I hate myself. I already said that in a previous post. So, what to do? What does a person that hates himself or herself do about it? COPE. An online dictionary defines cope as "deal effectively with something difficult; manage, subsist; carry on." A person that hates himself or herself should, in the words of the online dictionary, CARRY ON. Such a neat way of putting in. We all should carry on. Does any of this remind you of Job? The bible tells us that, when he was stricken with grave infirmity, his wife walked up to him and said: "Are you still carrying on? Curse God and die!" And Job rebuked her. We all need to carry on. Whether we like it or not. Descartes in his third meditation put it ever so beautifully. He said that the reason he knows that God exists is that God is perfect and infinite, while he (Descartes) is imperfect and finite. And the proof of his imperfection and finitude is that he cannot give himself the perfections he lacks. In other words, Descartes realizes that if he were the maker or creator of himself, he would give to himself all the coolness, greatness - everything - that he knows he lacks. If I were God, I would give myself a father and a mother that both live for gazillion years; I would give myself a sexy soul mate and a thin body to have awesome sex with. If I were God, I'd pretty much make myself the coolest person ever.
Hello! Wake up, Samuel. You're not God. Got it? Okay, then. Moving on. The fact that we are imperfect and finite, the fact that we possibly hate ourselves, proves that we are not the source of our lives. God is. We are in a sort of contract with God. He is like the owner of a record label, and we have signed a contract to be singers for his firm, and the contract was designed expertly, and we cannot get out of it, and so we are stuck. Existentialists put it beautifully. Concerning suicide, they have this to say: It is the only real problem in philosophy; it is the paramount absurdity. To kill oneself is the singular WORST THING EVER. Let me repeat that. Each bad thing a person can do is better than suicide. Let me just say that one more time, in a different way. There is nothing a person can do that is worse than suicide. Moving on. Suicide is like telling God: Look, whether you like it or not, I'm getting out of this contract and I don't care what you think about that. Go fuck yourself.
My father killed himself. He committed suicide, and his act constitutes the greatest loss I have ever faced. Sometimes I think of how my life could have been if my dad had not killed himself. I might have been married by now. I might have been upper middle class or rich, who knows. I might have traveled the world, and married a hot babe; I might have done stuff; seen stuff; known stuff. But the good news is that I turned out alright. I still got to travel. I still got a good education. I still moved on. I carried on. And I did so because I forgave him. I forgave my dad. Concerning him and what he did, I let go of the fact that it could have been any different. I sacrificed him. I mentally went back to the day and the venue of his suicide and chose the event. In so doing, I replaced a whole set of negative emotions with positive ones. Now, I believe that my dad died so I could have my priestly vocation. It is a worthy sacrifice for my missionary calling. I removed him from my life so that I might be a missionary on God's altar, leading precious souls to Christ; being a spiritual father to the congregation of the Lord.
But enough about my dad. This post is about me. Although I know for sure that I will never kill myself - by the way, now that I think about it, I think I need to dedicate one post to suicide - I know that there are subtler ways of shooting oneself in the foot. Some behaviors are virtual suicide. And they begin by self hatred. So, for example, a person hates himself, and so goes about mutilating the self, such as in self cutting, drug addiction, sex slavery, self degradation, self endangerment, or worse hurting others. There was this case of a man that had HIV/AIDS. He knew he had the disease, but he went about having unprotected sex with countless women, so they could all have the disease as well. Mass murders as well are just as bad as suicide, and they proceed from self hatred. Listen carefully to what I am about to say. Spiritualists tell us - and they are right - that whatever we do out of self hatred, which is not forgiveness and coping and sacrifice (in the sense I have used it in repeated posts), only makes our hatred of self worse. If a person for example commits suicide, the spirit that the person's body releases at such death will be re-embodied in a worse body, who very likely will live a worse life than previously, and so on, devolving on and on to non being; to nothingness.
Why? Because of despair. Despair is a sin against the Spirit (and actually, this much is Catholic teaching). And sins against the spirit can neither be forgiven in this world or the next (Matt 12:32). It always feels cool when I'm thinking vigorously and, at the same time, trying to organize my thoughts in an easy-to-read fashion and, while I'm doing that, I realize that Mother Church actually has said some of what I'm saying and I'm like Bingo! That proves that what I'm saying is true. It's always a good feeling. Sweet. Anyway. You see, when a soul is full of self hatred and sadness to the extent that the soul decides to kill himself or herself, what the soul essentially is saying is that he or she cannot live in this world again; that whatever situation he or she is facing is so hard, so bitter, so difficult that he or she is incapable, powerless, to survive. This is despair. It is a soul telling the spirit that operates its body that it is inadequate. It is powerless; it is unworthy; it is unsupportable; it is un-embodiable. That spirit is literally forced out of the body by the soul's own act. Now, the soul that forced its spirit out of its body goes to purgatory to watch and see if the spirit will find another body to accomplish all it could. However, the soul does not believe that such can happen. And the thoughts of such a soul make it so that the spirit does not succeed. (Recall Rhonda Byrne), and so the spirit "chooses" in utter weakness, a "deserving" weak body, and the resulting soul is even worse off than the earlier one, and on and on, and on.
If a suicide-committing soul can ever go to heaven; the force that could make that possible - my! That would have to be a huge, huge force indeed. Think for example of a woman who has suffered heartbreak and has learnt to distrust men; even if a good man is right under her nose, because she has despaired of finding the right guy, she will so second-guess herself that she likely will pass him up. All these things are commonsense. When life sucks, when the self sucks, wisdom should make us realize that it could be worse. We should, in spite of how difficult it is, cope. We should carry on. We should realize that, if we hold our own bravely in this life, the next will be better. Our purgatory will be shorter; we will go at death to purgatory and watch the spirit we let go inhabit a better body, and accomplish God's plan quicker, and soon enough we can be free from purgatory and go at last to heaven to meet God. And all because we kept faith and hope alive. All because we loved God. We held on. We did not do what Job's wife suggested when things became tough. We persisted. We did not give up. We carried on. We coped. We survived. We kept putting one foot in front of another.
"O God you are my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry, weary land without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary, to see your strength and your glory. For your love is better than life; my lips will speak your praise. So I will bless you all my life; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul shall be filled as with a banquet. My mouth shall praise you with joy. On my bed I remember you; on you I muse through the night. For you have been my help. In the shadow of your wings I rejoice. My soul clings to you. Your right hand holds me fast" (Psalm 63:1-8). This is probably the best coping song EVER. Please, when you are feeling down, sing it; read it; chant it. I promise you will feel better. It is a psalm we pray often on Sunday mornings, Week One, from the breviary. It is a classic consoler. Let's analyze it a bit. It starts out by saying how the psalmist longs and pines for God. The only way we can cope in spite of self hatred; in spite of difficulty, is to think about the afterlife; about tomorrow; about God.
Next, it shows how God's love is better than life and how that love of God moves the soul to cope in spite of difficulty and, in spite of pain, to be "filled as with a banquet, and joyful praise." You see, not everyone you meet in church that is singing and praying and praising God has everything going well for them. They are simply coping. Remember what Paul and Silas did while in prison facing possible execution? The bible says they prayed, and they sang and they praised God (Acts 16:25). It was while they were praising God that the Holy Spirit came and set them free. I know some people; they are poor, overwhelmed with difficulty and miserable. But you need to see them in church! They are the ones praying and praising God. They do so because - I mean, come on; what else could they do! They are looking up to God for help (Psalm 121). "The Lord is near to all those that call upon him in truth" (Psalm 145:18). We should trust in the Lord. Always. The psalmist goes further to say that he remembers God on his bed, and muses on him through the night. At night, when the hurly burly is done, this is the time when we are most alone with ourselves. I confess I don't always muse through the night on God. This is when I crave food to dull the emotional ache. But what if I mused on God instead? Then I wouldn't perpetuate one of the things I hate about myself: size, through emotional eating. (Quickly recall here what spiritualists tell us, that anything we do in self loathing that is not forgiveness or sacrifice perpetuates the case). And what does the psalmist muse about? How God has been his help; how he rests in the shadow of God's wings; how his soul clings to God, whose right hand holds the psalmist fast. Powerful stuff. God indeed helps us whether we realize it or not. He kept our bad situation from being worse. He kept us from despair. God indeed is our stronghold (Psalm 46). We need to read the psalms. They are full of powerful stuff. Especially 63. When you are feeling blue, please read Psalm 63. O God, you are my God, for you I long. Powerful, powerful stuff.
Cope. The bridge between self-hatred and self-forgiveness is coping. Let us cope with the help of God. Let us carry on, knowing that, even though it could have been worse, it could get better from here on out depending on how we live the life we've got. Trusting in the power of God, we can carry on with our difficult lives. We can know that God is with us. We can so be sure that all is well. And it is because of faith in God that I can say: I really don't hate myself. I forgive myself. Indeed, I love myself.
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