08-20-03 @ 10:45 am EDT

Well, it really sucks wanting to write in your journal yet not having a single thing to write about, doesn't it? :/

It isn't quite that I don't HAVE anything to write about...just that I wouldn't know how to phrase it. I've been thinking about things and I can't put them into words without feeling like a total idiot...I've been wanting to, but just can't. I thought I would do it in my paper journal, but they haven't appeared there yet. I even considered opening up a semi-private journal here, passcoded, and inviting the person I want to see all that bla bla bla, but I know the words would not come then either. There are slews of things I just never say because I'm never asked in the right way. It's like I have to be led before I will talk about certain things. And when people have no clue what to ask you, they don't ask you. So things go unsaid.

I realize that made no sense, even probably to the person it was intended for, so I guess I should just drop it...I can never seem to go anywhere with the subject, even once it's hinted at or brought up. It's something that is always being swept under the carpet--most likely by me. I'm not laying blame on anyone for anything, just stating it. It's not like I have made any effort myself to keep it in the limelight. If anything, whenever somebody DOES bring it up, I dally about commenting on it for so long, not knowing how to say it, that they probably think I'm bored of the subject anyway.

I hate having ideas in my head that just can't come out properly, yet insist on hanging out up there day in and day out. That's what I've been thinking about the past several days. And I can't even say what it is. Not even in fiction. *sigh*

I've got Skew entirely backed up to the hard drive. I want to print it out again. IMMENSE waste of paper, I know, but this way, even should I lose access to all online versions of it (like when Writing.com inevitably goes under in the next year or so--c'mon, you know it has to happen sooner or later), I can make sure every entry is formatted the same and I won't have stupid URLs at the bottom either. I went and fixed the two "invalid item" links I had remaining from the copy (there are many more now, but they weren't there before I copied it to another site), and figured out even how to put images in WPS files so those are there too. The only boogery things are the sigs whenever they're mentioned--if I had taken note of what titles were in them I would have copied those too, at least where they were referred to in an entry. But I didn't, so there are no sigs. Blah. It's my PERSONAL JOURNAL, why does it matter so much? It does, but I can't do anything about it. I hate being anal. Rather than back it all up into one endless file I saved it as Skew2001, Skew2002, and Skew2003 (in progress). There is also my anonymous journal from another site, and Skew2, and I'm in the process of copying TheDreamforest. I want to print them all out and shelve them and have my own journal collection. I know, I'm a loser. In addition I would have The Ugly Orange Journal Of Tehuti (the name I gave to my composition book...inspired, isn't it) and whatever else should come along later.

I have a strong desire to name a personal journal "Silver Eleven," after that entry, but with Skew still moving along and TUOJOT just started, I don't see where or how I could fit that in. So I guess it's moot for now.

Hm, Tuojot. Interesting. Sounds almost like an Apsiu name. Just add an apostrophe. T'uojot. Lieutenant First Class T'uojot of the Kana. Captain First Class T'uojot of the Kana. Hmmm.

*shakes head* Anyway. M. is all right...at least as well as can be... :/ ...though I wish better. I hate money problems...they are probably as big a trigger as religion. (This does not mean you must place trigger warnings for money matters!--I don't want you to have to put warnings every time you feel like you might upset me...because with the way I am...just about everything upsets me at some point or another. O_o )

Speaking of, I started to read an older entry I had somehow missed, about religion...and it made me nervous almost from the start. Usually it's not that bad for me. I guess it was just the tone of it. I thought for a moment it was going to be one of those "suddenly converted"-type entries...I don't know why but those grate on me severely. All right, I need to take a sidetrack here and if the person who inspired this ever sees it, please do not take offense, though I doubt they'll see it anyway. But ANYWAY, once I came across a diary of somebody who followed a particular pagan faith, and they were really full into it--a new name to go along with it, and everything. It's a faith I've had interest in but have no chance of ever joining. That probably gives it away already. >_< Sorry. Anyway, I found this interesting but wandered off. A while later I crossed their diary on another site and found out that they had managed to compromise Christianity with this pagan religion to create their own belief system, and the way they outlined their beliefs in an entry made it seem they had full faith in it--they had no problem believing it, and found no trouble reconciling (THAT'S the word I meant, not compromising) the two. This is contrary to what most Christians think, but that's not the point. I was impressed and inspired that this person had managed to take what they had found most comforting and useful from two very different faiths and had blended this together into their own "new" spiritual path. Who knows if it was right or wrong; who can ever know until the end. What I admired was how strong their belief was in it, and how comfortable they were in this new faith of theirs. I so badly wished *I* could be that way.

Well, a little while later what do you know, I crossed their diary again and they had suddenly completely RENOUNCED the pagan faith and returned to Christianity wholeheartedly, talking about how wrong they had been and how right they were NOW. This total about-face stunned me--I know people can change, but they had seemed so SET before! Their last entry had been really confident--I'd really believed they'd really believed that. Now all of a sudden, boom, they had given it all up. Oh, they were wrong back then after all, NOW they were right, and comfortable in their faith. I was very, very disillusioned--not really because of the sudden change, I don't think (though that was part of it), but because they had been so SURE of their rightness back then, but they were so sure of it being wrong and were so SURE they were right THIS time...how could they tell if they were EVER going to be right? When they were pagan/Christian, they felt positive it was the right path. What had convinced them of this? What had been powerful enough to do that? Then bam, when they had given that up to be Christian, what had been powerful enough to convince them of THAT? How could they be so sure that THIS was the right path for them, when the last time they'd been so convinced, they'd apparently been wrong? To put it simply, how can you ever be sure you're on the right path if you can give the old path up so easily, having once thought the old path was the right one, too?

God A comes to you and you are certain he is the god for you. Then one day, no, God B is the one for you, and you were wrong about God A. How can you EVER be sure which is right? Remember, when God A first came to you, you were positive he was the one...but now you know you were wrong, and God B is the one...what if God C is to someday come along...what will you suddenly be thinking about God B then...?

Bla bla bla, who knows if this even makes sense. Long story short, my respect and admiration dropped like a stone. I think I was MOST peeved that this person still seemed to refer to one of their patron pagan deities in their entries, and they KEPT the pagan name they had had all along--this really grated on me. I know it was just a username, but it was a constant reminder, to ME, of their pagan alliance, since they had gotten it as a sign of this faith in the first place. Now that they were so very Christian, what were they doing still wearing it? Shouldn't they have changed their name, too, with their faith change?

*sigh* I should not be so bitter over someone ELSE'S religious conversion, especially if it makes them happy, but I just hate the inconsistency and uncertainty of it all. This is what bothers me most about my OWN "faith." I admired this person's reconciling two faiths not because I felt it was right--who knows?--but because it's something I rather wish *I* could do. There just don't seem to be any paths out there for me. It really seems like I'd have to make up my own in order to be happy. But I could never be happy as long as I felt I'd just made it up to be happy; I would need to believe in it with all my heart. Because I feel THAT is what makes most people happy in their religions--they believe in them. We can't know for sure, no matter what we say, how right or wrong any of our religious paths are, until the end. So all we can content ourselves with is the strength of our belief. Without that strength, I feel very uncomfortable and ill at ease and, yes, afraid of believing in ANYTHING. And I hate that. :( I want something CERTAIN and RELIABLE, something I am comfortable with yet believe in totally. I don't ever see it happening and that constantly hangs over me, probably much more than it should...

So to see someone else's sureness in their path suddenly evaporate with an "Oh, I was wrong!" and to be replaced by a completely different path...it makes me wonder if ANY of us can truly have a path we really, totally believe in. Oh, everyone will always have doubts. But at least the rest of you have pretty certain religious paths, or, if not those, you have spirituality or you are at least comfortable in your disbelief. I haven't any of that. I really wish I did. It would spare me from long blathering entries like this!!

So...to get back on the track, wherever I left it... o_o; ...when I started reading the entry I thought it was a conversion entry...or rather a TOTAL, new immersion in an existing faith system...then I read further and found out I was wrong. *whew* I had such great fears of somebody going all religious on me. I don't mind religion or discussion of it, but when people start to bring it up all the time it makes me so uneasy...it just makes me feel they are forgetting everything else important in life to focus solely on religion, and that bothers me. I jumped the gun this time though. Don't know why I was so fidgety about it. Maybe I was in a poor frame of mind or something. Anyway, that entry just made me think about my own situation. It explained something that made sense to the writer, but it just left me more confused. I still don't understand my own obsession with certain things, as much as I want to. It's probably just that, an obsession, but like with religion I want things clean and neat and want an explanation for everything...and seeing somebody else receive an explanation while I'm still confused, it was bothersome. :/

(This is not to say the entry was bothersome--please do not think so! Ga, this probably should have been private. I feel I am just trampling all over somebody today. >_< Don't worry, I guess I'm just more confused than anything. I'll get over it, or something.)

What's funny is that I missed that entry completely until an update...I wonder how. I usually check things out so carefully around here. :/ (Yes, I'm really overusing that face, and I'm really using too many adverbs in this entry. DEAL WITH IT! I'm not even supposed to be here right now; I was going to be backing up Dreamforest! *stupid stupid stupid*)

Anyway, the next entry made me nervous because of the discussion of the "end," but that problem lies entirely on my end and no one else's...I guess hearing about ends, even if they are not literal, makes me nervous. Hearing about CHANGE, rather. I have never liked change, especially when it's bound to hurt...here I am getting all worried over something which isn't even a certainty because it has to do with religion. :( I don't sit here and obsess over Revelation all the time...then again, if I thought about it long enough I probably would...which is why I don't...

Cue the foreshortened future; I can't even picture myself one year, five years, or TEN years from now, so why should end times predictions worry me? I don't see a future for myself as it is, and if there is a future for me, it's bound to be an unhappy one. The end times would probably be a blessing for somebody like me. Just get it OVER with!

Hm, I rather wanted to talk about other things, but those are the things that won't come out on their own so I guess I better shut up now...sorry if I was offensive. I think I have to go let my brain straighten out after all that mess. o_o;

Tar...