Oh, look, an actual post.

There is a reason I have not been writing much lately.

It is mainly because I am afraid of cliches. Yes, here I go again.

The thing is, that words are so limited. I still haven't gotten over this. They simply do not capture the depth of what truth is.

I'm sitting here, thinking and feeling and understanding and knowing all sorts of beautiful, complicated, twisted things. Things I want to say, things I don't want to say. I'm existing, and so are you. And I want to take you by the hand and race you to the top of the mountain and show you what it's like.  I want the essence of me to be able to communicate freely with the essence of you. I wish we could kythe.

Because, you see, it's very frustrating to hear the knowledge of a truth (like, "everyone needs to be loved,") and to grow up and suddenly understand the depth of what it means, to glimpse a tiny fraction of its eternal depth and then have to limit all of that understanding to the exact same cliche words you've always heard over and over. They used to not have meaning, but now they do -- yet the words themselves have not changed.

I am always fighting with the words, with the language that holds me down. I fear being another voice that says the same thing. I have ideas in my head of what I would like, but they lack the experience to put them into action.

I believe I have made the mistake of living for the words themselves. I think a lot of people do that, but I could be wrong.  But that instead of living for truth, I have lived for an ability to write about it. I have been a poet, not a warrior.

We think that in this age, so much has been thought and we have so many resources. And we do. But we also need to think for ourselves, we need to write even if the thought has been written before. I cannot shy away from thoughts that have already been said. I must embrace them.

I need to live the truth, not the words.

Excuses for Empty

We've all heard those testimonials -- the story of a friend's struggle with sin and their redemption from it. They say things like "I was chasing empty pursuits that ultimately left me unfulfilled." 

Uh-oh, you say. Hannah's going to take apart another cliche again. 

Well, sort of. Stick with me, okay? 

Every time I hear someone give that kind of testimony ("I was chasing after money...I was pursuing external beauty instead of internal beauty...I was trying to be loved instead of loving others first..."etc etc) I always get this picture in my head of the person sitting down at their desk in the morning and making a list of all the ways they can pursue that sin. 

I imagine them living for it 24/7 the way a homeless man might worry about staying alive. "I was living for myself," they say.

I get this picture of these people praying to themselves. Of them reading books on the topic and listening to sermons, going to conferences...then they literally and deliberately proclaim: "This is what I live for!!! This is my ultimate goal in life!!" 

And despite its incorrectness (although it is possible for people to be obsessed), one can understand this viewpoint, right? If you take the opposite of all those, it sounds just fine. "I'm living for God. My goal is to glorify Him. I am seeking to love others before myself."

But see, the opposite of love is not hate. It's pride. It's complacency. And those aren't things you have to deliberately obsess over in order for them to rule your life. That's the trick of the word. Complacency.

You have to actively seek God. You don't have to actively seek sin. You were born into it. 

Evil sneaks up on you from behind.  It doesn't start out as an obsession. It starts out as a little idea, a harmless idea -- just a little lifestyle improvement.

"You should get some nicer clothes." 
"You can't afford to lose any piano students."
"It would be good if you sounded more polished and confident when you say that."
"A pair of shoes to match this outfit would be nice."
"Your blog posts need to be more winsome and well-written."

...and on the list goes. Are these ideas bad? No, not really. But every time I hear someone say "Now don't get me wrong, these things aren't inherently bad," ...I begin to use it as an excuse for me to continue thinking that way. 

You don't realize it when it becomes too much. It's not an obvious. It's not like you're deliberately trying to be evil. Soon, though, you discover that it has more control than you thought.

Is it my every waking desire? No. Is it obvious to public view? Probably not. Is it the reason I live? Of course not. 

But still has a grasp on me. A grasp I am fighting to be free from. We often limit evil to a proactive thing -- like the bad guy in the movie who is trying to do wrong. But evil is not like that. 

It's not a matter of finding the men in black suits with masks. There is a much deeper battle at play.

I'm going to live.

I was thinking about my life today (something I do rather frequently) and realizing that I really don't think I'm putting a whole lot of effort into living.

It's just...mediocre.

I give halfhearted little glances at everything because I'm not sure what I want to be "my thing." You know?

For years I've wanted to find what my passion was and throw myself into it wholeheartedly.

But maybe....maybe I don't have one. Maybe I don't have just one calling. Besides, what's to stop me from doing everything that I do passionately and wholeheartedly? I don't have to just do one thing.

One of my first impromptu topics was a completely weird quote that went: "If you bite off more than you can chew, chew it." I talked, in a rather jumbled fashion, about how sometimes I end up doing too much stuff and over committing myself, but I have to chew it anyway.

But I've started to realize that I'm shying away from "chewing" what I've got. I'm afraid of throwing myself into everything I do because I'm afraid of what I might lose.

I'm afraid to enjoy life because I'm afraid those joys might be taken away.

But what's the alternative? Hiding in a corner and holding it all to myself? Never sharing, never loving, never learning?

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” -CS Lewis.

I don't want to be irredeemable.

So here's my resolution.

Everything that I do -- speech, debate, piano, flute, guitar, music teaching, awana, quizzing, music theory, chinese, math, SAT, writing, reading, cleaning, organizing, sciences, history, playing with my dog, hanging with my brothers, doing the laundry, working on Aslan's Country, talking to my friends, -- everything -- I am going throw all of myself into.

I'm not going to shy away from creativity. I'm not going to worry about making the best or being the best. I'm just going to be.

And I'm going to give 101%. I'm going to seek the truth, and I'm going to find it. I'm going to be daring and adventurous. I'm going to do crazy things and laugh till my stomach hurts. I'm going to find what I love about my life and I'm going to do it over and over again. I'm going to discover what it is that makes me me.

I'm not going to be idle. I'm not going to be mediocre. I'm not going to be afraid of what I might lose, I'm just going to go for it.

I used to hate all those cliches - live, love, laugh. Follow your heart. Dreams can come true. Just believe. Be yourself.

But I'm starting to love what is normal. It's okay to embrace what everyone else does sometimes. There's a reason everyone else loves it. I don't have to be anti-mainstream all the time. I don't have to be a world changer. As my dear friend Gray says, "there is power in being common."

So yes. I'm going to live, love, and laugh. I'm going to chase my dreams, and believe with everything in me.

I'm going to live.