This Post is about Whatever I Want!

I'm suffering from a minor case of writer's block, so this post is pretty poorly organized and more a cathartic outlet of thoughts. I'm publishing it because why the fuck not?

Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I have one fatal flaw: I'm really nice. What I mean is that I oftentimes worry about my friends to the point of being unable to worry about myself. My worst habit is observing other people's problems and making them my problems. This forces me to try and fix said problems, even if there is quite literally nothing that I can do. What ends up happening, then, is that I begin to feel really down because I feel like I didn't do all I could for that person. You can see how this can be an issue.

I've been quite worried about a few of my friends lately. Drugs, depression, unemployment, and general stress have been getting to them, at a dangerous level. I do what I can to try and support them, but I'm beginning to realize more and more every day that no one can help someone who won't help themselves. The other side of that coin is that I shouldn't try and help someone if they don't want my help, which is another thing I find hard to do.

Buddhism teaches that one person is unable to help another person unless they do not share suffering with that person. The Sanksrit/Pali word for "compassion", Karuṇā, literally means "to suffer with someone", so if we are already suffering ourselves from a specific issue, how can we hope to help another person and alleviate their suffering?

Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others. It crushes and destroys the pain of others; thus, it is called compassion. It is called compassion because it shelters and embraces the distressed. --The Buddha

 So, what I have done in detaching myself from some people is difficult for me to do. In fact, I'm still trying to convince to myself that what I am doing is the right thing. All I can do is all I can do, though, and beyond that, they have to want to be helped.

I've written two different pieces that tackle that subject, one of which was posted earlier in "Ecstasy is Torment". Four days ago, I performed that piece in public for the first time and was met with a very unexpected response.

A girl who seemed younger than me by about a year or two came up to me after we had packed up and were beginning to leave. She caught my arm and asked if she could talk to me. She looked me in the eye and told me

"That piece about drugs you wrote came at exactly the right time for me. I have a few friends who are dealing with drugs right now and I've been really confused as to how to deal with them."

 I thanked her for her kind words and told her to stay strong, for her friends, but also for herself. To support her friend in the most positive way possible is the number one thing she can do. Walking away that day I realized that I had not been taking my own advice. I had been so caught up in how I felt I needed to help people that I did not realize I was suffering too much to be able to do so. Even as I type this, I smile knowing that my words had a positive impact on someone, and that in turn had a positive impact on me.

People always ask me why I write, and I always give them a different answer. Sometimes I say that I write so that I have a positive impact on people and to help people. Sometimes I say I write so that I can vent out some of my more negative emotions. Sometimes it's so that I can get people to think, to question. Sometimes, it's just for the wordplay, just for the rhyme scheme, just because I like having something to share. But a lot of the time, it's just for the hell of it.

I'm writing a Nuzlocke novella, as you might know, and I plan on doing 4 more (probably shorter than the current one, though), one for each "generation" of Pokemon. I'm re-writing a piece I lost in the hard drive crash called "I Stand". I'm writing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in which the most valuable and powerful substance is chocolate.

That wouldn't be too different than real life, now that I think about it.

Now, being true to this post's title, I will offer you something only tangentially relevant.

 

Just to offer a little bit of insight as to the kind of funny, quirky, entertaining improvising Random Receipts does.

If you like my writing, you can join the site to the right of the page, like Speaking with Storms on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. If you have questions or just want to chat, I'm on Formspring, too!

Peace and Love, thank you for reading!

Ecstasy is Torment

I really don't like hard drugs. Now, before you go into the whole "Straight-edge" thing (a movement I dislike for other reasons), let me explain.

I really don't like hard drugs. I don't have an issue with cannabis because it doesn't really have any life-endangering elements to it. As far as I can tell, you have to be a complete bum with really nothing better to do with your time in order to let cannabis damage your life. I mean, by the time you've smoked enough weed in one sitting for it to become dangerous, you wouldn't have even gotten that far in the first place because you would have been distracted by the pizza guy or by the XBox. Stoners don't have the willpower or attention span to let leaf consume them. Which is fine with me. Weed isn't my thing, but so long as you aren't hurting anyone, go for it.

That being said, anything harder than that is an area that I have a lot of fear about. I've seen what kind of havoc cocaine, heroine, and ecstasy can wreak.

A lot of people ask me if that fear stems from any religious aspect. It's kind of like that... I suppose my Buddhist philosophy does influence that viewpoint. There is a parable in Buddhism about a monk who came across a woman who told him that he must either a) kill her goat b) sleep with her, or c) drink a mug of beer (all of which are against the vows taken by Buddhist monks).

He thought to himself, well, surely if I kill the goat, then I will be causing great suffering since a living being will die. If I sleep with the woman, I will have broken another great vow of a monk and will surely be lost to the ways of the world. Lastly, if I drink the beer then perhaps no great harm will come and I will only be intoxicated for a while, and most importantly I will only be hurting myself (this is significant because monks try to help others on the way to enlightenment).

So the monk drank the mug of beer and then he became very drunk. In his drunkenness he proceeded to kill the goat and sleep with the woman, breaking all three vows and, at least in his eyes, doing much harm in the world.

Now, I don't have anything against alcohol either so long as it's used with utmost care. The purpose of this parable is to illustrate that substances carry a grave danger of breaking all of one's vows. In a sense, we could say the intoxicant in the parable is the cause of all other harmful deeds. If we break our vows, we break a part of ourselves, we lose a part of ourselves, we kill a part of ourselves.

Not My Thing

A friend of mine hit me up one day.
She said, "Hey, I got some X I'm tryin to get rid of. You want some?"
I said, "No thanks, that's not my thing."
She asked me "Then what is your thing?"
Memories came back, and I went silent for a moment.
What is my thing? I know.
I wanted to hold the phone straight in front of my face,
And scream at it until I broke the microphone,
"You want to know what my thing is?
My thing is having a clear mind.
My thing is being able to tell what time of day it is, or what day it is, or FUCK, what my NAME is.
My thing is having a steady heartbeat,
My thing is being able to pass background checks,
My thing is being able to take a deep breath,
My thing is having friends with whom I can outlive the 27 Club,
My thing is putting my money and time toward something or someone that's valuable,
My thing is not losing my life because of a single pill, because of a line of dust, because of a needle,
My thing is keeping my soul and sanity and stamina!
My thing is saying I have friends who died a year, a month, a fucking week after I met them because of YOUR thing!"
But I took a deep breath.
"My thing is saying 'No thanks, that's not my thing'."

Substances such as cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy are incredibly addictive, consuming, and destructive. Many of their users who think they're "in control" are sadly mistaken. If you are struggling or know someone who is, call a doctor immediately, call (866) 558-9817 for addiction help or click here to find treatment facilities near you.
 

If you like my writing, you can join the site to the right of the page, like Speaking with Storms on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. If you have questions or just want to chat, I'm on Formspring, too!

Peace and Love, thank you for reading.

The Dao of Health

I try to stay healthy most of the time. I practice tai chi and kung fu, and I make sure to stay away from obviously unhealthy food and try to eat as healthily as possible. I drink at least two cups of green tea every day. I don't smoke. Things like that.

I know people who have experience in drugs personally. Not just cannabis, but also harder drugs such as hallucinogenic mushrooms and cocaine, and two people having experience with heroin.

I don't use anything like that, not because it's illegal but also because I just don't like the feeling of having unnatural effects being placed on my mind. The thoughts scares me. I also have seen what happens to people who use them.

A lot of people rely on substances to offer a release, or an escape. They feel that the sensation offered by the drugs is simply "better" than the real world, or it offers a form of "enhanced perception". Such thinking could not be more dangerous. What hallucinogens, for example, are really doing is firing neurons in your brain in a very destructive, dangerous, volatile fashion.

Even with drugs that are not directly addictive, the risk is there... The desire is there. I've never understood the desire for a certain drug past that of a cigarette. It throws the entire body-mind balance out of whack! It throws it outside the Dao, the Way.

The Dao, or the Way, is described as being within the natural flow of things. Using drugs throws your body so far out of the natural order that it's incredibly difficult to become realigned with the Dao.

People who are slave to drugs rarely realize the manacles around their wrists, because their eyes are always on the next time they can alter their perception of the world. The worst part is, the people who are in the most danger of becoming addicts are often the ones who never realize it.

In one of my favorite books of all time, Lamb by Christopher Moore, one of the disciples of Joshua (otherwise known as Jesus), named Bartholomew, is portrayed as a Cynic and teaches Joshua of Cynic values. He describes it as living like a dog. "I own nothing, therefore I am slave to nothing." This resounds deeply within Buddhist values of removing suffering by removing desire. Similarly, removing the dependence on any substance breaks the shackles of a soul and emancipates it-- Grants it true, unabashed freedom.

Some people believe that drugs help them get "closer to God"... What they tragically fail to see-- Or, rather, what fails to be shown to them-- is that God is always close. What they destroy their body and their soul in order to see has always been right in front of them. It's in their friends, in the water they drink, in the food they eat, in the air they breathe. Everything they need is all right there.

If you know someone who is struggling with substance abuse, help them as you would want them to help you. Call 1 800 390 4056 or go to www.addict-help.com .