2 days late

but it's fine.

you (present or future) are welcome to answer any amount or combination of the questions, including all or none of them. in the event of ambiguity in the questions, you are welcome to interpret the questions however you choose. this survey will remain open, and i would be grateful for your thoughts regardless of timing; however, if you are answering this at the time of output, i would be especially grateful if i could receive answers by the end of 2023.

1. who are you?
2. what is your quest?
3. who is God?
4. how are you feeling right now?
5. on a scale of 1-10, rate this year for you.
6. what was your favorite part of this year?
7. what was your least favorite part of this year?
8. what is your favorite color?
9. what is something you've been thinking about lately?
10. what is your favorite season?
11. how have you grown in the last year?
12. what goals do you have for the next year (activities, character growth, and/or other)?
13. what is your go-to drink order?
14. what is something you would like to learn?
15. when was a time when you felt deeply satisfied with something you had done?
16. gray or grey?
17. how would you like to see me grow?
18. describe your 16-year-old self.
19. what is something you like about our friendship?
20. what is something you would like more of in our friendship?
21. what would a successful life look like for you?
22. who is someone you look up to, and why?
23. what is a fear you have confronted in some way?
24. what is a deal-breaker in a friendship?
25. what is one question you've had for a while, which you don't have an answer to?
26. what is one song that elicits a strong emotion from you (and what is the emotion)?
27. do you have any powerful scent memories?
28. what is a quote (not your own) that means a lot to you?
29. have you ever intentionally made a change in your life that has stuck?
30. what artists, shows, or podcasts have you gotten into recently?

bonus question:

would you like me to answer a questionnaire like this?

Defender

imagine, for a moment, that you spend most of your time in your head, being constantly bombarded with accusations all day long. they are voices that shout at you from every angle, echoing against the walls of your mind and projecting onto any feasible being. they take the form of what you think others must think of you. they dramatize how others would see you if they really knew you. they remind you of all the ways you fail. they remind you how different you are from how you wish you were. they tell you that you’re basically letting people down constantly, all the time—that’s pretty much all you do, and if you don’t, it’s a fluke. or they say, “it’s ok! just do better! just stop failing!” or they draw comparisons: “if everyone else can do this, you should be able to too. it can’t be that hard.” or they suggest, “maybe it’s because you’re being lazy and stubborn. have you considered trying harder?”

yes. constantly, in fact.

it seems like these voices come from all around you, from everyone you know. you feel confident that no one will defend you, so you withdraw. you raise up walls. you become your own defender. because you don’t believe those voices, not really. except . . . what if they are true? if they were, would your stubborn refusal to listen become your own enemy?

and the louder they get, the harder it is to fight them off. and the longer you fight, the harder it is to get up from each fall. you’ve long ago passed the point of diminishing returns, but it doesn’t matter, because you aren’t allowed to stop trying. but oh, you're so tired, and it just never stops. these accusations and failures and responsibilities surround you, encroaching on you every moment. you struggle to breathe. you struggle to move. you cover your ears to try to shut them out.

in this moment, you remember that you are supposed to lift your struggles and anxieties to God. but you are afraid. you want to hide, not because you think he won’t see you, but because you are worried he won’t get behind you. you’re afraid he will join in the chorus of voices, confirming what you’ve always been afraid was true, that you’re just not doing a very good job at life, that it’s all because of your poor character development, that it’s up to you to be better, and then you’ll represent him well and have his favor. in this moment, you are not afraid that God won’t defend your sins and your failings. you are afraid he won’t defend you.




“Cast all your anxiety on him”—why? “because he cares for you.”
oh . . . really? is that what you've been believing? because it doesn't really seem like that's what you've been believing.

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”


huh.
it seems you may have had the wrong idea about who God is. maybe he’s not like the other voices.

observations on suffering

suffering, specifically the kind that occurs fully in your head, is an interesting thing. it seems to be an acknowledgement that what is going on in the world or in your circumstances is, on some level, not right. at least from your perception. something i've noticed from both experiencing and observing suffering is that no one can take a person's pain and suffering away from them. it is the sufferer who has to journey to a place where they can relinquish it themselves.

not only that, but no one really has the right to ask or to try to force a sufferer to relinquish those things--in that person's mind, it is like asking them to stop acknowledging the wrongness of their situation. trying to force the issue is likely to make the person hold onto their suffering even more tightly--like they are their only defender, and they will defend themselves with the validation of their own suffering. in doing this, ironically, they suffer more intensely, and for longer.

so you cannot, and probably should not try, to make a person give up their suffering, even when you can see that the more tightly they cling to it, the worse it becomes. but maybe the best thing for a suffering person is to journey with them to a place where that suffering is no longer necessary.

(as a side note, this is at the heart of anger vs. forgiveness.)

to be clear, i am not saying that if you are suffering, it is your own fault for having feelings or for being in that state of mind. but i think that it's easy to be so aware of our suffering, to focus on it and worry it, that we don't always give ourselves the best chance to get out of it. awareness of our feelings and assumptions can be helpful, but after a certain point, i'm not sure we really do ourselves any favors by dwelling on it. we reach a point of diminishing returns on the self-awareness.

thinking, overthinking

so it turns out that overthinking every decision is a symptom and a coping mechanism for an anxious mind, not so much the thing that causes the anxiety. which means that in order to avoid being anxious, i reach for absolute certainty, or at least the comfort of getting as close to absolute certainty as i can. it’s like my cookie jar. apparently i get very anxious about making the wrong decision—financially, socially, spiritually, logistically— and use an excess of information to feel like i have truly done the best i could with all of the available information. i don’t know that it’s necessarily about controlling everything, so much as it’s about controlling all that i can (or could reasonably be responsible for). but then, i suppose there’s probably more to be dug up here with regards to a fear of being found negligent or deficient in some way.