Memoirs and Last Testament

I can only imagine I will soon begin to die a slow and painful death and so I decided to write my memoirs before it was too late.

Life was always hard for me. I think many people saw my successes and probably thought I had it all together--completely oblivious to the pain and torment of my own mind. Other people, of course, thought I was a terrible jerk for one reason or another. I never could understand why since I tried so hard to be kind and understanding and I'd sooner blamed myself for all that went wrong rather than any other human. In fact, the one thing I wish to leave as a legacy is my persistent pursuit of promoting kindness and understanding in a world hell-bent on divisiveness, loathing, and selfishness. I wrote the book Christians Are Revolting as a means to express how Christians are no longer living out this very creed from Jesus and I used my own life and failures to explain it. I do wonder how much of it was my own false perspective from my own negativity, but Facebook at least makes me believe the situation is rather dire.

Despite my persistence in promoting kindness, I can't say I was always that great at it myself. My own demons haunt me, of course, like they do anyone else. I didn't always act out my greatest desires, but for such faults I am at least ashamed. I never did feel good enough for some reason. I enjoyed many successes but always felt the outcast. Perhaps it was merely impostor syndrome, but I also believe it was a simple manner of fitting in. Without being much like the rest of humanity, my successes didn't matter as I could never feel accomplished if I always felt shunned. And in some regard, success leads to all the more shunning. And so, I kept looking higher as if success was never achieved and I forever dreamt of more to come and the day that people would finally find my words and ideas to have value.

A penny for my thoughts, oh no I'll sell them for a dollar

They're worth so much more after I'm a goner

And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'

Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'

 

                                                           ~If I Die Young - The Band Perry

I hope this is true of me as well. Perhaps a legacy can live on once I am gone even if I never get to see it while I yet live. Alas, perhaps that is mere ego and thinking myself more highly than I ought. And if I failed to be what my main goal was, what good was I overall?

I wish I could have been better for those directly around me. I focused so much on the larger and grander scheme of things when my own children, wife, friends, and family could perhaps have done with a little more interaction. I wouldn't say I neglected anyone, but I never felt I went enough out of my way to make someone's day which is perhaps the better part of kindness. I focused perhaps too heavily on passive kindness and trying to prevent jerk behavior rather than promoting actual kind behavior. I focused on kindly trying to express ideas or comprehending another's ideas rather than kindly trying to make someone's day. I never did truly learn to love, I suppose, and I'm sure I've missed the many times it was shown to me due to my lust for changing the world for the better. I could have made the lives around me better instead, but I focused too much on the world.

I would like to apologize to my children if I seemed too distant, unreachable, and emotionally disconnected besides anger. I never got a handle on those softer emotions and quite nearly replaced everything with logic instead. Much like Spock, I found solace in logic and gave in to anger on occasion as part of my humanness. But most humans need more than that and I utterly failed to provide it. I've always cared, however, even if I lacked the skills to show it. I hope all the greatest success for you all and I hope I helped prepare you for the world more so than I gave you mental disorders to overcome. With any luck, you'll turn out a little bit better than me and your children in turn a little better than you. Let us keep a chain of progression.

To my wife as well, I wish I could have been more. We have been through a lot together and I can't help but believe most of our struggles were my own. Despite this, I found you to be an overall excellent partner. I found no one else on Earth who could understand me the way you have and who could put up with my crazy overly-dramatic dispositions. All this said, I just showed her my memoir here and she just rolled her eyes at me and said the poison ivy isn't going to kill me. Well, we'll just see about THAT!