Straight Edge Life

I got an email from a good friend just the other day saying she feel like the world is wooshing by in slow motion. I wish I could say the same. I’m sitting here in the dark of my apartment, surrounded by couch cushions and an abnormally large number of normal pillows just praying it will all slow down. This week has been rough. The server upgrades and migration to the new facility kicked my butt.

So get this… Some of my friends are on anti-depressants. Others are on anti-anxiety medications and heavier anti-psychotics. Some take the self-medication route and smoke pot. Each one I have known since before they started their respective “treatments”. Good people in their own rights. Folks I don’t just want in my life, but whom I want close to me. I respect them all for recognizing something was wrong and doing what it takes to eliminate the problem. That’s hard enough on it’s own. It takes humility, strength, and courage.

I don’t really agree with the pot smoking thing. But then I think about what the difference really is between three or four substances that are all used for the same thing. I think there is a fundamental difference between escape and treatment. And I’ll be honest, treatment, in whatever form I’ve witnessed is treatment. Yeah, my friends are different from who they used to be… From chaotic, reckless, downward-spiraling messes they have resurrected themselves. While perhaps desensitized, they’re more stable, more in control, more settled, more at peace. Less dangerous. No less passionate, no less themselves.

I want to see my friends healthy. I want that far more than I want to see my beliefs adapted by those in my life. I value them for who they are. I love them for everything they teach me. Most of which I couldn’t, or wouldn’t learn on my own. I’d say them by name but I don’t want to disrespect their privacy. You know who you are. I love you. Don’t change a thing and don’t ever think I would judge you for taking care of yourself.

The truth is that I often wish for a magic bullet. For something that could slow my life down and drop the stress level by 50 or 60 points. But I know all too well that my troubles and stresses are self-inflicted. It’s amazing how easy it is to say that out loud and how astonishingly difficult it is to actually do something about it. To realize with perfect clarity the traps and limitations I set for myself mentally; and then simply lack the courage to change it. I justify working too hard with some sort of messed up pragmatic logic. It’s no wonder so many people in my position have heart attacks. They don’t feed their heart by doing the things they love. They feed their wallets, or their sense of puritan responsibility with inhuman amounts of work. It’s a known quantity. It’s encouraged in our society, blah, blah, blah… But I know… and I bet every guy who’s felt that evil pain in his chest knows… work isn’t anything but work. Health is the only thing worth pursuing. Health in all of it’s forms. Passion, love, adventure, pleasure. Pleasure and Adventure. I should capitalize those words from now on.