profounded

I don’t think drugs are bad yet I also don’t think drugs are good. My perception is arguably an enlightened view, although somewhat selfish because I haven’t had the personal experience too many times of the death of close loved ones because of drugs or the tragedy of living a tumultuous life as a drug addict (although I have to admit to myself I might be an addict). I think the biggest issue with drugs is the somewhat warranted, but mostly unwarranted stigma against it. Being a Drug Addict means hiding in the dark, hiding your addiction from others, sometimes stealing, sometime prostitution, sometimes other disturbing actions. It means anguish; it means high highs and low lows, a vast array of emotions. It also means escaping from your emotions, from your anxiety, from your depression, from your anguish or anger. I think that people that people don’t realize that actions are just actions in this universe and although actions have consequences, it doesn’t mean that actions don’t have utility as well. I am a social introvert for the time being. Some of the most extroverted individuals in this universe are those who use substances. I almost feel as if acceptance of the substance as just another reality in life has brought me into a sub-culture that has certain characteristics that I value much and would prefer to merge into my being through diffusion. In other words, I love the life style. I love people getting together in the name of getting together and enjoying each other’s company. Now I think that there is such thing as addiction, both chemical and mental. I think they go hand in hand with each other. I’ve come to accept discomfort or anguish as an individual through continual exposure to that discomfort and anguish and through the power of letting go of attachment. I may have urges for drugs, but mentally I’m learning to accept the discomfort of an incompletion of an urge for what it is: discomfort & anguish. Addiction is the inability to sit through the anguish and thus follow through with drug seeking behavior. Addiction is when you become obsessed for a high, thinking that the “high” is the end all. Am I an addict? I really don’t know. Will drugs partially be the cause of what destroys me? Yes it will. We as humans are on a path to our destruction. The path to the eternal is to follow into the darkness. And what is the eternal? Complete dissolution and diffusion into the serenity of the void of existence. Destruction does not have to have a negative connotation. To create and to destroy are two sides of the same coin. To accept both as a reality in peace and equanimity is the path of paths. Drugs will destroy my health, and ultimately my life. Still, I accept them as one of the paths in life I want to take, because the path came to me. For me, its almost unseen that I swim in the opposite direction of the reality that is facing me. I have been taught to take the shortest course in nature’s completion to flow, that it is almost if I am indeed flowing with the reality that has made itself present. Soft and supple are the way to life, just as a supple plant bends in the wind. Just as water dissolves the hardest of rocks. I choose to be soft and supple in the face of drugs allowing them to come into my life as they come and allowing them to go when they go.

Creative and destructive forces run inherent in nature and also in the woman I love most. I've been with her for two years and many of you told me to run from the relationship because of the heavy drug addiction that she is involved in. Well I didn't. I'm guessing that the point of this post is to make sense of my advancements with being more aligned with the Tao or as I see it. I'm getting continuous practice in letting go and letting this woman live her forces whether creative or destructive. Live and Let Live is what they say in Al-Anon. And its funny. She comes, she goes. She is in my life one day, and gone the next, only to return again another day. And each time this happens, I'm forced to see the path I want to follow, the meaning I define my life path with and then realize I must follow it. I still welcome her caringly every time she re-enters my life. She is who she is, and I love her. I think the biggest thing I worry about (and funnily she worries about with me) is that she gets pregnant by another man. Its funny, I worry about this more than I do her dying from drugs. But I think to myself, why cant my love extend to another mans child? Why must I put so much definition around a future I would never be able to predict? Words are just words and all these ideas and sentences are just meanings attached to something that goes beyond all meanings. The words just get in the way. Truthfully what I want to do is die (ego death?) into love and acceptance of her in a way that is selfless and detached. I want to appreciate her for all she is and be a stable force of love her in her life, yet I find myself angry at times trying to run from the relationship which hurts her making her feel as if I dont love her. I am me. I am this observer that watches the reality around me happen. The reality around us is full of chaos but it seems like a long forgetten memory in someways as the eternal presides in the present moment. I've also learned that the feminine energy can only be experienced, not defined. I feel in my heart that if my love penetrates deep enough and long enough, that my own masculinity would flourish. I have had no other choice but to excersise masculine characteristics of my being instead of fenimine because the flow of energy demands it and leaves me with no other choice in life. She has transformed me and has made me desire to be more of a man in order to tame her fierce energies. So is such.

Its the 4th of september and about 5 or 6 months ago I fell in love with a married woman with an extensive history of prostitution as well as an extensive substance abuse problem.. Well, I decided to take on (or fell into) the relationship with the idea that entering the world of polyamory would make this work. I had an idea of the problems that were going to arise but didn't truly grasp the agony of them until the relationship progressed. She is intelligent and beautiful as fuck. She is primitive in nature and in that primitivity is a beauty I have not found in the civilized world, and she is also polyamorous by nature whether she admits it to herself or not. Does she not love both myself and her husband? Is she not around men all the time (::gags in anxiety:: )? Maybe two days ago she resumed her adventures with crack, as well as drinking and smoking weed. It rips me apart because I don't see this stopping any time soon despite her telling me otherwise, and as a sober spiritual individual, I deal with the hurt in my heart seeing her destroy herself, which touches on my own insecurities as an individual which has to do with how I focused my last 8 years as a computer programmer because of the money instead of letting myself blossom as an individual, as well as the rational reality that she is going down a road that is full of suffering and possibly even death. Did she not jump out of a two story window not too long ago? Fuck.. So I got the jesus complex burned into my brain.. Taoism too has done its numbers on me and suffering for her in this agony for her health, to be one good influence in her life, seems to be in my path. Quotes like: "What is a good man but a bad man's teacher, and what is a bad man but a good man's job. Without knowing this, you will get lost." or "Greatest kind of love is where you give up your life for your friends" run through my head.. Wondering if there is a god or not runs through my head as well.. Why not leave selfishly for my own needs and leave this woman? Well that answer is simple: because I love the fuck out of her.. I'm addicted to the agony she puts me through and it truly is opening my mind to the harsh realities of life, as well as making polyamory a reality that cannot be ignored anymore... ahh.. I'm doing my best to give myself the space to process problems as they come, and I'm doing whatever I can to grow as an individual instead of chasing money, power, and prestige.. but I'm lost, and I guess this is a plea for encouragement.. I have nothing to grab onto anymore.. and no sense of certainty.. and this house cat is having a hard fucking time loving this street cat... what do i do? nonjudgmental, unconditional love seems all I can muster. I sometimes wonder if I am missing out by not experiencing drugs myself (I resort to a shit load of meditation which leaves me introverted and disconnected from others). I just read an article by OSHO talking about how drug users are using the drugs to deal with the society that conforms us to left brained systematic thinking instead of opening up the right hemisphere of creativity and such. I;m trying to do my best to see drugs in a positive light but truth is I avoid both drugs and alcohol because of the lack of sobriety that comes with them which I hold precedent in value.. I don't know.. I am also new to all these emotions and they are truly ripping me apart... If I had these emotions at age 20, hell I probably would have a drug problem myself.. but spirituality has grounded me at 30 and given me at least a good chance in dealing with this.. Just embrace and accept and love, right?

I was put into a mental hospital for a year when I realized the beauty of non-striving, wu-wei and the emptiness of not doing. I was free from the constraints of trying to be successful in the world and finally for a period of time I was happy, like a deer in the woods may be happy and content grazing on grass and sleeping throughout the day.. I realized with no sense of uncertainty that I am an animal, just like all the other animals and saw the beauty in eating when I was hungry and sleeping when I was tired. This is my second entry into a mental hospital and I'm closing in on a year. I have a background of being a computer programmer, and thanks to state programs I've been given just enough money each month to pay for food possibly and a subsidized apartment. Without any additional income, it is going to be very tight and I'm concerned with my future prospects.. I remember the birds outside, as Jesus teaches, and even they find food.. To live a life of ease is what the Tao Te Ching promises with its words.. Give up everything and gain the world. Yet I'm so fucking frightened and in my fear I'm grasping the remains of everyone of my last desires to the point where I'm building goal after goal, completely miserable now with all this striving.. I am not drinking from the great mother's breast because I have desires... and I really doing my best not to get this wrong this time... Which is why I am coming to you guys.. I have dreams of writing a book, getting good with socialization, getting good with women so I can experience what I perceive as the benefits of polyamory, making money, being well rounded, being funny, working out, being a good business man, impressing the woman in my life, change the world and make it a better place etc etc etc.. Yet all of this is making me miserable.. I read these motivational books from time to time, and they talk of pain periods that one must go through to enjoy the benefits of reaping what they sow. If you want something you should work for it. Instead it seems I've gained 5 pounds for all the toil and mental stress I have put myself through with these dreams, desires, cravings.. But part of me feels like I need to fit into the world and not be a parasite in some sense. I remember a line from Chung Tzu saying that everybody knows the value of being useful, but no one knows the value of being useless... I'm just scared. At the ripe age of 30, I realize I am not immortal and that I'm dying.. and I only have so much life left. But to spend the rest of it in this misery doesn't make sense either.. I know my desires are getting me into trouble and I truly need to let go, but maybe Im just hoping for some perspective to help me do this letting go. All week I've been working my ass off learning this, and learning that, putting efforts into trying to create a good conversational personality, etc etc. And I've probably made progress. But my studies make me think I truly need to let go at this point.. Let go of it all and just be at ease. Scary. Finally I'm reminded of a beautiful poem (My favorite) by Sir Edward Dyer.. My mind to me a kingdom is: My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joy therein I find That it excels all other bliss That world affords or grows by kind. Though much I want which most men have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave. No princely pomp, no wealthy store, No force to win the victory, No wily wit to salve a sore, No shape to feed each gazing eye; To none of these I yield as thrall. For why my mind doth serve for all. I see how plenty suffers oft, How hasty climbers soon do fall; I see that those that are aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all; They get with toil, they keep with fear. Such cares my mind could never bear. Content I live, this is my stay; I seek no more than may suffice; I press to bear no haughty sway; Look what I lack my mind supplies; Lo, thus I triumph like a king, Content with that my mind doth bring. Some have too much, yet still do crave; I little have, and seek no more. They are but poor, though much they have, And I am rich with little store. They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I leave; they pine, I live. I laugh not at another’s loss; I grudge not at another’s gain; No worldly waves my mind can toss; My state at one doth still remain. I fear no foe, nor fawning friend; I loathe not life, nor dread my end. Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, Their wisdom by their rage of will, Their treasure is their only trust; And cloaked craft their store of skill. But all the pleasure that I find Is to maintain a quiet mind. My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defense; I neither seek by bribes to please, Nor by deceit to breed offense. Thus do I live, thus will I die. Would all did so as well as I!

9th - thank you, I'm going to try to watch that video now. I sometimes feel that codepedency has a way of preparing myself to be free from this in the future, given I don't have the door close on me like you say and I remain in life.. Like drinking small amounts of poison to develop an antidote. Thank you everyone.. i still don't know. I'll let the moment determine itself. Right now life goes on and I've got an unhealthy attitude towards boundaries.

Alright.. maybe I can understand I am hurting her because of my own brokenness... but then again, what about the 10 other guys in her life that are pushing her towards drugs and drinking? am I not a light in this darkness, and am I not an example of some kind of good? I will take the comments about going to spend sometime loving myself to heart... I will truly do my best and this is honestly the 3rd day I have ever had to deal with someone I love doing crack, I will get better at handling these situations, I have too. I'll try to detach myself a bit... in a month or so I will look for places and people that provide me more healing.. RIght now, you guys and few close friends are all I have.

i don't know... to run and let her die (if that is her path).. brutal. that is for sure. but this suffering itself seems to be a blessing to me helping me truly realize without any sense of illusion that I am still a hurt individual.. I also know without a certainty that the boundaries of my skin is not where I end.. that in her I exist too. part of me wants to be poisoned by the trauma that it takes to witness this first hand, and not rip off the band aid and exclude her.. why setup a boundary? because I need to heal? it is only in her presence I truly realize I am still wounded. I have no promise of an afterlife or another life.. for herself or me.. i literally found myself on the streets homeless (thanks to jesus' recommendations) trying to heal these broken souls.. I understand I am not good at it, but without experience I'll never be. So I will suffer, I understand. I don't know.. So I will suffer.

What's my purpose? To be purposeless.. To be without desire? But to use that purposeless to shine so brightly in the world so maybe others would realize the simplicity in just being yourself.. and so that I would have more people I could relate too. I feel as if I have a disease, and that disease is my mind, it thinks and thinks and thinks, and today I just can't think anymore, so I'm trying to be satisfied with such a condition as the pain in my prefrontal cortex reminds me that I am fallible.. Ahhh.. Too vent.. To express the expressionless.. That is my goal here.. Let go of goals... my mind tells me... The tao says that a good man should be a bad man's teacher otherwise I will get lost, but what about self expression.. the desire to create as maybe a God would.. does that not fulfill me? or maybe i should say fill me.. with anxiety... Fame.... I wish to use fame as a tool to teach to the masses... in an artistic way.. but the very burden of reaching it is holding too tightly to the destination and forgetting the journey... I wish to shoot an arrow that reaches a target, but I'm torn apart with the idea of being targetless.. Hello to all of you.. forgive me for not being so fond of the small talk and niceties.. instead I give you my core.