Looking Up Lucifer for the First Time
Yesterday I did a video for the September 16th vlog talking about the battle for my soul, feeling like there is this battle between maybe Christ and Satan, both vying for my soul. So I looked up Lucifer, for the first time. I ended up finding some Christian testimonials talking about their experience with Satanism, and predictably it is awful. And yet a lot of the influences I've had have come through culture, where all kinds of black magic, Satanism, Lucifer, all kinds of that is thrown everywhere in our pop culture. To me, the idea is to get people interested and get people practicing even if they don't realize it.
So I'm feeling kind of lost today. Are any of you feeling lost? I don't know what to believe anymore. I think I'm going to need to make up my own belief system, because what's difficult is when I don't know how to even evaluate what I'm doing. When I try to run my dating life through any kind of belief system, maybe it makes sense if I run my dating life through a Christian belief system: well, God is going to have the right woman for me, and it hasn't worked out with the other women because I just am not ready, or God's timing is not right. And if I run it through something like Satanism, it's: well, you haven't sacrificed and given enough to earn it, or whatever. I just don't see anything that appeals to me.
Take the Christian testimonials, where they say, "Yeah, I got out of Satanism, and I just prayed out to God, please help, and I just know it was Jesus who saved me." All right, that's a bit of a leap of faith there. When I prayed for help with my money and I prayed to the Shepherd of Fire, I was like, well, how do you know that's who answered? How do you know it just wasn't some kind of affirmation to myself? Now, I do believe fundamentally that I am the creator. I am God. All things are my creation, and from that lens I'm just constantly creating in real time, and everything I'm creating is my desire to create. But then, while that works on a deep spiritual level, on a human level I don't know how to act with that. From that point of view I can just kind of do whatever I want. And maybe that point of view needs to have some more solidified beliefs. But maybe it's breaking things into right and wrong that causes problems.
The Lone Wolf, AA, and the Higher Power
For example, with the woman I was dating that I called the Queen and I'll now call the Lone Wolf: she's big into Christianity, and to me it looks like that has sabotaged her dating life, especially with me and perhaps with others. From what I see, that's something that has not been giving to her, and she'd be better off without it. But what would she have instead of that? She didn't seem that much better off before that.
And I've gone to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), and it's all about God and doing God's will. Well, what happens when, who knows God's will? Why is it other people who seem to be telling me what God's will is for me? I've gotten very down on the whole higher power idea, anything that's besides me. In AA, people have been like, "Well, the thing with the higher power is you just have to know that it's not you." Why? Where does that idea come from? I realize that this human body by itself would not be a higher power, but why not whoever is here before, during, and after? Whatever I really am, that would be a higher power, and that would be all of us. That seems to be at the core of Jesus's teachings. But then some of these same ideas about power are wrapped into all different kinds of faith.
The Devil Worshipers Seem to Have Almost Everything
If you look around the world, it seems like the devil worshipers have all the positions in popular, not all, but a lot of the positions in authority, in power, in popular culture, music, games. The devil worshipers seem to have almost everything. And then the people who are often very religious are just ending up sacrificing daily, and often they don't seem to be getting a whole lot for that. But then even the ones who do seem questionable. Okay, why does this person have all this stuff? Are they doing something else besides whatever they ought to be doing according to their faith? And at the same time, if you hear people's experience with the devil worshiping, they're miserable. I personally, when I was more drawn into those influences, hated myself. I had a hard time having empathy and love for other people. Do I want to live in a world like that? No.
But then how am I going to date, when it seems like for me anything even close to Christian dating doesn't seem to work at all? A woman that's Christian doesn't think I'm Christian enough, and with me wanting to have a family and stuff, well, "Oh, he's divorced. I don't want a man that's divorced in my ideal Christian marriage." In the idea of some Christians, my divorce is just a big failure: well, that probably shouldn't happen; if you really had God in your relationship, that wouldn't happen. How do I even look at things anymore? I guess this can be a good thing, the breaking down of all these ideas. I just have a hard time believing in anyone and anything at this point. When you tell me the idea that Jesus is going to save you, just give your life to him, I'm like, where's the proof of that? I see no proof of that. I look around: give me a sign, give me anything concrete that makes that accurate. But then you see people that are devil worshiping, and they appear to have all these things materially, and they're miserable. They're lost in their addictions and chaos. And some of the ideas for this, like sacrifice, are just horrible, and I know I can't do that. I know I can't do that, and I'm not here to just become one of these dark people. But then a lot of religions don't look like the light to me either. And then me being God doesn't make it clear what I need to do on a day-to-day basis as a human.
Writing My Own Code of Beliefs
So it seems like I need to just write my own code of beliefs up, because I'm not sure how to even evaluate my own behavior and my own results in the world. I'm not sure what I can change and what I can't change. My friend was telling me, when I was pining over the Lone Wolf, "The serenity prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." And I'm like, I'm not sure how much I can affect someone else. I know I can have some effect on other people. And I'm not sure how much I can even affect myself at this point. I know I can have a significant effect on myself, but how much is it, and how fast is it? I try to fall asleep, and I stay awake. And then I decide to go to sleep, and then I do go to sleep. It's so baffling.
So if you're confused out there, that's okay. To me, I kind of am a little envious of people who think they've gone one place or another and found all the answers, because I know the dark devil worshipers don't have the answers I'm looking for. But I also know the "Jesus has saved me and has done everything for me" people don't have the answers I'm looking for there either. And I don't see another religion, or even a belief system, that looks like it has all the answers. And then without a belief system, I go around and I don't know how to act. I don't know right from wrong. I don't know good from bad. If I'm trying to date with one point of view or another, there are drastically different ways to go about it. Maybe I should start my own religion. But I don't like the idea of just pushing my beliefs onto someone else and saying, well, this is how it is. To me, almost all the belief systems out there are just taking someone else's beliefs and then pushing them on the people that follow them, and that doesn't feel right to me either. So I guess that kind of makes me agnostic these days. But I do know there is a higher power, and I do know me and that higher power are not separate, that the illusion of separateness is the confusion.
A Black Sheep in AA
Oh, I'm glad I'm willing to embrace the confusion today, because to me a lot of people run way too quick and just grab onto answers and make bad decisions. And I felt a little awkward after my last video. I made it sound like I'm just going to go run to the devil and that he's going to save me. It's like, no, that's ridiculous. Isn't it? I didn't mean for it to quite come out that way. But not all those who wander are lost. There's a time, I guess, to find a belonging with your people, whoever they are. For quite a while I felt like I belonged in AA, but now I feel like a black sheep in AA, because I'm not going to go to an AA meeting and be like, "I am not God. Some other person, tell me what to do. Give me direction."
Lots of times the things that look good on the surface, like "I believe in God and I love other people," then for some reason come with all this: I'm awful, I'm a selfish piece of shit, I need to sacrifice. Some of these AA meetings I've gone to, where people share "God saved me," it's the same kinds of things you would often hear in a Christian testimonial, and people leave feeling like shit from that because they hear all this stuff. And I imagine some of these things that are real downers end up leaving people feeling good afterwards. And that's what's so crazy. I feel like I can't tell what's up and down anymore, what's right and wrong, what's left and right. I can only look at results. I'm happy for all the women I've met and dated this year. I am unhappy with the results: that I don't have a single connection that seems like there's anything there, that every woman I've dated has either run from me or I've ended up withdrawing and giving up on her. There's this single mom now, and I just give up. All right, it's not worth it. It's not worth it for me.
The Juice Is Not Worth the Squeeze
I'm the one not texting her back. I'm like, it's not worth it. This is too much effort and trouble for what? The juice is not worth the squeeze, so to speak. I'm just like, I give up. But I know I can't. I love the idea that I could just give up on dating and magically find a woman. And then some of my friends, two of the guys I was talking to today, were like, "Yeah, that's why I don't date anymore, because this is so screwed up and hopeless." And I'm like, I don't want to be like that either.
I guess I just have to chart my own path: this is what I want to be like, and this is what I believe, and this is what matters to me. And maybe I can cherry-pick from all the religions and all the ideas. I can cherry-pick and put my own thing together. And I do love the power, I do love the power that's available in all the different belief systems. And maybe there is some belief system out there. My one friend said I should explore Scientology and that a lot of their ideas align with my ideas. And I'm like, yeah, but then he describes the inner circle and how bad it gets. I'm like, see, why does that always happen? You have a great idea on the surface, like love and kindness and serve others and help your brothers and treat your neighbor as thyself. Then you have people dating that aren't able to make a connection and refuse to even date you unless they think you're Christian enough. Then they have self-sabotaging ideas that stop them from forming a real connection with another person based on their religion. And then they're guilting and shaming themselves all the time about what they did before because of their religion. And it's like, there's got to be a way. There's got to be a way to put all this together in a way that works, that's filled with love and that's filled with joy.
Love and Light With Dark Energy Underneath
I went to these hippie spiritual love and light gatherings, and it's all love and light and silliness and happiness and playfulness. And there's this horrible dark energy that pervades underneath everything. You have all these people going there, and I'm just looking to be friends, platonic friends. And then people are banging like crazy in cars, and it just feels totally dishonest, the love and light. And then there's gossip and backstabbing. As soon as the love and light ceremony is over, it's "Oh, this is so great," and then everybody's talking about how bad it is later.
Or maybe this is just polarity, where you always have positive and negative, good and bad, and that's relative. One person's idea of good is another person's idea of bad. And it's all relative. So there really is no good. There is no bad. There's no up. There's no down. It's all your point of view. And if I can get anything out of this, I'd like to say there is no objective reality. There is no God's point of view where everything is a certain way and everything is correctly balanced right and wrong and everyone's correctly labeled good and bad. There is none of that. There is no objective reality. All reality is subjective. Your point of view is always relative. There is no absolute point of view. But maybe there could be. But it's me. Oh, wow.
Time to Write Down What I Believe
I guess it's time to write down what I believe. It's time to write my own belief system. Maybe it shouldn't be that long, but maybe it's time to take inventory of what I believe. I believe in the value of having a family. I believe in relationships. I believe in being honest in dating, not acting all one way. Some of the guys are telling me, "Yeah, you can't chase these women at all. Let them chase you." But then other women are out there saying, "If a guy's not chasing you, he doesn't like you." It's so inconsistent. It's so confusing. And this is why I think a lot of people are desperate for somebody to just tell them how it is. They're desperate to stop thinking critically and instead just take all these simple ideas and say, this is how it is. It's God's will or the devil's: if you're not doing God's will, you're doing the devil's will. And then the devil people are like, "Y'all are fools for serving God. We have all the nice cars and yachts and houses, and we own all this shit, and y'all are fools." And you can't say either one is necessarily right or wrong, because it depends on your perspective.
Boy, it is at least nice to talk things out. And it is at least nice to acknowledge this publicly, the way I keep doing day after day in my Daily Vlogs playlist, because so many people come at you like they have the answers: "This is my testimony, and this is how it is, and this is what I believe, and this is what's right, and anybody who thinks differently is wrong." That's ridiculous. Nobody has all the answers.
And I hope I can at least figure out what I believe and what's right for me.