The Labor Party

I am a laborer by calling. Happiness for me is found in the productivity of setting up a party, not the relaxation and laughter of attending it. I needs to stop forgetting this, because once the work stops, no matter how much "fun" I try to have, I always leave the party depressed.

This isn't to say that parties are bad, or that the people who like parties are bad. I'm just not that guy, and it always seems that once the work is done, and the fun starts, there's nothing for me to *do*, so all the things I'm best at, working, teaching, problem-solving, go out the window, and only things I'm horrible at, like relaxing and being cool, are left.

I don't know if this is really a problem, I absolutely love getting things done. Maybe I'm too much of a freight monkey to ever enjoy being unproductive. Hands-down, the things I look back on as having been the most "fun" are the things that took the most to achieve. Crazy-long hikes in poor conditions, long nights at work, messes that defy explanation, and things like that are what I enjoy doing, because something is actually being done.

I don't know how to relax at a party and have "fun" like other people do, yet drop me into any situation that requires effort, mental or physical, and I'll have the time of my life, and look back on it fondly. Putting miles on my boots, running up a mountain, throwing freight like an animal, or simply spending a day pushing carts, those things make me happy because I've done something. Other people can do it, it's not that I've accomplished something others could not, it's that I've accomplished something so other folks don't have to.

I figure there are two kinds of people in the world. There are folks who live to achieve, create, and build, and hence love to work, and people who live socially, and live to be happy, make other people happy, and spread the happiness around. I certainly don't think that people like me, who are driven to the edge of self-destruction to get things done, are better, but the reverse isn't true, either.

We are simply different kinds of people. I look ahead in my life, I see a list of things to do before I die, an uncertain amount of time left to do them, and I'm eager to get to work. Other folks seem to look at labor as something to endure between periods of enjoyment. Try as I might, I'm not that sort of person. I look forward to the struggle, because that's what's meaningful to my life.

I've tried going to parties several times up here in Spokane. Every time I go, it seems the social folks take over, and there's no way for me to interact anymore. There's nothing intellectual happening, the subjects of conversation are inane at best, simple jokes, etc. There's nothing to be done, nothing to be debated, nothing to be reasoned with, nothing that takes any effort whatsoever.

I can't stand it. There's nothing for me at those places but the same ephemeral emotions that I can find in a productive day of work, only without the accomplishment to build on later. Give me an absurd amount of freight to move, let me lose myself in the labor, and when I'm done, I'll be grinning from ear to ear, dripping with sweat, and truly at peace with who I am.

There are a lot of different kinds of people in the world. I need to stop trying to switch groups.

Joy to Soren, in spite of the world.

"Hey Soren, where's the Joy in your life?"

I get this a lot. Like, way the hell more often than I want to hear this question. People always seem to assume that if I'm always grimface and rarely happy, I must not be a real Christian or some shit. Occasionally, I wonder if they're right. I mean hey, if God really does pour Joy into his followers, then why am I always depressed, right?

Here's a rather typical experience:

>Go to my PCM, skip church to do homework

>Get home, study for half an hour

‎>Score 42/45 on the first of two online tests

>Two classmates come over while they wait for a third to get home

>girl asks about guns

>Show her the 1911, WASR, and Savage Mk. II

>Teach her the three rules of gun safety

>She wants me to teach her to shoot

>I feel like F*** YEAH, MAN!!

>Third person gets home, they leave

>Random crushing depression

What the hell, man. I should not be depressed, but for some reason, I feel like shit. I know this isn't a rational emotion, so at least I know better than to act on it, but I hate this shit. I should be feeling awesome. I got to teach someone about guns, one of the few subjects in life that I have near-expert levels of knowledge of.

Now, obviously they only showed up to my house because they had to wait for a third person to get home at the girl's house. So I shouldn't take that to mean that they only tolerate me when they need me, that's unfair to them. But fuckin' depression, man. Strikes anywhere, all the time.

So, back to Joy. Where is the joy in my life? I'll get onto that just as soon as I figure out what the word actually means. So I used my google-fu (which is VERY strong) and looked up what Joy is. Turns out that Biblically, Joy is...wait, actually, I'm going to just quote the guy:

"Biblical joy consists of the deep and abiding confidence that all is well regardless of circumstance and difficulty."

John MacArthur (Not the General with the corncob pipe, that was Douglas)

So, using that definition, let me look at my life:

First off, I know, and I mean *know* on a gut level, that things will be OK, and are in fact OK right now. My emotions do not dictate reality, and the reverse is also false.

Second, fuckin' bring it, man. I can handle depression, it's not a limiting factor in my life. So when I start feeling depressed, I want to laugh it off. It's not going to stop me, and it's not a sign that God has abandoned me, and it's not even a sign that I'm in the wrong place.

Third, according to Nehemiah 8:10, "The Joy of the Lord is my strength". Well, I am a particularly resilient man. I've gone through a lot of shit in my life, and not only am I still going stronger than ever, I'm more and more motivated to learn from the past and do it right the next time.

His Joy, my strength.

The more nihilistically I view the world, the more I find myself unable to comprehend living for anything but God, the tougher I get. When I was concerned about finding a career job, buying a house, and finding a nice girl to marry, it seemed like every little thing got me down, and I was always depressed. But the depression back then made it hard to get out of bed, made it hard to work, made it hard to live.

Nowadays, depression just makes it hard to smile. Smiling's overrated. I'm still here, and wether or not I can smile 24/7 is irrelevant. I will not quit, since God put me here, and I'm not about to bitch out on the only real, driving, motivating thing in my life, the thing that's given me more meaning and purpose than anything else, ever.

Some days it seems like actually making it through flight school is going to prove impossible, and some days it seems like ever finding a worthwhile lady is less likely than that. But every time I start feeling down, regardless of the reason I start to feel like it's all worthless, I try to remind myself that God put me here.

Not just "here" on earth, but here in this house, at this time, at this school, in this major. So...maybe I would be a horrible missionary at this time. I freely admit that one, actually. I'm also not done with training, not done growing, not done with anything.

I often joke that I'm here because God ran out of polite, well-spoken, and Biblically-smart folks, so He got desperate and called a bitter, pissed-off, foul-mouthed asshole with a legendary reputation for being stubborn, knowing that at the very least, I'd make things entertaining.

The crazy thing is, the only thing that had really been missing in my life for all those years was a worthy cause to throw it all away on. God gave me that when He called me to be a missionary pilot, and while I'm still a little bitter, still often pissed, still occasionally foul-mouthed, what He needs is people who have reputations for being stubborn.

So, where's the Joy in my life? It's when I find a way to be stubborn *for* God, not myself. It's where I keep going when people tell me that I'm wasting my time up here. It's why I didn't quit when it seemed impossible. It's when I drove up here with no job, no savings, and enough money to buy groceries and pay the first month's rent.

It's when I get a 24-hour ban from Opchan for telling some guy to get it through his head: I'm not trying to bang every hot girl at MBI-S because I have far more important things to do, like getting trained to fly planes for Jesus, and if they don't think I'm worth dating, I will be happy to leave them behind when I fly away.

It's when some random anon on 99chan lets me know that I'm the reason he reopened his Bible.

That's my joy. That's when I'm really smiling, when I feel like a million bucks. My emotions are meaningless. They're not even real. The money in my wallet is only there because God provided it, it's not mine. The car in my driveway, the guns under my bed, the laptop that brings me all the knowledge I can ever handle...God provided all of it.

My joy is when I get to use my pathetic talents for God. It's not my emotions, it's not my stuff, it's not the people around me, it's just being secure in the knowledge that even though I'm the bottom of the barrel, God is using me for His goals.

Valentine's day

There's a trio of long-stemmed red roses on the table in front of me. They're extra from some party some of my housemates went to, and those that didn't attend have free reign to give one away if we so choose. The more I think about it, the less I actually want to give one of those roses to anyone at this school.

There is a girl I'm interested in, but I'm not going to do anything romantic for Valentine's day for her. At this point in my life, I do not feel ready to be a proper boyfriend, so it doesn't really make sense to try to start a relationship.

The only thing worse than being alone would be for her to start to like me, then look a little deeper and run away. Right now, I've got some shit to work on in my life, and if I actually care about the lady I want to date, I'll sort it now so that she never has to deal with it.

I'm tired of being this guy. I'm tired of being two different people, of being awesome one day and an asshole the next. I'm tired of never being open with my friends, even if I'm honest with them. I'm tired of never trusting anyone except the people I never see.

Maybe next month, maybe when the next school year starts, but at some point I'll be able to stand in front of a lady and tell her honestly that her life with me would be vastly better than life without me. Right now, I can't do that, so I'll wait.

It's not about what she'll do for me, it's about what I can do for her. So I'm waiting until I'm at the point that I'm solid enough that dating me will make her life better. That's the best thing I can do for her.

Even if it makes for another lonely Valentine's Day.

Trust Me.

"Thanks for trusting me"

I didn't. I expected you to keep walking, and then I'd have called you a bitch in my head as you walked past.

No journey of self-discovery will ever end with a happy discovery. I'm living in a house with seven other guys, and I have several times that number of friends up here. And yet, every day, all day, I feel alone. There's no one up here that I'm really close to. It wasn't too bad last semester, but as this year started, it felt worse than usual.

So I applied my intellect to the situation. Why did I feel alone, surrounded by friends?

Here's what I found: I trust exactly zero of them. Oh, sure, I'd be honest with them, but I never really let anyone inside the armor that I wear all day every day. So, it wouldn't take much for me to be honest, because if I honestly represent who I am, and you're not cool with that, piss off, right?

I mean, it's your problem. You're the one who can't accept me, or what I believe. There's nothing wrong with me, it's you.

I took this hypothesis, and I tested against my past.

I used to attend Nampa First Church of the Nazarene. It's a fair assessment that at the time, it was a church that was rather full of affluent folks, and so single-parent children of working mothers kinda stood out. My friends and I got picked on almost constantly, for whatever reason the rich kids had that day.

What did I do with that? I got pissed, locked myself down, and withdrew. The same thing would happen at school, but at school I could hang out with the heavy metal stoner kids, and we could talk about music. They never gave a care that I didn't smoke weed, they accepted me.

I never trusted anyone at that church. I could be honest, but I was always ready to slam the door if I saw trouble coming. And, for the most part, trouble always came.

I tried being duplicitous and manipulative, but I couldn't keep up the happy-guy image long enough, and it never worked very well. Some of the worst mistakes of my life came from trying to make other people like me.

I eventually wound up at Crossroads church in Nampa. I thought "Hey, maybe I can trust people here." And for a while, it worked, but I was always ready to slam that door. Eventually, I'd had enough of them not letting me into their lives, yet hypocritically not letting them into mine, and I told them all to piss off as well.

Luckily for me, there was a trio of folks that actually cared enough to talk to me. One of them in particular tried to get me to understand how the social society at that church worked, and to a large extent, it helped me. But I always seemed to stay in fight mode.

Any time I ever put myself out there, it seemed someone was always ready to slap me back down.

I talked to my pastor once, tried to get some advice on being a missionary. All I wanted that day was some confirmation that going to flight school was the right thing, but he told me that I would be expelled from Moody.

So I took off again. Cause, you know, fuck that guy too.

Went to a church across the valley after some prayers for guidance. Found a nice Bible study, and some people I really cared about. A former preacher joined that small group, and I thought I'd finally found someone nice, who knew a lot about the Bible. I told him I was Methodist, and he replied that if I ever read my Bible, I'd get over that. My parents should have raised me in the Bible, not in Wesley's heresy.

And so the armor came back on in an instant. Fuck that guy, man. I don't need him, I don't need anyone. I tried to be nice, but haters gonna hate, you know?

Then I came to Moody, and tried to start fresh, and trust folks up here. I went evangelizing with a guy one afternoon, thought I could learn how to witness to people. Instead I got lectured on how it was horrible for me to listen to metal bands that weren't explicitly Christian.

It seems that every time I ever attempt to trust people with my emotions, I get burned. I've worn my hand-crafted armor of staying aloof from everyone and kept a "piss off" in a quick-draw holster for so long that it's become my primary nature.

I've got a fuck-you haircut, a fuck-you beard, I wear fuck-you clothes, and I never let anyone inside my shell, ever. I own an AK. I prefer secular heavy metal to the Christian variety. I like this, I like that, I'm totally different from you, and I don't care. You don't like it? Fuck off.

But honestly, it's fuckin' miserable inside my head. I had an epiphany a few days ago, I was dancing around my living room to a song, and I realized that I could never do something like that with people around. I can make excuses, but honestly, I'm terrified of letting anyone see me in a truly unguarded moment. That one realization, that I never relax my guard, blew apart the house of cards that was my self-deceit.

I haven't let anyone see me in a vulnerable moment in years, probably a lot of them. That's what my life is missing. That's what I need, someone, anyone, I trust enough to be vulnerable in front of. I don't even know what that would feel like, but it's the one thing above all that I'm looking for. I'm tired of being strong, I want to be vulnerable.

No wonder no one seems to care about me. I'm probably a pain in the ass to have around. Unless everyone is totally blind, people have picked up on that forced aloofness, and have taken the hint. So...no wonder folks don't stop by to say "hi." No wonder guys don't invite me over to hang out. No wonder girls seem like they're interested right up the point I start to let them inside.

I don't really know if I even have a point with all of this. I feel like I've made a great discovery in my life, yet it doesn't actually change anything unless I apply what I know to my life. In my eternal quest to live authentically, I must now find a way to adapt.

I suppose that ultimately, it's up to God, but that's a copout. If I don't work for it, and God doesn't miracle my ass one step nicer than I was, I can blame God and stay this way with a deceptively clean conscience. So, I guess I don't really have an answer to it, but I do know the problem.

And that's a good place to start.