Michael Braun's Blog

That’s right, I’m trendy, I tend to follow lame trends like sitting in this ritzy coffee shop while I wait for a car dealership down the road to change my transmission fluid. I should be changing my own damn fluid, but I don’t know how. I do know how to sip on a latte and use free wireless internet, however, and I do it especially well with my trendy white iPod earphones in my ear. Oh yes indeed. I would have them in right now but this trendy coffee shop is playing reggae, a mix probably created by their corporate headquarters, because even though this shop isn’t Starbucks, it is still probably owned by some large corporate entity.

This is the 105 post in my blog. 105 since I started this blog in June. I am astounded that I could produce so much absolute useless nonsense. Funny thing too, I hate most other blogs. But I do enjoy reading my own and Tony’s, Brittany’s… that’s about it. It’s like that for me with poetry too. I really don’t like much poetry except for my own. Does that mean mine is really great? Probably not, but I wish there was an external source I could turn to for critique. The poetry creative writing class I wanted to take filled up, and I don’t feel dedicated enough to go to the class and try to get in it. Maybe if I was going to be here for another semester. Maybe…

I guess there is no general theme to this post, as the two previous paragraphs are a testament to. There is a subject I would like to discuss, however – my sister’s growing dependence on religion as a strong and guiding force in her life, the hypocrisy behind Christians, and how I am distrubed by her choices.

I’m here in LaCrosse and my sister is off around the state. She left her computer on the kitchen counter and I glanced at the front of it (a beautiful G5 iMac, how could I not look?) and noticed that she has a couple of religious stickers on it. One said something like “Give god the glory in all that you do and watch him do great things for you.” I started to think about what this message is really saying, which I am convinced is more than my sister did. Here is my translation – “Recognize that god controls your life and he will control it towards a positve, rather than negative, direction.” The underlying message in this sticker, therefore, seems to be “Trust that god has a plan for you.”

I came to the realization a couple weeks ago that I should stop antagonizing myself with hope. I was really hoping that something would happen, taking signs I interpreted to be good and using them to propel myself forward into a fantasy world about how things hopefully would be. Of course, at the same time I was worrying that things might not turn out that way. All this thinking made me stop myself and examine what I was really doing – I was hoping that some sort of mysterious fate would guide me to where I wanted to go. That seemed so ridiculous to me that I came up with a new way to live my life; my credo became “Good things will only happen to me if I make them happen. If I want something to happen, I have to make it happen.” I take personal responsibility for my own life and realize that the choices I make will affect me today, tomorrow, and forever. I reject god and any plan he may have for me.

I was thinking a couple of weeks ago about this Christian notion that god has a plan for all of us. So I was thinking, how can you tell if you are doing what god wants you to do? I think Christian “logic” would go something like this – “If I am succeeding, I am doing god’s plan. If I am failing, I am not.” Obviously there is some leeway in how one defines success, but this logic can mean the street preacher and the corporate exec both feel they are meeting god’s plan. But using that same logic, I can’t remember a time I have been more happy than I am in the moment right NOW and NOW and NOW and NOW. I am extremely content with my life and who I am as a person, content in the knowledge that I can change as the times change. That I can always be who I want to be. I have confidence that even though I do not know where I am going, I can make my own way and live a good life. This seems similar to what Christians feel about god, except for one minor issue.

Christians use the notion of faith in a perfect higher power and their constant comparison to this god as an excuse for their own shortcomings. The logic goes something like this. “God is perfect. To know what I should be in this world, I need only to compare myself with god who is my ideal. But I can never be perfect, and I know this.” Using this idea, everytime a Christian fails to meet their own ideals, they can merely state that they are not perfect because they are not god. But wait a sec’ – if they are constantly trying to be perfect, and only god can be perfect, if they became perfect, they would be god! But anyone who thinks they are god is committing a huge sin, and according to popular Christian myth, that person will be cast down from heaven and into hell.

So no Christian can ever be perfect, because if they were, they would be sinning. Life, therefore, is constant sin. If you are sinning, you are imperfect. If you aren’t sinning, you are sinning, and thus imperfect. So what ideal is there to live up to? What purpose can your life be driven towards if you are constantly trying to be perfect yet knowing that perfection is sin? Herein lies the problem. This ignorant logical chain becomes an excuse for not living up to your ideals. If a Christian goes on a cocaine binge and has sex with 12 different partners of both sexes, they have merely to say that they are not a perfect Christian. They are not a good representative of their faith, but they always keep trying.

Here’s how I figure it for my own life. I am the only representative of my own life. There is only a faith in me and I am the only one who can show that faith. Therefore, I disgrace myself if I do something that violates my faith in myself. Each choice that I make affects me! So I evaluate each choice that I make to ensure that it is the right choice for me. And when I do make a choice that I consider wrong, I work to understand that this choice is not something to regret, because each choice affects me, and if I like who I am, then the choice could not have had much of an effect. And if the choice affects other people, I work to correct that choice by apologizing and doing what I can to make my own mistaken choice not have as much of an effect.

And here I am – a perfect representation of myself. And all I can do is keep striving to be perfect. When I do not achieve it, I work to correct things. And there is always a smile on my face. I always have complete faith in myself. Even when I feel low, even when I feel I may never find someone to love and be loved by, even when I do not do as well on a test as I would like to, even when I get into a fight with someone, even then, I know myself, I know what I can achieve, and I am confident in me and only me. I am a perfect representation of who I am.