Blame

Thanks Mark Manson, you've come up clutch a lot for me in the past few months. Even though you make the claim in your book title that "everything is fucked" which on the surface seems sad and dark, you've taught me that realizing this is part of the key to living a meaningful life. 

Right now I want to thank you for helping me to own my life, own my experiences, own my emotions, and move forward and find the next source of meaning in life, this day, this moment.

It's been a constant pursuit of mine over the last few years to rationalize and point my finger at every possible thing that I believe has contributed to causing me pain including people who have loved me and who I have loved, and including myself. This has only lead to blame and shame. 

But what I've begun to realize through reading Mark's work and from reflecting on my own experiences is that pain is inevitable, rejection is inevitable, loss is inevitable, suffering is inevitable: "everything is fucked".

By accepting this and living by the following advice, I believe I can escape this dreadful pursuit:

(from Models, Mark Manson, 2011)

I'm sorry to the people I've blamed and shamed, I've decided tonight that I'm going to do everything I can to stop this destructive pattern of mine. 

But most of all I'm sorry to you Jonathan, because you have had to live with not only constantly doing the blaming and shaming but also receiving it.

I know I will wake up again tomorrow into a fucked up world but I have hope that I will be surprised and overjoyed by a new realization, a new aspect of this space/time continuum that isn't fucked up, that is indeed good as I have been thousands of times in my life already (I can think of a few strong possibilities already: coffee, oatmeal with berries, sunlight - I have never in my life experienced these things on Saturday, March 27, 2021, we'll see what happens!)

​I can't assume there will be goodness tomorrow but I'm looking forward now not behind, and I'm taking ownership of the feelings and situations I'm experiencing not expecting someone or something outside of me to do this in any way for me.

​This allows me to have hope that there will be good chance of coming across more experiences of goodness and I will get to fully experience them myself.

***

I believe it is fair to interchange the words "my Father's world" in this song with "our fucked up world" - either way it's a joyful tune to me!