Father Blackwood

Ask the Apostate

Ordinary questions about grief, guilt, time, the body, and making peace with a life you didn't plan — answered plainly, without pretending to cure them.

29 pieces, newest first

  1. Ask the Apostate How do I get more willpower? Willpower isn't a muscle you bulk up but a damper you learn to set. 6 September 2026
  2. Ask the Apostate Is it worth doing a job well if no one will ever see it? The unseen part is the only honest test of whether you meant it. 4 September 2026
  3. Ask the Apostate Why does time speed up as you get older? The days stop being new, so the mind stops writing them down. 2 September 2026
  4. Ask the Apostate Why is starting the hardest part? A still thing keeps all its resistance at the front. 30 August 2026
  5. Ask the Apostate Is it wrong to kill a spider you could just as easily carry outside? The spider isn't the real question—the ten unwatched seconds are. 28 August 2026
  6. Ask the Apostate Why do I feel guilty the moment I stop working? The guilt assumes a 'done' that isn't coming. 26 August 2026
  7. Ask the Apostate Why do I keep failing at the same thing I resolve to change? It's a path to be kept, not a battle to be won. 23 August 2026
  8. Ask the Apostate Why do we stare at our own face while brushing our teeth? It's the one appointment you keep with your own aging face. 21 August 2026
  9. Ask the Apostate Is it better to mend something or to replace it? A mended thing carries its history; a replacement arrives from nowhere. 19 August 2026
  10. Ask the Apostate Why do I procrastinate on things I actually want to do? The reluctance is information, not a defect. 18 July 2026
  11. Ask the Apostate Why does a place feel 'off' before I can say why? The body reads a room faster than the mind can explain, and we've learned to distrust the faster instrument. 11 July 2026
  12. Ask the Apostate What do we lose when everything can be looked up? The fertile part of not-knowing. 2 July 2026
  13. Ask the Apostate How do you make peace with a life that didn't turn out the way you planned? Stop grieving the plan and move into the house you actually built. 23 June 2026
  14. Ask the Apostate Is it wrong that I'm starting to forget their voice? The fading is the toll for keeping them in a living mind, not a recording. 14 June 2026
  15. Ask the Apostate Why do some chores feel like prayer, even if you don't believe in anything? The feeling isn't imported from a belief—the chore makes it. 5 June 2026
  16. Ask the Apostate How do you stop feeling guilty about something you can't take back? Stop paying a closed account, and let the guilt change what you do next. 27 May 2026
  17. Ask the Apostate How do I actually become a better person? Stop adding virtues and start subtracting. 18 May 2026
  18. Ask the Apostate Why do we check the door is locked when we already know it's locked? Knowing isn't the same as having touched it. 12 November 2025
  19. Ask the Apostate Is it selfish to want to be left alone? Solitude isn't taken from the people you love—it's what makes you fit to be among them. 8 November 2025
  20. Ask the Apostate How do you actually get out of your head and into your body? You can't think your way in; give the hands a real task and the body arrives. 5 November 2025
  21. Ask the Apostate Is being impatient a small kind of cruelty? Impatience is a failure of attention wearing a virtue's mask. 1 November 2025
  22. Ask the Apostate Why does handwriting feel more honest than type? Handwriting carries the body that made it; type erases it. 29 October 2025
  23. Ask the Apostate Does it actually matter that I'll be forgotten? You'll be forgotten the way rain is—not gone, only unnamed. 22 October 2025
  24. Ask the Apostate Why do we still carry the coffin ourselves, when a trolley would do? Being spared the weight would be a theft. 18 October 2025
  25. Ask the Apostate Why can't the day start until you've had your coffee? Not the caffeine, but the ceremony. 15 October 2025
  26. Ask the Apostate Why do I only notice my body when something goes wrong? Health is a silence we mistake for absence. 11 October 2025
  27. Ask the Apostate As I get older I feel like a stranger in my own body — is aging just loss? The body isn't turning on you, it's keeping the record honestly. 8 October 2025
  28. Ask the Apostate How do you accept help when you've always done everything yourself? Refusing help is often a quieter vanity. 4 October 2025
  29. Ask the Apostate Is acceptance the same as giving up? Giving up drops the sails; accepting re-trims them. 1 October 2025