Reprise
2026-04-04
This morning, I felt emboldened to make more effort toward my spiritual life. Last night, I ran out of cigarettes, and I decided that now would be the perfect time to quit again. With the weather heating up again soon, I would rather not have to be outside for a decent portion of my day just to smoke cigarettes. It gets too hot and disgusting out there. More than that, I really just need to quit again. I had picked my habit back up sometime around February, so it's been about six weeks or so of consistent daily smoking. But this time around, I've had enough. I'm hoping to truly be done with it for good this time. I had a good seven months prior to relapsing, and I'm confident I can achieve similar results again.
As I give up this vice yet again, I am also feeling emboldened to give up another, more powerful vice: consumption of pornography. I made this resolve at the beginning of this year, and while I had a good first few weeks, I eventually relapsed and fell into despair. I thought to myself that quitting would be impossible. From there, it morphed into a horrid realization: I liked it. I didn't feel guilty about it, but felt excited to watch it. It was a part of me that I had to truly confront because I saw a contradiction between that part of myself and the one who felt conviction toward certain values. I don't like being a hypocrite. I hate hypocrisy more than I enjoyed the carnal pleasure of watching pornography, and beyond any kind of addiction science or "practical reasons" to quit, I know that the reason I have to give it up is far beyond an act of self-service.
I have to let go of this idea that I'm not doing anything wrong when consuming pornography. With every view and click I give the sites that host the videos, I am directly supporting an industry that only wants to perpetuate harm onto others. It's a strange thing because those involved will hide under this veil of consent—the idea that as long as everyone agrees to the actions, there's no harm in it. But clearly, those people don't understand the impact of their actions. Or worse: they do understand, but they either don't care or want to actively participate in the harm they cause. In spite of this righteous indignation, however, I still find myself at my wit's end when it comes to finding true abstinence. Even when I sit through every urge or try to replace my time with something better, I still found myself unable to escape it on that somatic level. It was as if my groin kept screaming at me nonstop and there was nothing I could do to replace the sensation.
I still don't know if I can be delivered from it. Truthfully, it took up a lot of my time. I have to confront this idea that I really need to spend every waking hour doing something in service of the more important things in life: faith, service, creativity, health, and all the other things that matter more than those base carnal pleasures. No matter what I seem to do, though, no matter how far I think I'm beyond their grasp, I end up coming back to them eventually. It is a constant failure of self-will. I can't seem to do the right thing, make the right choice. It's as if I don't want to. Clearly, anything good in my life isn't a result of my own doing. Anything I have to be grateful for is because God let me have it through His grace and mercy; any other explanation would be a gross cop-out.
Every moment is a new temptation to do something wrong and stupid, and I can't seem to find my way through it. Even when I pray, even when I try to enrich myself with the lives of the Saints, or even when I go to church, it all seems to have no effect on my ability to make a good choice. No, the only way I learn is when I suffer the harsh consequences of my own stupid actions. Even then, I'll grow complacent with God's mercy and fall right back into that same trap yet again. It seems that the only way out is through. If I have to shoot myself in the foot a hundred times, why not go ahead and double it? My only way to learn is through suffering, and I guess that's just what will have to happen. Even then, I'll probably mark it as some point of pride. Humility isn't something I'm good at.
Even though I have all of these things I can yell at myself about, I don't want this entry to be marked by some kind of self-hatred. I've made distinct efforts to keep working toward being compassionate toward myself, but I do this not because I feel compelled to on my own volition; I do it because that's what God commanded me to do. I displease God every day, but I know that life is an iterative process. Every day is a new opportunity to try again, and that's just what I'm going to do. If I fail, then let it happen however many times it takes until I get it. If I never get it, then so be it; I just hope that God will have mercy on me either way.
What this is really all about is how much I fear God's infinite power. See, I go about most of my day trembling. I don't want Him to cast down anything on me that I can't bear. Most days are too much as it stands, even if my yoke is easy. At any moment, it could get so much worse. There's already too much on my plate, and most days all I want is to go back home. Out of the few things I do know, the one thing that keeps me going is understanding that I don't work on my own time. Everything good in my life is there through the generosity and grace of God, so if He thinks that I can handle one more day on this earth, I'll do my best to trust in that.
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