obstacles

I feel very discouraged about life right now.

On to other things. What I've been realizing about myself lately: In many different contexts, I view people as obstacles that slow me down and prevent me from accomplishing what I want to, or accomplishing what I want to with a lower quality product. And, in a lot of cases, I think that it's true, that there are a lot of things I would do faster, better, and with more enjoyment if I were by myself. But I don't want to view people as obstacles.

I've also been conscious lately of how little people care about a lot of what I care about or that is meaningful to me, especially my memories and my stories, but also interests in fiction and in history and God. In other words, a lot of what I am interested in talking about seems to just bore or confuse my friends.

Here are recent reflections on prayer from someone who hasn't been praying much lately (or have I? hmmm). I've been thinking lately about the faithlessness of prayer. As in, sometimes when people pray it is really a demonstration of their lack of faith in God, rather than their faith in him. Prayer is used in this way like magic, like saying the words in the spell will achieve the required result. It's not actually engaging a living being and asking for a response (or asking for no response). The more I go on, the longer I recognize this in myself, that sometimes what I need to do to really trust God is to not pray in the way that I have been shown to pray, to not pray with words, whether outloud or silently, but to keep moving forward and trust that God is already present and active. I am against Christian superstition and Christian karma, which is what I think a lot of my understanding of God and his interaction with me has been.

tired tired tired