I have found the forums to be less interesting in recent months, perhaps for a year or so. Christulsa left us and said he thinks the forum should be shut down, and that made me sad and reconsider my membership here as perhaps he is right and the forum is more bad than good. I don't know if it is bad. If it is bad, Cathinfo is worse and I have been posting there for nine years, so I am used to the poison, so I do not really agree with christulsa, though he may be right. I do not value my own opinion over his. Perhaps their time has come and gone. So I post less than I used to.
When I first started posting on forums years ago I would always be interested and I made about two posts a day on average to contribute. But lately I am posting less and less. My average on SD is less than a half a post a day for almost two years and in the last few months I rarely posted at all. I don't know why this is. Why do I find the Catholic forums less interesting than I used to? Perhaps I miss many of the old posters who no longer post. Perhaps I have heard everything about the Catholic faith discussed already and now it is boring because I have heard it all before. I do think traffic is down. I still read the forums, though not as much. It is not like I no longer care about the faith. I still believe and I still love going to the Latin Mass and I hope that never changes. I am not having a crisis of faith, or considering going Eastern Orthodox because of Francis or of deciding that Benedict is still really the pope.
What could make the forum better? I don't know. I would be interested in a thread where people share the stories they write and the art they create. Perhaps some of us write stories or paint pictures or even take photographs or sing songs. Not necessarily Catholic but artistic. I have been writing a lot but I am afraid to share my writings with other people. I am trying to write a trilogy of novellas in my free time. The public title will be The Daniela Trilogy, but they have a secret title which I will not reveal. It is something that gives a little meaning to my life. I have this kind of existential crisis going on where I think about the meaning of my own life. I tell myself that because I cannot have a wife and family that my life is meaningless. And then I think that with God there is meaning and one can be good and love God and find meaning even without a family. And then I think that without God my life would be meaningless. Yes, but I do believe in God. And if there is no God then my own life is meaningless. And if that is the case, then why would relationships with other people, a wife and children, give my own life meaning if their lives were as meaningless as my own? I cannot answer that so it all comes back to God.
But I am terrified of sharing my stories with other people. In fact the only person who I have shared them with is fellow SD poster Pon de Replay. I am afraid of sharing them because I fear first, that they are not very good, and second, that they reveal too much of my character and I fear they would scandalize people and make people hate me. But I think it would be interesting if we would share our art with each other on the forum. I know we can but I do not think there is a dedicated thread for that purpose. I would be willing to share some of my writing if such a thread would be established. I bet some of you have really interesting stories and I am sure many of them are holy and pious and some of them are irreverent. My own stories I believe show a true belief, but they are scarred by sin and contemplate doubt and despair. But if anyone does start such a thread I will contribute one of my stories and perhaps more, but I will not start the thread myself, I will wait for someone else to show enough interest to start it. I know Pon de Replay writes stories as I have read some of them and they are worth reading for the most part. I believe he used to post some of them on Te Deum before that forum kicked the bucket.
I have something going on in my life so please pray for me. It is important but I do not wish to reveal the details. Pray for Matthew's intention. I am happy but if this situation is resolved my life will be as good as I could ever expect considering my condition which some of you know about. It would really help myself and my family so very much so pray for me. Thank you. I really appreciate the ability to talk to you on this forum. It is nice to have fellow Catholics to talk to on the forum, and every time I have talked to any of you by PM it has been a good experience. For some reason christulsa has had bad experiences on the forum but for me it has all been good, at least on SD, except for one time when I was likened to a crack-head and got upset for a few minutes. So thank you KK for your work and your dedication, I am glad you keep SD online. Pax.