My Life as an Orange

Why, pray tell?

It’s all about the duality of man.
We’re all oranges, in one way or another. Except, perhaps, for a precious few who live a life true to what they stand for.

Oh, lame.

It is I, Joshua Welsh, Mechanical Service Technician by day, Philosopher by night. Full time lover…
(hehehe GROSS)

Ok.
Preach peace but only as an outcome of war.
Fill your car with biofuel to save the planet, but starve half of Africa as a result.
Devote your life to a ‘religion’ of nonviolent outcomes, but play football.

Aggressive like the tiger, gentle like the lamb.

Assertive, but passive.

My life as an orange was suggested by my ex-girlfriend.

“There’s two Josh’s,” she said.
“There’s the one that has fun at parties and the one that goes for church.”

Fortunate for both of us, really. We were completely wrong for each other.
But was she onto something?

I’d never had the thought that I could be double minded. I’d go out, albeit very occasionally, have too much to drink, then some random would come up to me and start asking me questions which would inavertantly lead to me explaining christianity. It was the perfect mix! how could I go wrong? Some of my best preaching was getting done with a wiskey in my hand! (very occasionally, of course!)
So why double mindedness? It’s kinda plaguing my brain right now. I didn’t quite have it all sorted out.

I DID have the understanding of me becoming like the Romans to win the Romans, something which is a powerful tool in Christian and secular circles. It’s probably the most powerful advertising tool you can use.
(Cue Homer: “I’m a guy like me!”)
But I DIDN’T have the understanding of living a life of purity. I mean, I wasn’t a violent drunk or anything, my demeanor didn’t actually change that much. But I wasn’t doing things the right way. I was acting upon my own wisdom, and probably out of some rebellion issues, some hurt of never being part of my friends drunken parties (which is ridiculous, but it all had an effect to some point), and a few other insecurities.

In primary school I never thought I had many friends.
The older I get, the more I see that there was plenty of people who would’ve happily called me their friend, if only I’d talked to them. I was incredibly nervous around people that I didn’t know well.
Walking past, say, a couple of random girls, was somewhat traumatic. I’d never know where to look! Should I smile? Should I say hi? Should I pretend to be preoccupied? What if I did something wrong? What if they laughed? It doesn’t take much teasing or rejection to validate any of these thoughts. Hang out with a few jerks (football clubs tend to attract fairly exclusive types when you’re young. So does school, actually) who’ll shut you down in front of people to validate themselves, and before you know it you’ll be so backwards in coming forward to people that you’ll need rear view mirrors to walk to the shops.

But it’s not reality. Well, it might be at the time, but things change, and primary school isn’t a dictation of how your life is going to turn out.
Praise God for that. Because insecurities can make you downright nasty.
Before you know it, you’re second guessing everyone, and assuming that everyone who wants to do something for you is just setting you up. So you very quickly trust no-one: it’s one of those nice habits you learn from living in the jungle.

Like a pencil that reaches the bottom of the page, I seem to have lost my point.

Oh yes. All of these things can lead to dualities within yourself.
I was effectively a very nice young lad, who was known by most as that, while I had anger problem almost no-one knew about. My best friend at the time new of it well. He’d use it from time to time, just to see what I’d do.
All he needed to do was take something that i wanted (like my bicycle or those little plastic raquets we used to play with at lunch time) and I would, full on EXPLODE. It was so ridiculous! He was just mucking around! Anyone except for me could see that.

So. The oddest little things in my childhood had begun to dictate my adulthood. I still, deep down, wanted to be cool. And accepted. Even though, as I’ve since found out, I was.
Accepted, anyway. The amount of people who’ve come out of the woodwork that know me (and like me, surprisingly) is utterly ridiculous, considering I didn’t even go to secondary school.
So the main fear in my life, which was that of not being accepted, turned out to be a complete farce.
And my problem with things being taken from me (or missing out on things) turned out to be irrelevant.

And yet, even though I knew that, it dictated my life.

So. Duality is bad. You can’t serve two masters, or influences, if you like. One has to win.

And I’ve found serving one can be rather adventageous. Two reasons spring to mind:

1: It makes things a bit simpler.
You don’t have to please everyone anymore!

2: Everyone else can get stuffed.
If what you do upsets someone, and doesn’t upset your master, you don’t have to care.
So relax. The only time I ever see what’s wrong with my life is when I pull back, rest, and have a good look around. And then all of my problems seem obvious, and quite fixable.

That’s all for now.