Sunday, August 28, 2011

Day 33 Afternoon — Vanishing From Myself

Sorry for five days of silence. I hope it will not happen again because it does not make me feel any better but significantly worse not to write in this blog. It's incredible and terribly ironic how often we avoid doing the basic things to ensure our happiness and serenity. Often I get caught in the cycle of wasting time by watching television or making silly memes on the internet or reading comics; basically doing anything other than what I was put here on this earth to actually do and achieve. I don't know exactly why I vanish from myself, becoming in essence an invisible man in relation to my spirituality and my authentic self, but I have some pretty good guesses.

Vanishing From Myself Without A Decent Bowler Hat
The most obvious reason is fear. I will never forget when I was a teenager and read Frank Herbert's science fiction masterpiece Dune for the first time, and I was so influenced by the following quotation: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." Yes, fear is still and always will be the mind and soul killer, but it offers only the most base explanation of my actions. There is so much more to express when I delve into the details of those character defects.

As an alcoholic, my reaction to fear is an immediate need to escape. In the past, I found such balm through the lens of my addiction to cocaine and heroin. Now I no longer have the option to self-medicate  because I have turned my will and my life over to a higher power that I choose to call God. Still, even though I am sober, I struggle on a daily basis to act through the lens of principles as opposed to fear and the ego of personality. I relapse on my character defects on a daily basis, and my avoidance of these pages is an avoidance of the weight of facing my own truth and the burden of expressing the wonder and the banality of what I experience. In truth, I have so much to write about and so much to say, yet I run away from the incompleteness of these words and the impossibility of perfection.


Does that make any sense? Maybe a little and maybe not so much, but I embrace this journey of expression and I vow to do a little bit better as I continue to progress along this path. 

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