Torched 🔥
"Alcohol may be man's worst enemy. But the Bible says love your enemy."
—Frank Sinatra
> 35,000 decisions | burn and blister
Let's talk about why sobriety from alcohol doesn't instantly make me a better person.
I can name three regular customers at a Tulsa coffee shop where I worked who might say I'm moody and make dark jokes.
I can name three regular customers who might say I'm charming and unpretentious.
Two people anywhere in the world could simultaneously say I'm a better person and a worse person.
- Words have power and meaning in the human mind. Words scorch, blister, kill.
At the moment I'm accused of being a worse person, all I can do is hang on to what I believe about myself. I'm a vastly better person without alcohol by my own interpretation.
But I still can't reason my way out of being human. 🥺
One astounding realization I had over the course of this project was that we don't need the truth to survive. Whether god or evolution, survival has to come first. Truth is a luxury.
Of course, I tell myself everyday that the human pursuit of truth is important to our survival, too.
But I also know that the human mind can trick me into "seeing" a fallacy or illusion for reasons that have to do with survival, not my desire to know truths.
I then interpret that illusion or fallacy as objective reality – the universe as it is beyond our senses and perception.
No one can decisively and objectively make me a better person.
Buddhists call this "seeing reality for what it is."
If I don't see reality for what it is, one stinging jab from someone I love or someone I hate could lead to relapse. Irrational? Yes. Very. Now we're learning.
My inner monologue in such a moment might look like this:
I didn't ask to be put on this wretched earth. It's all Christians and breeders. Let's drink.
At once, I'm worse and better. At once, I'm darkness and light.
At once, I love humanity, hate people.
- next time "Killers get away with it."
- listening Crystal Castles "Not in Love"
>> full series | alerts | playlist / social | tip jar