and the answer is:

in the spirit of yesterday's post in which i added something i wrote a LONG time ago, i have come across something else i would like to add, although this is a bit more recent (a paper i wrote my senior year in college in an existentialism class). the reason for this is my mind was sparked by something someone said. sorry it's so long, but hey, no one is making you read it.

It’s all shit, you say. Everything is meaningless. And I hope to God this isn’t the alcohol talking because I would hate to feel like I was wasting my time and emotion on a futile conversation apropos the insignificance of life. The optimistic and idealistic part of me wants to refute that. My inclination is to put up my hands and disagree whole-heartedly. I want to scream and shake my head. But I am not sure. There is a deep, dark part of me that stops, considers, ponders. It can be exhausting at times, and frustrating; you know the feeling when you think you’re overwhelmed by something so emotionally complex and the only way you can escape it is to just sleep, though there’s no guarantee that even then it won’t haunt you in your dreams? Yeah, one of those.
I used to think I was on the brink of understanding. I used to feel I was hot on the trail to finally making sense of this crazy existence of mine. It wasn’t a feeling born out of arrogance; I didn’t feel smarter or wiser than the next; it was just, I don’t know, sometimes you have these feelings and you don’t know why. For me it was usually born out of a passionate discussion about life-related matters, the kind where everyone’s voices are raised and heated but we’re all coming to basically the same conclusion and everything inside you swells and burns with the feeling that you are understood and that you are tapping into a bigger understanding that encompasses many other human beings. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t matter anyway, because that feeling is long gone. I feel more confused and unsure now than ever. And I am irritated.
Mostly I’m irritated because nobody warned me it would be this way. I suppose, though, that a part of me is glad that I wasn’t made to sit down as a young child and listen to the droning lectures of my parents as they explained to me that, though life can at times seem wonderful and blissful, though there will be things that I am desperately passionate about, and though there will be times I feel that I truly understand and am understood and that things happen for a reason, in reality that is all a façade that will come utterly and despairingly crashing down to reveal one undeniable, simple fact: life is, indeed, shit.
But that isn’t the extent of it, either. I’m irritated not simply because I wasn’t warned, but because I was given instead an excuse. The answer to all my longings, my desires, my failures, my misunderstandings was always that God makes everything better. In fact, it was more than that. It was more like only a life with God leads to fulfillment. People who are very kind, compassionate people but aren’t Christians aren’t really happy; they only pretend to be on the outside. The reason my then fiancé and I had such troubles was because ours was not a Christ-centered relationship. The reason our marriage was doomed to failure is because he wasn’t the God-placed head of the household. The reason my younger sister was snorting coke and sleeping with boys was because she had neglected her attendance at youth group, and more than that it was because my parents were at a spiritual crossroads where their relationship with God was not quite up to par and so, in turn, their children’s relationships with God suffered. The reason so-and-so’s business did not flourish was because his attendance at church had slacked and, by the way, he was no longer tithing. The reason anyone anywhere ever feels sad or lonely is simply because he or she is not involved in a deep and meaningful relationship with God. After all, we’re too blessed to be depressed. Can’t they see that?
No, I am certain I would have the same questions, do have the same questions even when I am consistently doing everything I am told I should do in order to have a Christ-centered life. And right now, when I feel I am approaching my lowest point, God seems neither a place of comfort nor a light in the distance. It just complicates things even more. I am desperate for answers, though, and desperate for the truth. I want someone or something to come along that points me in the right direction or that perhaps offers a more viable answer to my unending questions. I remember, as a child, the overwhelming joy of going to the swimming pool on one of those scorching hot, summer days. I was a tadpole. I absolutely loved to swim, and I was good at it. No matter how good I was at it, though, I inevitably always ended up scraping my toes on the bottom of the pool. Anyone who has ever spent lots of time in a swimming pool knows that pain and irritation. You’re playing around, trying to keep your head above water, and with the thrashing and kicking of your legs that sustains you and keeps you up, you swipe your toes across the hard concrete on the bottom. That’s how I feel. I’m trying to keep my head up; I can feel the bottom, I know it’s close because I keep scraping my toes on it. And those scrapes don’t heal right away, either. They turn red and ooze; my father always described it as a weeping wound. Well, I’m full of those. And I’m trying to retain the passion I hold for life, but the more I get to know it, the more daunting and complicated it seems.
So what I want to know is, what is it that keeps me going? If all the things I stand for don’t make a difference, what will it take? If my idealism is creating within myself a denial of the true nature of life, and that true nature of life is exposed for the ugliness and hopelessness that it is, how can I even retain a desire to press on? I have plenty of beautiful things in my life, plenty of beautiful relationships and lots of things that I enjoy, but these things do not by any means negate my questions and my dissatisfaction. They only distract me. They help me keep my uncertainties at a comfortable distance in order to survive. But I cannot be dishonest with myself forever. Or can I? What does all this questioning amount to? The answer is simply, nothing.