I Used to Be Smart.

Yesterday I was watching one of the sports talk shows where grown men get very worked up and yell at each other about games that we used to play when we were kids.  The men on the tv were furious with one another because they had different opinions about other men who get paid a lot of money to throw balls and run.  They yelled until their faces turned red.  Neither of them looked like they were having much fun, yelling about these things that were always fun when we were kids.  One was mad about who went to a game just to enjoy himself.  He was mad because he did not take the game seriously enough.  He was yelling at another man because some other man was in line to get a beer when yet another man hit a ball exceedignly far for exceptional number of times.  I wondered what the point of it all was.  I wondered why one man was so upset with these other men.  I wondered why everyone was so upset with the man who had hit the ball, and how anyone could fault the man who had caught the ball.  Most of all, I wondered why I was inside watching doughy white men argue about games we played when we were kids and not outside doing something about all of these things that need to be done.

It’s a beautiful day in Kentucky.  I can’t speak for anyone else’s location, but I hope it’s even half as beautiful there as it is here.

On such beautiful days, there is pretty much only one acceptable thing to do — drive with the windows down.  Driving with the windows down in the city is acceptable.  Driving with the windows down in the country is preferrable.

Since that is the case, I had to indulge myself today.  And, as always, the drive was the catalyst for a lot of thinking — none of which is very safe thinking.

Driving makes me wish I was driving somewhere other than home.  It makes me wish that I was driving down a road to a place I haven’t seen yet.  These summer days with the windows down make me wish for the potentiality that is such a part of travelling.  It made me wish that I was just fifty miles away from a city that I had never seen, and that any moment its skyline would become visible over the next hill, and I could start to imagine all of the things that we might see there.

Driving makes me wish that I was winding along some country road, armed with nothing but a map, a tent, and a few fishing poles in an attempt to find some place quiet where the world makes sense again.  The way the clouds billowed in the sky today made me wish that, at any second, sea gulls would start circling above the fields to the left and right of me, signalling that the ocean was near and that I was close to smelling its salt and feeling its spray.

Driving makes me wonder why we live these lives.  It makes me wonder why we we shackle ourselves to jobs that do nothing but hold us back.  It makes me wonder why we chain ourselves down with debts that are getting us nowhere.  It makes me think that Thoreau was right about that quiet desperation.  It scares me that I want nothing more than to be free, but I can’t be.  The realizations set in that I have chained myself to so many things that no amount of struggling will get me free.  It seems like the more I thrash around trying to get free, the tighter all of the chains become.  I made the decisions that are shaping my life long before I was ever ready.

I get scared that everything is just an exercise in manipulation, and that we are believing lies before we have learned that they are lies.

I know.  These are heavy thoughts for such a beautiful day.  And don’t hear me wrong — I point no fingers.  I do not wish to seen as a victim, or a martyr.  I don’t want to change the whole world, I just want to find a way to freedom for those who are ready to be free.

I don’t doubt that it all sounds like insanity, but I can’t convince myself that I’m not right.  I can’t convince myself that there’s not something different.  I can’t shake the feeling that there is something so much better.  I can’t help but think it’s my job to keep to looking for it, to keep talking about it, to make sure that we don’t ever forget that there is something out there.  There is something out there that is a world apart from this quiet desperation, and that we do not ever have to resign ourselves to these chains.

We only must be brave enough to deal with the consequences of the freedom that we seek…

Once again, being entirely too self-aware, I’m about to make a disclaimer that’s entirely too long and probably just doesn’t need to happen. I would apologize, but that would be a lie.

This writing thing just seems to get more and more difficult. There are things that I want to write about. There are things that I want to try to say. However, those things are about people I know, and there’s a good chance the people I know are going to read the things that I am saying about them. That’s a lot of responsibility. There are real relationships at stake in all of this, and there’s a chance that I could say something that could injure one of those relationships because it gets interpreted in all of the wrong ways.

It’s a gamble, trying to be truthful about things. We never know how someone else will react.

I could just keep all of this to myself, but I feel like that’s not fair. I feel like that’s a cop-out. If I never submit these things that I have to say to public critique — then I wonder what the point is. At some point, I have to be brave enough to let the things I have to say speak out loud, and to be willing to deal with the consequences of my words and the knowledge that my words can have an effect on someone more than myself.

I have this problem of being two people at once. What I let other people see and what is going on in my head are often two very different things. There are many, many times when what is happening in my head never makes it out. It never gets said, and it never gets heard.

I’m beginning to think that maybe that is damaging to more than one of my relationships. That’s difficult. There’s no switch I can flip to immediately become vulnerable. There’s no magic formula for finding a way to let other people in. There’s no quick solution to the fear of being honest. There’s no easy fix for the desire not to get hurt.

I started writing this as a disclaimer for something else. I had an idea in my head about something that happened with a specific person that I wanted to write about. However, I think I ended up being more honest and revealing about myself in the disclaimer than I would’ve been in the actual piece. And if I’m honest? This is probably better than what I actually wanted to write anyway, and I’m questioning my motivations for wanting to write what I had intended to write.

It’s strange how finding a bit of quiet and honesty will do that to a person.

To be entirely honest, I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, so just take me with a grain of salt.  (Which is pretty much always a good strategy with me.)  It’s one of those beer-soaked thoughts that I’m going to try too hard to turn into something of significance.  I’ll let you laugh at me when I fail.

I wonder sometimes if anything I’ve thought has ever come from inside my own head.  I spend all of this time thinking about situations and life, and I realize that nothing I think comes from anything that I thought of first.

All of that gets a little scary sometimes.  All of these stolen thoughts have an effect on my real life (and yes, I’m still waiting for that thing to begin).  I think of all of these real relationships I have with real people and the way that what I in those relationships is affected so deeply by thoughts that are not always my own.  I get a little scared when I realize how much of me comes from songs I’ve heard too many times, books I’ve read too often, and movies and I’ve thougth about too much.

How much of my life is me actually being what I am, and how much of it is me trying to be something that I think I should be?  How much of my life is me being true to what I have to be, and how much of it is me trying to be something from somebody else’s imagination, because I think that is cooler than my own life?  Is it just that I’m too scared to be honest about what I really am?  Or are the fictional characters just that much interesting?

It’s a gamble, being honest.  If I’m being who I really am there’s a very real way in which I’m letting go of control.  I’m giving up the things that you hold most dear and letting other people pass some kind of judgement on those things.  If they reject those things, it’s torture.  They’re rejecting me.  They’re rejecting the things that are the most important to me.  If I only show people what I want them to see, then there’s less of a risk.  It doesn’t hurt as much.  When someone can only reject what I let them see, or what I am pretending to be it matters much less.  They’re not rejecting anything real.  I won’t let them past the smoke and the mirrors I have created.  I can’t get hurt if I’m never honest.  I can’t be touched if everything is at arm’s length.

It sounds trivial and silly when I do things like declare my love for fictional characters.  I could write it off as just that.  However, I think I do it for reason.  There’s no chance of ever meeting someone that isn’t real.  There’s no chance of ever actually having to reveal a part of myself to that person.  There’s no chance of feeling that thing, deep down in my stomach when I know that I have to step out from behind the wall for just a second and reveal something true about myself.  There’s no inner struggle about whether I should actually reveal that.  There’s no inability to speak when it comes time to be honest about what I’m really thinking and feeling.  My tongue will never have to lock itself up when I say certain words.  They can’t ever reject me.

It’s all too big to deal with right now.  It’s too much to digest at one time.  It’s one of those things where we all wish that we can change the second that we’re awre of our flaws, but we all know better.  We all know that we can only keep working, and eventually we’ll be ready to change.  Maybe somebody else will help us get to that point, maybe we’ll need to do it alone.  Who knows?  I do, however, have this feeling that I’m not alone.

A few days ago, someone from work put two fortunes (the kind from the cookies) on my desk.  They sat there for a few days before one of them got turned over.  It said, “There is only one life to lead, your own.”  It may have been a trite little fortune.  There are, no doubt, millions of them in tacky Chinese restaraunts everywhere in America.  Twenty thousand of them are probably blowing down some gutter in a hundred big cities right now, but I liked it.  I felt like it was saying something more than it ever knew it would say, and that’s a goal that we can all aspire to.

—–

I’m struck with the feeling that all of this probably sounds so much heavier than it really is.  I probably sound tortured in a million ways that I’m not.  I almost didn’t publish any of this.  However, I’m convinced that this is not only part of writing, but part of living — to be honest about the things that make us look like complete wierdos and to trust other people with what is most dear to us, and with what is scariest when we see it in the light.  However, all of what I just wrote came out much too easily and quickly for it to not be true.

(And the disclaimer is, I’m sure, evidence for everything that I just said.  Is it still ironic if I point it out?)

There are some things I need people to know about me, so get ready for some shocking revelations.

First of all, I am in love.  I don’t know any other way to say it.  I am in love.

She’s an amazing girl, really.  She’s beautiful.  She’s smart.  She’s funny.  I’ve been seeing her about once a week for probably two years now, and I am convinced — I’m in love.

I’m sure that you’re incredibly confused, and that you’re wondering who in the world I could possibly be talking about, and how in the world I’ve kept her under wraps for this long.

This is where I get to let you in on two secrets.  If you’re lucky, you already knew one.  If not, consider yourself lucky that I am finally coming clean.

I’m in love with Rory Gilmore, from the the WB show The Gilmore Girls.  Yes, I watch that show frequently.  Yes, I enjoy it.  Yes, I know that you are laughing at me.  Yes, I know that she is not real.  No, I do not care.

There you go.  That’s all.  You may make fun of me relentlessly if you would like to.

(I almost wrote a lengthy disclaimer for this post about how I don’t ACTUALLY love a fictional character, but I decided not to.  Then I told you that I decided not to, which means that I did it anyway.  Or something.)

(This all probably amounts to nothing more than me being proud of myself.  I’m sorry for that.  Hopefully I can transcend.)

Over the past year I’ve become increasingly aware of money.  That’s the curse of having a job.  I’m increasingly aware of how I get it, I’m increasingly aware of what it means.  I’m increasingly aware of how I spend it.

That greater awareness has also led to a greater conviction.  I have been convinced for a while now that the way that I spend money is both irresponsible and sinful.  However, I have done nothing about it.  I haven’t been able to trust God enough to do anything about it.  I have been convinced that the things that I hold dear are more important than the way God wants me to live my life.  I have convinced myself that I can somehow have the things that I want and still live my life the way God wants me too.

That’s why today was a big day.  You probably don’t even know what a big day today was.  Today was the day that the third season of Scrubs was released on DVD.  “Why?”  you ask, “is that a big deal?”  Scrubs is my favorite show in the world.  I had every intention of buying the third season today — the day it came out on DVD and watching as many episodes in as short of a time as possible.  I have an obsession with the show that can probably be characterized as “unhealthy.”

The problem is this — I don’t make very much money.  I could find the money to spend on the DVD’s and still eat this month.  However, lately it has become clear to me that there are a few things in life that are incredibly, incredibly important.  And to make those things a priority in my life, it will take a significant redirection of the money that I have.

So I got to Target, I picked up the DVD’s.  I read the back.  I battled with myself.  Then I made a decision.  I put down the box and walked away.  I made a decision that the way God wants me to live my life is more important than Scrubs.  That may sound like the silliest thing in the world, but it was a big deal for me.  It was the first step in a lesson that I’ve been trying to learn for years now.  It was the first step in finally trusting God that the life God has promised for me is better than DVD’s, it’s better than cd’s and books.  It’s better than McDonald’s and Taco Bell (guilty of that one last night).  It’s better than being lazy on a Tuesday morning (guilty of that one today).  The self-denial that is essential becomes possible because I finally start (and it’s only a start) to trust God that the way that has been designed for me is so much better than any of the temporary solutions that I can find.

I think we all have those things.  You may not struggle with buying seasons of dumb tv shows on DVD, or buying entirely too many books or cd’s, or wasting your money in a million other stupid ways.  Your struggle may be something else entirely, but I think we all have something that we’re holding back because we don’t trust God that his ways are better than whatever it is we are clinging to.

It’s not an easy lesson, for sure.  It’s probably not even something that you can learn by listening to me tell you my story about it.  It’s the product of a long road and lots of soul-searching.  But as hard as it is, I think it is an absolutely essential lesson.  We have to learn that God is even better than the things we hold most dear.

That’s big.

All week, I’ve been thinking.  I’ve been thinking about Jesus, and what the heck that whole thing was about.

Seriously.  What was it about?  Why?  Why did it happen?  Why does it matter?

See, I have this problem.  All around me, I see these people that I have come to call “asshole Christians.”  There’s a good chance that designation also makes me an asshole.  I know that full well.  (And I’m sorry for the bluntness.  It’s neither professional nor academic.)  They’re everywhere.  They’ve grown up with Jesus.  It’s not problem for them to invoke his name.  They appear to be excellent hearers also, as God frequently tells them what to do about life’s most minute details.  In their heads, they know all about this Jesus thing, it appears.  At the very least, they know the right words.

However, when I take even the most cursory glance at how they act, I’m not sure that I see Jesus anywhere.

I might just be building up the same old strawman and knocking him down all over again, but I see it so much that I can’t help but think that my strawman is a real boy.  It’s the SUV with the Jesus fish and the pro-war sticker.  If they’re especially pious, there might just be an anti-homosexual slogan or a pro-life tagline.  I wonder how Jesus fits into any of that.  I wonder how the Jesus that I read in the gospels would ever condone consumption simply for the sake of consumption.  I wonder what he would think if that consumption was destroying the world that he helped to create.  I wonder what he would think if that consumption helped to sustain destructive economies that are keeping the world’s poorest people poor and making the world’s richest people rich.  I wonder what Jesus would think about being connected with that.

Then I wonder what Jesus would of think of mere sloganeering.  I wonder what he would think of taking great, complex issues and reducing them to catchy lines that fit on a ten inch sticker?  I wonder what he would think about when he realized that those stickers don’t exist in a vacuum.  They’re directed toward people, real people.  People who are hurting, people who need love.  People who have been dehumanized.  People who need badly to have somone restore their dignity.  People who need to know that they are lovable.  I wonder if Jesus would have explained to us all that people who are very far in darkness can never have the light explained to them.  They must have it shown to them little by little until they can finally understand its goodness.

I wonder what Jesus would be thinking about his name being used to justify invasions of foreign countires.  I wonder if bunker-busting bombs and night vision goggles are the weapons that Jesus would use to advance his kingdom in the world.  I wonder if that Jewish peasant had been a middle-class American, if he would’ve signed up to join the effort?  If would use an M-16 or drive an Amored Personnel Carrier.  Is that what Jesus is about?  Is that how Jesus works in the world?  Even if all of those people know his name and sing it proudly over refrains of 3 guitar chords, or a resounding organ, does that mean anything?  Do those people look anything like Jesus when they are judgmental, small minded, and destructive in the face of God who begs people to be merciful, graceful, and peaceful?

Then I stop and look around, and I see all of these other people in the world.  They don’t appear to know anything about Jesus.  They have no clue about words like “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”  There is no invitation powerful enough for them to walk down the aisle.  They’re too aware of their brokeness.  Their self-awareness is too much of an impediment.  Or perhaps they’re simply not that aware.  Perhaps they just grew up in a different part of the world.  Perhaps they just had different names for God.  They probably don’t look like us.  They definitely don’t speak the same language (even if they are Americans) as the first group of people.  But that’s not all that’s different.

They’re weird.  They don’t take hard stands on moral issues.  They realize that they have too many problems of their own, and they see that the world around them is too grey too divide into dichotomies of right and wrong.  So, in light of that, they just treat people as people, however those people may be.  They’re generous to everyone they meet, whether those folks are deserving of that generosity or not.  They realize the fleeting quality of what they have, and they’re not afraid to share.  As much as they can, they try to live at peace with everyone around them.  They go even further by attempting to make peace in places that it is not been found.  They live simply.  They do not consume for the sake of consuming, but they consume for the sake of need, preferring to be self-sufficient wherever they can be.  They are accutely aware of the consequences of their consumption.  Perhaps they have been the victime of reckless consumption.  Perhas someone was kind enough to show them the consequences of their actions.

They know the value of the people around them and, as much as possible, they never intentionally demean anyone they meet.  They know that there place is not one of judgment, so they pass no proclomations on anyone.  They just let people be people on their own terms, even if they disagree with those terms.  They may have never heard of Jesus in all of their lives, unless Jesus was a man they met last week at the gas station.  They may have grown up in an area where their only knowledge of Christianity comes from brutal individuals who killed members of the family and community in the name of Christ.  However, something about them is undeniable.  They may be clueless as to why they are doing it, but they look eerily like a Jewish man from the first century.  They cannot help it.  It is the only way that they know how to live.  They are driven by something far deeper than rational propositions that they have cognitively internalized from a young age.  They are driven by something that they can’t describe or even recognize.

I see these two groups of folks, and I can’t help but come to a conclusion.  I can’t help but see that God is working in the second group.  There is no doubt that God is working in the first group too.  We’ve gotten everything all wrong.  We’ve decided that this whole Jesus thing is about what happens after we die.  We’ve decided that it’s about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  We’re convinced that there a specific guidelines that we must follow, and that the prime directive is to move as many pieces from the “Hell” side of the board to the “Heaven” side of the board as possible.

What if that’s not what it’s about at all?  What if that’s the opposite of what Jesus came to talk about?  What if that’s completely foreign to the way that God wants us to see our lives?

Jesus was clear.  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  It’s in the world and it’s ours for the finding.  What if God’s goal in Jesus was to bring God’s kingdom to us?  To show us that it was possible to live our lives in a different way.  God wasn’t attempting to move us to the other side of the board simply for the sake of rewarding us at a later time.  God wasn’t giving us a solution that is only applicable when we have finished this life.  God did not wish to make life something that is merely to be tolerated until the end, when we can get the reward, when we can make the claim on fire insurance that we have purchased.

God’s intention was to change our lives now.  Jesus changes everything right now.  Jesus lets us know that God IS at work in the world, and that we CAN join with God where God is at work in the world.  And then, Jesus does something wild.  He lives his life that way.  He lives like God is at work in the world.  He lives simply.  He gathers his friends close and tells them about the good things that God can provide.  He heals the people who are sick and he repairs the people that are the most broken in the world.  He is a prophet of the highest order, shining light into the dark places of his world — even the places that claim the loudest to be agents of God.  And then, to close the drama, Jesus lives those principles even to death — a death to show us all the only way to live.  It is a death that can defeat death, and can show us that we must not have any fear, because they life that Jesus is showing us to live is truly what is good, and not even the strongest powers of darkness can defeat it.

It has nothing to do with rational propositions or cognitive events.  There is no level on which Jesus is about a “head change.”  Jesus is only about an internal change that is always accompanied by an external change.  In fact, Jesus does not even seem to care whether anyone knows why they are doing the good things that they are doing.  If they are living their lives like he showed us, then they are part of the kingdom that is at hand.  Whether they describe that kindgom in language like his, language like ours, or something completely different they are still agents of that kindgom, showing a world that is in great need what has come.

But who knows?  Maybe I’ve missed the boat.  Maybe I just don’t get it all.  If that’s the case, I can only hope that God will have grace on me for being such an idiot.

No matter how much time we invest in analysis, we will never understand life.

There’s nothing wrong with that. The mystery is what makes it great. The contrasts are what make it bearable.

—–

We were pretending we were fishing. In all honesty, DH was catching the same fish on the same minnow (pronounced, with a profound sense of irony, “minner”). Ryan, I’m sure was smoking. I believe I was involved in some (no doubt) important conversation by means of the amazing technology known as “text messaging.” If you ask any of the three of us, we’d be quick to admit that it was all a pretext to go outside and sit around with a styrofoam cooler full of (cheap) beer and do nothing for several hours.

We have, however, turned doing nothing into the finest of arts. It’s not just a matter of doing nothing. It is being aware of doing nothing. It is being aware that there will be many, many things to do very soon. However, for a short time, by the creek, there is nothing. There is just whatever is on our minds, and that cooler.

The creek just kept running like a line out of some country song, and we just kept enjoying the nothing that we were doing.

A long time ago, people wiser than me figured something out. They figured out that work is only good when it includes rest. That lesson is easy to learn. The harder lesson to learn is that rest only good when it includes work. You can’t ever learn that lesson by being told. No lecture in the world can teach you that. It’s something that you have to learn for yourself — sitting by a creek and watching a beaver swim around on the other side. It’s something you have to see when you scare away two deer and watch them run through the woods.

It’s not something that you can learn alone. It takes your friends around you to make you feel safe enough to be honest about who you are.

There’s no description for that. I’ll never be enough of a writer to be able to put into words those kinds of feelings. I can try. I can try to describe that moment when it all crystallizes and you realize that the world is a good, good place. I can attempt to use these silly words that I find so important to show what it’s like in that second when you catch a glimpse of God that made this very good thing, and the way it feels when you realize that God is bigger than anything you’ve yet to feel, see, or experience, and much, much bigger than anything you could even start to describe.

It’s like hearing a good song line in a way that you haven’t ever heard it before. Song lines are only good when you have someone to share them with. So you sit around a table with your friends (and even here, language is failure, because these people have to be something more than just friends) in this complicated swirl of emotions that defy even the beginnings of description, and a song that you’ve heard a hundred times before comes on. And you’re already talking about the song, aware that you’re listening to something special. But in the middle of all of that, your friend points out to you that the upcoming bridge is something special. You’ve heard it so many times, but you take time to stop and listen this time, and Jimmy lays it on you, “I can’t help it honey, you’re that much a part of my now. Remember that night in Montana when you said there’d be room for doubt?” There’s that moment of realization, when it becomes clear how much he’s managed to say in so few words. You realize that you’ve just heard something very, very good and that you could never, in all your years express such powerful imagery in so few words — but that’s okay.

It’s okay because you’re not saddled with that burdened. You don’t have to be that person. You can finally just be who you are, because you’ve realized that’s all you have to be. No matter how many times you thought you had to be something different, or you had to be something better, when you get that glimpse of the Good Thing that is out there working in the world and the way that it allows you to be comfortable with what you are, because that is how this Good Thing has made you.

It’s quite a beautiful day outside.  I should be out there enjoying it for a few more minutes before work, not sitting here being all morose.  However, I think the morose side is winning.

Some days, it just doesn’t feel like I’ve gotten anywhere.  The exact same things that were a struggle for me a year ago, two years ago, and even three years ago.  That gets frustrating.  I feel like I’m stuck.  Nothing has changed very much, and nothing seems to be changing.  The progress is so slow.  Just when it looks like I’ve defeated things that are bringing me down, I let all of them right back in, and I let them ruin a beautiful day.

Perhaps that’s just life.  Maybe when we think we’ve got it figured it out, that’s when we have to realize how far we still have to go.  And perhaps when we realize that we’re a long way from anything, that’s when we’re willing to be taught, and that’s when we’re willing to be changed.

It’s still hard to wait.  It’s still hard to be patient and learn the hard lessons.

Maybe someday soon I’ll get all of this figured out.  Until then, I’ll have to keep relying on fleeting moments of clarity, I guess.

I went to Wild Oats this morning to buy a few things.

I must admit, shopping there makes me feel pretty good about myself.  I bought organic milk, organic bread, organic turkey.  By the time I had gotten to the checkout lane, I had pretty much convinced myself that I was superior to just about everyone else in the world.  Everyone except the other Wild Oats shoppers who were obviously as enlightened and superior as me.  I had convinced myself that we were something special, trying to save the world from the screwed up way that America does food, sacrificing our hard earned money to buy things that are a little more expensive for the sake of the environment, the economy, and our conscience.  I had even decided to write a nice blog entry about how the American economy is based on lunacy and cannot hope to sustain itself.

My inner monologue was enough to make anyone roll their eyes.

So, I got in the only checkout lane that was open, feeling good about my purchases.  However, by the time I left, I felt like someone had taken one of the large pieces of salmon in the seafood case and slapped me in the face with it.

The lady checking out in front of me looked to be a pretty typical Wild Oats shopper.  She wasn’t quite middle aged, well-dressed, pusing a small child.

When she paid for her food, she pulled out her Louis Vuitton purse.

There is a good chance that I visibly rolled my eyes.  I hope that I didn’t.  I know that my first thought was, “Geeeeez.  What’s the point?”  If she’s falling into consumerist traps of conspicuous consumption like Louis Vuitton purses, then what’s the point of shoppint a place like this?  It just doesn’t make sense, because there’s no way that she actually cares about the things that I care about.

After I finished walking to my car, I see her loading her groceries into hers.  It’s an SUV with a sticker on the back.  “W.  Still the President.”  Could it get any worse?  She had pretty much just become the charicature of all of the things that I spend so much energy railing against, and she was shopping at the same place as me.  The place that I feel REALLY good about myself for patronizing.

It took me a moment to come back down, but then I came to a few realizations.  I thought about all of the ridiculous ways that I spend money on things that I don’t need — money which often needs to be redirected to other, more important matters.  I thought about all of the ways that my consumption is ridiculous.  I may not have a Louis Vuitton purse (or any purse) that is readily visible, but I still buy things that I do not need.  I may not drive an SUV, but I do spend money on things that I could get for cheaper prices.  I’m still an idiot.  I still do what I do out of a sense of pride and with an air of moral superiority.  I am, by no means, clear of guilt.

There’s no real point here.  It’s just clear that I’m an idiot who still has a long way to go, and that the same things I’ve struggled with since I was a kid are the same things that I’m still struggling with today.

(Oh, and the American economy really is stupid and cannot sustain itself.  And I can’t rationalize that she DID have a George Bush sticker on her car.)