How fitting that my one hundredth post on this silly little blog should contain a silly little epiphany about the previous ninety-nine posts of said blog.

It seems I’m always going on about whether it’s okay to do this, whether it’s okay to do that. You probably find it annoying, and believe me, I do too! Sometimes while wondering about all these various conundra, I lapse into meta-wondering, and ask myself: why is it that I wonder about these things? Why can’t I just intuit what is the right thing to do in these situations? Why is it that some people, like the saints for example, just know what the right thing to do is?

And it occurred to me: I think the problem might be that I’ve been coming at this from the wrong angle.

“Can I get away with this?” “Can I get away with that?” “Is it permissible to do xyz?” Yikes. Imagine if your best friend or your spouse approached your relationship with that kind of attitude! If your husband was all “hey, I know it’s not cheating, technically, so is it permissible to stare at other women’s butts now and then if it’s just for a few seconds?”, or if your best friend was like “as long as I’m not actually making fun of her, is it okay if I just chuckle a little when someone else makes fun of her behind her back? because nothing personal but it was a really funny joke” – Both of these would be pretty abhorrent, wouldn’t they?

If you really love someone, it’d be pretty unthinkable to approach your relationship with them that way. The saints would approach their relationship with God from a perspective not of “how much can I get away with?” but “how much can I give up to please Him? How can I possibly give more?”

If something is at all questionable, then giving it up for God’s sake ought to be a no-brainer! It ought to be seen as a delight, even a privilege! The more unnecessary pleasures we have the opportunity to give up for God, the more sacrifices we can offer Him, the luckier we are, the more blessed we will be, right?

So why don’t I just do it then! Why do I still enjoy my little unnecessary, frivolous, worldly pleasures.

Well, because I guess it could be argued that doing so helps me to function well, by generally easing the burden of existence enough that it’s somewhat easier to do my work? But, maybe I shouldn’t be trying to ease the burden. Maybe I should be trying to take on more of a burden. That’s what a saint would do, isn’t it?

I could continue to argue at this point, and keep trying to poke little holes and make little excuses here and there for why unnecessary pleasures are actually okay, but I’m starting to feel like maybe the saints are really just people who (to radically oversimplify) are better at being uncomfortable than most of us. Maybe they didn’t actually enjoy discomfort any more than the next person, they just did it anyway.

Now I’m not trying to be like super extreme or anything. I’m well aware that even traditional priests and religious set aside time for recreation. But in these cases, “recreation” is limited, both in quantity and quality, to just what is necessary to refresh the soul, and it’s nothing unwholesome: things like outdoor sports, crafts, reading, talking with others, etc. They’re not, like, scrolling instagram or watching netflix or listening to shitty music or snacking on junk food or reading crime thrillers. They’re not doing anything that could be described as “lazy” or “trashy,” I’m pretty sure.

Is there ever an excuse for any pleasures that are useless/trashy/lazy? Sure, I could just go “well, I’m not a saint yet, no point pretending I am one” and proceed to listen to my trash music and watch my trash reels and shows and eat cookies. But how else will I become a saint if I don’t give up all that junk? Is there room in a healthy diet for junk food? – When I was very serious about being skinny, I believed that there was absolutely no room for empty calories, which I can see now was disordered; am I falling once again into the trap of black/white thinking? Is it disordered to worry that there is no room for useless pleasures on the path to becoming a saint? Or is that really true?

On the one hand: if I really love God, why would I waste a single second on anything that might be less than pleasing to Him? If I even begin to realize how much I owe Him, then why would I still try to get away with even the slightest questionable behavior?

On the other hand: God in His infinite mercy and wisdom loves me even as the little trash person that I am, and He has a design for me that perhaps I should trust in; He will elevate me to holiness if and when He chooses to, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so perhaps I should just accept that as long as I’m doing my prayers and receiving the Sacraments and trying to avoid sin and all, I’m doing well enough for my state in life, and leave any advancements up to God?

There are a lot of directions that I could take this in right now – my train of thought is branching off along like six different little paths right now – but, I’ll try to keep it concise. Probably the mere fact that I take all this time to write these stupid, rambly blog posts is just evidence of how far I am from holiness. Happy one hundredth post! Isn’t this apt. May God have mercy on me for my trashiness.