Dang.

Holy crap. Seems like only a few years ago I decided to get my shit together. Oh yeah, it was relatively a short time ago. Man, I remember long before things started happening, I came across the notion that instead of being a genius(lol) it might be a good idea to start conditioning myself with the mantra every morning of, "Dude, you don't know shit." I fully believe that this opened the door to change. Sure as shit took a while, but there was a lot of ego in the way. Heh heh...,How quick I forgot though. Pretty soon I knew everything. Lol, even fancied myself doing  Gods work. Pretty much just transferred a bit a bit of common sense living into a bit of grandiosity, the same sort that drove my existence for years. Suddenly, I went from insanity to doing the work of deity. Lmao, what about working on myself?
     I was one of those idiots who spouted that everything I needed to know was in the first 164 pages of a certain book. Even though the writers of the unmentioned book made it quite clear on the last of those pages that they didn't know everything....I would mock you for disagreeing.
     Freaking bitch to come face to face with that contradiction. "HP, tell me what you want, just don't let it deviate from those 164 pages." Friggin funny if it wasn't so tragic. It's been hard to get back into that, "I don't know shit mentality." Matter of fact, I'm not always there. Sometimes I feel like a member of a fundamentalist sect of some religion that claims unique knowledge of a gods will. Insane right?
     Well, I'm trying. Some days better than others. Some times I question whether resentment really is the number one offender, spiritual fantasy has to run a close second. I just hope I keep suffering when I get cocky, I'd hate to let fantasy turn into resentment on the regular like it always had. Almost fun to catch myself being an idiot and watch things began to straighten out, I like growing up. Mistakes and pain can't always make me fold, sometimes growing up is just down right fucking fun...

Lines In the Sand, Man.

    Well it sure has been a while since I put anything down. I almost have too much to write about, so much I've learned about myself in the last few months...I need to put it down to help me make sense of it all.
    I guess the most important place to start is boundaries. Boundaries. I've been taught that if I have a problem with someone, the problem is within me. It would seem that I have grossly misinterpreted this statement. I took it to mean that whenever I was uncomfortable in a relationship or situation, I was the root of the problem. This is ironic because, truly, I've felt that way my whole life. After all, what else is low self-esteem except the belief that you don't measure up? Somehow, in a manner not yet known to you, you've fucked up and need to find out what's wrong with you to make someone else happy with you?
    Well that's pretty fucking twisted. Get this...know matter what religion or philosophy you subscribe to, no matter your expertise in the arts of forgiveness and compassion, there's folks that need to be told to "Fuck off." Simple as that. Out of the million years, give or take, that man has been on the planet, it's only the last few thousand years that anyone has espoused anything as ludicrous as "Turn the other cheek." Turn your cheek enough and you end up a quivering lunatic who doesn't deserve the title "Human." Dog or cow perhaps, but certainly not human.
    So boundaries. If you behave in this manner, you will never again be welcomed in my life. "Ahh, but everyone has their faults." "Yeah, well buddy you ain't all that and a bag of chips, you should be a little less harsh." Fuck that.
    I never set any healthy boundaries and my identity, my sense of self is shattered in about 6000 contradicting pieces.
    So basically, I'm not interested in your opinion of my behavior, I've watched you and I'm not impressed. If I come across someone who strikes me as mentor material, trust me, I'll let them know. Don't volunteer. You'll get upset with my response.
    Don't feel you can rip me a new asshole,tell me I am going to burn in any version of hell or volunteer unqualified evaluations of my spiritual state. I will tear your head off. You've been warned.
    If you're interested in me romantically, don't make plans for me, or imagine me as you think I "should" be. I've got my own plans and you won't be in them.
    Make sure your own back yard is pristine before you let me know how you would have landscaped differently. Believe me, I'll be checking out your house. The minute you offer advice, I'm going to assume you're looking for it as well.
    Fair? I think so. Those are a few boundaries. I've already ended some unhealthy relationships with folks who didn't think I deserved to have rules to protect myself. That's another post for another time though.
    So listen, if this offends you...fuck it. Beat feet. That's not my problem, there's plenty of folks who still enjoy being manipulated so you can feel good. Delete me...we all gotta have boundaries after all, right? ;)

Humanity to Opportunity

“A monk once went to Gensha, and wanted to learn where the entrance to the path of truth was. Gensha asked him, ’Do you hear the murmuring of the brook?’ ‘Yes I hear it,’ answered the monk. ‘There is the entrance,’ the master instructed him.”

-Carl Jung in a foreword to the book “An Introduction to Zen Buddhism” by D.T. Suzuki

                I don’t pretend to be a master of Buddhist philosophy, but there is a simple elegance to the above quote. My understanding of most things I’ve learned changes as I grow and no doubt what I see here will do the same as time goes on.

                The brook is always true to its nature. The water in the brook has but one mission, to flow downhill, and in that mission it will not be stopped. Downhill it goes, effortless parting at obstacles, momentarily changing course only to resume its original course at the first opportunity. Nature or man may build a dam that blocks its natural path, only to have the accepting water find an alternate route to continue.

                The water in the brook accepts its own nature. It does not pause to consider whether its fellow water molecules approve of the job its doing. It does not fret over whether its creator wants it to go left or right, it merely goes where it is natural for it to do so. Water doesn’t fear the outcome of its existence or what lies at the end of its path. It simply behaves as water behaves.

                I am human, ironically composed of mostly water, and yet find myself often refusing to be human. I’ve lived in fear of life, afraid of being myself with all my flaws and afraid to address them in change. I’ve fretted over the belief that I was created flawed by a god who would punish me for being exactly as He made me, born into the only circumstances I could have been born into. I’ve reacted with horror to the thought of making mistakes in front of my peers as if my imperfections would negate my very existence.

                And yet, as the water in our brook, momentarily turned aside from my true path by an obstacle, I can once again find the way of true humanity and continue in serenity. My mission as a human gifted with life is simply to live. Any other goal is an illusion and to be recognized as a potential source of misery. I do not need anyone’s approval to be perfect in my humanity; I already am and always have been. Like the uncarved block, I entered this world complete and perfect and only through strenuous effort on my part have I ever achieved imperfection to any degree.

                I embrace my humanity, my flaws, my ups and downs, my pain and my joy. It is who I am at any given moment and given that, completely perfect.

Take Up Your Bed And Walk...

Well for those of you who don't know, addiction gets called a disease in many circles. There's reasons for this, some good, some vague and the label is endlessly and, in my unasked for opinion, needlessly debated from one end of the social spectrum to the other. I know I managed to get myself addicted to various drugs and now I'm not. Cool beans, 'nuff said. The one thing that does bother me about the disease label is what a lot of us do with.

                "My disease wants me dead." I hear this one often, along with "I'm always gonna be sick." Really? Let's talk about that first one. "My disease" isn't a physical entity. It was a way I dealt with life. I couldn't cope with anything. I never learned. I used alcohol to ease the frustration and emotional pain of life. My perception of life, its events and my role in them was skewed and this caused an incredible amount of emotional conflict which eased a bit when I used. Ironically, the more I used this method, the less it worked and the more conflict it created. Eventually I had to dump so much medication on the shit pile, I couldn't do anything else. It's all I thought about.

                There wasn't a malevolent creature crawling around in me, constricting my muscles in such a manner as to cause a bottle to rise to my lips. I simply wanted to feel good. My disease didn't want anything from me. I wanted to feel good. Period. When I took steps to change my perceptions, I found that: a) Life wasn't as confusing/frustrating as I had made it out to be.  b)I could still learn the coping skills I never learned as a child  and  c)I really don't ever have to be miserable again. Pretty cool, all in all. I had to take ownership of my circumstances first though. There was no outside force causing me to behave the way I did, no third party trying to kill me. My thinking was fundamentally flawed. When my thinking began to change, my desire to comfort myself in a manner that by all accounts no longer worked...ceased. Quite contrary to wanting to kill me, the grouping of misinformed human traits that eventually found comfort in alcohol, wanted me to live and be happy. With new direction and input, they are quite happy with their new perspective and looking forward to growing. I don't have to sleep with a psychic gun under my pillow to be prepared for the psychotic killer that wants me dead.

                Now...about this whole "I'm always gonna be sick" bullshit. I found sobriety through a spiritual approach to life. I believe that a power greater than myself restored me to sanity. I don't know what folks who plan on being sick for the rest of their lives are doing, but they might wanna try something different. Stop wallowing in your fucking disease. No need to be so  melodramatic. You aren't using anymore, stop acting like an addict. Typical untreated addict behavior. "Look at me!! Look at me!!" Cheese and crackers, get on with your life and stop looking for an excuse not to be normal. Go out into the world and put the things you've learned to use. Join the human race. Whole lot of "Trust in God" talk going on unless it comes to relinquishing the victim role. Then it's "I'm always gonna be sick." Playing with fire there, hombre. Don't stand too close to me, I don't wanna get anything on me. If you still feel sick, you ain't doin'  it right. Period. Read the manual again and see what it says, don't just spout the party line. Make sure you understand the original instructions and then move along.

                My disease wanted me happy and I just didn't know how to be that way. My disease was my humanity experienced through dirty and scratched lenses. I wear contacts now and like what I see. My "disease," my humanity does too. You ought to give it a try. Shit ain't so bad. Have a nice day, if you choose to.

Right Here, Right Now....

               Living in the "now" is an interesting phrase. We hear it often, are told how important it is, say "Yes, I know" and bob our heads, but do we really know what it means? This was something that baffled me for a long time. Of course I lived in the now, how could one live anywhere else? What kind of mystical bullshit are you trying to sell me? It's taken some time, and like every other concept I come across, its meaning evolves and takes on new meanings as time goes on and experience colors theory.

                Tomorrow hasn't happened yet. In fact, it never happens. Any image of tomorrow we conjure up is illusion. A fantasy. I do spend an awful lot of time considering that magical place though, and I suspect, others do as well. I've learned that expectations cause an incredible amount of suffering and yet, isn't trying to set up the events of tomorrow indulging in the grandest sort of expectations? For my plans to come to fruition, wouldn't an insanely large number of people and events have to behave exactly as I expect them to? "Well," you might say, "I know tomorrow I'll wake up and go to work, just like every other day." Will you? How the hell do you know that? Who told you? If that scary monster under your bed gets hungry tonight, you might not be going anywhere tomorrow outside of whatever passes for Tupperware in scary monster leftover land. Anyways, I've got a lot less control over tomorrow than I used to think I did and there's really not much point in thinking about it.

                Yesterday, ohh boy, now there's a tricky one. Son of a bitch to let go of, ain't it? If you're like me, you've probably spent an obscene amount of your today's replaying your yesterday's. Don't be ashamed, it's not an easy habit to break. Just as hard to remedy is building our now on past accomplishments. Giving a guy a quarter 10 years ago doesn't brand you a generous soul today. I can get a lot of mileage out of what I did yesterday, real and imagined, if I'm not careful. I need to grow. That means yesterday doesn't count. Tomorrow, I'll be different, no point in trying to plan for a situation that I'll have no idea how I'll react in. The only plan I can make is based on how I behave today and hopefully, I'll behave differently tomorrow. That's my plan, heh..heh.. Besides, resting on past deeds is a good way of me not having to check how I behaved today and that's scary shit my friend.

                So, living in the now. How have I come to terms with this little pearl of wisdom? It has everything to do with acceptance. Not that I'm cool with everything that happens, every second of the day. That would be nuts. Life happens and sometimes I step in it. I don't have to like everything. Anybody that tells you they are 100% cool with life is full of shit. Period. If your dog gets run over by a pick-up truck driven by your ex-wife, you most certainly would not be 100% cool with that. What I mean by acceptance is that I realize that everything that happens is the only possible outcome given the events that led up to that thing happening. I can't change the now. But I can live in it. It's the only moment I can live in.

                So, the past is gone and highly colored by my perceptions of what took place, the future has far to many variables to warrant me worrying about it, but I do have now. Very cool place to be.

I Went Down To The Cross Roads...

                I'm standing at a crossroads today. I've been working in the substance abuse field for a short time, thinking that it would be good training for when I finish my schooling. The trouble is, after witnessing first hand and hearing the experiences of addicts and their parents in dealing with the industry itself, I really don't know if I want any part of it. Like any business, it's business is making a profit, and to that end it's a fairly greasy business. Yes, I'm sure the industry has plenty of good folks working in it, I've met many myself along the way, but that's not the issue. This is more of a personal moral issue. Hold on tight because this is probably gonna get weird.

                I am gonna try to explain where my head is at with this in the rest of this post, so just bear with me for a bit. I feel a presence in life. Some may call it God, the Spirit, the Universe or whatever, it has never told me it's name, but I feel it there none the less for that. Since I began trying to develop a relationship with this presence and heighten my awareness in it, my life has undergone some profound changes, all of them positive. It's almost as if my life is proceeding as it should, naturally. I don't consider myself enlightened, after all I didn't discover anything, I just stopped ignoring it. A direct result of this is that I don't have any struggles. If I do stray from the "path,"  if you would, my own spirit suffers dramatically and quickly. Please remember that I am not trying to convince you of anything, this is just my experience and what I feel to be true.

                Folks that subscribe to any organized faith won't have any problem understanding what I say, I'm sure they go through the same thing. If I feel that there is something underlying, running through and responsible for creation and I consider myself someone who is trying to build an understanding  and relationship with that something, I must be very careful to not do or support anything that may offend it. How can I profess respect and insult it at the same time? It's like a christian saying they love their creator and driving a car. Everything about a car, from its method of propulsion and the infrastructure that supports it to what it is made of, rapes creation. As any christian can tell you, you can't love God and piss on Him at the same time. Tends to aggravate him.

                So my conception of what I sense is something that is natural and true. I have no basis to describe it any better, so I won't try. That's not my place. I have to assume that since it answered me, or at least allowed me to tap into it, it is not a respecter of persons. Apparently anyone can join in(lol). That being the case I have to recognize everyone from that perspective. I have no business causing anyone any harm for my own benefit. That would include lying to them. Folks familiar with a 12 step program will recognize this from the instructions they should have received about making amends. You don't go dredging up the past at another's expense just to make yourself feel good. It defeats the purpose if you cause harm apologizing for causing harm.

                How do I come to terms with this? I don't feel comfortable with the compromise of "God understands." Back when I was involved in christianity I was exhorted to separate myself from the world. I can relate to that now. It means just what it says. You can't have your cake and eat it too. For a supposedly godly country, there isn't much for a man to do to support himself in such a manner as to not piss off any god I can think of. You'd be hard pressed to find any industry that doesn't fall into the same category as the car I mentioned above. I guess we've kind of painted ourselves into a corner as a species with our self reliance.

                I really just want to do right and continue to grow spiritually. I asked to be lead and feel that I am being led. The answers seem obvious, either completely embrace the presence or continue to mock it as we do in our daily lives. If I continue to live as I have been, I can't very well tell anyone how to get in touch with a higher power, I would be undeserving of that link myself. I often wonder how people of faith convince themselves that they are their gods messengers or being used or blessed by their god in light of how we live and disrespect creation every minute of our lives. I love that I don't struggle with existence and seem to be on the right path. In beginning to understand how a man should live, I don't want to lose any ground. The spaces in between the knowing are dark places though indeed and sometimes hard to weather. Things work out, they always do. Answers come, they always do. Waiting still sucks though.

He told you to tell me WHAT??

One of the hardest lessons to learn in life is that I'm not special. There probably aren't any special plans for me set in motion by the deity of my choosing and yeah, this very well may be all there is for me. Believe what you want, but you don't know what any gods will is anymore than I do. Before you go quoting scripture and all that, remember, you're only going on what another man told you. You don't "know" shit. That's the essence of faith, believing something someone told you for no other reason than the fact that you like the way it sounds.

                I was always full of grandiose dreams, plans and ideas. That is the main qualifications of a self centered ego, isn't it? Well of course God let me experience all the trouble in my life. He had big plans for me, didn't He? Never mind that I was the cause of all my problems. Never mind that I never had to live the way I did. The Universe's plans hinged on me. Didn't they? Now that I've got some semblance of sanity in my life, It's plans can proceed. Ha!

                I actually believed that for a while. Somehow, my being an asshole for 98% of my life qualified me to be a messenger of God. I was gonna save the world. The funny thing is that this thinking went against everything I was taught. I was taught that all my troubles were of my own making. I was taught that I couldn't..no, didn't even have the right to try to change anyone. And yet, I was going to go on a mission and tell folks how they should live? Laughable.

                Do I have a purpose in life? Well, I'm a biological organism and like every other organism in creation, yeah, I guess I do. That would be to survive. That's the only thing I can be sure of. Haven't been given any other specific instructions. Neither have you. I don't care what you heard on your 700 Club DVD. None of us knows shit.

                I try to avoid telling others how to live, it's dangerous ground for me. I seem to have found some truths that seem to work for me. I might be wrong though. The minute I "know" something, I stop growing. I stop improving. I am claiming perfection in that area. If I start thinking I'm perfect and complete in my knowledge of life, I don't have to focus on myself anymore and that's what got me in trouble in the first place. Thinking I was smarter than the rest of the world and worrying about how it should act. Don't want to go there anymore. I guess if the way I live and think ever impresses anyone I can tell them what I did, but not what I believe. That might change tomorrow. What I think might be truth today, could turn out to reveal itself as a complete absurdity tomorrow. Then what would I do? Spend the rest of my life hunting the people down and tell them I made a mistake? "Woops, fucke'em"  just wouldn't cut it.

                I try to avoid people that claim to be carrying any god's message or doing any god's work. I guess if they were really doing or carrying what they claimed, they wouldn't have to tell anyone...it would be obvious. I can't imagine any higher power needing a lower power as a go between. Heh...heh...didn't need one for Adam, doesn't need one for you or me.

                So yeah, I'm just a guy learning how to accept each moment of my life for what it is. Another moment I won't get back. Hope I made the most of it!

Good advice.