Living Hell.

Fire, brimstone, a torturous, never-ending scene where one is completely alone, being ripped apart over and over, one thousand times one thousand times. A snake crawling in and out of oneself, unsettling, pain, loneliness, sadness, in all, the absence of all that is good. Hell is a place where one goes who does not accept Jesus Christ as the flesh version of God who died on the cross for our sins. More intimately than that, our father, God and the God-man, Jesus are the utmost high and accepting them into your heart creates salvation and thus allows one to enter the gates of Heaven after death. There will be no more ramblings about this not being a real thing, for this is what it is.

Men do not like to talk about Hell, we'd rather discuss Heaven. We would rather sit and idealize Heaven as a place full of humanly pleasures. Myself, have made many references to a constant buffet full of donuts, pizza, ice cream, and other worldly foods I have never experienced. I imagine eating, never too much, and being able to do so, as the food is always in perfect condition. I image all my dogs, all the people I love, all the wonderful things I can comprehend, the world, as they come and greet me in my mansion in the clouds. My earlier accounts of Sunday school depict the roads of gold, a city perfect in every way.

Yes, this is much more pleasurable.

There is an opposite however. God gave man the free will which means that there has to be something to choose from. Here on Earth, we have this non-sensical way of choosing the opposite of our picture of Heaven. This is not just in our salvation, prayer, asking for God to enter our lives, but more in HOW we live our lives NOW.

If Heaven is everything good, then Hell has to be all the bad. Typically, this too brings about images we can comprehend as evil. The Satan worshipers in their black clothes, blood, torture, isolation, living in the shadows. Constant heavy metal playing on the overhead speaker as a ruthless bunch of deceptive, psychotic and overall, lost criminals walks along a fiery path where a torture is always taking place.

Just like Heaven has its hints here on Earth, the love experienced by a father as his child is born, there are also glimpses of hell, deceiving others out of what they need to be satisfied, envy, lust, all hellish thoughts I am sadly familiar with. Unfortunately, I believe that there are more depictions of Hell, or as close as we can humanly comprehend, than there are of Heaven. The only reason I say that is due to nature's response to itself, or the fact that things continue on to their own destruction.

In The Great Divorce, another C.S. Lewis reference and the underlying drive behind this idea, that and the fact I couldn't sleep,  Hell is depicted as something a bit more subtle, as a grey town where everybody gets just shy of content. The town the main character finds himself in isn't full of savages,
but people are discontent, broken, begrudged, resentful, all characteristics more subtly accepted than the psychotic depictions of Hell here on Earth. In this book, Heaven is in the clouds, and the people of Heaven are shining and come out and meet with the "visitors" and try to convince them to follow them back into the sunrise among the mountains where they will be these solid beings who no longer feel this constant level of discomfort. The visitors from the grey town are to ask for salvation, essentially. As the book goes, many of the characters from the grey town fail to repent, admit wrong, and therefore ignore the inquisition of those sent to try and recruit them to stay. The people in this wonderful place are content, satisfied and understand that people have their choice to make and when they choose to go back to their grey town where they can live alone, even in their own large dwellings, maintaining their resentments and belief in their own weighted obsessions, in which they never are satisfied with, they have that option.

Hell, and its implications are the most severe consequence there is. That last period was the most meaningful one I have ever typed. With Hell being such an absolute worst, where the people go who are not always the most evil, but possibly the most prideful, resentful, bitter, even broken people that are walking the Earth, fully alive today.

One of the main characteristics of a hell-driven person, I believe, is the pride that interferes with willingness to listen, to learn. Pride prevents us from recognizing the wrong we have done and it damn sure prevents us from asking for forgiveness. After all, what I said or did wasn't "that bad," I am not "evil," I have not "killed anybody." Yes, these are all true and just another reinforcing-belief, preventing someone from getting any closer to all that is good, Heaven.

As I sit here today, one of the biggest struggles I have is pride. My daily attempts to ensure high self-esteem end up failing me more than they ever assist. I have actively compensated throughout my life to be someone of value. Many of my behaviors, too numerous and deceitful to name here, are all in line with the person I THOUGHT I wanted to be. I thought that pride was a virtue and that mankind is in a constant battle with each other to out succeed one another. I thought the the world was this large competition where you won or lost, there weren't enough resources or praise from other humans to go around evenly. I neglected love for I deemed it a fairy tale and instead I replaced these concepts with pride that I wasn't "that bad," or that people love you because you can offer them something.

Now, I was never an atheist, in fact, I have been a Christian as long as I can remember. I have always loved God and asked Jesus into my heart when I was very young, and again as I became older at a much more intimate place in life. I always considered myself a "good" person, but it was always in comparison to a "bad," one. I have had my problems which are not as noteworthy as one may look for in literature, however they were the worst kinds of sin and I was the worst kind of man. I was a discontent individual whom KNEW God existed and KNEW Jesus died on the cross, however lived as though we were all out to "get" more than the other.

My interpretations of pride was the nature at which I went about inflating myself. I would subconsciously take an inventory of things I did that were closer to what a person outside of me would like, depending on the population, and make sure that it was greater than the ones that went against that same goal. Again, this is all very subtle and became so second nature that only breathing came first on most occasions. Everything I did, I made an inventory of how it looked, if it looked good, did it help me be seen in the best light? I was a nice man, a man who people could refer to as kind. I was generous with my time and my time was valuable, you knew this by the subtle comments I would make, the small gestures that my time is valuable but I will sacrifice for you. My intent in all I did was to be on the side of winners. All my actions from bodybuilding, to degrees, to earlier writings, all of these externally-shown products, all for a prideful creature living in the turmoil of a competitive self.

I perceived, and continue to struggle with a competitive view, not in an active sense, but in an insidious way where my actions and behaviors naturally go to this place of "am I doing better than...?" I have no exact image or idea I am comparing to, instead, I am simply making sure I am doing better. I have to do better at... I have to be better at... These ideas are the obsession and they are/were the same ideas that kept me active while I was resting. The ideas prevented any satisfaction, any love, any intimacy. Why, because those feelings prevent a person from continuing to develop into success. This was my belief.

A prideful rendition of a holiday get-together, sadly one of our best-known traditions. 

As Hell can have many depictions, I think it is important to take note of how insidious, subtle, "not that bad," behaviors are because they may be the biggest detriment to contentment in this life and a grey blah town in the next. God gave man the choice, this is why there has to be a part of us that turns from good, we turn from logic as the best choice almost daily to fueling our own turmoil. I believe we are all born good (an obvious statement to me because we are made from God and he is good, so he makes good), however it is our adaptation to the environment which causes us to deviate from this good path. The people we are today, what we value and spend our time on can be deviations from our intended path, and one of the reasons there are so many unaccounted for mental health problems. I believe people are going against their internal self which knows good and wants it but yet, the conscious, adapted mind says that they must succeed. Guilt, shame, resentment, all very horrible feelings that people can avoid by reaching for love, seeing the good in people and themselves, and admitting when they are wrong and seeking to be more like Christ was in his KNOWING of Heaven and living this life here on Earth.

God Bless.