Aimless
A worthless man plots evil and his speech is like a scorching fire. Proverbs 16:27
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. The ideas I’ve attempted to write about have been half hearted at best. I would get a draft going but quickly lose interest. I would create and expound on an idea I have for the food trailer in the future, but shut it down for more reasons than I care to share here. I would develop interest in writing about Q; but realize geopolitical events happening are nothing like I imagined. I might start a thread of righteously vindicated grievances; only to find I am simply raging at the machine; and it sounds more like whining than helping. I have been, in a word, “aimless,” as of late.
More than any other time in my life I am experiencing a type of existential dread. I do realize that sounds dramatic, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. In 2024 alone, several close relatives narrowly avoided death, had very extensive stays in hospitals and had to go through intensive physical therapy. We are thankful they are ok, yet at the time, even now, I remember this as traumatic times of life my family and I endured. I had to close down The Masala Skillet, my food truck business I built and enjoyed working. Now, because the business failed, I work a full time job while my wife is now working two part time jobs. A cousin recently passed away. And a brother-in-law is expecting to be with the Lord any day and upon reflection, I realize I am approaching the age of 50, and time is quickly passing. It is indeed a wear on the soul.
I’ve heard this is normal. It may be, but it still sucks. It grieves me, and it hurts the people that are mentally, physically or spiritually going through it.
Let alone that slow justice is coming for a government that deserves to be fired, while corruption continues to bleed out and through America’s veins.
Life is abusive. That is what I have learned this past year. I have been naïve all of my life, believing something that is contrary to this statement. I’m not sure what I thought exactly, but 2020-2024 has shown me there is much outside my control, and it will break people. To quote Westley, the Dread Pirate Roberts, “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.” – The Princess Bride.
The most disturbing part of all of this, besides my own black pilled point of view, is how ill-equipped I am in dealing with this realization. It isn’t as if there wasn’t clues along the way which helped me come to this conclusion, but the past few years have magnified it. People get sick, we lose friends, we lose family, we lose jobs, car accidents happen and people let you down. These are obviously facts of life – OBVIOUSLY. Yet, somehow, despite how clear these facts are, it has remained outside my purview that a good deal of harm can come to unsuspecting, decent people. Why is that? Was I willingly blind? Or was I arrogant enough to think that this kind of thing doesn’t happen to me?
Despite how many feel about him, or his Biblical views, Jordan Peterson has helped to open my eyes to the fact that life is indeed suffering. Not only has he gone through a great deal of pain as a husband and father (his daughter was very ill as a child and teenager), but he has talked to hundreds, if not thousands, of patients over the past three to four decades. He has heard people’s sorrowful stories. He has studied some of the worst tragedies of intentional human suffering in global history. Peterson has studied Dictatorships and Totalitarianism to the point that he understands that not only are people in the past capable of destroying each other in some of the most catastrophic, horrific ways, but that you and I, everyday people, are absolutely predisposed to such behavior too. People hurt people, and they do so malevolently and knowingly.
Evil people come at you, and there’s not much that one can do about this. Deserving or not, circumstances outside my control WILL affect my life. What’s worse is I recognize the evil in my own heart - the anger I feel. It’s not a question of if it will, but when and how I will suffer due to other people’s evil actions, let alone the evil that I personally, actively am capable of doing and sometimes do. Christ did not lie when he said, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34, ESV) Life is indeed full of trouble, and most often at the hands of men, men who rarely put forth their best efforts.
True is the ancient Proverb “Idle hands are the Devils workshop.” And we are idle…men in particular. Which leads me to conclude with the reason I started this writing. Idleness may indeed be the problem. Not enough men are occupying themselves with the highest good of themselves, their families, or their communities writ large. They are just as aimless as I am. They lack wisdom, they lack fear of God, millions of men truly are “Sheep without a Shepherd.” We must repent of our idleness and start aiming upward, toward Heaven, for the good of our families and communities. We MUST start seeking first the Kingdom of God to at least end the suffering that we are responsible for creating. Life is hard enough without our malevolence. Turn to Jesus, who died for our laziness, idleness, and blindness, change your mind about bitterness, and start trying to live for him. At least STOP doing the things you know are screwing up your life.
I want to possibly start writing about some humble endeavors in future posts. Sharing my own lousy point of view and see if it changes as I do indeed start seeking the good, at least from my own point of view of what the Kingdom of God might be. It will be humble beginnings. If it devolves into arrogance, which would be my main concern right now as I hatch up this plan, I will stop.
May God bless it and may it inspire other men to clumsily follow along. God bless you, Reader. I hope you’ll come back and read some more. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
