(no subject)
Time comes. No matter what, time comes. There are few things in life as definite as this fact. It can't be hidden from, it can't be delayed. It can seem slow and excruciating or speedy and ecstatic (or vice versa), but it's undeniable.
I was given this computer as a gift about six months ago. I'm not sure if it was so much my father's wisdom, the wisdom of some Greater consciousness or just plain luck, and in truth, I've pretty much gotten to the point I don't really care to analyze the goodness out of things like this anymore. I'm no longer using convenient opportunities to access the net and all it's wonders and horrors, I can do so at my whim. The whim took me in strong fashion for the first month or so, and has died down over the last few months to a much more sane and sustainable nature. Time changes all things, except it's own marching on. Many things have changed. Not all within the last six months or having anything to do with the gift I now use to tap out words in some attempt at squeezing meaning out of it all.
A friend recently commented on something which took me completely by surprise, and though I have an instinct for hiding surprise (it's something which served me well for a long time, and it seems I'm not quite ready to let go of just yet), I'm sure he knew the degree to which it struck me. It is the nature of our friendship for him to know these things. He said, in a somewhat off hand manner, "you've got some time now." This meaning I've got some time with this whole sobriety thing. It's coming up on four years soon, which simultaneously seems like forever and nothing in my mind. It seems like forever because it's not only the longest I've ever been able to successfully find any way of staying away from a drink, but for a guy who couldn't not drink for even one day, it might as well be forever. It seems like nothing because although I'm aware a great many things have changed, so much more seems the same. It's both miraculous and humiliating in it's own way. Miraculous because of how impossible it once seemed, humiliating because of how little it seems to me I've done with the time and gift I've been given. There is, it seems, always more to do and not enough time to do it. Maybe I expect more of myself in some areas than I should, but I'm becoming aware I don't expect enough of myself in other areas. I guess in it's way, that is the nature of this strange, faceless dilemma I've struggled with for so long.
I hear people in the communities of recovery try to attribute names and a persona to it, but that's not something I'm willing to do at this point. It seems that by doing so, we make it something it's not, and in my understanding, there is little more dangerous we can do than to not recognize the exact nature of the thing we're struggling with. We can call it "the, my disease", "God shaped hole", "alcoholic thinking", and on and on, there are a thousand terms and names used. Over time, it's become clearer to me how much of a falsehood this concept of this thing, this problem, malady, whatever we'd call it, is not at all separate from me, but is instead an integral part of my actual being. This is why it touches on all facets of my life, on all of my ideas, attitudes and interactions. It is all pervasive, all encompassing and of the fiber of who I am. It is not separate from me in the least, and to think so, is for me, extremely dangerous. It is, in it's own way, a lie born out of convenience, as most lies are.
Let me make one thing clear here, I am, absolutely, unequivocally, commenting only on my own experience and outlook considering these things. As I said before, I'm attempting to squeeze some meaning out of some things here, searching as it were, not making declarations of fact. There are few facts worth declaring these days anyway. I am aware some of what I'm talking about is nothing more than the result of the limitations of language as a device of communication. Interestingly enough, through most of my life, language and the written word were a source of comfort and stability to me. Now, their limitations are something I struggle with more frequently than most things.
But, that's another subject altogether. Related to that though is the fact that my understanding of the word "spiritual" has changed drastically in the amount of time I've been both away from a drink, and searching for better ways to express this experience, and trying to make sense of the experience I've had. Spiritual, in my initial dealings with AA, and it's members, conjured up a feeling and ideas I can best describe as mumbo jumbo. It was almost as if people were trying to describe a benevolent voodoo. It was all at once, confusing, infuriating, and ignorant, which equated to not being worth considering.
I found what is for me an understandable and applicable definition in a book called, "The Spirituality of Imperfection". It was given to me by a friend who was one of the many people without which I might not be sober, and even if so, would be utterly miserable and worthless. In this book, it defined spiritual as very simply being all pervasive. It was something along the lines of saying, "that which is spiritual touches on all things. That which is not spiritual, does not." This makes much more sense to me than the sense of the word I had before. It made sense of the idea that this problem I've been facing for my whole life, this strange dilemma, was in fact spiritual. It did touch on all aspects and areas of my life, which is part of the reason it was so hard for me to come to terms with being an alcoholic. I understood drinking was a part of the problem, but the drinking didn't explain why the other things were so out of whack. Drinking too much didn't begin to explain the rest of what my life was like or the way I constantly felt. I was thoroughly confused though, because it's the other way around. It was the all pervasiveness of this problem, and the fact that my life was shot through with it which explained my drinking. If you couldn't begin to give me a solution to the problem of being the human being I was, don't begin to tell me to stop drinking, because no matter how injurious it might be, it's the only thing I've got which makes sense to me.
And so it is that the solution to my problem must also be a spiritual one. So it is that there must be a spiritual solution to a spiritual malady. In so far, I've been trying to continue to ferret out the ways in which this spiritual malady is still having it's effects in order to apply this spiritual solution. In my experience, this has been a necessity if I have any desire at all to have peace of mind and contentment. I'm relatively sure it's been one of the major keys to staying sober, but I have yet to either completely abandon this solution or to get drunk, so I can't be one hundred percent certain, and I'm not really willing to try that avenue either.
I'm not someone who came into AA and was attracted to people who could share experience with having gotten sober and had gotten great lives which included high paying jobs, beautiful and respectable spouses, good children, dreams realized, and all that. It's not that all of that stuff didn't sound good to me, because it did. It just sounded impossible for me. The most attractive thing for me was the people who could just go about living everyday kinds of lives in jobs which were alright, with spouses they had their difficulties with, children who wouldn't listen and were acting out, and still be both sober and have some contentment and peace of mind about them. To me, that was even more amazing than the people who got it all. Because I felt like all of the dreams realized and whatnot was never going to happen for me, it was the people who could handle the difficultly, stress and troubles which were so amazing, because I absolutely couldn't. Life was just killing me.
What's happened in the time I've been sober is that I've become one of those people. I'm living an everyday life, with varying degrees of success, and staying sober and for at least two years now, have been able to have some peace of mind and contentment in spite of it all, or possibly because of it all, depending on the day you ask me. Things have changed, time has come.
Because of this, I've been thinking more and more about the people who's stories do include the dreams realized, the high paying jobs, the beautiful and respectable spouses (I'm dating someone of that description now), and all that. I've been thinking that if I can do this, the everyday living, and keep some peace of mind, some serenity and stay sober, could I have that too? It's not an envy thing so much as it is a progress thing at this point. It's become a question of how do I progress from here? Being sober is enough, don't get me wrong in any way about that. But I don't think I'm going to be able to stay sober if I'm not at least trying to get out there and experience as much of life as possible. Much of my drinking, and probably the hardest part of sobriety was about coming to terms with the amount of life and time I wasted and made worthless. It's not worthless from the standpoint of it being the best thing I have to help someone else, but it was worthless in the time I was experiencing it, in the effort I put into it and the goals I had in mind while doing it. So, there's a degree of where to next?
My financial situation hasn't changed all that much since I've gotten sober, except that I put as much time and effort into paying my bills as possible, and they get paid. I'm still living one step away from the street though. I've even gotten to be able to live with that more or less. Now it's a question of what can really be done about it? I'm not expecting some great windfall or some magic bullet to change it, but I do think that with some time and effort, it can change somewhat. I know there's some degree of chance involved always and people, no matter their position can always end up broke and homeless, but there are reasonable things people do to put themselves in the best position to not have that happen. I'm just trying to figure out how someone goes from where I am to there at this point.
Time comes for many things, and different things for many people. I've been taking an extended break from more or less all writing activities for a while now. I've been posting to some message boards I belong to, but all in all, I've been absent and nil on the writing front. I've been hiding from it, honestly. It's painful. It's painful to write, for many reasons. It's getting painful not to. I've been writing more or less only for inventory purposes for the better part of a year now. I don't think I've taken this long a break from it since I started at about ten years old. Something is boiling. I don't know what though. The urge to write is back. It's painful to write though. There are so many things about it which I have yet to come to terms, reason or understanding with. I'm just not exactly sure why I've always done it, what it's purpose is, or anything along that line. There's a part of me which says it's a useless waste of time. It says I could spend the time doing other, more productive things. It says the whole writing thing is a grandiose, selfish endeavor. The sad thing is that the rest of me agrees with much of that.
I'm never going to write the great American novel. I'm never going to get paid to write. It will never really do any significant good to continue to do it, but there's always something inside which says to continue doing it. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of feeling like a child about it especially. And, yes, this may be a pity party of a paragraph, but I honestly don't give a shit. I'm figuring if there's anywhere people might identify with this, it's here. I suspect most of you don't spend your precious time blogging away or reading other's awaying blogs unless you at the least enjoy writing. The sad part is, I don't enjoy it anymore. I haven't for a long time. It seems really useless, probably because I haven't thought I've written anything decent in a very long time, years, many of them. I'm going through something really weird with all of this lately.
In spite of all of that, I'm starting to write again. Basically, I don't know what else to do, and I'm not a quitter. Maybe I'm insane though, because I'm doing the same thing I've done thousands of times before, yet again. I'm just hoping I can put this gift my father's given me to some good use. I could be wrong though.
I was given this computer as a gift about six months ago. I'm not sure if it was so much my father's wisdom, the wisdom of some Greater consciousness or just plain luck, and in truth, I've pretty much gotten to the point I don't really care to analyze the goodness out of things like this anymore. I'm no longer using convenient opportunities to access the net and all it's wonders and horrors, I can do so at my whim. The whim took me in strong fashion for the first month or so, and has died down over the last few months to a much more sane and sustainable nature. Time changes all things, except it's own marching on. Many things have changed. Not all within the last six months or having anything to do with the gift I now use to tap out words in some attempt at squeezing meaning out of it all.
A friend recently commented on something which took me completely by surprise, and though I have an instinct for hiding surprise (it's something which served me well for a long time, and it seems I'm not quite ready to let go of just yet), I'm sure he knew the degree to which it struck me. It is the nature of our friendship for him to know these things. He said, in a somewhat off hand manner, "you've got some time now." This meaning I've got some time with this whole sobriety thing. It's coming up on four years soon, which simultaneously seems like forever and nothing in my mind. It seems like forever because it's not only the longest I've ever been able to successfully find any way of staying away from a drink, but for a guy who couldn't not drink for even one day, it might as well be forever. It seems like nothing because although I'm aware a great many things have changed, so much more seems the same. It's both miraculous and humiliating in it's own way. Miraculous because of how impossible it once seemed, humiliating because of how little it seems to me I've done with the time and gift I've been given. There is, it seems, always more to do and not enough time to do it. Maybe I expect more of myself in some areas than I should, but I'm becoming aware I don't expect enough of myself in other areas. I guess in it's way, that is the nature of this strange, faceless dilemma I've struggled with for so long.
I hear people in the communities of recovery try to attribute names and a persona to it, but that's not something I'm willing to do at this point. It seems that by doing so, we make it something it's not, and in my understanding, there is little more dangerous we can do than to not recognize the exact nature of the thing we're struggling with. We can call it "the, my disease", "God shaped hole", "alcoholic thinking", and on and on, there are a thousand terms and names used. Over time, it's become clearer to me how much of a falsehood this concept of this thing, this problem, malady, whatever we'd call it, is not at all separate from me, but is instead an integral part of my actual being. This is why it touches on all facets of my life, on all of my ideas, attitudes and interactions. It is all pervasive, all encompassing and of the fiber of who I am. It is not separate from me in the least, and to think so, is for me, extremely dangerous. It is, in it's own way, a lie born out of convenience, as most lies are.
Let me make one thing clear here, I am, absolutely, unequivocally, commenting only on my own experience and outlook considering these things. As I said before, I'm attempting to squeeze some meaning out of some things here, searching as it were, not making declarations of fact. There are few facts worth declaring these days anyway. I am aware some of what I'm talking about is nothing more than the result of the limitations of language as a device of communication. Interestingly enough, through most of my life, language and the written word were a source of comfort and stability to me. Now, their limitations are something I struggle with more frequently than most things.
But, that's another subject altogether. Related to that though is the fact that my understanding of the word "spiritual" has changed drastically in the amount of time I've been both away from a drink, and searching for better ways to express this experience, and trying to make sense of the experience I've had. Spiritual, in my initial dealings with AA, and it's members, conjured up a feeling and ideas I can best describe as mumbo jumbo. It was almost as if people were trying to describe a benevolent voodoo. It was all at once, confusing, infuriating, and ignorant, which equated to not being worth considering.
I found what is for me an understandable and applicable definition in a book called, "The Spirituality of Imperfection". It was given to me by a friend who was one of the many people without which I might not be sober, and even if so, would be utterly miserable and worthless. In this book, it defined spiritual as very simply being all pervasive. It was something along the lines of saying, "that which is spiritual touches on all things. That which is not spiritual, does not." This makes much more sense to me than the sense of the word I had before. It made sense of the idea that this problem I've been facing for my whole life, this strange dilemma, was in fact spiritual. It did touch on all aspects and areas of my life, which is part of the reason it was so hard for me to come to terms with being an alcoholic. I understood drinking was a part of the problem, but the drinking didn't explain why the other things were so out of whack. Drinking too much didn't begin to explain the rest of what my life was like or the way I constantly felt. I was thoroughly confused though, because it's the other way around. It was the all pervasiveness of this problem, and the fact that my life was shot through with it which explained my drinking. If you couldn't begin to give me a solution to the problem of being the human being I was, don't begin to tell me to stop drinking, because no matter how injurious it might be, it's the only thing I've got which makes sense to me.
And so it is that the solution to my problem must also be a spiritual one. So it is that there must be a spiritual solution to a spiritual malady. In so far, I've been trying to continue to ferret out the ways in which this spiritual malady is still having it's effects in order to apply this spiritual solution. In my experience, this has been a necessity if I have any desire at all to have peace of mind and contentment. I'm relatively sure it's been one of the major keys to staying sober, but I have yet to either completely abandon this solution or to get drunk, so I can't be one hundred percent certain, and I'm not really willing to try that avenue either.
I'm not someone who came into AA and was attracted to people who could share experience with having gotten sober and had gotten great lives which included high paying jobs, beautiful and respectable spouses, good children, dreams realized, and all that. It's not that all of that stuff didn't sound good to me, because it did. It just sounded impossible for me. The most attractive thing for me was the people who could just go about living everyday kinds of lives in jobs which were alright, with spouses they had their difficulties with, children who wouldn't listen and were acting out, and still be both sober and have some contentment and peace of mind about them. To me, that was even more amazing than the people who got it all. Because I felt like all of the dreams realized and whatnot was never going to happen for me, it was the people who could handle the difficultly, stress and troubles which were so amazing, because I absolutely couldn't. Life was just killing me.
What's happened in the time I've been sober is that I've become one of those people. I'm living an everyday life, with varying degrees of success, and staying sober and for at least two years now, have been able to have some peace of mind and contentment in spite of it all, or possibly because of it all, depending on the day you ask me. Things have changed, time has come.
Because of this, I've been thinking more and more about the people who's stories do include the dreams realized, the high paying jobs, the beautiful and respectable spouses (I'm dating someone of that description now), and all that. I've been thinking that if I can do this, the everyday living, and keep some peace of mind, some serenity and stay sober, could I have that too? It's not an envy thing so much as it is a progress thing at this point. It's become a question of how do I progress from here? Being sober is enough, don't get me wrong in any way about that. But I don't think I'm going to be able to stay sober if I'm not at least trying to get out there and experience as much of life as possible. Much of my drinking, and probably the hardest part of sobriety was about coming to terms with the amount of life and time I wasted and made worthless. It's not worthless from the standpoint of it being the best thing I have to help someone else, but it was worthless in the time I was experiencing it, in the effort I put into it and the goals I had in mind while doing it. So, there's a degree of where to next?
My financial situation hasn't changed all that much since I've gotten sober, except that I put as much time and effort into paying my bills as possible, and they get paid. I'm still living one step away from the street though. I've even gotten to be able to live with that more or less. Now it's a question of what can really be done about it? I'm not expecting some great windfall or some magic bullet to change it, but I do think that with some time and effort, it can change somewhat. I know there's some degree of chance involved always and people, no matter their position can always end up broke and homeless, but there are reasonable things people do to put themselves in the best position to not have that happen. I'm just trying to figure out how someone goes from where I am to there at this point.
Time comes for many things, and different things for many people. I've been taking an extended break from more or less all writing activities for a while now. I've been posting to some message boards I belong to, but all in all, I've been absent and nil on the writing front. I've been hiding from it, honestly. It's painful. It's painful to write, for many reasons. It's getting painful not to. I've been writing more or less only for inventory purposes for the better part of a year now. I don't think I've taken this long a break from it since I started at about ten years old. Something is boiling. I don't know what though. The urge to write is back. It's painful to write though. There are so many things about it which I have yet to come to terms, reason or understanding with. I'm just not exactly sure why I've always done it, what it's purpose is, or anything along that line. There's a part of me which says it's a useless waste of time. It says I could spend the time doing other, more productive things. It says the whole writing thing is a grandiose, selfish endeavor. The sad thing is that the rest of me agrees with much of that.
I'm never going to write the great American novel. I'm never going to get paid to write. It will never really do any significant good to continue to do it, but there's always something inside which says to continue doing it. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of feeling like a child about it especially. And, yes, this may be a pity party of a paragraph, but I honestly don't give a shit. I'm figuring if there's anywhere people might identify with this, it's here. I suspect most of you don't spend your precious time blogging away or reading other's awaying blogs unless you at the least enjoy writing. The sad part is, I don't enjoy it anymore. I haven't for a long time. It seems really useless, probably because I haven't thought I've written anything decent in a very long time, years, many of them. I'm going through something really weird with all of this lately.
In spite of all of that, I'm starting to write again. Basically, I don't know what else to do, and I'm not a quitter. Maybe I'm insane though, because I'm doing the same thing I've done thousands of times before, yet again. I'm just hoping I can put this gift my father's given me to some good use. I could be wrong though.