Forever.
That’s a long time whether you think that means for life or for life and beyond.
Either way, it ain’t over till it’s over.
The world can be a difficult and perplexing thing.
That’s ok, everyone secretly feels like that.
And here’s the really good part…
You can decide to make your life happy, or not.
You can decide to be happy, or not.
You can take action to be happy, or not.
And either way, it’s all the same.
There you are. Not happy?
Choose to be happy.
Choose to feel happy.
Choose to do happy.
There is no short cut to happiness. Sorry.
But it’s there if you choose it.
It’s there if you feel it.
It’s there if you be it.
And either way, it’s all the same.
There you are.
Living your choices.
Living your path through consciousness.
And so?
What’s it going to be?
Luckily….
It ain’t over till it’s over.
All you have is right now.
But right now is a powerful thing.
Choose wisely.
Let those who have ears hear.
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
Bear videos help.
The poet, editor and theologian, Christian Wiman, who has an incurable cancer and was diagnosed a few months after he met and married the love of his life, in his essay “Love Bade Me Welcome (Gazing into the Abyss):
“‘It is necessary to have had a revelation of reality through joy,’ Weil writes, ‘in order to find reality through suffering.’ This is certainly true to my own experience. I was not wrong all those years to believe that suffering is at the very center of our existence, and that there can be no untranquilized life that does not fully confront this fact. The mistake lay in thinking grief the means of confrontation, rather than love.”
[He’s quoting the French Christian mystic, Simone Weil.]
Put another way, by Nietzsche,
“To find life authentic only in the apprehension of death, is to pitch your tent at the edge of an abyss … when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
There is no life without pain, just as there is no joy without suffering. There’s no reason to go looking for it, these troubles large and small. They’ll find us, soon enough, and again and again. God sees to that: it is the natural order of things. The question becomes whether, as Wiman writes, we attempt to discover our realities through grief, or joy.
[If anyone is interested in Wiman’s theology of doubt, and the reflections of an important poet on the interplay of art and faith, I commend his book My Bright Abyss (Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2013).
“I was not wrong all those years to believe that suffering is at the very center of our existence, and that there can be no untranquilized life that does not fully confront this fact. The mistake lay in thinking grief the means of confrontation, rather than love.”
Here is an example of his poetry. (There are no easy declarations of happy talk faith with Wiman. Faith is a tenuous moment, only, and a passage to — not from — the world. I love the resolution of this poem, the momentary rejection of the angry nihilism of its opening: “peace came to the hinterlands of our minds, too remote to know …”)
Hammer is the Prayer
There is no consolation in the thought of God,
he said, slamming another nail
in another house another havoc had half–taken.
Grace is not consciousness, nor is it beyond.
To hell with remembrance, to hell with heaven,
hammer is the prayer of the poor and the dying.
And the wind in some lordless random comes to rest,
and all the disquieted dust within,
peace came to the hinterlands of our minds,
too remote to know, but peace nonetheless.
Wiman and Simone Weil see love (in all its forms) as beauty, an aspiration rather than a distraction or tempting failure of the worldly flesh. Wiman notes that in his Southern Baptist upbringing, the way of all flesh was sin and damnation. Today he would say it’s offers potential transcendence. I think he cribbed this from Weil (she died in 1943 at age 36, while working for the French Resistance in London):
“Carnal love in all its forms, from the highest — true marriage or platonic love — to the most base, down to debauchery, has the beauty of the world for its object. Love that gives itself to the spectacle of the heavens, the plains, the sea, the mountains or the silence of nature senses this love in a thousand faint sounds, breaths of wind and the warmth of the sun. Every human being feels it vaguely for at least a moment. It is an incomplete love, sorrowful, because it gives itself to something incapable of response, which is matter. People desire to transfer this love onto a being that is like it, capable of responding to love, of saying ‘yes,’ of yielding to it. The feeling of beauty sometimes linked to the appearance of a human being makes this transfer possible at least in an illusory way. But it is the beauty of the world — the universal beauty — toward which our desire leads. This kind of transfer is expressed in all literature that encompasses love, from the most ancient and most used metaphors and similes of poetry to the subtle analysis of Proust. The desire to love the beauty of the world in a human being is essentially the desire for the Incarnation. If we think it is something else, we are mistaken. The Incarnation alone can satisfy it.”
― Simone Weil, _Waiting for God_
Weil also summarizes quite well, for those such as Ton and me, the principal challenge:
“Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection, there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sigh that you will recognize it.”
All that was really beautiful bv, thanks for sharing that!
I was just horsing around with this post, having an exestensial moment.
Random story: In college I took beginning poetry and loved it. To play with language, the rhythm and flow and cadance of words, fascinated me. The professor encouraged me to continue. The next class was taught by a man who was a contemporary of the beat poets, except he had not experienced their fame and was very bitter. He ripped my poems apart, was highly critical, told me to forget poetry, said I didn’t have it. He detested all my poems except one where i took three random books opened to random pages and composed a poem by taking a word from each page over and over. it was nonsense. he declared it a breakthru. I stopped writing poetry. Have not since. Silly wasn’t it?
Not to over-read your comment, but Wiman explicitly discusses his former existentialism. He notes that (his) God ‘participates’ in the randomness, the often cruel absurdity, of our lives. (This is probably the most difficult aspect for Christians to wrestle with, the atheist creed that no beneficent or moral God could or would permit such things as ISIS.) So he explores this Blakean idea that there is no progression without opposites: that joy and suffering are of a piece.
A further irony is that one of Simone Weil’s best friends and most ardent supporters was … the existentialist Albert Camus. He said she “was the only great spirit of our times.”
So Wiman’s take is that God calls some to belief — and explicitly calls others to unbelief — so that new forms of faith may emerge.
Apologies if I am dropping too much theology on the table this morning. Wiman is having an impact on me.
***
On poetry, some of the nastiest people on the planet are the self-loathing, frustrated “writing teachers”, who often harbor status envy even for their own students (because they are young and the verdict on their talent is years and years away).
But if you enjoy poetry, it like many things does not have a “sell-by” date.
My mother is a very damaged person. She has only one carotid because of an aneurism; two years after that, at age 27, she disappeared into schizophrenia and never came back. Then in old age she was hit by a pickup truck while crossing the street, and was thrown 30 feet and fractured her skull. Her surgeon showed me her film and the most eerie thing was seeing a cranial cavity only 80% filled (because of the carotid ligature and reduced blood flow). He told me that she had already outlived her odds by 30 years, and not to expect any sort of recovery.
Well. As a little girl she wanted to be a poet. She can’t really do anything or spend time with people, but she writes better today than she ever has and is published a few times a year in professional journals.
@ bv I can see why you like those writers, much to think about there. Especially that the one died so young, and yet had wisdom that some never do in a lifetime. I am glad she wrote those thoughts down and that you took the time to share them!
Yes I can see that, joy and suffering are two sides of the same coin, the yin and the yang. To completely avoid suffering is not possible, as much as we may wish it were.
Though it seems to me people choose self imposed suffering far too often, when life itself is going to impose random suffering enough, why ruin the “good” days by focusing on the negatives and so on? Perhaps people feel they can somehow ward off the BIG suffering if they take it in small daily doses?
This idea of living in the moment is one I am working on, to be in the present and not ruminating on the future or the past.
I like that thought of loving the universe, the world, the sunshine, the rocks, the trees, and water, and air, and all the wonder of it. Some believe we are all interconnected, that we are the universe and the universe is us and that love is the force that powers the whole she-bang. Talk about one heck of a screaming O, lol!
That is amazing that your mom can write and continues to write. I hope it brings her joy. Sounds like she, and by extension you and your family, have all suffered because of her illness. My father passed away at age 27, in some ways your mother did too, but didn’t. Both tragedies in their own right, both forces that have shaped us into who we are, the good and the bad and the indifferent. How old were you when your mom was 27, if you don’t mind me asking?
Like the writer who passed too soon, our days are numbered as well, so today I am wishing you (and everyone!) a fabulous one filled with the sun on your skin filling your soul with the love of the universe! Oooommmmm… 🙂
Ok, now I am being existentially silly!
Likely due to reading the blog of underdaddy who I have no idea how he found my blog but he liked this post. Now that is some side splitting funny stuff, and someone who can spin a heck of an engaging yarn. Well worth checking out!
@ fuzzie my 3 year old and I watched the bear video several times this morning! There were many giggles. Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
Ok, if you are drinking liquids put them down, then have a read… this is some laugh out laugh funny stuff (I think!) Maybe it’s because I have young kiddos myself and can so relate…. http://underdaddy.com/2015/02/10/vaccinate-or-lgtsowi/
Bloom, everybody would have been better off if she had died. I was 5, which is the age at which I started cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children (younger siblings). Because I was a usurper, I was in the hospital for the first time at 7.
“Though it seems to me people choose self imposed suffering far too often …”
As Wiman notes, we’re all taught to pursue wisdom in grief. That’s a mistake. It’s a popular, well-entrenched mistake. But it’s a mistake.
@ bv I can see why you would say that. I grew up real fast too after losing my dad. Kind of lost my mom too at the same time, as she was overwhelmed with her own grief. So I get it, not the best times or memories.
I like this Wiman character! I will have to read more.
Redpillgirlnotes,
I am glad that I could bring a little joy to a three year old. Here’s another.
Screw “happiness”. I choose to be awesome instead.
And awesome you are Sumo!
I am not sure if you have seen Kung Fo Panda but a great line of many from that movie is “there is no extra charge for awesomeness.” 🙂
Hi everyone … checking in, rarely come here. Nice seeing all the old faces are still around and seems this place has picked up …
To address the original article, Ms Bloom I think you have not taken the Red Pill to the degree that you think you have. Let me see if I can explain. See … many times happiness is not a choice. There is no choice at all. You, Ms Bloom, only think there is choice because YOU HAVE CHOICE. You are female. And live in a time and place dominated by the FI. You are respected. You, your choices, your lifestyle, your view.
For men in the present age, it is like we are Jewish living in Nazi Germany in 1941. We live in fear. We don’t know how it got this way. Nobody told us. We believed the lies we were fed. For who would have believed the truth ? Even if someone was to say that Jews were being rounded up by the millions, in countries all over Europe, and imprisoned just for being Jewish. And being starved. And tortured. And worked to death. Gassed and deskinned and made into lampshades. Women. Children. Entire families. The elderly. Even if someone told us, would we have believed it ?
That is our reality as males … NOT YOURS. That is happening to me. Not you. You and the rest of female kind could care less. And most of them would actually be relieved if 80% of men were rounded up an exterminated.
For men like BV and I, we got put on the trains. Saw the evil. We got beat up, arrested, tied down, and had a 2×4 shoved up our asses. We were tatted with a serial number of death and put on a train. But being smart enough and educated enough and aware enough … we managed to avoid the end game, we hopped off the train of death before it reached its final destination.
This means we are alive. I am alive but I am damaged. I am alive … but, no, we have no choice any longer. We cannot choose happiness. You can … you, with all your privileges the power of the FI grants you. But we can’t. We can choose to end it and many do. Some do that and take out others. Or we can choose to suffer in silence. Or we could choose to go public with our outrage and end up in prison and die there just like they would like. ANY MAN WHO STANDS UP AND VOICES HIS OUTRAGE AT THE CURRENT SITUATION IS A THREAT THAT MUST BE EXTERMINATED … so says the Femin-NAZIS. A term that is more apropos than people know.
All of the above leaves me without a choice to be happy. And, yes. this means that evil wins. The ONLY sane choice men like me have is to voice our opinion on the interwebz to see if we can learn to deal with the pain of being gang raped and threatened with death. And while doing so, avoid offending the criminals who are running this asylum; which is getting harder and harder every day. And, yeah, the asylum is known as the Matrix and the enforcers are known as Smith.
That, my friends, is the definition of taking the Red Pill. I kinda feel like M3; just wish it made me feel better or at least gave me a choice.
The Rocket
Rocket I get what you are saying, I do benifit from the current fi. I did not ask for that not agree w it but I see what you are saying. I don’t know how to make that right except to try and help other women see the faults of the current fi.
I agree it is lose lose currently, absolutely. All I can hope is for illumination…. And that I am a small part of that. Peace!
Rocket:
Epic comment.
I don’t think I could say I’m happy. Hell, most women aren’t happy, and they have it easier with more advantages that at any previous time in recorded history. Women have every advantage, every comfort, everything handed to them, sex on tap and available to them anytime they want it or need it 24/7/365, and they’re STILL not happy. Most women could have husbands if they wanted them, if they were willing to compromise just a little bit; and most women do eventually get married when they want to on their timetables, and they’re STILL not happy.
I can say, though, that I’m content. Even though I live in the same world Rocket does and see the same things he sees, have experienced many of the same things he has, I’m content. I know and see the truth. I have a wife, though I know how close to divorce I came. I have my kids, who are growing up relatively well. They have the safety and security of their parents, and a predictable life. I have a good job. I have a home and working cars; I have much (but not all) of what I want and everything I need.
I am content, and that is good enough.
My focus is on being healthy, not happy. I was happy for 40 minutes last fall, for the first time in 10 years, but I arrived home and turned on my phone. A text: If I wouldn’t marry her, I couldn’t see her.
So I focus on being healthy. I’m not about to rebuild my emotional life and balance sheet a third time. She’s miserable now. But her sex has created this environment. She will understand better when one of her sons gets the treatment. But it will be too late for us.