How It Feels Sometimes

I cling, white knuckled, to this supersonic freefalling animal. My fingers strain, in tufts of hair, to hold on. When my grip seems strongest I find out it is weakest. I nearly let go but still I hold on. This mad beast, this psychotic animal does not heed my call. I try to guide it, I try to direct it. It changes direction constantly. Its twitching leaps and jolts thrash me about. I do not know where it is taking me. The heavy shadow of an insignificant future weighs upon me dragging me down. Everything before me is dark. Yet the rampaging speed never falters as I cling.

I pass places I want to stop at and linger for too long at places I would rather pass through.  I learn things I should have remained ignorant about and remain ignorant about things I should know. This spastic creature drags me face down in the mud. I see the people, the skies, the buildings, the birds. They make no sense to me. The dirt is in my eyes and the mud is in my mind. I am travelling at breakneck speeds with no control.

I can survive the lack of control.

Not knowing the destination is what gets to me.

(I wrote this last year, the title is all the explanation that is necessary) 

Over the Void (With Apologies to The Pixies)

The clock keeps on tick, tick, ticking and I think about thinking.

I juxtaposition my thoughts against my actions: One makes a glorious mountain and the other a dark desolate valley; One ablaze in sunglow the other fuming in dark ruminations. And I ask that aging question: Where is it? Way out in the water, I see it drowning.

Is it water? It’s so hard to tell when there’s no light. Perhaps it’s alcohol or gasoline. It certainly smells. The vapors drape their heavy tendrils around my nostrils like fish-hooked chains. Oh the cutting stench! A smell of dried vomit and stale excrement wafting from listless hours and indolent acts.

Act I: The clock keeps on tick, tick, ticking. I can’t think about the thinking when the clock keeps tick, ticking. Or thumpy, thump, thumping like a burdened train over the tracks. The tracks are disappearing over that swampy miasma. All aboard the time train! Next stop: fate.

Hey look down there! Beneath the strained struts and warped beams. There, in that bubbling potion, it’s my mind. Ah! But if it’s there then where am I? Am I not there with it in that poisonous froth? But if I know it’s there am I not here and it with me? Or does it remain, loosely connected by tenuous nerves across the void of air and darkness and time, still in that thickly pitch. Does my notice of it bring it back or is it just a self-awareness that there I am, in the moonlit waves of unknown horror, drowning. And time keeps on tick, tick, ticking and thumpy, thump, thumping over the void. And I think about thinking and thoughts and actions and mountains and valleys. Can one be there while the other is where?

Where is my mind? Way out in the water, I see it drowning while time keeps on ticking I’m thinking of thinking. That sunglow memory must have been self-delusion. You never can tell down here. When will this thinking of thinking move to thinking of acting and on to acting on thinking and then to thinking on acts. Or will I just stay in Act I while the clock keeps on tick, tick, ticks—like a buried head in my skin boring in for blood and who knows what else. Think about this while looking through a scratched and smog slimed train window:

Time, like a tick, bores.

A mostly incoherent rant on the state of the world and how I see it

So, I was sitting at my computer going through an interesting comic. It is an ironical cultural comic that spends most of its time making fun of/lamenting the state of the world. Check it out: http://www.viruscomix.com/subnormality.html Warning: It’s not always appropriate or clean and often it is immature so if you are sensitive to those things you might want to give it a pass.

Anyway, so I got to thinking about of the state of the world: For example, sometimes I think it was better in the middle ages… I wonder why people constantly refer to them as the dark ages. Sure, they had their scary looking torture devices and heretics burning at the stake but really the biggest killer in those times was disease and famine. Percentage wise they probably weren’t killing more people by violence then. Now here we are at the peak of scientific development and we have gotten way better at killing and torturing people than the medieval people and we still have disease and famine.

Sure, maybe nobody you know is dying of a disease or famine. But look around you: Africa and Asia are plagued by malaria, poor water conditions and malnutrition killing millions upon millions per year. Scientifically speaking this problem is completely solvable: We have the money, we have the resources and we have the technology to virtually eliminate deaths from malaria, contaminated water and even malnutrition. But what does the world spend its money on?

The lists of most profitable companies I could find online were dominated by: Oil, banks, car companies, utilities providers, insurance agencies, and credit providers. No surprises there, basically all these companies attempt to maintain the status quo. They are governed by one motivating factor: self interest. Yay, self interest. Ayn Rand get bent, you took the American Dream and whored her out to the world in the rags of “Me first”. Ah, but Rand you are not to blame, I know that. You simply told the people what they wanted to hear. When the world has 97 percent of its wealth squarely focused upon a mere three percent of its population it falls to the individuals in that 3 percent to decide what to do with the wealth. If the computer you are reading this on is your own or your relative’s then you are probably in that top 3 percent. And if you are human you are affected by the so-called ‘American Dream’.

Americans spend money on insurance, credit, oil, cars etc. And continue to buy more than they need which props up the giant credit companies, manufacturers, etc. thus maintaining the status quo.  Now, I did just say “Americans spend” but I really mean the rich (middle class included) in general; for to be rich is to be American. The American identity is no longer what it was around the time leading up to the establishment of the constitution: It is no longer that mysterious journey of finding your way in a new world, it is no longer a rejection or reformation of old ways by establishing a new society, it is no longer the desire to pursue happiness for all in a land of exploration and possibilities. Those ideas have been thrown out. See the new America—or shall I say the nouveau riche—of the world: a people based upon a different set of principles (or lack thereof).

There was a ‘once upon a time’ when wealth came with a sense of responsibility—if you were born rich it was because you were born a noble and were therefore part of the leadership. But alas, no more. Now, if you are rich—born or become—you have no responsibility whatsoever. You’re only responsibility is that to yourself, the individual, the self is what matters most and everyone else should worry about themselves (Rand is only one of many authors who have promulgated that dogma). This divorce of wealth and responsibility can be traced back to the self-interested monarchs and lords back in the feudal era and before. The divorce began when the nobles and lords started forgetting the responsibility and just saw the wealth part of their leadership positions. It boiled throughout the middle ages and nearly came to fruition with Cromwell. Yet, Cromwell was not to be successful. The Nobles remained in power (although thoroughly humbled and put in their places—er, somewhat… at least in England). Do I seem ridiculous? Perhaps, I do. Do I actually presume to trace historical self-interest like it was a political or philosophical ideology? No, certainly not, I realize that wanton self-interest is inherent in all individuals. I realize that it is not an opinion that waxes and wanes on the shoulders of social progress. However, looking around myself, I can’t deny that self-interest has indeed waxed into some luminous monster that dominates all western societies and is threatening us all with economic destruction. Can it be traced in history? Perhaps not, but can it be simply disregarded as ahistorical?

No, I think this idea—putting individual before the mass of individuals—came to historical fruition in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, not in what is said upon it but rather in what is left off of it. Thomas Jefferson’s original document (before a whole room full of politicians got their hands on it) said some pretty strong words condemning slavery. Now Jefferson was no modern man; the best alternative he could come up with was shipping all the slaves back to Africa and setting up a “free” “negro” colony. He wasn’t perfect, yet I still appreciate his intentions. Jefferson realized it would be pretty hypocritical of a nation to talk about democracy and free men, etc. yet have hundreds of thousands of people in a state of permanent servitude. He saw that maintaining slavery in America was just switching the Kingship of George with a new American tyrant. Here, at the birthing of the nation, the “founding fathers” had a choice. They had the choice between setting up a nation built on the principles of justice and freedom or setting up a nation that maintained the status quo and made life easier for the whites. Unfortunately, the founding fathers chose the second path.  They placated the southern leadership who demanded to retain their slavery. Thank you, you cowardly politicians. This would lead to the civil war, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Malcolm X’s assassination, years of lynching and prejudice in the south. This whole process of emancipation and the winning of equality was retarded by almost 200 years because of the lack of principles held by the founding fathers. Thank you, you cowardly, worthless founding fathers for ruining the promise of America before it even got started.

This American compromise has now become the global compromise of the “free” nouveau rich. Sure the rebel colonies wouldn’t have had the support of the south if they went against them at that early stage. But they could have fought a civil war right then and there. The death toll would be much smaller and the British would have had to choose either the side of slavery or the side of freedom. Even if America had of lost that war she would have won in the end. The right principles fought for become more powerful the more they are repressed.

Yet now here we are: In a world where all that matters is me and my own transitory state of highly subjective ‘happiness’. Yay America, Yay world, Yay Rand, thank you all for contributing to the current dystopia. The rich and middle class people of the world have swallowed this ‘utopian’ ‘American dream’ hook line and sinker and now we are all shocked that we are choking on it. We are in some disintegrating world from the imaginations of Orwell or Huxley. Orwell’s horrors of the totalitarian state don’t look very frightening to us now but Huxley’s Brave New World is a little closer to where we’re at. Neither however captured the sheer mind numbing ignorant, apathetic, selfish, narcissistic world as it is today. Why are dystopia novels so popular right now? Because we are living in a dystopia!

The medieval era was “dark” and “backwards” and “intolerant” but at least they cared about shit. They didn’t just sit there on their flabby backsides changing the channel every time a fly-eyed African boy came on T.V. asking for the money they spend on their weekly trip to Starbucks. No, people in the medieval ages had to worry about survival under the constant shadow of omnipresent death. They loved more, hated more, worked more and celebrated more than we ‘immortals’ are even capable of comprehending. And there lies the difference: We act as if we are immortal as if we will live forever. Yet one thousand years of technical advances still haven’t pushed us beyond that mystical 120 year peak. Immortal? Pshaw. There are more ways to die now than ever before. If you aren’t born an African in the Congo or Sudan then you can still easily be punching your final ticket from cancer, aids, nuclear war, domestic violence, car accidents, drugs, alcohol, earthquakes, psychopaths, terrorists, etc. etc. So what? Live in fear? Hide in your basement watching cable? Watch make-believe people live make-believe lives on a piece of electrified plasma sandwiched between two sheets of backlit plastic. Yay you! You are worthless. You might as well go die this moment. You don’t contribute to the world at all. You merely suck its life like a flea or a leech. Aw, but a leech is too good for you; even leeches can be beneficial when removing poisons from the blood. Hell, even a flea is too good for you at least they follow their “evolutionary impulse” and breed. What do you do? Live and die for yourself so that after you are gone you won’t matter. You will quickly be forgotten by all the people you supposedly loved and the people you could have helped but never did will not think on your passing for a moment. It will be as if you never existed.

Ah, but I realize that the people I am addressing this to would not even get this far. Perhaps they will not even endeavor to begin to read this rant. They are probably glued to their screens: iPods, TVs, computers. Glued there not doing anything but taking in dross while the short seconds of their stunted lives count down to nothing. Pathetically proving a point I wish would be proved wrong.

But therein lies the hope. There is where the truth resides. I will not wait to see my point proved right. I will go out and prove it wrong. And I know that there are those miniscule few among the wealthy going out and proving it wrong as well. Those people who demand more than themselves. Who demand community, who demand peace, who demand love, who demand things so much more important than transitory prosperity. I will stand with those few who defy the army of the apathetically indolent. We will stand not for ourselves but for the other: For the poor, for the neighbor, for the sick, for the brothers, for the weak, for the sisters, for the oppressed, for the mothers. For all but ourselves and we shall forget ourselves focused solely on our goal: to love, to help, to build. We will not compromise. We will not give in. We will not be tempted by the slow wasting of our lives but we will go onwards against the currents of apathy up river to a new land. Not to a utopia but towards a conscious rejection of the dystopia’s hold; A conscious effort to attempt utopia in spite of our weakness and in spite of almost certain failure. We will aim at perfection and perhaps attain some piece of it here on earth.

Either remain in the dark-age lethargy of self-interest or throw down your mirror-walls and look out to see a window upon the world. This window is not a position from which to watch the world unaffected; but rather a view that informs and demands action. Look, see and act.

The Things I’m Not Usually Thankful For

It is Canadian Thanksgiving today. In my family we usually go around the table before the big feast saying what we are thankful for. We usually all say the same things each year: We are thankful for our family, friends, the roof over our heads, being healthy, food, forgiveness, etc. This year I decided to go about it a little differently. I’m going to look at the things in my life I wouldn't normally be thankful for and try to see them as things that I can be thankful for.

           

I am thankful for…

• The times that I’m sick because it makes me value the times that I’m healthy and it reminds me that I’m not dead
• Mosquitoes because without them I might not have anything to do when I’m in Manitoba
• Bad drivers because they make me look and feel like a pro
• Bad haircuts because at least it’s not a mullet or a bowl cut
• The fact that I spill liquids more than the average five-year-old because it makes every drink an experience in risk management
• The overstuffed feeling after a turkey dinner because it reminds me that I’m a pig and should eat less
• Television because all I have to do is flip through the channels for five minutes to get an ego boost
• People who make me look stupid without even trying because without them I would have no motivation to learn
• All the women who have rejected me because without them I might turn into an overconfident egomaniacal chauvinist
• Pimples because: “Hey, I can’t look good everyday”
• Rainy days because without them there would be no flowers (or Vancouver)
• All the misconceptions I carry with me every day because it is always exciting and/or interesting when they fall apart
• Prejudiced people who say stupid things because without them certain issues wouldn’t be faced and the smart prejudiced people (the ones who remain silent) could keep their views unchecked and uncontested
• The times I embarrass myself publically because they usually make for good stories
• Working dead-end, hard, unrewarding jobs because they make me take my education seriously
• Meeting and talking to people who disagree passionately with me because without them my views would be weak and untried
• Politicians because they remind me that even adults can act like children
• Nightmares because it makes me appreciate waking up so much more
• Vomiting because sometimes some of the stuff inside of you just needs to get out
• Vanity because without it I would have hair down to my shoulders, a scraggly beard, a unibrow, and I’d wear hoodies all the time
• City noise because it makes you appreciate the quiet of the country
• Country silence because it makes you appreciate the noise of the city
• Country music because it makes all the other genres sound so much better in comparison
• Constipation because it reminds me that I’m not starving
• Dandruff because at least I have hair
• Expensive phone bills because it means I have friends I’m talking to (or at least very persistent relatives)
• 24-hour news channels because they are constantly making themselves irrelevant
• Losing things that I value because it reminds me that what I value shouldn’t be things
• Funerals because they remind me to value the time I have and the people I have to share it with
• Lonely times because it makes me value the people around me
• Failing because it gives me a chance to start over from scratch
• The times I act like a complete tool because hopefully I will realize it afterwards, or someone will point it out, and I will become a better person
• And I am thankful for the people who will never read anything I write because it reminds me that there are even more important things in life than what I am particularly passionate about

Anger Issues

Have you ever talked to someone who has an opinion you don't share and they get angry because you don’t share it? Let’s flip this scenario: Have you ever become angry because someone didn’t share your beliefs/ideals/opinions/perspective/etc.?

            When I look carefully at the times that I have been on the angry side of this scenario it is usually because I am losing the argument… and I really want to win it. I lose sight of what really matters – the truth behind the argument – and focus instead on winning the argument. I become emotionally invested to a fault and lose all sense of perspective. When I’m in an argument I really want to win, I get very passionate about it and that passion can quickly turn to anger if my interlocutor belittles, ignores, makes fun, or degrades my beliefs. If that anger grows unchecked what was a friendly argument can quickly turn into a quarrel.

            What do I mean by differentiating quarrel and argument? The distinction isn’t mine, I picked it up from some logician (I can’t remember who right now). What I mean by it, though, is this: when two or more sides are arguing over a point (whether it be philosophical, political, legal, etc.) they are trying to get at the truth. When two or more parties quarrel then they are not concerned with finding the truth of the issue but they simply wish to win the argument. That is the real danger. If your motive when you come to a debate, conversation, discourse, or whatever, is simply to win then you have undermined yourself by focusing on the argument qua argument rather than focusing on what exactly is being argued. This loss of perspective harms the argument itself as the argument will now be skewed towards “which side is right?” rather than “let us find the truth.” Do you see the problem? If you are constantly asking “whose side is right?” you may incidentally get at the truth but only incidentally. For example, let us say that two sides argue over the color of X; Side A says X is blue and Side B says X is green. Now, being emotionally involved in an argument is good; it tends to make for stronger arguments, but that will do you no good if you are wrong. If A and B quarrel until they are blue in the face they will not get any closer to the truth if X is turquoise. If, however, they come at the issue from a diplomatic stance they could possibly get to the truth: Side A says “I believe very strongly that X is blue but I’m willing to admit the slight possibility that I am wrong,” and Side B says “I know that X is green, there is no denying it! But I have been wrong in the past.” Then they may possibly come to conclusion that they are both right about some things (as turquoise is a combination of blue and green) but the truth lies somewhere else.

           Now this is great to know but the tricky part is catching yourself in the act. It is essential to have the humility and the discipline to constantly check yourself in an argument. You need to constantly ask yourself questions: Did I say that in a combative tone? Was that a fair statement? Did I respect his side or belittle it? That makes me angry, why? Am I concerned with the truth more than losing the argument? And, the most important question of all: Do I value this person that I’m arguing with as a human being? This is important because one of the telltale signs that you are losing your rationality is that you begin to hate the person you are arguing with. If you suddenly desire to hurt (physically or emotionally) your opponent, then you have lost the personal battle. You need to take some time and cool down, and come back to the argument at another time when you can think about it rationally and (dare I say it?) lovingly. If the person disappears and all you hear are words clanging violently against your ears then the argument is over and a quarrel has begun.

            Now don’t get the wrong opinion of me: I am not the master of rationality; genially meeting every opponent and taking criticism and abuse with grace and serenity. That is not me. I’m not there yet. I’m writing this because I know this is something I struggle with and this is something I see other people struggling with as well. This is something we all must face to grow as human beings. We must look at our irrational selves and subdue them, gently.

I say gently because there are those who would take this too far and demand strict, militant rationality; a society where emotional displays are looked down upon, art isn’t valued, and feelings don’t matter. This is not what I’m preaching. I am calling for moderation and like any personal correction we can take the issue too far and end up worse off than we were at the beginning. Your rational mind will only take you so far. Without feelings and emotions you will become a cold, cynical, skeptical, prude. Feelings are important but they must not master our rationality. This has all been said before; by Plato and C.S. Lewis, and thousands in between but I feel like it needs to be said again. Our society seems to have forgotten its past and now it oscillates wildly from position to position.  We rebound from extreme to extreme like ricocheting bullets in a room with no air. What we all have to realize is that we all have our inherent weaknesses and strengths (often they are one and the same). We must constantly examine ourselves to be sure we are not favoring our strengths too much or our weaknesses too little.

            In the case of arguments, everyone has their anger issues. Anger issues are those opinions, debates, beliefs, positions, doctrines or dogma that we easily get into quarrels over. If you are talking to someone about something and they have the opposite opinion and this makes you angry; you have discovered your anger issue. Most of us have many, for some of us every issue becomes an anger issue. When you become obsessed with winning arguments and defeating opponents then you have probably turned everything into an anger issue. The key is admitting you have anger issues and discovering what they are. If you don’t believe you have anger issues then you probably just haven’t been pushed hard enough. Parents often bring out the anger issues in us as they will talk about anything and everything with us. Next time your Mom or Dad makes you mad ask yourself why you are mad. If your answer is simply “Well Mom said this” or “Dad did that” then you need to go deeper: “Why did I get so angry when Mom said that?” or “Why did I get so angry when Dad did that thing?” Perhaps your parents just proved to you that they are, like you, human and therefore prone to errors. On the other hand, you may have just discovered an anger issue.

            What I’ve noticed, (and what made me want to write this), is that there are a lot of anger issues out there in the public. You can go to politics and see anger issues all over the place. Also, you can see politicians forgetting their rationality so that they can win an argument: Politicians are constantly dividing issues of ‘left’ and ‘right’ when many of their constituents are ‘center’.  However, you need not stop at politicians. Social and cultural issues tend to be the hot-button issues when it comes to what sets people off. For example: I am fairly aware of what is going on in the abortion debate in Canada. I keep up with it as a concerned citizen and because it just happens to be one of my anger issues. When I argue around the topic of abortion I often struggle to subordinate my passions to my reason and, as I’ve seen from witnessing the debate, I’m not the only one who struggles to maintain rationality. People on both sides of the debate get furious over what the other side has to say. Pro-life people are furious at the use of euphemism to describe what they call murder and Pro-choice people are furious at any attempt to limit a woman’s rights over her own body. However, the sides are not arguing; they are quarreling. They haven’t even come to talk about the same thing. Pro-life people want to talk about the potential of a fetus and a “baby’s” right to live while Pro-choice people want to talk about women’s health and her right to decide what happens to and in her body. The sides of this argument are talking about two different (although related) things. And whenever someone voices a strong opinion on one side they are likely to be met with hostility, anger and even threats by the other side. Neither side has established common ground, or even admitted the possibility that their side could have it wrong. And perhaps, in this case, one side is absolutely right while the other side is absolutely wrong, but those debates – debates where there is no room for compromise – are always anger issues.

Anger issues are everywhere today. Perhaps, people are more prone to anger now than they have ever been before – if so that is very telling about our society – or perhaps we have always been exposed to anger’s control. And control is the right word; we have all heard the phrase ‘to be consumed with anger’. Anger is something that grows like a fire and, like fire, the larger it gets the harder it is to control. Maybe there are more anger issues now because we are less willing to compromise. (I find it interesting that the word compromise usually has a negative connotation in western society.)


Whether it has gotten worse in modern times or has always been this way, anger is something we all need to deal with. Far too often people allow their irrational selves to control them and it is evident in how they argue over issues that matter to them. You begin to lose your rationality where you stop caring about finding truth and start caring about other things: “I hope I win this argument; he just made me look stupid; I can’t believe she would have the nerve to say that; She is wrong and I’m right; How can I turn his argument on its head?; What from his personal life can I use to undermine his position?; How can I make her look bad?; He just insulted all I hold dear;” when you focus on these things you have begun to lose your grip on rationality, where you end up is in anger and confusion. Anger issues should always be dealt with carefully, politely and with constant self-questioning. If you go into a debate knowing that you have already won – then you have lost. If you do not stop to question yourself how will you be able to answer a question from one who is not yourself?


Sincerely,
Fyodor Lewis

Addiction

Addiction is a strange thing. It creeps up on you when you least expect it. It grabs hold of you when you think you are invulnerable to its effects. The moment when you think you will never get addicted is the moment when you open yourself up. Now you may think that I am talking about drugs. No, not I. I have virtually no experience in that field. Alcohol? No not that either. But I am an addict. I, like most people, have addictions. But not to drugs or alcohol or even cigarettes. What I am addicted to is the easy way out. The escape. The thoughtless action where your mind goes blank and you just coast like a skateboarder down a hill. The dangerous thing about coasting downhill is that you can easily lose control and fall.

I'll tell you how I found out I was addicted: I fought it. Not the addiction, mind you, but I fought the very idea that I could be addicted. The possibility was ruled out in my mind. That was when I knew that I was addicted. When you deny even the possibility that you could be addicted and you do not take the time for introspection that is when you should be worried. The times when you are coasting. The times when your mind is off and you are moving from pleasure to pleasure, from entertainment to entertainment, from game to game. Those are the times where your interior alarm bells should ring. Because if they don't you are in danger of picking up speed in your downwards coasting. What first seemed like a gentle slope soon turns into a steep valley with no bottom in sight and the faster you go the harder it is to stop. This I know from repeated experience.

Addiction, no matter what it is you are addicted to, always, always gets worse. It is not a horizontal line, nor is it a diagonal downwards line, it is an exponential decrease and the further you go along the graph the faster and closer it gets to vertical. For example, I am addicted to mindless (or nearly mindless) entertainment as a substitute for scholarly endeavors. When I watch a movie instead of doing school work it puts me out by an hour or two. Next time I will factor that into my mind when I am thinking about school work. "I finished the work last time even though I watched a movie first, I can do that again," I'll subconsciously say to myself. Except this time I will watch a movie do some homework and then maybe watch an episode of my favorite T.V. show as a break before I finish my homework. Then the next time I'll add in a half hour or so of video games. My time for doing homework becomes less and less. And the time for doing the things I want to do (the things I really want to do) becomes less and less. My day, or my week, or my month becomes a mess. I have short intervals of compounded time in which I must do three or four times what I would normally do in that time. Therefore the things that matter (work, school, relationships, health) all begin to suffer. When I am in bondage to my addiction I can't spend enough time on the important things because the 'fun' things are taking up all my time. Even if my addiction is something as simple as watching too many movies, or playing too many video games it can seriously hamper my ability to function optimally. And the most terrible thing about addiction is that a small 'joy' is being realized by sacrificing a greater one.

For example: At work if you have a report to do and you know it is easy you can take an extra long break, relax a little, play internet games or whatever to fill up the time given to you to do the report. Then when you are ready you can do the report adequately and hand it in. Or you could use all that extra time to put more effort and time into the report thus impressing your boss and getting a well deserved promotion. Now this example applies to anything. Replace report with 'essay' and boss with 'teacher' and promotion with 'an A' and you will understand how my addictions are currently affecting me. I am getting good grades and I am half-assing it. I know I could pull of straight A's without my addictions but still I rely on them. I am having fun in the short run by sacrificing the rewards I would receive in the long run if I just worked hard in the first place. I know that if I worked hard from the start I would be less stressed, and simply enjoy life more. Not to mention all the long term benefits that getting excellent marks could do for me. I could get into a better graduate school, I could get a scholarship to graduate school thus freeing up my summer, I would be respected more by my profs. I am sacrificing so much potential good for the 'joy' watching a movie for two hours gives me, or the 'joy' playing video games for an hour gives me. I enjoy my entertainment and my escape; it is so much easier to turn your brain off and coast then to turn it on and to struggle up hill. However, the view from the top of the hill is much more rewarding then the crash at the bottom of the dark valley.

Falling into addiction is like entering a seemingly placid pool and finding a whirlpool. When you enter into the pool of pleasure a safety rope is attached to you; that is your link to who you were before the addiction and who you can be without it. When you are addicted you hold onto an anchor and the whirlpool pulls you down quickly. But when you let go of your addiction (the anchor) you can fight through the current and pull yourself to safety. The whirlpool seems much stronger when you are holding onto an anchor. The whirlpool is simply momentum and addictions work like inertia in physics; the faster an object is going the harder it is to stop. The longer your addiction has lasted the harder it is going to be to stop. But when you make steps in the opposite direction the momentum begins to shift; any addiction can be defeated by opposition. I will now try to fight my addictions not by not indulging in mindless entertainment but by actually doing the work that would usually be deferred. Fight a negative with a positive not with another negative. I will seek support in combating my addictions, I encourage you to do likewise.

Sincerely,

F.L.

The Average Man

So I know this guy and he is average. I mean he is the epitome of the word average. He isn't bad, he isn't good. He is forgettable, and regrettably, normal. He is about 25 or somewhere around there. This is what this guy does: He works for a temp agency at a poster factory or something along those lines. He works there for 8 hours a day making less than I do at my summer job. He comes home (to his parent's home) and he eats and plays World of Warcraft.

Now that's not all this guy does. Like I said; hes average not bad. He goes to church, he volunteers, he lives an unremarkable existence. Now I don't know why this bothers me so much but it does. He has no drive, no goals in life, and no problem with that. When I ask him about it he says he's comfortable where he is at. 'Yeah, I'd be comfortable if I still lived at home with my Mom cooking me meals,' is what immediately comes to mind. Seriously though? Where will he be in 5 or 10 years? Still working for a temp agency? Still living at home? Yeah, It might be comfortable but that's not a good thing.

People seem to think that all they desire in life is comfort and that it creates happiness but that's wrong. That's false; comfort will only take you so far. Look at many of the Hollywood celebrities and sports celebrities: They have all the means to make their life as comfortable as possible. Yet many of them crash and burn or fizzle out. You know why? Because people don't just want a sense of comfort, they want something more than that; they want purpose.

My friend may be comfortable but what is his purpose? Is he useful, helpful, loved, loving? Where is he going? Where has he been? I can answer those last two: not far. The only way a person can progress, learn, love, understand, communicate is to leave your comfort zone at some point.

So yeah friend, you are comfortable at home and you are making your small differences in society; your little purpose. But what purpose is out there waiting for you to take it? What chances are you missing out on by staying at home and doing what is comfortable. Leave the country, leave your province, leave your city and for God's sake leave your comfort zone.

- F.L.