Authenticity

It seems like millenials are becoming more religious.

I understand. It's hard not to have structure in life. That's one of the few things I miss about Catholocism.

But I don't think I can get onboard with any of it anymore. I've thought about it. I've read about it a lot. I've even tried, in moments of honest contemplation, to pray, or at least ask myself if I could believe again. I can't. 

Not just because the belief isn't there; it isn't, but that's not the only reason. It's also because I oppose the beliefs I was raised with. Morally oppose them. I find them grotesquely inhuman. 

I feel that the religion I was raised with despises discernment, which I've come to think of as my highest ideal. True discernment. True understanding of oneself. Authenticity. It's maybe the hardest thing in the world for me to maintain. When I speak to other people, I feel my discernment recede. I feel my authentic desires and emotions dissipate. I am lost in the shadow of another. 

And this is natural, this is learned, this is what I have always done. I say to myself, no more, but no more is a process. No more is not all at once. It takes years. It takes my life. I will spend my life on authenticity. Trying to embody it. To carve out spaces for others to live inside it as well. This is my project. To live authentically, to encourage living authentically. I will spend days and months and years trying to be this, to cultivate this. And that is ok. It is ok never to do something, as long as you try. It's not the thought that counts. It's the intention.