I envy you, Miyah, both for your journaling habit and for the discipline to hang onto your journals. I have done occasional stock-takings, but seldom in a dedicated diary and never in any composition book I managed to hold onto more than a few months.

I really admire the honesty of this piece. I think you're harder on yourself than necessary--all of us act on multiple motives all the time--but that kind of no-BS inventory can do a person a lot of good, especially if it leads to insights that trigger new directions in life.

You know where I come down on most of these questions, so I won't waste words on that. I'll only point out that Paul's opinions are problematical. He built a set of religious doctrines around original sin, the crucifixion and resurrection, and the substitutionary atonement, and those became the official pillars of Christianity. Between him and John, there was never much room for the actual teachings of Yeshua the Nazarene, who mostly talked about humility, forgiveness, loving enemies, and justice for the poor. It's kind of a shame--that sounds like a better religion than most. I wonder if anybody has ever tried it.