The Find

Everyone talks about the search...Hesse says the problem with the search is that we already know what we are looking for. These things are deeply rooted in the ego...in modern terms we could look at the ego as a really poorly programmed computer trying to maintain stasis in a technological explosion. Not allowing new and relevant material in and having a death grip on outdated and relative information. Today's cell phone will crush the behemoths of yesterday.

An example might be going to a shrink to find out why one is absolutely miserable in a certain job or activity that used to bring them great joy. This person is seeking a way to trick him or herself into reenjoyment of said substance. Sometimes a pro (psychologist, mentor, bum on the street...often the best bet) can help us to tolerate our current conditions for a little bit longer. Oftentimes however, when the problem is held in the light (outside of our 'self') we find the direction we want is not the direction we get. It takes a person in a certain state to appreciate the fact that he or she has been putting their self through the paces of hell.

We may find our methods of placating our ego have been at odds with what has really been happening. Delusion...illusion sounds nicer though. In this spot we find we have choices. If the problem is occuring within our job we may be faced with the possibility of quitting which invites its own set problems...all of a sudden our ego is faced with the possiblity of parting with serious material including but not limited to health insurance, home, car, sweet boat, rad clothes, fleeting feelings of superiority, etc. Many never get beyond this point. Some might say screw it and quit but fail (for now) to realize the true message...which could be anything...I am not a wise man.

But, I have seen folks who take on the inside job of realizing that everything is not about them and working things out with an understanding that anything worthwhile takes a serious investment. Not much is going to happen in the first day, week, or month...but when one looks at the yearlong investment of overcoming self...they find they have come a long way.

A wise man once said, "It is only through looking back that we can see where we've been." Another once said, "Mirrors are for looking back." Take what you need and leave the rest.

Blogs

A friend of mine cranked up a really cool blog. It inspired me to restart this blog. He wrote about searching and it got me to thinking about Hesse (even though he quoted Orwell) and I ended up writing a response to one of his blogs nearly as long as the one he wrote in the first place. He was writing about the search and I thought of the find. Ever since I was a small boy the world has seemed quite amazing...right down to the little stones the ants make their piles out of in the deserts of southern Colorado. For whatever reason, everything was a game, or turned into one over time. I became a fairly good athlete and I credit it to the way I played as a child. I would throw a ball on the roof and the resulting catch or drop would determine Super Bowls, World Series, and whatever else I could imagine. Everything took on that kind of importance. Life or death, win or lose, commit or not. Nothing has changed...I still find myself in situations that require absolute commitment. Beyond the commitment of sobriety lies a whole world covered in sand, rock, dirt, snow, ice, and water. It is this realm that inspires my being. This is where I find value, substance and growth. It is here that I have to face fear of the rational and irrational...life on life's term's if you will. The need to climb, ski, paddle and just plain explore is completely irrational. Just as irrational as man's need to destroy his world for pieces of paper, bits of metal, and the fleeting feeling of owning something beyond himself.

The journey I have been on has placed me smack dab in the middle of our folly. There is one river system without dams in the entire state of California...the Smith drainage. What this means is that salmon and steelhead have been evicted from all waters above every reservoir in the state. With few exceptions the rivers and creeks that run through all towns and cities in this fine state used to support major runs of large fish. What does this mean? We are slowly coming to grips with the ramifications of our actions. In short, the external wound (depletion of salmon/steelhead stocks and myriad other collateral drama) is hitting the internal wound (man's love of control and manipulation). It makes me wonder how many of the men who were constructing the Oroville Dam (one of the largest earthfill dams in the world) and the rest of the Stairway of Power were caught in a real moral dichotomy. On one hand, they had squealing brats at home that needed food, shelter and clothes...momma need a new pair a shoes too! On the other hand, I know some had their own experiences with the Feather River and had to have known what they were doing was contributing to a travesty...I'll bet they drank a lot.

The money had to have known, but money doesn't care.

Obviously, much had been done to kill off the big fish long before the dams came. We used to place miles of nets across entire bays to ensure most of the fish didn't make it to where they were headed. This was an unlikely oops as there were people living here long before we came that absolutely depended on the big fish coming inland as a source of food and a source of culture.

Despite all of this, I have an optimistic outlook. The system is self-righting. It is possibly perfect in its imperfection. What I do to you...I do to me. The compound interest on nearsightedness and greed cannot go unpaid forever. The debtor will collect eventually.

Every Penny.

What is Freedom?

Wow, looking at those older posts I see a really raw nature...I feel it. That was me writing those things down. So much rolling through my mind at that time that needed to be burped out I guess. As the buddhists might say my internal and external wounds had finally worn through to one another and the result was a beautiful process called hitting bottom. I remember total devastation of my being. Everything I had been protecting my whole life had been violently ripped from my grasp. I didn't have the energy and sufficient will to hang on anymore. One thing was certain, I no longer welcomed death as a solution to my problems...I was scared to die and conversely, scared to live. To die meant that I was too much of a coward to face the inner problems that I had created for myself. You see, I had an inability to ask for advice because I always lived under the dogma that to ask for help was to admit weakness which was to admit total defeat...the paradigm I had created wouldn't allow for total defeat. The sane of the world refer to total defeat as surrender...cease fighting anything and anyone. So, to live meant that I was going to have to ask for help.

Help wasn't a part of my vocabulary prior to this meeting of two wounds...physical addiction and an inadequate spirituality. Spirituality will be defined as Webster does with "thinking on a higher plane." Nothing more, nothing less.

I felt as if I was a living B movie...wandering the desert with cracked lips and lizard skin chasing an apparition I interpreted as my soul. It would turn to speak, utter something barely audible and continue on. I followed this thing that I have since interpreted as my last attachment to sanity...I knew this was it...and this was a full day after my last chemical intake. I'm sure some of you are curious as to what I was using. The usual suspects; caffeine, nicotine, methamphetamine, cocaine, alcohol. My body loves that stuff. Make me go fast. Make me able to deal with my cracked thinking. Make me able to live in my delusion...not illusion...not denial...delusion.

Functional, you bet. High functioning. So high I thought I was actually functioning.

Oh where was I? Oh yeah, help. I was so consumed with my own insanity that I knew I needed help but I couldn't conceptualize of how to go about it. I was so crazy that I didn't know how to walk into a hospital and say I am crazy as hell, can you help me? Crazy doesn't know. What to do? I did what any sane kid would have done years before. I called my mom.

Mom-What's up? Me-Mom, how do you admit yourself? Mom-Bad day huh? Insert Laugh. I honestly couldn't wait to go to a hospital, eat handfuls of pills and have people decide what was wrong with me. The Universe had other plans. My step-dad was there that night after a 7 hour drive to help me get my stuff together with the offer to come stay in a fifth-wheel at their house. I say step-dad with pride. He has no biological tie to me...yet he dropped everything to help. Says a lot. A friend of my folks had quite a lot of experience with my experience. He sat and listened to me for an hour or two and then informed me that hospitals were quite expensive and sometimes really hard to get out of. He said he knew of a group of people using a method which was often effective and much less expensive. I went. I identified. I went to work. They helped me prioritize my work. Here I am. Free. Free from addiction. Free from the bondage of self. Free.

New Adventures

The Adventures of Sober Guy says it all. Tongue in cheek, hat in hand and all dressed up with somewhere to go. Lately, I've been feeling like doing a bit of writing again...for me and for anyone who is incredibly bored. Much has changed since I wrote those initial posts...but one thing has remained constant. That constant is sobriety-clean time call it what you will. For reasons both tangible and not-so-much, I haven't had a drink or a drug since July 22nd 2008.

How has it been done you ask? Well, I have taken some suggestions and others I have neatly flushed (and then revisited). Some days have been easy, some have not been so easy. Another common thread that flows through this tangled web is life...I have been allowed to live this long. Some folks have not...I am thinking of some of them right now. All of them. One in particular, my grandmother, stands out. I miss her kindness, her love, her stories and her banana bread. She was a great woman and continues to inspire me even though she is no longer here.

When I had originally started this blog, it was called Dear, The Universe. The new title came about the other day as I was pondering the blogs of others and what I would blog on about. I felt that it had to be of some use to someone in some way. The answer came back that it just might be useful to me...which is of course, someone; someone I value much more than I once did. Do I have something to say? Hell yeah I do. We all do. We are all worth it. No matter where we have gone or what we have done we are all worth it.

The human experience is a hard thing to pin down.

I am going to make a more than half-measured attempt to chronicle my life in a way that allows someone struggling with anything to let it go...to stop fighting anyone and anything.