I have a sense of estrangement to this world. I feel as though I am a traveler from a far distant land that has come to grow up and live where I am. In fact, I do not even claim dual citizenship, this is simply not my home. I have had to learn the language, cultures, customs, and even how to cook and eat the food. But I do not find my identity in these things. They are the mediums by which I live my life, but they do not define me. In fact, I am sometimes slightly annoyed with the fact that I am required to eat and sleep. I am meant for something more.
I feel slightly guilty when I say this because I know how dear my friends are to me and I to them. I further acknowledge that some of them feel the same way I do, maybe even came from the same place, and perhaps that is why we are friends. I cannot explain this much because it is actually quite hard to describe, but I feel like I was placed here, that I originated elsewhere and I was put here for a purpose, but for what I do not know.
Frankly, especially during the hard times in life, I do not care about the purpose. I simply question my obedience to certain dogmas, like when stopped at a red light with no other cars on the road. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? It's just a stupid red light. Blue lights don't do this to me, so why is red so important? It's a red octagon-shaped shard of metal created in some factory that is obligating me to be where I do not want to be for no good reason. Why do I listen to it? I am tired of conforming to the system.
It's not just the socially symbolic things like traffic signs, police, and money that leave me feeling alien. I resent having to eat in order to not be hungry, having to sleep in order to not be tired, having to monitor stress, physical activity, tan lines, and back hair. As Steven Tyler of Aerosmith expressed in a moment of immortal genius, "We are spiritual beings trapped in physical bodies." I hate doing these things out of necessity. I mean, what is the point of fingernails, honestly? Why do I sweat and stink in the heat? Why do my teeth feel like chalk after I sleep? Why can't my clumsy ass just dance like I can imagine? Why does my tongue st-st-st-st-stutter in front of an audience? Why can't I sing how I feel? Did I mention back hair yet? I guess they are part of the purpose for my being here, but I still resent the obligation, the dependence on physical matter. I do not resent responsibility, I would just rather be responsible for something else, like a garden.
Despite the fact that this is a temporary intuition, it occurs quite often. I find myself desiring more, even more than I have ever seen. Even after discovering the most mind-blowing thing in nature, or falling in love, or having the epiphany of a lifetime, I am left slightly dissatisfied. It is like tasting spaghetti, but not my mother's spaghetti; or hugging a stranger instead of a friend; like touching a baby's skin with latex gloves on, I feel that I am not getting the real experience. I know what this is meant to be, but it appears to me as an imitation, an artificial sweetener.
The longer I live my life the more I realize that nothing here will ever meet my need on this level. I am not at home, not even in my greatest triumphs, loveliest relationships, or standing in the face of the most amazing scenery. Sometimes they merely resemble shadows.
Another Lewis quote:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
Hebrews 11:13-14:
"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
6 comments:
"Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to become like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment. Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a 'spiritual animal.' To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, "Now get on with it. Become a god."" ~CS Lewis in A Grief Observed
Being a 'spiritual animal'...
what a beautiful mess.
I enjoyed your post. It is hard to conform to the ways we are supposed to be. It is not genuine, but forced.
Thank you for the thoughts today.
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Hey! Where have you been!
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It's funny... I've been feeling this way a very long time. More and more lately, I find myself thinking "...this is not my world. I don't belong here.". It's kinda nice to know I'm not the only one, but what does it mean? I hate doing things simply out of necessity as well. Things we do, even if they don't make sense. I just always felt like, perhaps... it's a sin to think this way. I don't want it to be, because that's just how I feel, but I still love God anyway, and I always will.
anyways, thank you for the thoughts.
I have also been feeling this for some time. Some research later, I understand life to this degree.
We are all deferent aspects of God experiencing physical life for the Godhead for God is thought and cannot do it for Himself.
This came to be after the “fall” of man we became, through our own choice, a physical being separating ourselves from who we truly are.
Through eons of this separation, we became too detached from God.
God then set-up the earth as a physical school so we can learn again to become the spiritual beings we truly are with a direct connection to God, not through this religious claptrap we have today.
So we reincarnate to this physical world again and again every time learning something new and becoming more of who we truly are.
So over many thousands of life times, we progress through life, as we progress through school, and at one point, we must each graduate.
So maybe this feelings of “I do not belong here” is the same as the feelings we sometimes have the last couple of months of school.
So maybe when we receive this feeling we are almost ready for graduation, and our final “test” is to learn how to detach ourselves from this physical school so we can return to God.
I love this blog. It took the anxiety away from me. There should be a whole website of aliens like us. To have a center and write about our observations. As insane as that may sound, I cannot get over this lonely, at times horrible feeling of isolation. It's beyond anyone I have ever talked to, and it is hard to explain, therefore hard to remedy.
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