When people say they’re “fine” or “doing great”…how often do they really mean it?  I, personally, often say I’m fine or doing great when in reality…my life might suck at the moment.  But I’m not about to tell it like it is to a friend I haven’t talked to in ages, or someone I don’t know that well…

Makes one wonder.

It’s weird when you reconnect with friends you haven’t seen in a long time and notice that that person changed so much…even into someone you’d never become friends with currently, had you not already been friends in the past because, in the past, you were much more similar…like a friend who’s become a punk-rock kinda guy when you knew him as a nerdy anime-lover, or a friend who became crazy about God when before, he’d been crazy about girls…as I get older, I experience so many new things, and the shock of seeing old friends having changed into someone totally unexpected definitely cannot be experienced as a child.  I wonder if I ever give people that shock?

Today I went for the first time to Starbucks on my own, just to sit and think.  It was nice at first.  I was the only person there except for the two employees at the front.  Then a couple of teenage girls came in, and some ladies, and men, sitting down and talking and laughing and disturbing my peace…lol.

But I guess it was good to get away from home for a little bit.  Even when I’m just doing my own thing at home, there’s something about being around familiar people that makes me unable to think clearly about what I feel, what I think, what I want.  Everything becomes fuzzy when I’m around other people.

That’s why I daydream sometimes about getting away.  Someplace where there are no people around for miles.  Whether it be the wilderness or an abandoned (but not scary) town, someplace where being there makes me feel like I’m the only person in the whole world.  The last person left.  Is that a strange desire?  It’s not like I want everyone else dead.

I just want to feel for one second like life isn’t about living for anyone else - not about pleasing others, or making sure I’ve “done my part” i.e. washing dishes, going to work, etc., or about not rocking the boat by being too different.  Not sure if I’m making much sense anymore.

I guess I’m just scared to be me.

“In the process of meeting the familial, educational, economic, and political needs of society, some individuals thrive whereas others suffer.  Hence all societies also face the problem of providing their less successful members with a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.  Religion gives individuals a belief system for understanding their existence as well as a network of personal support in times of need.” (David M. Newman, Sociology)

This is in my sociology textbook.

What is this? Is the author seriously stating that religion is for “less successful members” of society?  For individuals who don’t “thrive”, but rather “suffer”?  That those who “successfully meet the needs of society” do not need religion because they have a sense of purpse and meaning in their lives?  That religion is for babies who need a crutch to feel like they matter?

Bogus!  “Successful” members of society have no more sense of a deep purpose or meaning in their lives than those who struggle to get by.  And religion, in its true sense, was not created as a crutch - it was created to find a deeper purpose in life than just being materially successful.  We were created for more than just the attainment of external success, and the emptiness people feel is not a result of not having enough money, or not being successful according to society.  It’s a result of living in a world too focused on external success and not enough on the heart.

It just makes me so sad to read this.  I’m not “churchy,” and I’m aware that religion these days is often so, so corrupt and yes, a crutch for wimps.  Heck, I generally don’t even like religion, and I believe almost all or at least the worst problems in the world arise from narrow-minded, arrogant church leaders who think their religion is best and every other religion is low crap.  But to claim that all religion is is a comfort for suffering failures?  And in a college textbook?  It’s so low.  It’s almost more awful than teaching evolution.