Lay Me Down in the Crevice

Lay Me Down in the Crevice
8 July 2010

Now is the time to make it clear the way in which I conceive of my project, the purpose of my life, the center of my work. Presently, I exist to inhabit various places within the Economy, become a reflection of the current position, and describe my internal state in varying degrees of self-awareness. I am less concerned with the surface-level “plight of the working class” sort-of conversation, and much more interested in how operating within the Economy affects my spiritual connection to my self, my emotional balance, my perceptive capabilities, my internalized belief structure, my relative “density,” and so forth. I am explicating the belief, which remains constant within my personal paradigm, that the Economy frustrates the development of consciousness/evolution, depresses the emotions, and necessitates density with respect to spiritual awareness. I am studying the application of myself, my consciousness, to these states which are inhabited mostly by people who do not share this thread of belief.

And this brings me to today. Today I live in what I refer to as “the Crevice.” From Dictionary.com, we have the definition of the word “crevice” as: “a crack forming an opening; cleft; rift; fissure.” So, metaphorically, I am asserting that my life in this moment is broken, and I am for a short period inhabiting the crack, with the hopes of returning to the surface and continuing as before, eventually. Now, though, is the time to describe the insides of the crevice.

Let's start with the “how I got here.” Just last week, I was soaring to my personal heights of consciousness, repeatedly experiencing mild and intense euphoria, unconcerned with time or the future or restrictions of any sort. I do not mean to paint a false image here: there remained pain, some degree of uncertainty, a little bit of crying, and all that. But there was no frustration of energy, no emotional depression or spiritual disconnection. To make it plain: I was on vacation. I did not have to work, did not have to adhere to a monotonous schedule or do meaningless tasks, did not have to inhabit places and moments that do not suit the reality of my internal being for extended periods. Novelty abounded, and my spirit remained properly stimulated throughout even the painful and uncomfortable moments.

I had a love for life. I made healthy decisions. I enjoyed myself. I had energy. I smiled a lot.

Then, I came back home and returned to work. Again, allow me space to ensure that I do not over-dramatize. I have not yet become miserable in my job again. Indeed, I have another vacation coming up in just a few days, so it is unlikely that I will return to the lowest of the lows that I have experienced over the past two years. At least not this time. But, as I continue working in my spiritually-denying job, living a life that is not indigenous to my soul, I find that I have less energy, I am less spiritually connected/interested, I am much more inclined to indulge in unhealthy sensory-stimulating desires, and so forth. I become depressed. It hasn't hit yet; now I'm just emotionally numb.

My life gets messy. I do not connect with those around me. I do not really care about anything. I just do things, just am. There is nothing to excite or devastate me, nothing to impute me toward ecstatic states.

I am impatient and disinterested. I am writing this very essay in a haphazard, rushed fashion. I care not for Love or poetry or truth or beauty; I only want whatever substantive stimulant presently crosses my mind. And I want to rest perpetually and just wither away into nothingness.

It is as if by denying my inner truth and capitulating to the culturally inescapable notion that I “must work” (a job that does not cohere with my beliefs/inner self), I kill my soul, force it into a partially incapacitated/mostly horizontal state. And so therefore, in the material, I reflect that state by existing in a fashion that is lazy, disengaged, tired, and hedonistic.

I have been to the crevice many times. Each time, my stay seems to be shorter and less intense. As I grow into my fullness, I am finding that I feel more hopeful about reaching the zeniths of my personal potential. With hope comes mobility and action toward that end. My soul is standing upright, gradually, and as it does I find that I more consistently have the energy to live the life that brings me to my greatest sense of peace and fulfillment. And so, nowadays, the crevices are like temporary breaks from the time-collapsing movement of spiritual work. Little lazes into a simpler, denser selfhood meant only to serve as a moment of comfort in the familiarity of the past, that break up the path to ecstatic oblivion. It is a type of rest that makes me less afraid of the all-consuming force of passionate living that is my destiny; the calm before the storm.

While here, it is inevitable that I will entertain the possibility of staying permanently. I know beyond knowing that this is not what is meant for me, and truthfully not even an option. But, I cannot help but to appreciate the special beauty that I find here: that of blissful, comfortable ignorance. This moment is a lie, a pretense of the most treacherous sort. I am alive and moving boldly toward ultimate freedom. But here in the crevice, I am allowed to pretend otherwise, if only temporarily. Something within deviously whispers to the Creator:

“Lay me down here, in this crevice I have wrought, that I may die unwittingly and outside the sight of all Light. Send me to a quiet fate, that I may never know the extremes of pain and pleasure, and remain exactly as I am until departure. Bring me only repetitions of what I have already seen and known, then dissipate my numbed form in a perfect, inconspicuous breath of darkness.”

Written and submitted for all who care to read, and with the intention to silence such prayers within myself, once and for all.

The Sweet Taste of Life

The Sweet Taste of Life
9/24/2009

What a difference a day can make! Within just a couple days of having written my last piece, The Sweet Taste of Death, I had an experience that reversed my position on that matter. I mean, I still stand by what I said in the essay, on the quality of one's life influencing one's behaviors and their manifestations as either destructive or productive, but I've changed my perspective relative to that paradigm. I value my own life more, is what I'm trying to say.

This is what happened. I was hanging out with a couple friends from work, smoking and drinking and just generally not being terribly healthy. I hadn't slept much in days, and was likely more fatigued than I realized when I decided to go home. I say I was drinking, but I'd only had half a beer and was not, in reality, drunk. I think I was mostly just sleep-deprived. And high.

As I was driving home, I started to feel as though I were disappearing. This has happened to me before. But this time it was more intense. I'm used to a sort-of spiritual heat coming over me and causing the perception of a dissolution of one body part or another. This happens to many people who use psychedelics, but it can happen to me when I'm just high or when I'm completely sober. I haven't tripped in about a year and a half. Sometimes I freak out when this happens, but if I've had a number of such experiences in close temporal proximity to one another, it doesn't seem as foreign and I'm more likely to just go with it. If ever I need to come down from it, I follow the advice of an older, wiser individual who once said, "Just stick your head in a freezer if you need to feel real again." I somehow make myself physically uncomfortable in order to feel myself.

This time, it wasn't working. I rolled down my window and stuck my arm out, gripping the roof of my car, hoping that the night air would bring me to full physical presence within myself. It didn't work. I began to feel as though my entire body were blipping out of existence, as though the nature of reality itself were coming apart within the seams of myself. Space and time became a physical streaming presence that was replacing me with itself, sending my consciousness into a state of black nothingness. I was terrified.

I realized that I was in an incredibly vulnerable state. I've heard of people blacking out while driving and nevertheless making it home safely, miraculously. However, being as I described in my last essay in a frame of mind that was somewhat suicidal, I couldn't trust myself in that moment not to manifest self-destruction. I felt that if I let go entirely into that moment, it could become my last. For me, this was a near-death experience.

In a panic, I pulled over into the (closed) CVS pharmacy that is probably no more than a quarter of a mile from my house. I decided that perhaps if I walked around, or ran, or did something physically involved, it would bring me back into my body such that I could drive home safely. I got out of the car and started to walk around. As I was walking, the disappearing feeling only heightened. I was losing time, and "browning out." It was like I was only able to witness every other moment. One second, I would be walking, the next would be black nothingness, and then I would see myself again in a different place in the parking lot that was more than a step away from where I had been. Except, time itself had dissolved, so there was no perception of a second-by-second play, but rather a realization that I was losing consciousness. My "self" was dissolving into the greater whole of the moment, but because I was more identified with my fears and my death drive at that time, my consciousness was displaced into nothingness.

I realized then that the greatest sin I had been committing of late was that of not loving myself or my life as they currently exist. I learned a long time ago that I must love every moment in order to have a fulfilled life. Still panicked, I started saying, "I love you, Moment," in the hope that this would redeem me and bring me to safety.

And it did, eventually.

I knew that I needed help of some sort. I'm not the type of person who asks for help until the stakes reach a certain level. Truth be told, I've been in desperate need of some kind of help for at least a month now. I've been slipping into oblivion and death because I've been depressed and dissatisfied at the ego-level of my existence. And I've been completely identified with my ego, at that. But, as it stood at that moment, it seemed inevitable that I would pass out. I didn't want to be alone when it happened. It was late at night, and I knew that the only person I could really rely upon was my brother, Stephen. I returned to my car to get my phone and call him.

After picking up the phone, I hesitated for a moment. Really, it was my ego, still damning me with its refusal to admit weakness. It imbued me with a vision of my greatest fear that would surely manifest if I called my brother. I would call him and ask him to come pick me up. As he was on his way, I would pass out. He would call my parents and they would rush me to the hospital. I would wake up in a bleak room, surrounded by doctors and family members and would be told that I had some terminal disease, cancer, maybe. Lots of tears and so forth, and everyone would pity me and see me as a dying person until I died.

Nevertheless I called him, because my greater Self took control and I couldn't do anything but call him. I said, "Stephen, I love you, and I need you to come pick me up." Without hesitation, he agreed, and I told him where I was and he headed out to get me. After the call, my fears were assauged, and I started to feel real again. I was still in a state of reduced-free will, but I could feel my body and I was no longer losing time. I began to rejoice at the instantaneous-ness of my recovery, and I started praising God, proclaiming myself as His, and speaking in tongues. I was waving my hands and dancing around in an ecstatic fit that I could not control. I was exuberantly happy to be alive.

Within no time, for me, literally, no time, Stephen arrived and I told him what had been happening. I asked him to take me to Wendy's, which was still open, so that I could eat something and come down further. He took me, and I got a salad and baked potato. On the way, he told me that he'd had experiences like mine before as well. We're both a little too interested in drugs.

He took me back to the empty CVS parking lot, and I ate and we talked a little. He reminded me of what I was supposed to be doing instead of hanging out with work friends. He said, in simple honestly, "So, basically, you ditched mom to go get high." It was the truth. I was supposed to hang out with my mom, and I got depressed, and didn't feel like I could handle her presence, so instead I went out in search of weed. Typical me.

I told Stephen that one of us would have to stop all this drug nonsense and get healthy soon, and that it should be me. He agreed. He told me that I needed to stop smoking cigarettes as well, and I agreed. I was, by this point, able to safely drive home, and so I thanked him and told him that if he ever needed me to return the favor, I would surely do so.

As I drove home, with the window down, I constricted my core muscles as to maintain my grip on the present. I made it home, completely safely, and headed for bed. I lit candles in my room, and laid down for a meditative rest. I felt the cleansing of the Spirit, and fell asleep without any trouble. I'd known that it was my destiny to sleep well that night, and so I did.

And since then, I have had a renewed interest in living. I'm still smoking, but I'm gradually weaning myself off of cigarettes (smoking Newport Lights, currently ;} ), and I've set a date for their complete cessation: October 15. I'm eating better, and have decided to return to my vegetarian ways, with the occasional exception of fish. I've started reading this amazing website called Christ's Way (http://www.christsway.co.za/, thank you David for the recommendation!), and a little bit more of the Bible. I'm feeling an elevation, a renewed interest in being at one with the Spirit, and a general satisfaction with everything in my life. I'm making peace with my past and enjoying the present, losing concern for the future and instead choosing to love myself into increasingly grander states of being.

Love and Life are miracles that are ours to have and share. Material circumstances are but illusions that can be mastered through the power of God's Love. How blessed I was to have a moment in which everything was nearly taken from me, so that I could wake the next morning with a revived appreciation for the beauty of All that Is!

The Sweet Taste of Death

The Sweet Taste of Death
Sean Michael Barker
9/15/09

On my way home from work tonight, I stopped by Wendy's and ordered Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings and a medium chocolate Frosty. It's a contemplative sort-of evening for me, so I'm sitting here eating my snack and reflecting on why I'm attracted to things that are gradually killing me. It won't be long before I light another Newport, in this same vein.

For starters, it's clear that I'm going with a certain flow. I am by no means the only person I know who can make an entire diet out of fast food, nor am I the only Danvillian who smokes menthol cigarettes. In fact, for perhaps the first time in my life, I consider myself to be in the majority in this sense; what I'm doing is considered completely "normal" here. Indeed, with two working parents and a cultural endorsement for choosing tasty convenience, I can honestly say that I was raised on fast food. Outside of Danville, it took a great deal of conscious effort to will myself out of my fast-food addiction, not to mention a group of well-meaning friends who lovingly looked down upon it. But here I am again, surrounded by folks who see nothing wrong with a habitual stop at Hardee's or Bojangles or McDonald's or wherever you fancy (pick your poison!), and I have relinquished my will power to the greater judgment of my present context. And, I must admit: I am a lot happier now that I've stopped trying to be health-conscious and vegetarian in Danville, VA.

The question at hand, then, has less to do with why I-personally am making these decisions, and more to do with why we, as a culture, find ourselves constantly doing this. I have a theory which I aim to share.

My theory dates back to my college days, when it was my job to think (or, depending on the class, to repeat others' thoughts). I was a Black Studies major, because the thoughts inspired by these classes were the ones that I found to be the most interesting. Every Black Studies class will at some point address the history of slavery. Most of these conversations will make some attempt to connect the past to the present. This is what I loved most about Black Studies: it helped me to make sense of the world I currently live in, by offering a wider array of conceptions of the past than I found in more "traditional" classes.

I'm not sure which one it was, but in one of my classes, we talked about soul food. As in, the culinary tradition that originates in Southern African-American culture. My very insightful professor told us that slaves--particularly "field" slaves--were generally fed what amounted to table scraps. The master and his family, fittingly, would reserve the choice foods, specifically the "good" cuts of meat, for themselves, and would give the slaves whatever remained that was edible. The slave's diet, then, would be a combination of foods that they could grow for themselves in their precious-little "free" time and their owners' leftovers. This explains why black Southerners (and even some white Southerners of poorer backgrounds) retain their tastes for intestines, livers, dark meats, and what have you. At one point, this was all they had to work with. It also accounts for black people's cultural penchant for rich seasoning: they needed to add a good deal of flavoring to their food to make it palatable, because they were eating parts of the animal that were not even considered to be "food" by the culture-at-large. So, there you have it: a tradition is born, predictably out of the conditions of oppression.

My "original" thought comes in here. I completely accept the narrative that I just laid out as truth, but I have a contribution that I believe adds further insight into the situation. Let's say that you're a black American slave at the turn of the 19th century. You have no personal connection to Africa because your family have been in America for 3-5 generations by now. You work sunup to sundown for a man who does not love or care for you, who beats you whenever he feels the need, who rapes your daughters and considers you to be an animal. You have no conception of a better life than the one you're living now, because you know that any effort you make toward self-liberation will result in a brutal death. You know that you can be separated from your family and loved ones at any moment; your teenage son can literally be sold to the highest bidder. What, then, do you really have to live for?

Hope springs eternal and the will to live is one of the most profound phenomena of human existence. Nevertheless, suicide exists, as do subtler forms of self-destruction. It seems to me that there is a sort-of economic factor when it comes to living. When the cost of living outweighs the cost of dying, perfectly sane people choose to die.

But there seems to be a gradient. We have the extremes: those who kill themselves, and those who completely embody health and vivacity. But we also have a vast middle ground of people who have no desire to die in the immediate sense, but who clearly demonstrate patterns of behavior that can only result in death. Perhaps a similar economic measure can be applied to those in the "moderate" categories.

This is the thrust of my theory: even though everyone knows that certain behaviors, certain foods, drugs and other products are as good as gradual death sentences, people nevertheless choose to engage in/consume them based upon the degree to which they value their own lives. This is why I find more smokers in my social circle as a waiter in workingclass Danville than I did as a college student in middleclass Williamsburg. People here believe that they have less to live for. The longer I stay here, the less I believe there is something to live for.

And who can blame us? Our work is repetitive, degrading, depressing, and soul-crushing. Most of us have aspects to life outside of our work that gives us something to live for. But, when most of our waking life is spent doing work that is not intrinsically rewarding or meaningful, why wouldn't we want to ensure that the release of death draws ever-closer? On the opposite side of the coin, why wouldn't those who lead more fulfilling lives want to prolong it as much as possible? It can all be reduced to a cost/benefit analysis.

And, in the case of good food, good times, and good friends, what better way to go could there be? When no quality of life is apparent, we create it out of thin air. No matter how bad my job was on any given day, it can all be turned around if I have a delicious meal when I get off. When I have no strong desire to live anyway, death can taste quite sweet indeed. It's only when that menacing voice of hope emerges that my habits start to reek of bitterness again. Thankfully, my will toward destruction remains strong enough to silence that voice, no matter how loud it gets. I'm always only one mentholated puff away from where I started, and for the time-being, that's how I like it.

I trust and believe that someday I will find a self-sustaining drive toward health and life. But while my material circumstances dictate my reality, I reserve the right to kill myself a little bit, just to take the edge off of what would otherwise be a completely abysmal situation. My taste for death is completely moment-appropriate, and I do not comdemn myself for obeying my treacherous desires. At present, death to me is as sweet as honey. I will know it's time to move on when it begins to taste as bitter as itself again.

As for right now, it's time for me to reward myself with another Newport :)

My Life According to Bjork

**I don't really like these sorts of things, and I can honestly say that I do perhaps one of them a year. This is the one for 2009; it struck me as too much fun to resist. Submitted.**

RULES: Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to a bunch of people including me. You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Re-post as "My Life According to (BAND NAME)"

Pick Your Artist: Bjork

1. Are you a male or female?
Venus as a Boy

2. Describe yourself:
Violently Happy
All Neon Like

3. How do you feel:
Immature
Pleasure is All Mine
There's More to Life Than This

4. Describe where you currently live:
Mouth's Cradle
New World

5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Oceania
Hidden Place
Cocoon

6. Your favorite form of transportation:
Vertebrae by Vertebrae
Submarine
107 Steps

7. Your best friend:
Army of Me
Pluto
Pagan Poetry

8. Your favorite color is:
Aurora
Pearl

9. What's the weather like:
Desired Constellation
Sun in My Mouth
Storm

10. Favorite time of day:
Bath
cover me
Unison

11. If your life was a tv show, what would it be called:
Scatterheart
Unravel
An Echo, A Stain

12. What is life to you:
It's Oh So Quiet
Wanderlust
Triumph of a Heart

13. Your current relationship:
One Day

14. Looking for:
Come to Me
Big Time Sensuality
Dull Flame of Desire

15. Wouldn’t mind:
Ancestors
Earth Intruders
Crying

16. Your fear:
Pneumonia
Hunter
The Modern Things

17. What is the best advice you have to give:
I've Seen It All
It's Not Up to You
Undo
Harm of Will
All is Full of Love
Enjoy

18. If you could change your name, you would change it to:
Joga

19. Thought for the Day:
Where is the Line?

20. How I would like to die:
In the Musicals

21. My motto:
Play Dead

Queerness

Queerness

8/5/09


One of the themes of my life so far has been queerness. Queerness, as I define it, is a state beyond traditional modalities of existence and means of self-understanding or identification. I have for some time now walked the path of queerness, and as I transition into a new state of being, I wish to reflect upon my "career in queer." Thusly submitted herein, with love. Sean Barker.

Queerness is both a blessed and a cursed state. When brought down to its essence, it is the state of separation. "I am not like all of this which surrounds me." This has been my mentality for as far back as I can remember. Externally, my queerness is understood and talked about in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity. Internally, however, I understand these to be secondary to the essence of my difference, the totality of which I cannot properly communicate in words. Even before I had a sexual orientation or a gender identity, I was queer. Simply put, I have always felt different.

In my mind, the rules do not apply to me. I see others as restricted from within; they believe that certain attributes or ways of being are inaccessible to themselves, because they are or are not a certain way. My experience of selfhood has been far less restricted. I can be anything I want to be, beyond the cliche notion through which grade children are encouraged to pursue their dreams. I can literally be anything I want to be: be it man, woman, black, white, elf, wombat, what have you. If I can conceive of it, I can become it. My experiences have demonstrated this time and time again (though, I will admit, I never actually set out to become a wombat). Reality is quite flexible in my eyes; I am too transcendent a figure to take any of this literally. This is what sets me apart from others.

It goes without saying that mine has been a liberated path. There is little which I have denied myself, and much which I have explored without the baggage of the idea of self-contradiction. Properly speaking, I have barely even possessed what I would term a "self." I have been, in every moment, whatever I wished to be at that time. Without holding onto any obstructive concept of self, I have nevertheless been, with nothing but my corporeal configuration as my constant. Simultaneously, I have existed and I have not existed. I am often as a mirror reflecting reality back to itself, and sometimes I am a palate projecting my latest creation. Never am I anything that can be pinned down or understood in simple terms. Above all, I am an enigma. And I've enjoyed this.

Through the vehicle of queerness, I have encountered a tremendous amount of beauty. I find that humans, so-called "normal" humans, are eternally willing to share of themselves with those whom they trust. As a queer, my selfhood has always been performed. All I need do is give something of myself to which the people in my life can relate, and they will happily relate to me. Because I have no solid or stable sense of self, I can relate to anyone. I just have to play the part, and love will take its course. By habitually choosing to relate to people regardless of background or present circumstance, and maintaining a self-conscious taste for diversity, I have come to understand the beauty of all walks of life. I love everyone, in the sense that I appreciate the richness of each and every nuance within the whole of human existence. My hunger for life and its novelties has been insatiable, and thus I have been blessed with an endless supply of fresh ideas and situations. I have embraced these fully, with no manner of hang-up or regard for propriety.

Travelling as I have consistently placed me in a position akin to that of the anthropologist: I have been in many contexts a participant-observer. I have been many things, but always with the understanding that I would not be as such permanently. I have played all of the parts (quite well I will confess), and in so doing gained an immediate understanding of the nature of each position. Instead of becoming a genius in one role, I have opted to be a generalist in that I've wished to know something of everything. When I've had my fill of one context, I move on to the next. As my youthful energy has allowed, I've consistently found myself operating in several contexts at once. Life, I will admit, has been something of a ceaseless crash-course for me. Through queerness, I have experienced a gamut of life-lessons, and I am the better for it.

I have also acquired much "fodder" for the next stage of my existence: the inevitable culmination of my queer past into a stable, un-queer sense of self. I find that, while every person or group has something to offer, no identity category which I have encountered to date has everything I'm looking for. Some groups have a profound experience of the emotional, while others have a knack for expanding the intellectual. Some people have all the spiritual connection one could want, but absolutely no clue as to what is happening here on Earth. Culture A might have a really keen grasp on preventative medicine and holistic healing, while Culture B just simply knows how to have fun. My explorations have allowed me to have an expansive--if so far nebulous--repertoire of self-potentials at my disposal for the final integration.

So why even bother with stability? Why integrate at all? If it is true that I've had the time of my life being queer, whatever could compel me to suddenly become normal or consistent?

Practically speaking, I've come to find that one simply cannot remain queer forever. Or, at least, I cannot. My ostentatious and indefatigable exploration of identities was made possible by the sponsorship first of my parents and later of my student loans. At present, I find myself a working-class degree-holder with debt. Performance and games are for those who have no bills to pay. I am now making the decision to wake up from my queer dreamland, and settle into the logistical problems of material reality. Questions such as "who am I?" or "whom do I want to be today?" are not nearly as important as "how am I going to get out of debt?" and "do I really want to be waiting tables for the rest of my life?" The time has come for me to stop being a freak and to start being a real-world person with real-world problems. By focusing on the material, I will become financially solvent and enable myself to move on to richer and more rewarding realities.

Additionally, I've reached the point where I can confidently say that I gained all that I needed in the way of self-exploration. In one moment, the reality of my selfhood hit me like a stack of bricks, and I discovered that I Am. Since then, I have been in transition, and am still in the process of incorporating the values and knowledges I've gained into a comprehensive and reconciled Self. My fluid identity is what yielded all of the creative fodder that I can now channel into my most brilliant and permanent role: that of the Real Sean Barker. I no longer need to be enigmatic; I can simply be.

Finally, I will confess that queerness is burden. As a brilliant and undoubtedly insane homeless person once told me, "It's lonely at the top." Inhabiting a transcendent space beyond identity did much to feed my ego and convince me that I was "above it all." But, at the end of the day, I am a human with human needs. Constantly "passing through" identities, friendships, circles of humanity is fun for a while, but in order to have true friends, one must be a true self. Love in its most potent form happens when the wall of separation between you and the rest of the world breaks down and you allow others to see the real you. As you become realer, you gravitate toward your like-matter, and enjoy the fruits of acceptance, normality, and real love. Being brilliant and nebulous has its advantages, but at the end of the day, it cannot replace the power of the healing energy of looking into a loved one's eyes with all of the beauty and tragedy of a shared Selfhood. I am making the choice to be Love.

And, so far, it fits. Though it's taken me a while to get used to being completely honest all of the time, to being transparent, no longer a mystery, I'm finding that the creature-comforts are well worth the change. No longer must I be "on guard," persistently aware of the character I'm presently in. I can just be. I am no longer afraid of getting too close to people, for fear that I will miss them when I move on. I now allow myself to love and be loved. I do not, in my present condition, have to constantly analyze, interrogate, and criticize the world around me, in its pitiable normalcy. I can just be normal--if a bit quirky--and tend to my own affairs humbly and without contempt.

At the end of the day, I am a simple creature. I am an upwardly mobile middle class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, a great American, a well-adjusted gay man. I am intelligent. I am spiritual. I love to dance and eat good food (vegetarian!). I have behind me a tumultuous, dramatic, exciting youth, and I love to share anecdotes from it with those I encounter. "Man, those were the days," I often quip. Sure, I did my share of identity-exploration, and did so under the self-righteous moniker of queerness. But, who doesn't set out to find themselves these days? Isn't the coming-of-age narrative the quintessential American experience at present? Mine just happened to be a bit more flamboyant than usual. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Of course, I wouldn't repeat it for the world, either.

Normalcy and queerness are simply states of mind. From where I sit today, it's clear to me that I never was nearly as queer as I thought I was. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I'm pronouncedly normal, in this crazy day-in-age. Ultimately, the transition to normalcy is as easy as flipping on a light switch. And, just like that, I am.

Easy, right?

On Becoming

I am a creature in transition. I am somewhere between a fictional version of myself that I have created to keep Love away, and the real Self that I truly Am and was Created to be. This is a precarious position. For I know the beauty of the person I am becoming: his confidence, his appearance, his lifestyle, his masculine grace. When I finally become the Man I am inside, I will be happy and truly at Peace. I will be a “success,” both in the material sense and within myself, as measured by my personal, innermost yardsticks. I will be perfectly conformed to Love, and this I will love everyone and everything. My life will be absolutely filled with Love. 

And yet, I suffer because I cannot completely relinquish the old “me” so that I can be fully Myself. While working through my pain, I find that time and again I need to numb it with something: a bad habit, or a self-denying/self-destructive pattern of thought, or throwing myself into some job or other context that I really don’t intrinsically enjoy or care about. Inevitably, I displace myself such that I feel the need to grow a shell of falsity. I adopt the patterns and mannerisms of my present context such that I “fit in” while denying some important side of me, serving to hold me back from being my fullness. In short, I habitually compromise Myself.

I do this out of Fear. Deep inside, I love everyone and I am afraid to be something that they cannot love in return. Some misguided part of me thinks that the only way to secure love is to reflect the people whom I want to love me. This is only true for the incredibly egotistical. Indeed, these are the people whose love simply is not worth the effort. Those caught in self-absorption are not capable of loving outside of themselves in a satisfactory fashion. They must examine themselves thoroughly, either to discover who they are, or as an obsessive effort to keep from discovering who they are. Either way, they are so tuned into themselves that they simply cannot pick up other frequencies. I know, because I’ve been there, and this is the very pattern to which I return to keep from really connecting with the people in my life. I re-grow my ego.

Ego can be very adaptive. Surely, if we all went around being completely emotionally present and in full Selfness, we could not maintain our very depressing present reality. We would be forced to love ourselves and each other such that we would cease to torture ourselves altogether. For whatever reason, we seem to feel as if we cannot, as a species, handle that yet. We’re not ready for the Truth, so to speak. We’re not ready to be happy, in Love, and at Peace. And so, while we continue to subject ourselves to misery, we develop these coping mechanisms that enable us to persist through soul-crushing circumstances. We find ways to ease or numb the pain. We produce second-selves that act as our personal utility vehicles for the road of Life. We do not have to worry about speedbumps or even pitfalls, for we are secure inside a big machine with a hard shell. As long as we stay inside, nothing can truly hurt us. Our very existence requires that we suppress our pain and carry on when we really need to break down. We cannot take the time to take care of ourselves when there are mouths to feed and bills to pay. And so, we build a plush habitat that allows us to continue playing the Game while we slowly kill ourselves inside of it. It’s what we “have” to do. 

But in reality—Reality—we never have to have an ego. It’s always a choice. Truth be told, it’s always a bad choice. For Ego is the ultimate Enemy, the Devil Himself, if you will. It is the enemy on the inside, the “treason from within,” in the words of Lauryn Hill. She continues that it “won’t be happy ‘til it sees the death of Me.” As you persist in ego and continue to deny your Self, you will inevitably adopt self-destructive habits that outwardly display your inner suicidality. In you completely relinquish yourself to ego, you will eventually quite literally self-destruct. Submitting to Fear is submitting to Death, in the truest sense. 

And so, ultimately, becoming yourself requires that you kill your ego, before it can kill you. This is not an easy task, and it is the one I have adopted as my present ultimate goal. I can tell you that it is quite a tumultuous process, and one that can make you feel absolutely insane. One moment, you are completely filled with Love, being your true Self, and serving as a beacon of Light and a source of warmth for all around you. The very next you may find yourself in an uncontrollable fit of sadness or anger or some other deplorable state. I go from being a kind-hearted dispenser of Truth to a rotten lying prick, all within the same day. There’s so much instability that I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever feel sane or even real again. This process is a full-time job, and yet I find myself with material, so-called “real world” obligations that distract me from my Self-cultivation. This is not an easy path, and it involves above all else a spirit of sacrifice, but this is My path, and I have chosen to bear My Cross. All the pain is mine and I know beyond knowing that letting it come through me is my only real option.

For pain is the very stuff of becoming, of growing. This process, though agonizingly unpredictable and tumultuous, is the only way in which I can become the Man I am. It is my role to kill my ego on the ground, as a real human being. I must do so gradually, so that the process can be successful and the results lasting. I must fully submit to Self and become a beacon for Truth, Beauty, and Love for all the world to see. By allowing my very being to become a pure expression of God’s Love, I will demonstrate to those who know me and/or experience my presence that they, too, can have the joy and fulfillment of Divine existence. I will remind people of their own divinity, and bring others to the paradise of ego-lessness. Or, rather, I will let the Almighty pull them through me. 

And so, I welcome this process of becoming and all of its requisite pain. Indeed, I love it, for this is the very substance of Life. Life is always a process of becoming, and so there is always pain. It is in the Next Life that we will simultaneously know existence and painlessness. Life as we know it is pain, and so I embrace my life and my pain with open arms. I know that these memories that are my present will one day be as precious as treasure to me. When I exist in ego-lessness, all of this will be as a dream. I will lose memory of pain; I will have Heaven-on-Earth. 

But for now, I simply am not ready. There is more that I need to experience, more pain that must chip away at my ego as a chisel removes the excess marble to reveal the beautiful sculpture beneath. I am getting there: I feel it, I trust it, and I know it. But there’s no need to rush, and indeed the timing is not mine to decide anyway. The destination is glorious, but the road possesses its own unique beauty. Though I often feel as a weary traveler on a treacherous and impossibly long, winding path, I know that the destination awaits, and all of this will be worth it in the end. 

And so: I have learned that in order to simply be, I must first become. And yet, in order to become, I must be. Becoming is a cursed paradox, and the excruciating reality of my present. But one day, I will let go and truly be. And my, won’t that be glorious!

Amen. 

The Necessity of Sin

**I started this about a week and a half ago, and finished it this morning. I like it, because it explicates my insanity pretty well.**

The Necessity of Sin

Sean Michael Barker

It is presently the season of Lent, and Christians who observe this tradition take time each year to reflect upon sin, sacrifice, and the roles that these play in their lives. We do this by examining our personal sins and by giving up a specific one in order to strengthen our walk in faith and our relationship with Christ. Though Lent is traditionally observed by Catholics and Anglicans—and I am neither—I decided to participate this year in order to improve myself and attempt to understand why I sin and what I need to do to stop sinning. 

We are currently two weeks into the forty-day Lenten season, and I have already failed in my personal commitments to stop smoking and overindulging in sweets. Though I started off strongly, I never quite achieved the focus necessary to carry my goals all the way through. I haven’t given up; I plan to get right back on the proverbial horse and try again, but I must admit that, as a Christian and a spiritual person, I’m not quite “there” yet. Though disappointing, this is an important revelation.

It tells me that, despite the tremendous personal/spiritual progress that I’ve made over the past year and a half, I am still very much a sinner. There still exists within me an impulse toward destruction that I have not conquered, nor have I allowed my Savior to vanquish for me. In my pride, I have attempted to control something that is in fact beyond me, without taking the necessary steps or making the requisite sacrifices to rid myself of it. I’m just not there yet. 

And so, here I am, a sinner, meditating for a season on the nature of sin. Thusly positioned, I am aware of what sin does for me and what it does against me. I fully recognize that the cons outweigh the pros, but, in what I may someday view as a foolish self-defense, I will choose now to focus on why sin is a necessary and perhaps even a good force within one’s life.

So what exactly is sin? We have a common definition, and most people would probably produce a list of examples if asked such a question. I will do the same to illustrate my point, but I believe that sin is a purely relative notion with perhaps some overarching ideas that apply more widely than to the self. I subscribe to the idea that we each have a purpose on this planet and a core Self that is perfectly designed to fulfill this purpose. I believe that free will is a necessary illusion and that, ultimately, everything—no matter how seemingly wrong or heinous—is in fact acceptable. I believe that the will of God is perfect and that there is no such thing as a mistake or a misstep within the Great Plan. 

One might say that I don’t really believe in sin at all, and that’s fair. Then again, I’ve already self-identified as a sinner, so I’d need to believe the way I do in order to continue as such. You can see the paradoxical nature of being me here: ultimately, I do personally believe in sin, but I also believe that God created everything, including sin, and is in complete control of both sin and salvation. To me, it is all a beautiful and perfect experience that must be taken as a whole in order to be appreciated. Much as I recognize the illusory nature of this whole concept, this narrative if you will, I value it too much to let go of it and not live out my own story of darkness-come-light. 

Reality exists in layers. I find this to be true, both personally and in an aggregate sense. My higher self understands that it’s all just a story and that it must be lived out from start to finish. My common self—the one I am most frequently—believes in free will and thus believes in the possibility of causing harm to oneself and others in such a way as to incur blame and therefore guilt. Though this seems very complicated, it makes sense to me, and I understand myself to be a reconciled multi-dimensional figure. Let me assure you: we’re fine just the way we are J

To simplify it for the reader, let’s say that I self-consciously choose to believe in sin, because I see it as a valuable way of contending with this very strange and complex world. I cannot look around myself without seeing Good and Evil. Therefore, I cannot look at or within myself without identifying both of these forces within me. I am possessive of a utopian ideal that I call Good, and I want for Good to conquer Evil and make the world a paradise. Therefore, I must rid myself of all that runs counter to this goal; I must purge the Evil within. 

For me, Good is the perfect harmony of God’s grace reigning everything such that peace and beauty prevail as the hallmarks of this planet. Evil is man’s impulse toward control and desire for God-like status—created by Fear—that cause him to ruin what would otherwise be Heaven and subject himself to ceaseless misery. Good looks like a visual cornucopia of uninterrupted life, a very natural and beautiful vision of Love itself expressed in an endless dance of water, air, earth, fire, and flesh. Evil, on the other hand, looks like a grey perversion of asphalt and steel, a harsh and ruthless cacophony of consumption and slaughter. From this point of view, Evil is currently winning, just as it was written. 

But Good prevails in the end according to the story, and it is this story that I have chosen as my own. Love conquers all. We will someday understand that God is and always has been in control, and that Evil was allowed its season so that we could have the chance to understand more fully God’s perfection and submit to him the will that was rightfully and indeed truthfully His the entire time. But, like myself, we are not there yet.

And so, here we are, sinners, needing to be sinners so that we can get beyond both sin and salvation. While we are here, we must conquer not only our personal demons, but the quintessentially destructive force of judgment that holds us back more than all of our petty vices combined. It is for this reason that I will explicate my purely relative conception of sin.

As I said, we are all created beings with a predestined purpose inscribed in the very core of ourselves. We must fulfill our purpose, and doing so requires that we obey the forces within us that are beyond us. Desire and belief are two forces that inhabit this irrational space. We all have desires, and we all have beliefs, and it is our mission to enact these. We are all individuals, and our desires and beliefs are thus quite diverse. No two people share the exact same purpose, and so no two people possess the exact same desires or beliefs. Sin occurs when we refuse to obey these forces. 

The world is full of liars who will tell you that they possess an objective definition of sin, and that salvation can only occur if you adopt and adhere to their strictures. Anyone who has tried to live for someone else, by someone else’s moral code can tell you that it doesn’t work—that is, if they choose to be honest with themselves and with you. They won’t choose to do this until they’ve moved beyond that way of living. Salvation lies in finding one’s own core, in coming into one’s own as a spiritual being and understanding one’s purpose. Until you know who you are, you cannot be what you need to be in the fullest sense.

Unfortunately, knowing yourself is only half the battle. Once you have that part figured out, you must then take on the all-important task of being yourself. From my perspective, that of someone who is quite odd, this is the hard part. It seems to be easier for those who are more normal, but perhaps they lack self-awareness and are actually conforming. This isn’t for me to decide, but I think about this a lot, especially when I’m in a self-pitying/self-destructive/sinful mode. Suffice it to say that being oneself in the fullest sense is a formidable task, and those who achieve it—no matter who they are—have my deepest respect and admiration.

Within my relative framework, sin is knowing who you are and doing things that are inconsistent with that person at the core. It is misrepresenting yourself. It is holding yourself back and committing acts that impede your personal progress and mission. It is trying to be something you’re not. 

I will use myself as an illustration. Because of the conception of Good that I laid out earlier, I believe that we all must examine ourselves and our habits to identify the things that we do that contribute to the destructive forces that are eating the planet and making us all miserable. This entire mess that is the present is nothing more than the sum of all of our decisions. And so, each decision must be interrogated within the context of the whole. 

I believe that greed and fear are the driving forces of destruction. And so, every time I make a greedy or fearful decision, I am sinning. I can be both very greedy and very fearful. I very much enjoy my luxurious lifestyle, which is full of delicious food, material comforts, and over-stimulation. I eat more than I need to, I waste time that could be better spent, and I am in no particular hurry to fulfill my spiritual mission (knowing full and well what it is). I am a greedy person. I want what I want, when I want it, and I do not sacrifice these things when I clearly need to. 

Perhaps if I ate less, there would be less hunger in the world. If I took the hour that I use to watch an X-Files rerun and instead wrote something important, I could perhaps create a ripple effect that would make the world that much better. If I weren’t so afraid of losing my material comforts, I could quit my job waiting tables (feeding into other people’s greed and gluttony) and instead do something really valuable with my life. There is much that I choose to do and choose not to do that is inconsistent with the person I am at the core, with my most cherished beliefs and my most powerful desires. I am, therefore, a sinner. 

I want very desperately to be good. I want to be fully consistent with who I am from the depths of my being. I want to overcome sin and be myself. Thus, when I commit sinful acts, I feel ashamed and depressed. My misery outshines my love, and the people around me thus suffer with me. I project my pain in every direction, and everyone who comes into contact with me will bear witness to my sinful nature and share, to some degree, in its destructiveness. I become a bad influence and a bad friend, son, coworker, brother, and so forth. As my sinful cycle continues, I eventually reach the point where I feel as though Life itself is against me, and I adopt a “fuck everything and everyone” attitude. This only fuels my negative decision-making, and before long, I find myself in the state of being a selfish, irresponsible, self-loathing, spiteful prick. 

My life seems to bend toward darkness when I’m experiencing a season of sin, which further compounds my misery. As I cease to be pleasant company, and cease to care about how my actions affect others, I find myself drifting in a sea of self-isolation. I feel as though I cannot connect with those around me. The very people about whom I care the most seem to reject me, and in my self-pitying, I cannot blame them. My material resources deplete because I waste them on sinful implements. I become a less conscientious worker, and so my pay—largely tip-based—decreases. All of this, of course, gives me further reason to hate myself and to engage in self-destructive behavior. 

Though these cycles are very difficult to get out of, inevitably, I find my way back to the light. Something will click inside of me, and I will remember who I am. I will recognize that I am choosing to be miserable, and will make changes to get back on the right track. Often, I will break down and experience some set of emotions that my sinfulness had been numbing, and will in that moment feel a change occurring within me that will ultimately decrease my inclination to sin altogether. This is the moment of salvation. The evil within me purges itself, and I once again feel the presence of God in my heart and in my life. It is as if I am breathing for the first time after a long period of suffocation. The River of Life washes me anew, cleansing my soul and purifying my mind. There is an influx of ecstasy, accompanied by the security of the Almighty’s loving embrace. I am renewed in both innocence and vitality.

And, sure enough, my life will reflect the change as well. A cherished friend may give me a call out of the blue, reminding me that I am in fact loved. I feel a refreshed will to live, and I seek out and gravitate toward precious moments, which I experience in their full beauty. I have no concept of loneliness, and I am pleased with my actions, as they are now life-affirming instead of life-destroying. My resources increase as more people are willing to give me more, and I do not waste money on frivolous and detrimental pursuits. In short, I am happy, and I know that I am doing the right thing and being who I really am. 

As you can probably tell, because I describe it so thoroughly, this cycle of sin and salvation has repeated itself many a time in my life. I realize that the goal is to forfeit the sin entirely, and I am ultimately working toward and incrementally achieving this end. However, I believe that the reason why I cannot yet let go of the sin is that I have such a profound appreciation for the experience of salvation. The intense beauty, comfort, and warmth of the light simply cannot be known unless one also knows the intense misery and coldness of the darkness. I am still a very intense person, and my youthful energy sustains my intensity. I still have the ability to experience these emotions to the fullest, and I take full advantage of this. I go from the highest highs to the lowest lows and back again, taking the occasional break and allowing for moderation. Moderation, to me, is overrated. At this point, I would much rather experience my existence at one extreme or the other. 

I know that this cannot last forever. Youthful vitality inevitably yields to the wisdom of maturity and the harsh reality that the body’s energy does not last forever. Ultimately, this pattern of intensity is merely creating the lifestyle that I will one day enjoy in a much more settled fashion. I will eventually relinquish both the egregious mistakes and the extraordinary periods of correction. I will accept myself as a generally good but clearly imperfect individual, and enjoy my favorite vices with temperance. No longer will these acts snowball into sequences of intense self-destruction, and, sadly, no more shall I know the beauty of bringing myself out of such a sequence. There will be a simple and enduring peace that will carry me through my adulthood and enable me to contend with the trials of life in a perpetual state of clarity. 

But, for now, I will steadfastly contend that sin is, in fact, necessary. As long as I live, I will remember this phase of my development, and the intense liveliness that it brings. I will fondly remember the drama of sin and salvation that characterizes my young adulthood, and cherish the stubborn foolishness of it all as a trapping of youth. I will look upon my present self in the eyes of nostalgic love, never longing to repeat the cycle, but infinitely thankful for the way it will have shaped me. From the position of peace, I will fully appreciate the existence of the war. Perhaps this is what it will feel like when we all relinquish sin, and become once again united with our Creator. Maybe that is the ultimate lesson: in order to appreciate peace, we must first experience the war.