a general terror

A few occurrences leading to general terror:

Occurences:
1.  May Crowning ceremony.   (for me, already a strange mix of emotions concerning the whole ordeal)  there is this speaker there who i'd heard of for years- she was making a name for herself as a christian musician even back when i was in the extremes of my religious devotion.  now she is standing before all of us in all her in-your-face-chaste glory- just beside herself with giddiness and zeal over her love affair with the lordjesuschrist.  just beaming.  true passion.  quirky- a christian zooey deschanel.  i can't decide if i love her for her quirkiness or despise her for everything else that she is.

because everything else is so much of nothing.

she tells a mother theresa miracle story where she thought that god hadn't answered her prayer but it turns out he just had other ways of answering that were far better than any of her plans because he always knows best (always always).  she is just... in love.  she is absolutely entranced by her spiritual rompings in the invisible world- with the little mysteries that jesus has lovingly planted around every corner for her to find...  with how well jesus knows us and loves us so truly- better than anything on this earth.

and i am angry.
i am angry because, given a few different decisions or changes of events, that could have been me.
my sister and i used to hold little may crowning ceremonies in elementary school where we'd drag mary across the back yard in a shoe box full of dandelions and sing church songs.
i have been that giddy over invisible love affairs before.
i have looked at people straight in the eye and talked about miraculous things that have happened to me.  about how jesus had answered my prayers.
about the realities of heaven and hell.
that giddy, all glory to god, DEEPLY DELUSIONAL woman on stage could have been me
and it makes me damn angry.

because she is genuinely happy
and because no one is standing up and shouting "WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?  WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?  THIS IS NONSENSE."  No one.  Including me.
and because the fact that living your whole life based on nonsense does not mean that you will be unhappy-

and i wish that it did.

i am alone in the cheering section for logic and reason.  the rest of the bleachers are full of people who clamor and applaud the feeling of it all.  look at her joy!  look at how happy she is- isn't that wonderful?

sure.  happiness is wonderful.
but at what cost?  at what cost?
more than i can afford- but a cost that the majority of the humanoids on the planet cough up gladly and seemingly with little effort. believe that a living human being DIED but then came back to life and LITERALLY FLEW up into the air and waits... somewhere... for this whole earth stuff to play out for awhile until he returns?  SURE!  SURE!  i can buy that!  because that means i know what happens when i die!  sign me up!

2.  there was a day last week when my emotions reigned supreme.  i could not think a logical thought to save my life. everything pushed me to tears.  everything mattered so deeply.  you can probably guess the cause.  i tried desperately all day to talk sense into myself- to try to discern carefully whether my overwhelming feelings were the result of legitimate concerns that should be addressed, or if they were the result of insane hormonal spikes going on in my body, completely out of my control.  i spent the whole day in court in my mind- trying to weigh and test every overwhelming feeling.  the jury only came back with a verdict a few days later when my hormone levels stabilized.  hormones were the culprit, and i'll probably find myself in court again next month.

all of that seems absurd to me.  the idea that for a few days each month, due solely to the fact that i am a woman and exist in a body- that for a few days each month i cannot trust my mind or feelings to have anything to do with objective reality.  that i can recognize what is happening in my body and how it's affecting me, but can't do a damn thing to change it.  downright absurd.  when are any of us in our right minds?  really in control?

3.  Sitting in a free lecture on Communication and Mindfulness.  all kinds of people there.  the crazies you'd expect.  the seemingly normals you overlook.  and me.  i am there.  half way through, i look around at this mix of humans and i decide that i like them.  i like them all.  at least for the next hour.  right now, i like their eyes- they have READY eyes.

none of us had to be there.  we were there.

sometime in the middle of it,  the speaker says something about how when a person has a particularly traumatic experience, that often times the brain will work to actively suppress or change that memory so as not to re-traumatize the person by having them "go through" it again in their mind.  so the brain, without our conscious effort, will override experience and operate as though something had never happened, or alter memory to allow us to cope with the experience.

makes sense, i guess.  i suppose we all do that to a greater or lesser degree.  some things take a long time and courage to address head on.  sometimes there is not purpose or benefit from going back and reliving or dwelling on particularly terrible experiences.  it makes sense, i guess.  and...

 i find it to be TERRIFYING,
and the beginning of a general terror i am still navigating:

WHO EXACTLY IS IN CHARGE HERE?  You mean to tell me that at the end of the day, we can't even say that what we remember or experience is TRUE or REAL?  We can't even trust ourselves?  That our brain can override our consciousness... act on its own?  what is my brain?  who am i, then?  how do i ever even know if my "logic and reason" are based on anything true at all?  is all i can say at the end of the day is "i did my best with what i could understand to be true" ?   THAT DOES NOT SEEM STURDY ENOUGH- STURDY AT ALL- AND THERE IS NO ONE TO SUBMIT MY COMPLAINT TO.

if that is all we're working with, then no the fuck wonder why people dive so eyes-closed-head-first into religious devotion.  if all this amounts to is "a best we can do," knowing full well that often times we can't even trust our own judgement to be aligned to any sort of outside truth- they why the heck not believe in a santa claus god who sprinkles your life with little blessings and mysteries that bring you a very "real" sense of joy and purpose for living.  why the hell not?

but i'm not wired that way (i used to be).  i cannot believe (i used to).  i do not believe (i did).  and i am angry about it.  angry that delusional belief has so many benefits, and the consequences of delusional belief are not explored more carefully.  angry that, so often, feelings and emotion trump reality (whatever that is, i guess) and logic- even in our own brains and memories.