i was so afraid
so afraid of
not needing you
so unaware
that i was
loving from fear
so confused
thinking love
demanded need
too oblivious
to see
my desire
pulling you under
as soon as i
gave up
gave in
let go
stopped
needing you
i was suddenly
Free
finally free to
see you
hear you
know you
your real you
because you
were finally free
of my weight
of my need
what i needed
what i really needed
after all and everything
is over and done
was to get out of the fucking way
and just be me
and let you be you
so we could meet each other
again
and fall
for the first time
Showing posts with label desire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desire. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2014
I Have Sowed Need, And What Then I Reaped...
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Gaze Deep Into My Navel And Despair...
How am I supposed to grow up?
I want to grow up. I really do. No, more than that, I need to. I need to grow the fuck up. I'm almost forty years old, but I still see myself as if I were twenty-five. That might sound appealing on some level, at first; "young at heart" and all that. And maybe it would be, if that's what I wanted for myself. But it isn't. I want to grow up. I need to grow up, because I can't keep living like I'm twenty-five. I'm not twenty-five anymore. I can't eat like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't move like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't party like a twenty-five year-old anymore. Fuck, I can't even sleep like a twenty-five year-old anymore. It all hurts me now in a way that it never did, and I can feel myself breaking down at an astonishing rate, as if the force of Entropy inside me were being fed by some radioaction of chemical combustion. Accelerated Decrepitude. But on the other hand, trying to live within my almost-forty means, while still feeling like a twenty-five year-old inside, is so monumentally depressing that I can't even fucking bother; I always just end up feeling like I already have one foot in the grave.
A twenty-five year-old trapped in a forty year-old body. How incredibly pathetic. How incredibly modern. How incredibly privileged.
But how am I supposed to grow up? I don't know. My observations tell me that for most people, this happens as a natural side-effect of breeding. That creating a child shifts all perspectives, and forces the new parent into a maturity that cannot be achieved through any other means. That makes sense to me. I can understand that.
But I'm never going to have any children. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to force myself to achieve a state that, for most people, requires quite possibly the single most life-altering event they will ever experience in order to achieve?
Sometimes I think, maybe I don't actually need to grow up? If I don't have any children, then what do I need to grow up for? Why do I feel this need anyways? I can only assume it is because I reflexively compare my life to the model my parents set for me. When I look at myself, and try to judge whether I'm doing well or not, I compare it to the life they lived. And I always feel myself coming up short.
They went to college. They got degrees. They worked hard. (My father still works harder than almost anyone else I know, and while my mother never worked as hard as he did, she still inarguably worked harder than I do now.) They bore and raised children. They owned houses, with yards and multiple floors and everything.
But I dropped out of college. I have no degrees, and probably never will. Yeah, I have a career that doesn't leave me wanting to kill myself, but I still hate it, just because it's work, and I hate work of any kind; I hate being forced to sell myself every day in order to sustain myself. I don't own a house. I own an absurdly tiny condo that I hate and will never be able to sell for as much as I paid for it. I am almost certain I will end up having to live in that tiny little box for the rest of my life, watching it deteriorate around me, with me - and that thought terrifies me on a regular basis.
And even these modest achievements - a well-paying job that I can sort of do well and tolerate, and a tiny little condo I'm trapped in like a prison cell - even these barely note-worthy accomplishments I never actually earned; I didn't work hard to achieve these things. I got this job because some well-meaning middle-aged women that I worked with took pity on me, and talked to their bosses, and told them they knew this kid they thought would do well as a programmer. And they were right - I am a good programmer. At least, I'm alright. But again, not because I try to be, or because I studied or worked hard or went to school or anything else. I just have a natural talent for logic and pattern recognition and symbology, and so I am a naturally decent programmer. I could be a great programmer if I wanted to be; if I tried to be and put forth the effort. But I don't. Because I don't care. I only want to put forth the minimum amount of effort to get by, and save the rest for indulging in my life's pleasures.
And it's a similar story with my "home." I didn't work hard and save money every day so that I could eventually put a down payment on my dream home. My grandfather died, and since my mother (his daughter) was already dead herself, the portion of his life's wealth that should have been hers (and he had worked hard all his life to achieve that wealth) came to me instead. And I used all of that money to buy the apartment I had been living in for almost a decade at that point. The biggest, most "adult" accomplishment of my life - becoming a home-owner - and it only happened because I was in a position to profit off of the deaths of two of my close family members. And so it has never felt like an accomplishment to me. It feels like blood money.
(It's true that I performed magick to get the job and the money and the apartment, but even taking the assumption that my magick worked doesn't help the situation any. Magick is a short-cut. It's easy compared to actually working hard to learn or to save money. And it's fun to do, and for that reason alone I wanted to do it, whether it worked or not. So even assuming that I came by these things through sorcery, it still doesn't feel like an accomplishment to me. It still doesn't feel like I really earned them. It feels like I cheated.)
And I will almost certainly never see that much money again in my lifetime. I can barely maintain a savings of more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time. I live paycheck-to-paycheck, even with my fairly significant salary. I've always been that way. If I have money, I want to spend it on making myself feel good right now, and I can't seem to deny myself comfort or happiness in the present, in order to save it for some undefined future. As I've written here before, I feel like the Grasshopper, fiddling away as the first snow begins to fall.
But why do I determine the value of my life by comparing it to my parents'? They were completely different people, living in a completely different time. And who wanted completely different things from their life than I want from mine. And I know this. But I still can't shake this feeling that I am somehow failing at life, because I seem to remember my parents being so much better off in their twenties than I am in my thirties; or will be in my forties. I just want to be happy, like anyone else. But I constantly and consistently feel that the things that make me happy aren't good for me. That they are self-indulgent, or immature, or masturbatory. That I am a bad person for living my life the way that I do. But trying to live my life any other way always leaves me just as miserable, if only in a different way.
I just want to spend my life relaxing in the bathhouse, playing games, reading, writing, watching TV and movies, sleeping, eating, drinking and getting high, and punctuating the whole thing with the occasional orgasm. That is really all I want from life.
And I feel like a worthless waste of a human being for feeling that way. I hate myself for feeling that way. But even so, I have no idea how to change it; I have no idea how to want anything else.
Okay, sure, I want other things. Bigger things. I want to have a big house with a yard and a basement and an attic. I want to be able to support myself through writing, or some other form of creative expression. (If only I could make a living playing games!) I want a sense of accomplishment. I want to feel like my life mattered, in any way. I want to feel a sense of confidence that when I'm gone, I will have made some mark on the world that is all my own; that I will leave behind something more than a pile of carbon dust. I do want all of these things. But when I think about them, and I envision the monumental amount of work it would take to even try to achieve any of them - with no guarantee of success! - I lose any hope I may have had about ever actually achieving them.
Because I know that I will never do that work. I just don't have it in me. Achieving anything of any real significance requires a single-minded devotion that I just don't have. Have never had.
Because deep-down, I don't want to be great. All I really want is to be comfortable. And I guess I am. So I should be happy, then, right? Then why do I feel this way? I just wish I could learn to be happy with what I have, instead of hating myself for not being able to be great.
I guess what it all really comes down to is this: I feel lazy, and I hate myself for being lazy, but I don't know how to make myself be anything else. And I hate myself for that, too.
+ + +
Or maybe I'm just depressed because winter is coming, and I'm all out of drugs, and I can feel both of these things gnawing at my bones.
I want to grow up. I really do. No, more than that, I need to. I need to grow the fuck up. I'm almost forty years old, but I still see myself as if I were twenty-five. That might sound appealing on some level, at first; "young at heart" and all that. And maybe it would be, if that's what I wanted for myself. But it isn't. I want to grow up. I need to grow up, because I can't keep living like I'm twenty-five. I'm not twenty-five anymore. I can't eat like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't move like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't party like a twenty-five year-old anymore. Fuck, I can't even sleep like a twenty-five year-old anymore. It all hurts me now in a way that it never did, and I can feel myself breaking down at an astonishing rate, as if the force of Entropy inside me were being fed by some radioaction of chemical combustion. Accelerated Decrepitude. But on the other hand, trying to live within my almost-forty means, while still feeling like a twenty-five year-old inside, is so monumentally depressing that I can't even fucking bother; I always just end up feeling like I already have one foot in the grave.
A twenty-five year-old trapped in a forty year-old body. How incredibly pathetic. How incredibly modern. How incredibly privileged.
But how am I supposed to grow up? I don't know. My observations tell me that for most people, this happens as a natural side-effect of breeding. That creating a child shifts all perspectives, and forces the new parent into a maturity that cannot be achieved through any other means. That makes sense to me. I can understand that.
But I'm never going to have any children. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to force myself to achieve a state that, for most people, requires quite possibly the single most life-altering event they will ever experience in order to achieve?
Sometimes I think, maybe I don't actually need to grow up? If I don't have any children, then what do I need to grow up for? Why do I feel this need anyways? I can only assume it is because I reflexively compare my life to the model my parents set for me. When I look at myself, and try to judge whether I'm doing well or not, I compare it to the life they lived. And I always feel myself coming up short.
They went to college. They got degrees. They worked hard. (My father still works harder than almost anyone else I know, and while my mother never worked as hard as he did, she still inarguably worked harder than I do now.) They bore and raised children. They owned houses, with yards and multiple floors and everything.
But I dropped out of college. I have no degrees, and probably never will. Yeah, I have a career that doesn't leave me wanting to kill myself, but I still hate it, just because it's work, and I hate work of any kind; I hate being forced to sell myself every day in order to sustain myself. I don't own a house. I own an absurdly tiny condo that I hate and will never be able to sell for as much as I paid for it. I am almost certain I will end up having to live in that tiny little box for the rest of my life, watching it deteriorate around me, with me - and that thought terrifies me on a regular basis.
And even these modest achievements - a well-paying job that I can sort of do well and tolerate, and a tiny little condo I'm trapped in like a prison cell - even these barely note-worthy accomplishments I never actually earned; I didn't work hard to achieve these things. I got this job because some well-meaning middle-aged women that I worked with took pity on me, and talked to their bosses, and told them they knew this kid they thought would do well as a programmer. And they were right - I am a good programmer. At least, I'm alright. But again, not because I try to be, or because I studied or worked hard or went to school or anything else. I just have a natural talent for logic and pattern recognition and symbology, and so I am a naturally decent programmer. I could be a great programmer if I wanted to be; if I tried to be and put forth the effort. But I don't. Because I don't care. I only want to put forth the minimum amount of effort to get by, and save the rest for indulging in my life's pleasures.
And it's a similar story with my "home." I didn't work hard and save money every day so that I could eventually put a down payment on my dream home. My grandfather died, and since my mother (his daughter) was already dead herself, the portion of his life's wealth that should have been hers (and he had worked hard all his life to achieve that wealth) came to me instead. And I used all of that money to buy the apartment I had been living in for almost a decade at that point. The biggest, most "adult" accomplishment of my life - becoming a home-owner - and it only happened because I was in a position to profit off of the deaths of two of my close family members. And so it has never felt like an accomplishment to me. It feels like blood money.
(It's true that I performed magick to get the job and the money and the apartment, but even taking the assumption that my magick worked doesn't help the situation any. Magick is a short-cut. It's easy compared to actually working hard to learn or to save money. And it's fun to do, and for that reason alone I wanted to do it, whether it worked or not. So even assuming that I came by these things through sorcery, it still doesn't feel like an accomplishment to me. It still doesn't feel like I really earned them. It feels like I cheated.)
And I will almost certainly never see that much money again in my lifetime. I can barely maintain a savings of more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time. I live paycheck-to-paycheck, even with my fairly significant salary. I've always been that way. If I have money, I want to spend it on making myself feel good right now, and I can't seem to deny myself comfort or happiness in the present, in order to save it for some undefined future. As I've written here before, I feel like the Grasshopper, fiddling away as the first snow begins to fall.
But why do I determine the value of my life by comparing it to my parents'? They were completely different people, living in a completely different time. And who wanted completely different things from their life than I want from mine. And I know this. But I still can't shake this feeling that I am somehow failing at life, because I seem to remember my parents being so much better off in their twenties than I am in my thirties; or will be in my forties. I just want to be happy, like anyone else. But I constantly and consistently feel that the things that make me happy aren't good for me. That they are self-indulgent, or immature, or masturbatory. That I am a bad person for living my life the way that I do. But trying to live my life any other way always leaves me just as miserable, if only in a different way.
I just want to spend my life relaxing in the bathhouse, playing games, reading, writing, watching TV and movies, sleeping, eating, drinking and getting high, and punctuating the whole thing with the occasional orgasm. That is really all I want from life.
And I feel like a worthless waste of a human being for feeling that way. I hate myself for feeling that way. But even so, I have no idea how to change it; I have no idea how to want anything else.
Okay, sure, I want other things. Bigger things. I want to have a big house with a yard and a basement and an attic. I want to be able to support myself through writing, or some other form of creative expression. (If only I could make a living playing games!) I want a sense of accomplishment. I want to feel like my life mattered, in any way. I want to feel a sense of confidence that when I'm gone, I will have made some mark on the world that is all my own; that I will leave behind something more than a pile of carbon dust. I do want all of these things. But when I think about them, and I envision the monumental amount of work it would take to even try to achieve any of them - with no guarantee of success! - I lose any hope I may have had about ever actually achieving them.
Because I know that I will never do that work. I just don't have it in me. Achieving anything of any real significance requires a single-minded devotion that I just don't have. Have never had.
Because deep-down, I don't want to be great. All I really want is to be comfortable. And I guess I am. So I should be happy, then, right? Then why do I feel this way? I just wish I could learn to be happy with what I have, instead of hating myself for not being able to be great.
I guess what it all really comes down to is this: I feel lazy, and I hate myself for being lazy, but I don't know how to make myself be anything else. And I hate myself for that, too.
+ + +
Or maybe I'm just depressed because winter is coming, and I'm all out of drugs, and I can feel both of these things gnawing at my bones.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Making Excuses...
I haven't written in a long time. Long enough that it is beginning to weigh on me.
I've been busy. I haven't had much time to write.
But I have had time.
And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.
And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.
And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.
And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.
It's happened several times while I was driving. It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room. It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep. It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work. It's happened in meetings. It's happened on the toilet.
I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success. The process is completely different. My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.
But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.
What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.
But it's all I've got right now. And I am clogging up.
I've been busy. I haven't had much time to write.
But I have had time.
And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.
And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.
And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.
And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.
It's happened several times while I was driving. It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room. It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep. It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work. It's happened in meetings. It's happened on the toilet.
I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success. The process is completely different. My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.
But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.
What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.
But it's all I've got right now. And I am clogging up.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Three-hundred Fifty-one...
Only two weeks left.
Two weeks from today, I will drink a beer. A Guinness. In a bottle. And then I will have a glass of whiskey. Eagle Rare bourbon, my favorite. On the rocks, in my favorite glass tumbler. And who knows what else after that.
I can't tell what I'm feeling. Something like excitement, but not quite. Almost anxiety, but not exactly. Anticipation? Fear? Some jumbled soup of them all, most likely.
I want it so badly. I've never wanted a drink this much in my entire life. I want a drink right now more than I ever, ever wanted a drink when I actually was drinking.
I feel so proud of myself for actually accomplishing this.
I feel guilty for feeling this way, and I try to suppress it, reminding myself that I haven't actually accomplished anything yet. I have two weeks left to go. I can feel proud then. And celebrate with a drink.
I'm so scared that something bad is going to happen. That I'm going to go off the deep end and lose control in some way that I never have before. That I'm going to end up in another of those deep chemical depressions. That I'm going to lose all of my creativity and desire to express myself. That I'm going to lose the ability to write poetry. Or worse, that I'm going to lose the ability to enjoy writing. I'm scared of some other bad result that I haven't even thought of.
I'm scared of the fact that I don't know what's going to happen.
But I have to find out.
I have to know if I can handle it or not.
I have to find out how else the last year has changed me.
Two weeks from today, I will drink a beer. A Guinness. In a bottle. And then I will have a glass of whiskey. Eagle Rare bourbon, my favorite. On the rocks, in my favorite glass tumbler. And who knows what else after that.
I can't tell what I'm feeling. Something like excitement, but not quite. Almost anxiety, but not exactly. Anticipation? Fear? Some jumbled soup of them all, most likely.
I want it so badly. I've never wanted a drink this much in my entire life. I want a drink right now more than I ever, ever wanted a drink when I actually was drinking.
I feel so proud of myself for actually accomplishing this.
I feel guilty for feeling this way, and I try to suppress it, reminding myself that I haven't actually accomplished anything yet. I have two weeks left to go. I can feel proud then. And celebrate with a drink.
I'm so scared that something bad is going to happen. That I'm going to go off the deep end and lose control in some way that I never have before. That I'm going to end up in another of those deep chemical depressions. That I'm going to lose all of my creativity and desire to express myself. That I'm going to lose the ability to write poetry. Or worse, that I'm going to lose the ability to enjoy writing. I'm scared of some other bad result that I haven't even thought of.
I'm scared of the fact that I don't know what's going to happen.
But I have to find out.
I have to know if I can handle it or not.
I have to find out how else the last year has changed me.
Friday, March 22, 2013
It's Almost Later Now...
I've noticed recently that, the closer I get to my one-year-sober anniversary, the more I'm craving a drink.
I haven't had a chance to discuss it here yet, but I am planning to let myself have a drink that day, and see what happens. If anything. (Hopefully, nothing will.) I've always said that I made the decision to be sober for "at least a year," because I didn't want to set a hard-and-fast deadline for it. I wanted to play it by ear, and do it for as long as I felt it was necessary, and not as long as some arbitrary date I thought was a good idea before I'd even started. But I also always knew somehow that, by the time I got to this point, unless there was a really compelling reason to extend it, then it was just going to be a year. Because the fact is, after making it one year, I'm very proud of myself, and I feel that is a really significant accomplishment. Enough so that I don't feel the need to keep it going indefinitely. I'm satisfied, for now. And the other side of that coin, is that it's been difficult, and unpleasant, and I'm really just tired of it, and ready to see what change, if any, this year has bought me. And the only way to see what effect it has had is to experiment, and see what happens. So, that's the plan for Walpurgisnacht, 2013.
Anyway, that's a topic that deserves its own entire post, and I've been wanting to get to that for some time now. But I had to at least mention it here for this post to make sense. Because as I've been thinking about this upcoming Witches' Night, and planning out what I'm going to do, and how, and why, I've found myself getting really excited. Wow, it's been almost an entire year! Only one month to go. Then I finally get to have a Guinness and a bourbon again. I can't believe it! And the more I think about it, and the more excited I get, the more I start to crave it. Crave it in a way that I haven't craved it for almost the entire year I've been sober.
I don't want to say this year has been easy, but it also hasn't been especially difficult. There have definitely been some very difficult moments, where I really wanted a drink and had to try really hard to avoid it. But, by-and-large, on any given day, I haven't had to think about it. I certainly haven't had to deal with resisting strong cravings on a regular basis. But as the anniversary day approaches, I'm finding myself doing exactly that. Knowing that I'm going to finally get to have some again so soon is making me really want some right now. I'm like a kid at the beginning of December, counting down the days with my advent calendar. And every day I'm getting a little more excited, a little more anxious, and it's a little harder to resist, and I'm wishing harder and harder that it could just be Christmas already!
Until recently, the end of this period has always been in some half-formed "future." Whenever I wanted a drink, I'd just tell myself, "Not now; I'll have one later." And I didn't have to think about when "later" was. It was just "later." But now I can see that "later" quite clearly. So instead of telling myself, "Not now; I'll have one later," it's become, "Not now; I'll have one in five weeks." And pretty soon that's going to be, "Not now; I'll have one in a month." And so on. And the smaller that number gets, the louder and more insistently some part of me says, "Fuck it! Close enough." And then the more energy I need to expend shutting that voice up. (Because there's no such thing as "close enough." I'm going to see this through. I didn't work this hard and this long only to fuck it up right here at the end.)
I didn't anticipate how much simply defining that "later" was going to effect me. But as soon as it went from Vague to Specific, everything changed. Such a minute distinction, but it apparently made all the difference.
Lesson learned.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
I'll Stand Before The Lord Of Song...
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not someone who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a lonely Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
-"Hallelujah"
Leonard Cohen, Various Positions
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Stark Words...
Stressed.
Again.
As always.
Too much work to do, and more coming in all the time; before I can finish one thing, three more have landed on my desk.
And it's the same at home. I feel over-whelmed and under-supported. I get a little less sleep every night. Feel a little more tired every morning. Each day harder than the one before it.
And it's Repellation Day.
And I would love a drink.
We have some apple moonshine at home right now that I would absolutely fucking murder.
We always have a drink on Repellation Day. (Of course, until this year, we always had a drink on Thursday, as well, so take that with a pinch of salt. And a lime wedge.) And there's something about drinking moonshine on Repellation Day that just feels poetically justified.
Of course, I won't.
I'm going to go home, and do my bills, and stress, and not get enough sleep, the way I'm supposed to. I'll be a good little monkey.
Because I decided to do this, and I hate giving up, especially at something I know I can do. I decided to do this, and no matter how miserable I feel, I will only feel worse if I let myself fail. I won't quit. And I won't fail.
I won't quit, even though three words keep echoing in my mind, filling me with a hollow dread:
Winter is coming.
Again.
As always.
Too much work to do, and more coming in all the time; before I can finish one thing, three more have landed on my desk.
And it's the same at home. I feel over-whelmed and under-supported. I get a little less sleep every night. Feel a little more tired every morning. Each day harder than the one before it.
And it's Repellation Day.
And I would love a drink.
We have some apple moonshine at home right now that I would absolutely fucking murder.
We always have a drink on Repellation Day. (Of course, until this year, we always had a drink on Thursday, as well, so take that with a pinch of salt. And a lime wedge.) And there's something about drinking moonshine on Repellation Day that just feels poetically justified.
Of course, I won't.
I'm going to go home, and do my bills, and stress, and not get enough sleep, the way I'm supposed to. I'll be a good little monkey.
Because I decided to do this, and I hate giving up, especially at something I know I can do. I decided to do this, and no matter how miserable I feel, I will only feel worse if I let myself fail. I won't quit. And I won't fail.
I won't quit, even though three words keep echoing in my mind, filling me with a hollow dread:
Winter is coming.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Discipline?...
My friend commended me on my self-discipline last night.
And I told her, "I don't feel like I have any discipline. I just have a really deep bag of tricks."
To my mind, "self-discipline" implies some sort of forceful inner strength, which I don't feel I have. (Though, a lot of what I'm working on with my Self right now is related to trying to learn it.) And, regardless, even if I do have it, it's not what I generally use to change or better myself.
I'm not strong that way. I'm slippery.
I don't just force myself to move forward with the things I know I should do instead of the things I want to do. Instead, I figure out how to perceive the situation so that I end up wanting to do the thing I know I should do.
I don't make myself do things I don't like; I figure out how to perceive them so that I do like them.
I think an ounce of cunning is worth a metric ton of force.
And I told her, "I don't feel like I have any discipline. I just have a really deep bag of tricks."
To my mind, "self-discipline" implies some sort of forceful inner strength, which I don't feel I have. (Though, a lot of what I'm working on with my Self right now is related to trying to learn it.) And, regardless, even if I do have it, it's not what I generally use to change or better myself.
I'm not strong that way. I'm slippery.
I don't just force myself to move forward with the things I know I should do instead of the things I want to do. Instead, I figure out how to perceive the situation so that I end up wanting to do the thing I know I should do.
I don't make myself do things I don't like; I figure out how to perceive them so that I do like them.
I think an ounce of cunning is worth a metric ton of force.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Friendships In Chaos, pt. 2...
We also did a ritual last weekend, my friends and I.
I haven't done that in a very long time. Not even by myself, let alone with my old Temple-mates.
It wasn't even a proper ritual, really. Just a little, nothing, throw-away rite. But I was amazed at how it made me feel. To be in that place. To be with those people.
To be doing magick.
I had completely forgotten just how much I love doing that. How much I love even just the sensation of doing it! The feeling of energy flowing through me, like a conduit. Finding the sense of the "flow" of the ritual, and then letting it pull me along. The pleasure of power coming into me, and erupting out of me. The drama, the spectacle, the art, the dance and the poetry of The Ritual.
It felt like making love with a best friend I hadn't seen in years.
When it was over, I found myself swallowing back tears. And once again, I was struck by the sudden and almost overwhelming realization of just how desperately I missed this thing that I had willingly let go, honestly believing that I no longer had any use for it.
And maybe I didn't have any use for it back then. And maybe I still don't. But it's clear to me now, that I need to find a reason to do it. Because it is obviously a lot more important to me than I had allowed myself to believe. It is clearly filling a hole in my life that I didn't know was there; that I thought I had already filled long ago.
I know now that I need to do this. I don't know why I need to do it yet, but I know I need to do it.
And I can't help but notice that this all happened only two weeks before I get the opportunity to spend an entire week doing nothing but playing with magick, with a group of the best magickians from all over the world. Isn't that strange?
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
I haven't done that in a very long time. Not even by myself, let alone with my old Temple-mates.
It wasn't even a proper ritual, really. Just a little, nothing, throw-away rite. But I was amazed at how it made me feel. To be in that place. To be with those people.
To be doing magick.
I had completely forgotten just how much I love doing that. How much I love even just the sensation of doing it! The feeling of energy flowing through me, like a conduit. Finding the sense of the "flow" of the ritual, and then letting it pull me along. The pleasure of power coming into me, and erupting out of me. The drama, the spectacle, the art, the dance and the poetry of The Ritual.
It felt like making love with a best friend I hadn't seen in years.
When it was over, I found myself swallowing back tears. And once again, I was struck by the sudden and almost overwhelming realization of just how desperately I missed this thing that I had willingly let go, honestly believing that I no longer had any use for it.
And maybe I didn't have any use for it back then. And maybe I still don't. But it's clear to me now, that I need to find a reason to do it. Because it is obviously a lot more important to me than I had allowed myself to believe. It is clearly filling a hole in my life that I didn't know was there; that I thought I had already filled long ago.
I know now that I need to do this. I don't know why I need to do it yet, but I know I need to do it.
And I can't help but notice that this all happened only two weeks before I get the opportunity to spend an entire week doing nothing but playing with magick, with a group of the best magickians from all over the world. Isn't that strange?
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Friendships In Chaos, pt. 1...
Even though I can't talk about my concerns about the upcoming AGM, I had an experience with the IOT last weekend that I actually can talk about. As usual, I can't discuss what we were doing, but for whatever reason, I had cause to get together with my old Temple this weekend, and that brought up a lot of feelings that went beyond simple nostalgia.
I realized, first and foremost, just how much I miss my friends. It's a shame that my friendships got all wrapped up in the Temple the way they did, but it just worked out that way; most of my best friends were in the Temple, and the rest of my relationships with the larger group of my friends were through my friendships with my Temple-mates. And so when the Temple slowly dissolved, and I lost interest in (and reasons to do) magick, then I also suddenly lost my connection to almost all of my friends. They all live at least an hour away from me, so it's a bit of an investment of time and energy (and finances as well, with current fuel prices - even with my new fuel-efficient car) to go see them. And over the years I'd just gotten used to having this set reason to see them all regularly: the Temple and the IOT. So, with that gone, I no longer had a regular excuse to get together with them. If we were going to see each other, I was going to have to make the effort to stay in touch, and make the trips out there and back, just for the sole purpose of hanging out together.
But I didn't want to do that. For a lot of reasons. A lot of it boils down to the fact that I just don't do that. Maybe I don't do it just because I've never had a reason to before, I don't know; but I know that it isn't something I do. I like having friends, but I don't feel like I need friends in order to be happy. So, if it takes any significant amount of effort to maintain a friendship, I just won't bother. And I can't overlook the fact that I was high and drunk during a lot of this time, as well, which affected things in a variety of ways. It left me with even less energy to expend towards maintaining long-distance friendships, as well as numbing me to any sense of loneliness I may have otherwise felt; I was comfortably drunk and/or high, so I never felt like I was missing anything by not having relationships with these people anymore. And it was also creating a lot of other negative effects in my life, as well, and I wasn't exactly eager to share those parts of myself with my friends, people whom I'd like to impress, if I'm able. And beyond being a fat and lazy drunk, I was also going through a lot of other issues at the time that I didn't really feel like advertising: identity crises, marriage problems, spiritual voids, etc. Frankly, I just didn't want anyone to see me like that.
And it's only now, after seeing everyone again this weekend, and the "looking back" that naturally flows from that experience, that I realize - it wasn't just that I didn't feel like I needed friends, or that I felt it wasn't worth the energy to maintain those relationships - it's that, for a variety of reasons having to do with my own feelings about myself, I actively did not want any friends. I wanted to be alone. So, I just went about my life, and didn't bother trying to maintain these friendships, and didn't think much about it. And before I knew it, two years had gone by. And if it weren't for the fact that I had to get together with them again for the AGM this year, it almost certainly would've been even longer before I saw any of them again.
But seeing everyone again this weekend also made me realize, I don't feel that way anymore. I miss my friends. And I want to be a part of their life again. And I want them to be a part of mine. And it is very much worth my time and energy to make that happen.
But I'm worried that I won't be accepted. I'm really not the same person that I was two years ago. And I know they're all expecting me to be. Not because they're trying to force me into some pre-determined mold or anything; that's not what I mean. It's just, that's the person they've known me to be for years, so who else could they expect me to be? But I'm really not him anymore. I'm not dark the way that I used to be. I'm not a pervert the way I used to be. I'm not into the same things I used to be into. I'm sober for fuck's sake. I'm not even really a magickian anymore. I've mellowed out and matured so much in my old age (I'm not even forty yet, but I feel like an old man). And I'm worried that when they get to know this new version of me, that they'll find him boring, and lame. (And, I have to admit, a part of me is worried that I might feel the same way about them, as well.) Being around them makes me feel pressured to be the person I was. And I have to try keep that from changing me too much; I have to let it affect me a little (what's the point of having a relationship with someone if you don't let them affect you at all?), but I can't let it affect me so much that I compromise myself in order to fit my perception of their expectations of me, or in order to gain their approval. I need to be myself - or at least the version of myself that they bring out in me - and I need to be okay with the fact that maybe some people won't like me as much anymore.
But I definitely know that I need to try now. Because being with them again just felt good. And it felt like the right thing to do. And it made me realize that, even though I haven't let myself feel it for a long time, I really do miss them.
I realized, first and foremost, just how much I miss my friends. It's a shame that my friendships got all wrapped up in the Temple the way they did, but it just worked out that way; most of my best friends were in the Temple, and the rest of my relationships with the larger group of my friends were through my friendships with my Temple-mates. And so when the Temple slowly dissolved, and I lost interest in (and reasons to do) magick, then I also suddenly lost my connection to almost all of my friends. They all live at least an hour away from me, so it's a bit of an investment of time and energy (and finances as well, with current fuel prices - even with my new fuel-efficient car) to go see them. And over the years I'd just gotten used to having this set reason to see them all regularly: the Temple and the IOT. So, with that gone, I no longer had a regular excuse to get together with them. If we were going to see each other, I was going to have to make the effort to stay in touch, and make the trips out there and back, just for the sole purpose of hanging out together.
But I didn't want to do that. For a lot of reasons. A lot of it boils down to the fact that I just don't do that. Maybe I don't do it just because I've never had a reason to before, I don't know; but I know that it isn't something I do. I like having friends, but I don't feel like I need friends in order to be happy. So, if it takes any significant amount of effort to maintain a friendship, I just won't bother. And I can't overlook the fact that I was high and drunk during a lot of this time, as well, which affected things in a variety of ways. It left me with even less energy to expend towards maintaining long-distance friendships, as well as numbing me to any sense of loneliness I may have otherwise felt; I was comfortably drunk and/or high, so I never felt like I was missing anything by not having relationships with these people anymore. And it was also creating a lot of other negative effects in my life, as well, and I wasn't exactly eager to share those parts of myself with my friends, people whom I'd like to impress, if I'm able. And beyond being a fat and lazy drunk, I was also going through a lot of other issues at the time that I didn't really feel like advertising: identity crises, marriage problems, spiritual voids, etc. Frankly, I just didn't want anyone to see me like that.
And it's only now, after seeing everyone again this weekend, and the "looking back" that naturally flows from that experience, that I realize - it wasn't just that I didn't feel like I needed friends, or that I felt it wasn't worth the energy to maintain those relationships - it's that, for a variety of reasons having to do with my own feelings about myself, I actively did not want any friends. I wanted to be alone. So, I just went about my life, and didn't bother trying to maintain these friendships, and didn't think much about it. And before I knew it, two years had gone by. And if it weren't for the fact that I had to get together with them again for the AGM this year, it almost certainly would've been even longer before I saw any of them again.
But seeing everyone again this weekend also made me realize, I don't feel that way anymore. I miss my friends. And I want to be a part of their life again. And I want them to be a part of mine. And it is very much worth my time and energy to make that happen.
But I'm worried that I won't be accepted. I'm really not the same person that I was two years ago. And I know they're all expecting me to be. Not because they're trying to force me into some pre-determined mold or anything; that's not what I mean. It's just, that's the person they've known me to be for years, so who else could they expect me to be? But I'm really not him anymore. I'm not dark the way that I used to be. I'm not a pervert the way I used to be. I'm not into the same things I used to be into. I'm sober for fuck's sake. I'm not even really a magickian anymore. I've mellowed out and matured so much in my old age (I'm not even forty yet, but I feel like an old man). And I'm worried that when they get to know this new version of me, that they'll find him boring, and lame. (And, I have to admit, a part of me is worried that I might feel the same way about them, as well.) Being around them makes me feel pressured to be the person I was. And I have to try keep that from changing me too much; I have to let it affect me a little (what's the point of having a relationship with someone if you don't let them affect you at all?), but I can't let it affect me so much that I compromise myself in order to fit my perception of their expectations of me, or in order to gain their approval. I need to be myself - or at least the version of myself that they bring out in me - and I need to be okay with the fact that maybe some people won't like me as much anymore.
But I definitely know that I need to try now. Because being with them again just felt good. And it felt like the right thing to do. And it made me realize that, even though I haven't let myself feel it for a long time, I really do miss them.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Return Of Blurble...
I WANT MY GODDAMN COMPUTER BACK!
There, I said it. Apologies for the caps lock.
I really need to write again. I'm feeling like such a useless slug. I can feel myself getting more and more stressed out every day without it. I even miss the pressure of feeling that I need to get something posted every day. That pressure is nothing compared to the stress of not having the time or the means to write.
I'm going to be in a cabin in the woods on the side of a mountain this weekend, and all I can think is, Goddammit, that would be such a perfect place to get some great writing done! But I won't be able to, because I need a computer for that. (I can't write by hand; my hand moves way too slow for my brain.)
I'm having no luck finding the brightside to this. It just feels wrong. It feels fucking unhealthy.
I just want my computer back.
There, I said it. Apologies for the caps lock.
I really need to write again. I'm feeling like such a useless slug. I can feel myself getting more and more stressed out every day without it. I even miss the pressure of feeling that I need to get something posted every day. That pressure is nothing compared to the stress of not having the time or the means to write.
I'm going to be in a cabin in the woods on the side of a mountain this weekend, and all I can think is, Goddammit, that would be such a perfect place to get some great writing done! But I won't be able to, because I need a computer for that. (I can't write by hand; my hand moves way too slow for my brain.)
I'm having no luck finding the brightside to this. It just feels wrong. It feels fucking unhealthy.
I just want my computer back.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Keep Ridin' 'Til The Cycle Is Broke...
Heard this today, and it touched me; deep. Again. Had to share. Hope it touches you, too.
(Suggestion: read it aloud.)
Million dollar baby girl in the lower middle class
With a maglight right beneath her pillow
And though she's never been a boxer by choice
She's known to act oak [OK], you'll never catch her a willow
Nuh-uh
She's the calm type
You see the small scars
Creepin' down her arms
peeking from them long sleeves, right?
She keeps him weak in the knees
but she stay out of sight
And when that school bell rings
it's goodnight
Or might as well be
He never sees her around
But he looks
For weeks now he's been "Maybe tomorrow"
But he's shook
He sees those bruises and he needs to please her
Plus he don't wanna go home either
Gives her a look as they pass
Copies down a poem from a schoolbook
Gives it to her after hesitation whoops his ass
She took it fast
Lost, like, all sensation in her hands
then braces herself gracefully
sturdy where she stands
humble mumbling
past the words, fumbling
Nothing discouraging
just nerves
just drumming up the courage
Something 'bout skylines
or bike rides
or riverbeds
Somethin'
Somethin' that he read
it caught her right beneath the armor
cauterized thought of any blunt force trauma
Ain't no way that he could harm her
Nuh-uh
No way
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
She's in the weather
the whole storm
Huggin' on her prince
his hands to skin warm
Quick out the door
no note
no forlorn
'Cause all they heard was "Papa
don't hit me no more"
But they couldn't seem to keep the swelling down
How they regretted ever lettin' out this 3rd child born
But things are getting better now
Yeah, cozy sweater now
with her thumbs through the holes
in her sleeves worn down
And a boy similar
Noise minimal
toy criminal
Joy's simple when someone's found it in you
Somehow it boosts the individual
That bluish hue is mutual
They make love gently
so aware of each others' bruises
And sorta scared they could lose this
trust
Bury the blues
somewhere it won't bear roots
But is this boy where the truth is?
She's spooked, see
Fruit never seems to fall far
from the useless branch that it's attached to
And quacks say if he's beat up he's bound to smack you
She's down to step back now
If he ever gets loud
She couldn't be proud
of whatever she might do
But this is the first time
she ever felt touched
that didn't bring her to hush
like something was being done to her
That unscrews her
She loosens with the booze
Her hinge can stay bent
addressing her dude's wounds
Regressing to bedrooms
where fools ignored "don't"
He's not one of them tools
that screws, nuts and bolts
And she know that
And she know that but she holds back
And she hope that
he see the way she flinch
'cuz it's kneejerk to brace for the attack
Even if he's only rubbing her back
I mean
And even if it's like the deck has been stacked
It's not an act
He's really loving her back
Hold your heart up
"Never raise your hand"
She says that with her grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
They say that with their lips
"Never raise your hand"
He says that with a grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
-"Been Afraid"
P.O.S.
(Suggestion: read it aloud.)
Million dollar baby girl in the lower middle class
With a maglight right beneath her pillow
And though she's never been a boxer by choice
She's known to act oak [OK], you'll never catch her a willow
Nuh-uh
She's the calm type
You see the small scars
Creepin' down her arms
peeking from them long sleeves, right?
She keeps him weak in the knees
but she stay out of sight
And when that school bell rings
it's goodnight
Or might as well be
He never sees her around
But he looks
For weeks now he's been "Maybe tomorrow"
But he's shook
He sees those bruises and he needs to please her
Plus he don't wanna go home either
Gives her a look as they pass
Copies down a poem from a schoolbook
Gives it to her after hesitation whoops his ass
She took it fast
Lost, like, all sensation in her hands
then braces herself gracefully
sturdy where she stands
humble mumbling
past the words, fumbling
Nothing discouraging
just nerves
just drumming up the courage
Something 'bout skylines
or bike rides
or riverbeds
Somethin'
Somethin' that he read
it caught her right beneath the armor
cauterized thought of any blunt force trauma
Ain't no way that he could harm her
Nuh-uh
No way
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
She's in the weather
the whole storm
Huggin' on her prince
his hands to skin warm
Quick out the door
no note
no forlorn
'Cause all they heard was "Papa
don't hit me no more"
But they couldn't seem to keep the swelling down
How they regretted ever lettin' out this 3rd child born
But things are getting better now
Yeah, cozy sweater now
with her thumbs through the holes
in her sleeves worn down
And a boy similar
Noise minimal
toy criminal
Joy's simple when someone's found it in you
Somehow it boosts the individual
That bluish hue is mutual
They make love gently
so aware of each others' bruises
And sorta scared they could lose this
trust
Bury the blues
somewhere it won't bear roots
But is this boy where the truth is?
She's spooked, see
Fruit never seems to fall far
from the useless branch that it's attached to
And quacks say if he's beat up he's bound to smack you
She's down to step back now
If he ever gets loud
She couldn't be proud
of whatever she might do
But this is the first time
she ever felt touched
that didn't bring her to hush
like something was being done to her
That unscrews her
She loosens with the booze
Her hinge can stay bent
addressing her dude's wounds
Regressing to bedrooms
where fools ignored "don't"
He's not one of them tools
that screws, nuts and bolts
And she know that
And she know that but she holds back
And she hope that
he see the way she flinch
'cuz it's kneejerk to brace for the attack
Even if he's only rubbing her back
I mean
And even if it's like the deck has been stacked
It's not an act
He's really loving her back
Hold your heart up
"Never raise your hand"
She says that with her grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
They say that with their lips
"Never raise your hand"
He says that with a grown-up voice
"I'm your's now" just like a child
"Please don't be scared now"
It clicks
a piece finally fits
"I love you"
When that curse leaves a shell like a snake with fresh scales
Some people seem to call that home
But some souls roam
Keep riding 'til the cycle is broke
We don't gotta go through nothin' alone
-"Been Afraid"
P.O.S.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Mighty Endorphin...
Day 3 of my new-and-improved workout routine. Running harder and faster, really getting my heart rate up there.
Around about the 15-minute mark, I started to notice some changes. It was starting to hurt less. In fact, more than that - I was starting to feel pretty good! The music I was listening to was just suddenly so awesome! And my eyelids were getting sooo heavy. I was getting really drowsy, but not sleepy, and I wasn't slowing down at all. I was still pumping away at a furious pace, to match the beating of my heart - left, right, left, right, left right left right left right bang bang bang bang. It felt more like nodding, that state where the opiate is so overwhelmingly pleasurable that the user repeatedly passes in and out of consciousness, or "nods off."
And that's when I realized it: I was really high!
And while I enjoyed it, and while I knew I was doing something good for myself - and so I should just let myself enjoy this, could even consider it my reward for putting in the effort - there was a part of me that still felt bad about it and felt like I was doing something wrong. And then I was right back to trying to answer that same question I keep coming back to: if I'm still getting high, but just in different and less destructive ways, then am I really getting better?
If my goal here was to stop getting high in destructive and/or dangerous ways, then I could easily answer that question, "Yes, I am getting better." But that isn't my goal. My goal is to try and stop needing to get high all the time, period, regardless of method. Because if I can't rid myself of the need to get high all the time, then when the healthy methods stop working as well for me, or when I get into a dark place again for one reason or another (we all have them, life is full of dark places we must traverse once in a while), then I'm going to turn to unhealthy methods again to satisfy that desire.
I'm not going to stop meditating, and I'm not going to stop studying Mathematics and other Sciences, and I'm not going to stop playing video games, and I'm not going to stop having awesome sex with Her, and I'm not going to stop writing, and I'm not going to stop working out. So, if I am getting high off of these things, then I guess that means I have to learn how to live with that.
So, then, can I adjust my goal of trying to not get high at all, regardless of method? Is that even a reasonable goal to have set myself? Can I reasonably expect to be able to achieve that without moving to a cave somewhere and spending the rest of my life meditating like an itinerant sage? Is getting high just something that I need in order to make my life feel worth living? And if so, is that true for everyone, or just me? What if the only real choice I have is the method I use? And is that something I can live with? No, I can live with it. But is it something I can learn to be okay with?
I don't know the answers. But I know I'm not done asking the questions.
Around about the 15-minute mark, I started to notice some changes. It was starting to hurt less. In fact, more than that - I was starting to feel pretty good! The music I was listening to was just suddenly so awesome! And my eyelids were getting sooo heavy. I was getting really drowsy, but not sleepy, and I wasn't slowing down at all. I was still pumping away at a furious pace, to match the beating of my heart - left, right, left, right, left right left right left right bang bang bang bang. It felt more like nodding, that state where the opiate is so overwhelmingly pleasurable that the user repeatedly passes in and out of consciousness, or "nods off."
And that's when I realized it: I was really high!
And while I enjoyed it, and while I knew I was doing something good for myself - and so I should just let myself enjoy this, could even consider it my reward for putting in the effort - there was a part of me that still felt bad about it and felt like I was doing something wrong. And then I was right back to trying to answer that same question I keep coming back to: if I'm still getting high, but just in different and less destructive ways, then am I really getting better?
If my goal here was to stop getting high in destructive and/or dangerous ways, then I could easily answer that question, "Yes, I am getting better." But that isn't my goal. My goal is to try and stop needing to get high all the time, period, regardless of method. Because if I can't rid myself of the need to get high all the time, then when the healthy methods stop working as well for me, or when I get into a dark place again for one reason or another (we all have them, life is full of dark places we must traverse once in a while), then I'm going to turn to unhealthy methods again to satisfy that desire.
I'm not going to stop meditating, and I'm not going to stop studying Mathematics and other Sciences, and I'm not going to stop playing video games, and I'm not going to stop having awesome sex with Her, and I'm not going to stop writing, and I'm not going to stop working out. So, if I am getting high off of these things, then I guess that means I have to learn how to live with that.
So, then, can I adjust my goal of trying to not get high at all, regardless of method? Is that even a reasonable goal to have set myself? Can I reasonably expect to be able to achieve that without moving to a cave somewhere and spending the rest of my life meditating like an itinerant sage? Is getting high just something that I need in order to make my life feel worth living? And if so, is that true for everyone, or just me? What if the only real choice I have is the method I use? And is that something I can live with? No, I can live with it. But is it something I can learn to be okay with?
I don't know the answers. But I know I'm not done asking the questions.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Hunger Pains...
I'm still hungry all the time. And it's really starting to get on my nerves.
I don't know what's causing this, but it started just after I stopped drinking, so I would imagine it must have something to do with that. But is it a biochemical reaction? Meaning, is it my body's autonomic response to being suddenly deprived of the ethyl alcohol it had grown accustomed to? Or is it a behavioral response? Is it just my head trying to fill the "Pleasure Yourself" gap left behind when I stopped drinking, with some new, more readily accessible form of pleasure? I have no idea.
I've heard that a lot of people develop an insatiable sweet-tooth when they quit drinking, because their body is craving the sugar that they used to get from the alcohol. (Our bodies metabolize alcohol into sugar.) But that's not what I'm experiencing. My problem is that I simply never stop feeling like I want to eat. Normally, I would only get that feeling when I needed to eat. And then, once I'd eaten, that feeling would go away, until the next time I needed to eat again. But now, I can eat until I am bloated and feeling sick from the amount of food in my stomach, and I still have that feeling of "I want to eat." It just never turns off! And it's so fucking annoying! It's like when you feel like you have to pee, even though your bladder is empty. It's just this really unpleasant, uncomfortable feeling that will not go away, and that you cannot do anything about.
And I really, really just want it to stop.
I'm so tired of constantly fighting with myself to keep from over-eating. I'm so tired of constantly wrestling with this phantom craving. Every night it's the same thing. As soon as I finish dinner, I want something sweet. So, I eat a little dessert, and then as soon as I finish that, I want something salty-crunchy. If I give in to that craving and eat something salty-crunchy (whole-wheat tortilla chips and 100-calorie packs of cheez-its are my current drugs of choice), then as soon as I finish that, I want something sweet again. And if I give in to that, then I want something salty-crunchy/savory again. And that just keeps going on and on forever until I end up passing out face-first into a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels.
I'm currently working out and doing my best to eat as healthy as possible, in an attempt to lose some weight. And I am losing weight, but much more slowly than I'd like. And this shit is not making it any easier.
I've been trying to come up with ways to either satisfy and/or curb this craving that do not involve adding a bunch more calories to my daily intake. Number one on the list is drinking lots and lots of water. And I mean, to the point where I start to feel full. That helps some, but not much, because the whole point of that trick is to curb your appetite by making your body feel full; and, of course, my whole problem is that my body is not currently responding correctly to that feeling. And then there's the further drawback of having my day constantly and repeatedly interrupted by the painfully urgent need to piss violently. I've thought about lo-to-no-cal snacks like rice cakes, but in the midst of these cravings, I can't bring myself to eat something completely tasteless that I am already well-aware I will not enjoy. Still, I've found a couple of brands that are mildly tolerable, and I'm planning to try really hard to make them work. I bought some lo-cal, high-protein jerky, as well, to try and help with the savory cravings. The trick there is to just chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew until either it eventually turns to liquid in your mouth, or you feel like your jaw is going to fall off. That way you get to spend a lot of time eating and enjoying the pleasure of tasting the salty/savory thing you're craving, but overall you don't actually eat that much food, or take in a lot of calories. The sore jaw helps to put a damper on the desire to eat more, as well. And at work, I've been having mid-afternoon Chai Lattes to try and help with my after-lunch cravings. That seems to be working out ok. It's not helping my need-to-pee-every-fifteen-minutes problem very much, though.
And there's one solution I've been trying out this week that is a little naughty.
I stopped smoking cigarettes over ten years ago. And I cannot stand cigars. But every Fall and Winter for the past six or seven years, pretty much as soon as the weather starts to turn cold, I smoke a pipe. I really enjoy a good pipe during the cold half of the year. I love the sweet, rich flavor of the tobacco. I love its aromatic smell. I love the ritual of loading, packing, tamping, lighting - everything has to be just right in order for it to work proper, but when it is, and when it does, oh, sweet ambrosia! I even love the anachronism of it. My grandfather smoked a pipe. It just has this old, retro, even ancient feel to it, and I enjoy feeling like a part of that tradition. And since I don't inhale pipe smoke, I don't have to worry as much about bronchial damage, emphysema, lung cancer, or even nicotine addiction, the way I did with cigarettes. And since I indulge in it so rarely (even at the height of my smoking during that half of the year, I will smoke, at most, two pipes a day), I don't really have to worry about it much, at all. It is a rather safe, and pleasurable, indulgence I can allow myself. Especially compared to all of my other indulgences, which are so many times more harmful and dangerous.
So, it occurred to me, perhaps an after-dinner smoke would fill the void left behind by the absence of my customary after-dinner drink. And, perhaps also help curb my appetite for my after-dinner snack - and my after-after-dinner snack, and my after-after-after-dinner snack - that is currently replacing my after-dinner drink. I know, it's still not the healthiest solution in the world, but tasting (not inhaling) a little tobacco smoke is a lot less unhealthy than drinking, or over-eating. So, I'll take what I can get. (And everyone needs some sort of vice, don't they? What's life without at least a little indulgence?) But the problem is, as soon as the weather starts to warm up, I immediately lose all interest in smoking a pipe. I don't know what it is, but it has been that way every single year since the very first. It's not something I'm trying to do, intentionally. That's just the way it works for me, for some reason. I always want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year, and I only want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year.
But on Sunday, I found a solution to this problem. There's a brand of small "cigars" (or "cigarillos," which is a rather annoying word) that are filled with pipe tobacco. It's not the greatest pipe tobacco I've ever had, but it still tastes sweet, and smells nice, and it's infinitely better than cigar tobacco. (I would rather eat old sushi than smoke a cigar. Ugh!) So every night so far this week I've smoked at least part of one of these "cigars" after dinner. And I've enjoyed them alright, but not as much as my pipes. And they've seemed to help with the cravings a little, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'd hoped that they would come close to putting an end to the cravings, but I've found that just a little while after putting out the "cigar," I'm hungry again. Still, the whole time I'm smoking, I don't want to eat. And the cravings are a lot easier to resist for a while after the smoke. So, all-in-all, one "cigar" seems to equal about an hour or so of not snacking. So, it's not as much as I wanted, but it's not nothing, either. We'll see how it goes. I'm glad to have something enjoyable to do for now that seems to help at least a little, but I could also see myself getting bored with this very soon.
Alright, that's enough for now. I'm starting to get hungry.
Time for my Chai Latte.
I don't know what's causing this, but it started just after I stopped drinking, so I would imagine it must have something to do with that. But is it a biochemical reaction? Meaning, is it my body's autonomic response to being suddenly deprived of the ethyl alcohol it had grown accustomed to? Or is it a behavioral response? Is it just my head trying to fill the "Pleasure Yourself" gap left behind when I stopped drinking, with some new, more readily accessible form of pleasure? I have no idea.
I've heard that a lot of people develop an insatiable sweet-tooth when they quit drinking, because their body is craving the sugar that they used to get from the alcohol. (Our bodies metabolize alcohol into sugar.) But that's not what I'm experiencing. My problem is that I simply never stop feeling like I want to eat. Normally, I would only get that feeling when I needed to eat. And then, once I'd eaten, that feeling would go away, until the next time I needed to eat again. But now, I can eat until I am bloated and feeling sick from the amount of food in my stomach, and I still have that feeling of "I want to eat." It just never turns off! And it's so fucking annoying! It's like when you feel like you have to pee, even though your bladder is empty. It's just this really unpleasant, uncomfortable feeling that will not go away, and that you cannot do anything about.
And I really, really just want it to stop.
I'm so tired of constantly fighting with myself to keep from over-eating. I'm so tired of constantly wrestling with this phantom craving. Every night it's the same thing. As soon as I finish dinner, I want something sweet. So, I eat a little dessert, and then as soon as I finish that, I want something salty-crunchy. If I give in to that craving and eat something salty-crunchy (whole-wheat tortilla chips and 100-calorie packs of cheez-its are my current drugs of choice), then as soon as I finish that, I want something sweet again. And if I give in to that, then I want something salty-crunchy/savory again. And that just keeps going on and on forever until I end up passing out face-first into a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels.
I'm currently working out and doing my best to eat as healthy as possible, in an attempt to lose some weight. And I am losing weight, but much more slowly than I'd like. And this shit is not making it any easier.
I've been trying to come up with ways to either satisfy and/or curb this craving that do not involve adding a bunch more calories to my daily intake. Number one on the list is drinking lots and lots of water. And I mean, to the point where I start to feel full. That helps some, but not much, because the whole point of that trick is to curb your appetite by making your body feel full; and, of course, my whole problem is that my body is not currently responding correctly to that feeling. And then there's the further drawback of having my day constantly and repeatedly interrupted by the painfully urgent need to piss violently. I've thought about lo-to-no-cal snacks like rice cakes, but in the midst of these cravings, I can't bring myself to eat something completely tasteless that I am already well-aware I will not enjoy. Still, I've found a couple of brands that are mildly tolerable, and I'm planning to try really hard to make them work. I bought some lo-cal, high-protein jerky, as well, to try and help with the savory cravings. The trick there is to just chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew until either it eventually turns to liquid in your mouth, or you feel like your jaw is going to fall off. That way you get to spend a lot of time eating and enjoying the pleasure of tasting the salty/savory thing you're craving, but overall you don't actually eat that much food, or take in a lot of calories. The sore jaw helps to put a damper on the desire to eat more, as well. And at work, I've been having mid-afternoon Chai Lattes to try and help with my after-lunch cravings. That seems to be working out ok. It's not helping my need-to-pee-every-fifteen-minutes problem very much, though.
And there's one solution I've been trying out this week that is a little naughty.
I stopped smoking cigarettes over ten years ago. And I cannot stand cigars. But every Fall and Winter for the past six or seven years, pretty much as soon as the weather starts to turn cold, I smoke a pipe. I really enjoy a good pipe during the cold half of the year. I love the sweet, rich flavor of the tobacco. I love its aromatic smell. I love the ritual of loading, packing, tamping, lighting - everything has to be just right in order for it to work proper, but when it is, and when it does, oh, sweet ambrosia! I even love the anachronism of it. My grandfather smoked a pipe. It just has this old, retro, even ancient feel to it, and I enjoy feeling like a part of that tradition. And since I don't inhale pipe smoke, I don't have to worry as much about bronchial damage, emphysema, lung cancer, or even nicotine addiction, the way I did with cigarettes. And since I indulge in it so rarely (even at the height of my smoking during that half of the year, I will smoke, at most, two pipes a day), I don't really have to worry about it much, at all. It is a rather safe, and pleasurable, indulgence I can allow myself. Especially compared to all of my other indulgences, which are so many times more harmful and dangerous.
So, it occurred to me, perhaps an after-dinner smoke would fill the void left behind by the absence of my customary after-dinner drink. And, perhaps also help curb my appetite for my after-dinner snack - and my after-after-dinner snack, and my after-after-after-dinner snack - that is currently replacing my after-dinner drink. I know, it's still not the healthiest solution in the world, but tasting (not inhaling) a little tobacco smoke is a lot less unhealthy than drinking, or over-eating. So, I'll take what I can get. (And everyone needs some sort of vice, don't they? What's life without at least a little indulgence?) But the problem is, as soon as the weather starts to warm up, I immediately lose all interest in smoking a pipe. I don't know what it is, but it has been that way every single year since the very first. It's not something I'm trying to do, intentionally. That's just the way it works for me, for some reason. I always want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year, and I only want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year.
But on Sunday, I found a solution to this problem. There's a brand of small "cigars" (or "cigarillos," which is a rather annoying word) that are filled with pipe tobacco. It's not the greatest pipe tobacco I've ever had, but it still tastes sweet, and smells nice, and it's infinitely better than cigar tobacco. (I would rather eat old sushi than smoke a cigar. Ugh!) So every night so far this week I've smoked at least part of one of these "cigars" after dinner. And I've enjoyed them alright, but not as much as my pipes. And they've seemed to help with the cravings a little, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'd hoped that they would come close to putting an end to the cravings, but I've found that just a little while after putting out the "cigar," I'm hungry again. Still, the whole time I'm smoking, I don't want to eat. And the cravings are a lot easier to resist for a while after the smoke. So, all-in-all, one "cigar" seems to equal about an hour or so of not snacking. So, it's not as much as I wanted, but it's not nothing, either. We'll see how it goes. I'm glad to have something enjoyable to do for now that seems to help at least a little, but I could also see myself getting bored with this very soon.
Alright, that's enough for now. I'm starting to get hungry.
Time for my Chai Latte.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Pleasuring Myself, continued...
A reader left this comment on my post from yesterday, and I wanted to respond to it here, because I think it raises some interesting points that got me thinking about it a bit more:
I'm not sure I can agree with that. I'm not sure I should agree with that, for my own safety.
See, my problem is that, more often than not, that instinct or drive or need to pleasure myself, to make myself happy, has led me to do stupid, self-destructive things. On more than one occasion now, it has come close to killing me. And it's a virtual certainty that, if left unchecked, someday it will succeed. So pleasuring myself is my problem. And so I feel that, for my own good, I can't allow myself to just try to be as happy as possible moment-to-moment. Because what happens when the thing that will make me happy is also something that hurts me in some way?
So I feel like I need to do something to correct that behavior, that need to pleasure myself. And right now, I'm not sure that I actually am. Yes, it's true that I'm no longer indulging in those self-destructive pastimes at the moment, and that I've replaced them with more self-constructive activities, but I don't feel that I can take any credit for that. Because I didn't do anything to foster that change. The circumstances around me have changed, but I'm still responding to them in the same way I always have before. I still feel just as strong of a need to pleasure myself, it's just that the methods in which I want to achieve that pleasure are now different. As I said yesterday: before I wanted to get high and get off, so that's what I did, and now I want to meditate and study mathematics, so that's what I'm doing.
The root cause of my self-destructive behavior lies in that need to make myself feel as good as possible for as much of the time as possible. Yes, I'm now indulging that need in a constructive manner, but since I had no hand it actually making that happen and am only following where the flow takes me, then how can I trust in that and believe that I am now somehow "better?" I have put no Will into this. I am not behaving any differently, not really. I'm just responding to different stimulus in the same manner as before. So, what happens when the novelty wears off? What happens when I suddenly find that I'm not deriving the same amount of joy and satisfaction out of these healthy activities as I once did?
What happens when I finally do want to get high again?
Because that day will come, no question. And if I haven't done anything to correct the root cause of that desire, then how will I be able to resist it? And I guess that's the problem in a nutshell: I'm not resisting. Because for me, there's nothing to resist.
Most people in my situation (newly-sober addicts) are in a constant battle against their own desires. They are struggling against themselves to try and resist the urge to do the one thing they want to do more than anything else. And their entire recovery is built around that internal conflict. I know that I am an addict because I have experienced that conflict for more of my life than I care to admit, and because most of the times that I have fought those urges, I have lost. But that is not my experience now; that is not what I'm going through today. I'm not getting high right now because I do not want to get high right now. I am sober because, right now, I want to be sober. I have no urges to resist or fight against. They just disappeared, and I ran with it. And so that makes me feel like I'm not really doing the work. Like I'm not really getting any better. That I just got lucky. That I had a brief window of opportunity, and I seized on it.
But this is not going to last forever. Eventually, the winds of my desire are bound to blow back in the other direction again. And I'm going to need to know ahead of time how to respond when that happens, or else it's going to catch me off guard and I'm going to fall right back into the same self-destructive patterns that I feel so blessedly and falsely liberated from right now. But how can I possibly prepare for that? Should I be resisting every pleasurable desire I have, irrespective of de-structive vs. con-structive? Do I need to be living a monastic life? (Frankly, I'd rather OD.)
Maybe I just need to cross that bridge when I come to it. Maybe there's no point in worrying about it. Maybe I should just accept this period of productive activity for what it is, and be grateful that it came so easily to me. Maybe I should just focus on how lucky I am that I don't have to go through that struggle the way so many other addicts do.
And it would be so easy to do all of that, if only I felt in any way responsible for this change of fortune. If I just felt that I had some hand in bringing this release about, then I would know that I actually am resisting, that I am doing the work - just in my own unique way, outside the range of the typical experience. The same way I seem to do just about everything else.
Maybe that is true.
Could that be true?
No, I don't think so. I've fought hard before, and I've won. And I've fought hard, and lost. But this time, I wasn't even fighting at all. I had given in to my desires 100%. And even though I knew I was hurting myself badly I still didn't try to resist. I just didn't have it in me. But then I hit a bottom I hadn't even seen coming. And it scared the shit out of me. And I responded to that fear by running as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Basically, I scared myself straight.
How can I take credit for that?
I can't. I didn't really do anything. I got lucky.
But what I can do? I can be grateful. And oh, how I am.
And I can look on the bright side. I can make the most of it. I can do everything in my power to get as much out of this experience as I possibly can, for as long as it lasts. And if I'm lucky, and smart, then the things I learn during this temporary reprieve will prepare me to know what to do and how to respond when that inevitable day finally arrives, and my desires shift their poles again.
And that's gotta be enough.
Well I think the goal is to be happy moment by moment as much as you can. So what's the problem with pleasuring yourself? Just strive for getting outside your own ego as much as you can, and then you're still moving forward, I say.
I'm not sure I can agree with that. I'm not sure I should agree with that, for my own safety.
See, my problem is that, more often than not, that instinct or drive or need to pleasure myself, to make myself happy, has led me to do stupid, self-destructive things. On more than one occasion now, it has come close to killing me. And it's a virtual certainty that, if left unchecked, someday it will succeed. So pleasuring myself is my problem. And so I feel that, for my own good, I can't allow myself to just try to be as happy as possible moment-to-moment. Because what happens when the thing that will make me happy is also something that hurts me in some way?
So I feel like I need to do something to correct that behavior, that need to pleasure myself. And right now, I'm not sure that I actually am. Yes, it's true that I'm no longer indulging in those self-destructive pastimes at the moment, and that I've replaced them with more self-constructive activities, but I don't feel that I can take any credit for that. Because I didn't do anything to foster that change. The circumstances around me have changed, but I'm still responding to them in the same way I always have before. I still feel just as strong of a need to pleasure myself, it's just that the methods in which I want to achieve that pleasure are now different. As I said yesterday: before I wanted to get high and get off, so that's what I did, and now I want to meditate and study mathematics, so that's what I'm doing.
The root cause of my self-destructive behavior lies in that need to make myself feel as good as possible for as much of the time as possible. Yes, I'm now indulging that need in a constructive manner, but since I had no hand it actually making that happen and am only following where the flow takes me, then how can I trust in that and believe that I am now somehow "better?" I have put no Will into this. I am not behaving any differently, not really. I'm just responding to different stimulus in the same manner as before. So, what happens when the novelty wears off? What happens when I suddenly find that I'm not deriving the same amount of joy and satisfaction out of these healthy activities as I once did?
What happens when I finally do want to get high again?
Because that day will come, no question. And if I haven't done anything to correct the root cause of that desire, then how will I be able to resist it? And I guess that's the problem in a nutshell: I'm not resisting. Because for me, there's nothing to resist.
Most people in my situation (newly-sober addicts) are in a constant battle against their own desires. They are struggling against themselves to try and resist the urge to do the one thing they want to do more than anything else. And their entire recovery is built around that internal conflict. I know that I am an addict because I have experienced that conflict for more of my life than I care to admit, and because most of the times that I have fought those urges, I have lost. But that is not my experience now; that is not what I'm going through today. I'm not getting high right now because I do not want to get high right now. I am sober because, right now, I want to be sober. I have no urges to resist or fight against. They just disappeared, and I ran with it. And so that makes me feel like I'm not really doing the work. Like I'm not really getting any better. That I just got lucky. That I had a brief window of opportunity, and I seized on it.
But this is not going to last forever. Eventually, the winds of my desire are bound to blow back in the other direction again. And I'm going to need to know ahead of time how to respond when that happens, or else it's going to catch me off guard and I'm going to fall right back into the same self-destructive patterns that I feel so blessedly and falsely liberated from right now. But how can I possibly prepare for that? Should I be resisting every pleasurable desire I have, irrespective of de-structive vs. con-structive? Do I need to be living a monastic life? (Frankly, I'd rather OD.)
Maybe I just need to cross that bridge when I come to it. Maybe there's no point in worrying about it. Maybe I should just accept this period of productive activity for what it is, and be grateful that it came so easily to me. Maybe I should just focus on how lucky I am that I don't have to go through that struggle the way so many other addicts do.
And it would be so easy to do all of that, if only I felt in any way responsible for this change of fortune. If I just felt that I had some hand in bringing this release about, then I would know that I actually am resisting, that I am doing the work - just in my own unique way, outside the range of the typical experience. The same way I seem to do just about everything else.
Maybe that is true.
Could that be true?
No, I don't think so. I've fought hard before, and I've won. And I've fought hard, and lost. But this time, I wasn't even fighting at all. I had given in to my desires 100%. And even though I knew I was hurting myself badly I still didn't try to resist. I just didn't have it in me. But then I hit a bottom I hadn't even seen coming. And it scared the shit out of me. And I responded to that fear by running as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Basically, I scared myself straight.
How can I take credit for that?
I can't. I didn't really do anything. I got lucky.
But what I can do? I can be grateful. And oh, how I am.
And I can look on the bright side. I can make the most of it. I can do everything in my power to get as much out of this experience as I possibly can, for as long as it lasts. And if I'm lucky, and smart, then the things I learn during this temporary reprieve will prepare me to know what to do and how to respond when that inevitable day finally arrives, and my desires shift their poles again.
And that's gotta be enough.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Pleasuring Myself...
How's that for a provocative title, huh?
But, seriously, I've been realizing lately that I'm still exhibiting the same pattern of behavior that I'm currently trying to break out of. I'm still spending the vast majority of my time every day pleasuring myself. The only difference is that now I'm pleasuring myself in ways that are generally more beneficial.
I'm eating good and good-for-me food instead of fried, microwaved, and/or bar food. But not because I've made some self-sacrificing commitment to eat better. I'm doing it because I'm craving fruits and vegetables and yogurts and other nutritious food, and because eating the heavy, calorie- and fat-laden foods I used to love now makes me ill. So, I'm still doing exactly what I want; it's just that what I want has changed. So, am I really doing anything differently?
I'm still pleasuring myself all the time. But instead of doing it physically or chemically with sex and drugs, I'm doing it mentally, emotionally, and creatively by studying subjects that interest me, reading books that move and/or stimulate me, and by writing whatever I feel like at the time here on a regular basis. (And I guess physically, as well, by eating healthy foods.) But again, it's not because I've made some difficult life-decision to try to become a better person. It's just that this is what I want to do now. I'm still doing exactly what I want. I wanted to get high and get off before, so that's what I did; and now I want to study mathematics and meditate, so that's what I'm doing.
I have not yet even made an attempt to resist my desires.
So, the question is, have I really changed at all?
And if I'm being healthy and productive, then does it even matter?
I guess we'll find out soon enough.
But, seriously, I've been realizing lately that I'm still exhibiting the same pattern of behavior that I'm currently trying to break out of. I'm still spending the vast majority of my time every day pleasuring myself. The only difference is that now I'm pleasuring myself in ways that are generally more beneficial.
I'm eating good and good-for-me food instead of fried, microwaved, and/or bar food. But not because I've made some self-sacrificing commitment to eat better. I'm doing it because I'm craving fruits and vegetables and yogurts and other nutritious food, and because eating the heavy, calorie- and fat-laden foods I used to love now makes me ill. So, I'm still doing exactly what I want; it's just that what I want has changed. So, am I really doing anything differently?
I'm still pleasuring myself all the time. But instead of doing it physically or chemically with sex and drugs, I'm doing it mentally, emotionally, and creatively by studying subjects that interest me, reading books that move and/or stimulate me, and by writing whatever I feel like at the time here on a regular basis. (And I guess physically, as well, by eating healthy foods.) But again, it's not because I've made some difficult life-decision to try to become a better person. It's just that this is what I want to do now. I'm still doing exactly what I want. I wanted to get high and get off before, so that's what I did; and now I want to study mathematics and meditate, so that's what I'm doing.
I have not yet even made an attempt to resist my desires.
So, the question is, have I really changed at all?
And if I'm being healthy and productive, then does it even matter?
I guess we'll find out soon enough.
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