Living in the Dark and The Real Story
Every time I wake up from sleep, I’m dry and comfortable. (Lucky huh, as some would think. Some may wake up to the sounds of drones, bombs, or buses passing by within a few feet.) Within seconds my mind wakes up and remembers who I am thought to be by everyone else and what my life means to everyone else. My body takes only a few seconds, if even that long, before it’s drenched in sweat, sheets right under me soaked. Every time. Multiple times a night. Every morning.
And let’s not pretend the only thing that matters in life is what we know of ourselves and make of ourselves. That’s one of the most inaccurate, irrelevant statements I’ve had the displeasure of coming across. Though I can’t fathom anyone has had to live the psychologically insane (literally), dark corners of hell of a life I’ve had to (and no, I didn’t create it) - so perhaps the applicability of that sentiment is only misapplied in the context of my own life.
The only thing that matters is not what we know of ourselves and make of ourselves. One cannot live without other people. We are animals. That is who we are - tribal, communal, familial - that is how we survive. Case in point, one cannot get a job without other people, as references.
So, when the sweat drips at what everyone else thinks I am and what everyone else thinks my life is and has been, it is a response of sickness and hell inside every aspect of my body dripping out in sweat within seconds of having to wake up to a life that is now lived in the stories of hell created by other people.
It means something when you absolutely do not ever steal a thing but are thought of, and outwardly treated like, a scum of the earth thief. Yet you honest to God steal nothing.
It means something when you enjoy the conversation of male acquaintances to female acquaintances over a meal or a drink to talk business, politics, investing, and life, but are labeled a slut, a floozy, or God only knows what else for having only primarily male friends and contacts. Yet, you literally only share the meal or drink, a great conversation, and half or more of the time treat your acquaintances to a meal ticket. (I’d attempt political correctness by use of “they” and avoidance of male and female, but it simply isn’t relevant to the point being made here.)
It means something when you work hard, spend long hours investing in education and professional development, but are said to be lazy, to steal from employers, to do shitty work. Yet every memory you have of life spent behind a computer on work, not with friends or family, proves exactly otherwise.
It means something when you smoke a little doobie at home, do the dishes, laundry, some other chores or finally relax with a book, a show, some writing, or art, but are thought to be a heroine user and a raging dysfunctional addict.
It means something to have your suicidal ideations turned against you to be labeled a murderer or a gunman. As if I wasn’t suffering enough. An outward life of hell had to be imposed on my own internal mental hell by lies, speculation, and stories completely made up with no substantiation by others. And everyone believed it. Suicidal ideations are more common than thought, more treatable than thought. Now, if I was only so fortunate or lucky to be dead. I would think the heavenly spirit saved my life to bring an end to it and the sickness that others have created and brought into it.
People make up stories where they have no answers. People have no answers because they don’t have the courage to simply ask.
I have a friend - who takes no interest in anything outside of golf, friends, food/drink, and video games - try to talk to me about a preference of cocaine to heroine. He, apparently, would prefer to do heroine. He, who doesn’t even like marijuana except as a sleep aid in its most gentle form, and who takes interest in almost nothing, would prefer heroine to cocaine. Not knowing why or how I entered the twilight zone of the most irrelevant drug talk with the most inapplicable person on the planet am stuck making up a story that my closest friend thinks I would like to do hard drugs. But what I do know as fact is that my closest friend now also thinks I lie and that I want to cause harm to my family as he has asked these things. He also thinks I’ve committed a federal crime by asking. So why wouldn’t my friend think I want to do heroine. If he already thinks the former. I commend his courage in confronting his sickly twisted irrelevant and inapplicable thoughts about me and my life. But he is indeed a rare breed of a human that is more honorable than most.
Truth be told, I drank and drove twice in my 20s. And 20 years later, I started smoked marijuana in my personal time when depressed from losing a job, when relapsing back into trauma when my Dad died, and after getting all my work assignments taken away in getting shut out of a job. I’m not proud, nor am I ashamed. I’m not a floozy. I’m not a murderer. I’m not a gunman. I’m not an asshole. I’m not ungrateful. I’m not lazy. I’m not a thief. I don’t manipulate or use people. I’m not a liar. I don’t do hard drugs. I don’t get so loaded I can’t think straight. I don’t have eating disorders. I’m not financially irresponsible. I’m not dangerous. I don’t hate. I’m not bipolar. I don’t invade the privacy of others. I don’t gossip or talk ill of others. I don’t show off. I don’t compete with others. I don’t steal the attention of others. I don’t belittle others. I don’t cause psychological harm to others. I’m not jealous of others. I don’t ruin the lives of others. I smoked a little doobie. I used substances to avoid facing the pain of my trauma and background.
Look at that. The story. The real fucking story. Imagine something so direct and simple. Trauma and substance use. How fucking easy to correct, relatively speaking that is, compared to the fucking outlandish, insane, unimaginable made up fucking nightmarish hell of stories made up by everyone else. One fixes the trauma reactions; the substance use goes away. The source of the problem gets healed, the side effects go away.
I used to think I wanted to help people. I now see nothing can help the sickness of the human mind and the fallacies of human nature - hate, speculation, psychological abuse and harassment.
I used to thrive on work and business; I loved it. But business is now just a place for the weak to stroke their ego and get their rocks off in wielding what little power they can grasp to use to control others. It no longer represents new ideas, building skills and talent that binds and builds people and communities. It’s no longer primarily about creating or building something the world can use or benefit from for good. It’s a place of mental sickness that chews people up and spits them out without thought and to the preference of revenue, self-preservation, and technology over humanity. Business went from something intellectual and worthy of effort and creativity, to a sick structure that exists solely for valuation and revenue. The darkest part, this is exactly how our retirement accounts grow.
As was the sentiment of an Amazon employee who was surviving the layoffs, “it’s elbows up all around.”
I used to think the only thing that mattered in this world were people. How sad it is to see how truly sick the human mind and people really are. I get to die knowing how ugly my friends, family, and communities really are. The darkness of life.
I parked in front of a house yesterday that said, “Love Wins Every Time.” Indeed it could. If it were only given a chance through honesty, directness, education, inference, courage and compassion. It indeed could.
Instead, made up stories and hate wins. It wins the weakest of minds that can’t stand alone to form their own experiences, thoughts, judgements, conclusions, but that instead follow the gossip, the hate, the lies, and the stories made up by others. It’s the nature of the sick human mind, of the animals we are. Only to be overcome by education, courage, and an acknowledgement and will to do so.