A Path, A Choice

I feel something lasting and eternal when I am with my wife. I feel learning and I see peace. I am challenged by the fact that I will always be attracted to men, but at the same time I am blessed by the feelings of my heat that have made me see the greater perspective of what this life is really about.

I am lucky enough to be very attracted to my wife, to feel sexual toward her, and to desire to be with her. But above and beyond that, the emotional connection that we share will and can never be matched by anyone else.

I'm thinking about it now, and I look back at what I have been feeling and what I went through to get to this comforting place. Needless to say there was a lot of conflict and angst. I was overwhelmed sometimes at the emotions that were inside me, but I chose something that is important, and the peace came. It's no formula, but it worked as simple as that, even though it really wasn't as simple as that. It was hard. I guess it will still be hard.

Maybe the Lord is giving me a break from all the turmoil. He is looking after me and sees that I need to experience peace right now.

Who knows what trials may come my way. I am expecting life to be just as rocky as it has been up to this point. Only now, I have a path that feels right and good. We'll see if the path continues to be what it appears.

One step at a time.

Looking Beyond

I feel good today for the third or fourth day in a row. My inner conflict is lifted for the moment.

I feel like I've taken a step back and seen the puzzle pieces that my life resembles. I've started to rearrange pieces, and even found some missing ones. The picture is becoming clear. For now it is certain that happiness is on my side and I am so glad of that.

By looking at the bigger picture, I have found a beautiful view that for now is very sweet.

Just Thinking

I feel like most of what I think about is concerning the purpose of this life. It fascinates me that we are born, we live, and then we die.

Some people live to be 100, some don't even get the chance to live more than a minute. Some are born with freckles and others have dark skin. There are people born into extreme poverty, and then there are people who have everything tangible that they will ever need. It's crazy to think about the discrepancy, and uneven distribution of traits and resources.

I have a lot to be thankful for, and I have a lot that I still desire. Sometimes I wonder if the desire, the want and the longing for things is what causes discontentment. If I didn't need then I wouldn't feel like I was lacking for anything. I have so much, yet my mind is determined to have more, and to be satisfied only when I have what I long for.

Sometimes I am able to just sit in silence and feel an immense amount of peace, and other times there is this nagging pain that won't let me go.

It's also crazy to think about the time we live in. I guess, as a country we're at war, and for me my life isn't any different than before we were at war, and yet other people have lost their loved one's because of it, and men have come home from war with horrible images in their heads. It's insane to think that there are something's that I will never experience, and yet for someone else, that is their reality.

Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be answers about life's conflicts.

Sometimes I get really excited to have kids.

I am afraid of growing old. I don't want to see my body get fat and disgusting. I want to be young forever and to have the body I have. I don't want hair to start growing out of my ears and to have a belly. I want smooth soft skin and muscles my whole life.

I want to be the best that I can be. I want to be true and good. I want to live with the knowledge that I am doing something important and that I am able to live a life that is full.

Sometimes I think too much.

Happiness

All this talk about happiness has led me to ponder my own views and philosophy of what it means to be happy or to find happiness. It just so happens that I picked a good day to do that, because right now I feel exceptionally happy.

I feel really good today. I feel happy, I feel at peace with myself, with life, and with what I am trying, or not trying to accomplish.

Looking back at the times when I wasn't feeling so happy, I can say that I notice that I somewhat of a lazy person, and I complain very easily when things are hard and not necessarily going my way. I have also realized that I'm very whinny, and I don't know how any of you have come back to read more, because the incessant complaining and whining is enough to make anyone throw their hands up in frustration at my saturated murmurings.

I masturbated yesterday. I was feeling very frustrated and tired. I was getting overwhelmed with things I had to do, and I was thinking too much about myself and not about the blessings I have in my life. The habit of looking at porn and masturbating is intensely strong. It's something that, once it becomes a habit, it occurs without warning or thought. It's mindless and completely run by the auto pilot side of the brain. That's kind of scary. I mean, shouldn't it at least be thoughtful instead of lacking any thought whatsoever? I guess that's just how it goes for me.

Regardless of my track record, today is a new day and I am resolved to not give attention to porn or masturbation anymore. I know and recognize that the road will be hard. I also recognize that I might sound a little ridiculous because I've made this promise more than once and have come back with failure written all over my entries, but these things take time. I am willing to admit that it's not going to be easy, and that it's something I have to work hard for.

Anyway, I don’t want this entry to be about p & m. I want it to be about how for once, I am not whining, and that I feel happy and grateful to be alive.

I don't think happiness is about being fulfilled, although that helps a great deal. And I don't think that happiness comes from being aware and from learning. I know plenty of really low functioning people, who have down syndrome, or other mentally challenging disabilities who are as ignorant and happy as anyone on the planet. But even that isn't the cause of happiness. What happiness is to me is a choice. I really believe that through life, and through our existence, that happiness is a choice. Sometimes it's better to choose to be sad because that's what we need to feel in order to heal and mourn. Sometimes we need to be angry because that is part of the process of communication and letting out negative energy, and sometimes we need to feel bored and lethargic. We can succumb to the whims of the chemicals in the body, or we can search them out and put them into action. Choose to be happy, and choose to allow yourself to be happy when you need to be, and not when you don't need to be.

I don't know if that's true or not. I think there is more to be said on the subject, but for now, I feel good about that. I feel happy today, and I didn't even choose to, I just am and I think a lot of it has to do with the sleep I got and what I've been eating. But at the same time I have been making an effort to forget about what I can' change, and to focus on what I can, maybe by doing that I have made myself a little happier.

I Want Now

Having decided to try and stop masturbating/porn looking has been harder than I anticipated. It was great for the first couple of weeks, and now I'm just kind of back where I started. I mean maybe I am addicted, maybe I've been lying to myself in saying that I can gain control over something so simple as my own will and choice. It sounds easy enough…but I guess it's not.

Sometimes I wonder if being sexualized at an early age has caused these obsessive feelings of sexually charged desires. I don't know, maybe the desires are what led me to the sexualization in the first place. I can't necessarily look back and change anything so I'm looking at my life now and trying to determine what I can change and what I can't.

I love my wife. She continues to be loving and attentive as I have been more conscious of trying to let her in.

I have so many unanswered feelings inside of that I need to address now. I'm tired of waiting and seeing, analyzing and looking. I want to choose now. I want to decide now. I want to know now. I need this process to hurry itself up. I think about how close my wife and I are to having kids, but there's this huge exhausting problem that I can't seem to manage and it's tearing me apart.

Infected

Sometimes I feel like I'm running away from myself. I tell myself that if I run fast enough, long enough and hard enough that I won't be able to catch up with me.
I just want to be in control of myself. Is that too much to ask? I don't know what lurks around the corner. I can be fine, happy, in love with life, in love with sex, in love with my wife and the gospel…and then bang! The most simple of insignificant things can happen and I'm in a whirlwind of pain.

I run away from me because I don't want to stop and look at something that I don' t have the answers to. I don't know how to be on a straight and narrow path when the slightest of distractions pulls me off. However, I guess that's what life is all about. What are these experiences saying to me that I need to look at? I know that there's something here for me to learn from, but the more I get off track, the harder it is to get back on.

The Creation of My Own Self

"You could say that the essence of humanity -- the thing that we all share, and makes us distinct from anything else in the world -- is our lack of essence, our 'no-thing-ness,' our freedom. We cannot be captured by a philosophical system or a psychological theory; we cannot be reduced to physical and chemical processes; our futures cannot be predicted with social statistics. Some of us are men, some are women; some are black, some are white; some come from one culture, some from another; some have one imperfection, some another. The 'raw materials' differ dramatically, but it is how we choose to live that makes each of us what we are. We each create ourselves." -Harry Stack Sullivan

As Much Light As Possible

In yesterday's post I mentioned "new developments" that have caused my gears to shift in a new direction. Granted, it seems like the winds of change are always at my door, as I will agree with most of you that I am "all over the place," but being "all over the place" gives me greater satisfaction then let's say a proverbial and endless rut that I can't get out of. And then on the other hand, being so inconsistently stuck could be considered an endless rut to some people, so I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

Basically I have started to make some choices for myself. I decided that in order for me to get to a better place, I had to start making some decisions.

I truly can't say that I know what life's purpose is. I am sure that there are as many answers as there are people. And who's to say that for one person there is a different purpose than for another? What I need to do is determine what my earth existence is to be.

But for now, in my search for meaning and truth I have come across some truths that I feel are very profound. I have come to accept an awareness of the First Noble truth of Buddhism, that all life is suffering, and that there is no view of a way out beyond the suffering.

For me, life is not about seeing beauty, and it simply isn't about just being who you are. Life is not about living for the moment, life is about controlling appetites and toxic behavior so as to live with as much light as possible.

By choosing to focus on the spiritual, the love, and commitment, then I will at a much greater course, be able to confront my anxiety, guilt and the concept of death for the purpose of gaining a true sense of self.

I am going to stop there. I have a lot more I want to say, but it's a lot to digest. Ultimately what I want to say is that what we do and what we focus on will ultimately be who we end up. I want to surround myself with things that don't drive me to lust, or that don't cause me to think about the physical and carnal. I just want to be in control of myself, and not be controlled by my passions.

Hypothetical Construct

Things have been going fairly well. There have been new developments in my life that have made me change gears a little. I will soon dedicate a post to what I mean by that, but for now I know that some of you who read this find it confusing that I can change ideas so quickly, but my experience with being a gay Mormon is just that…inconsistent and ever changing ideas, thoughts and desires. However, one thing that stays constant is the fact that I like men.

Sometimes I feel like I'm continuously giving myself pep talks, or that I talk myself into feeling good about where I am at in life, and other times I truly am content and satisfied with what life has given me. Back and forth is so exhausting, and yet on that same note, it can change to be rewarding as well…hence, change.

The frustrating thing about my human existence is that my heart recognizes one thing and my mind thinks another, and then as they both collide in a torture filled mismatch of emotions and ideas, a separate entity enters the mix.

The combination of heart, mind and body provide me with such confusion that I'm not sure I will truly know what to do with what has been allotted.

My heart has the desire to do good, my heart wants to be focused on my Heavenly Father and on the spiritual. I sense power in knowing that there is an all-powerful being that is my "spiritual dad". He is perfect, He knows my every struggle and joy, He has blessed me and given me amazing opportunities for growth and happiness, and yet He is distant and sometimes void of any presence in my daily life. And in that same heart of mine, there is a longing to be loved by a prototype of a human god, a man that will hold and love me.

My mind is prideful and logical. I analyze and seek out meaning to the point of rumination. I am smart and I am quick. My mind senses that there is a way to put all of these random pieces together to make something work, so in comes the rationalizations and excuses. My mind fits pieces where there isn't space, and my mind chooses to believe what is sometimes not based in reality. My mind wants order and peace, and yet there is little to be found when the ever increasing drive for spiritual love and physical love don't have any compromise.

And then there is the carnal. It has space in both the heart and mind because that is where the process ends up, but it starts at a much more physical location.

My anxiety is what gets me lost. I can't focus and I become flustered and useless.

This process of sifting through lust and raw desire, is the thing by which I must learn how to balance the energies of my soul. While on this earth, I am dedicated to learning how to live with unbalance, when at the same time my spirit is striving for perfection, and my body is enticed by the world. Ultimately this has nothing to do with being gay, or Mormon. This is my tool to by which I have the opportunity to find enlightenment. Just as a Mother with post-partum depression experiences horrible feelings of darkness, and a disabled person lives in a body of undesirable confinement all his life, through the suffering comes choice. Choose to find meaning, or choose to give up.

I won't give up on this quest for knowledge and refinement. This balancing act of heart, mind and body will in the end give me peace. As my heart seeks the Lord, and my body seeks a release, I have no choice but to recognize that while the flesh is weak, the spirit has the capacity to fly.

Life Is Learning

I don't know why but it's time, and I feel it really strongly. I feel a lot of peace about eliminating masturbation and porn from my life, not this anxiety and angst that I have once experienced. Nor do I feel dread at the present, and for that matter I feel confident in the pursuit of a non masturbation/porn life.

I recognize that this might be a fleeting moment of confidence and idealism, and I've accounted for the fact that I might stumble in my quest for a more integrity. Nonetheless, I focused on this goal, and I intend to keep it as long as I can.

There are things that are in my head that lately have inspired me for the better. Being a human and having inconsistent ideas and unbalanced goals is part of survival and coping, but at some point I have to grasp what my life's potential is. I have come to a conclusion that suits my heart like a glove, and what I have come to understand about me and my life is that Life is learning. There is no way to get around the fact that we are here on earth to learn and to grow. As human beings we battle amazing amounts of pain, some of it bearable and other times inexplicable. The pain, the joy and mundane are all for our benefit, to learn, to grow, to change and become better. The learning that takes place in my life is undeniably tied to the principles of meaning.

Whether my thoughts at the present are circular or not, I struggle somewhat to come up with a valid explanation of what I want to say, but at the heart of my words is the principle of meaning. Meaning is present because the task of earth life is to learn, and to learn fosters a revealing view of meaning. Therefore; as we learn we find meaning, and as we find meaning we learn.

I see myself on this earth, placed in a realm of physical challenge and perspectives that eludes completely to the principles of self-reliance, authenticity, responsibility, and mortality. I am born with things that are part of me but that don't define me, I am truly an individual who is a free thinking being, and I have the purpose to find meaning in all that life has to offer because there will come a time to return to God.

I see that day looming, and I don't feel fear or dread. I'm not ashamed of my past or my present, I am me and I am proud of the fact that I have asked questions and sought after peace. That day will come and life will be over, the existential angst of loosing the chance to grow and progress is almost unbearable, and at odds with this angst is the freedom to choose anything that I want to be and become. At the pinnacle of this struggle is the quest for meaning in adversity, joy in the moment and complete devotion to the here and now.

Today I feel strongly the drive to choose to focus on my existence in the here and now. At each moment, I am free to choose what I will do and be. That choice is amazing, because it gives opportunity to be the person I authentically can and will become. The most important aspect of my life is not what I have genetically inherited, but how I interpret and respond to the world around me at each given instant, and the kinds of choices I make about what to do next. I have chosen to stay away from porn and masturbation and I will do that because there is more to learn in my quest for meaning and learning.

She Is Good To Me

I rarely write about the times she has put her arms around me to tell me that she loves me unconditionally, and held me while I wallow in sadness and self loathing. I don't share her tender kisses and soft glances of adoration when I write entries because unfortunately all that gets over shadowed by the moments of harsh pain for what I'm going through.

I believe with all my heart that my wife loves me unconditionally, in fact she loves me with intensity and depth that she will do everything she can to keep me making the wrong decision.

My wife has been good to me. She has become more supportive as every day passes. She is giving me strength to be better. I feel a huge piece of burden lifted as I move away from a darker place. I am coming to understand that even though I can't choose who I'm attracted to, I can choose to be happy. I can make the effort to throw away the guilt and to focus on the positive things that are in my life.

Every morning as I wake up I have this automatic question that goes off in my head: "are you happy? Are you ok today?" And I acknowledge that the question is there, but most days I push through the answer because I don't like feeling pondering on its meaning. Today I listened and I was pleased with what I heard. I'm ok. I'm doing alright, and even if things aren't perfect, I'm doing all I can to experience the good that I do have.