Decisions

Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

The problem with decisions: in a Sandbox RPG, like Oblivion or Fallout, I have this awesome option. If I don't like my decision, I can reload to my last save point. It's phenomenal because then I can get everything right. If it doesn't work the first time, I have second tries.

There is also online walkthroughs. If I'm stuck, or don't know the best way to do things, I can do it that way. Follow the instructions, which tell me the outcome, and the fallout of each decision.

Everyone knows real life isn't like this.

Instead, we make decisions based on limited information with the hopes that we predict well enough to prepare ourselves for the fallout of our decisions.

Instead, we take a shot in the dark, and pray to god that our decision doesn't FUCK everything UP.

Instead, we take shelter in a book that tells us the maker of the game can work all our decisions together towards a happy ending.

The bible tells me that, no matter my decisions, if I'm a jesus person, god will work everything together "for my good," What a terribly, unfairly vague phrase.

I believe that god works nothing together for good because things work themselves to whatever.





Here's my problem:
You can argue that Chopin is a feminist, fighting the patriarchy, or that she is supporting stereotypes of women and facilitating the patriarchy. Both have enough evidence. Neither is wrong. If you write a paper about either, they both have potential to be fantastic essays.

Here's my problem:
No matter what decision I make, I know it will be. It wont be good, it wont be bad. It will just BE. It's neither right nor wrong, better nor worse. If I choose left, then I will go left, and the whole time I will either be glad that I am going left or disappointed that I went left. It doesn't MATTER. I cannot make a decision knowing this.


It is a fools errand that seeks to follow a cosmic plan. The futility of the desperate. So, I guess, people like me?

Just when I think I have shit figured out...shit happens. That's the theme of the world. The fucking universe. Shit happens. Why? Doesn't matter. How? Doesn't matter. The fact is, shit happens. It doesn't matter if you made it happen or if it happens to you. It's still happening. What decision to you HAVE? You can give shit or take shit. You can make shit or destroy shit. You can kill shit or you can be shit. I don't know what I'm saying anymore.



God might work all things together for the good of those who love him. Or god might watch shit happen, while we attribute our biological instinct to survive to him.

I can't make a decision. It's too terrifying. I want a save point. I want a walkthrough. I want to read the decisions of my character before I make them, and know what the reactions and fallout will be.

Show me a good idea.

Shit happens, already.

Quote: The AA approach to shit.

"Shit happens - one day at a time"

I can't believe I tear up when I read this. One day at a time. Shit happens, but only one day at a time. Is that hope?

Hospice

Funny, the last time I blogged, it was to post the lyrics to Two by The Antlers. Now I'm here again because I just want to post them again. I've probably listened to this song like 30 times in three days.



...These are hard songs to listen to. "Hospice" by The Antlers is a concept album that centers around a woman dying of cancer, the doctor who fell in love with her, and the intense emotional abuse that she subjects him to. When I was given this album, it was by a friend whose mother was dying of cancer, which somehow makes it much more real.

I think what terrifies me so much about this song and this album is the degree to which the line between love and hate has been erased. It questions marriage, and almost makes a mockery of it. It talks about being physically abused. It talks about co-dependance so overwhelmingly powerful that it cripples and disables. It talks about abortion and suicide and violence and hatred.

The climax of the song deserves a repost:

Well, no one's going to fix it for us; no one can. You say that no one's gonna listen, no one understands.

There's no open door, there's not way to get through. There's no other witnesses. Just us two.

Two people living in one small room, and your two half families tearing at you,

Two ways to tell the story (no one worries); two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry.

Two people talking inside your brain; Two people believing that I'm the one to blame.

Two different voices coming out of your mouth when I'm too cold to care and too sick to shout.


You could just tell a story with lines from the album. A sad, sad story.

• I wish that I had known in that first minute we met the unpayable debt that I owed you.

• Sylvia, you are unlike any other. Let me take your temperature, and you can throw the thermometer right back at me if that's what you want to, okay?

• We're not scared of making caves or finding food for him [our unborn child] to eat - we're terrified of one another; terrified of what that means.

• I'd gladly take all those bullets inside you and put them inside of myself.

• Sylvia, can't you see what I'm doing? Can't you see I'm scared to speak, and I hate my voice cause it only makes you angry.

• All the while, we'll know we're fucked and not getting unfucked soon.

• When you're awake, I'm impossible, constantly letting you down.

• Oh someone, anyone, tell me how to stop this. She's screaming, expiring, and I'm her only witness. I'm freezing, infected, and rigid in that room inside her. No one's gonna come as long as I lay still in bed beside her.

• Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears inside your head, now he greases them up. And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating; Eighty seven pounds! And this all bears repeating

What do you say to that? I just think of the man and woman and I grieve for the people that can identify with any of this.