Finding my religion

I wonder every now and then if there is something wrong with me? Am I to cynic? Should I have more faith? Or is it just that some people where born to believe and others to wonder through life the meaning of it all?

I was born in a kind of catholic family, in a super catholic culture, in a non-religious school. I attended catechism for 9 years, I was baptized, I did all the traditional rituals. I attended church all Sundays for the first seven years of my life. But something never made a 100% sense with me.

For the first years of my life I did not truly believe everyone else was real, at first I only saw life from my point of view, and I wonder to myself if everyone else were real. I was a really paranoid kid, I thought there was a chance people were not real, sometimes I thought about it as a simulation, other times as a dream, but the scariest idea was always when I thought it was all a product from my imagination.

Around seven years old, one of my sisters told my parents she did not agree with the convictions of the church and she did not want to go anymore. From that point on, my family only went to church on Christmas, or special events like weddings, or funerals. I think at that time I was inside my mind too much, to ask myself about god. For me, a kid who thought maybe everything was a dream, believing or not in god, was the least of the questions in my mind.

Around 8 years old, suddenly everything made more sense. I started to be sure that people, their emotions, and their feelings were real. Something that always made me paranoid, was the thought of not being able to see the life of others, therefore if I only lived on my mind, how could I know life outside of it was real? But then, I started to be more in touch with people's feelings and emotions, thats when I finally could see the life that exists inside each person. Their problems, their concerns, their own questions.

Around 12 years old, everything stopped making sense. This year of my life, was the last year of my education in catechism. When I was younger the classes used to be more about the meaning of the colors, explanation of the festivities, and we used to sing, a lot. Since I turned 10, the classes started being a little bit more dense in content, a little bit more bible. So it made perfect sense that in my last year, the classes consisted mainly on reading the bible and discussing the stories that are told in it. That's when it all stopped making sense, the god that I had envision the past years, was a good god, a nice god, a kind god. This god that was created in my mind, was NOT the god from the stories that we talked. My god would never do, ask, or say things that the god we talked about did. Thankfully, I had my best friend with me in the class, and I was not the only one troubled by this bible god we where taught about. We used to ask the teacher, and express our unconformity, of course as well as two 12 years olds can express their discomfort. Nonetheless we graduated catechism, and kept going with our life.

Around 16 years old, nothing made sense and I got kind of depressed. This lack of sense was everywhere. Why is there poverty? Why there is so much pollution? Why politics suck? Why there is no more people doing something? Why god, if there is one, would make this earth? Did we came to suffer? Why am I feeling sad? Why am I here? Why mental illnesses exist? Why god, if there is one, made this earth and put us here with so much suffering?

Around 17 years old, I started to canalize this lack of sense. I was tired of the emptiness I felt, so I decided to start volunteering at different associations. My first distraction, aka volunteer work, was an organization dedicated to kids with brain paralysis. This distracted me from my mind, but it definitely did not made my mind make more sense of the world. Why was I born privileged? Why the god that I was taught, would create this illness, and why in people with no resources? I found myself everyday struggling to find meaning in all life processes.

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