DAY ONE

 It's hard to imagine a world where I could make a sort of serialized blog that follows me as I attempt to get my life in some semblance of order and it would be worth reading. That, I have to assume, is due to the deleterious effects on my self image that my current lifestyle has, and is just the certified Bad Vibes talking. Otherwise, if I truly believed that this project would amount to a horrific embarrassment, then what else could I possibly write about? "Write about what you know", well, I could put on seminars about being a typical American failure, and very little else. You wanna hear about Buddhism? I've read the better part of a huge number of books on the subject, and even finished a few! I have never consistently followed the principles espoused therein, so it will be only slightly better than a purely academic treatment performed by some uptight white Protestant who has nightmares if he briefly imagines rocking the boat.

Now, you might be thinking, "Wow, this guy is insufferable. Did he take classes on this? Do they teach this in whatever cheap socialist college he dropped out of?" Yes, and we're on the same page. I get it. Or, at least, that's how I feel about my writing, because, as you'll come to see in more detail soon, I have been leading a pretty unhealthy, unwise, unfulfilling life for most of my "adult" life, and it's left me in a terrible state of mind. The good news is the relatively brief period of time that covers, as I'm 28 now. I frequently have to stop and ask myself if I'm 28 or 29, and I honestly should check the math... Oh my God, I actually forgot I am 29. Jesus Christ. This isn't a joke, I actually said I was 28 several days ago, and I was really pretty sure just a moment ago, before going to timeanddate.com to have a computer check the math for me. God almighty. 

Well, that's a perfect example of the kind of stupid bullshit we're dealing with. I've been floating through life on various makeshift cushions of whatever kind of pleasures and distractions I can afford to surround myself with, while remaining persistently too dissociated and despairing about Life Itself to actually embrace anything with enough discipline to achieve anything. Like so many others, my Potential was bright, beautiful, and the topic of many interactions with adults when I was a child. What little public schooling I endured was incredibly tedious and boring, as I was educated in turn-of-the-millenium America, and it was incredibly rare to receive an assignment that I had to put any effort into at all in order to receive an A. My parents met in a mental hospital (as patients), and though, God knows, they tried their best (and I did learn a lot from my mother in an academic sense), I couldn't exactly look to them to set an example of existential fulfillment and fill in the gaps left by educational institutions. Imagine my surprise, then, when I soon discovered that things like discipline, consistency, and plain old hard work were the keys to literally everything in adult life, and my main skill was rolling with extremely chaotic, insecure situations where everything could fall apart at any moment. 

I'm not here to discuss my past in stultifying detail, though. This isn't that. This blog is meant to stand fairly squarely in the PRESENT and the FUTURE, BY GOD, and explore the CURRENT day-to-day experience of making a C H A N G E ! And there is a long list of changes which, in an ideal world, really should be made to my life. Let's take an overview

1. Financial debt (medical care, higher education), fix

2. Ruined teeth, fix

3. Live fully sober

4. Get good at some kind of art

5. Wake up, or achieve any mastery of meditation

6. Find a community

Some of these are broader than others, but obviously none are simple actions, but represent whole shifts in my lifestyle and/or many months or even years of work. They are also in no particular order. Figuring out where to start is a task of its own I must complete. So, realistically, we are going to have to revisit these Big Ones and start a bit smaller. WHICH LEADS ME TO MY NEXT POOOOSSSTT....