people say negative things about me. It's just their opinion, which they are entitled to. 

Someone once explained to me why people like me always think people despise and hate me. It's not personal. People are just automatically responding to the signals I'm projecting. It comes from me. I have the idea that I'm lacking and I'm constantly looking for reassurance and people don't give it to me, so I think it's true. 

We never get the attention we want when we seek attention. I think it's true what the Bible says - you have to give to receive. 

I've always thought a lot about what I can't do. I look at the way other people do things - for example, how they do a certain job - and because I can't do it in the way they do it, I don't think I do it well. 

But when you do something really well, you do it in your own way. Everyone who is really good at anything, has their own unique style. Dickens can't write like Shakespeare. Dostoevsky can't write like Tolstoy. But he doesn't want to. Dostoevsky has no interest in writing like Tolstoy. He's too busy doing his own thing. 

When I discovered Ren, I truly thought, this has just ruined all other music for me, because this is next level. It has redefined what music is. That's true, by the way, but.....after a few people commented on some commonalities between Ren and NF, who I had never heard of, I started listening to NF, and I love NF's music now. 

There's room for all of us. The world has a place for you too. 

sit down

There's a kind of freedom that comes from containment. I'm not free to just do what I want. I have to work on my daily goals every day to get through life. There's no alternative. It's like this....you can think all you want about how you would react if you were attacked, but when you're under attack, you have to fight. Breaking down is not an option. It's not possible. It's like trying to drown yourself in a bathtub. Your self literally won't let you do it. 

But within this confinement is real freedom - a truer freedom than the freedom to do what I want. I always used to look forward to holidays and time off. I thought, finally I will have some freedom - a break from this mental stress that torments me. But it got much worse when I had time off. 

I had a calendar with inspirational Bible verses on it, and one of them was Psalm 121:3: 'He will not let you fall...'. That seemed like a threat. 

I only really understood that my issues had a purpose in 2022. I always tried to escape in different ways. That seemed like the answer. This experience with benzos has changed my attitude to other medications as well, because, as I wrote in another post, this has forced me to actually address my issues - to face anxiety, depression, rumination, and so on - to actually struggle with those things, in the sense of actually fighting them. 

သူçბიfހެɖěიçεसा

The inner critic can be really corrosive, but interestingly, the answer is not to believe in oneself more, just like the answer to worrying is not to think practically and work out a solution. 

It's so hard for us to believe that excessive bravado is a reaction to an intense inner critic. We think it's confidence. 

လታoяý

Creative power is about being able to bring together disparate elements by the power of your imagination. It's the creation of something new. 

There's something self-justifying about it. The artist doesn't create because they want to impart some message or meaning. They create because they want to. 

There's no such thing as running out of ideas because you don't need ideas. What creators do is create. I've always wondered why there is always new music. Like, what if it just stopped. What if after a certain date, there was just no more music...nothing new....no one had any ideas. But that never happens. It seems like the opposite happens. There's always new music that is ground-breaking and earth-shattering...music that transcends genres and styles and feeds us in that way that great music always does. 

Same with news. I always wonder about news shows....every time the show airs, they have to fill the whole time - half an hour, an hour, whatever. I always wonder what they would do if there wasn't enough news. But that never happens, partly because, in today's world, there's always something going on, but more importantly, there's always news to present because news is a creation. News shows are something that is created. Creating news is what they do. 

హా зätзи бӯ Mз ணு

Probably the best book I've read about how to eat healthily is Eat. Nourish. Glow by Amelia Freer. It's full of revelations that are profound and yet simple. 

Sometimes I have thought that there is so much to learn about nutrition and it's complicated. You need to understand how your digestive system works and how different foods interact with the body, and so on. 

But there are some very simple principles that you can implement to make a big difference. One of those principles is that you should try to eat as much unprocessed and lightly processed foods and as little processed foods as you can. So, fruits, vegetables, oats, grains...and along with this, rather than eating take-out or pre-prepared, cook your own food from scratch. 

Another key principle in the book is that, contrary to what we've been told, fat is not the enemy. The real enemy is sugar. 'Diet' products are not good for you, because they take out the fat, which takes out the flavor, and then to make up for that, what do they add? Sugar! And the irony here is that one of the many negative effects sugar has on your body and your health is that it makes you fat. It has a lot of other negative effects too. 

It's not easy to cut out sugar altogether though, or make other dramatic changes in one's diet. It's a journey. I'm just starting to get back into healthy eating again now - eating fruit, cooking for myself, eating lentils, eating vegetables, making smoothies. In some ways I'm still not doing great. I still eat a lot of sugar. The way I think of it, though, is that what matters is that I'm making progress. Yes, I'm still eating too much chocolate, but I ate less chocolate this week than I did last week. 

meant to be

Personal change happens very slowly. It can be very disheartening. From one day to the next, it doesn't seem like things are changing at all. It seems like an endless struggle.  

But that's just a sign that the change is something worthwhile. 

What encourages me is that the changes I am making are permanent. 

That changes everything. The tension, the turmoil, the stress, the pain are not indicators of stagnation, they are like the tension on the string that produces beautiful music. 

the problem with...

Right leaning people want to claim that university students are being indoctrinated with 'woke' ideology, but I think sometimes they are misunderstanding what's actually happening in education. When you study English for example, you learn about literary theory, which encompasses a whole range of approaches, including those that conservatives find objectionable. You learn about post-modernism, post-colonial theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, feminist theory, the Marxist approach, etc. 

For me, it was really fascinating and liberating. I learnt that there were a lot of different ways of understanding literature, which was really refreshing because it was different from High School. English was my worst subject in High School. I realize now that we were taught a certain approach as if it was the only approach - that's just how you do English. Then, at uni, I learnt about all of these different approaches which showed me that I can take my own approach. 

It's about ideas not ideology. Learning about post-structuralism is not going to make me a nihilist or a moral relativist. Learning about Marxist theory is not going to convince me to be a Marxist. Learning about post-colonial theory did not make me want to be an activist and dismantle the empire. It just made me think about language and literature and read more, research more and write essays. 

The problem that I have with books like, Why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice and generally books that delineate the Christian approach to things like post-modernism, is that they want to tell me what to think, and they want to insist on it. They make it into a moral question. They don't invite me to actually think. They say that if I am a Christian, I can't agree with anything about post-modernism. The problem is that they are boring and post-modernism is fascinating. And their representation of post-modernism or any other theoretical framework that they don't like is made up of caricatures, generalizations and unwarranted assumptions. 

But it works both ways, also. There are real problems that conservatives are identifying. I think the left is as misguided and wrong headed as the right is at times, but they also both have a worthwhile contribution to make. One side demonizes the other side all the time, about everything. The other side are liars and purveyors of hate. Both sides say that about the other, and I think that extreme polarization is one of the main problems we have to deal with. 

ក្ɔondītīoиşງື່

All of the positive things you can do for mental health and well-being - like: eating healthily, exercising, engaging in meaningful activities, mindfulness, cognitive reframing, self-help, and so on, always seemed to me, in the past, to be like trying to take a sip from a firehose or putting a band aid on a serious injury. 

That's because I was always just starting with those things. I was in a state of crisis and desperately trying to get relief from doing those things. But now that I'm doing them habitually, I see how powerful they are. You have to be less results-focused and more learning and growth focused. 

For example, I've been eating fruit. It started as one of those things that I had to push myself to do. Eating fruit has always - my whole life - seemed like an unpleasant chore. But, like my other goals, it is now a matter of life or death, and I'm desperate, so I'm doing it....at least that's how it began, but it's changed. 

For the first time in my life I'm actually enjoying eating fruit. But also, it has a strong, immediate effect, as well as a more general effect. So, eating oats and fruit in the morning will make me feel better and less anxious later in the day, but also, as soon as I eat the fruit, I feel it. My mood improves and I feel less tired, pretty much instantaneously. 

It's a similar thing with exercise. One of the biggest challenges at the moment is fatigue. It's a heaviness that makes it hard to function. It's extreme, and, as I wrote recently, I haven't slept well for at least a year, and that's mixed up with anxiety and depression - all these vicious cycles reinforcing each other. It's somewhat counterintuitive that the solution is to exercise. I definitely don't feel like exercising or anticipate that exercising is going to make me feel better - more like the opposite. I can't run. I'm too tired. But I'm learning to tell my feelings to back off and get lost. And after I run, I feel less tired. 

Same with all of my daily goals. I just do them. It doesn't matter how I feel or whether I think they're going to 'help'. They all do help because they are my new life, but my feelings and rumination don't get it. I'm no longer committed to anxiety and depression and rumination and crisis. I'm investing in my life. 

gift

Benzos have really been a gift to me because tapering off this thing has forced me to actually deal with and overcome my anxiety, depression and rumination. For a while, after I started to get serious about tapering (nearly 2 years ago) I started to drink as a way of dealing with how difficult the taper was. That led to a level of dependence on alcohol that was life threatening. That lasted about 6 months. Then on 15 March 2022 I went in for detox. It saved my life. 

That experience was really good as well. I will never drink again, because to drink is death. I'm not even tempted because I see it for what it is. At least for me. Other people can drink. But for me, it's death. So, yeah, that's really something good to learn. It's good to not crave drinking at all because I know what it's like to be enslaved to it...to be enslaved to it when it didn't seem like a life-threatening problem, and then to be enslaved to it when it was literally killing me, but I was totally dependent on it. To walk outside my house, to have a shower, to talk to someone on the phone, to do anything, I had to drink. I also know that there's no such thing as 1 drink for me. I made that mistake before as well. Around - I think - 10 years ago, I stopped drinking, and I lasted for a couple of years. Then, one evening, someone was encouraging me to have a drink, and I thought, I can have a few drinks....that's OK. But it wasn't. Having crossed that line, I did so again and again and I was hooked again. I didn't stop until when I stopped last year. So, I have those two lessons. I know how hellishly bad it can get, and I know that even one drink puts me on that path. 

The change in me that I'm bringing about to get through this taper and the withdrawal that will come after I take my last dose, is very much my achievement and God's achievement. Maybe I won't make it. I really don't know. But I'm trying, and it's a worthwhile endeavor. 

I've lost a lot of people in the last few years. But I think that all of those people knew the old me anyway. It's fitting that those relationships broke down or that those people stopped wanting to be friends with me or don't really care or understand me, because I don't want to be and I'm not that person any more. I believe in the new life that is growing in me. 

I like this quote that I saw on Pinterest: Level up so hard that people will have to meet you and get to know you again. 

I'm a work in progress and I feel pretty weak, but weakness is not an obstacle to strength. Weakness helps strength to grow, because if you're weak, but you keep going anyway - day after day, you achieve your daily goals, or try to - you grow. That's the only way to attain true strength. If it comes naturally or easily, that's not real strength. Like it says in the Bible: 'suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.' (Romans 5:3 - 4) 

Iરooო

I catastrophize and awfulize. I think - my current state of mind is painful and unbearable - and I foresee the same for my future, and that way of thinking brings about what I fear. 

It's a loop, but I think I can loosen the loop. I keep thinking of 'loosen the noose on the rope' from 'Hi Ren'. 

My daily goals and the way that I've been driven to actually do them every day instead of them just being goals - that has changed things. 

There is hope. I was watching a video of someone that I'm not exactly a fan of, but I like what he said in this video. He was talking about making art, and he was saying, make art for yourself. That's what you should do. It doesn't matter who sees it or whether it's appreciated or whether it's 'good'. Do art that you love to do. 

I can stop my rumination. If I hold this luminous idea in my mind, there's no room for rumination. I can crowd out that oppressor. I can grow something else - something living. 

shared appreciation

I've been watching a lot of reaction videos to Hi Ren. For this song in particular, there's something really enjoyable about watching reactions - seeing how people respond the first time they listen and watch. I was thinking that this is the 21st century equivalent of what it was like in the early nineteenth century when people would get together to read and listen to poetry. 

The first time you listen to 'Hi Ren' you perceive something instantly recognizable but absolutely new, and the same could be said of the poetry of Wordsworth and the other great Romantic poets of the 19th century. 

There's something exquisite about that first time - a sense of awe - and you can never really get that again, but you can watch other people reacting to it, and often, the people reacting really know about music or singing or the music industry or psychology or film making, etc etc etc and they're able to articulate what is so impressive about the performance, which makes you appreciate it even more. It's also fun to watch seasoned professionals who are super-talented themselves, staring open-mouthed, completely mesmerized. 

broken dream

I haven't slept well for at least the last year. I get up at 5 am, but I nearly always wake up before that. Sometimes I'm able to go back to sleep, but even then it's not a restful sleep. 

I don't know if the stress I feel as soon as I wake up is carried over from sleep or the return of the stress I feel during the day, but in those moments when I'm not fully awake, it seems endless. 

This morning was very different. I woke up at 4 and I was able to go back to sleep and, instead of being a stressful, troubled sleep, I had a dream or a thought, that I am on a long, hard journey, but I'm getting somewhere - I'm healing, changing, growing...it's not just indefinite suffering that I'm stuck in, that goes on and on, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. 

иရိစီޕްރެиƒɔ

It's impossible to know what anyone else thinks. I think so much, and what I say and write is not only an expression of a tiny fraction of all of it - and maybe not even the most interesting parts - but it's not a direct translation. 

When I was learning how to write an essay, I was struck by how, when we write essays, we're constructing something. Our thoughts don't exist in that structured format. I had to really work to push my thinking into that structure. 

But I think that's always the case with any kind of text. Our thoughts and feelings are just one of the influences over what we say or write. 

Even when we don't censor ourselves as much, what we say and write is still an original creation and not an accurate depiction of what's in our minds. 

That's how you know you're not plagiarizing. You may have picked up ideas from various sources but you're putting them together in your own way. You've taken the ideas and made them your own by combining them with all of your other thoughts. 

You've processed them and they're as unrecognizable as the ingredients of a cake after the cake is cooked.