Another light in this world goes out.

I was at work today when I heard the news that Anthony Bourdain took his own life. I wasn't sure about my feelings. He is someone in this world I have looked up to for a long time.

I loved the way he looked at the world. I aspire to one day have even half of the talent he had with words. He described food, life, travel, and the world in ways only a true artist can. The world has become a bit dimmer today.

I see a lot of people criticising him for choosing suicide; calling it selfish or the easy way out. I hear things like, "how could he do that? He had THE DREAM JOB." But we only see what the camera wants us to see of his life.

We don't know what he went through. We can't contemplate what his sufferings were. Just because someone has the best life in our eyes is it really all glitz and glamour? More and more we see people in the limelight committing suicide. Most can barely live a normal life because they're being stopped by their admirers and their critics every 5 minutes.

Yes he struggled with drugs and alcohol much of his life. He lived to be 61. Was he diagnosed with cancer? Could he have been diagnosed with a disease that takes away his mental cognition that would remove his way with words and change him into something he never conceived? We may never know.

As I look at my own life, I've been sick for about 2/3 of the last 2 years of my life. I've been in and out of doctors' offices. I've been to specialists and no one can figure out what it is or how to fix it. It goes away and comes back. Currently all my body wants to do is sleep and I probably do so for about 12-16 hours a day on average. If I find out what I have is worse than just a sore throat, lost voice from time to time, and a hacking cough that won't go away would those thoughts come to mind? Would I be willing to fight through something worse than what I have now?

Mental illness is even worse. Too many times we hear, "if only they would have reached out to someone," but is that always enough? It's almost as if we don't want to understand it. "If they just would have reached out. If they just would have called the suicide prevention hotline." These things are not going through their minds. To these people putting out their candle is the easiest. It takes away the pain. We can say these things looking from the outside in, but how thick is the darkness trying to hold back their light?

We don't know what his reasons were. We don't know what he was fighting. We don't know what anyone is truly fighting in their own mind. Until then I hope we can have the empathy to understand someone's pain.

The world is a little dimmer tonight without you. Here's to your life Anthony.... thank you for brightening mine.

“Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.” - Anthony Bourdain

Ten Years

As I was laying in bed my thoughts hit me and I had to share.

Wow, ten years. Has it really been that long?

Ten years ago I was still pretending to be Mormon.

Ten years ago I was just getting to know a girl who would become my Mormon-fiancee through online dating.

Ten years ago I was terrified.

I didn't want to be part of the LDS church anymore. I hated the control, the guilt, the manipulation, the brainwashing, the no room for logic and free thought, but how could I get out?

95% of my friends were Mormon at the time. I was part of a singles ward. I probably had a calling, but I never had any calling of importance so I don't remember what it was. My family was Mormon. My sister just got married in the temple a few months prior. I felt helpless. frustrated, confused, and most of all lonely.

I had no one to confide in. I had been piling so much on my shelf it was about to break. It was creaking under the weight. I kept trying to support it, but I knew it would break and soon.

Then 2008 happened.

I decided to be me. I took steps. Yes I met and dated the girl from online. We got engaged. It was rough. We fought a lot. We broke up and got back together probably 7 or 8 times before it all finally fell apart. I told her I had to be me and I couldn't be the priesthood holder she had her heart set on. So we parted ways.

Still very few people knew about who I was except a few close friends;  because I didn't live at home with family I could pretend I was still going to church.

I felt more of "the spirit" outside of the church than I ever did in the walls of a chapel.

Sundays became second Saturdays. I could go out experience nature and take in life.

2008 was a year I finally started to figure out who I was. I went with a very dear and close friend for dinner and had my first alcoholic beverage. It was freeing. The guilt was gone. The church had no power over me anymore. I found out from some other friends that I am not a fan of Crown Royal and will never touch the stuff again. Alcohol, that I was taught was this demon from childhood, was something that could help you relax as long as it is used in moderation. In the right quantities it can be healthy.

I began to learn more. I  made new friends outside the church. We had new experiences. I finally felt that for the first time I was living life and happy. The guilt, the loneliness, the depression was all lifting away.

Yes some of the guilt was still there at times. 25 years of indoctrination is hard to scrub away, but it was being scrubbed away. I was still in the shadows until Nov 2008 of the dreaded Prop 8 vote.

I couldn't be a part of a religion that fought so hard to take away others' happiness. God supposedly gives us agency so why were they taking it away from others? Why did they fight so hard against something that since that time has literally done nothing to hurt them or their religion? It was going to destroy Christianity and our country. We were going down the slippery slope. (Trump is destroying our nation not gay marriage.)

That was it. I was done. I wasn't hiding anymore and 10 years ago people got to know the real me.

I hope that 2018 can be just as amazing as 2008 was. I have a life with an amazing wife, two dogs, great friends, and close family members.

Cheers to 2018 and another ten years of challenges and journeys!

To all the men sharing the #MeToo status

Dear fellow men,

As a fellow man this is really making me angry.

Yes, I get it, you were sexually harassed or assaulted maybe a few times in your life. I'm not trying to downplay that. No one likes unwanted sexual attention.

But, what this is showing how widespread and how terrible this is for women. It's not just on occasion. Or that one time 20 years ago I had that creepy boss. This needs to be seen and heard because it happens EVERY DAY.

I can pretty much guarantee every woman has been sexually harassed or assaulted multiple times throughout their life. More so in a year than most men have been in their entire lives.

To you I ask these following questions:

When was the last time you took the subway during rush hour and were afraid about how many times you might be groped or touched inappropriately because there was only standing room?

When was the last time you were cat-called while running laps in your neighborhood while doing your morning jog?

When was the last time your boss made subtle comments that you're not dressing sexy enough for that promotion?

To all you men out there who are trying to take away from the real issue, go fuck yourself.

Sincerely,

A male feminist.

Where will you go?

I decided to pick up my blog again. I finished a long chapter of my life in my previous blog (Atheist Behind the Zion Curtain) back in October a few days before my wedding.

This is now my new chapter in life.

Now the LDS Faith is still going to have a strong influence on my blog. I can't completely take it out of my life as this is how I grew up, but I believe this is the best place to start my journey Beyond the Zion Curtain.

I frequent an exmormon support group and one of the things that has come up a lot is, "where will you go?"

This was a question asked by Elder Ballard in the October 2016 General Conference. In the naive wording he assumed that the world can't possibly offer anything better than the faith.

And as I have stepped beyond the faith I want to answer that question from an exmormon point of view that there is life after faith and in my experience a much happier life.

Where have I gone? Where will I go?

I found myself. I am me. I don't have guilt from a church. I don't feel like I can never be good enough for god. I no longer have to feel sorrow for my faults in order to make myself pure in god's eyes. I can be happy with life. I can find joy every day instead of worrying about what I have done wrong. A new and true joy has come alive.

I found a loving wife. We have a real connection of love. When I compare my relationships that I had as an active LDS member to what I have now it felt like we were together because we needed each other to get to heaven. I know this is not the case for all members of the faith, a lot of them do find real love, but I never experienced that myself. Now I am with my wife because we have chosen each other. We had almost nothing in common, except our friends, when we first started dating, but this is what gave us our strength. We each have gained so much in life due to our differences that I can't imagine life differently. We have agreed to give each other our time which is the most precious commodity we have in our short lives.

I get to see the world. Without the monetary obligations of the church I can travel. I went to Switzerland and the French Alps for my honeymoon. I get to go to Paris and the Loire Valley this coming fall. In the years to come I get to experience the world. I get experience new cultures. I get to learn about and meet people and other ways of life and from that I get to enrich my life.

So, Elder Ballard, you ask me and all the other exmormon and inactive members where will we go? I ask you, where will we not go? Where will our new lives take us?