1)
Then one morning . . .
You wake up and there’s just nothing
You have nothing and this has nothing to do with a place to live or money.
No one else knows. No one sees.
All they see is the facade. They see the face you try and portray. They don’t see what you see. They don’t know what you know and they certainly don’t know about the mind machine and the 1500 things that come at you all at once at a thousand miles an hour.
You want to get away. You literally want to jump out of your life and run away but there’s no way out of your own skin.
No one knows how tiring this is.
No one knows what it feels like to fight against an enemy that doesn’t even exist—but yet, that doesn’t mean the enemy isn’t real.
The enemy is real.
Very real
No one knows how tired you are.
Tired of your worry and tired of your circumstances. Tired of thinking and feeling the way you do. Tired of feeling like you have to save your own life, every day, otherwise, the rest is just grim.
No one gets it
Something people fail to realize is mental anguish is worse than physical pain. At least physical pain comes with a face or description. Anguish, on the other hand, fights us like phantoms—we can’t see it but know it’s there and we can hear them coming.
There is a passage I read a long time ago from Proverbs 22:10, which says, “Drive out the mocker and the quarreling stops. The fighting and the insults will disappear.”
But for the depressed, how can you drive out the mocker when the mockery is all in your own head?
Know what I mean?
Sometimes, I swore it seemed like the entire world was in on something. And me, it always seemed as though I was the last to get the joke, or worse, I often wondered if I was the joke—
This is life in the thought machine.
2)
When does change happen?
How can someone get away from the personal biases and their opinions, which are based on past experiences which we keep in the emotional section of our brain; the fears, the insecurities, the memories of being trapped in the gossip mills and the rumor factories and the feelings of foolishness and self-loathing because we opened our mouths when we wished we kept it shut.
When does this go away?
What has to happen?
Even still, once I realize what I need to do the question becomes how do I do it?
What’s my goal?
What’s my plan and what’s my strategy to achieve it?
More importantly, what’s my purpose?
Is this real?
Is any of this even possible?
There is a famous quote that says, “Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and then suddenly, you are doing the impossible.”
But tell this to someone that lives in a depressed mind, and still, none of this seems real or possible, which is why we have to get rid of and defy our personal biases.
We have to get rid of our subconscious programming and permit ourselves to forgive our past and close the chapter so we can move forward and start a new one.
Eventually, the things we find complicated can become easy after a while.
It’s the beginning though; it’s the struggle. It’s the anticipation and the unknown thing on the other side if the door, which, we can open and walk out to be free but then what?
What now?
Sometimes, I wonder if we believe it is just easier to be held captive.
Eventually, the things we found complicated become easy—this includes living in pain or nurturing the war wounds we suffered that left scars but truthfully, they wounds are only superficial and no longer exist.
How the hell does anyone take the next step when all they know is how they’ve survived for so long?
How does one kill the whispers?
How can we get away from our personal biases and change the programs we’ve adjusted to for such a long time?
This I say to you:
Find the answer to any of the above and then you have found your path which leads to happiness.
3)
Man threw stones in his glass house yesterday. Then he stood around, wondering where the draft was coming from. And me, I just stood by and applauded his abilities to make things worse . . .
New York City
I swear, you can see it all here.
And me, I see it all every day.
I see it all in the subways. I see it all near 14th street. I see the upper crust and the lowly. I see it all.
I even see a man handing out flyers about salvation.
He says we should repent to save or lives
Says we are all gonna burn.
Says it’s all coming
He says this as if he knows; as if he is saved, as if he himself will be standing at the pearly gates, collecting tickets and checking I.D.’s at the door.
I go to that quote I remember from John
He among you who is without sin, let him be the one to cast the first stone.”
Of course no one can cast the first stone.
Neither can I . . .
But it sure seems like there’s a hell of a long line to be second.
Sometimes (I swear) I look at our society and wonder
“What the hell have we become?”
4)
I want to find myself alone and yet find myself in the perfect company.
I want to be quiet somewhere, far away, but I don’t want to be far away at all—just far enough to regroup and refresh and hit the reset button so I can say, “Ahh,” and relax without worrying over what I’ll miss.
It will be morning soon. . .
Sunrise, and the sun will build and the sky will clear.
And somehow, yesterday can be gone if I allow this to be.
I can start brand new.
I think I’ll go forward and keep doing what I love to do.
After all, no one can stop me
(unless I allow them to)
I think I’ll keep going and go forward because I want to be the best at what I do. I want to be the best me possible. I want to be better, each day, every day, and grow, one increment at a time, so that someday, I can look back and say, “Look where I came from!”
Then I can look around to honestly and proudly say:
“And look where I am now?”
I was once told the borrower is a slave to the lender.
As I see it, I’ve borrowed enough.
I don’t want to borrow anymore.
I don’t want to borrow anything
Instead, let me build.
Let me create. Let me get away from myself and break the habitual thinking and habitual living.
Let me not be afraid to open the door to new opportunities, to step outside myself, to be free, to be me, and be fine with outcomes no matter what they are.
This is what it means to be free.
Free from the thought machine that is.
The Written Addiction 