I didn’t grow up religious. The first time my parents took me to church I must’ve been in the third grade and I cried the entire car ride there. I don’t recall ever sitting through the service. I can’t be sure if we made it in and I blocked it from my memory or they took my crying ass home. They weren’t church goers by any means, so I’m not sure why they wanted to go that one sunny Sunday morning. Both of them grew up semi-religious but weren’t devout about it. I also can’t recall why I was so upset to tears about going to church. Perhaps because in all my 7 (ish) years of life god hadn’t been discussed, and perhaps that didn’t feel like the day it should be.
A seed must’ve been planted though, as I kept toying with god over the years. There were small bouts in my adolescence I’d randomly end up in a church. I’d cry along with all the other crying people, our hands would be waving in air while had thoughts like, I think my dead grandpa who I never really met is ashamed of me and maybe this is helping? God didn’t really stick. It turns out god isn’t a bumper sticker. The emotions would overfill me while in a room with other people being overwhelmed with their god emotions, but outside of the room I was smoking weed and learning about the magical elixir of alcohol, and what mens peepee’s looked like.
Drugs and wanting to be hot became my god. At least that’s what I worshipped. I even had all kinds of rituals, like binge drinking, snorting anything white in the bathroom between class, and throwing up my food. This worked for periods of time until it absolutely fucking didn’t. I was in rehab at 17 where there was talk of finding god or a higher power to save myself—and briefly I did. Once I got out I did my best to believe in god, which felt kind of like nature at the time. It was short lived, as was my sobriety, and I quickly found myself worshipping the false gods of my youth again—drugs and being fuckable.
Towards the end of my teens and into my early 20’s I made friends with a group of punk rockers who introduced me to atheism. God was so dumb to these people. They made fun of god and pointed out all of god’s flaws, and I was like, yeah this makes sense—fuck god! I said fuck god for a long long time. In my late 20’s I found the work of neuroscientist and “four horseman” atheist Sam Harris, who was one of the first thinkers to flip my world upside down. His work furthered my belief that we’re just brains void of choice placed in a body in an uncaring void.
All this time there was a hollow hole being dug beneath my being. I was going through life but I felt so fucking empty all of the time. I found solace in denying anything that could’ve created this world; let it end up as it has. It justified my pain, this pain I’d been carrying since my youth—a weight of the world kind of pain. Even if there was a god, I didn’t want anything to do with that god. What kind of god lets children starve? It’s a fair point. Why would an all loving and all powerful god do that? The worse point is when people who believe in god just say—it’s his will! No wonder we go around trying to defy god, his will sucks. But maybe we got confused somewhere. Maybe our own will somehow got conflated with god’s, maybe some people abused their power once they tasted it, maybe god wasn’t so much to blame as ourselves.
It was roughly a couple years ago that I felt open to exploring “God.” I’d seen people who I admired using the word and I’d had several life changing psychedelic experiences that put me in contact with something very much “beyond” myself. First I played with how the word “God” felt in my mouth. I chewed on it and regurgitated it over and over for months. I even wrote a piece around that time that ended up getting published titled Is God a Bad Word? I quickly understood that I didn’t believe in the biblical god. That god was too in our business, too easy to use as a scapegoat, too needy and righteous and vengeful (hey, kinda sounds like us). I realized maybe there is something like “the Divine” and we’ve just projected our humanity onto it in an attempt to understand it, making “God” quite humanlike. I knew that God wasn’t my god. I knew God was just a word we’ve given something we don’t actually fully understand, so anyone who preaches about it like they fully understand it; as if they know the truth of what it wants—well that just doesn’t sit right in me.
However, I’m not here to say that those people are wrong. In fact, what I’m here to say is that god is subjective.
After watching the movie Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and sobbing my eyes out because I really got it; after trying DMT a few months ago; after living a life so dependent on substances I nearly lost myself; after getting sober and losing myself in a whole new way; after never being taught about god, and then toying with god, and then losing god, and then opening up to god… last week it dawned on me that maybe I’ve found god.
I was making a collage with my lovely angel artist friend when I realized what I made was an ode to god. But since the word “God” is already taken and not really the god I’m going for, I decided to use the word “gob” for my own god.
My experience of finding gob is so particular to me that gob feels like my very own thing, sure I can share about gob, but gob doesn’t need to be pushed on others. Gob doesn’t need anything really. Gob is not a man or a woman. Gob is not plucking our strings. Gob doesn’t know where we’re going, gob isn’t all knowing. Gob is curious, gob is trying to figure things out (just like we are). Gob wants to see what it can do. Gob doesn’t need me to worship them or do 100 good deeds so I can be with gob. Gob doesn’t judge us. Gob is always all around but mostly deep, deep within me. Gob is atomical. Gob isn’t good or bad. Gob just is. And when I think about this gob I created with my own mind that gob gave me, I feel lots of love. And I have this theory that the practice of love—that is the kind that is accepting, all encompassing, and undefinable—shrinks our amygdala, which is a small almond shaped portion of our brain responsible for processing fearful or threatening stimuli. Now, I have no idea if this is true. I’m also in school, off alcohol again, found a fucking incredible therapist—surely everything attributes to this. But surrendering to the atomical love of gob is working for me. All I know is that when I went deep deep within myself and started forgiving and loving all of my parts, gob arose. Perhaps it’s not that I found gob, but that gob has always existed in me and is finally surfacing.
Side effects have been: I am not so afraid of anything—certainly not people, I am not so hard on myself, I am not so sure about everything, mystery turns me on, conflict isn’t bad, I still have bad days but I don’t abandon myself, I haven’t spiraled into a depressive episode although they still tempt me too. I feel like my fucking self.
Not sure if I’ll lose some of ya with this gob talk. It won’t be the focus of this newsletter I promise! I just wanted to share that the spell of my nihilism broke and I feel light like a feather. I physically and mentally feel different, and I could not have reached this place without the love and support of so many mortal bodies who love me as I am and want the best for me. Love baby, it’s about love. I don’t want to indoctrinate others into my love gob, in fact, I think you should find your own gob, or goob, or geeb, or gweebus. Maybe it’s not about finding god—it’s about feeling around within ya and creating one. Maybe god is being created right along with us. Maybe god doesn’t know where we’re going anymore than we do, maybe that’s fun for everyone. I mean, maybe gob has a plan, but I like to think of gob more like a cowboy of the cosmos, exploring and yee-hawing.
I respect whatever god/gob you find or don’t find. I respect your humanity above any ideal, I or anyone else, could ever invent. We are the visceral real flesh and bones of this earth, of this reality, and I will always honor the humanity/beinghood of our species above anything my mind can think or say. But while we’re here, and since we can have some fun—and we must have fun with these inventive brains of ours—I guess I wonder why not make your own god up and see what happens?
Gob 💗🙏🙏 I loved this so much Sam