Pride, Respect and Pain

After a very long time, I had the opportunity to talk to my oldest son the other day. I say ’talk to’ because I hardly let him get in a word edgewise. When I realized how much I was hogging the conversation I started to apologize by telling him how rare it has become for me to have someone to talk to, and that was when he told me how much he has in fact missed listening to me. Since we were also discussing his becoming my roommate, I was glad to hear him say that. But his statement planted a thought in my head that didn’t come to the fore until I watched Tavis Smiley’s interview with Mickey Rourke tonight.

Mr. Rourke’s description of the childhood demons that plagued him almost to the point of self-destruction caused me to reflect on my own. Both of us were affected by childhoods filled with violence and pain, and both of us chose to develop a ’hard’ persona to protect us from that pain while attempting to prove that we were a match for the evils that we perceived the world to have set against us. The difference between us lies only in the manner in which we chose to present our ’hardness’ to the world. His choice was the persona of the man who could not be touched through a shield of violence. My choice was the persona of the man who could not be touched through a shield of mental perfection.

I’ve always been so determined to prove that I was too ’smart’ to be affected on any deep level by the chaos and pain of our lives. I did this by attempting to appear to have an answer to everyone’s problem, and of course, an appropriate sermon to go along with my advise. This had both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, maintaining this persona required me to learn quite a lot about the human condition, and also how to communicate my ideas effectively. On the negative side, this persona made conversing with me a real ’downer’ for some, and made me appear as an arrogant ass to others.

The problem was that perfecting this persona had become the very basis for any sense of pride that I had. I simply never believed that I could ever truly be respected without it. But the harder I worked at it the more difficult the task became, and I seemed to be moving farther and farther away from the respect I wanted. In a very real sense, my ego had become like the planet held up by the shoulders of Atlas, which only grew heavier the harder I strained to hold it up. Eventually it became more than I could bear and I had a mental breakdown as a result. The irony of it all is that as I slid down into addiction and despair, I became in reality both unreachable and untouchable to those around me.

I have to admit that I found comfort for a while in being thought of as ’crazy’ by other people. After all, who would expect a crazy person to have all the answers? But at the same time it really irked me to be judged ’chemically imbalanced’ by doctors and ’unemployable’ by the government. Especially when my mental state seemed to me the logical result of being a sane person living in an insane world. But over time I have come to realize that ’sane’ is a relative term, and that no one is completely sane when compared to some perfectionist ideal. I’ve also come to see that the disappointment that I saw in peoples eyes when I was really screwing up wasn’t because I had been revealed as imperfect after all - everyone already knew I was human, but because it looked like I had given up on striving for perfection - what actually made me special to them in the first place.

It’s now been over two weeks since I started writing this article. Something about the subject matter, in combination with other events in my life, made it too difficult to continue until tonight. What got me going again was seeing Mickey Rourke on Charley Rose last night and helping my oldest son move in with me earlier today. As far as the Rourke interview last night is concerned, I was again struck by the amazing combination of strength and vulnerability that exudes from the man. How can I not feel compassion for a man whose ’shield’ has failed him at least as badly as my own has failed me? But at the same time, how can I not have hope for myself when I see how possible it is for one to survive the failure and come out better for it?

I don’t know if the people who have been disappointed by my failures feel so because I had given them hope and then dashed it, or because I was no longer amusing them by acting like some Don Quixote character battling against impossible odds. And I guess it’s that not knowing that fuels my fear of being a further disappointment or an even bigger fool. But I know that the bottom line that I must stick with is the fact that I do what I do for myself and that it’s my own respect that I must earn. Pain is, after all, an unavoidable consequence of being alive, and genuine pride can only come from self-respect.

I want ice water.

Addiction and The True Calling

When I was in drug rehabilitation, the given definition of addiction was, "a relationship with a mood altering experience that has life damaging consequences." Note that this definition makes no mention of the actual thing to which the person is addicted. Be it alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, work, or stamp collecting, it’s the consequence of the individual’s relationship with it that transforms that relationship into an addiction.

In short, an addict is a person who allows his pursuit of a thing to ruin the very life he seeks to enhance by pursuing it in the first place. Which brings me to point of this post: the addictive personality. This, I believe, is the true ’disease’ behind the symptom of addiction. You see, I have an addictive personality. When I find something that turns me on, whether it’s drugs, sex, work, computer programming, reading, listening to music, or writing, I fall head over heels into it at the cost of everything else.

It’s like The Neverending Story, where the kid falls into the book whenever he opens it. In fact, that’s the precise image I invoked to describe my addiction to reading. I would literally become so involved in whatever I was reading that I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, I didn’t even go to work. I remember once, when I had finally got my hands on the last book in The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, I used speed to allow me to stay awake while I read all six books in four days. Fortunately, if I can even use that word, I did this during an extended work break. But you can bet that my wife wasn’t too pleased.

Using another analogy, I refer you to the episode of The Twilight Zone where Burgess Meredith played a guy who wished for nothing more than the unfettered freedom to pursue his love of reading. He was so happy when a great holocaust left him all alone to do just that - until he broke his glasses! As crazy as it sounds, that was both my dream and my nightmare during those times. I still get chills of anxiety when I think of it.

This particular addiction got so bad that my emotions began to run wild, eventually leading to the choked-down rage and impossible-to-hide crying episodes that have plagued me ever since. To this day, I get so emotional when I read a good book or listen to my favorite songs that it completely ruins the experience. If it weren’t for the anti-depressants I take, I couldn’t even muster the courage to try.

And it’s the same for all the other things that trigger my ’disease.’ In addition to space travel and super-heroes, I was absolutely obsessed with sex as a kid. On the job, I worked more overtime than anyone. When I learned to program, I thought of nothing else. When I could no longer work, I stayed home to binge on marijuana, programming, reading, music, pornography, writing (mostly porn), and all the crack cocaine I could get my hands on to ’help’ me do all those things non-stop. I can’t say why it’s important to me to point this out, but I simply wanted speed during this period and crack was what I was able to find.

Ironically, I was actually looking for a way to kill myself when I stumbled upon crack. And as sick as it might sound, it actually gave me something to live for, at least for a while, since it had a kind of Popeye’s Spinach effect on me. When I finally lost my family and my friends, I lapsed into a hermit-like state that I’m just now beginning to come out of. My misery was so complete at one point that I even tried drinking to numb my pain and shut down my head, and when that didn’t work I turned back to suicide. Fortunately both alcohol and ’downers’ make me puke, so I didn’t succeed at either. Trust me, I haven’t always thought that was such a fortunate thing.

Now as I’ve said before, in addition to being a source of pleasure for me, writing serves as a kind of therapy. But the pen, or rather the keyboard, can be a double-edged sword for me. If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’ll have noticed that I have written quite a lot. In fact, I’ve done little else since I started this blog in the middle of November ’08. Such is the dilemma that I now face. I love what I’m doing so much, and finally feel that I’m really serving a worthwhile cause, that I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve found my ’true calling.’ But my experience forces me to wonder if this is just another symptom of my ’disease.’

You know how it’s said that you can’t see the forest for the trees? It’s like that when I try to weigh the consequences of this continuous writing. I don’t work, other than my writing, and I have no particular place to be. When I do have an appointment, I keep it. I take my med’s and prepare all my own meals. And the lack of a social life is ’normal’ for me. So aside from missing a lot of sleep, drinking too much coffee, and smoking too many cigarettes, it’s hard to find a truly negative consequence. But if I were a ’normal’ person with a job and family to tend to, this behavior would be excessive to say the least.

So for once I am truly at a loss. It’s not like there’s anyone I trust to advise me in this area. The psychiatrists and psychologists can’t seem to see past my drug abuse, ignoring the fact that my ’disease’ predates my drug abuse by many years. And the rehab community can only suggest that I turn my will over to ’a higher power’ or to ’the group’ - neither of which are acceptable to me. So I guess that I’ll just have to keep on doing what feels right. And that is to "Keep On Truckin’."

I welcome your comments. But still, as always,

I want ice water.

Love, Loss, Anger, and Faith

Now that My Terrible Ordeal is over, I can get on with trying to salvage the rest of my life. In addition to all of this writing, being sober and temporarily without the distractions of telephone, cable TV and Internet has allowed me to take a more clear headed look at my life up to now. These circumstances have also allowed me, with some difficulty, to resume my love of reading and listening to music. This is difficult because those things are clear evidence of the state of my psyche at the time I chose them. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with some of my history and of my tendency for idealistic thinking. Well all those books, records, and memories are painful reminders of the choices that tendency has led me to make. Choices like who and what I loved, what I did and did not give up to pursue those loves, and what I did in response to their loss.

I must say that my definition of what ’love’ is has evolved to be quite different from what other people say it is. I now believe that a person can truly love only the people and the things that represent that person’s ideals brought to life. Unfortunately, my definition was nowhere near complete enough to be a proper guide for some very critical choices I made in that area. So although my current beliefs did exist in infant form, they were of little help in preventing me from becoming locked into what later became very painful relationships with women and things. Of the two women important enough to write about, the first was my early childhood sweetheart and the other is the mother of my five children. The things are too numerous to mention other than to say that they were the typical kind that we waste so much time, energy, and money pursuing.

While I have little ambition for things these days, the women have been nowhere near as easy to dismiss. Regardless of how I feel about love and philosophy now, the feelings I have for these two women are still so strong that I literally get a psychic shock whenever either of them cross my mind. I try very hard to tell myself that my feelings aren’t rational because I shouldn’t feel this strongly for anyone not ’qualified’ for my love, but I might as well be spitting into a fan for all the good that does me. And there’s simply no possibility that I can prevent the thoughts altogether, especially when it comes to the mother of my children. So I guess that the only thing left to do is to face those memories and feelings head-on like all the head-shrinkers advise.

Before I can begin to describe either of those relationships, I must delve a little into the circumstances - and my thoughts about them - that surrounded them. I was born into a time of great turmoil and anticipation. If you know anything about the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, you’ll understand why this was so. And I’m not sure whether it was arrogance or naivete on my part, but somehow I came to believe that I had a special talent for judging right from wrong and for finding the good in anyone. My faith in my abilities gave me the confidence to take on many challenges that I might not otherwise have taken on.

But the belief that I was somehow ’special’ also left me feeling that I had a bit of an unfair advantage over other people. This feeling was reinforced by their apparent lack of faith in their own abilities and by the ’protected’ state I lived in due to having such a dangerous father. In turn, this led me to never want to appear ’superior’ to anyone and to never tell anyone of my fear for them should they be seen by my father as a threat. So I adopted the persona of a non-confrontational person who gave everyone the benefit of doubt, while I secretly strived to keep my true perceptions to myself.

But also behind the mask I wore raged the heart of a romantic idealist who believed himself capable of perceiving both the true pains of the world and the answers needed to alleviate that pain. Thus began the log lasting conflict between the person I let people see and the desire to be recognized as the ’answer’ I wanted to be. I became a person who denied the possibility of finding a ’perfect’ mate for himself while always campaigning to bring everyone to a state of ’perfection.’ As anyone in my family will eagerly tell you, that was not the way to begin a long and healthy life. But that’s how I ended up choosing women for mates not because of who they were but rather who I thought they could be. That’s not to say, despite the opinions of others, that just anyone would do.

My first ’love’ was a little girl that lived next door to me at the time of my earliest memories, when I still thought of myself as Bobby Hart. From then until I was ten years old, we spent practically all of our time together. She seemed so perfect to me. In fact, her family seemed more like my true family than the one I was born to. They even looked like me, which was kind of unusual in those days. My attachment to her was so strong that it inspired the first obsession I had with a song - The Monkees' I'm A Believer. But when I was ten we began to drift apart. I think this was mainly because she was a grade higher than I was in school, and had developed a circle of friends who couldn’t understand why she would spend so much time with a ’lesser’ being.

She had also developed an interest in other boys. The only fight I was ever in that I actually started, was with one of my perceived rivals. As I remember it, the fight pretty much ended in a draw. But I remember quite clearly how embarrassed I was at my behavior and the struggle I had to regain her respect. To me, those results felt like a terrible loss. I kept on trying to keep that relationship alive however, right up to my twelfth birthday when my mom shipped me off to live with my sister in L.A. I’ve seen her only twice since then.

The first time was after I was discharged from the Air Force over eight years later, during a drug-induced search for lost love after my wife revealed that she was pregnant by another man and had refused to resume our broken marriage. She was still just as beautiful as I remembered her, and still cared enough to welcome my visit in spite of the circumstances. But the fairy tale reunion came crashing down when should told me that she was in love with the guy I had started the fight with. The last time was during a road trip for my job. That’s when I found out that she had married that same guy and had a couple of pretty little girls by him. Since he really was a decent guy, and I was back with my wife at the time anyway, I did the best I could to hide my pain. Whether she bought my act or not is anyone’s guess.

I met my now ex-wife right after I moved to Ohio from L.A. in 1970, when I was fourteen and just getting used to being teased about that damned Janis Joplin song. She didn’t look like me the way my first ’love’ did, but I found her athletic grace and stature to be irresistible. Her family lived across the street in the housing project my sister lived in, and when I finally got up the nerve to talk to her, I found that she was a very bright fifteen year old who was very active in track and girl’s basketball. I myself have never been much into sports, but I had a pretty good hook shot and was fast enough to outrun her. And amazingly enough, she was a year ahead of me in school and was born in February - just like the first girl I fell in love with.

Over time I also discovered that, until I actually introduced myself, everyone she knew had wondered why ’a White kid like me’ was such a frequent visitor at my sister’s house. And even after I thought I had made it clear that my interest was in her, she and her sister still tried to fix me up with the White girl down the street. From the perspective of a horny teen-aged boy, it seemed to take forever to convince her that I was worth spending time with. Looking back on it now however, I have to wonder just how convinced she really was. You see, except for my intense attraction to her, we had almost nothing in common. All of our interests in music, in books, and in how we spent our time apart were completely different.

Although she was obviously just as bright as I was, the things she chose to focus her intelligence on made no sense to me whatsoever. I’m sure that she too wondered at the oddity of our relationship, because she introduced me one day to a potential suitor who just had to see it for himself. That really hurt. But I was relieved nonetheless when she chose me over him. And even after I joined the Air Force just to be financially ready to do so, I was still amazed when she agreed to marry me just three years after we met. If you consider the fact that we had to fake a pregnancy in front of a judge because I was only seventeen at the time, you can perhaps empathize a little with how I felt.

Have you ever heard the song I Hope You Dance by Leann Womack? It’s probably a fair bet that my ex-wife hasn’t, but if she had it could have given her some insights into the way I feel about my life today. You see when I was very young, I was so naive and uninhibited that I actually loved to dance all by myself in the bootleg joints frequented by my mother. As long as people kept giving me dimes to put in the jukebox, I danced like I was alone and happy on the moon. Unfortunately for our marriage, I had become increasingly extremely shy and introverted by the time we met. I had also discovered what actually motivated all those gyrations at the parties and nightclubs she wanted us to go to. So when I needed to the most, I just couldn’t bring myself to dance with her in public.

When you add to that the fact that my mental state also denied me the ambition needed to properly provide for our family, the fact that she remained married to me for almost thirty-three years is kind of hard to believe. And through all of those years, through all the highs of our reunions after the lows of our separations, through the successful births of our children and the frequent miscarriages, through all the stupid things I did that should have driven her away, she stuck with me. And the intensity of my feelings for her never diminished one little bit. Even after my spirit-liberating discovery of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, during the months of separation surrounding my military discharge, I was still unable to give her the life I wanted for us after we got back together - although for an entirely different reason at that point.

And for that same reason, the conflict between the person I showed to the world and the person I actually was became so great that it led to a psychotic breakdown. But she still kept me in her life, even through hospitalizations for mental health, drug abuse, and pancreatitis. However, I knew it was finally over when I awoke from a medically-induced coma, after an almost fatal resurgence of the pancreatitis, to see that she had brought her new man with her to visit me. Ironically, it was the guy she was with when I got out of the Air Force. You know, the guy she chose to be with instead of resuming our marriage. The one who actually fathered my first child - the son who still considers me to be his dad even though he knows otherwise.

But maybe the true irony lies in the fact that, in spite of all the drama, I still miss my ex-wife with an intensity I couldn’t begin to explain. Just hearing her voice on the phone can bring on one of those crying jags I struggle so hard to avoid. If there were no more evidence than that of just how badly twisted my mind has become, I think that should still be quite enough. But her new man is actually a very nice guy despite the animosity between him and our son. She certainly seems to be living a far more comfortable life than the one she had with me. And I truly don’t want to cause them any pain. So I try my best not to let my feelings show. But I’ve always been a very poor liar and I have my doubts about how successful my efforts have been.

Now that I’m nearing end of this article, an amazing thought has occurred to me. While watching the Presidential inauguration earlier, I was once again impressed by the imposing stature of Michelle Obama. If I had to guess, I would lean towards her being the physically stronger of the two. And that’s when it hit me. Do you recall my earlier statement that I believe you can truly love only that which represents your ideals brought to life? Well I realize now that the irresistible attraction I have always felt for my ex-wife derives it’s power from the strength that I first saw in her from across the street when we were kids. And it has been reinforced time and again by the courage and confidence she has demonstrated throughout the years.

Despite all my rationalizations to the contrary, telling myself that it didn’t make sense for me to love her because she didn’t look the way I wanted my woman to look and didn’t have the same goals that I did, I realize now that I did indeed love her. Not because she fit some magazine definition of beauty. Not because we wanted to do the same things and pursue the same goals. Not even because she truly was the best sexual partner I’ve ever had and of all the wonderful children that having sex with her produced. I loved her because she completed me by possessing the courage, confidence, and strength that I have always lacked and was willing to put up with me anyway. I’ve heard it said that, "There’s no fool like an old fool," While I don’t know if such an imbalanced love can ever actually work, knowing the true nature of my love for her might have helped.

To be clear, I have had other, shorter term, relationships with girls and women, all with equally disastrous results. I have not had even a one night stand since the end of my marriage in 2002. That is, other than those of the infrequent and always disappointing pay-to-play variety. The loneliness has gotten to be almost more than I can bear. But I’m so full of unresolved anger at myself and my circumstances that I simply haven’t had the confidence or the courage needed to approach a prospective mate while dragging such a mountain of pain and confusion behind me. Considering my history, I fear that starting a new relationship before dumping some of this baggage will only lead to more disaster.

My regular readers know how I like to include lyrics from my favorite songs in these articles. And when it comes to the subject of love, I’ve certainly had a wide array to choose from. I’ve looked into the soulful sounds of The Temptations, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Sly and the Family Stone, Lionel Richie, Hall and Oates, Grand Funk Railroad, Larry Graham, and Whitney Houston. I’ve surfed the melodic waves of The Beatles, The Carpenters, Elton John, Billy Joel, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, U2, Heart, and REO Speedwagon. I’ve even churned through the dark and angry waters of The Police, John Waite, Def Leppard, The Who, The Eurhythmics and Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut is an excellent reflection of my love life:

"Through the fish-eye lens of tear stained eyes
I can barely discern the shape of this moment in time.
And far from flying high in clear blue skies
I’m spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide.

If you negotiate the minefields in the drive
And beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes.
And if you make it past the shotgun in the hall.
Dial the combination. Open the priest hole.
And if I’m in I’ll tell you what’s behind the wall.

There’s a kid who had a big hallucination
Of making live to girls in magazines.
He wonders if you’re sleeping with your new found faith?
Could anybody love him? Or is it just a crazy dream?

And if I show you my dark side, will you still hold me tonight?
And if I open my heart to you, show my weak side,
What would you do?
Would you sell your story to Rolling Stone?
Would you take the children away and leave me alone?
And smile in reassurance as you whisper down the phone?
Would you send me packing?
Or would you take me home?

Thought I ought to bare my naked feelings.
Thought I ought to tear the curtain down.
I held the blade in trembling hands, prepared to make it but
Just then the phone rang.
I never had the nerve to make the final cut."

The only significant difference between that story and my actual life is, ironically, the fact that the ringing I heard before attempting suicide was the call of crack cocaine.

Considering the state of my recent ’love’ life, maybe I’d be better off these days looking to groups like The Tube’s when they sang:

"You can step outside your little world.
You can talk to a pretty girl.
She’s everything you dream about...
But don’t fall in love!"

But for the future I’m still hoping for, perhaps the best advice came from the group Toto when they sang:

"Hold the line. Love isn’t always on time."

I have no idea if writing about these things will truly have the exorcising effect I hope for, but I do know that having copies of them outside of my head seems to somehow diminish the power of the ones still inside my head. I’m holding on very tightly to the hope that it’ll all work out in the end. I guess that would be the ’faith’ part of this whole thing. And in the real world, that may just be the best that I can hope for.

I want ice water.

My Terrible Ordeal

In another of those weird synergisms where I manage to find profound connections between the seemingly trivial and the great complexities of my life, I have found tonight’s episode of NCIS to be analogous to my most recent trial by fire.

The show starts with the team investigating an obviously open and shut case of cheating sailor murdered by spurned lover, when out of nowhere a woman wearing a Muslim head covering and shouting in Arabic grabs the murder weapon and uses it to stab the medical examiner, Ducky, through the hand. It turns out, as the story unfolds, that the woman was trying to revenge the death of her brother, some thirty years earlier in Afghanistan, at the hands of none other than Ducky himself. Before they can catch up to her, she presents war crime charges against him at her embassy. And to the teams amazement, Ducky not only admits his guilt but turns himself in the Afghans.

Needless to say, the team was shocked and convinced it was all some terrible mistake that they must resolve to save their friend. Unfortunately Ducky refused to provide any information that will help them to help him. Eventually, through the use of all that techno-investigative-spy stuff I love so much, they discovered that the guy Ducky killed was being tortured repeatedly for military information at the hands of an agent of the so-called good guys. As a young doctor, Ducky had had to repair the damage done to the man over and over again, and decided at last to save him from more suffering in the only way he could - by giving him an overdose of painkillers.

But in Ducky’s mind he had committed murder, and he still felt so badly about it that he continued to refuse all his friend’s efforts to save him. As a last resort, they tracked down the guy who had done the actual torturing and brought them together as two war criminals locked in the same room. You know, the one with the two-way mirror. That was when the torturer finally admitted that Ducky had been the actual target of his efforts, because his compassion was preventing the prisoners from experiencing the level of fear required to get useful information out of them. It had been Ducky he was trying to break, and he succeeded! Of course, the charges were dropped against Ducky because the woman who stabbed him was on the other side of the mirror the whole time.

My sad tale starts at the beginning of November, when instead of my disability check, I got a letter stating that I had been cut off because of a felony warrant that had been issued for my arrest. Furthermore, it stated that I now owed the government for the five months I had received benefits while the warrant was in effect. Needless to say, I was a little disturbed by this. This trouble originated with something that happened at my old apartment almost a full year ago, the consequences of which I tried to ignore for nine months and have struggled to resolve for the past two.

Although I wasn’t surprised that the problem finally came home to roost, I was absolutely shocked at the charges filed against me and at what my avoiding them had cost me. You see, giving in to my addictions to drugs and my lust for companionship, I allowed some ’friends’ to come over to ’party’ a while with me. Eventually, the ’partying’ eventually got to be more than I wanted to deal with. In the end the police were called in - by someone other than me - to resolve the resulting chaos. And because I wasn’t expecting a visit from the police, I tried to hide the remaining evidence of what we had been doing to avoid having the problems escalate. Somehow that turned into me being left holding the bag. It was, after all, my apartment

Well I was so pissed off at my so-called friends, and so frustrated that I was the only one with any consequences to face, that I decided to dodge the issue by getting the hell out of Dodge. This, I thought, got me far away from both the consequences and the activities that led to them. I also thought that at worst I would have to deal with some minor offense at some later date. How wrong I was. It turns out that possession of the substance I had been trying to hide was a felony offense. And even though the citations issued at the time made no mention of my possession of it, I could nonetheless be charged for it at a later date if the authorities chose to do so. They chose to do so.

I of course, having left no way for anyone to reach me, was completely unaware of any of this. Until the beginning of November, that is. Well amazingly enough, I received little more than a slap on the wrist as punishment for my crimes in the end - from the courts that is. I still lost two months of disability benefits, which left me begging for help from my middle son to cover expenses. That leaves me owing him, Social Security, the fine and court costs, and whatever it’s going to cost to get my driver’s licence reinstated. But the greatest punishment by far, and the reason why this story parallels the NCIS episode so well, came from the deranged thoughts bouncing around in my head.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my obsessive attempts to pre-plan every interaction I expect to have with other people. Well, being the mentally ill person that I am, I have spent the last two months working and re-working to build up the scenario I expected to play out at the end of this mess. I imagined myself in an epic courtroom battle to snatch back my freedom from the jaws of a justice system too blinded by outrage at my crimes to care about the circumstances in which they occurred. I expected to have to argue in my defense with verbal eloquence I had never before been able to achieve.

Well earlier today, like in some twisted flashback to Alice’s Restaurant, it turned out that neither the prosecutor or the judge believed my crimes where significant enough to warrant the persecution I anticipated, and I was too tongue-tied to have been of much help in my defense anyway. So, as usual, reality spoiled my nightmare once again.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I can’t resist wondering about how different the outcome might have been if I didn’t look so White or if the judge had been more like Judge Judy or Judge Joe Brown. What can I say? I’m a pessimist.

And as always,

I want ice water.

Tolerance... Not! Drugs

All the news coverage of the various congressional hearings going on have reminded me of a funny scenario I once envisioned. The thought came about after a conversation I had with a couple of the local dope boys. I had overheard them complaining about being harassed by Five-O and I just couldn't resist pointing out how I thought that Five-O was what kept them in business. As you might expect, they were anxious for me to explain.

I was referring, of course, to the criminal justice system and it's anti-drug laws. I told them that, if it weren't for the fact that what they worked so hard to sell was illegal, people much better equipped to do the job would step in and put them out of business. I asked them if they honestly thought that they would be able to compete with the research, marketing and distribution capabilities of companies like Merck, Pfizer, Walgreen's and CVS. And, as you might again expect, I was told that I was crazy because The Man will never legalize drugs.

They're probably right, but that's where the funny scenario comes in. What would happen if drugs WERE legalized? I can still see it so clearly in my mind. The congressional elite arrayed in all their pompous grandeur to hear the pleas of those representing the now defunct illegal drug industry. The lead character on that side would have to be the angry, die-hard, anti-drug senator who arranged for these hearings in the desperate hope of restoring order to the land, along with the highly photogenic, caught-in-the-stall-naked, look on his face when he spies those about to testify filing in during his well-flowered opening speech. Whew!

And what a group of unlucky losers those giving testimony would be. Ranging all the way from the lowly dope boys up to the filthy-rich cartel magnates, all decked-out in their Hollywood cliche garb and bling-bling. Of course, the cartel magnates would have come in their Lear Jets and Hummers, the regional distributors in their Navigators and Escalades, leaving the dope boys to use mass transit because they were unwilling to sell their bling to pay for anything better.

The dope boys would, of course, complain about how they're losing out on all the free sex by now having to pay the crack, heroin and meth whores in real money that they don't have the skills to earn. They would complain about financial distress due to their not having the drugs to trade for all the (mostly stolen) video games, cell phones, television sets, and stereo equipment. They would even have with them representative re-sellers of the fore-mentioned ill-gotten goods to complain about their now shrunken markets.

They'd bemoan the loss of their industry standard rings, chains, teeth, clothing, and automobiles. And they wouldn't forget to mention how much they miss the free housing they got from those stupid enough to think that a few hits now and again made their presence worthwhile. "Foul!" they'd cry, for the loss of all the things they'd become accustomed to as 'fair market retailers' in the illegal drug economy.

Those higher on this now extinct food chain would, not surprisingly, have arguments more in line with their former lofty positions. Through their high-powered and highly paid mouth-pieces, they would point to possible anti-trust issues related to the 'denial' of their 'rightfully earned' share in the new legalized drug industry.

In spite of the fact that they're now free from prosecution for their past activities and could keep their ill-gotten wealth, they would argue that because of their huge 'investment' in developing the 'market' for drugs in the first place, as well as in 'procuring' the raw materials to meet that 'need,' it would be down right unfair to bar them from participating in the newly expanded legitimate market and for their production facilities around the world to be returned for legitimate use by the impoverished peoples from whom they were originally stolen.

I hope you think that's as insanely funny as I do. I would dearly love to see someone with the proper cojones for the job, like Dave Chappelle or Carlos Mencia, set such a scenario before the cameras. The question is though, is drug legalization really such an insane idea? The fact is that throughout history humans have used mood altering substances to achieve the illusion of relief from the burdens of life. It's also a fact that, despite the $10,000,000 per day cost (ABC 20/20) of the so-called 'war on drugs,' we now have an arguably worse 'drug abuse' situation than ever before.

The inescapable reality is that until we evolve to a mentality better able to deal with the hardships of life, people will continue seek relief where they can get it. I expect that, as past history shows, this will be especially true now that our prospects for 'the good life' have taken a serious nose dive. And I defy anyone to point out the 'enlightened' and 'evolved' aspects of the tactics used under our government's current approach to the problem.

Now I must make it perfectly clear that, in spite of living in a society where we're constantly bombarded with ads showing drugs as the cure for almost anything, and at the same time news that we can't trust the so-called experts, I Do Not Personally Advocate The Use Of Drugs To Fix Anything.

While I continue to take my psychiatric medications in an effort to limit those embarrassing crying jags and my somewhat morbid fascination with suicide, I can't honestly say that they work any better than anything that I haven't tried. They certainly don't fill my need for stimulation and, quite frankly, even the prodigious amounts of coffee I drink fall short of that. As far as the illegal drugs I have used, my life and current situation are perhaps the most clear testimony to the futility of going down that road.

But drug abuse is not the real problem and everyone knows it. If seeking chemical solace is really so terrible, then why don't we ban it in every form? The real problem is our need for such solace. And fear of punishment, no matter how terrible, will never exorcise a demon like that. And just as I wouldn't choose some unregulated quack to deal with my depression, diabetes and arthritis, those who simply need to feel good for a little while shouldn't be forced to scurry around in the darkest of places to deal with some street hustler. Not when his local Walgreen's could be fully stocked with well tested and well regulated pharmaceuticals designed just for that purpose.

It's time to get real people. Just as any good minister will tell you that it's the sinners who must be welcomed into the church, I say that a civilization that won't embrace it's troubled and broken citizens is not 'civilized' at all. And just as in the natural world the most weird and dangerous things grow where they're isolated, we have allowed a sub-culture every bit as alien and monstrous to fester and grow right over the shoulders we find so easy to turn away. Perhaps it's 'love' and not 'war' that's the answer after all.

Lastly I must make it clear that, although I do still suffer the occasional lapse, I Never post anything to this blog that I wrote while 'under the influence.' I hope my detractors will not be too terribly disappointed to hear that. You see, this blog is a kind of therapy for me. My hope is that by striving for clarity of expression I will improve my clarity of thought. And it is working better than I would have ever believed possible. So not only would posting something that I wrote while I was high be counter-productive, it would feel almost sacrilegious.

I want ice water.

Opening Rant

I have been diagnosed with Major Depression since 1995, although I now think that, without all the masks and self-medication I used to hide from the world, I might well have been diagnosed much earlier. Over time, the initial diagnosis has been expanded to include other 'issues' as well. This I know because of helpful 'peeks' into my files provided by friends who thought I should know. These modifications came about, I believe, because the doctors have been confused by both my sessions with them and by the results of all the testing I've submitted to.

One thing they all seem to agree on is that a person who breaks down in tears over what appears to be trivial events, and hides himself away from people to the point where he cannot be trusted to handle his own affairs, must be 'mentally ill.' Also, I'm sure it didn't help when I stated my belief that, rather than myself, it's those who are not depressed while living in the world we live in that are mentally ill. I still don't understand why, in spite of the epidemic-like use of anti-depressants, alcohol and other not-so-legal mood altering drugs, my statement was dismissed outright and regarded only as further proof of my 'illness.'

Okay, so just how did I get to this sad point? To begin with, I was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1955. I'm of mixed racial heritage, with my mother being half Black, half American-Indian, and my father being half Black, half White. You do the math. Apparently, my appearance has lead most people to assume that I'm White. As you can probably imagine, looking the way I do while living and growing up in mostly Black communities through the 50's, 60's and 70's had a profound impact on my psychological development. Wanted or not, the perspective of 'outsider' was forced upon me.

Another profound impact on my development happened in elementary school, when I was first introduced to the honor rule. I can clearly remember the chill that went down my spine when my adolescent mind grasped the significance of being on my own and responsible for myself. It was both scary and exhilarating at once and, in my own childish way, I knew that this was one of the most important lessons I would ever learn. It meant that I had to think for myself and take responsibility for my own actions. I had to take charge of my own mind so that I could be sure to do the right thing.

These two experiences formed the core of a lifelong quest, out of fear and the need to develop the tools required to survive in a hostile environment. I became driven to question everything I was ever taught, and the motives of everyone I knew, including myself. But I knew enough to realize that such a mentality, if too obvious, would only bring further harm upon my self. So I took on the persona of 'the naive seeker of wisdom' in to appear harmless. I thought it would be easier to be perceived as just another 'space head' than as someone seeking to judge the people with whom I interacted. Oddly enough, 'spacehead' was exactly the nickname given to me by my 'friends' at one time.

Since then, my life has been an extreme roller-coaster ride through other experiences - other lessons, both good and bad. From West Virginia, to California, to Ohio, to marriage and the Air Force, to college and kids and work and debt. I went from wide-eyed optimism and a 'can do' attitude about my ability to handle any problem, to drug abuse, psychological breakdowns, hospitalizations, disability, divorce, and finally, isolation. I've learned a great many things - some of which I'm trying to unlearn. I've done some good, and many things I wish I could undo. Yet, as I don't grant anyone the credit for my successes, I blame only myself for my failures. You see, I knew better!

Today, from a philosophical standpoint, I'm what I think of as a 'backsliding' Objectivist. Objectivism is a philosophy developed by the late novelist Ayn Rand. She believed that, aware of it or not, each of us has a philosophy of life that is behind our every thought and action. This acts as the main survival tool for cognitive beings such as ourselves, who aren't equipped with the instinctual responses of animals and, therefore, should be chosen with deliberate care - because our very lives depend on it. Objectivism is her attempt to provide mankind with such a philosophy. Simply stated, and in the best language I can muster, Objectivism is the philosophy of absolute freedom and it's corollary, absolute responsibility.

When I first started college in 1976, I was accused of sounding just like Ayn Rand by a school library clerk with whom I had frequent friendly 'debates.' I had never heard of Ayn Rand before, so I asked her to show me an example of Rand's works. They didn't have much, so she handed me a copy of The Fountainhead. Whew! Let me tell you, reading that book was like seeing my very own soul, in clear and concise language I couldn't hope to equal, poured out on the pages before me. I was absolutely dumbfounded! Without going into unnecessary detail, it was the story of a man who stood against the merciless tide of collective humanity out to destroy him for his unwavering stance in favor of his individual right to live as a free man - by his own standards and at his own expense. It was after that that I knew!

I knew then that the thing that had been in my gut since elementary school was right. That all the altruistic bullshit I had condoned, both implicitly and explicitly, in order to 'help create a better world,' was just that - Bullshit. That all the talk about 'self-sacrifice' and 'service to man' was just the verbal manifestation of same kind of evil that has been the root cause of all the blood-letting and destruction perpetrated by man throughout the ages. Until then I could justify my poor reasoning as mere 'ignorance.' But after, I knew that this type of ignorance was not 'accidental,' but rather the act of deliberately substituting the beliefs of others in place of my own. I knew then that if I continued to support such beliefs, in any way, that I would be committing the worst kind of sin a man can commit - the sin of moral suicide!

So I threw my self into reading Ayn Rand's books, along with anything else I could find that rang true to me. To this day, with almost no one to hear it, I will preach it to anyone who'll listen. But now, rather than being considered merely 'eccentric,' I'm considered 'delusional' and other not-so-nice labels associated with my having been diagnosed 'mentally ill.' But it's not what I preach that's wrong, it's my compulsion to preach it to people with their fingers in their ears. You see, along with all this 'growth and enlightenment,' I also accumulated quite an attachment to the people in my life. In spite of how wrong I knew it to be, I just couldn't turn my back and walk away. It wasn't until after the bottom fell out that I learned the final lesson. There's a reason why flight attendants tell you, in case of emergency, to put on your own air mask before helping your loved ones with theirs: You can't help those you care about if you're incapacitated!

Okay, I hadn't intended to be so long-winded - but clarity is important to me. I'll now conclude this sad tale, and sum up what I think about myself and the rest of humanity. To my knowledge, and actual experience, we represent the pinnacle of life in what we know of the universe. I have yet to see proof that there are any limitations to what we are capable of, except for those limitations we place on ourselves. And yet, we squander and belittle this capacity in an insane effort to escape the responsibility it represents. I believe the unconscious knowledge of this abdication is the reason behind the one consistent theme in all of the theories of life and morality I have come across: the notion that you get what you deserve. Now tell me, where do you think beings such as us are headed? What final judgement would YOU pass on mankind?

Now I don't personally believe in God or anything else 'supernatural,' but as the evidence for the existence of superior intellect and technology can be seen all around us, I have no problem with the idea that there may be beings 'more evolved' than we are. But such debates serve only, and perhaps deliberately, to distract us from the fact that there does exist a final, and absolute, supreme arbiter - Reality! To paraphrase the cliches thrown around in the rehabilitation community: "Nothing changes if nothing changes" and "Making the same choices while expecting different results is the definition of insanity". Sooner or later reality catches up to you, and if you're caught with your pants down you're going to be, as they say, Ass Out! Please pardon my slang.

I am paying a very high price for my sins and, just in case you're delusional enough to think you won't have to pay for yours, may I point out the state of the world around you. In Ayn Rand's greatest work, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt vowed to 'stop the motor of the world' to punish mankind for the sins I've outlined. Well, what we are now experiencing is justice being delivered by the real John Galt - Reality! And as another character in that book answered when asked what he thought was going to happen to the world, "Exactly what it deserves."

Now, for those of you about to sharpen your pitchforks and fire up the torches, you might begin the assault by crying 'who the hell are you to pass judgment on all of us?' In answer to that question, I resort to another Rand quote: "words do have exact meanings." While assuming that you're even capable of rational thought amidst the fog of rage, I ask this of you: Please examine your question carefully. I am just one individual human exercising his right, as an individual, to express his opinion. For you to have asked such a question, in such a tone, means that you are not thinking as an individual, but acting instead as part of a mindless herd hell-bent on stampeding over the cliff into oblivion. Rather than looking into yourself to find the actual cause of your frustration - and the means to deal with it - you would rather lash out and destroy anyone and anything that reminds you of the truth you seek to deny. But you cannot destroy reality. You can only destroy yourself.

I apologize and wish all the best to those to whom the previous paragraph does not apply. For those to whom it does however, I quote from Pink Floyd's The Wall:

"Sitting in a bunker, here behind my wall. Waiting for the worms to come."

You see, I already know that I've been guilty all this time. And for those who wonder why I obviously still haven't just 'turned and walked away' - why I would even bother to write this? The simple and easy answer is that I'm 'mentally ill' - what else could you expect? For those seeking evidence of 'evil intent,' the answer might be that I'm some mad 'arch-villain' seeking proof that those who read this will act in the manner my 'theory' predicts. The truth is that I just needed to speak my mind, and being able to take the time to get it right before it's heard is simply too cool to pass up.

I want ice water.