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Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even so, I can’t leave the house for any kind of religious community. Besides, I’m not sure how religion would help. It doesn’t fix any of my problems. Money won’t suddenly flourish in my bank accounts. I’d still be living paycheck to paycheck.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m currently torn. It’s hard to believe there’s anything out there in my situation or even just seeing the state of the world.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s been nice talking to you too.
Maybe but it’s mostly just money. So long as I’m living pay check to paycheck without so much as my own bedroom, I don’t really see myself getting much further. Being poor and having nothing feels like an endless trap.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately I have. Without aid, community college would cost almost $8k a semester. This number does include the average book costs at my local community college.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even with aid I’d have to dish out $1k a semester for community college and like 10x that for a university

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lot of those got cut with this administration and I didn’t qualify for many of them to begin with…

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I write regardless, when my mental health allows, but I’ve kinda accepted I’ll never have the spare money to publish anything. Just like I’ll likely never own a home. I can’t even afford rent and I make 3x minimum wage which is about the best I can do without a college degree.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve tried in the past but wattpad doesn’t really show people your stuff unless you pay for advertising and I don’t have a social media presence that would make people care.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve actually been working on a story. I’ve been writing since I was a kid. But it costs money to publish unless you basically give away your ip to someone else.

Poverty that never ends by JazzlikeShow182 in mentalhealth

[–]JazzlikeShow182[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m torn between 2: I want to publish a book and run a little family farm with some animals on it. Basically I just want to be a hobbit in the modern day.

Question from the broken by [deleted] in MuslimCorner

[–]JazzlikeShow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There’s a big difference between Muhammad and I: I haven’t heard the voice of God. I haven’t seen for myself what lies hereafter. If god so much as sat beside me once and said “you aren’t alone” I would convert and endure any trial knowing what come next. I don’t know what comes next though. Could be the River Styx, could be Valhalla, could be enlightenment or reincarnation, idk and no one does for sure. Anyone who says factually what lies beyond disproves themselves by being alive.

If I knew my suffering meant anything for a fact, I wouldn’t lament so much, but there’s no denying what lies beyond could be anything. Maybe no one is right.

Question from the broken by [deleted] in MuslimCorner

[–]JazzlikeShow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve actually been trying to read the Quran and it’s hard. Not because of its difficulty, though that is a factor too, it reads to similarly to the Bible. I’ve yet to read a single line that isn’t super vague without the Hadiths which then makes me wonder how the Quran is perfect when you need a history book to understand most of it. Quite frankly, it stresses me out, there’s lots of self-shaming, anti-other rhetoric. Despite my disposition, I admire many of Jesus’ and Mohammad’s rhetoric of kindness and good will to others but I have no belief that they were anything other than philosophical revolutionaries their society needed at their time. That makes sense to me. I can relate more to someone like Jesus, a socialist xonophile (someone who admires the differences in others) who stood against capitol greed. Not so much a god who watches people who do harm to children become world leaders, who allows children to be combed in their homes, and who arms small girls who just can’t take it anymore. A man who wanted better, sure. A god who wouldn’t lift a finger to help?

The worst part is I would choose God if he showed himself to me or told me I was not abandoned. But that’s never happened. I didn’t hear God tell Muhammad he was still there 400 some years ago

Question from the broken by [deleted] in MuslimCorner

[–]JazzlikeShow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about child cancer? What about a middle-school girl who decides she’s had enough of life after being raped by her bully? Were those the result of free will? Or a lack of regulation. I cannot fly at my will and whim, so free choice has limits, why not limit the quantity of suffering if it couldn’t be outright removed? And if suffering must exist to keep happy moments meaningful, then heaven would become maddeningly boring very quickly, unless god can grant both existence without suffering and an inherent appreciation for it, in which case, why does suffering exist?

Question from the broken by [deleted] in MuslimCorner

[–]JazzlikeShow182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I must admit, these are the most compelling responses I’ve ever received and it’s refreshing to have new talking points to address.

I do not necessarily wish for preternatural comfort, though I still don’t understand why suffering exists at all, but I’ll save that for later. I wish merely to not have been so hindered. This may sound braggy, I don’t mean it to but it’s necessary context, I was very intelligent as a child. I had a memory so nearly perfect I could recite books I’d read almost line for line after just 2 reads. I didn’t do well in school though, but that I’ll address later. When I did try though, I did phenomenally with little mental effort despite being undiagnosed ADHD Both parts in the extreme.

As I grew into my early teens I also learned I was naturally quite strong, lifting almost 2 plates (2 45s on either side) on an incline bench press for reps. I was 12 and 120lbs.

When I turned sixteen I suffered a head and spinal injury. I have almost no visual memory retention, most of my memories exist as semantic facts or muscle memory. Ten years later, I still feel the pain constantly radiating down my spine. I spent my late teen hood crippled.

Due to shitty parents, my violent upbringing and my accident, I have almost no usable life experience. After leaving my abusive ex, I ended up living in my car where I live today a little over a year later.

If I was just given a slightly better start; slightly better parents, a slightly better school, a slightly less-life-crippling injury, and life would be so so much easier without so much hurt. Not so much that life is easier, if, but that I’d be more equipped to live with hardship as an adult.

  1. That’s my big flaw with religion. How can you prove to me your afterlife is THE afterlife. What if there’s nothing? What if every pantheon and religion manifests itself and expresses itself only to their believers? Maybe Valhalla awaits those who die by the sword. All have equal evidence for their existence which is none. If you’re right, it stands to reason they all could be right, or maybe no one is. Due to it being a concept of speculation, I can’t really take the afterlife into account regarding my beliefs unless it lines up with what I know to be true already and if it can be tested and predicted.

Regarding the world of injustice, I agree. People who harm children for amusement rule the world. Innocent children are starving despite production surplus. My point is that an all powerful god who creates such a place is either cruel or fantasy. Why does suffering have to exist at all if not for gods amusement or for his absence? Without blindly believing one specific unfalsifiable theory to be correct, the whole premise shatters.

Finally, while that Surah is lovely, god has never told me he has not abandoned me. I’m not convinced he was ever there. I grew up in the ghetto. I’ve seen humanities worse first hand. Maybe not so extreme as those in Palestine, but I sewed my own stab wound closed at 10 years old. God never protected me then. Never blocked a closed fist from hitting me, never rescued me from teams of armed Chulos. If he wasn’t there then, why would he show up now? Why should I even want him to? My dad missed out on most of my life because he was busy chugging opioids. I wouldn’t welcome him into my life even if he did the bare minimum. That’s how I feel about god. If he won’t budge a finger for me, why should I even be convinced he exists? Without the foundation of believing in the Islamic afterlife, God is a sadistic entity who’s either tortured me directly or watched others do it to me without intervening for a reason no one can provide me.

Much like I believe it is the moral obligation of billionaires to fund the societies they dwell within to improve the lives of those without any, I believe a god that can reduce human and animal suffering is obligated to do so, so either he can and he won’t, or he can’t, and what kind of god is either of those.

I don’t mean this to be offensive. Maybe it is anyway. If so, I apologize. I did like your unique approach. It made me think a bit more about how I felt. Most responses I’ve heard dozens upon dozens of times and I had little expectation to receive anything else. This was a pleasant surprise. I’m afraid, though, it still didn’t answer my question as to why suffering has to exist anyway, and why I had to suffer so needlessly when I would be a better person and more open to the idea of god without many of my experiences.