So I just went through all of my old posts and realized how one person can go through a myriad of situations in just a few years. Things that define you and make you rethink who you are. Prose you write and hurts you feel. How bad you are and your big aspirations to improve. I feel like I have a better concept of life and more of a desire to live well. I am not anywhere near where I wanted to be but I am not all that sad about it either. I mean I do always want to improve my situation but I also can't live my life to reach a standard that someone else has placed for me. My views on spirituality, government, love, hate, friends and family have all changed. My approach to life is older minded. Things are more terminal, more absolute and yet less black and white. I guess it is all divided up because some has to do with the here and now, the living aspect and the some have to do with the death and legacy of me.

With just the fear that if there is a choice of an afterlife in which to spend, our eternal life has a lot to do with wanting to fall into the normal mantras and practices of modern religion according to traditional teachings and requirements. But living life as a human in the here and now lends our common sense to a more nonjudgmental, compassionate way of life. Separating tradition from common sense and shaking it a little to see what works and what falls and fails is what I like to think I have done. I want so bad to love people the way they need to be loved. I want to offer them hope. That the God I love thinks they're worth a damn. In the past, in using God's name in vain I've said, "Come as you are" and never meant it. I meant, "Come as you are for now until our system can change you". The deal is that nowadays I want people to love me how I am so why not me for them. Asking someone to change so someone will love them more is such a horrible message to teach our children and peers.

Wars and conflicts and arguments are all started when one person is not happy with who the other person is or might become. I can't say that if religion didn't exist there would be no wars, because people are often greedy. But anytime we recite some levitical law as our compass to righting a wrongdoer, we completely bypass the teachings of Jesus to love others as we would want to be loved or as we love ourselves. The religious wars of our ancestors up to present day are mostly fought between a father and son, two best friends, a  catholic and a  protestant, or me and you. I want so bad to not be that man, the man that instills fear and hatred into the proverbial nonbelievers or the hesitant prospect. I don't even like to categorize folks into those names. But the more polarized we make God the more our friends, family and strangers will categorize us into the "typical christian" slot. Who wants to be in that? Conformed individuals make no individual footprints, they make ruts, ditches that are broad and easy to fall into. I refuse to be a contributor to that. I feel God would hold me accountable in continuing to invoke his name to compensate for my fear. If I fight a war, it's the war to bring to light the things that matter, like relationships, global community, societal responsibility, and the true religion of genuine love for others more than ourselves.

The true message of Christ was for community and he was a reformist for change. THAT'S who I follow. He is given credit for being the only way to heaven, but forget heaven and forget hell, if there were neither, the way modern religion refers to him is of little use. They slide over the ground-breaking references to his social reform ideas and his simple socialistic way of life. They skip to the political and dogmatic things of their chosen religion, the very thing he was fighting against. Son of God, born of a virgin, worked, taught, made folks mad, was crucified. raised, forgave, ascended. Out of all of that, there are three things that apply directly to us here and now: lived life, learned and taught, and faced difficulty. The rest are just semantics. Things that can and will be argued for as long as we are here. The one message that we over look is community. I realize that now more than ever the older you get the more you long for it. We need each other. The basis God intended biblically was for us to be in quality relationship with each other and we cant do that if we are busy trying to recruit for a religion. Let love do what it was meant to do.

My out look on love and romantic love have changed too. Seeing that some of you have not known me for all that long, I assume that you don't know the innocent beginnings of my sorted past. Love was never a notion I thought of as a hard thing. I thought that if I followed God's will, prayed, read my bible and  believed, that true love would fall in my lap. Through some disappointing attempts I learned that love was something psychological and personality-centered as much as it was attractiveness or sexual. I had no real guide or compass to go by . After all I was just a skinny white kid from a small town with small town ways. In this small town everyone that is married is unhappy. It's just the way life is in "small town" southern America. People stay married for the kids and because it is sin to divorce. Nobody had taught them the right way to choose a partner that would fulfill them until their dying day either. It was Prairie Grove. God's country. Small town. Old school. The way it had always been. Prairie Grove is a well-meaning town with great people and great memories. Church, school and family was the speed of life and not much else. My family was functional as far as I knew. But were we? The one thing I never learned but always desired was how to find a mate and be happy. How to keep the one I choose was the other obvious one. I wanted so much more than the typical small town wife and kids and two car lean-to shed. I wanted, and still want happiness.

Through trial and mostly error I found that a good match was hard to find and the ones I did find were such bad choices. Not because they were bad people, but because I didn't know how to choose well. So much goes into it. So as I tried and failed, I gave up on trying. people would ask me if I was going to date again or marry and I always said, "probably not". It was a cop out, because by that time I had grown accustomed to singleness and that had given me a way out. No responsibility meant no hurting. But I did hurt. It spread into other parts of my life that I didn't want it to. Selfishness is an everyday battle for me and I try to keep from giving in. But I do, and often. Fear usually rules my judgment. I can't long-term anything because it requires intimacy and vulnerability. Two things that are emotionally exhausting to most anyone if you have to dole them out regularly. And who want to do that? So instead of opening my self up I shut it down and just made surface relationships... because I was and still am scared.

But something has changed in me in recent months. I have grown up a bit or just gotten wise to the idea that relationship without vulnerability is not a relationship, it's a onesided acquaintance. Their is no real fulfillment in that for either side. It delays the inevitable. That being solitude, and no one is to blame but the one who keeps themself closed off. Yeah, I can say what I mean, be emotional, have moments, let my heart flutter, and genuinely love people, but only to an extent. Spiritually speaking it doesn't allow me to grow either. It's the boy who blocks his own shot if you will. Play a good game but your playing yourself... no teammates. I am tired of that. Occasional cases of being alone is one thing but making it a life style is another. If I never marry or date again I still need to change my outlook on life with others, intimate or surface.

Everything is absolute because it is you that determines your legacy. Long after you are gone and people forget your name, the way you live your life is going to bleed from one person to the next. Just like parents are the product their parents, we, good or bad, might possibly be the product of ours and so on. If I want to change the cycle of thoughts of religion, love, and family dynamic I have to break the mold. WE have to break the mold. When I was a kid, I wanted more. Not more money or bigger an better things, I wanted to find what makes me happy today and twenty years from now. Lasting things. Things that would change my life and affect the ones after me. Not to remember my name but  remember what real lasting love is. Or how you treated your spouse, or that homeless guy, your mother, a sick friend or stranger, or how we treated each other with as much respect as humanly possible, being fair, being understanding, and loving others over ourselves. Jesus taught that it's easy to love people that are good to you, and it is. But obviously the challenge is to love those that you don't agree with, and that's hard for all mankind. We don't naturally tend that way. All the more reason to do so. That is where gray areas shine.

Who cares if this one's gay and this one's straight or this one's christian and this one's atheist. They are human. We are responsible for the wellbeing and decent treatment of any of God's creations. If you don't agree with someone's lifestyle or someone's conclusion of religion in either way, that's fine. But don't hate or treat them like second hand citizens. It just does not line up with what is actually common sense or decent human treatment.

One thing that is the same over the past few years is my desire to be happy with myself and ultimately with others. I want to be happy... period. That's my selfish want. Not to have the knowledge that makes my brain happy, or touch and feel what makes my body happy, or get and attain what makes my wallet happy, but to receive what makes my soul happy. All those other things are fine and good, but to feel like my heart has love, my mind has purpose and my soul is full will make me satisfied.

 This is only my aspiration. I am too human and I am prone to delve into personal selfish wants. I know I will fail miserably sometimes at some or all that I aspire to accomplish. All I can do is try. And really that is all I can ask of any of you is to simply try. That is all we have anyway. No more or less than an honest try.

Thank you, and I do love you.

Brian Dotson

So this is me.

I am tall and have brown hair.

I am a photographer.

I'm a dork.

I like old movies.

Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors.

I believe in God.

I despise churches.

I love cities.

I love the country too

I hate bathrooms close to hangout areas.

I also hate when there's no vents in the bathroom to make noise in the bathroom while I'm in the bathroom.

I hate not remembering the words to songs.

I love the fall.

I love friends and family.

I love movies.

I love Flea Markets.

I am dirt poor.

Because I am horrible with money.

And I don't make S%^& for wages.

I am saying all of this to say that I am no one and someone all in one. I am gifted and lacking. I am smug and friendly. I am capable of absolute greed and absolute compassion. I am capable. You like me, I hate me. It's a war with no exit strategy.

I am saying nothing new here. Nothing deep. Nothing important to any of you. Nothing gained or lost. Nothing on this post makes a difference to any of you.

I am not special in the grand scheme of things. But neither is anyone else. We are all great and low. That's the joy of it all. We are all very gloriously flawed, and I am so proud of that. I love being human. I thank God for that. We live, we sin, we become saints, we die. It is all a cycle. It's sometimes a sick, sick cycle. Most of the time fairness is fleeting... Who wouldn't love it. Congrats to all of you who have decided to participate in this life with me. I love you all;) 

 

                       Bryanne Daughtsun

 

Sarcasm isn't always interpreted correctly when read.