detox

I have been detoxing from religion. Sometimes I experience withdrawal when I look at photos of people who were in my "church family" or like today when I wanted to paint something meaningful. I spiraled out of control after an hour of creative process and ended up crying. It used to be so easy when I believed that there was this loving creator being with an unknown purpose for my life... now I can't even paint anything without questioning my own purpose.

Is life just about finding things that make you happy and surrounding yourself with those "happy" things? Or is life some sort of selfless crusade to make others happy, to give food, clothing, shelter, or education to people who need those things? The way I should live my life waits with answer to those questions.

I think I like to pretend it's the second, that selfless crusade, but when I look at my life, I don't actually do anything to show that I believe those things. I'm all talk.

I know people have always had questions and religions have always had answers. At some point, questioning God and religion became so painful, I had to stop thinking about it in an act of self-preservation. But where am I now? No active pursuit of anything beyond the physical here and now...where's the depth?

I tried to paint something today, but I didn't want to paint something meaningless. I ran circles in my head and ended up not painting anything at all. This usually happens when I try to make art a mode of communication. I don't speak that language. I need printed words not paint or colored pencils! How long has it taken me to realize this?! I'm a writer, not a painter!

Last time I blogged, I wrote about things that I have deemed meaningless and ever since then, I have imagined the people in my life reading it and being hurt by it...for example my aunt who loves her dogs like they were her own children or my friend Zoe who just got married this summer (diamond ring included) and a new puppy or Zach's mom or almost every married or pet-owning person I know... words can be swords. Why would I ever use them as such? It hurts more to hurt other people than for me to be hurt myself. Should I just go around saying agreeable things for the rest of my life? I can't. Should I go around pretending I'm the one who deems what is meaningful and what's not? No!

I've been looking at classes to take next semester. All along, I planned on taking Spanish, so I can get into a Latin American Studies Master's program, but now I'm thinking about writing classes.

This made me feel better today:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html