Push and Pull

I've always found the ocean to serve as a wonderful metaphor for life and it's struggles. Be it with religion, science, self identity, career, marriage, life goals. It's all summed up in the ebb and flow of the tide, the tussle of the waves, the storms, the calm, the life, the death. It has it's own will, it serves no master. The ocean simply is and everything else abides it.

So, as I struggle with my new found lack of belief, I find myself to be for some reason in a hurry to arrive. It doesn't seem to matter how often I remind myself that the struggle is it's own reward, I nevertheless want it to be perpetually behind me. Total complacency is truly the most sought after hell.

So, I've spent a lot of time up to this point fighting to free myself of religion's shackles. Shackles is an entirely appropriate term here. If you think I'm overstating it, then you've clearly never tried to leave a religion.

One of my favorite targets while still within the holy walls was something my dad termed "The Tyranny of the Shoulds." He may not have come up with it originally, but I'm making the rules here dammit, and I say he did. Now piss off.

What this refers to, in essence, is the idea that you come across among the most fundamental believers. The idea that you "should" be a certain way, "should" behave a certain way, "should" think, act, eat, dress, speak, grieve, sleep, marry, choose, decide, fucking LIVE a certain way. Any single point of view about anything in the world can be backed up with scripture (very often in a convincing manner) if you look hard enough. This is because of that fact that the Bible is allowed to be interpreted. If I'm allowed to let the Holy Ghost speak through his word however he sees fit, then it's not limited to it's literal interpretation, but can be bend, molded, shaped for my own personal understanding. This doesn't mean that they Bible itself changes, but that the Holy Spirit can just draw my attention to something in the way that friends might reference some inside joke, one to another, by focusing on something specific that makes sense only to them.

Now multiply this by 2.1 billion and you have the number of possible interpretations of a given verse.

This is not a blog post about the lunacy of personal revelation however, so we'll simply take this as a given for now.

That means you can have 2,099,999,999 different opinions about what you should be doing with your time right this second. All justified in scripture. All claiming divine revelation from an immutable, all knowing, never contradicting God.

The average Christian deals with this on a much smaller scale of course, but spend any amount of time in a church and you'll run into a few strong willed people who have a better idea of how to live your life than you do. That's all it takes. Grow up around enough of these self righteous know-it-alls and you will find yourself living quite aggressively under the Tyrannical Should.

It can quite often substitute itself for your own thoughts and reasoning. It can quite easily become your autopilot whenever you need or have trained it to do so. It's like you have an incessant nagging voice that questions your every move and makes you doubt even the most obvious assertions. It's a voice that micromanages your damn thoughts. Have you ever had a really shitty boss who can't stop correcting your every action? Now give them access to your mind and take them around with you 24 hours a day. That's the Tyrannical Should cackling in a Should-like way at every free-willed impulse that 'sinfully' creeps out of your choices.

Granted, this is based on my own experiences and it's quite likely that some Christians have no idea what I'm talking about. I say likely...I don't mean it though.

So, needless to say, the Tyrannical Should is not a burden easily cast aside. It has hold of your very impulse control, it knows you would shirk it and berates you ahead of time. It takes a great deal of motivation and will power to learn to resist such a force, but it is not impossible.

So this has been my battle. I embrace Science, reject the church, but that nagging impulse would not be silenced. It requires no evidence, no reason, no logic for it stems from brute emotional prowess. It knows every button to press, every arm to twist, every shoulder to pin. It cannot be out-emotioned, but one must train oneself to ignore it. To let said malicious call fall upon deaf ears as often as it sounds. Like a crying child who rejects his bedtime, a harsh passive resistance is the only method of any measurable efficiency.

The Should would prevent you from changing your mind, from exploring new contradictory ideas, from testing, from trying, from growing. It would have you as you are until you are not at all. It casts doubt, confusion, guilt, shame, insecurity and greatest of all, Fear. It may not be a very good motivator, but it is an excellent Achilles Heel.

It is a hard fucking thing to leave behind your childhood beliefs. Tooth, nail and claw to the very end. It's like the ocean, high tides and low tides, undertow and surface current. You believed yourself to be in a boat, weathering the storm and suddenly found it to be a sinking raft. Hurled into the dark, cold waters and left to fend for yourself. Your Captain, it turns out, was imagined. He offers no hand, no guiding light, no lifesaver, no help. You must swim and tread water, and float and breathe and sink and swim all on your own. The direction is unclear, there is no way you "should" go, there is only where you are. Occasionally the clouds break and the moon grants brief insight, but just as quickly they seal themselves and leave you to your quandary.

No one is able to help, if they did, you would learn nothing. You would suffer less and your reward, understanding, knowledge and enlightenment would remain out of reach. You must endure, be hurled to the shore and ripped back out to sea. This is life, this is the instability of true understanding, of true knowledge. Storms come and go, but you never cease to float until you drown. You swim one way then another, never certain, but desiring certainty does not make it exist.

I'm firm in my decision, I'm just splashing all the way there.