tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post1596559616335396424..comments2024-01-20T00:00:10.459-08:00Comments on Mudblood Catholic: Raw Tact, Part VI: Oh the FeelsGabriel Blanchardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17607504369762849930noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-9401642113770018222013-09-09T17:09:49.076-07:002013-09-09T17:09:49.076-07:00We all have our own experience, but I've exper...We all have our own experience, but I've experienced a lot of similar, deep distress at weddings, because I honestly felt no hope of getting married and longed for marriage so much. I think you're right that there's no answer, because death exists and all suffering has death in it. For myself, I went to fewer and fewer weddings, the less I could stand it, and that helped. Sometimes you just have to close off, for a while, the things that hurt too much. That's sort of been my general conclusion in the 8 months I've had to look over my single life from a married perspective. I don't know how I could have redeemed the time better than I did, and yet my inhabitation of single life was very imperfect. I'm still trying to figure it out. Thanks for coming to our wedding, though. I knew at the time it would cost you some, but your presence was really a blessing for us. Gabe Fincknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-79916550751975608532013-09-05T18:25:53.929-07:002013-09-05T18:25:53.929-07:00Ach! I wrote this on about five hours of sleep *I ...Ach! I wrote this on about five hours of sleep *I think.* ( Spyglass *with* all of us. Dang typos.) XP Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-1531028678238678932013-09-05T12:38:08.679-07:002013-09-05T12:38:08.679-07:00Though perhaps you were being silly, I don't t...Though perhaps you were being silly, I don't think that you're a "rampaging, jealous narcissist" for having the deeply human desire to have someone to love of your own. Surely at a wedding where the image of lifelong matrimony and partnership is pounded into your head from all around you, any single person would feel particularly tender in this area. And even more so than that would any single person who felt that they were consigned to be unmarried for the rest of their life, by no less than their god. <br /><br />I would also like to say that I am particularly offended by the caricature of liberal Christians offered by the first anonymous comment. I came to choose the Episcopal faith and my pro-gay stance through a long process of contemplation and prayer. I (and many others) did not choose a Church that affirmed lgbt people the way they are because I wanted a "compromise" faith, as you so artfully put it, but because I came to a separate conclusion from yourself on this subject. A conclusion that I QUITE believe is in accord with God's will. Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08371071455575271992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-53596590554621307982013-09-04T11:29:28.823-07:002013-09-04T11:29:28.823-07:00I have been struggling to say those very thoughts ...I have been struggling to say those very thoughts for a while, and I can now just point to your post when people ask my why I dread going to weddings. Your posts always speak to me, whether I agree or not, and I just wanted to say thank you for your brutal honesty (as well as the video links; I've directed more than one friend to that song from the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack...).Preston Wrigleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-21697358767098624452013-09-04T06:57:55.251-07:002013-09-04T06:57:55.251-07:00Dang. Thank you. I don't know what to say.Dang. Thank you. I don't know what to say.Gabriel Blanchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607504369762849930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-4675271288574099952013-09-03T21:41:38.006-07:002013-09-03T21:41:38.006-07:00Thank you so much for these blog posts; the terrib...Thank you so much for these blog posts; the terrible, burning tact, the splendiferous literary/musical allusions, and, of course, the gay jokes. Of course, being still a high school senior, it's by no means quite the challenge for me it is for you. Yet, though I am forever casting doubtful glances into the future to catch sight of land. Thank you sharing a peek of your spyglass to all of us. God bless you.<br /><br />-J, the Same commentor on Agni Parthene.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-87509258851669698722013-09-03T21:37:52.948-07:002013-09-03T21:37:52.948-07:00For a few "what you love/think" scores a...For a few "what you love/think" scores a definitive victory (or at least as definitive as possible) and pulls them into a lifelong black-hole of avowed repression that can be basically impossible to escape once they've crossed the event-horizon. Many of these sorts are found in the priesthood and religious life, but others are just that "strange uncle" at family parties. Some really are quite successful at the sublimation, though often this sort will still seem a bit "weird" or affected either way, like you can tell the costume doesn't quite fit, a "protests too much" sort of thing...but possibly endearingly or at least harmlessly so. And for some the totalizing nature of the constructs they've so completely submitted to means that there isn't even a "protests too much" quality to them, because they genuinely have managed to entirely insulate themselves from being at all personally affected by the contradictory voices in our society that keep most of us (even when we disagree with them) from obtaining that sort of absolute "innocence" or naivete. Maybe these people are happy within the mental world they've created for themselves, or at least eventually become very comfortable and effortless within it, I can't really tell; I hope they are. Others are just evidently not so successful at the sublimation, and are painful to even deal with after a while, tedious, frantically in denial, engaged in all sorts of obfuscating identity-craft to create veils of delusion for themselves because they obviously do feel their "certainty" undermined (and thus in need of constant maintenance) by all the cross-talk in our society (and that can be not so harmless; obviously, some of that sort do harm people as an effect of their own self-loathing and need to create an ideological fortress). And I'll clarify: when I say "successful or not" at the sublimation I'm not at all talking about whether they actually achieve total continence. Some of the "unsuccessful" ones are so repressed that they do, and some of the "successful" ones don't (but have just become adept at "working around" it mentally, at swallowing the cycle of guilt and repentance to the point where it has no further effect on their well-being or self-image beyond itself).<br /><br />And then there's a tiny group of us for whom the tension just...snaps. Without either side "winning," but resolved by grace in a fashion that simply totally resituates the terms of the question. And by this I don't mean that desire suddenly conforms to faith (that's rarely so, and might be called a true miracle!) Some of this group succeed at an abstinence-without-repression, a holistic integrated celibacy to which the pain you describe above would no longer even make sense. And others of us don't, in fact, "succeed" in that sense at all but are nevertheless given peace on the matter.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-4785655918676614232013-09-03T21:37:37.857-07:002013-09-03T21:37:37.857-07:00Been there, man.
I don't know what to tell y...Been there, man. <br /><br />I don't know what to tell you. Except...<br /><br />Well, I've at least learned a few things:<br /><br />For many (most?) people "what you want/feel" eventually wins out, at least for a good chunk of their youth and middle age (after which the settling-down of hormones and lives make it easier to disown the sins of youth). They drop their guilt/shame/abstract-moral-concern (etc; whatever form is taken by the inhibition or anxiety they have over the stricture in question and its conflict with their desire and psychological well-being) entirely and/or whatever was causing it. Some abandon religion and faith entirely, sadly; some of those become quite bitter or defiant towards it, but others don't and just see it as a phase they outgrew but which they still respect and sympathize with in others. Some simply switch to a variety of religion (whether another sect or a "cafeteria" variety of their own) that allows them their signal weakness; some of these retain a bit of cognitive dissonance over the inauthenticity of negotiating a "winking" compromise for themselves like this, but for others the experience of the psycho-emotional tension they found themselves under is itself actually an [experiential] argument for cynicism about the stricter moral code and so would consider the choice decisively authentic, all "rational theory and logic" or claims of infallible revelation be damned.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-24093778371454235412013-09-03T19:09:42.427-07:002013-09-03T19:09:42.427-07:00Thank you; likewise. And if I ever learn to gavott...Thank you; likewise. And if I ever learn to gavotte, Carly Simon will be how we do. :)Gabriel Blanchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607504369762849930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-22571578400592804192013-09-03T19:06:11.532-07:002013-09-03T19:06:11.532-07:00"I'm sooo vain", maybe, but I really..."I'm sooo vain", maybe, but I really think part of this post is about me. :-) You're in my prayers, boy. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01464186266234099093noreply@blogger.com