Believe / 信じ

I'm not a nihilist, because I don't believe in nihilism. I believe in things, but I don't know what they are. It's going to take awhile for me to be able to believe again in something that I don't know what it's going to be. Christianity, Islam, Judaism: they all believe in something coming in the future. Is it Shintoism that doesn't?

What a lonely future, or life, then, if you're in Japan and you only believe in Shintoism. That's lonely.

When I was at Hope College, my professor figured out that I don't like talking about religion. This isn't something I have really realized until now. He was like, "You don't really care for religion, do you Alex?" I was like, "Well, technically I'm a confirmed Catholic," and he replied, "Technically I'm a confirmed Catholic, yeah," you and religion don't go together or something like that. Well, no, not really.

My half-Paris-boyfriend-whatever tells me he's completely spiritual but not religious. I am neither. And this is regrettable. I'm not a skeptic either, which leaves me somewhere on open ground, or as fresh meat for whichever school of thought grabs me first. That's a certain vulnerability. This might be part of the reason why I don't feel comfortable discussing religion or spirituality, but it's not. It just frustrates me that for me, the discussion just doesn't go anywhere.

I am in the most secular city in the world except for Pyongyang. But Paris is a world of its own.
I'm in a world without teachers. Most of them are on strike, because apparently that's the only way you can get laws changed around here. Uh... so I have to be my own teacher. But I can't do that. I always have to look for a teacher. Eventually I'm just going to have to look for that part of myself that is submerged in deep slime somewhere in my brain, that has become full of fat as slimy as the slime itself. That leader in me. That lead-er, the lead to my pencil, the lead to my bullet in my uncharged gun. Where is it? No, there's no point in asking that because I'm the only one who knows where it is. Until then I'll just chant nonsense and "a bay bay" while I turn over rocks.

No. Enough "a bay bay." It's time to do something that means something. And I always have to step back and find out what that is.

I won't name the inspiration, but every day I ask myself, "have I been living beyond my means?" And the answer is yes. Very sadly, yes. I have to find something productive, not reproductive, to do before I keep going on and doing things without stopping. The US needs to do the same. And when I can't look to my country for inspiration... well, could the Founders have done that? Haha, no. What a brave group of men and women.