Thanks, fini. Great share.
Billions of unique individuals living on a beautiful Blue Marble moving through space-time. That's us, yeah? I can't see faces, but that's our collective home. What's there not to love?!! In fact, a famous photo taken by the crew of Apollo 17, in December 1972, the last manned mission to the moon is awesome to behold. I'm sure you've all seen it already:
The Blue Marble - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You know, I'm a total space nerd guy. Sci-fi rocks.
Hey, I have a collectors edition replica of the Fisher Space Pen for the Apollo 11 mission. Embedded in the very top of the pen is a tiny cut swatch of the actual space radiation protective fabric used in the command module of the 1969 moon mission. Awesome! I was 12 when they first walked on the moon! I always wanted to be an astronaut! You know, I have a dream to eventually pay the big bucks and hop a space flight to orbit the earth. That would be just the greatest thrill for me!! Seriously.
Space Pen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Just two nights ago, from a gift from my wife, Melissa, I built a Lego mock up of the Saturn V rocket, service module with the command capsule, the Eagle lunar lander, and the lunar rover. My office is in our home, and it looks more like a hobby shop then anything else. I have displays of statues of superheroes, villains, monsters, space stuff, comics, etc. It's like I'm still all boy at heart, surrounded by my memories of youth. I have a 10ft x 3ft banner of Marvel Superheroes, a gift from my step-son's, still looking for a new wall since we moved into our new digs here last October
I still have a huge original series Star Trek Enterprise model kit to build.
In our basement I have a 12ft x 6ft 1/32 scale platform 2 lane digital control model road race set I'm currently setting up and tweaking. R/C TRAXX cars and mini-helicopters too are stacked up along the walls. I'm a 12 yr old going on 55, hahaha.
Okay. Back to business. Anyways, all that above, is a rockin' example of "quality of life" for me. It's really just me being me because it feels good to be me. I'll probably never really grow up like a "normal" grows up, and I don't ever want to, truth be told. That never growing up into an "old person" in my heart and mind -- that itself is "quality of life" -- not the toys and games themselves -- but to be able to be a happy, responsible, lovin' person; generous with others, forgiving, humble, intelligent -- this is what creates "quality of life" for me. I've nothing against aging in itself, but this
does not mean as my body ages, I am required to trip, stumble, and crawl myself into the gloom, and inevitably fade to grey. No way. Not this one. Ain't happenin'. Full stop.
I've always been stubborn and smart-mouthed, and quitting drinking didn't cure me of that, lol.
Sobriety for me is really just the cost of the freight required for me to be the me I want to be. I can fulfill many of my dreams while sober. When I was drunk though - I was blind, deaf, and dumb to who I am today. Sobriety is not the whole summation of my life, but simply the beginning of my present life created from the ashes of my now past and dead alcoholic life.
I'm a total believer in that when we make fundamental continuing change to our insides, and do so from within ourselves; we eventually create a cascade of changes on and effecting our external life as well. It's not a matter of if, but more a matter of when inside work changes outside reality.
Of course, reality is relative to the observer, and this is what separates the doers from the doubters, imo.
I know this much to be true:
None of us are nobodies. We're all somebodies. We're all important, and we're all living on the same Blue Marble.
Did any of this help further explain myself re: quality of life?!
Originally Posted by fini
i did quit drinking, in a real way, because i just couldn't "be" that way any more. because i knew my quality of life would be better, my quality of "me" in my life. though on the outside nothing much has changed
The quote above says to me, you creatively have grokked ("A Stranger in a Strange Land" - Robert A. Heinlein) all these "quality of life" issues, no problemo. As for not much has changed externally, you yourself have explained this out as being directly tied to your decisions. Smart decisions, I agree with you, but nonetheless, your external life is joined-at-the-hip with your real-time decisions.
And things take time to change. I'm speaking today with decades of sober life experiences. We can't just talk our way into an awesome external life. We have to create it, from the inside out, as you of course with many others, already know. I'm just saying.
Hey, thanks for the share, friend!
