The Soaring Sky

The days, weeks, months, and years have all convoluted themselves into this one moment. This one moment of realization that has become my life. Wondering if I am at the proper maturity level? Or wait, am I at an acceptable intellectual level? What about emotional, spiritual, and physical? Even thinking about such questions makes me wonder, why the hell do I think about these things? The answer lies in me comparing myself with others. I'm pretty sure the reason I consider such questions is due to my inability to control my ego's desire to compete. Alright, so I was able to get that figured out within myself, but what else remains? What remains is, what I am still doing is, I am competing with myself. Okay, great, I made some headway and could possibly be a step in the right direction. What does this all mean? Again, the answer is probably nothing, not a damn thing. Just making peace with myself, ya know, after all that's kind of important. Learning to forgive oneself, learning to forgive myself for all the years of experimentation and wandering willfully in the maze of confusion that has brought me to this supposed general understanding about the way might be. Not that I am some great avatar or anything, but the fact of the matter is, that over the past two and half years or so, I have made tremendous gains in my own personal evolution. Hey so,... let me tell you a little about it, just because, I mean I really have a lot to talk about (love), but, if you don't mind I'd like to give you a little bit of background information on to how I got to this place in my life. Basically, I pissed away fifteen fucking years chasing meaningless, made-up societal bullshit. That's what it boils down to; that's the simple explanation. But, you know, let me elaborate a bit. I bought the lie that's fed to us, hook line and sinker. This lie that circulates and is presented to us through our own collective ego of subjective, shallow attainment. Yeah, I was the perfect cog for the machine. Ignorant, confused and greedy. The perfect worker bee, a shell of a man, a soulless cog working for the accumulation of things that were meant to give validation and confirmation of my humanity. There really are a lot of ingredients that contribute to misguide this dysfunctional personality profile as there are with all humans, ingredients like, spiritual and familial influences, social environment and educational background, which at this stage in my life, I consider them all positionally neutral, but life directionally effective. I entered my early twenties literally in a fucking tailspin, wrought with a potent concoction of teenage experience that included avid drug use and fanatical Christianity. Yeah, I was off to a great start, not a clue in the world as to what was my purpose was, or what was important or, what my life mission should, or could be. Therefore, I spent the past decade in a half figuring that all out, which, I must admit gratefully, I have come to some acceptable conclusions as to what is important and how to go about it. Simple things like truth, love, beauty, integrity, honor, family, friends, excellence, sense of purpose, and education. God, I love it. But, it's so funny because I remember back then all I wanted to do was get rich. Ha ha! Get that green mutha fucka's! Yeah I fucked around, I moved up to the Big Bear mountain resort to do some snowboarding, at that stage before I got the money bug, all I wanted to do was mac chicks and get d-d-d-drunk. Dude, I was all over the place, as I know a lot of us were and still are. I remember after the mountain expedition I didn't know what I wanted to do, and for some cotton picking reason I thought it would be a good idea to get into bartending! Which, was cool yeah, when I think about it, it really did provide me with a bit of experience that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. But, if you are going to value you're life as to what you achieve by a certain age, then I screwed the proverbial pooch. And the only reason for that is, that I just got all sidetracked and mixed up with the drinking life. It got a little out of hand for a while. And the by product of all that drinking was..., I wanted to make some cash... and quick. So I spent a lot of time devising these plans on how to make money for the sheer sake of making money. I did Multi-Level Marketing programs, I started a business with my pop, I wanted to do something that I felt passionate about, so I started a skateboard shop. I did all of these things, but I was basically floundering. The reason I'm telling you all of this is because it was pretty much a hapless existence and was ultimately an exercise in futility and frustration and left me desperately unfulfilled. It got pretty disturbingly dark at times, so much so, that if you can imagine me alone, driving on the freeway, so hurt, so angry and lost that I would scream obscenities and hateful things at the top of my lungs. Or, for instance, lying in a puddle of my own puke on multiple occasions. And then there was the passing out drunk in the middle of intersections and being rescued by strangers. One of my most horrible memories was me weeping in the shower and telling my lover that I hated myself desperately, I didn't want to be me, I wanted to escape my company. I got into a fight and ruined a wedding, which I was obliterated drunk and got my lip severed in two and became the humiliated recipient of twelve stitches on my face which will serve as an reminder every time I look into the mirror as to the depths I am capable of falling. And then, there were the constant thoughts of blowing my brains out; I think now you pretty much get the idea of who I was. Ironically, living at the precipice of death, insanity, and despair for so long provided me with some tools and insights of what I have now come to learn are extremely valuable. It's been just a little over two years now, when the healing started, it's about that time that I received to what I now know as a gift. It's a gift bestowed upon me by the gods or you could say that I received it from the shoemakers elves. I supposed they all knew how dreadful my situation was and decided to have mercy on my poor wretched soul. Now, you must know that this gift is not a tangible item, it's almost difficult to explain, but I will give it a try. You see God brought me to place of understanding many years ago, that, "if you want to be great in the Kingdom of God, learn to be the servant of all." He did this by indoctrinating me at a young age with some religious text (namely the Bible) that I have never been able to forget, which, by the way, I am very, very grateful for. So, this verse, along with many others have rung true in my brain for my entire life. Yes, at times they were a cause for extreme bewilderment but in the end, or as of late rather, have provided a springboard for greater peace in my life. What happened was, is that I was all mixed up and didn't know what to do a couple of years ago, I was extremely unhappy in my job and was considering different career options. One of which was becoming a chef. Not that I had any special talent at cooking, but I have worked in restaurants on and off for years and I didn't mind the work. Hence, I thought it would be a nice fit. So I got a job as a busboy to make some extra cash and think more deeply about how to structure my life. So there I am, thirty-four years old, I'm bussing tables. In my mind, I'm the serving the servers how much more of a servant could you get, right? Remember the whole, "servant of all" bit? I loved this place and would love to tell you about it, but I feel that this blog is getting a little long, so I want to wrap it up, anyway during my time at this place I met some very interesting people and would have the most stimulating conversations. So stimulating however that one day I was confronted with my own ignorance. I mean, I felt so uninformed, like I was a complete dolt. It was amazing. Like, I've always considered myself genuine. I hate to be fake, I hate to kiss ass, I hate to put on any kind of social mask (I have to admit, I do it, put on the social mask. If you look at the following post, you will see that I love to do it, which isn't true. I desire to be kind, I want to be happy and am on a quest to genuinely achieve this goal, this along with my purpose in life. I realize it is a necessary in order function at some degree in society, but I try and for the most part...),... what you see is what you get with me and I'll tell you, that doesn't bode well for a lot of people. They prefer it if you "keep up appearances," that way everyone stays comfortable. Well, fuck that, royally. Anyway, all of a sudden I just realized how deeply I had fallen in my own ability to reason. I was uninformed and did not possess the simple tools of rationality, comprehension, and intellectual skills necessary to make a positive impact in our society. I was stunned, terrified, and completely taken aback. That night, I decided I was going to college and was going to get my god damn degree no matter what. It's weird, because for some reason I didn't think I could. I thought I was somehow intellectually inferior and I was lost in a pool of booze and self-doubt. Ugh, it was horrible. Anyway, let me wrap this up and I'll tell you about the gift I received. Which, now that I think about it, there are many gifts here. The gift of confidence, the gift of education, the gift of inner-peace, but those are not the gifts I'm talking about, although they all kick ass, they are basically by products of this other gift. And here it is. After my serendipitous conversation with those wonderful kids who God used to shed light on my disillusionment, I purchased a laptop so I could take notes and do my school work now that I as going to be a college student. Now, when I got my laptop, I started to work on and write in my journal. Now, I have been journaling sporadically for years. But the December before my first semester back at school my New Years Resolution was to write in my journal every day. Which I faithfully did. A few months into it something strange started to happen, something mystical and magical, my journal began to take on a life of it's own and I was like some kind of innocent bystander. The point being is that I wrote a lot in that darn computer, so much so that it began to become a vehicle for me to figure things out in my life. At first it was just an experiment and a tool to make sense out of life and then it became a necessity. So that my friends was the gift I received. I wrote out a desire to release my pain, to objectify my demons if you will and what I found was hope, what I found was myself. It's been truly a-fucking-mazing this past couple years. That first year, I remember saying, I learned more about myself that one year, than I did the previous fifteen combined. Now, as I close the second year of my writing life, I have made some serious life changing decisions with some concrete actions steps that have not only helped me define my goals and aspirations, but have actually put in on course moving toward achieving them. God bless you and thanks for reading.