letter to a late 2016 self

1. Stop being obnoxious. Please -- try -- for both our sakes.

2. Year of blowing your chances with beautiful women. you'll start to notice a trend, but it's good. You'll learn from it, so keep trying. Put yourself out there, guard your heart. Put God first. (You won't at the start)

3. It's your prerogative to express the self you want others to see.  Showing people your true self - or at least trying to be as true as you can to the you you know yourself to be, or the part of yourself you recognise as being you - rather than hiding behind a mask of silence and meaningless pleasantries.

Silence as a kind of selfishness.¹ The onus is on you. You can't lean back and expect the other person to do all the work. 'You know what, if they want to know me, they'll have to work for it.' Get over yourself.² If you want to be understood - understanding that it's impossible to be completely understood by another person - but if you find someone who you think you can connect with, then make an effort to form the connection. Give them something real of yourself. Learn to give in that way, to be generous with your experience, your knowledge, your insight, your mistakes. Make it outwardly focused - and not to glorify yourself. Be interested in others, and love them enough to answer truthfully if they are interested in you. Don't resign yourself to who they think you are. When you explain you're a doctor, you can usually see them mentally revising their opinion of you - tweaking their assumptions - which is strange, you're still the person you were 5 seconds ago, you talk the same, dress the same, have the same hobo haircut. But the new information sheds light and paints a more accurate picture. Love people enough to disrupt their established paradigms. A real friend tells you when you've got something in your teeth. If someone's got the wrong idea about you, it's up to you to decide if it's worth correcting. The point is, unless you make the effort - there's no way of them finding out. And remember that this is true of nearly everyone you meet. That your first impression will almost always be wrong, or at best incomplete.³ You will change your mind about people. In your first job, you will meet a young, arrogant registrar with too much product in his hair and a handshake that feels like a snide comment and dislike him a lot initially, and by the end of the four months hold a surprising amount of respect for him.

4. You're not the smartest person in the room. You think you know this, but unfortunately you'll still believe it for a long time, and only notice it when someone smarter than you says something smart and then you feel uncomfortable and threatened. It's cool. There's always going to be someone better at you at something. You can console yourself by saying, 'yeah well, I bet I'm better at X,' but that just gets incredibly tiring - and it doesn't always work. When this kind of thing happens (it will happen a lot over the next few months, with alarming frequency), recognise and realise that you feel compelled to be better than so-and-so at X because it's where you've been mining your self-esteem. You've made it your little niche in the universe. You value yourself against what you worship: cleverness, artistic ability, nice clothes. But your self worth should come from your identity as a child of God. Once you recalibrate, you'll be able to appreciate people cleverer, more talented than you - and instead of feeling threatened, envious, belittled, you'll be inspired to be better. And when you come across someone who's not so good at X, rather than use your advantage to covertly assert dominance, you'll want to be generous and inspire him/her as well. You get to graduate from flaunting your assets for the sake of personal glory / an ego-boost. I'm not saying that's the case now by the way, I'm saying this is what to aim for.

5. there is a part of you that used to feel everything acutely, and see everything as precious, and that part has either died or is buried. Whether or not it resurrects/puts out any shoots remains to be seen.

---

wanting to be honest but also not wanting to scare people off (wanting to be liked?)

---

<sup>1. "I think being shy basically means self-absorbed to the point that it makes it difficult to be around other people."↩
2. "According to psychologist and researcher Paul Wink, there are two faces of narcissism: The Overt or Grandiosity-Exhibitionism type, characterized by extraversion, self-assurance, and aggression, and The Covert or Vulnerability and Hypersensitivity type, characterized by introversion, defensiveness, anxiety, and vulnerability to life’s stressors. Mr. Wink’s research found both sides are extraordinarily self-absorbed and share a common core of conceit, arrogance, and the tendency to give in to one's own needs and disregard others."↩
3. "There’s a day in May when we’re all tumblers, gymnastics is everywhere, and daffodils are asked by young men to be their wives. When a man elopes with a daffodil, you know where he’s from. In this way I have given you a primer. Let us all be from somewhere. Let us tell each other everything we can." - Bob Hicok, A Primer↩</sup>

Love far from home

There: it's great. We all have our secret explanations. You only have to reveal your secret explanation and she's not a stranger any more. We lie cuddled up together like two big dogs, or river gods.

---

I woke up late today. The relentless sun entered with a maniacal intensity through the gap between my wall and curtain - its gold suffusing the room with echoes of itself. Outside, the sky was blue in an early spring in the northern hemisphere kind of way. It was beautiful in a way so wide and effortless that the only appropriate response is gratitude.

I vaguely remember my dream, which is rare. In it there is a cavalcade of us outdoors, on our way to some celebration. Beside me is a girl, an old friend from school - I have never seen her before. The rest are not far behind us, rambling, tumbling and jostling each other, rapt in their own respective parentheses of jubilation. She is wearing a summer dress and laughing and we are walking through a meadow and we are all incredibly happy for some reason. Her laugh is soundless and wonderful, like the sun, bright and mighty and full of colour, hanging high in a cloudless sky. Her eyes are shut with joy. Without thinking, I place my hand on her shoulder and pull her towards me. I place my lips on her crown to kiss her head, and as I inhale, I feel the tiny filaments of hair against my lips, and the scent of her is intoxicating. That's the thing that stays with me after I wake up, her fragrance. I don't recall the what it was, but I do remember how it made me feel - giddy and invincible - as if I had inhaled spring itself.

Recently I thought up this idea for a story, of a man who has the most hideous teeth. As a result he never smiles and speaks in such a way as to maximally conceal the contents of his mouth. I have not decided why he believes his teeth are hideous. It could be the result of a series of early peer inflicted traumas or a careless comment from an authority figure impressed upon him during the formative, highly susceptible years of childhood. Some kind of wound sustained during the development of his nascent subconscious. But anyway this causes him much distress when he falls in love with a girl, as simply being around her makes him grin, and he becomes anxious that the facial contortions that he employs to deny the girl a glimpse of his teeth are confusing if not incredibly disturbing to the object of his affection. This would lead to much drama and mental anguish and romantic frustration between the two and form the catastasis of the narrative. I also have not decided how it will end. Perhaps it ends with him revealing his teeth to the girl in an act of trust and vulnerability and he finds out that they were no more deformed than anyone else's. Or perhaps it is revealed that the girl and everyone else have all along harbored hideous teeth that the entire community have secretly, unbeknownst to each other, replaced with some kind of prosthesis. Or perhaps in the end he goes up to the attic where the toolbox and hammer are and smashes all of his teeth out in an act of defiance against their reign of tyranny over him, and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital when they ask him why he did it, he simply smiles.

I am soon 25. This is uncharted territory. I have given up trying to fathom what lies ahead. Will the days begin to blur? I have accepted that it is now May. I dispense with the fluster and commotion and say, Oh, well, yes I suppose it's about time. Maybe I am now accustomed to life's acceleration, which will upset me when the rate of change plateaus and eventually recedes like a fistful of hair in the morning.

When I enter the city the sun begins its dying dance and clouds begin to creep across the immaculate sky.

I am turning 25. maybe I ought to grow out my hair. I explore the university as the evening light grows dim behind massive clouds, and pale electric orbs line the walkways. The student union building is abandoned, the stark and vacant light unwelcoming.

I am at the student bar, next to the library being served by students. Having placed my order, I sit next to a group of 4 in a semicircle, as they discuss whether the NHS should fund orthodontic procedures and speculate the machinations of the transgender psyche.

We walked past a ramen shop, then an italian gelato store. 'Everything's falling into place for us,' I said.

Things thought are different from things themselves. How to turn out thoughts more realistic, how to transform reality to be more like our thoughts. How to reconcile the two, a happy marriage.

25.4.17 / this will all make sense someday

https://medium.com/the-mission/100-ways-to-be-more-creative-bbaa99643fe5

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=i+want+a+sunday+kind+of+love+lyrics

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/solz-gulag.html

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Jordan+peterson+why+there+are+two+political+parties

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37875695

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Tour

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/29/why-the-end-of-the-tour-isnt-really-about-my-friend-david-foster-wallace

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/07/the_end_of_the_tour_david_foster_wallace_and_church_how_dfw_tricked_david.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-tour-david-foster-wallace-20150726-story.html

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3008-homosexuality-is-biological-suggests-gay-sheep-study/

http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/?post_type=series&p=2811

https://www.bu.edu/arion/on-the-absolute-the-sublime-and-ecstatic-truth/

http://ecstatictruthpdx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/what-is-ecstatic-truth.html

https://morningsidereview.org/essay/the-unarticulated-identity/

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/02/26/speaking-in-tongues-2/

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx3cml0MTAxc3ByMTV8Z3g6YjM0NjMzZmMyNzdiZjkw

https://soundcloud.com/nybooks/zadie-smith-speaking-in-tongues

http://ecstatictruthpdx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/smartest-human-ever.html

https://www.appi.org/Bad_Men_Do_What_Good_Men_Dream

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/403543

http://bigthink.com/Think-See-Feel/write-like-david-foster-wallace

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/25/a-brief-survey-of-the-short-story-david-foster-wallace

http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c28-dfw.htm

http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/the-5-personality-types-and-why-you-care

http://biblehub.com/bsb/philippians/2.htm

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=this+will+all+make+perfect+sense+someday

Gift

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

 ---

Altar call as a journey - raising your hand doesn't mean I'M HOLY NOW. I'VE GOT NO SINFUL DESIRE. But maybe that'll happen, who knows? But it probably doesn't happen very often. It didn't happen to me anyway, or any of the other Christians I know. I think, one purpose it serves is as a symbol. It's a declaration of faith. A way to delineate your old life from the new, something that you can point to and say - my recovery began there. The prodigal son was at the pig trough but there was a specific point in time where he made that conscious decision to go back. To leave all that behind. That's the pivot, the turning point. That's what the altar call offers. It's not a 'poof I'm Christian now, case closed' kind of thing, it's the beginning of a journey. He still had to walk to get to his father's house. But what I love about it is that, it says - while he was still a long way off, his father went running to him and embraced him. We don't have to battle our way up mount olympus, or prove to God that we're worthy of His love. All we have to do is make that decision, and take the first few steps in the right direction. God will go the rest of the way. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, it's because of how much He loves us. Why else would a father abandon all decorum and the almighty I-told-you-so? He didn't have to run to his son. He had every right to stand there and watch smugly as the son is made to grovel and beg for a place among his servants. But instead he says, "Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!" He was simply overwhelmed by the joy of seeing his treacherous son again.

But I think the second reason is because He knows it's impossible for us to do it ourselves. The disciples spent months with Jesus Christ, witnessing miracles, walking, eating, sleeping, breathing next to the living Christ - and still right up till his death, they doubted he was the son of God. John 6:36 says: 'But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.' How then are we, who have never met him or even seen his face, supposed to believe? That's why Paul says faith isn't something you earn or achieve. It's a gift.

---

"I think the humility comes from accepting that, if i'm honest with myself, like brutally honest - I'm not that special. You know? I'm not an alright guy. I'm not as decent as I'd like everyone to believe - but then you remember, that if God loves me, the maker of heaven and earth, then maybe I'm not so bad after all. Maybe, you know, He knows something that I don't. Maybe there's something here worth loving."

 ---

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

hook, line and sinker

And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 

- Matthew 4:18

---

"Do you think God minds if we use dirty tricks and gimmicks to get people to experience his presence?"

"What do you mean by dirty tricks?"

"Like, mood lighting, finger food, catchy songs to lure people to church. Comfy chairs. Jokes at the beginning of a sermon."

"I've never really thought about it... but there is a verse that goes: 'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God'... And there's another one in Colossians that says, 'Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.' So I think, what God is concerned about isn't the nuts and bolts of how we do church, but rather where our hearts are at. Why we're doing it, and how we go about it. Like if your heart's in the right place, whatever you do is no longer a dirty trick, but an offering. It becomes sanctified, consecrated by grace. Does that makes sense?" 


---

"That's a good question... I mean, to me the real proof has always been how scripture, applied to real life actually works -- in a very tangible, observable, practical way - faith changes things. People, relationships, lives. I think the spiritual world, and the intangible realm of interpersonal relationships has an internal logic to it, a lot like the physical world - and it holds up, it has a remarkable integrity and consistency to it. And if you test it rigorously, the data will corroborate the fact.

Let me explain. The bible lays out certain principles on how to live your life and how to treat people, and you find that if you put them into practice - it produces a noticeable, palpable, significant effect on the people and things around you (and most noticeably and importantly yourself!) And you may dismiss that as anecdotal or unscientific, but how did the early scientists test their theories? They didn't have as much fancy math back then, so they went out and made a statement... if blank is this, then blank will behave like this - and then put it to the test. They started with a hypothesis, and then tried it out for themselves to see if they could prove or disprove it. Take Newton and his cannonball experiment. Crude, primitive, simplistic, prone to inaccuracy - but repeatable, measurable. Or Archimedes and his bathtub. Pythagoras and his... I don't know... triangles. What I'm saying is, through such unsophisticated empirical trials we managed to derive and extrapolate the laws that govern the physical world - and the reason we accept them as true and reliable is because these laws have demonstrable concordance. They agree with each other.

Now there are parts of the bible that stand out as being seemingly contradictory to the rest of it, parts that seem explicitly to say the opposite of a statement or belief espoused elsewhere - but I humbly suggest maybe that's not a problem with the material but with our interpretation or understanding of it. Take quantum physics. It says that light behaves both as a particle and a wave - and we don't know why or how or when it chooses to be it. You go 'whaaaaat... how on earth is that possible.' But then you come up with theories to explain it, some more outlandish than others. You find a way to reconcile our current understanding with this thing that seemingly refutes it. But you don't throw away the laws of physics we already have. You know, you wrestle with it - concede that we don't have all the facts and that our understanding of the physical world is incomplete. And we use this data to refine our understanding, to get a fuller picture of the reality we're sketching out with our clumsy methods. I think it's good to adopt this beginner mindset when it comes to the spiritual, or to the bible. The laws we have aren't wrong - our understanding and definitions of them are simply not complete. Which is not to say they are useless, you know. We've sent people to the moon with what we have."

- Dr. Tsion Ben Judah, Taste and See


---

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

- 1 Corinthians 13:9-11

---


"Paul puts it another way when he says, 'If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.' You know that verse?"

"Yeah, it goes: 'If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.'           ...."So what you're saying is that - mood lighting that's not motivated by love is a waste of time."

"You got it."

Gethsemane

---

Bring me your sorrow, your murderous rage. Your hatred and fear, your vile thoughts and desires. Your sickness and cynicism. Your poison blood, your bitter heart. Your frightened, frigid eyes. Give me your despair, your miscarriages and ruined marriages. Give me your curse, your immense, endless hurt. Your greed and fathomless hunger. Give me your rejection, your arrogance, your pettiness, your vanity, your violence, your cruelty, your filth, your failure, your cowardice, your dead children, your devastation and thirst for revenge. Give me your unfaithfulness, your betrayal, your false words and prayers, your kiss of death.

---

O come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

as it is in heaven / love is war

And I will call upon your name
And keep my eyes above the waves


---

"I think that, this is how angels sings in heaven"

---

Power that protects, strength that overwhelms - love that makes you feel both strong and weak at the same time.