Hazy Maze Cave...and the Monster Lying Therein

Alright, time for my first post. Honestly, for the last three or four years of my life I've been in a real creative funk. I've had a lot of personal problems, and I don't seem to be like the great French Symbolist poets or punk rockers out there (Baudelaire or Cobain or Beethoven or Vincent van Gogh) in my ability to create art out of my own personal turmoil. I mean, the image heroin gives off unlike other drugs is that it's an artist's drug. It has that sense of romantic appeal to it, a sense of history and the notion of personal loss in exchange for the greater artistic good. Unfortunately, I am not like that and I doubt most addicts are. But props to all the troubled artists out there who have managed to create something important and meaningful for countless others out of their own pain.

Anyways, I miss the oft-mentioned "golden days" of name-writing and for me the peak of my creative intensity was the freshman year of college. That was when I was the biggest loner I could possibly be, but I fought against this by burying myself inside of names and especially commentary. But unfortunately as I became more social my sophomore year, I stopped writing as much and eventually at all, so you have to forgive me if I seem a bit out of touch, because I promise you I feel even more alien.

When you are an addict, sometimes it's very saddening to think of just how much time has gone by in your life while you remain at a standstill. For this post (because I couldn't think of anything else to write about!), I wanted to just lay down for myself some of my goals and things that I want to get more into again, as a way to fight against the temptation of substance abuse and just as a way to make my life more meaningful. I think back to a year ago when I started writing in this journal that I used to write names in and I posted a pretty similar thing in there. Big goals. Wanted to get the creative juices flowing again. And yet a year has gone by, and I'm still doing this shit? The sense of sadness is even deeper when you think about everyone else moving ahead in their lives and leaving you behind, people you've lost....

Back on focus here, though.

1.) Physical fitness: Goddamn do I miss being in shape. Junior year/early senior year in high school could be considered my "peak" (I know, this is sad! haha) in life for any number of reasons, but if nothing else, that was the peak of my fitness. I think Daniel can sympathize with me here--working in an office makes you feel like a piece of shit physically. It is God's ultimate punishment for the white middle class for getting through college on their parents' money. I actually have a gym membership right now, but I don't even remember the last time I went. It's been a rough time the last few months. But my goal is to lift weights three times a week and run three times a week. (I have to start really slowly and over short distances with running, even though I used to be a cross country captain, because my legs start itching like fucking fire, and it is something I cannot run through. Sometimes I wonder if this is because I fucked up my circulatory system through IV drug use. I'm not sure. I've read that it can also just be because you are so out of shape that your veins are not used to pumping so much blood. It's frustrating when you aren't that tired and you know you can run more and get a better work out, but you just cannot go anymore because of the itching.) One of those three runs a week would be substituted for racquetball if a game was available, since my passion for the sport is very well documented. Basically, just cardio and strength training. This is kinda common sense.

2.) Intellectual/creative development: I was basically a pussy all throughout college. I never really tried to read anything challenging on my own. It's intimidating. I have a short attention span, but I don't blame that on ADD. I blame it on myself being a pussy and not pushing myself hard enough. I'm convinced that is the problem with most people's attention spans. Just like you get out of shape from not exercising, your brain gets out of shape if you don't push it enough. I would like to read a lot more challenging books--all the classics, I love nonfiction, basically whatever, but I would like to read all the classics I've missed out on because I was too intimidated by them, and this includes stuff like Dante or Shakespeare or Joyce or whoever. People know that when I do something I like to do it all the way, so this includes literature. I was doing pretty good with practicing guitar, but again I've had a rough past couple of months, and as people know by now, I don't "count" doing anything productive when I'm intoxicated, so I just give up on things when I'm in binging periods. I have no regrets about that, since reading and music and movies become big motivations to quit using drugs for me. So yeah, I would like to practice guitar from 30 min. to 1 hour per day. Doing anymore than that I'm afraid I just don't have time for if I also want to read every day and work out basically every day. I don't plan to be the best guitarist ever. I would just like to have a workable knowledge of the instrument and of music theory. I could create a literally neverending Netflix queue, so it goes without saying that there are a lot of movies I need to see. I don't really consider myself a serious movie (or literature) fan, because I simply have not seen (or read) enough. Music...yeah, need to listen to more. Could also create a (literally) endless CD-to-get list. I'm a collectionist, so yes, I actually still do like to get CDs. It saddens me that physical media seems to be getting phased out. I'm sure that's a good thing to a lot of people--environmentalists, people without much space, or just those who don't have big collections in the first place and who don't want to appear inferior any longer--but I guess I'm old-fashioned in that I'm a collector when it comes to books, movies, CDs, and video games. I love having a bangin' collection, because apparently I'm so insecure that it makes me feel better about myself. Video games...I've come to accept that I'm never going to have much time for video games anymore, as working out, music, and reading comes first, BUT I would still like to play some of the really big games once in a while. I'm thinking specifically of Super Mario Galaxy 2 at the moment, haha, but something like Uncharted 2 or whatever. You know, the really big games that everyone just has to play. Well, who likes feeling left out?

Another big part of "creative development" is of course creation itself. This is hard for me, and honestly I don't plan to rush back into it. I don't like creating mediocre stuff, but I also realize you only get better through practice. A lot of my intention of reading more serious literature then I had had the balls to tackle before was so that I could learn from it how to become a better writer. I am of the school that not all of the tools to become a good writer come only from inside. You can't learn words or things like that from yourself, and God I don't know enough words. But yes, I would like to start writing again. Writing what? I'm not sure. I've never been very confident or decisive to answer that question.

3.) Travel/actually doing stuff: Around the time I started writing in that journal that I mentioned earlier, I also came up with the idea of making a travel scrapbook to document the places I've been to. And I have those 1,000 Places to See Before You Die books to get through too. If you can't tell already, I like making lists and getting through them. I guess it gives my life meaning. I try to get more into travel, because it's something I don't necessarily feel...comfortable with normally. Not in the sense that I am anxious traveling. It's in the sense that this isn't something that I guess necessarily grabbed me like reading a book does or shooting up a drug does. Travel is something I have to push myself into. This section also includes just doing anything that puts me outside of my comfort zone. The thing about depression and drug addiction is that you get so stuck in your "comfort zone" (which, by the way, is basically just misery and the dreadful intertia of nihilism) that you don't want to do anything that makes you in the least bit uncomfortable just because you are so used to having that easy pleasure, even if it causes you deep suffering in the long run. It took a long time for me to even build up the courage to go to bars or things like that. I just wasn't used to it. Social situations can still make me a bit nervous, but I try to push myself more than I used to. I don't regret ever trying drugs in the first place, because even though they have caused me a lot of unhappiness, they taught me that I have to work--really work--to find some happiness. I'm not the type of person who it comes easy to, but I think that the more that you work for something, the more meaningful it will be for you. It took me a long time to realize that. For a long time I thought that I was just cursed and that everyone who seemed or was happy was just faking it, and that only I knew the truth. I don't claim to know all the answers, but this doesn't seem like a good path, but that was my life for many years.

4.) Relationships: I won't lie. I wasn't a good social person/friend for a long time. When you are unhappy, you tend to not give a fuck about anyone else other than yourself. I want to get beyond that and try to help others and just generally be friends with others. And get closer to my family, because we tend to have a great divide and I think at the moment they have no idea at my own internal state. But I don't blame them, I hid it. And yes, this section includes girls too. That is probably the hardest thing for me other than drugs, and getting over my ex, Alex, is really the only thing in my life I've found as difficult emotionally to deal with as drug addiction (other than maybe when I had absolutely no friends when I was a freshman in college, but that might not have even been as bad). I dated her for five years, and when we broke up, that absolutely crushed me. I knew the whole time we were dating we'd one day break up, because I wasn't always the best boyfriend and we had some big trust issues because of my addiction, and I knew that when that day came I'd be absolutely devastated. I built my entire life around her. I know that sounds like a cliche, but she really was my best friend and she was just one of the few people that I completely respected and she always really cared about me no matter how much I put her through, which was a lot. And I still think she cares a lot about me, so that is saying something. But I managed to always bury that fear (which was as deep and black as you could get--that was just about my greatest fear) through drugs or just through other things. So when that day came (and I was trying to quit heroin at this time too), I just had the rug pulled out from under my feet, and it was a very difficult time, to say the least.

But anyways, I really need to just be a lot more confident with girls. What guy doesn't say that? It's just not that easy for me, not that I'm bad with them. I think I get along with them fine. I don't know. We'll see.

Anyways, sorry to bore people with such a long post, but I wanted to establish some goals for myself because it just really helps. As Mike said, we need to get this blog rolling.

--Edward