Zabit Magomedsharipov had an interesting interview where he basically says the success is when you find the meaning of life. YT Clip

Ever since I saw it — maybe two, three weeks ago, maybe it was just a week ago actually — this thought has been living rent-free in my head. Because I saw the way the guy was talking and what he said, and I instinctively knew that he had spoken some kind of universal truth. I couldn't express it but I understood it.

It was also confirmed by life experiences I recently had. I was pretty friendless for a long time and then I met some friends. We went to karaoke, we drank, I went to this guy's birthday party and had some fun. I wasn't lonely in any capacity like I had been for a very long time. And then I came back and I was just like, why did I fucking do that? What was the meaning of that? We had some fun, it was a good time, maybe I needed it — but then again what was the meaning of it all?

I also feel this when I look at my X timeline, where all these people are like, “Oh look at AI, AI this AI that, escape the permanent underclass, you just gotta hit your goals, get rich,” all this bullshit. Does this really mean anything in the end? That's what I think when I read those things. We might all be just focusing on the wrong thing, which is why the world is in such a fucked up state.

All in all I was left wondering, what is the meaning of life? This week at bible study the pastor was like, “The meaning of life is to know and love Jesus/God.” And then in the sermon this week the head pastor was talking about different layers of meaning to life — sub-meanings, lower levels of meaning, which are like doing well at your job, raising a family, all these things. And above it all there is a super-meaning, which is something that cannot really be communicated because it is this greater meaning that is hidden to you by the universe, a.k.a. God. Super-meanings are important because the smaller sub-meanings are very temporary, vanish over time, and can never really fill you. They are very dependent on your environment and circumstance. For example, even if you were living within Auschwitz, the super-meaning would give your life full meaning. Because in such a hard place like that, where basically everything is stripped away from you and you live a very barren life in terms of worldly aspirations and there is no hope — all the sub-meanings disappear and it's revealed to you and everyone else around you whether you have a super-meaning or not.

One of the conclusions made during the sermon was:

1. Man's search for meaning stops when he finds God.

2. Man's struggle with theology stops when he finds a good church.

And then he said this. If you feel a sense of meaninglessness in life, there are ONLY 2 possibilities:

1. You have decided to love yourself more than God — come back to Him, let go of your idols.

2. You have not actually met the living God yet.

Because I am confident that I believe in God and I am confident that this is what I believe in, I know that what applies to me is number one. I know this. I've been on a bit of a rebellious road in a lot of ways. Not really rebellious probably in the eyes of others, but God knows how my heart is.

I've been frustrated with God and mad at him because life hasn't really been working out the way I wished it would. A lot of isolation. I feel as if a lot of the people around me don't care about me and so I've been angry. No close relationships. Out of rebellion I just decided not to do shit — not really try at all in my faith life. Didn't really pray anymore, read the Bible, or things like that. Things that would bring you closer to God, because I just didn't want to be close. I was just mad.

Despite the fact that he's given me a lot, I felt like some of my basic needs were not being met. And then even when they were met, they weren't exactly what I wanted. That girl that liked me — I didn't like her back. The friend group I found — I'm not sure if I want to be friends with them because their definition of fun is getting high, getting domed, getting super drunk. I don't really hate them for it or think badly of them for it. It just feels like — why? What's the point? It just feels a little pointless to me. It's just not really that fun.

And I have really hated myself for the past couple months. It's this weird twisted obsession with yourself — this twisted kind of self-love that makes me hate myself. I like it because it lets me obsess on myself, lets me focus on myself over all other things, and it makes me feel good in some ways, but it's also self-hatred. It's this very self-centered kind of self-hatred, if that makes sense.

That's what I've been on, and I think God is telling me I gotta get off. Like he's let me do this for a little bit, and now it's time to stop. Get back on the horse. Live life the way I want you to. I wasn't really happy to hear that message today. I didn't really want to hear it. But then again I felt like there's no going back. After you really understand this, once you really start believing it, there isn't any way back but forward.

I can only go forward, because knowing God in some ways has ruined a lot of things for me — ruined things that would previously bring me satisfaction. I'm at this point where sometimes I feel like I really don't care about anything else but God, even though I haven't been praying at all. Nothing else matters. It's just so clear to me. It's this mental awakening, this realization that once you see the truth you can't go back. That's what it feels like to me anyways.

I feel very free in it. Almost a little detached from everything. I don't know if that's correct, but even though I don't want to go any further — even though I just want to stop here and not progress anymore in my journey with God and just give up and die on the side of this road — I know that it's not possible anymore once I've seen it. I can't go back.

I feel like once I get on this journey I won't recognize myself at the end of it. I don't know how I feel about that, because so much of my personality has been about all this cruft that God is trying to remove from me. I don't know what I am other than that. This has been my identity — the one that people have liked me for, the identity that I liked myself for. So what happens once I remove all that? I don't even know what I am anymore. I don't like it, but there's no path but the one forward.

I don't know anything anymore, I think. Who knows where God will lead me.

God, I know you are listening. I pray to you, Lord, that you would forgive me for all that I've done, all that I will do. I want to thank you for choosing me to die on the cross for me. I pray that my joy will come from you and that until the day I die you would be at the forefront of my mind. Lord, help me not to lose this awakening, this understanding that you have opened to my eyes. It's so easy to lose it because it's not expressable in words. I just know and I feel it and maybe that's the way it should be.

Despite the fact that I can't express it, I know that this is more important than anything else I know. God, would you help me to love you and love my neighbors and those that are not my neighbors? Thank you for everything. I do not understand but help me to give you my all and then some. Help me to wholly rely on you for all the things I cannot do, which is really everything.

Lord, everyone's getting hitched around me. Everyone's dating, marrying, doing all this and I feel like I'm so behind and there's no hope for me. I'll never find anyone; I'll never even find friends. Sometimes I spiral like that but God, that's me again focusing on myself. Help me to turn my eyes outwards to you instead of myself, to gaze on you instead of myself, and to look at the people around me. Help me not to be concerned with myself and be self-centered. Lord, would you give me a heart to love others and to find joy in you no matter what circumstances are before my way, whether I am single for the rest of my life, whether I never make another friend, or I'm just completely alone? Lord, be with me. Help me to look at you and not myself and not this world.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Despite just being and maybe what others would consider a dark time in my life, I don't even care because I know the meaning of life now and it has set me free. Nothing else really matters. If I die, I die. If I live, I live. I understand now.

So there's this girl I'd been talking with for a good amount of time. We're just friends — I think she's funny, our conversations are great, she lives pretty far away from me so it would be hard to meet up anyway. But I think she started catching feelings for me.

How I know is that a couple days ago she started sending me these texts out of the blue. We're having a normal conversation and she just sends me this thing about like, five different ways guys respond to a girl's texts, something about her complaining about some bitchy girl she had to deal with. And then she was like “which one would you choose?” And I'm like, oh. This is weird. I was not thinking of you like this.

I realized okay, we do match well personality-wise. But I just don't think she's pretty. Is that fucked up? That's pretty fucked up. That's a little fucked up, but it's like — whether you’re a guy or a girl, whatever, as long as you’re human, there needs to be some base level of attraction for you to like someone. If you're just not attractive to someone, it ain’t happening. I just don't think she's attractive physically and it's a little fucked up to say that but I know myself. I have a feeling that if we start dating I will not treat her right, because I don't find her attractive, so she won't be that valuable to me, and I don't think she would want that either. So I kinda just did not respond well to any of her comments whenever she sent me shit hinting at dating. It's awkward.

Then I was drinking a little bit on Friday night, and on my Uber ride back we were texting, and she was like oh I wanna call you. So we called. We were just talking about random shit and then it got to a point where she was like, “I hate talking to all these guys who have hidden intentions, who are like 'oh I just want us to have a good friendship, a good relationship, make sure we really care about each other,' when they're just trying to date me.” And it's like — I don't even really blame these guys? She's been bitching about this for months. Guys approach her and she doesn't feel left alone. But okay, if someone has to approach you, the only reason you're mad is because you're not attracted to any of these people. You're not mad that people are approaching you. You're mad that the wrong people are approaching you, and none of the people you actually like are approaching you. That's kinda a stupid thing to be mad about imo.

And yeah dude, meanwhile I'm out here getting like five minutes of attention from nobody. In the dating market it is very clear that nobody wants me. I'm trying to expand my circle but it's not easy to find a date. I think I also don't take enough care of how I look — I probably need to look more presentable, all that bullshit — but fuck dude, I'm working on too much shit. I'm making a game, trying to figure out all this AI shit so I don't get left behind in the dust, working a lot, working out, going to church, doing community service here and there. When do I even have time for this? I don't know. Fuck. I need to do something. Fuck, whatever.

Anyways she was going on about how she doesn't like all these guys approaching her with impure intentions, and the specific thing she said was that she hates guys who are “playing the long game.” And I just — I was pretty drunk at this point — I just laughed at her and told her, yeah don't worry about me playing the long game with you, that's never happening.

She hasn't texted me since. Which is really funny in a fucked up way. She has not texted me since.

I do think this might be over, but out of respect for her I will not pull that shit. I will not force myself to be attracted to someone I'm not attracted to. I'm sure she'll find someone — there's too many people approaching her for her not to. It'll be good. She just has to get over this rejection of sorts.

But also given that I haven't dated in like many years and I barely have any dating experience, maybe it wouldn't be bad to just try it out. What's the point of even trying it out? Maybe because I don't think she's hot in any way; never thought she was pretty ever in my life. I don't think I ever will.

It's kind of a big bump for me to just ignore, dude. Yeah it's tempting and maybe I should just take it and go with a flow and just break up in like two months. I feel like that's what's going to happen. Anything else than that is gonna be just a long slog towards an eventual breakup. I don't know, I don't know.

I think I'm starting to understand what artists are talking about when they say AI is like a spit in the face against humanity. The more I get into art, the more I understand art, the more emotionally involved I get with it, and I start to realize what it actually is. It's almost a sacred thing. It brings a lot of meaning to people's lives — it helps them see beauty, makes them feel like God exists in a world that honestly feels pretty hopeless sometimes. The livelihoods of the people that make it are already endangered, and with AI you could just bulldoze a whole bunch of them in one go.

But then there's the next thought, which is like — are all these artists actually creating art that has that level of sanctity? Are they all speaking that level of speech into the human experience? Not everyone's writing Crime and Punishment. Not everyone is Dostoevsky. But at the same time, are the people that have put their time, their whole life into creating something beautiful, creating something that changes how people view the world — is there something sacred about that process itself? I think so. Although I cannot fully express why I feel this way, I do feel like there is some encroachment on the sanctity of art when AI starts doing it, because the fundamental difference between AI and humans is that AI is copying. It's replication. If you believe in Christianity, or really most religions, most of them would say that AI has no soul, whereas a human does, and that's what makes humans different. There is something fundamentally different when you look at it from that perspective.

And in the name of efficiency and technological advancement and this kind of technology war that people are fighting — both private sector and public sector, across borders — we are going really fast. This is a classic human race thing. Greed and fear overpower everything, and people do not care about what happens next, they just care about winning because they're scared and also greedy. It's very human that it's all happening like this, but at the same time people are forgetting how dangerous this all is. We are going to deal with a lot of issues, not just art being less art than it used to be.

There's also the question of what really is art. Is it just as good if I can create something “soulful” using AI, compared to what a mediocre artist makes? I do think AI beats most mediocre artists right now. It just currently doesn't beat the people at the top. But if you're cutting out all the people that are mediocre, who even has the chance to become good? Nobody is born great. You have to be mid first. You have to suck for a long time. And if AI kills the bottom of that pipeline, the top eventually dries up too.

Now here's where it gets interesting though, and where I think my own thinking starts to complicate itself. I do think the nature of art is not going to disappear. It's going to become more and more technological. And actually, I think artists — all these different people that are not programmers — will have more leverage than the programmers. Once you abstract out the software engineering part of the equation, artists and designers and all these creative people have the ability to just create things on command. Things they used to need engineers for. They had the vision, but they needed a team to build it. Now they might not.

Actually, in the long run, software engineers might be the ones that are fucked, and artists might come out on top. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, because you'll still need engineers — they're not disappearing — but it means artists will have more things to do than before, because now they can create large, meaningful things, like software, things that actually change the world. If you look at the last Claude Code hackathon that Anthropic put on, there were like five winners, and four of them were non-software engineers. Only one was a software engineer. One was an artist, one was a surgeon, something like that. So I don't actually know if I agree with the idea that art is disappearing. I think it'll change a lot, but I think there will be an expansion in how artists are able to earn money and create and stuff like that. It's just going to be different from the previous way we've known.

I do wonder where all this is going and how it'll all balance out. It will all balance out in the future — the printing press was not the end, the industrial revolution was not the end. AI is not going to be the end. There are always going to be new horizons, new boundaries, new work to be done, new problems for people to solve. I do not think this is going to be the end. But I do wonder how it will all balance out and create a new meta, and I'm not so sure about that. I still have to think about this a little more. I have to think about the next logical conclusions of everything. I don't even know if I have the knowledge or the foresight to have that understanding either.

But it is something to know that this definitely isn't the end. The story will continue. It's just right now we're in a period of turmoil, and turmoil always feels like the end of the world when you're inside of it.

We'll see.

I think if somebody was hurting me while they told me they loved me, that would really turn me on. I think I have an affinity to being bullied and abused. Not crazy abuse, that would piss me off, but small amounts of abuse. I think this might be because I was beat frequently as a kid, and some of the love that I received was conditional on achievement. I lack any sort of self respect, and I find it hard to disobey orders from time to time.

I haven’t started cutting yet, because I’m afraid I might lose control and actually kill myself. I would definitely not want that happening although I fantasize about dying from time to time. I wonder what a safer alternative is to cutting that would let me give me release on this urge to hurt myself.

And it’s not because they don’t do drugs, don’t drink, or don’t do any of that shit. Even if they do, I don’t know about it anyways!

To preface my complaint, this is me venting on my personal blog on the Internet that nobody reads, and most likely, nobody will ever read. I’m not calling for upheaval, sweeping changes, or bullshit like that. And my complaint is insignificant, as I think it’s far more important for churches to be unified, than for them to be entertaining places to be.

But ~~~ the issue is that nobody I find at these places are the insane quirked up human beings that I want to hang out with or date. Which is why THIS MAKES ME WANT TO CRY

Where are the quirktastic, crazy people that say unhinged things, create things that mirror their insanity, just because it is a reflection of who they are? Where are the people that are down for anything, and open to trying new things? Where are the HOT TOMBOYS I see all the time in NYC, and WHY ARE THEY NOT AT CHURCH? WHY CAN NOBODY MATCH MY LEVEL OF FREAK

Keep in mind, I go to a Korean church with a homogeneous population of Korean middle-class New Yorkers. With Koreans being how they are (repression of individuality), and it also being a church environment, it is not conducive to being QUIRK CITY. So it’s really my fault, I should probably find a different church if I’m bitching about it this much.

Judy woke up to vocaloid porn, fucking her ears through trashy drywall. Again. A mechanical female voice gasped, screeched “OH YASS BABY” through blown out speakers, the low hum of a robotic male voice grunting musically in the background. She’d once held her phone to the wall, scraping the entire web for matching soundbytes. Within an hour, it’d accumulated over a thousand videos of turquoise, yellow anime characters pegging each other with a cartoonish gusto, in positions that were inaccessible to even the most flexible gymnast. Judy’s phone glowed. 1:07 P.M.. Monday. Twelve missed calls from Megumi. Three from last night, nine from the past week. News of her “incident” had found its way into Megumi’s ear too. Judy would much rather die than talk to her about it, much less see her in person.

The sound of moaning soared to new highs as the video neared its climax. Blood pressure building at the forehead. Judy bit her lip, shoulders tensed. The last time she’d done this, she’d almost broken her hand, but it wasn’t like she could stop it either — it was reflex now. Slammed a clenched fist into hardwood. White, loud pain bloomed from her hand. There it was. No broken bones this time either. Judy glared at the wall that separated her from her neighbor.

The drywall was the same age as the Tokyo apartment complex. The Japanese knew how to love old things, cherish them, but the wall — it had reached the limits of its material. Hairline cracks snaked through it like microfractures in an old glass cup. The paint, a tired eggshell beige, clung unevenly over the surface, settling into the shallow grooves instead of hiding them. If sunlight lit the wall at the right angle, Judy could almost make out faint outlines in the other room.

Judy stood. Room tilting. Feet slipped, kicking down a tower of literary smut. “Taken by the Billionaire's Stepbrother” volumes one through ten flew into a minefield of Pinot Noir bottles and Sasahi beer cans. Glass and tin clattering in the apartment. Incessant moaning still slipping through cracks in the wall. Megumi would be mortified at her room. Heat climbed into her throat. Into the pillow. Judy screamed.

“This bitch. I’ll kill her. Does she not go to fucking work?”

Mary’s eyes were double monitors, screensaver mode. Nobody home. She’d been in “the zone” for hours now, eyes jacked into the screen. The metallic clatter of tin and glass on cheap hardwood brought her back. Back to the flesh. Empty. Hollow. It was in need of another hit, another sensation. Her right index finger began to twitch.

“Hey chat, look. Somebody’s up early.”

A dopamine flashbang erupted from her cortex, overloading sensory input with numbing pleasure. Junk data. Digital nothingness. Right index finger stilled. The room, flooded with the debris of human living. Old things, month-old takeout boxes and empty Lirnoff bottles. Dead things, the head of a plastic Miku figurine coated with cigarette ash sticking out of a pile of clothes, ruined forever by sweat stains. It had all been things that faceless strangers liked, gave her money for, and she’d used the money to dive deeper, until it was too deep, and she spun out of control, crashed. Banned. On every platform. She wasn’t sure for what. Flashing tits on stream because someone had asked for it, using a lighter to singe her leg hair follicles shut because she needed to do it, or maybe it was the slurs. The crowd had loved slurs, and it was too easy to just say them.

Each and every decision she made was an act of suicide, mandated by the twitch. The twitch had two rules. One, everything must feel like something. Two, everything must kill you. When even obeying the twitch couldn’t fill it all, and her heart was about to implode, she aired her dirty laundry to thousands of ears. The same story every time. People knew to expect it. Everybody in her life thought she was crazy, nobody had ever loved her, and the one friend in her life that she made in high school told her she was a psychopath. Eliza had told her that her mother was dying. Mary reached for grief, found nothing, and the reaching was visible. Three days later she was sobbing in her room, unable to explain why, but it was too late.

Mary’s eyes fluttered shut, and it all vanished from view.

Mary’s eyes reopened. The sound of a toilet flushing exploded, an abused speaker’s final death scream. A shower head buffered, sputtered, vomitted a jagged stream onto tile. An unsteady din. When one sound ended, another began. Mary’s face hit pillow. Hard.

“I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to kill myself.”

Judy smirked, hairdryer in hand, having taken every step in her power to be loud as fuck, reveling in imagined revenge on the faceless loser that had ruined her morning. Some perverted degenerate. Still at home on a Monday afternoon. Megumi would’ve reminded her that she was no different. Mood soured, she sank her front teeth into her lips, trembling, tasting blood. Megumi was right, as always. But the heat, it was howling into her ear, and she was just going to do what it told her.

Judy stared down the metal front door separating her from the world, ready to confront her neighbor. Exact divine punishment. She steeled herself, recounting every disturbance, slight or large she’d felt since forever. Three sharp knocks sounded on the door.

“Maintenance!”

Judy’s lip quivered, and a thesaurus of non-words tumbled out of her mouth in a jumbled whisper. Something was wrong with the shower. Too hot or too cold, like the mood swings of a lonely, disgraced businesswoman who’d chosen a cheap apartment as a tomb.

“Anyone there? Guess not?”

The lock turned, and the door swung open. Judy and the maintenance man met eyes. His name placard said Tom.

“Oh, erm. Sorry, didn’t think you were here. You good for right now?”

Judy couldn’t recount whether she’d nodded, or what, but she must’ve agreed in some way, because Tom was in the restroom fixing the shower. He’d also opened the blinds, after stumbling over some junk in her room. Black, crumbling succulents from Megumi on the windowsill, her work laptop, plastered with bright, official stickers from places she’d worked before, conferences she’d attended, gathering dust. She used to be someone who did things. Megumi would have kept the succulents alive.

Tom left the front door ajar, and a dry, frigid winter draft invaded the room. From inside the apartment, the view of trees, schoolkids, buses passing by seemed like a portal into a different world. Judy saw herself walk towards the door, and close it. Door clicked shut, Judy crouched in front of the door, waiting. Heartbeat steadily coming down from a high pitched tremolo. Clammy hands set against the door, slowly freezing stuck to flimsy aluminum. Judy pricked her ears towards the restroom for any sign that Tom would finish.

Mary shot up out of bed when she heard the knocks. Tiptoed to the door. Peephole. Nothing. The door beside hers clicked. Voices murmuring. A bead of sweat glistened on her forehead, a slideshow of Miku fucking Kagamine Ren with a strap-on in 4K flashing out of order through her brain. Sound complaint? No, it couldn’t be. But if she had to open the door to answer anything. Her right index began to twitch. She looked back.

The blinds were always sealed. Sunlight found its way in anyways — thin slits she navigated by. The only clear pathways were computer to shikifuton, shikifuton to bathroom. Everything else was debris.

She’d get chased out. No question. With nowhere else to go. Mary giggled. The twitch. Static coursing from her finger to her brain. It was maybe her third day awake, static danced up and down her skull, punching out dead zones in her vision, or maybe it was just so dark she couldn’t see, but she couldn’t tell anymore and her body just moved. Mary dove facefirst into trash. Breathing. Whiff of old sweat, mold, cig ash. Retching. Heaving. Standing up straight, looking at goop on the floor. Bile in mouth. A half empty handle of Lirnoff in hand. Chaser. All gone.

Mary bounced from one end of the room to another. Throwing handfuls of debris into the air, creating new piles. Bumping into the wall, chatting into the void. The wall sighed every time Mary made contact. Old fractures lengthened, new fractures formed, and paint dust drifted off of it in puffs of beige smoke. Empty bytes flooded her nerves, overwriting sensory details faster than they could be felt. Judy’s door opened, and click shut as Tom left. Mary didn’t hear it.

Judy paced between the freshly formed indents on the wall, heat building in her hands. Pitched a book at the wall. Then another one.

Mary was giddy. It was over. Finally. The landlord would kick the door open. Put her in one of the plastic bags, clear the whole place out. The booze was turning her legs into chopsticks, wobbly clumsy stilts. Hit her leg with a handle to stop the shaking. Didn’t work. Mary shrugged. Wouldn’t need them soon.

Judy screamed. Mary looked at the wall. Jumped. Felt nothing, a sensation of freefall, a distant crash, then bright warmth. Foreign sensations. When she opened her eyes, the dead zones had receded. But it wasn’t her room anymore. It was well-lit, messy, but not dirty. Yet. A lady stood in front of her in guava pajamas, and Mary’s mouth was filled with plaster dust. Only her head and neck had made it through. Mary laughed. Tears streamed from her eyes. Judy held her head in her hands.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Judy watched herself reach for her laptop. Don’t. It flew at Mary’s face, barely missing it, dismantled on impact, scattering pieces across the floor. Heat singing in ear, her body crossed the room to pick up one of Megumi’s succulents. They were dead anyways. The pot exploded centimeters away from Mary’s face, ceramic slicing her cheeks open. A scream. The books didn’t miss. A yelp accenting every hit. Something in her chest closed like a door, and she found her face centimeters from Mary’s. Gripping her crying skull, prying swollen eyes open until they focused on her.

“I have a knife in the kitchen, I’ll fucking kill you if you keep crying.”

Sniffling and hiccuping. Then a smile.

Judy saw her hands. Blood. Chills traveling down her spine. Let her head go. Chin thudding against wall, widening the hole. The heat was gone. When it left, it always left her overheated. Intestines melting, forehead red with high fever, breathing hot. Judy threw open a window. Before it left, it always broke something, or everything. Mouth open in a silent scream, she brought her forehead to the glass pane. Fast. Hard. She saw black, then white, cries of pain escaping her mouth, hot tears dripping. She stumbled into the kitchen on instinct. Picked it out of the drawer. Megumi’s knife. Japanese steel. A gift. Vision abnormally clear now. The cold winter sunlight gave it a silver, alluring glint. A sound from the wall—Mary, throat open, almost laughing. Judy held the knife in her hands, considering it. Carefully. Like a business proposition. Everything made sense now. She saw the fountain of red that it would draw from her body if she plunged it in into her jugular. Judy’s eyes hardened.

Three succinct raps sounded on the door. Trance broken, a cold sweat started on the back of Judy’s neck.

“Police. Open up. We’ve heard that there were some concerning sounds coming from this apartment.”

Judy turned back. Mary’s face was serene now. Eyes closed. A faint smile dancing on her lips. Judy opened the door. Megumi held out yellow plastic water gun in front of her.

“Hands up! Drop the weapon! Now!”

Judy blinked at the knife in her right hand, wondering why it was still there. She dropped it and it bounced off the tile, narrowly missing her bare toes. She raised her hands, feeling the blood in her body freeze over. Megumi peered at Judy. Then into the room.

“What the fuck?”

“I was going to kill myself.” Barely a whisper.

Megumi’s eyes met Judy’s, but was looking past them, locked onto a middle distance only she could see. Megumi pushed past. Picked up something off the floor, put it into trash. Judy and Mary watched. Books stacked, pushed to a corner. Bottles put in cardboard boxes. Judy shut the door. Winter sunlight flooded the apartment, shading the books, the wall, Mary’s face, everything in a harsh tinge.

Megumi stopped cleaning. Sat down with a sob, crying. Judy perched next to her, unsure of what to say. Mary’s stomach grumbled. Loud. Megumi peered from behind wet hair.

“Come over. Eat.”

“Could you help me? I can’t get out.”

Megumi eased Mary’s face through the hole. Her white-red face disappeared into black. Soon, three raps on the door. Megumi went to get the door. Judy a foot behind Megumi, looking like she was about to puke.

Mary. Cheeks dusted with plaster like it was foundation, blood-red rouge streaked across her forehead, oiled, matted long curls like black ramen noodles, long lost their bounce. Megumi sniffed, and narrowed her eyes.

“You need a shower.”

Mary’s face reddened, becoming aware of the flesh again. She looked down at her hands. Coal mine hands from cigarette ash. She brought her undershirt up to her nose.

“I—”

“Take off your clothes, get in the shower. Please.”

Mary stripped naked in the entrance, walked into the bathroom, two pairs of widened eyes following her. Megumi raised an eyebrow at Judy. Judy shrugged. The rush of water.

“Who is she?”

“My neighbor. I don’t know.”

Megumi pulled ingredients out of the fridge and set a pot to boil. Judy watched. Ten minutes. Megumi’s brow furrowed.

“I only hear water in there.”

Megumi threw open the door. Mary hadn’t bothered to lock it. She lay spread eagle in the middle of the shower stall. Eyes closed, hot water hitting her stomach.

“Fuck.”

Megumi rushed to her side, swept up her head, resting it on her knees, put two fingers on her jugular, waiting for a pulse. Mary woke up, sneezed.

“Whoops, the shampoo smelled so nice, and the water was so warm too, and so…”

“You need to sleep?”

Mary nodded. Judy appeared with pajamas and a towel. Mary shivered as the silky, clean pajamas brushed against her bare skin. The warmth, the scent of lavender. Everything was melting. Judy’s pillow knocked her out cold. Judy stood over her.

“I, erm — sorry. I’m sorry — fuck. Please.”

Mary snored, drooling from her mouth wide open. Megumi shook her head.

“Judy Nakamura, what is wrong with you?”

“I can’t do anything right. I can’t fix myself. I’ll be like this forever, till the day I die.”

Megumi sighed.

“Okay.”

Megumi squeezed Judy in her arms, whispering into her ear. Judy shook, wept.

Megumi took the pot of boiling water off the stove. No ingredients had made it in.

“I’m tired. Where do we sleep?”

Judy and Megumi fell asleep on the couch.

#shortstory

Last edited 1/19/2026 – if i edit it again it’ll probs be to flesh out Judy, feel like I need to have Judy more rooted in reality.

나는 남자다운 여자를 좋아한다. 거기 안에 어느정도의 강함도 포함되어 있지만, 무던한것도 이제는 포함하고 싶다. 무던한게 좀 중요한 이유가 요즘에 내 성격이 지랄맞은 편이라고 자각하는 중인데(눈 깜빡하면 도지는 멘헤라병), 이 지랄병을 받아줄 사람은 무던한 사람밖에 없다고 느꼈다. 나 같은 사람 두명이서 만나면 반드시 파국을 맞이하게 될테니. 무던한 사람은 재미가 없지만 발상의 전환을 해보기로 했다. 무던한 사람들의 새하얀 캔버스를 내 개지랄로 그냥 싹다 덮어버리는 그 상상을 해보니까 무던한 사람들이 좀 좋아졌다. 내가 말도 행동도 서슴없이 하는 편이라 개의치 안할 그런 사람이 또 필요한것 같기도 하고. 그리고 그 무던한 멘탈마저 개지랄로 털어버려서 재밌는 반응이 나오면 희열 느낄듯.

고양이들이 스크래쳐가 필요한것 처럼 나는 나의 개지랄을 받아줄 사람이 필요하다. 내 인간 스크래쳐는 어디?

“And you’re a comic.” – very flattering words from Dwayne, a white guy with a black name, after I tried doing standup at an open mic for the first time. Thanks DWAYNE! YOU MADE MY DAY BY GIVING ME VALIDATION NOBODY GIVES ME REAL VALIDATION I AGREE WITH SOME OF THE GUYS AFTER MY “SET” TOLD ME I WAS FUNNY AND I SHOULD TRY THIS COMEDY SHIT OUT THANKS BROSKIS

I started the night off in Bushwick, NYC at a bar named Wonderville. They had 3 local bands playing, and I left after seeing the first band. I had earplugs on but they were still blowing out my fuckin’ ears, and they honestly sucked. Most of these indie rock bands just starting out all sound the same, and don’t have much character. You can only listen to so many loser-vibe songs with basic ass chords and bad singing where it’s not bad singing for the vibe, but because they actually suck at singing. See ya guys when you guys get better at music. Everyone has to start out somewhere. Also, the arcade games at the bar sucked ass in my opinion. They were all indie retro arcade games (made by random people in Bushwick I guess?) that were boring as fuck. Also the people there were kinda like the white nerdy hipster kinda vibe, people that would be big fans of indie games and shit, but maybe not the ones making them per se? So like not fun/cool imo. idk I just profile people super hard without knowing them. Bad habit? YES. Will I stop? PROBABLY NOT

I sauntered down the street because I had nothing better to do. A guy was observing a wall with a shitton of circuit boards melded in. Cyberpunk vibes and I loooooove cyberpunk!

A random white guy with curly ginger hair was smoking a cig next to it. And he was like, “there’s a comedy open mic next door, wanna check it out?” I’m super susceptible to peer pressure because I am a fucking tool, and also I had nothing going on with my life, so I went in. No friends, no girlfriend on a Friday night, anything interesting would make my night better.

I walked into the standup place, and immediately I noticed a cute Asian girl sitting there with a retarded looking Wallmart onesie that was in full winter print – snowflakes, snowmen, light blue. We’ll call her M for the purpose of this story. I wondered whether I should join the open mic night, because at that point, I didn’t give a fuck about what anyone thought of me. I was a nobody, and I knew it. I was never going to see these people again. After watching 3 guys bomb in a row, I decided to enter, seeing that the bar was not THAT high.

Almost immediately after, I got chosen randomly out of the jar of names. I knew generally what I was going to say. I had never done standup, but I wasn’t a stranger to comedy itself. I had written humor stuff before, and honestly that’s a lot harder to do than standup, because with standup, you can be expressive with your voice and body, but if you only have words, they really have to speak for themselves and matter. I basically remixed this post w/ a couple life experiences – having an insanely high Rice purity score, entering a super smash bros melee tournament on Valentines day, then getting knocked out by a guy with a girlfriend. I definitely fucked up on the storytelling because I had never put all these different stories together in a cohesive joking way before. But I don’t think I did too bad, because some people laughed. Some of the guys were listening to my virginity chronicles and putting their hands over their eyes and shit, laughing while shaking their heads. Good enough for me.

After I finished my 5 minute set, the organizer said “I know who you’d be perfect for” and pointed at M and everyone laughed their asses off. People kinda tried to set us up in different ways throughout the night. A bit of it was definitely racial profiling, since we were the only two Asians there, and we were both Korean. But she also offered to deflower me multiple times, which I rejected. Horny me is definitely going to regret that later, but thankfully horny me was not present for those couple hours. LOCKED IN MY BASEMENT, like the prolific Eminem once said.

A lot of standups did their shit over the course of the night, and one guy rapped, and another guy sang. I think all of us could agree that we all had a lot of honing to do on our respective crafts, and we were all nothing compared to the greats, but definitely some funny moments here and there. But I want to bring special attention to this M character. She is an interesting specimen to me, because I hadn’t really seen anyone like her quite yet, but through conversation and social deduction, I was able to observe/deduce some things about her. AKA me vibe-profiling yet another poor victim, completely misconstruing their character within my imagination.

So first of all, she completely bombed her set. Which is honestly not a bad thing — plenty of people bomb, and how else do you get good but by first bombing? But some things she did other than that was also cringe. Let me explain.

Basic profile:

in her thirties (looks young even to me an asian guy i thought she was like 25), she’s pretty, really unfunny. I’ll give her a pass because English is her second language. Her life path was Korea –> lived in CA for 1 yr when she was 12 –> went back to Korea –> went to America for grad school, finished, worked in US –> went back to Korea to work, started doing standup there –> and she is back in the US, almost out of here because she’s just on a tourist visa, exploring the local standup scene.

Things that irked me:

The general direction of her comedy is shock comedy because she’s one of those female comedians that think that talking about their vaginas in incredible detail is the funniest thing ever – it’s not funny if it’s just shocking. Is it a rite of passage for female comedians, or a phase some of them never get through? It’s always tricky saying that those jokes are not funny is because then people will pull the misogyny card on you and tell you to check your privilege. But reverse the gender roles and consider a male comedian describing their penis in intense detail. “There’s a weird wrinkle on it an inch down, and it curves to the right.” Actually, that kinda sounds like a bit that Mark Normand or Shane Gillis could pull off, but they set it up nicely, okay? They’re not saying, LOOK AT MY DICK, MY PENIS, putting it in your face. I’m not a fan of shock comedy, especially things sexual in nature because it tends to be a race to the bottom (who has the weirdest sex experiences) and honestly it’s such an overused and cheap bit that comedians that don’t know what else to say use as a crutch (judged on what I saw today). “HAR HAR I HAD SEX WITH AN AUSTRALIAN GIRL AND SHE MOANED IN AN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT HAR HAR” SHUT THE FUCK UP AND COME UP WITH SOMETHING ORIGINAL YOU BITCH YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A CREATIVE

She also was trying to tell some jokes about Jews using some play on words like Juice, etc. but then was like “I’m not racist”. She honestly should have just doubled down – nobody in comedy actually cares about racism if it’s funny. Probably because English is not her first language, her wordplay was pretty meh.

She also has this weird fake laugh which is a nasal “ha haaa” which to me sounds like a laugh that is more like a laugh that signals “I understood your joke, look at me, I got that joke I’m so cool” more than “that was fucking funny”. I personally only laugh when something’s funny. That’s why I was the only one doubling down in giggles when a guy started talking about filming a prank on orphans by not showing up to adopt them after signing a contract to adopt them.

Then we had some live music moments and she started twerking and doin’ something that I can only describe as stripper dancing in her chair. Some promiscuous shit, I tell you. I don’t say that lightly. I’m not going to give her flack about doing that when she’s in her thirties, whatever, who give a fuck. She’s already much more willing to explore than most Korean people, and genuine about pursuing a passion, which is more than you can give credit to most people, especially Koreans.

I’m giving her flack because she’s very clearly Korean, and Koreans aren’t really born like that. I mean, I would find it weird if any other race did that in that situation, but it was weird to see someone I know the exact cultural context of pulling that shit I KNOW is not in her character. You can say like “oh you’re a misogynist, you have no right to judge her, give women freedom to be themselves etc.” If you’re thinking that or saying that shut the fuck up because I can tell when someone is not being true to who they are, because it comes off as unnatural and weird. And you can never count horny guys out on laughing at a girl’s jokes and keeping them around because they find her attractive (she’s kinda hot).

I can only guess she’s picked up some shit from what she thinks is American (even though most Americans don’t even do that shit) and she does that, and sometimes you can tell that something is kinda unnatural, like a costume to someone instead of their real skin. I think people are funniest actually when they’re real about themselves, and she’s wasting her potential if she isn’t leaning into that. Maybe I can’t speak for most people because most people aren’t as weird as me, meaning that there’s like less to have other people laugh about being genuine if you’re just a normal ass human being. But comedy has always been about presentation, and twisting expectation, and it’s possible to do that with any story, any experience, no matter how boring it seems. As long as you have a good eye at seeing the human experience for what it is. Funny shit is all around us. That’s what I say. Don’t use sex stories as a crutch, because it’s overdone and we can’t wait for you to shut the fuck up.

This might be reading too much into her character, but she might be one of those Korean girls (there’s men like that too don’t worry) that have experienced some life abroad, but are like, I’m cooler and more educated and more liberal than all you conservative ass koreans with a closed mind on how the world works. Eh. Maybe too harsh of a judgement. But I have some thoughts on this – nobody can truly be free from their cultural context, and each cultural context is equally both broken before God, and also gets some things right. Nobody can really judge from the other, and it’s not such a bad thing to keep your cultural context. I would argue that Korea often makes the mistake of choking on America’s dick too much and accepting every cultural trend in the West blindly without any sort of filter at all. We are really good at copying shit and fast following. We do not have backbone like the Japanese or Chinese. This is a double-edged sword — just look at Korean history.

Some interesting deflowering moments throughout the night

• M talking during her set about deflowering me and thrusting into the air, simulating her riding something
• M talking to me about deflowering me, thrusting into the air, telling me that the best sex comes from someone who’s about to leave the country (her since her tourist visa expires next week). It was weird because I never had a woman offer her body to me so freely before, like she didn’t even care about having sex, it was almost the mentality of “sure I’ll do it, no biggie.”
• M definitely slept around with some of the guys in that comedy club hahahaha
• A buncha black guys (most the guys there were black) trying to set me up with M, making some light fun of me for not drinking alcohol, and not taking up their offers to set me up with M or one of the girls at a bar we went to after to lose my vcard HAHA

Bro I’m a virgin, but you think I couldn’t really get pussy all this time if I really really really wanted to? I know I have no fucking game, and am a fucking loser, and really fucking neurotic, and secretly a huge asshole, but as much as who I am has kept me from being a sex-haver, I also have kept myself free from those kinds of situations. And God probably has done it as well. But at the same time, I’m no saint. I’m not going to lie, if I was attractive as fuck and women were falling head over heels for me, I would not be a virgin. Going to be real about that. I have horny thoughts all the time, and so really, I’m not pretending I’m better than anyone else here. I really don’t think of myself (at least try not to) as better than these people, because I am a hedonist at heart, and I completely, COMPLETELY understand them. If I did not believe in Christ, I would be doing worse shit than them on the daily, so I definitely do not have the moral high ground here. Isn’t it all just God’s grace in the end?

New character idea / arc unlocked:

mid thirties, loser vibe (sorry M <3 but being in your thirties trying to make it as female standup comic in Korea while your friends are all getting married is kind of a sick loser vibe, and I love loser characters since I am also a loser), trying to explore the world, become more open-minded, less like other Koreans, but at the same time running into a cultural wall, where it’s like, you’re not really that. Like there’s nothing actually separating you from acting like an American, and not like a Korean who’s been brought up a certain way her whole life, but the heritage bears down on her heavily and she kind of has this tension with “I should be fine doing this, hell yeah, giving power to myself as a woman” but at the same time feeling “unnatural” about it and “guilty”. If you do that part in a very stereotypical fashion, it comes off as a basic character so you gotta handle that one in a very sensitive manner and give it a shitton of depth and thought.

Pursuing a career in standup in Korea, America, getting into a shitton of one night stands with guys because she’s asserting “power” over her sexuality, hella liberal, all that. But she has to come to terms with what being herself means, and take a stand. She goes from this, to really coming into her own and writing genuine comedy where it comes from the heart, not a fake persona.

Am I reading too much into someone I know nothing about? Yes, of course! But probably at least 60% of what I said had some truth, and I’ve seen/heard about shit like this before, which is where all this assumption comes from. I’m never the type to be unconvinced when presented with evidence, so if our paths cross again, and I notice something different, I could judge her differently.

God, forgive me for my sins. I’m so tired I can’t feel anything. Is there a penitent heart in there somewhere?

I’m sorry for all the sins I will commit, simply because I love the world too much. I confess that there is no love in me, and I am just as depraved as anyone else walking this Earth. Not even love for you. I cannot do anything good apart from you. I want to give up on trying to do that. Because I have realized that any act of mine, without being imbued and blessed by your love in my heart, is a worthless husk. Trapped by duty, trying to uphold biblical standards of perfection so I don’t sully your name or turn people away from Christ is actually doing harm to me and everyone else involved. I don’t need that in my life anymore. I need not plastic surgery to make my acts perfect, but I need you to give me a heart transplant.

I don’t think it’s even right for me to ask you for the heart to love others. Sometimes I’m just asking for it so I can be right in your sight, and not break rules, rather than because I’m in a state of distress that I cannot love those that I should. I am a selfish man, and I know to fear punishment from a holy God. I think I just need to want you, but even that is a heart that I cannot gain on my own, and even that is not a heart that is natural to me.

For some reason, Lord, you have given me faith. Definitely not because I am better than others, but for some reason I cannot understand. But you have started this journey through your grace, and now I realize that not a single step towards the goal can be taken without overbearing amounts of your grace. I believe in you enough to desire heaven and fear hell, but I confess I don’t love you like that. I realize that life is meaningless without you, but still I fill my heart with the pleasures of the world without seeking you. Many times, you have given me a new heart that has allowed me to desire you, and many times I have thrown it away, turned it as hard as stone again, so I could revel in the trifles of this world. I humbly ask you that you would again, give me another chance. If you wish. Up to you. I know I don’t deserve it.

On Sunday, I followed my work friend, let's call him N, to the local Swedish church because he’d invited me. I understood none of the service because it was in Swedish, but found great delight in the fact that God had disseminated the Good News to so many different nations and peoples.

The conversation I would have after service with one of my friend's friends, let's call him M, was some of the eye-opening theological discussion I've had in a long time. I had been praying for some kind of breakthrough, praying to God that I would find friends of faith to discuss my concerns with. God surprised me completely. If you told me 2 weeks ago that I would go to Swedish Church, and have a faith breakthrough there talking to an AI unicorn startup founder, I would've told you to go fuck yourself. I honestly thought God had left me out dry. I was resigned to my fate, and counting down the days until my death.

Here’s the gist of what I got out of that conversation.

1. God is far larger that I had imagined

2. I have to put some preconceived notions of the Christian life to death

3. Additional Reflections

God is far larger than I had imagined

This is what I recall of his story of how M, the AI unicorn startup founder, came to faith. I may have gotten some details wrong, and I've made some edits for readability, but the large strokes are there.

“

I'd describe myself as always having been spiritual. My mom would say that I was always searching for meaning in my life. I first came to read the Bible a couple years ago just because I felt called to it. I started from Genesis, and when I arrived at Matthew, I cried for an hour. I'd had this background process in my brain all my life which was one that was searching for the meaning of my life. So when I understood that this was it, I felt a great sense of peace, because I didn't have to think about that anymore. You know when your computers at 80% CPU and RAM usage, because of some background process you didn’t know about? It was like killing that background process.

So I asked God, “What now?” Soon, God called me very specifically to evangelize to startup founders. I was a founder at the time. I was like, “That's great, but how do I do that? My startup sucks, so nobody will listen to me.” In a year, our startup went from 0 to 11 million in revenue, and at the end of three years, it had reached 33 million in revenue. I've already handed off the reins to my other cofounders, and I'm going back to Sweden now, where I'm going to work full time on content that gives practical advice to startup founders, and also points them to Christ. I’ll be on X, Youtube, everywhere.

“

Despite not having been a Christian for very long, M was incredibly well-versed in theology, and given his background as an AI startup founder, he had some incredibly techno-pilled takes that I mostly agree with, but are so out there that most Christians, especially members of the clergy would balk at them. Some of his takes I remember were:

• I think of reading the Bible as aligning your neural net with God's worldview. That's why I do it every morning, and every night.
• We're going to need a Jesus vector for designing ethical AI. Because Jesus is God in human form, if you model his life and actions through a mathematical vector, you can get the mathematical equivalent of “What would Jesus do?” that the AI can follow.

The more I talked to M, the more my mind was blown. The startup, and tech/AI space is one of the most secular and amoral environments I have come into contact with, and I had never seen anyone so deep in the space (an AI unicorn founder) be so Christian. I realized that, I’d already decided in my head “there’s no way a founder of a very successful startup could be a devout Christian.” I didn't even know they made people like this. Very clearly, God is capable of it, praise be to Him!

My initial realization was that God’s plans, and his orchestrations of those plans span years and eons are intricate, and unimaginable to the human mind. He’d carefully guided M’s spiritual journey all through his life in search of meaning, revealed Himself to M a couple years ago, and performed miracles in M’s life. He’d put me through the spiritual wringer to bring me to the end of myself 2 weeks ago, and He made us cross paths, the very week before M left for Sweden, pretty much forever. And through our conversation, He redefined my understanding of the Christian life. Do you understand how improbable any of this is? How many things had to go right (or wrong) for this to happen? Now I see that coincidences don’t exist. God really does not play dice with the universe.

The macro realization I had following that was that I was limiting the possibilities of life that could be made possible by an infinite God, and by consequence, I was limiting the ways that the Christian life could be lived out.

I have to put some preconceived notions of the Christian life to death

I was too entrenched in the examples of what it meant to live out your faith which I had seen in Korean Christian Church. How it usually went was:

• If you are a good Christian, you serve your church in some capacity or go on missions until you get greater and greater responsibilities. Other things are lesser responsibilities.
• The people that “really” serve God are those that are missionaries, or pastors.

That had been the “model Christian life” that I had been presented with all of my life. To be honest, it wasn't even what I had been presented with all my life. There were plenty of examples of Sunday school teachers and other mature Christians in my life that proved to me that living out your faith was so much more than serving at church, but I was blind to it. Serving at church is not wrong, but constraining the Christian life to just the time we spend inside church fails to take into account many other areas of life.

The consequence of my failure to realize this was that I was living the Christian life in a very stupid manner. I was so afraid of hell and death that I tried to condense the Bible into set of rules to live by and tried to live it to a tee, almost Phariseeically in nature. I had turned life into an impossible multiple choice test, for which every question had a correct answer. For example, the answer to “What should I do with my free time?” was “community service, reading the Bible, or prayer.” The answer to “How do you serve God and please Him?” was “serve at church.”

First of all, these answers were incomplete and unsatisfactory for obvious reasons. In my definition of the world, I could sleep well at night if I had read the Bible that day. If I didn’t, I was a complete and utter failure. How does that make sense? Second of all, I was failing the test miserably and torturing myself for it because that test is not passable by any man. Who is perfect? Who can live without sin? I had always known in my head that the Bible was not a set of rules. It has rules, but it is more so a set of stories that define a worldview on what it means to live this faith. This only clicked, and made sense to me when I talked to M, and saw how God had called Him to live his life.

I told M about this concern of mine, and he had an interesting story as his answer.

“

Back in college, when I didn’t believe in Jesus yet, one of the guys in my dorm was really into building dirt bikes, and he would always write “Dirt Bikes for Jesus” on his bikes. Back then, I was like, “Why is he doing that?” Now, I'm like, “ahhh, that makes sense.” He was just a guy that really loved dirt bikes, really loved Jesus, and brought those two things together. Whenever I think about how to live out my faith in my daily life, I just think of that happy dirt bike guy. He wasn't going out evangelizing on the streets or anything, but I'm sure that everyone that knew him or talked to him came into contact with Jesus living through him.

“

Now instead of a multiple choice test, when I think about my life, I see a blank piece of paper. I can draw on it, rip it up, throw it in the trash, do whatever I want with it, so as long as my heart is in accordance with what God's heart is. There are no “Christian things” (street evangelism, serving at church, community service, etc.) and “non-Christian things” (writing fiction, building a startup, riding a skateboard, etc.) anymore. Everything becomes a “Christian thing” when God is at the center of your heart, save for mass murder or selling meth to five-year olds.

Additional Reflections

The really funny thing about all this is that people had been telling me this about the Christian life for all my life, whether it was directly, indirectly via stories, or inside books. I’d heard it so many times I’m hitting myself on the head right now for not getting it. But I was blind to it, and not by choice. The thing is, you can't understand these things by yourself, no matter how smart you are. These come as revelations from God. Even if you understand it on an intellectual level, it will never leave any lasting impact in your life until God works in your heart.

Just like how God brings people to faith out of accordance with his will, God too is the one that makes someone's faith grow, develop, and brings them to new understandings. This is a new paradigm for my faith. I've been trying to work my way to salvation, when actual, real change in my life, not just surface level changes, has been in God's hands this entire time. He's just been waiting for me to hit rock bottom, and give up on myself completely, so that He could reveal even more of Himself to me. Why did He wait for that to happen? Probably to prove to me that I can't do a single fucking thing on my own.

Well, I'm all the better for it, so no complaints there. I'm as free as a bird. Keeping God at the center of my heart is really difficult, but that's actually God's responsibility too. I'm going to stop trying so hard. In moments of self-reflection, I will once again inevitably despair at my imperfection. But I want to remind myself of this.

I don't need to rely on myself, or trust in myself anymore because:

1. I can trust that God is always working in my heart, and He will grow my faith, develop me, and use me for His will.

2. I can trust in Christ's redeeming work on the cross, where He died for my sins, precisely because I am imperfect, and never will be.

Now all that remains is for God to continue aligning my heart with His for the rest of my life. I'm not going to force this continual transition either, as I may have previously done. I'm going to let it happen in time, and be patient, letting God work in His perfect timing. I’m not going to try to force it myself, and watch my effort amount to nothing.

I admit I do feel a little too free, the kind of free where you're like I can do anything I fuckin' want, and I don't think that's what God wants of me. I still think I should fear God in some form or another. I'm also not exercising my free will to push myself towards God as much (by keeping in spiritual disciplines, etc.), out of the trust that God will change me. But as always, everything is a balancing act, and I know I'm swinging pretty hard onto one side right now, and hopefully I will self-correct into a better range.

There is also something to be said about the nature of these revelations. Usually, these revelations that God brings into your life are so drastic and life-altering that it feels like going from being blind to being able to see. They can also feel so obvious after the fact of realization that you wonder how you didn’t understand this before. But because you are human, and you will never be able to comprehend the true nature of God, you will spend the rest of your life, revelation after revelation, being amazed at how little you are, and how great God is.

My Life Has Already Changed

Remarkably, that single Aha! moment has already has changed my life. My understanding went from a very narrow definition of morality into more so a worldview that can be generally applied, freeing me from rules, and the obsession of having to be right every single time. This has had cascading effects on how I see other parts of my life as well. I always felt guilty writing fiction because I thought God would rather have me doing other “Christian things” in my free time. In my job as a programmer, I was previously searching for a formula of perfect rules and frameworks that would lead me to the right answer every time, even though I knew in my brain that those didn't exist.

Simply put, these worries are gone now. I'm happily writing a short story that I'll publish on this blog, and I've been producing much better output at work. I used to always have a background process in the back of my head asking “Is this what God really wants me to do? Wouldn't He want me to be doing something more 'Christian'?” That's also gone now. I've also been nervous and flighty around people ever since I moved to this city because I was so damn stressed about my faith all the time, but I've entered a state of nonchalantness where I'm just spitting all the time, like I used to do. But it's not with faked confidence or bravado anymore that I previously needed because I secretly thought I was a shitter/loser, and hated myself. Those thoughts have also magically vanished. I’ve ceased to rely on who I am as a source of confidence, but instead trust deeply in the fact that God has me securely in His hands, and He is with me. That trust has developed as a result of these recent events.

Addendum (12/10/2025)

We had this discussion in Bible study today about the role of free will and the role of God in spiritual growth. Sometimes, God gives gifts without any action on your end, but typically, you need to take some action too. What I need to remember is that God has given us an insane amount of free will for a reason. I’m not going to choke myself out with the burden of it, because I trust in His grace, but I do need to exercise it to get closer to Him, serve Him, and those around me. Here’s to putting in a lot of hard work, but remembering that God is one that enables me to work hard, and is the one that makes my effort yield fruit.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”

1 Corinthians 3:6

Next

Next blogpost, I'll talk about some of the more non-faith related conversations that me and M had, and how M, and another guy who we'll call J, both tried to convince me hard to become a startup founder. They also told me that an app I'm building for fun on the side has potential to make some money. Not a lifetime's worth of Fuck You money, but maybe some sweet side income. Does God want me to become a startup founder? That would hilarious if I did become a startup founder. Because recently, I've decided that I don't want to become one because it's too much work, and I don't think I'm cut out for it.

#personal