The Mind From a Dark Room Pt. 1 – “The Pick Me Boy” – wysb.me (whatsyourstorybro.com)
The Mind From a Dark Room Pt. 2 – “There is No Secondary Love” – wysb.me (whatsyourstorybro.com)
The Mind From a Dark Room Pt. 3 – “It Gets Much Darker..” – wysb.me (whatsyourstorybro.com)
Do you guys want to know the history of existence – the reason why we are all here? I’ll tell you because I know. It’s a very simple dialogue between two entities, the highest and lowest, that sent in motion the reality in which we currently live. In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth and saw that it was good. This, we know; however, not even God preferred to marvel at what He had done by His lonesome, so he created “people,” if you could even call them that – that He referred to as angels. Yes, reader, He may have created angels before he created the physical universe, but the sequence of events matters not. All that matters is that we know that He created both.
Anyway, eventually, one of His angels gazed upon God’s creation and thought to himself, “It’s honestly not that great. As a matter of fact, I could do a better job.”
God replied, “Want to bet?”
The angel replied, “Yeah, actually, I do.”
God ended the conversation with something to this effect, “You shall die trying.”
Alas, the explanation of you and I being here together today. We are but pawns in a pre-determined game of spiritual warfare between two entities. If you don’t like the word pawn, perhaps you could substitute the word “signposts” in that spot, but we are what we are regardless of terminology. Spend any extended period in the spiritual “domain,” let’s say, and you will know this to be an evident truth, although it must be said, we don’t have much of a say in the matter. Eventually, we will have no choice but to enter the war of spirits after the reliance upon self and attempting to play God fails. Our only hope is that God chooses to save us when that time comes, that in His plan, we were able to survey enough billboards, so to speak, that we were able to be still enough and know that He is God – because this is not our choice, which is unfair, it is, and we’ll get to that, but life isn’t fair, Jack. As profoundly pointed out to me by one Daniel Schwarzhoff, “This is not paradise; this is a cosmic penalty box outside of heaven, and only the consciously awake will survive it.” Selah..
I have no idea why God chooses who He chooses. I’m not about to try and explain it because I can’t, and nobody can. The first two parts of this series were essentially me balling up my fist, screaming at the clouds, telling God how unfair it is that I’m a “soldier” in this war. Ultimately, that was the point, that there is logic in my (or our) seething resentment towards existence! Why would I have ever chosen this!? Well, I didn’t, and I don’t get to. Nobody does; I’m not unique. We are all unwilling combatants in the war betwixt good and evil. This logical, reasonable resentment towards reality is the lowest power’s greatest, go-to weapon. It is a “cunning, baffling” trick in the bag, as it makes intellectual sense, and in a court of law, it would hold up precisely because of logic and reason. That’s the power behind the trick, though, isn’t it – that logic and reason can be attached to the lowest of human emotions? “What is logic in an illogical existence?” My favorite line, or question rather, posed by Sadhguru. What is this logical resentment, anyhow? I’ll tell you what it is – this is me determining to God that His creation is not all that it is cracked up to be, that I can do a better job than He can, that I’m willing to bet my life on that, and that I am willing to die trying. Sound familiar? It should, and if you have ever descended into that nihilistic, bottomless pit, or perhaps that is where you currently reside, then you, my friend, are in a dangerous, pitiful, dark place. It’s called hell; you don’t need to die first to get there. Furthermore, you, as were I, an active member of the lowest entities “army,” the enemy of the highest. Once again, be still and know that He is God, for only He can save us.
Any resignation to this perceived “injustice” done to us by the Almighty does what, and for who, exactly? In the end, all that ends up occurring is that I need something to blot out the consciousness of reality, whether that be alcohol, gambling, food, sex, drugs, or whatever vice is most readily available, and I “turn heel” on everyone I love and care about. How might we describe this, then? Could we not describe this as carrying out the lowest of wills, which, ironically, in a roundabout way, is God’s will, as He obtains the uncanny power to use everything bad for the good (although I hesitate to use the phrase “use everything bad for good,” as this would indicate that God reacts to us, which would be incorrect), but that we are not the enemy’s “solider?” It’s a frightening way to articulate it, but is this not the truth? Furthermore, if we do, indeed, agree to this, then what would we normally refer to as soldiers of the enemy? Why, demons, of course! On the contrary, it must be said that soldiers of God are, needless to say, angels, and there are a handful of people that we would acknowledge as such. I’m not necessarily suggesting that human beings are angels and demons, but I am suggesting that they are, in essence, involuntarily playing the role of one or the other. People have this idea that when someone is under “demonic possession,” that an evil spirit has entered the body, that the “host” now sprouts horns, starts speaking in tongues and breathing fire. The other side of the coin is the angel, where when we believe someone to be an angel, they magically dawn a halo and wings, flying around casting Godly fairy dust on all who may need it. This, obviously, is not how any of it works, but whether we consider one angelic or demonic, we are referencing whatever it is that encapsulates one’s being – their frame of mind, demeanor, attitude, behavior, and whatever else applies. Ultimately, let us suppose all of this is too dramatic for one. In that event, let me leave you with the inescapable truth that there are only two kinds of people in this world, the people that God has chosen and the people He hasn’t, neither of which have anything to do with His decision.
Alcoholics, myself included in that, are a funny breed. The primary purpose of the individual entering Alcoholics Anonymous (is to stay sober and carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers) is to find God within and have a spiritual awakening. In actuality, that purpose is not exclusive to alcoholics, “we” just happen to think we are distinctive from everybody else, but I digress. Yet, with this purpose of finding God being well-known, sometimes I’ll hear two different types of shares in meetings. The first man or woman says, “Hey, my name is so-and-so, and today I have forty years of sobriety.” Everyone claps. Then, the next man or woman shares and says, “Hey, my name is so-and-so, and I relapsed yesterday.” Everyone feels bad and wants to help. Know what the funny thing is? Most of the time, both of these people really believe that they had something to do with their sobriety or their relapse. This could not be further from the truth. Whether we drink, relapse, run, walk, get a job, become homeless, start a family, or die alone, or literally any other thing you can think of is out of our control. There is no such thing as free will; there is only God’s will, and to think so highly of myself that I have the ability to uproot that will, is playing God and signifies nothing other than a lack of faith. Someone said to me the other day that they are “continuously living in God’s will.” I believe they said this unironically, as if they have a choice, but, reader, let me tell you something, they – or we – don’t. It is all God’s will. Death, taxes, COVID, famine, abundance, it’s all His. Nothing we “do” will ever change that.
Through the screen, I can almost hear the reader muttering to his or herself that “there is a difference between free will and freedom of choice.” Here’s a compatibilist description from Wikipedia’s entry on free will: “Freedom of choice (freedom to select one’s will) is logically separate from freedom to implement that choice (freedom to enact one’s will), although not all writers observe this distinction.” If freedom of choice is the freedom to select one’s will, let us stop right there, as we must understand that it is not something we are afforded. With regard to the latter, if freedom to implement that choice is the freedom to enact one’s will, well, we aren’t afforded that, either. I didn’t set out to end this series by disagreeing with philosophers who have logged many more hours than me on “studying” the subject, but therein lies the problem. Allow me to offer one (or two) more quote from Mr. Schwarzhoff, “If you were to try to ‘reconcile’ any truth, it would go over your head, and you’d never see it for yourself.” At first, I was quite hot at Mr. Schwarzhoff for even proposing this, something like, “don’t you fucking tell me what will and will not go over my head,” but he’s right. One more from him reads as follows, “deliberate reconciliation is intellectual, and these are spiritual matters.” As far as I can tell, he is correct on both accounts. Any attempt to intellectualize or philosophize around the “idea” of free will is a lost cause, for we make any discovery on the matter through life experience, through life itself, which is in the hands of God. Perhaps stealing from “The Mind From a Small Room,” but any prior belief, notion, or idea one has will inevitably be confronted and challenged by life itself; therefore, by God.
Please do not let me convince you that I am God-conscious at every waking moment. Goodness me, two posts ago, I was about to curse His name! Obviously, I hope that most of my readers will come to “agree with me” on the subject, or at the very least, I hope that it sparks an interesting dialogue between readers, but the one who might benefit from this series is myself, as a means to initiate the destruction of this massive ego I’ve attained. If, by chance, I have also succeeded in commencing that beginning for you as well, then that is even better. Let God and let God. After all, He’s going to do what He’s going to do regardless of what we want Him to do.
The Mind From a Dark Room Pt. 4/4.
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