Words of Wisdom
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Join Date: Jan 2011
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Words of Wisdom
I read a post from StratMan today, copied it, and will use it for a while to remind myself of the reality that I have chosen for myself. Couldn't have been said any better and I found your post to be very true in every sense of the word. I have lived this for a very long time. Thanks!
People should read this:
"Whether my experience is common or not, I can say without hesitation that "getting high" has been, for me, the thing that I do instead of doing what would lead to greater meaning and a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in my life. To be sure, "being high" can frequently fill one with ideas, dreams, etc., and even a kind of transitory resolve to do whatever is necessary to achieve those things. But that's just part of the lie that is at the root of every supposedly "good" thing about using a substance to create a state of mind. It becomes the antithesis of actually "doing" anything meaningful. Show me one person who is actually able to transform creative thought into tangible achievement while afflicted with the plague of substance abuse.
Oh, sure, there are your rare exceptions like Mozart and Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman and Kurt Cobain ... you know, the kinds of prodigies who burn extra bright for a brief brilliant moment in time, and then promptly implode into the black hole of self-destruction. For most of us, that route to "immortality" is not in the cards. Instead, we're (quite fortuitously, I would say) stuck with the masses of people who, in order to achieve anything in life, have to make a logical plan and then methodically and persistently pursue the course that leads to its fulfillment. The discipline required for that is something that simply cannot be attained while simultaneously poisoning our minds and bodies with what are unavoidably destructive drugs. From my perspective on the matter, there is just no way to make the balance of good and bad in drug use lean towards the good. I'm not saying there is nothing good on the one side of the scale. On my personal scale of such things, there is an ever-so-beautiful feather representing the hours of blissful contentment I have felt while pumping oxycodone into body. But it's the cold, unforgiving bricks of wasted years on the other side of the scale that is the sobering reality as I see it.
Oh, if only I could be 19 again and know what I know now!
So all I can say is choose to be wise now instead of yielding to the clever lie that you have time to kill today, and years to go before you will really need to refrain from such excesses. Believe me, days turn to weeks and weeks turn to years, and waiting for wisdom to get pounded into your brain by the sledge hammer blows of several decades of self-inflicted bouts of idiocy is not a risk worth taking. Each year that goes by with you still finding ways to give in to the "just one more time" urge takes a little more out of you; a little more of the strength you'll need to claw your way out of the hole you've dug for yourself.
How did Robert Frost put it?"
Quote:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost, 1915
People should read this:
"Whether my experience is common or not, I can say without hesitation that "getting high" has been, for me, the thing that I do instead of doing what would lead to greater meaning and a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in my life. To be sure, "being high" can frequently fill one with ideas, dreams, etc., and even a kind of transitory resolve to do whatever is necessary to achieve those things. But that's just part of the lie that is at the root of every supposedly "good" thing about using a substance to create a state of mind. It becomes the antithesis of actually "doing" anything meaningful. Show me one person who is actually able to transform creative thought into tangible achievement while afflicted with the plague of substance abuse.
Oh, sure, there are your rare exceptions like Mozart and Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman and Kurt Cobain ... you know, the kinds of prodigies who burn extra bright for a brief brilliant moment in time, and then promptly implode into the black hole of self-destruction. For most of us, that route to "immortality" is not in the cards. Instead, we're (quite fortuitously, I would say) stuck with the masses of people who, in order to achieve anything in life, have to make a logical plan and then methodically and persistently pursue the course that leads to its fulfillment. The discipline required for that is something that simply cannot be attained while simultaneously poisoning our minds and bodies with what are unavoidably destructive drugs. From my perspective on the matter, there is just no way to make the balance of good and bad in drug use lean towards the good. I'm not saying there is nothing good on the one side of the scale. On my personal scale of such things, there is an ever-so-beautiful feather representing the hours of blissful contentment I have felt while pumping oxycodone into body. But it's the cold, unforgiving bricks of wasted years on the other side of the scale that is the sobering reality as I see it.
Oh, if only I could be 19 again and know what I know now!
So all I can say is choose to be wise now instead of yielding to the clever lie that you have time to kill today, and years to go before you will really need to refrain from such excesses. Believe me, days turn to weeks and weeks turn to years, and waiting for wisdom to get pounded into your brain by the sledge hammer blows of several decades of self-inflicted bouts of idiocy is not a risk worth taking. Each year that goes by with you still finding ways to give in to the "just one more time" urge takes a little more out of you; a little more of the strength you'll need to claw your way out of the hole you've dug for yourself.
How did Robert Frost put it?"
Quote:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost, 1915
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