Upstanding citizens of God’s kingdom have to exercise utmost focus and willpower to keep their eyes on Christ, and Christ only. You look away for a moment, and you’ll find you have strayed. If suffering comes your way, you must endure it. Maybe sometimes, you’ll be happy. But you’ll find that you can go to sleep easy knowing that you’ve fought the good fight, and that your conscience is clear(er).

So, you can’t have your cake, and eat it too. Ya gotta choose. What do you want?

I find that as I get older, I become more aware of death. Death is useful as a sieve for filtering out the things that are important and not important. It reminds me that I should choose to be an upstanding citizen of God’s kingdom, because that’s what really matters.

I should not look past the current day that I am living in.

If I start each day committing myself to God’s will, and submitting myself to Him throughout the course of that day, I’m golden.

I shouldn’t even think about the fact that I have to repeat this over and over again. Discard that thought entirely from my mind.

I need to look at today, and no further than today.

Today I got my hair double bleached. But before that, I went to church. The reason I go to this church is because every week, I feel like God is speaking to me through the sermon. Today’s sermon was titled “Stephen’s All-In”, from Acts 7:54-60. The passage was about when Stephen was stoned to death by Jews.

A couple pithy quotes today that I found good:

• A life where you accept God as your creator, your master
• Is life a journey in which we are heading towards meeting Jesus our creator again?
• Seek God’s face in harsh times
• Don’t be the servant that didn’t use their talents to serve God. Don’t hesitate to participate in God’s good work.

The main topic I found relevant to my life today was about God’s silence. When the topic came up, I realized that God was being silent in my life despite my mental sufferings. I wrote in my sermon notebook

“Sometimes it all feels like a sick joke! I don’t understand why any of it has to be like this.”

The pastor spoke of Stephen “obeying God to death” in the passage. In response to that, I wrote in my notebook

“Would it really be as miserable as I think it would be (to obey God to death)? If I stop bitching while I do it, probably not. I need to stop bitching and stop looking at the negatives while forcing myself to do something I don’t want to do. I might as well force myself to look at the bright side of things, and do it with a cheerful heart.”

More about God’s silence. God is silent multiple times in the Bible. He is silent when Stephen dies for his sake, He is silent when Jesus dies on the cross (the ultimate silence). It’s hard to understand in the moment why, but we know that God is good. Sometimes there’s nothing to be done but simply endure the suffering without reprieve. In fact, we may actually deserve silence. What we did not deserve is Jesus’s saving work on the cross. The Samarian woman understood on some level that she was unworthy, but she didn’t care, and she came to Jesus because she trusted that He could save her. To this I wrote in my notebook

“I have too big of an ego. I should kill it. I’m so frustrated that God won’t give me what I want that I don’t want anything to do with Him sometimes. Even if I obey, I want to do it sullenly and tell Him – look, I did what you wanted. Happy? Now kill me.”

But I did decide that I would not complain, and act like a petulant child that pouts and stamps their feet when they aren’t given what they want. I will obey. I will find joy in God, and learn how to be grateful in every situation. I will not bitch and moan about every little thing that did not go my way. I am not important.

I pulled my hungover body from bed and stepped into the shower, and set my phone against the wall. Maware Maware by Ryusenkei and Atsuko Hiyaj echoed along the dripping tile, wet glass, and back into my ears. Warm chords. Reminiscent of a humid, lazy summer day in Korea. Warm water slipped through fingers, down my spine, into the drain. The tactile feeling of touching water sparked something in my heart. Vision blurred. I realized that while I didn't want to live anymore, I was also greedily sucking at the teet of life, desperate for anything else I could draw out of it.

My friend invited me to visit his university today. Before I left, I read Galations 6, which I've been reading over and over again. I always pause at

“7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

The Bible is often harsh against sexual immorality. So when I read passages like this, I'm reminded that I masturbate and watch porn, now not even because I need to fulfill an urge, but because I feel so damn lonely, like someone's poked a hole in my heart. It makes me so damn depressed I start eyeing the knife in my kitchen and wondering what it would look like hanging out of my arm. So I start jacking off. It makes me feel a little better. What does God think of that? I have no idea.

Also, if a man truly “reaps what he sows”, is the reason I've got no bitches and want to kill myself all the time because I am the dickhead, the root cause that fucked over my life? Probably almost certainly.

As I walked out the door, I decided that I would probably give up trying to win anyone's love, but that I would at least try to give myself to God. I wondered, “what would God call me to today?” I wrote this on the train to my friend's university.

Nowadays at church when I listen to sermons, I drift in and out of concentration. I don’t sit in rapt attention as I used to. Mostly because I’m wondering if I have any hope in this life. My nonexistent love life has been leading me down darker and darker thoughts, making me wonder if I’ve any chance at all at finding someone with mutual attraction. It’s not like I’ve not tried at all either. It’s just chains of rejection all the way through. It’s the kind of misery and desperation that one experiences when you begin to think that nobody could possibly desire you for who you are. I wonder if women think I’m brutally unattractive, and can smell the desperation on me you can smell death on a limping, one-eyed dog that’s gotten it’s guts blown out by a shotgun slug.

Thoughts like “When will this all end?” or “I’ve been assigned a terrible fate, and all there is left to do is live it out till the bitter end”, or “How much longer can I live like this until I’m overtaken by misery and die bitterly alone?” These filled my head, until halfway through the service, I decided that I would soon kill myself. “I’m off on vacation during April, and I’m soon going to be off, and that’ll be a swell time, meaning that I don’t want to kill myself then. I’ll wait until May, I’ll give it more time.” Is what I thought in my head.

Today’s sermon was about what it meant to be a church that was alive. I don’t remember how he got there, but at the end of the sermon, the pastor told us that we were going to sing a last song of worship, and hold hands while doing so. There was one guy sitting in my row, and I thought it was awkward, and I wasn’t going to hold hands with him, but he held his hand out and I obliged. As soon as our hands touched, I realized I hadn’t been held by, or even really touched by another person in God knows how long. Physical touch is a human need, I’m realizing, and I don’t have any avenues to experience it in my life. And I think it’d be weird to request the people I know for a hug. I don’t know why, but listening to the song made me cry bitterly. And while I’m writing this, I’m listening to it again, and it is again making me cry bitterly. And I don’t know why. My ears are barely registering the lyrics while I type.

Sometimes, you need a good cry to heal. But I don’t understand why God wouldn’t just let me die. I think I’ve done my time. Nothing has changed materially in my life, and until it does, I’m still going to suffer. There are moments during every week where my heart physically hurts because I feel alone in the world. Is it cruelty if God gives me a second wind to continue while nothing changes in my life? I’ve not decided if I really want to kill myself again. I’m delaying the decision. It’s not a decision I need to make fast, really, because I’ll die eventually anyways. There are enough real-world geopolitical tensions brewing that the chance of me dying on a battlefield in the next 20 years is not a small one.

I’m embarassed that this is the kind of person I am. Self-defeating, self-pitying, and unable to change. Unable to find their place in the world, fit in inside any kind of community without feeling ultimately alone. The embarassment is also coincidentally the reason I find it difficult to confess this to anyone in my life.

I’ve listened to the worship song a couple times now, and I now understand why it made me cry. I find the picture of togetherness and community it paints rather beautiful, and I wish it were real for me. The song to me feels like being held by another person. I’m probably just manifesting something I desperately need and want in the song. I’d rather die than admit that to anyone in my life though.

Fuck my chud life.

Afterword:

Apparently cell groups / small groups at church are supposed to be a place where you can be honest about the deep shit dragging you down in your life. I feel like it’s always me that has to expose themselves in these discussions, because I have nowhere else to talk about my life in this capacity, and everyone else does. I talk about these things, then maybe someone else will follow with things in their life, but rarely. I feel like I’m always the one losing out, and I feel like it ain’t fair sometimes. But life ain’t fair?

Afterword 2:

I bitch about my life a lot, but don’t you ever think that I don’t know that I’m also to blame for my problems.

I’m in a state of intense despair because I’m pretty sure I have to see these people for the next 6 months to a year. Gonna be like stuffing a sandpaper rod up my asshole.

Sermon was great though. Today I found it difficult to concentrate, but I still got most of it. It jumped through a couple topics kinda like this.

1. Ask not what God can do for you, but what you can do for God

2. Living as a witness of Jesus’s death and His coming back to life

3. Living as a witness part two: you must spread the Good News

Ask not what God can do for you, but what you can do for God

This one pretty much stands on its own, and I spaced out for ten minutes daydreaming of some random bullshit, I bet, because I don’t even remember what I dreamed about.

Living as a witness of Jesus’s death and His coming back to life

In modern Christianity, especially in Korean circles, there’s this made up bullshit of people talking about giving a lot of glory to God through success in this world. We’ve made that up, that kind of statement does NOT exist in the Bible, and the first Christians definitely did not prescribe to that.

The material conditions of the first Christians’ lives did not change remarkably after their conversion to Christ, except when they were carried off to be fed to lions for sport, or killed in various other situations for what they believed in. The change was purely internal, and their behavioral changes were from within. The slaves were still slaves, the working class remained working class. It seems that God rarely rewarded them materially for their obedience, and despite that, they gave their lives for Him, and used their lives to serve others.

This goes against the grain of how society in developed nations are today – individualism is at a record high, and the concept of serving others in love has long since been forgotten. Yet God’s call still remains, and we have forerunners in the faith to look at to remind ourselves of what we should all strive to be like. And the important thing to remember is not how great the apostles were, but to see instead the God that changed their hearts, and transformed them.

Living as as witness part two: you must spread the Good News

• The Good News is not something you spread when you are ready to spread it, when you’ve properly prepared your heart, when your life is still a mess, and when you’ve finally overcome the sins you’ve been struggling with all your life. If that’s your standard, you’ll never be ready anyways.
• Spreading the Good News is like spreading breaking news. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life right now, you’ve gotta spread it. As long as you’re confident, and you spread it with conviction, you’ve done it right.
• If your heart is overflowing with joy about Jesus and the Good News, you’ll want to spread it anyways. And if you aren’t preoccupied with this matter, you’ll be preoccupied with other matters of the flesh. And to remain in flesh is to remain in sin, yada yada yada, you know the spiel.

More and more, I felt my derisive, ironic mental safeguards fall as I looked at the people around me and realized nobody was doing this for the lulz, or for shits and giggles. They could have been, but nobody was making fun of each other for liking something which is often so looked down on by “normal” people. Their love for Miku was so pure that I couldn't make fun of them anymore.

With that thought in my head, I went to the bathroom, and changed into a shitty Miku costume I bought on Amazon, and watched the performances without talking to a single soul. I should've talked to more people, I know but, the the performances were pretty cool: bands performing vocaloid music (props, that shit is hard as fuck to play and sing live), and people were dancing to Miku songs. I bought an acryllic of an office lady Teto sitting on a rolling desk chair with a cig in her hand, thinking that I was accumulating an alarming amount of anime paneraphilia in my apartment.

I bought the Miku costume and tried it at first because of I just had always wanted to try these things, and I was like, I'd better explore this before I regret it. I knew I wanted to try it, and I hate feeling restricted by societal standards or whatever else. I love to be free. So I did it, praying in my heart to God, “I know this looks and seems extremely sexually deviant, and if it is, show me, and if isn't, I'll know more about myself.” So I did it, and I was pleased to find that I was able to do it, without any feeling of arousal or weird thoughts like that. It was more so like, “This is fun, haha.” And that was pretty much the end of it. A fuckton of people around me being dressed up in the same way helped with that too.

It took me a good while, but I also found my heart opening up to these people. I consider myself such a freak that I probably will never be accepted by normal people. But these people were so pure in the expression of their freak that I felt right at home among them. These kinds of places are great places for the exiles of society to hang out, because the concept of cringe doesn't exist in these spaces. Everything goes as long as nobody's hurting each other. We are all in love with a virtual singer that doesn't, has never, and never will exist, and listening to a bunch of songs that, if you started playing it around most people, they would yell at you to turn that shit off.

So I realized that I want to hang out with these people more and ditch the people in my life I don't think could accept me for the person I am. I didn't feel like I needed to hide my niche interests with these people because we are all niche and happen to like the same thing. It was a wonderful thing.

Then the next day, I went to service at a Korean church, which is a completely different environment. The people here could never accept me for who I am. And that's a fact. Showing someone here a photo of me cosplaying Miku would be equivalent to social suicide. People would be shocked, and probably either disgusted or concerned. This is why I'm trying to go to more in-person events nowadays in a desperate attempt to widen my circle. In-person interaction, meeting with new people is such a magical thing, and opens doors you didn't even know existed.

The sermon today was about how Jesus's revival opens new doors for humanity that didn't exist before. The main points I took away from the sermon was the following

1. Love for God isn't an emotional attraction thing, we cannot love God without knowing Him more. And to know Him means that you need to dive completely into Him, giving Him your all. Knowing Him is not an intellectual act. It is more spiritual in nature.

2. Our ability to live a God-based life where we are in love with Him and is pleasing to us is based on the two factors, which work in tandem together.

   1. God's grace given to us freely through Jesus's death on the cross (not our doing)

   2. Our acceptance, reciprocation, and giving the entirety of yourself up to God (our free will)

I found myself questioning whether God would take away everything I ever liked, like my fascination/obsession with all things virtual (like vocaloid), or an interesting avenue of self-expression I found named cosplay. I found it so hard to wrest those things from my grasp, but then I was reminded of some things once again.

1. There is no meaning apart from God. This is to say, there is no life worth living apart from God. There is this hollowness that follows a life lived without God, that cannot be filled. When you are in God, you will not have the dopamine-induced fever dream life of pleasure you had before, but you can be sure that hole will be filled. It's more boring, but there's more sustainable fun in it. Having ventured down that hole many times, I do want to place my time, energy, resources, everything I have in something that is eternally meaningful, and not just a trifle.

2. I find it difficult to engage with church communities because freaks like me are often rejected from these places. While I need people that accept me for who I am, there is no group of people or person that is perfect, and what matters in the end is God's acceptance and love for you that exists no matter who you are.

So I decided once again to give myself up to God, and cultivate in my heart the things of God. And to do this, I just need to pray and read the Bible. What you consume is often what you cultivate, just like that feeding two wolves Native American parable.

During the season of Lent this year which has already started – March 5th to April 17th. I want to, every single day, read the Bible and pray for a combined period of 30 minutes per day. No matter what happens, I will do that. Starting today.

It’s enough evidence that we churn youtube video essay after video essay about crimelords, druglords, etc. which people watch in deep interest when those are the kinds of people that ruin societies, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill another person in cold blood. “Badass” cannot be used to describe people that destroy society.

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.

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.