I'm still going there. I'm reminded of an old Joni Mitchell song, Taxi, and the lyrics, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."
Well, that's how it is with Open Diary I guess. I hadn't really written there seriously for awhile. I had put a diary app on my iphone and, actually, hadn't written there seriously either but had been keeping up with my daily comings and goings there. More in depth writing I had done in the note apps.
I got busy and got addicted to iphone games and television, etc. etc. Facebook.... I actually didn't got on the computer much at all once I got my iphone (except at work) so I didn't go into OD. Thus, my writing was curtailed.
I have to admit, Prosebox is much more iphone/ipad friendly than OD was. Even more motivating, though, is the sudden yanking away of my availability of OD. Now that it's going to be pulled, I realize how important it once was to me. I realize that it was something that once meant the world to me.
Facebook is immensely important to me but it's different than OD was. There is a different group of friends there and I have to be more careful of the thoughts and feelings I explore and the things I say. And, of course, I cannot blather on and on as one can in a diary. Plus in a diary, you can say things that might come across as pretty politically incorrect on Facebook and one would have their friends hopping all over them in all sorts of unpleasant ways not really understanding the intent (or maybe understanding it all too well but none of us are perfect.) On the other hand... maybe I believe some stuff that actually IS pretty politically incorrect and I think it is just correct, even if it's not popular. For instance, the whole God/Jesus being the center of somebody's life might keep them alive instead of being focused on drugs thing.
When my brother turned 50, he became a crack addict. He was an incredibly successful executive. He was vice president of --- well, I can't say what company -- but you would be impressed. He had it all. Then he descended into hell. He became a homeless crack addict. A man who graduated with honors from a prestigious university... who had been VP of several large corporations... who was making money hand over fist... who owned a large home in La Jolla, CA. It didn't make any sense.
He wandered the streets, homeless, begging for money for another fix, in midlife!!
At that time my other brother, my mother and myself began a weekly prayer by phone that God would intervene. After a year, maybe it was two, of our weekly prayers, my brother called me and I sent him a bus ticket to my town. Upon his arrival I brought him to church. Our Pastor brought him on a men's retreat and my brother accepted Christ. Yes, he still did some drugs but after a struggle and God putting his foot on my brother's neck here and there, my brother finally was able to kick the drugs and get his life back on track.
Now he is once again a successful business man, once again making good money and once again got his life in order. He lost his family but it has been about 12 years and he is finally getting some sort of relationship with his children going again.
A couple of people who were friends of mine in OD may remember all of this going on. I wrote about this as it was happening. But all of this is to say that I believe that if Jesus is the center of your life then you are more protected from things like addiction, adultery, crimes that lead to prison and other behaviors that result in unpleasant outcomes including death.
This is not to say that, as a Christian, we're all putting Jesus at the center of our lives and doing the right thing all the time. None of us do and I would venture a guess that most of us don't most of the time. I know I fall into that category. But the more I can -- which is maybe 2% of the time -- the more time I spend content and even happy (which is also about 2% of the time). So, although this may not be the popular opinion or view and certainly these days not very politically correct, it is definitely MY opinion and view and I think it is actually a correct (and not just for me) view.
That said... I do wish the world were a nicer, easier place and I do wish life were a nicer, easier journey for everybody.
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