To be perfectly clear, and up front, what follows for many will seem madness, and that is to be expected. Being raised in a culture that prizes logical order, the structure of binary, of code, and cryptography. The mindscape of symbol, metaphor, trans possessive personal, where you are so vain you do think all the songs are about you. Yet you know for certain, no one knows who you are, nor is there any reason for them to. If you haven't already been baffled by the psychobabble bullshit I have already slung, than feel free to tag along as I lay out a little of the slaying of my own white rabbit.
Hindsight as they say is 20/20 a blatant misrepresentation if there ever was for a truism. Evidence supports the closer to the events the recounting of the event is, the more accurate that recounting is. Hindsight in ones own life is a bit different affair, that odd paradox of observing ones self from multiple perspectives, or camera angles, lending creative license to almost endless reimagining of the events, known to have taken place. As easy as a shift in background, a snappy change of speech, alteration of wardrobe, and voila a story everyone knows, yet no one can say it happened. At least not quite the way it's been written, so when I say all the songs, stories, hymns, condemnations, recriminations, desecrations, are about me. It's not an ego aggrandizement, it's a learned response to being projected on my entire life. To be fair, it's a wonderful game, to be the secret unknown object of all attention, regardless of intent, or purpose, solely due to coming to the acceptance of the interconnectedness of all things as a given. Or at least that sounds good in theory, in practice the experience has been quite different. I am not religious, dogmatic devotion to any belief for me leaves no room for growth, no chance new. It's a place of stagnation, due to entropy, as the saying goes, once you stop growing you start dying. While it offers continuity, it can lead to being trapped in time. As the dwindling numbers of all the throwback anti progress faith make plain, stagnation is demise. I think of it more as, once you close the circle, it's an egg, and eggs, hatch, or get broken, or rot, but they do not stay eggs. Oddly, the trick, and it is a trick, is dissociative, that ability to completely discount personal identity, to the point where you suck in identity from all around. For children at play, it's just imagination, put that is encouraged to be set aside for more practical pursuits. All while this world is driven by the imaginations of a seeming select few who are recognized as such, and encouraged, to bring forth their vision for the sake of everyone, The proverbial, hey kid you wanna be a star? I remember the first time that happened to me, at least sort of, I was to young to approached directly, so it was relayed through my mother. We lived in socal, San Diego area, mom asked me if I would be interested in doing commercials, because someone had approached her, but that the choice was mine. I said no, it sounded alot like work to me, and frankly I was already a slacker, doing what I wanted, not what was expected. By 5th grade, a major turning point for my life, I had played center halfback in state level soccer tournament, plucked out of normal classes, identified as gifted with dyslexia, and add. While being a latch key kid from kindergarten, being raised by single mother. Was there other family, and people around sure, I was not isolated by any means. I was self reliant, I had responsibilities, even when I abused them. I was for the most part put in charge of myself, or took charge of myself, from as early as I can remember. This of course would set up some nasty confrontations with my mother later in life, though those too are all just part of the story. The fictionalized narrative of identity, used to single me out from the herd of humanity.
Till about the age of 16 or so, I on a decent enough track for a classic underachiever, I did well in the subjects that interested me, and got by in the ones that didn't. Often it had less to do with subject matter, and more to do with presentation. I had always been interested in being social, so when I dropped out of school, the jobs I looked for were ones with high levels of social interaction. Mainly retail, quickly in management of course, up to running stores. Often up to nefarious purpose, like working at gfox in the danbury fair mall, getting moved to domestics from the loading dock, a couple of friends and I pretty much ran it, our superior just checking in, and occasionally taking us to count license plates. When we were not given the raise promised, we picked black friday to walk out, they kind of caved, but how could an anchor store in the biggest mall in New England at least at the time, allow itself to be held hostage by 3, 17 or 18 year old kids. Of course they broke us up, not fired, just moved us around. For me it was domestics, I told the HR woman, she might as well fire me, that I would not work in domestics. She ignored me, so I spent next few months sneaking out a back door, and playing video games, or whatever, and sneaking back in. It was just how I rolled, no matter how pleasant or nice or smooth talking, or whatever someone might seem. That does not preclude them screwing you over, especially when they flat out tell you they are going to, that does not take a genius to understand. Once in what for me was the perfect spot of the moment, running a new and used video game store, on the edge of a district far from the home office. I hired folks like me, or that were ok with my style, we had code, like "who wants to take out the trash" and yes we took out the trash, and while doing so we took a few hits off a bowl. When we had to do title by title inventories once a month, I made it an event, a party. The store thrived to where Toy's R US invoked a non-competition clause in it's lease to force a location change, leading to my breaking the relationship with the company. This was not a tough choice at all, for while working there I pretty much stumbled into being a connection for pot, at the time just commercial brick, There was never an intention to do so, I was earning enough so I could plan ahead in my own habits, so they were less of a distraction, no one likes being out of their drug of choice, whatever it might, yoga, prayer, exercise, heroin, all alter body chemistry, changing the physiological state, which alters the perception, and experience, and interaction with the world. This idea can be taken all the way to anything your body is not self producing being in essence a drug, ridiculous in the extreme I know, but who's definitions are these?
We tend to gravitate toward friends that have proclivities at least in some ways like our own, so of course I had stoner friends. I wouldn't even go to job interviews if I wasn't stoned, I wanted to be sure no one would think anything of me being high at work. Did it so well, the only time anyone said anything was when I wasn't stoned, because that was the odd behavior from their perspective, and for me, stoned was the normal. When you have some, people will ask for it, and being friends, and it being pot, of course you share, that kind of sharing grows rapidly. Especially if your good at keeping of the numbers. I was full on fronted, a lb to start, at a stupid high price really, but the prices were already so outrageous, I literally undercut em by half. A quarter dropped from 60 to 30, in short order it was tough to even leave the house, and when I wanted to take a vacation, or even go for a weekend, rewarding someone a friend, or housemate was well worth it. At one point, a full client base was just transferred over to me, as the woman was worried about her child being taken if she was arrested. For me the budding pot empire, in a sleepy corner of southern CT, allowed free time, to play, and explore. Having been recently introduced to lsd, and loving the effects, I quickly poured through altered states of consciousness teachings from channeled sources, to Castenada, to Leary, Dass, and the like, on to Kabbalah, tarot, Crowley. I still have some of what for me the most influential texts, but from an intuitive, as well as logical perspective, and they mesh quite nicely. The crazy out of nowhere nature of quantum, intuition, and the logic for why that is exactly how things do function seem a matter of, duh, and like I'm the only one that hasn't figured it out, as seemingly everywhere I turn, the symbols that help shape, mold me are everywhere telling me things. Things not for me, but for everyone, though few see them as even connected. All the lsd, over the course of about a year and half, lots of days popping a 10 strip to fry in meditation for hours, upon hours. If it made sense to use words to communicate, I felt I did not get far enough from everyday consciousness states, I didn't just want to know, I had to know. I had judged the world, as being unworthy of my presence, without even understanding that was what I was doing. I screamed at whatever was there, because I knew there had to be something, and if there wasn't, than it didn't matter anyway. "IF THIS IS ALL THERE IS TO THIS PLACE THAN I WANT NO PART OF IT". Holy crap, when you do that with neural pathways jammed open due to heavy lsd use, other things notice. When you are sincere in your desire to not be here, death answers, whatever that means for you. All the while, maintaining a committed relationship, being asked to be the father of someone elses child, Playing sitter for the spun out kids that were having bad trips. Providing space for almost anyone that was approached me as a friend, until they showed me otherwise. Than crashing back to earth for on the one side being weary of getting to deep, and the woman I loved at the time insisting if I didn't give up the life we were done. None of this caused me the distress, that the contradictory programming of entertainment, versus practicality, or security if you will. Drugs are bad, but how many stars in every field has altered how they see the world. Education and Institutionalization, merging in my life before my eyes, and me a lover of information, trapped between a need to consume data, while not becoming it. Take it right to my edge, look back at myself, laugh, and allow myself to fall backwards into the abyss. I was taught at 18, there isn't always someone to catch you, or at least not always the person you expected. My love for being in the company of women extended to no care for my personal style. Generally dressing for comfort, and event are good enough for me, I did however understand very well, that if I didn't care about what I wore, that didn't mean others wouldn't. Making friends with a few differing fashion style females not a problem in a mall, getting them to pick out clothing they feel you look good in, also not a problem. Than you just pick a style, put on the costume, and allow that woman's style attract other women that share it. Being adaptable, or having that element of theater in all aspects of life. A life itself becomes a show, being put on by you, for who knows, and at that point you almost have no choice but to choose amusement of self, until your directed otherwise by an authority you recognize, whatever that maybe, there are things that get your body dead faster than it's ability to repair. The limitation is not of body, it is of the individual, and is different for everyone. It could be a mental block, or an emotional imbalance, out of control growth, in the case of cancers, is generally pointing to a out of control growth in another area of life. When you are told your show is now considered illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong. You quit all drugs, go sober for 10 years, have people who see auras tell you your grey, and wait to die. When that is happening, and simultaneously your being told, things like. A detective that investigated a theft from a giant gas station that employed me briefly, "you might be the smartest person I've ever interviewed", or being told by a psychologist who is actively writing text books by request, "you might be the most balanced person I've ever met". Just a few highlights of the complete contradiction between the perception people have of me that know me, and the rejection of the life I've lived that has allowed me to be me. So sure, I have not gone screaming from the rooftops look at me, I don't need the aggravation, because regardless of if it's praise, or condemnation, it's yours not mine. I'm fucked up enough on my own to need any help in labeling me crazy. I have a head full of books, movies, songs, tears, exultations, murder, and mayhem, going across at least 27000 or so years. I only recall a smattering of any portion of it in any given moment, but it comes in a torrent when I allow it to unfold back out in it's own way, and time. So sure, I have spent much of my life around the edges, it was the space I could find that could accommodate me, I break eggs, sometimes they are thrown at the front doors of a church that has just been painted. Other times it's my own limited conception of existence. I've never thought of myself as smart, everyone else keeps telling me I am, no matter how much protest, yet I pride myself on being able to reason, even through the muck and mire of twisted complex emotional yuck. Does that make me smart, or just insane, does it even matter?
I've finally gotten to the point, I'm good with my life being a condemned, While I love being the person I am, fictional character and all. What it took for me, I would not wish on anyone else, and would do what I could to prevent it needing to be as traumatic.
Jack
aka
PanseyBard
Hindsight as they say is 20/20 a blatant misrepresentation if there ever was for a truism. Evidence supports the closer to the events the recounting of the event is, the more accurate that recounting is. Hindsight in ones own life is a bit different affair, that odd paradox of observing ones self from multiple perspectives, or camera angles, lending creative license to almost endless reimagining of the events, known to have taken place. As easy as a shift in background, a snappy change of speech, alteration of wardrobe, and voila a story everyone knows, yet no one can say it happened. At least not quite the way it's been written, so when I say all the songs, stories, hymns, condemnations, recriminations, desecrations, are about me. It's not an ego aggrandizement, it's a learned response to being projected on my entire life. To be fair, it's a wonderful game, to be the secret unknown object of all attention, regardless of intent, or purpose, solely due to coming to the acceptance of the interconnectedness of all things as a given. Or at least that sounds good in theory, in practice the experience has been quite different. I am not religious, dogmatic devotion to any belief for me leaves no room for growth, no chance new. It's a place of stagnation, due to entropy, as the saying goes, once you stop growing you start dying. While it offers continuity, it can lead to being trapped in time. As the dwindling numbers of all the throwback anti progress faith make plain, stagnation is demise. I think of it more as, once you close the circle, it's an egg, and eggs, hatch, or get broken, or rot, but they do not stay eggs. Oddly, the trick, and it is a trick, is dissociative, that ability to completely discount personal identity, to the point where you suck in identity from all around. For children at play, it's just imagination, put that is encouraged to be set aside for more practical pursuits. All while this world is driven by the imaginations of a seeming select few who are recognized as such, and encouraged, to bring forth their vision for the sake of everyone, The proverbial, hey kid you wanna be a star? I remember the first time that happened to me, at least sort of, I was to young to approached directly, so it was relayed through my mother. We lived in socal, San Diego area, mom asked me if I would be interested in doing commercials, because someone had approached her, but that the choice was mine. I said no, it sounded alot like work to me, and frankly I was already a slacker, doing what I wanted, not what was expected. By 5th grade, a major turning point for my life, I had played center halfback in state level soccer tournament, plucked out of normal classes, identified as gifted with dyslexia, and add. While being a latch key kid from kindergarten, being raised by single mother. Was there other family, and people around sure, I was not isolated by any means. I was self reliant, I had responsibilities, even when I abused them. I was for the most part put in charge of myself, or took charge of myself, from as early as I can remember. This of course would set up some nasty confrontations with my mother later in life, though those too are all just part of the story. The fictionalized narrative of identity, used to single me out from the herd of humanity.
Till about the age of 16 or so, I on a decent enough track for a classic underachiever, I did well in the subjects that interested me, and got by in the ones that didn't. Often it had less to do with subject matter, and more to do with presentation. I had always been interested in being social, so when I dropped out of school, the jobs I looked for were ones with high levels of social interaction. Mainly retail, quickly in management of course, up to running stores. Often up to nefarious purpose, like working at gfox in the danbury fair mall, getting moved to domestics from the loading dock, a couple of friends and I pretty much ran it, our superior just checking in, and occasionally taking us to count license plates. When we were not given the raise promised, we picked black friday to walk out, they kind of caved, but how could an anchor store in the biggest mall in New England at least at the time, allow itself to be held hostage by 3, 17 or 18 year old kids. Of course they broke us up, not fired, just moved us around. For me it was domestics, I told the HR woman, she might as well fire me, that I would not work in domestics. She ignored me, so I spent next few months sneaking out a back door, and playing video games, or whatever, and sneaking back in. It was just how I rolled, no matter how pleasant or nice or smooth talking, or whatever someone might seem. That does not preclude them screwing you over, especially when they flat out tell you they are going to, that does not take a genius to understand. Once in what for me was the perfect spot of the moment, running a new and used video game store, on the edge of a district far from the home office. I hired folks like me, or that were ok with my style, we had code, like "who wants to take out the trash" and yes we took out the trash, and while doing so we took a few hits off a bowl. When we had to do title by title inventories once a month, I made it an event, a party. The store thrived to where Toy's R US invoked a non-competition clause in it's lease to force a location change, leading to my breaking the relationship with the company. This was not a tough choice at all, for while working there I pretty much stumbled into being a connection for pot, at the time just commercial brick, There was never an intention to do so, I was earning enough so I could plan ahead in my own habits, so they were less of a distraction, no one likes being out of their drug of choice, whatever it might, yoga, prayer, exercise, heroin, all alter body chemistry, changing the physiological state, which alters the perception, and experience, and interaction with the world. This idea can be taken all the way to anything your body is not self producing being in essence a drug, ridiculous in the extreme I know, but who's definitions are these?
We tend to gravitate toward friends that have proclivities at least in some ways like our own, so of course I had stoner friends. I wouldn't even go to job interviews if I wasn't stoned, I wanted to be sure no one would think anything of me being high at work. Did it so well, the only time anyone said anything was when I wasn't stoned, because that was the odd behavior from their perspective, and for me, stoned was the normal. When you have some, people will ask for it, and being friends, and it being pot, of course you share, that kind of sharing grows rapidly. Especially if your good at keeping of the numbers. I was full on fronted, a lb to start, at a stupid high price really, but the prices were already so outrageous, I literally undercut em by half. A quarter dropped from 60 to 30, in short order it was tough to even leave the house, and when I wanted to take a vacation, or even go for a weekend, rewarding someone a friend, or housemate was well worth it. At one point, a full client base was just transferred over to me, as the woman was worried about her child being taken if she was arrested. For me the budding pot empire, in a sleepy corner of southern CT, allowed free time, to play, and explore. Having been recently introduced to lsd, and loving the effects, I quickly poured through altered states of consciousness teachings from channeled sources, to Castenada, to Leary, Dass, and the like, on to Kabbalah, tarot, Crowley. I still have some of what for me the most influential texts, but from an intuitive, as well as logical perspective, and they mesh quite nicely. The crazy out of nowhere nature of quantum, intuition, and the logic for why that is exactly how things do function seem a matter of, duh, and like I'm the only one that hasn't figured it out, as seemingly everywhere I turn, the symbols that help shape, mold me are everywhere telling me things. Things not for me, but for everyone, though few see them as even connected. All the lsd, over the course of about a year and half, lots of days popping a 10 strip to fry in meditation for hours, upon hours. If it made sense to use words to communicate, I felt I did not get far enough from everyday consciousness states, I didn't just want to know, I had to know. I had judged the world, as being unworthy of my presence, without even understanding that was what I was doing. I screamed at whatever was there, because I knew there had to be something, and if there wasn't, than it didn't matter anyway. "IF THIS IS ALL THERE IS TO THIS PLACE THAN I WANT NO PART OF IT". Holy crap, when you do that with neural pathways jammed open due to heavy lsd use, other things notice. When you are sincere in your desire to not be here, death answers, whatever that means for you. All the while, maintaining a committed relationship, being asked to be the father of someone elses child, Playing sitter for the spun out kids that were having bad trips. Providing space for almost anyone that was approached me as a friend, until they showed me otherwise. Than crashing back to earth for on the one side being weary of getting to deep, and the woman I loved at the time insisting if I didn't give up the life we were done. None of this caused me the distress, that the contradictory programming of entertainment, versus practicality, or security if you will. Drugs are bad, but how many stars in every field has altered how they see the world. Education and Institutionalization, merging in my life before my eyes, and me a lover of information, trapped between a need to consume data, while not becoming it. Take it right to my edge, look back at myself, laugh, and allow myself to fall backwards into the abyss. I was taught at 18, there isn't always someone to catch you, or at least not always the person you expected. My love for being in the company of women extended to no care for my personal style. Generally dressing for comfort, and event are good enough for me, I did however understand very well, that if I didn't care about what I wore, that didn't mean others wouldn't. Making friends with a few differing fashion style females not a problem in a mall, getting them to pick out clothing they feel you look good in, also not a problem. Than you just pick a style, put on the costume, and allow that woman's style attract other women that share it. Being adaptable, or having that element of theater in all aspects of life. A life itself becomes a show, being put on by you, for who knows, and at that point you almost have no choice but to choose amusement of self, until your directed otherwise by an authority you recognize, whatever that maybe, there are things that get your body dead faster than it's ability to repair. The limitation is not of body, it is of the individual, and is different for everyone. It could be a mental block, or an emotional imbalance, out of control growth, in the case of cancers, is generally pointing to a out of control growth in another area of life. When you are told your show is now considered illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong. You quit all drugs, go sober for 10 years, have people who see auras tell you your grey, and wait to die. When that is happening, and simultaneously your being told, things like. A detective that investigated a theft from a giant gas station that employed me briefly, "you might be the smartest person I've ever interviewed", or being told by a psychologist who is actively writing text books by request, "you might be the most balanced person I've ever met". Just a few highlights of the complete contradiction between the perception people have of me that know me, and the rejection of the life I've lived that has allowed me to be me. So sure, I have not gone screaming from the rooftops look at me, I don't need the aggravation, because regardless of if it's praise, or condemnation, it's yours not mine. I'm fucked up enough on my own to need any help in labeling me crazy. I have a head full of books, movies, songs, tears, exultations, murder, and mayhem, going across at least 27000 or so years. I only recall a smattering of any portion of it in any given moment, but it comes in a torrent when I allow it to unfold back out in it's own way, and time. So sure, I have spent much of my life around the edges, it was the space I could find that could accommodate me, I break eggs, sometimes they are thrown at the front doors of a church that has just been painted. Other times it's my own limited conception of existence. I've never thought of myself as smart, everyone else keeps telling me I am, no matter how much protest, yet I pride myself on being able to reason, even through the muck and mire of twisted complex emotional yuck. Does that make me smart, or just insane, does it even matter?
I've finally gotten to the point, I'm good with my life being a condemned, While I love being the person I am, fictional character and all. What it took for me, I would not wish on anyone else, and would do what I could to prevent it needing to be as traumatic.
Jack
aka
PanseyBard
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