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Book bags! School book fair put the fucking books in the book bag! *machine gun fire* Everybody get on the fucking ground!! *women screaming* put the fucking books in the book bag, now!!! *security alarms* *machine gun fire* *police sirens*

That’s kind of what these three black bags are. I used to say that I seemed like I read, but I don’t. Well, now I do, and I’m stressing about how many books I can realistically pack in my three bags.

The books aren't for fun. I don’t know that I do much exclusively for fun. It's a little fun but it's mostly screaming. Everything has to scream meaning, and it has to scream it until my eardrums break or else I start ripping everything apart and putting it back together again until it screams like I need it to.

I don't need the books to know the knowledge, to learn some singular truth. I need them for... feeling the Thing.

How did he say it?

…if it is difference rather than identity we seek, and the interesting and remarkable rather than the true, then it is palpation rather than comprehension we require.

- Todd May, Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction

It's not about knowing, it's not about figuring out The Truth, it's about the infinite interesting, remarkable, Good ways to feel this... Thing.

I seem like I read books but I don’t, so I also had to Google “palpation definition”.

Palpation is a method of feeling with the fingers or hands during a physical examination. The health care provider touches and feels your body to examine the size, consistency, texture, location, and tenderness of an organ or body part.

- medlineplus.gov

You apply pressure to some unbroken malleable skin to gain an understanding of the Thing that lays beneath, without actually directly apprehending the Thing itself. Always this layer of skin in between, mediating. Apply force at different angles and intensities to feel, to articulate this real, unchanging, entity beyond the fold in infinite better more useful ways.

That Thing, that Good, is not guesswork. It is not imagination. I don’t trust or desire recognition from anyone that doesn’t already intimately know that immortal immaculate impossible-to-articulate mmmmmNNNBBRFFFZZZZ!!!!!

How did she say it?

“X” that shakes within me and I fear its pitch: it vibrates like the string of a cello, a tense string that when plucked emits pure electricity, without melody. The unpronounceable instant… The instants are shards of “X” incessantly exploding.

- Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

I need it to SCREAM at me!!!

——————

Books, clothes and technology. This sums it up. The books are maps to more screaming meaning, the clothes are for wearing lest I get cancelled by the police for public indecency, and the technology is what a Youtuber travels with, I guess. Proving true for me, I reckon it's true for most. I wouldn't know because I don't talk to those guys.

I did succeed in fitting my life into three bags, with some minor help from family. We’re all doing well, all few of us. Survivors of some strange apocalypse.

Some wide, heavy, suffocating blanket of spiritual violence was cast over my lineage. I don’t know why. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know or relate to either side of my ruptured, cursed heritage, but I relate to those here, in this crater, marking the radius of the blast. Whatever happened, what survived is my brother, my mother and I. Then, I discovered two years ago, two cousins! We met, and it turns out we are all the same. Against all odds, I have family.

A friend, a woman I love, someone I might one day marry, met my cousins for the first time 2 years ago. She seemed misty afterwards, as we softly drank wine in the side room, by the floor-to-ceiling window full of Toronto night.

“I didn’t know you had this.”

Me neither, my dear.

——————

It seems the harder I work, the more I persevere, the luckier I get.

That's not an equation. It’s not a cash exchange. This is no zero sum game that I win at your expense. They tell you that’s how it works, but that’s not how it works.

They tell you that if you just grind hard enough, tick the right boxes, play the game, you get the money and the sex and the fame. They’re lying to you. That’s not how the work works. Not how the perseverance prevails. That’s not how you make your own luck.

It’s been a humble nonlinear process of submission and subjugation to higher purpose, rewarded by blessings and grace. Breathing because it’s Good to breathe, loving because it’s Good to love, knowing because it’s Good to know. It’s not about you, it’s about the Good. Gifts, services, commitment to Good Beyond Oneself. I didn't learn to listen, to learn, to love, by rationalizing that I would gain something from it. These were acts of worship. (bout to cry on an airplane)

In times of lack and drought, I saw the holy spirit was there, unmoving. No promise of a better circumstance, no transaction that would give me what I wanted. Only the promise of a better way. Something Better. Good. Even here, there is Good.

——————

I’m part of a queer church now. They’ve got free condoms in the all gender bathrooms. They preach sermons so leftist they make ME uncomfortable. And that feels right. The Church should be overeager inclusive advocates of progressive politics, they should recklessly seek to serve the poor and hold the rich and powerful accountable, while I, the individual, cling to my private property and personal opinions, tithing dutifully.

[my ass in church choir completely unaware I'm being recorded]

There is bountiful subversive, innovative religious thought in my new community - I guess that’s what to expect from queer Christians. Queer analysis, queer philosophy, queer theology. Queerness dancing all the way back to its etymological roots.

Recently we went out for brunch and engaged in spritely debate about the sex lives of pastors. Is promiscuity or even minor impropriety reason enough to fire a pastor? Or is that their business? Should let them live their complex lives so long as they do good work for the congregation? Or is it only natural to demand a kind of austere purity of church leadership?

Now in any other conventional church this question is a nonstarter. But our church has a homosexual pastor that is proudly openly intimate with his (allegedly also homosexual) boyfriend, so let’s grant that having homosexual sex in a loving committed relationship isn’t a sin (which it isn’t, unless it is). What about sex outside of a committed relationship? What if our pastor cheats on his boyfriend? Should we fire someone over that? Does being a sexy little slut mean you are incapable of serving your community effectively?

I was the edgy temporary worship leader of a small church when I was 22. The pastor of that community trusted me, gave me the opportunity to serve, put me in front of a microphone and granted me authority despite his discomfort with my very intense demeanour and convictions.

But at first I wasn’t even allowed to play a volunteer support role on the worship team. If you’ve served in a Christian church, if you’ve been on a worship team, you likely know why. There’s an optical purity threshold.

One must APPEAR adequately Christian to be on the worship team. One must PERFORM adequately pious to serve in Christian leadership. We don’t want unrepentant sinners leading our congregation, we want men and women of God! Preferably men!

I cleaned up my optical act to get the worship gig. They asked me to explicitly. Don’t flaunt my vices, don’t swear on social media, don’t talk about sex or don’t espouse my controversial progressive political beliefs. Wearing makeup on my eyes was never commented on, but they did ask my female partner at the time to dress a little more modestly. Ha. Confident man in femme clothes accepted quicker than high skirt. I suppose I never tested them with a see through lace top on stage Sunday morning. I generally understood what they were asking, and I saw the wisdom and necessity in it.

Here’s how it made sense to me: Do not place a stumbling block in front of your brother. Do not let your own enlightenment harm your brothers journey. I feel fine with my faith. I am without contradiction. But I don’t seek to disturb others without reason. I am here to foster their journeys. So I will not use my time on stage to self express, but to serve the congregation. Challenge them, nurture them, commune with them. Come as you are.

I wasn’t a regular worship leader, like you typically imagine. I was basically exactly what you would imagine would happen if someone made ME a worship leader. I was like the hot alcoholic priest in Fleabag season two. I pushed boundaries, I was intense and philosophical and a little messy and a little transcendent. I kept it clean, but experimental and spontaneous. I played within the lines so that I could push it out of bounds at choice moments. They loved me.

[my ass praising the Lord in 2019]

It wasn’t enough for me though. Often in the middle of a Sunday Service with every eye fixed on me I’d be tempted to scream “FUCK!!!” into my microphone. I wanted to scream “JESUS IS HAPPY WHENYOU HAVE GOOD SAFE SEX!!!” I’d settle for a hearty “HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIN!!! WHO’S WITH ME!??!” just to see what the fuck happens!!!

Had to keep it under the radar to make things work. It was explained to me that controversy requires energy, energy that they would rather be investing in positive uncomplicated progress towards the church’s goals, instead of addressing The CJ Situation.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth.

- Revelation 3:16 (KJ21)

There was a man who came in one morning, young hip guy, trendy and talented and musical. He expressed a lot of interest in me and what I was saying. We jammed a bit after service and he was a solid musician. The exact kind of person we needed in our congregation, a perfect person for the stage.

I got drinks with him, because I was the worship leader, and that’s what you do when you work in ministry, get drinks with people, generally coffee, in this case drinks.

His name was Valentine. Valentine wasn’t Christian. I’m not sure what brought him into our space. It must have been the same thing that called to me at 19 years old, MDMA, wine and gin still surging through my sleepless veins. Three years later, off the hard stuff, worship leader, veins of wine mixed with water and the holy spirit. Praise be.

Valentine was a porn star. He earned his money web camming and making videos with his partner. He was very sex positive, a polyamorous person, a devout advocate for bodily liberation from the puritanical constraints of society. He also liked music, and he liked our church. I thought he was compelling, if a little arrogant. But that’s okay. I was too. God, community, relationship, service, these things melt that arrogance. Slowly turning in tune with the infinite.

I remember afterwards my pastor and I talking about him, as I plucked my guitar idly in the sanctuary, as he anxiously attended to his sermon notes on his laptop. We used to spend so many meandering days and nights together. (I miss him. I should reach out. It’s wrong to leave that relationship broken.)

I mentioned the drinks with Valentine, and he said:

“Don’t put him on the team, yet.”

Oh?

“I don’t know if he mentioned to you… do you know about his… job…?”

Yes.

“Okay, yeah, then you understand.”

I’m not sure I do, Father.

Why prevent this sincere soul from singing the Lord’s praises?

And I heard every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, saying, “Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!”

- Revelation 5:13 (KJ21)

That’s every creature. Including the ones that do sex work.

The sin Valentine committed was the same sin I committed, before rectifying it in pursuit of this position as a worship leader. He told the truth. If he had just lied, omitted this scandalous detail, expressed some neutral pacifying platitudes, he would be on the worship team. If I had simply lied about what I thought and what my life was like, I wouldn’t have been rejected from the worship team at 19 years old, before I “cleaned up my act”.

Keep it quiet, keep it secret, look the part. This is how to make it in church leadership. We turn away servants who aren’t pious enough. It’s shameful.

Yet now I am at this brunch with several gay men, arguing that there is some sense to this.

I had a lot of reckless sex between the ages of 18 and 20. I did a lot of drugs and was drinking a very impressive amount (much more impressive than these days, with my fluctuating between tentative sobriety and Christian Christopher Hitchens). I don’t do these things as thoughtlessly as before, because they lead to pain. They lead to confusion. My life was messy, and people grew to know me as someone it was better not to associate with.

(When you act like you’re God, you tend to find that you do God’s job very badly)

It’s tempting to try to distance who I am now from this past version of myself. That tantalizing “I don’t even know who that person was”. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But I am the same being, same body. I am a coherent continuous line. I could not have been who, what, where I am today without every single battered, bruised, culpable previous personae, no matter how much I selfishly want to erase every save file right up until I became a person that is Good and Cool. Hug the cactus.

Even in my ego and arrogance and indulgence, I was still pursuing shards of X. I was looking for that which screams Meaning. This took me into delinquency, into drugs, into sex, into chaos, into loss, into shame, into church, into service, into humility, into God. Praise Be.

So I find myself suggesting at this brunch that there’s utility to demanding your leaders be monogamous prudes. When you’re out there playing the field, when sex is possible, when meeting someone might mean you will fuck… there’s a bit of chaos in the air. Exciting, dangerous chaos.

I think we should have let Valentine on the worship team, but it’s nice to have someone in charge who isn’t tryna fuck.

Honestly, I have been realizing lately that my body might actually be a temple. Just took 25 years.

Who’d have thought the alcoholic slut would argue for sexual morality?

——————

[me having breakfast and starting a substack]

And now Scotland again. What was I working on last time I was here? I was roaming the streets listening to a lot of music.

A lot of Olivia Rodrigo and Bo Burnham. Ah! I was writing that Olivia Rodrigo video. Never saw the light of day. There was that line about “cringe chills passing the event horizon becoming indistinguishable from chills of adrenaline.” I was describing the Numinous before I knew the word. Classic Year One CJ The X stuff.

I had filmed part 1 of the Bo Burnham video, I knew what was coming next, wasn’t sure if I could execute it. Feeling the same now. Filmed the first few parts, flew across the ocean, need to execute. More filming, more writing, more editing… both concluding with a kind of Delete Twitter Love Humanity Behave Beautifully thing. Farther along in the solution area now.

They’re companion pieces, really. Kind of sucks these big projects are called “My Bo Burnham video” or “My Jordan Peterson video”. No, perish the thought, gratitude, opportunity.

Gossiping Scottish ladies, abrasive, alive. I’ll be travelling this whole summer. Got the film kit in the bag, gotta get the bag. Bought the new iPhone for once. Thanks Patreon.

God there’s so much to do. I have to foot the bill because I won’t take these sponsorships or managers or grants. Fuckin Dave from Nebula skittering around in my peripheral vision. Get behind me Satan!

Independence is so worth it. Only possible with this audience. Thanks Patreon.

I’m enjoying listening to music again. Good, because I’ve got to make a lot of that too. All for them, all for them, all for them.

Breathing in clean Scottish air. I think my old condo had a dust problem, I was sneezing all the time for no reason. Always remember to be grateful for when your nose isn’t stuffy, your throat doesn’t hurt, nothing aches too much. You are in good health. You aren’t always. You are in good health. Remember to be grateful. Nose isn’t stuffy. Unforget it.

Buying all the homies microphones, we’re starting an interconnected podcast/essay network. We’re making things that make us respect ourselves more. Everyone’s always asking me how to do Youtube, telling me I inspired them to make a Youtube channel. Fuck a Youtube channel, write an essay.

How do you make an online community that isn’t for-profit? Subvert the advertiser model incentives with subscription based membership? Watch Substack fuck that right up, Twitter 2.0 in the making. But I just gotta connect all these wonderful Social No Para people, disillusioned scientists, autodidactic academics, God glorifying artists, communitarians, embodied souls seeking the Thing. Point these would-be Youtubers in a different direction.

You don’t have to be mean to be smart. You don’t need to be a star to be respected. You don't have to be right to be Good.

I’ll make a website with a submission section, like an op-ed in an editorial magazine. That’s exactly it. Can start rolling out cjthex.com stuff next month. Aha, so much to do!!! So little stopping me. Everything is Good. Coast clear! Now go!!!!

——————

Position your soul correctly. Your body, your soul, one thing, pointed towards the light. No ghost, no machine, just You, Them, Good.

Been singing that SZA song all day. What does that phrase even mean? I seem like I read books but I don’t, Hey Google!

“derogatory fashion by critics of dualism”

Look mom that’s me! No hands!

Fuck a false dichotomy! Binaries, 1s and 0s, useful tools, never the whole.

If anything it’s a base three system. 0 1 2. Resists the illusion of zero sum games, the cash exchange, the winners and losers. Three is a community. Three is a relationship.

Self, You, God. Self, Them, God. You, Them, God. Art, Science, Religion. Trinity trinity trinity.

I am a relationship.

I love you.

I love myself in service to you.

I love us, I love it. X.

Brought to you by Substack / Patreon / Youtube.