I shouldn't be a foul-weather blogger. I should write more positive things, share positive moods, they do exist... if I feel like it, cause contrivance isn't my style. But it just so happens that I do feel like being positive, yes, I will allow for that eventuality. Even if that also makes me feel like a tool. A tool for Ned Flanders' God can't be such a bad tool to be. Not the sharpest tool in the drawer, better for spreading mortar.
There's a high I can feel from a good meeting that reminds me what it's all for. I can even sometimes get through the awkwardness of people crying around me, and spilling tears of rage and grief and shame and sickness, and sometimes joy. Can be cool with the awkwardness to some extent, and come out feeling high. And the reason it's such a good reminder is that it's a high based on something real, earned, and pure, the euphoria of seeing other wretches saved from the grave or misery by the healing spirit of a spiritual program, and the plain friendliness of other people that allows it all to happen. The road to heaven is paved with good intent and awkwardness.
Even euphoria based on doing a good job at something, or having mastered a skill - ego-based gratifications - they're healthy and infinitely better than material satisfaction or synthetic bliss, but still based on too many false premises - that my little life is so special, for playing something on a keyboard that's too complex to pin down.
But the euphoria that comes from a good meeting, sometimes it even feels like it's good enough, like I don't need to ultimately turn to the substance crutches again. Every once in a while, it's powerful enough, that it feels substantial, like what I'm supposed to be getting out of participating in this "next-right-thing" spiritual doohickey. The trick is, I think, that it's mostly beyond ego, it's more feeling a part of helping others, and being one of those helped, in a pure way, leaving room for gritty war stories to texture up the primary color candy coat that brings nausea. So, beyond ego, ergo, less transient.
So there, positivity, good I suppose, even though it smacks of charity, and doesn't satisfy me in the raw sense that a good miserable ramble does. Now I can get back to being sarcastic and bitter.
1 comment:
hey, thanks for the awesome comment you left on my blog. this post reminds me of how i sometimes felt after going to an aa meeting. i always dreaded going, but every so often something really cool would happen. i think mostly (for me) it was just listening to real people honestly talk about their lives.
i spend so much time alone (total recluse), so being in a room with so many people was like having a good dream or something.
i only felt like this a few times. most of the meetings i went to totally freaked me out. being around so many people made me want to get my hands on a drink as soon as i escaped from the room. and that's always what happened - after 2-4 weeks.
i know aa works for lots of people. and i'm glad about that. but my experience was the exact opposite. so that's why I've decided to give therapy another try.
anyway, thanks for reading my blog.
p.s. again, i think you are a natural born writer. i tend to be more visual (i'm a painter), so i am totally hopeless with words. but i do like to read good books and good blogs...
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