Blog 2.0
In my last blog you learned about my recent move to NYC and some new found philosophies I’m exploring. I can’t take all the credit for them because they mostly stem from other people’s ideas I’ve acquired through listening to podcasts and reading books, usually created by privileged, white dudes. Which is probably why subconsciously I identify as a privileged white male named Teddy. He’s a total twat and I’m doing my best to understand him while keeping his need to rule the world and fuck everything at bay. But that’s a blog for another time. Moving along. The reality is as you move through life various ideas and opinions are shared with you, often by no doing of your own, that either expand or hinder your mind’s eye. And that’s perhaps my favorite thing about this life - that it’s something to be shared. Life is really just a collaboration of a species.
I’m going to invite you to listen to a song right now. I came across it while walking the other day and it made me eerily happy. I have weird taste in music, but bare with me. Get on Spotify or YouTube and search My Dog’s Eyes by Zammuto. This song inspired me to write this blog. It's a part of this blog and I think you should hear it before reading on.
Since moving I’ve had some major epiphanies, which isn’t a rare thing for me now that I’m not drowning my entire existence in a box of wine every single night (that doesn’t mean I’m sober) and looking for love in every single male who batted an eye at me (aka swiped right on me). I was already planning my move before the awakening began. So I won’t say that NYC initially had anything to do with my mental growth spurt, but it certainly isn’t hurting. NYC has brought novelty to my existence. Everything is shiny and new. When I look at things, I see them. Street lights on the river. And maybe it’s exactly what I needed for the time being. But one day not far from now NYC will be home. I will be settled in and although the city offers a new experience around every bend, the city will lose its newness and possibly it’s charm like anything that grows old with you can and often will.
I won’t argue that people who are addicted to novelty as I am find solace in NYC since it’s theme is ever-changing and never lacking something to do. But as I began to think of where I’ve been and how I got here the truth in ‘wherever you go, there you are’ took new meaning. I’m now beginning to cultivate a healthy realization with the fact that in this brief life I am this body and this is the brain it came with, which is as much a part of it as my arms and legs. So I’m going to attempt to make the best of it - and the best way to do that is to show up in my life. We should all be questioning rather than blindly feeding our self-loathing and our attempts to numb the parts of our life we don’t want to feel. When do we finally realize we’re all going to die and we have no clue as to when, and if that’s not the biggest adrenaline rush in and of itself then I don’t know what is? So cheer up buttercup! Everyone on the face of the Earth is going to lose every single thing they ever loved, which doesn’t mean especially you - it just means also you.
It’s interesting how for many of us, myself included, we’ve spent our whole existence trying to escape it. The moon in the clouds. We each pick our poison whatever that may be not fully knowing it’s not making things more bearable but less able to be felt. I should state I’m not currently sober nor am I advocating that you need to be. I’m not anti-drug - and without sounding like a drug-obsessed asshole - my experience with drugs has helped shape my mind into what it is today. And I am a believer that not all drugs are created equal, some expand consciousness while some dim or numb it. But drugs shouldn’t get all or even most of the credit I now understand. I haven’t been on drugs 24/7 for the last 15 years because I’d probably be dead or have really shitty skin. There’s also been many people - friends and lovers alike, books, cities in countries, and ideas that have brought me to who I am today, too. I’d actually like to give a great deal of credit to a small bout of sobriety I had earlier this year that started me down this alternative way of thinking regarding my substance abuse and its role in my life. I started to ask why about my urges instead of blindly following them down the rabbit hole. That doesn’t mean I didn’t end up in the rabbit hole still, but I was finally becoming aware of it.
Suddenly I wasn’t the victim anymore but someone who took ownership over the invitation of negative situations and people who were causing my suffering and self-loathing. Not to victim shame myself, but I was playing the victim when I wasn’t. And that’s a pretty powerful thing to realize, folks. I generally believe we don’t have much control over anything. We’re floating on a rock in the vast of space as tiny flecks of nothingness and it could all end at any moment - where’s the control in that? But the more aware you become of your existence and why you are the way you are, you’ll begin to realize you’re capable of changing your own mind about things - and that’s the closet you’ll be able to get to controlling anything as a human.
I know none of us asked to be here, but maybe it’s not that we have to be here but rather we get to be. Even if there’s no meaning beyond it. Even if it’s just a weird glitch that happened for no reason - just a strange sliver in time - why does that make it any less of an experience worth having? As someone whose done drugs (by done drugs I mean all of them) it’s clear I was trying to find a way to escape my reality which seems so odd now when you realize how precarious life already is. Life is a mess of emotional high’s and low’s without adding coke into the mix, but why not kick it up a notch? I should say I understand why we humans use drugs. Life becomes all too heavy at times and we believe leaving our minds is actually something we can sustain - it’s not. The avoidance of your mind will soon become the very cause of your suffering. And I know that some of us know pain and suffering I can’t begin to fathom, and may you find peace. But I promise it’s not in anything but yourself. I lied, a good therapist can work wonders because who doesn't like to pay people money to watch them cry?
For all of us tortured souls though, here’s another idea to consider - maybe life is the ultimate drug. I mean we come out of nothing and suddenly get thrown into this world where we are alive. We breathe - we think - we touch - we feel - we hurt - we cause pain - we have sex (literally connect bodies) and through that we’re able to create more lives who can do the same thing. We all have the same basic needs and we will all expire. And if we’re able to do this once, maybe we’re able to do it twice. Or maybe we’ve done it many times before. No one knows for sure. And I suppose you can’t until you die, but if death was the previous nothingness before life I guess we still won’t know. But maybe it’s not a puzzle to be solved. Maybe it’s just an experience to be had. Red Velvet.
You, me, and everyone else are going to die. Maybe we should spend more time focusing on what really matters… like uhm, being alive? Call me fucking crazy. Do with your life what you will, it is your own. But if anything can be taken away here it’s that changing your mind never hurts. And the only mind you have any control over changing is your own.
On a lighter note, one thing to look forward to is that DMT is released when you die. You know what that means? FREE DRUGS! Life basically leaves you begging for death if you make it long enough and then gives you free drugs right before you die to help transition you from this realm to the next - what a guy! And then you may rest again. All the pain and suffering you endured during your life as a housewife to a surgeon with three sons who got jobs at Amazon can be laid to rest, you poor aching soul.
Thanks for stopping by and listening to my weird rant. It's only going to get weirder from here. The door is always open!
Cheers,
The Slam Hancock