Spencer Moseley

 A conversation with my sister made me feel euphoric. I struggle with Buddhist meditation, but last night's convo was one of those rare moments where everything came together. I felt each breath; I connected with my anxiety. I let my visual field resolve into a cloud of color, light, and energy. I was connected. I struggle to accept who I am and how I feel. Climbing a mountain? Anxious. Driving? Anxious. Wiping my ass? Anxious. It follows me like the thorn in St. Paul's side. For years I've fought against it, and moments when I embrace it are rare, despite my best efforts. But admitting this problem brings instant relief, like caffeine to a weary body. Anxiety is hilarious. I feel a deep attraction for another man, and my internal homophobia clocks in at 70 mph trying to divert it: "maybe it's all in my head", "maybe this is OCD", "I like girls too", "I'm not gay". It's illogical to try to squash something that is out of m...

Guess it's time for me to churn another one of these blogs out. Why yes, I do think churning butter can be sexy. If a brawny, hairless man wearing suspenders, no shirt underneath, slightly-torn sandals, and a 5 o'clock shadow were to smile at me while churning butter, I'd feel warm and tingly. Might blow him. Radical atheists annoy me more than the hardcore religious — probably because I spend more time with them than Christians lately. They seem sure there is no god and have the attitude, "I've got this all figured out". It fucking irritates me. But at the same time, some radical Christians can be pushy with their agenda. The radical Christian can get preachy, trying to swerve every wayward conversation back to their agenda. And some of them are easily offended. I'm making a mistake, I realize. I'm judging atheists and Christians based on my personal experiences of atheists and Christians rather than by their creeds. And I think I do this, subconsciou...

After my time with the Legionaries of Christ religious order but before I went to regular university, I gave the diocesan seminary life a try for one year. It was a strange year, and I don't spend much time thinking about this period of my life— probably because I don't have the safety of distance to dive into it. I'll still give it a try. The diocesan life was a far cry from Legionary life. I could own a cellphone, call my family and friends whenever, and the schedule was not so rigid. The time spent in Church was not so strenuous, and we had more freedom to make our own decisions. The seminary I attended was unique as it was on a college campus, so I was around girls in a classroom setting for the first time since middle school. It was in diocesan seminary that I learned all of my sexual humor and how to swear like a sailor. A priest there told me that masturbating was no big deal. We had time to play video games and could spend time on campus with fellow students. I appr...

Recently, someone assumed the worst, got upset with me, and attacked me verbally. I respect this individual, but it put me in a sour mood that I couldn't get rid of for a full 24 hours. It's painful to be angry. I felt tired, my forehead felt tense, and my chest was tight. I had my head slightly bowed all day considering different responses I could make to hurt this person and exact my revenge.  As I lay in bed, I turned on Sam Harris's Waking Up app (10/10 recommend), and his daily meditation invited me to wish loving kindness towards someone who hurt me. At first, I couldn't; but then he invited his listeners to consider how so much of why others hurt us comes from the fact that they themselves are hurting. I considered how this person who hurt me was himself hurting, and my whole attitude warmed. I felt my chest relax, felt my forehead wrinkles die down, and I felt at ease. I don't feel like I forgave this person at all. I feel like I understood this person, and ...

School was ending in Kindergarten and I went outside to wait for my mom to pick me up. I must have read some story about Jesus calming the storm, because I was outside waving my arms towards the sky and attempting to control the weather. My eyes were closed; I was in the zone. Until my friend, Billy, came up to me and said, "You're trying to be like Jesus, aren't you?" "Of course not," I replied, dropping my hands to my backpack straps. My face must have turned red and luckily Billy moved on to something else—like throwing stuff at girls or some other normal Kindergarten shit. This is the first instance I recall of trying to get attention.  I love acting, always have, and I'm good at it. I've nailed roles like the Elvis-themed-Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,  Scrooge in A Christmas Carol , Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream , and Ernie in It's a Wonderful Life . I've always had a knack for the stage and love pu...

Life is inherently dissatisfying. Dissatisfaction seems to arise from the expectation that one day life will be satisfying. That we will one day have answers to those deep existential questions: where did we come from, what is the meaning of life, and so on.  But all of these questions as of right now are unanswered. We see religion claim it knows that we were created by a God or that we are here to love others; but that still begs further questions. Where did God come from? Why did God choose to create life? So even claims of religion end up just as dissatisfying as claims of science in the sense that they don't bring us any closer to complete certainty about anything. Uncertainty seems to just be. For everyone. And to be honest, I don't know if there will ever be a "way out". That's kind of saddening. We are these creatures orbiting the sun in a seemingly infinite universe of randomness and happenstance. And all of us are different, with different needs and desi...

I am writing now to feel a little better. I was jogging with a relative and talking about all things life.  He's 11. He misses his friends and his nice teachers at school, and Covid has hit his lifestyle pretty hard. I felt sad. I realized I'm not so young, but I don't give my friends primary attention like he does. I haven't found that Asian-American, hybrid personality that focuses on both self-development and community. I'm concerned for me and my latent sadness. It's always there lurking beneath the surface with my anxiety. Some moments I'm free of this and jumping for joy, but most of the time I'm in touch with this tension in my neck and shoulders. This fear that I'm not living right, doing right. That I could be doing better if I was making more money or in a relationship or in better shape.  There's lots of models for better places to be than the place I am now, or at least that's how things appear. Usually I find when I dig a little ...