I am a jock. I trust my physical skills. I trust my ability to compete. I am an asshole to those who do not trust.
GGM and I were trying to play basketball yesterday. I am fat, slow, and have turf toe. I cannot run for any length without going into cardiac arrest. I cannot push off my right foot without crying about my toe. My shoulder feels like shit. I can make two out of ten shots when no one is guarding me.
But I convinced myself that GGM and I could take anyone in the gym. Fortunately we did not get into any games.
Later we went to the races. I convinced myself I could be a driver, or at least, run a team.
As I was going to bed, I decided I needed the jock atmosphere to snap out of my doldrums. I could not decide if I needed explicit competition or a coach telling me what to do.
I decided I needed a coach telling me what to do. So I went to church this morning.
My goal for the day was to get my life in order. I wanted a plan. I decided I needed to simplify my life to essentials. With God's help, I was going to be my own coach. I was going to make a schedule and stick to it.
Church was a disaster. It deserves its own post. Most people go to church for the same reason I went this morning, stopthink. They sing bad songs that say very little but say it repeatedly. They listen to sermons without questions. They want someone to tell them what to do. In fact that is what the sermon was about this morning. "Don't do what you think is right. Do what God thinks is right." (I can imagine the NAZIs in Germany saying this to themselves every morning.) But as my roommate told me as I was leaving this morning, "There are a lot of women there (at church)."
I waste the rest of day watching sports and eating hot dogs. I did wash clothes. I postponed planning my life until this evening.
When I got back to the office, I got depressed. There is not competition in the office. There is no coach telling me what to do. I have a shelf full of books and a wall of quotes telling me the futility of planning. The only thing I have learned from Graduate Schools is you cannot plan life. People have control over their lives. But they cannot plan. It is spontaneous order. Things happen. Shit happens. Other things happen. We deal with shit and things.
So here I sit late at night in a depressing office. I am not happy. I have no plans. Instead of dealing with the shit and things, I am just sitting here.
But tomorrow I will make a plan.
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5 comments:
Did you just compare a church sermon with Nazi ideology? I think I know the reason why you didn't like the sermon. The sermon told you that life wasn't about you. In your world the entreuperner is the hero and you are an entreuperner. The sermon said this wasn't enough. God has to be the center and the hero of the story. Not you or I. The question you should be asking is how different is what the Bible says that you should want and hope for out of life from what you desire and how you actually think. The Bible has a lot of poetry in it. I think that is where you need to start.
Religion's purpose is to merge "what I think is right" with "what God thinks is right (what is right)."
This merging is not easy, but it is the foundation of religion.
This is a deeper discussion than I want to get into. My point is I have to discover Truth. No one can tell me what Truth is.
(Yes I did compare church sermons with NAZI Germany. There are more similarities than any of us would like to admit.)
I have almost convinced myself reading books and this blog is a significant cause of my problems.
What this has to do with anything, I don't know. But it is something.
I like that 'we deal with shit and things' - that's life. Hopefully it's more 'things' then 'shit'. And Hopefully they are good 'things'. That's my glass half full personality though :)
Jilian,
I know you still compete athletically, but how do you deal with the office?
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