Anxious Mind

Describe an anxious mind. Don't describe it, though, with words about its workings or definitions of what comprises it - neuroses, compulsions, etcetera.

Describe an anxious mind by describing the image that an anxious mind provokes, to you.

What do you think of? Do you paint an image of someone alone in the dark or lost at sea? Do you think of someone pacing impatiently for some intangible pain in their head? Are you able to summon any image at all?

..I imagine a dark day, the sun occluded by the darkest storm cloud, and this storm cloud is the mind of the Anxious. The Anxious has so much energy stored by friction of its thoughts tumbling and churning - this stirring causes static. Static electricity is a potentially immense energy that does not find escape. Electricity cannot move without a path and a destination and so it rolls and languishes within the confines of the Anxious and there is no release for the cloud. Not without a lead cast up from the earth below - something that can be reached for.

Now, with a lead, the Anxious can take focus and exhale that which is static and pour it into the ground with a great dose of lighting - electricity with aim and a purpose.

The Anxious will find relief and peace for a while, but the thoughts will churn again. It's only a matter of time because a storm cloud trapped in perpetuity cannot hope for lasting peace...only for a chance to breathe out, from time to time, that the current within does not find a malice for its host. A storm can only get so big before it loses itself into something else entirely and ceases to be..

This, to me, is what I imagine when I think of when I think of a mind called Anxious.

I've been in love before

I've been in love before. I've had a first love, and I've had loves since. I am in love with someone now, but there is a pronounced difference that has commanded my attention. What I am in has called into question every love I have loved before. What I am in now has taken the stone and brick, from which I built my old perception of this exceedingly complex emotion, and...turned it to sand...

I am 24 years old - soon to be 25.In my quarter of a century I have sharpened my command of the English language to a point of pride. I have dived into the body of my words and sentence structures, and my knowledge of poetry and literature and trivial publications alike, and I have found that in endeavoring to articulate on this new understanding of love I have found, with eloquence, my words run dry and all that I know of this language of mine is stricken from me for its inadequacy...I do not have the words, and I fear that I never will, and so I must resign myself to telling the story of a man who is maddeningly unable to tell the depth of his love for "her."

She is wonderful, and for my inability to say it with enough depth, I will say it simply to her, with hope she is reading. I love you. So very much. 

I like blue

I had a dream about this girl that I like, the other night...

"It's very quiet here." She said to me. My eyes were drawn to hers, and I could see the waves that whispered beside us reflected in them. During the day that place was warm, and the white sand of the beach had reflected the sun onto all the energetic faces that abounded, and laughter they all shared, but the sand, that evening, forgot, or simply did not speak of it. It was cool beneath my feet and in between my toes. Every sight, sound, and even the smell of the ocean asked me to breathe a little more slowly, and hold less in my mind. Everything asked that I not reminisce on the day, but simply be in that late evening where sunlight mixed with the many other stars and the sky shone many quiet blues. We slowly rocked, she and I, in that hammock with our feet off the edge in the sand, and a cool breeze pushed her closer to me. Her hand on the back of mine pulled me finally out of my own thoughts, and there I was, simply with her. I don't know that there were words; I like to imagine there weren't. We sat and spoke for hours without a sound, and the sky, sharing its shades with the water, never darkened to hide the last faint oranges of the sun that wished to bid us goodnight. Likely you'll think it to be because this was simply a dream, but as I imagined our words were spoken in silence, I imagine the sun was merely acting to acquiesce my desire that her smile and kind eyes not be hidden from me. "I like blue." I said quietly, finally, to her. 

You won't rattle my cage

In roughly one year and 7 months, I will be a licensed paramedic. In 13 weeks and one day, I will be sitting for the NREMT to be licensed as an EMT. I've become abreast of many of the things I will encounter while working a rig between class time, a convenient database of trauma pictures provided in said class, and a couple ambulance ride-alongs I've taken part in. I've yet, however, to encounter anything terrible first hand. 

I'm told by paramedics and EMT's that I know that watching "true stories" of the ER, looking at trauma pictures, or even spending time in an emergency room will hardly be sufficient to prepare for what I'll encounter on the job. According to them, there really is not preparation for the dive. There's only the dive. 

How, then, am I to be expected to know if what the hell I'm doing is right? How the hell am I expected to know if I will be able to function in triage during a multi-casualty event? How can I even know if I'll be able to keep cool while trying to simply place an IV in the back of an ambulance? 

Well...I can't. Moving forward isn't about knowing success is assured. It's about hoping there's a chance that success will happen to meander out of the forest and into a vulnerable place in the meadow (yes, I am referencing Bambi) where I will then capture it by force by whatever means I may have. 

I just started working at Caribou Coffee again after four years away. I'll tell you, there are few better gauges of growth than going back to work at a job you haven't held for four years. In 2011, a line out the door and a screen full of drinks would send me into a tailspin of stress that would keep me down for the rest of the day. Yesterday I worked the floor with one other man during a buy-one-get-one deal, and deals such as that happen to be the dreaded "white girl's" natural prey, and they came in droves. I, circa 2011, would have locked up, stared at the screen, and said seldom a word to customers riding the carousel from the door to me to the drink counter. I, circa yesterday, did not act in this way. I locked eyes with everyone, held an un-trembling voice, and treated each customer with kindness and without a frantic tone, as though there was not, in fact, a line out the door. 

Call me outlandish and stupid, but I see my little coffee shop as a somewhat comparable paradigm to working a rig. The stress and emotional torment of losing a patient, or having a family screaming at me for not resuscitating a DNR patient will most definitely be deeper seated than a suburban mom screaming at me for giving her white chocolate instead of dark. This is not my point. My point is that, in each situation, there is a relatively large amount of stress, and in each situation there is a limit to the speed at which I can work - a limit to the control in my hands. 

To lay my purpose bare, identify your limitations, and do not delude yourself into beliefs of grandeur. Knowing your TRUE limits (not the limits you merely impose on yourself out of laziness) does not equip you to blast through them heroically, but rather, equips you to work within them, and to not let your cage be rattled when confronted by them or berated for them. 

Please do not misunderstand - I am not advocating simple acceptance of your present state as your eternal state of being. Work to push out your limits. Become faster and stronger, able to focus more and procrastinate less. Work on these things as continual growth and learning, but accept where you are right now as being your current reality. Do not anguish for that, over which, you have no control...sit with it. I promise you will be ok. 

Berate and belittle me, say all that you can

You think me too weak, tell me I am not a man

Your words fall on deaf ears, I've no time for what you say

I know when to sweat and bleed, and I know when to call it a day

I'll not lie to myself, or attempt to impress you

There's little point in pretending to convince so few

I don't give a damn for your opinion, as you try to drive me to rage

I sincerely don't care what you think, you will not rattle my cage

My contention with Christianity

I was raised Christian. For a long time, I believed in the Christian faith. My faith came to a grinding halt one summer when I was working at an unnamed Bible camp, during a week when we had 5th graders. A counselor came into the office, and asked the camp director "one of my campers wants to know if he'll go to Hell if he doesn't accept Jesus, what should I tell him?" The camp director took just a couple seconds to think before replying "tell him he'll go to Hell." A 5th grader; 10 years old. Our director wanted the counselor to tell that kid he was going to go to Hell.

I am now no longer a Christian, and I highly doubt I will ever be again, but there are many Christians whom I respect deeply, and with whom I can speak about just about anything without judgement. Some of these Christians a scholars, others are pastors, others are both, and they all have two things in common: 1. they are exceedingly more educated in Biblical studies than, literally, any one else I have met, and 2. each of them believes everyone is universally saved by Christ's sacrifice.

I hold no ill will towards most who hold firmly to their faith, but the very instance a level of exclusivity is claimed but for the utterance of a superficial four word phrase, I hold a severe point of contention.

Yes, the Bible says "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved," but it fails to say "if you don't, you're going to hell." There is, however, numerous other scripture professing the universal saving of humanity. I've highlighted every word that includes "everyone" in blue, and I've highlighted every word that writes in an exception to salvation in yellow.

Matthew 18:13 - Like the man who owes a hundred sheep and is not willing to lose even one, God is not willing that any be lost.

Luke 3: 5-6 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God's salvation.

John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

John 3:35 - The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

John 12:32 - And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself

John 12:47 - If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

John 17:2 - For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him

Romans 5:18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people

Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord


There are, in fact, other verses that speak of some level of exclusivity - some in Matthew and Mark, but for God's sake, when given the choice, why not just opt for love? What the hell do you get out of telling people they're not going to get into heaven, or they'll only get into heaven if they do such and such?

I digress.

Please stop saying "you'll feel differently when you're older."

I was born in 1991. I am 24 years, 3 months, and 26 days, and in that time, I have learned a great deal about myself. I know my dreams and desires. I know my strengths and weaknesses. I know what I love, and what I do not. I know whether or not I want to be a father someday; I do not.

I am not an old man by any stretch, but I feel that most, by my age, have a rough idea what they want their future to look like - the American dream of a split level home that shares a large back lot with an adjacent home that houses an unhappy wife who likes to sun-bathe topless and shoot bedroom eyes across they way while you grill with your "world's best dad" apron, and you manage to avert your gaze for you are a holy and cannot be tempted by her curves.

I paint this picture facetiously, but my point is clear - I have a clear picture of my future and what I want out of life, and children are nowhere in it. I have a diverse set of reasoning ranging from mental illness that I do not wish to pass on, to a desire to enjoy the world and its offerings with my wife, unencumbered by potty breaks and sticky car doors, to the mere fact that there are too many people on this planet as is, and if I were to ever decide I have a need for a tiny loud roommate who eats all my food doesn't pay rent and takes all my wife's attention, I would adopt the little bugger.

Often I am met with the rebuttal "you're only 24, you're not supposed to want kids yet." Actually, yeah, I am. Other men and women my age may not want kids AT my age, but they sure as hell know whether or not they eventually want them...and I don't.

So please, for me, and for the sake of everyone else who is genuinely sick of hearing it, quit saying "you'll change your mind," quit asking for us to support WHY we don't want kids, and quit trying to fit us into your perception of the world wherein everyone is pre-programmed with a permanent and resolute paternal/maternal instinct. Seriously...just stop.

Writing the book of your own morality

-Please do not misunderstand - this is a work of reflection and comment. I am advocating believing how you want to believe, and doing right by yourself, but the very instant you attempt to act against others' rights of privacy, equality, safety, and mental well-being, you are simply in the wrong.-

-Also, I'm too tired to spell and grammar check, so if you run into a grammatical error, pretend you didn't-

I felt a lot of guilt in church, growing up. I was beset by the years upon years of Sunday services that I would have to attend in order to be a good enough Christian. I was fearful that God would know that I was not truly happy to be spending my Sunday's in service.

My mother is an educated woman. She got a master's degree in something to the effect of "biblical studies." This is a dangerous person who gets a master's degree for the hell of it, and this is an exponentially dangerous person when being informed that her son no longer identifies as a Christian. Many of my friends are Christians - and die hard ones at that. They, by and large, endeavor to be deeply moral people, and endeavor to avoid things of ilk of Satan and his many hurtful shenanigans. They still choose, however, to be friends with me, and accept my many less-than-above-board-shenanigans.

For a long time, I felt as though I was broken, somehow. I felt as though I was lacking a code - a creed spelled out by many generations before my own existence was even a thought. I was lacking the wisdom of centuries that those who abided by such schools of thought as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. These people, with whom I was, and am, quite close, held guilt for doing things that I wouldn't lose a moment of sleep for, and I felt lesser for it. Consuming alcohol, having sex, choosing to return a rude service provided to me, etc. I felt guilt for all of these things, but only because I thought that it was necessary and proper to feel guilt for them. I wanted to appear pious, humble, convicted.

I've changed my mind. I am no longer driven by feelings of guilt, or a black and white morality. Living with a set of morals that doesn't grow and change with you, that is not dynamic as the human soul, is a cumbersome thing that does not work for me. I believe in a god, and I believe I may have been designed by him. I believe that, if this is the case, I have been equipped with the ability to write the book of my own morality. I know my values, and to preserve them is to do right by myself. I will draw on many creeds and many words spoken by people smarter than myself in the pursuit of a happier life, but above all else, my values must remain paramount.

I likely sound narcissistic, arrogant, myopic, and any other words you might think of to describe my current school of thought, but what I am arguing for myself is something I would argue that everyone do. Evaluate the rules you were raised by. Evaluate the Apostle's Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Shahada, the thirteen principles of faith. Juxtapose them with your values, and decide if you are doing right by yourself. Believe what you will believe, and let others enjoy the same liberty. Be willing to let yourself learn and move, and not stand stagnant.