I wonder if I'll ever actually write another essay for my blog? The prospect seems dim at the moment. Even my reading has fallen off the map. I've only finished two books since the beginning of June, and none since the end of July. I can't seem to stay focused on the books I've been trying to read.
I went out last night for Happy Hour with friends from work. We had a really good time, although I drank too much. Have paid the price for it today, but expect to get a good night's sleep tonight. A bunch of people showed up, so it was a good time. My face hurt from laughing so much. I'm sure I made an idiot out of myself.
I slept funny last night or something, because my ear - and particularly my ear lobe - has been numb all day. I first noticed it in the shower this morning after I had been leaning kind of funny on my shoulder, so I'm not sure if it started at that point, or if I had actually done it during the night. In any case, I'm guessing it must be a nerve in my neck that is irritated or something. Either that, or a tumor is cutting off the blood supply to my ear. I did have a few moments of panic at the thought that I was having a stroke.
In-laws are coming over on Sunday for dinner, so we have been cleaning around the house today, which is even less fun with a hangover. I did nap for a while to the soft sounds of the Weather Channel reporting on Hurricane Irene. The Weather Channel is a great station for napping.
I think maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis.
3 comments:
I have a couple friends who read your blog regularly that think its within the realm of possibility that God has intentionally inflicted you with this "mini depression" as some sort of penalty or consequence for your open and outwardly public view that Jesus is in fact, not divine. Thoughts?
Thanks for bringing up the subject, Trent. Yeah, I have some thoughts :)
1. Philosophically, it's ridiculous.
I'm not the only person on earth who claims Jesus isn't divine, nor the only one who does so publicly. The majority of the world denies Jesus's divinity, after all.
I'm also, of course, not the only *Christian* who makes that claim. There are lots of us. We're not all depressed. In fact, to hear people talk, most of them are quite happy.
2. Theologically, it's ridiculous.
Even when I was a traditionally-believing Christian, I never believed in a Punisher God. I never felt the need to assume that bad things that happened to me in life were God's punishment (unless I was having a particularly messy pity party). That wasn't the kind of Christianity I ever embraced. The Bible certainly supports no such notion.
3. Psychologically, it's ridiculous.
I have always suffered from anxiety and depression, literally back to childhood. It's part and parcel with my creative mind and the fact that I feel things very deeply. I control it very well at this point in my life.
4. Scientifically, it's ridiculous.
Clinical depression and anxiety are the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain, which has a physiological cause that can be observed and replicated, and which can be pharmaceutically and therapeutically controlled.
So, to sum up, I think it's ridiculous :)
Thank you for this brilliant response, Scott. If all I need to do is believe in Jesus's divinity to be happy, then why did I suffer from hypochondria and other anxiety through almost the entirety of my late childhood and young adulthood when I was as devout as devout can be?
I think this might be a good time to pull out some Biblical verses about judging not, lest ye be etc, but I'll shut up now.
Post a Comment