Weird Cult Stuff

Sometimes when I would tithe it felt like making payments on my soul. Not to be works-based about my salvation, but that is how it felt. Like I was fulfilling the role of Being Good and hoping it would solve everything eventually.

I still tithe 10% of anything I earn, but not to God or any church. It goes mostly to groceries I buy for the food bank’s list of needed donations, and to individuals I know who need a hand every now and then to fix a car or pay a bill or whatever.

And I tell myself that it’s different now, my motivations are different and the effect of my actions are different. It’s more direct, doesn’t line the pockets of any pastor or board of directors, and I’m not colonizing anybody or supporting any organizations that are. I say that it’s just me giving back to my community.

I do all the giving as quietly as I can, like some stealthy task, and I feel almost guilty about it every time. I mean, it’s a Christian thing and I’m not a Christian now. I still don’t like to talk about it with people, it’s a weird concept to give 10% away, and when I think about it too much it makes my throat hurt. I want to give more, and less, at the same time. The inequality of everything is hard to wrap my head around, how I’m housed and my neighbor isn’t and my coworker owns five rental houses. Someone in this town is going to bed hungry. Hell, I could use a new pair of work shoes. But I’m so much better off than so many people. Maybe that’s why I do it-because it’s a just-for-me show of excess, martyrdom and sacrifice. Maybe I’m letting it give me a big proud head, to be giving 10%, maybe it’s just a weird ego boost. Maybe I’m just a little bit evil, and like finding secret ways to feel superior.

And then that’s what it comes down to in the end again: I really do feel like I’m a little bit evil, a little bit bad, a little bit rotting away on the inside, and 10% is one of a hundred futile attempts every month to counteract the badness emanating out from me into the world.

At least it’s a vice that can’t cause too much harm. Or maybe it does, I mean who’s to say? I never thought I was doing harm back when I donated my 10% to anti-abortion campaigns and the like. Maybe we’re all fucked any way you slice it, and 10% in the big picture is not enough to change anything really anyway. Just a ritual I do because I’m broken, and stuck on my past.

I don’t know, I just wish it felt different to do it each month. But it doesn’t, really. I still feel like I’m making payments on my soul.

Actually I changed my mind, my parents are doing it right: living in denial is way more fun and, generally speaking, sanity is for losers who want to be sad.

Don’t listen to this song unless you wanna risk freaking out about divine wrath and judgment due to your general straying from the straight and narrow, but I must say: this song does convey the feeling.

Artistic/communicative of a real vibe? 10/10

Panic inducing? 10/10

Religious trauma vibes? 10/10

Did I listen to this song like a bazillion times while driving in large loops of interstate 🛣 last year when things were Bad with a capital B? Affirmative, 10/10

Just realized that most of the daily living things I have mental blocks around doing are things that used to be heavily communal. Things like writing, going for walks, cleaning, and making art, I can do by myself and I’ve always done them by myself and I don’t have trouble with it. But I have trouble sometimes with things like laundry, cooking, sleeping, running errands: these are all things I did with minimum 2 sisters present for most of my life.

Maybe part of why I have trouble just doing them is that I feel some honor-culture shame about doing things by myself?? Or I’m used to the ‘safety in numbers’ aspect of doing things as a group so that no one got singled out if the activity ended up being punished?? Or I just find mundane things less enjoyable if there is no friend there?? Or I was engaging in those activities because I felt helpful, and I don’t consider them that important if I’m just doing them for me??