Embrace the Frown

Sam posted this link on my Facebook wall the other day and it really struck a chord with me. I think there is a tentative walk we must take when thinking about sadness and mental illness. Obviously they are two very different things, which we so easily place into the same category. It's too easy to say, “God I'm so depressed,” when of course you simply mean pissed off, or sad. Unfortunately, being sad for a week or two suddenly means you must have depression and need medication.

It is liberating to allow yourself to be sad and actually embrace it. It's freeing, when someone asks how you are, to be honest and say, “Actually, I feel pretty crappy today.” Sadness isn't a weakness and doesn't mean there is something wrong with you. Ironically, I felt happier once I realised it was okay to admit I was sad. It relieves a lot of pressure to conform.

Embrace your sadness people – friends and family should accept you for whatever you are going through. If they don't? Fuck them.

Sonnet 116

Just because Shakespeare should always be read.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Real Life

Reading in The Times today, a bishop decided to compare the ordination of women bishops to the oncoming threat of Hitler's evil in 1939. Now anyone with a slight attachment to reality can see his comments as rather absurd. It follows a similar thread to a conversation I was having last night with one of my best friends. We were talking about the negative impact church life had on us and how utterly ridiculous certain things within church life were.

We remembered instances where we were left in complete bewilderment owing to the absurdity of what we had experienced and how far removed from reality it was. Go to a church meeting and you will leave wondering if someone had scripted it. Think of The Office in a church setting. Now, of course, I am sounding harsh but I do have a point. Churches can get so involved in trivialities, they forget why they are there in the first place. To be a place of grace and love, where you can be broken, with no judgement. I couldn't give a shit whether the church grounds should have panel fencing or chain links. Was the music too loud for you? Deal with it. I remember someone in church asking how I was. I said I felt pretty crap actually and the panic on his eyes and stuttering response revealed he expected me to say I was fine. I erred from the script of a Sunday morning.

I am a broken person, who hurts a lot most days. I have friends and family who accept that brokenness and embrace me just as I am. They listen to my broken record monologues without thinking any less of me. I love my friends unconditionally. Their faults make me love them more, because it shows they are human and have no pretense. I make a lot of mistakes and allow my emotions to run my life without thinking about it rationally. I love to live this way, because I am an emotional person. Hopefully I will learn from what happens, but whether I do doesn't matter, as my friends still stand with me and I love them for that. They try to advise me on the best route, but don't pass down self righteous morality.

It is real and genuine. We live life normally. I don't miss church because it feels so forced and unnatural. I'm pretty sure that Jewish carpenter from 2000 years ago would walk into many churches on a Sunday morning and wonder what the hell people were doing. He'd more than likely walk out and say that if anyone wants him he'll be down the pub.

Future

Love is a very subjective thing. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not. We all have a perspective of love. If you believe in God then you believe God is love and therefore everything flows from Him. If you are an atheist, then views of love vary.

I believe in love and think that love has a massive impact on who we are. I don't believe God imparts love. I don't know why humans feel love and get such a strong sensation. I don't know why we will go to the ends of the earth to declare love and actually act like fools for it. We will do strange things for that emotional thing which causes our brains to implode and create an imbalance which is not normal.

I have no idea why I feel such strong emotions for one person and yet feel indifference to another, but I do know that love is a very real emotion and regardless of God's involvement, we should never forget love. Money, fame, self indulgence, (ignorant) nihilism, dominates how we live our lives. I am hopeful about our future as a people. Even if I am not optimistic about my future as an individual...