(This article stems in large part, from my act of re-associating with life. That’s a hard thing for me, cause I have to face that: 1) I don’t want to be here. 2) My only regret is that I still am. I’ve waited eight and a half years to attempt this, with the help of others, in the interest of my survival. If you find yourself in these circumstances, look and find help. Then use it, when you are ready, or before it is too late.)
On the eve of my 57th birthday, I have come to realize at this point in my life, that I am too old to dream of a future, and too broken to look on the past. My life it seems to me, has been a horrible waste of time. I do not want to be here, and my only regret is that I still am. Still utterly alone in life, death is my bride—something to look forward too. This is where I am. This is all I’ve got.
So why am I still here, why am I even writing this, why do I not die?
For one thing, I do not wish to kill myself. There’s a difference between wanting death, and wanting to kill one’s self. At least there is for me. I am alone, and I don’t want to endure loneliness any more. There isn’t any love in my life, as a simple human being, only existential “love,” the idea of love, not its practice. I am alone, and it is pointlessly awful.
Second, the idea of losing to bad people is far worse then suffering this pointless life. The bad people are those who choose to profit from the exploitation of others. Taking without fair exchange, against the better interests of the exploited. The bad people delight in the misery and death of people like myself, which gets to reason three.
Third, the emotions of vendetta and hate feed my will to live. I have a mission, if not a purpose. That mission is to harm and destroy as best I can, the bad people, or at least the bad in people, the latter being up to them, not me. Their choice. It isn’t love that keeps me alive, or foolish foolish hope, but hate and anger. Vendetta.
Fourth, so long as I am here, there is an unlikely possibility of finding love, then loving life. I don’t mind dying alone, but I do mind living alone, yet that’s what I’ve done, lived alone. Am I alone?
I do not blame anyone else but myself for this predicament. I’m all kinds of fucked up, though I do not want to be. I want what cannot be had. I am someone who does not belong inside the norms of society, and wouldn’t want it any other way. In this, I do claim victory, my fidelity to truth. To all that is real. With no solution of my own, I leave this problem for God to solve. This very share is my part in that solution. Owning the problem, wanting the solution, asking for the way, doing the work.
So? So.
Violence. First, some words about violence. If violence worked, history would have had peace all along. Violence doesn’t work, so it is not a solution, it is not an option. Violence is in fact why we haven’t had peace all along. But violence is not taught; it is hidden by the bad people, so that they can get away with using it. How so? Violence is: deception, manipulation and when those fail, physical altercation. “Society” only teaches physical altercation as violence, but it starts with deception, escalates with manipulation, and falls back to physical violence when deception and manipulation do not work. The defining attribute of violence is getting a yes when reality would suggest no, or a no when reality would suggest yes. Deception, manipulation, physical altercation, each of these are used by bad people to prey on and exploit other people, against their better interests. Destroying the utility of violence—of deception, manipulation and physical altercation, is one of my objectives, and in doing so, peace is fostered.
From my earliest days, I’ve been preyed upon by bad people. Neglect, torture, sexual abuse, ostracization. That was my childhood; this is my life. I made great strides and superficial progress towards overcoming these insights into society, only to find out none of that made any difference to society, and in looking for that, little difference to me. I have always and only ever been alone. I still am. Am I alone?
These insights: neglect, torture, sexual abuse and ostracization, isolate me from the rest of “normal” society. My experiences are outside of their experiences. They do not know these evils. Often do not believe these evils are real or at work in life. Should they suspect them, they look away, too horrified to consider the possibilities of evil. Or worse, as a perpetrator of evil, they are unwilling to recognize and stop their own use of social predation for personal gain. They support social predation and exploitation. They choose to ignore or embrace evil. Whether naive or ignorant, we are not, cannot, be friends. And yes, predation is normal in society.
By the way, my definition of evil is: willful incompetence. That’s a choice, and in so choosing, you become evil.
I’ve always gravitated towards the military, first responders and the intelligence community, because they put themselves in harms way to deal with these evils, and subsequently have contact with it. They choose to fight evil, and in doing so, experience it first hand, much as I have. I respect these people, and were I capable of it, I’d be happy to befriend them. (My inability is to trust. I do not trust anything, ever. Actually, I trust the bad things, not the good things, looking at it just now. Without trust, how can there be friendship?)
Predation is a force of nature, part of reality, necessary to the survival of life. The brutal circumstances of life is that we feed off the lives of other living creatures. Predation on each other though, society’s predation on society, isn’t necessary. This predation is destructive to society—though excused, practiced and perfected by the bad people. By way of violence.
I do not count myself any different from the bad people, except for the choice(s) I made to reject evil, and accept the limits of my own existence. Those limits being my own mortality, and the physiological attributes of being an animal human being. I tried being bad, and it did not work. I thank God I was able to see that. Regardless of material things, none of those things were directly relevant to the circumstances of being here. Of being alive. Materialism is not the meaning of life. Meager are the means needed for life, but none of it provides the meaning of life. Ego not withstanding.
The choice is to serve ego, or be sincere. That’s it.
I am divergent from social norms, from society itself. How so?
I now live a spiritual life, not an ego driven life. It is my experience and understanding that society is driven and ruled by ego. When I was driven and ruled by ego, ego was, and still is, the condemning false God of my earlier life. That made me “normal.” But spiritual living is outside of social norms, and that is my life now, rejecting ego and its emotional dose dealing of delusion.
My ego driven life sucked. Nothing was ever good enough. Everything wrong was my fault. Except that it was also your fault. I expected to fix all things (as told by my ego), and was a failure because those things remained “broken.” Even when I did accomplish things, they were too late, and not good enough. Gratitude is not possible with ego driven objectives. Society’s perennial problem is violence, and ego is the cause.
Spiritual living, which I define as trusting beyond my ability to see and understand, freed me from the constant condemnation of ego. In spiritual living, I lost the need (not the interest) to know. In spiritual living, I recognize that knowledge itself is an emotion, not an experience or understanding. In spiritual living, I’ve lost the need to be anything other than who I happen to already be. In fact, in spiritual living, “Who am I?” isn’t even a question, as it does not make any sense.
I am who I am, and that happens to be exactly who and how God made me. (Not that I know who or what God happens to be, nor do I have too.) Speaking of God, in spiritual living, I lost the need to “know” who or what God happens to be. I do not have to. God is beyond my ability to see and understand—though not beyond my ability to experience! Those who need to define God, do so to “control” God, and claim god powers, at the behest of ego. This is ever so true of atheists, by the way, because atheism is just another “explanation” of God. Atheists are very very very religious. The question of: “Who is God?” is as pointless and nonsensical as: “Who am I?” We are what we are.
No longer serving the insecurities of my ego, my life interests are occupied with productive things. Prestige is a fool thing to me; my objectives are to produce, not impress. And the controlling idea for that is competence, not prestige. Simple competence. Embracing mistakes because I learn from them, my efforts are rewarding regardless the outcome. And with success, refinements follow. This is a sustainable means of living.
Another distinct difference between ego driven work, and competence, is that ego driven work is about prestige, while competence is about serving the needs one’s self and others. Prestige versus service. Prestige itself being (embarrassingly) non-nonsensical; service being productive, wealthy and sustainable.
Under rule of ego, learning is damn near impossible. I’d have to be wrong, and that’s not allowed by my ego. If it didn’t go right, someone else is to blame.
Knowing these things, then why do I neglect my personal, human life? Or do I neglect my personal, human life? I’d really like to know, because I am tired of living alone. I don’t want to do that any more.
So now the question: Am I alone?
With news of veterans and first responders committing suicide, I’m feeling it. I’m sensing they are here, in these very circumstances too. Maybe I’m not alone? Well, I am isolated, but not unique. What if I am just separate, but not alone? What if they share the same wants for America, that seem crushingly impossible. I suffer in isolation, but why? We could unite, and united, stand, protect, overcome. That would be good to know, to find out. Life saving yes, life fulfilling too. A reason to be, a reason to celebrate life—not end it.
And yet, I am alone. For want of finding and connecting with those who would be fellow Americans.
Until now, that hasn’t happened because I’ve never put myself out here, on this. Until now, I choose to live within the reserves of a disassociated life. Until now, I was not ready to accept this part of my story. So ready or not, I just did.
I think another failing on my part, is an inability to love, and in that failing, an inability to be loved. Not the idea of love, but love itself. I want to love, but without trust, what chance is there? For me, so far, none. If you have love in your life, I am glad for you, and ask: “Why you would ever consider suicide when there is love in your life?” My experience and understanding tell me that it is rooted in ego, in a need for prestige. If not that, then perhaps a sense of uselessness? The need for prestige and a sense of worthlessness arise from a lack of spiritual well being. Spiritual life.
For me, the crushing disappointment is an utter lack of love and intimacy in my personal life. Which leaves me only with what I do. And that is no good. Only love will do for love.
So much of what I do, what I care about, seems to have no value beyond my sense of duty to do it. “It” being for instance, this very article. A duty that doesn’t seem to matter, whatsoever, to those for whom I do these things. If only I were noticed, needed, welcomed and accepted, which I am not. I value what I do, what I care about, even if no one seems to. This too, I sense, is an experience shared by the military, first responders and intelligence community. In my case, my participation is political, and in politics, I am unable to stop the slaughter, or bring the killers to “justice.” So my work is a fail. So far. So far, I’ve been alone.
To the bad people, those I live to destroy, I get that you do not like me. I am clearly your enemy, you certainly are mine. My only outreach to you is to query the reconsideration of your bad decisions. To reject evil and embrace simple competence. To seek and adopt a life beyond your ability to see and understand (spiritual), in service to yourself and others. Replacing a pointless, nonsensical pursuit of prestige (you are already fine just the way you are). You don’t need the approval of others; you need the acceptance of yourself. The results of spiritual living are unimaginable should you choose to do this. Leaving a condemning life of service to ego, and entering a spiritual life of simple competence. You have to do this, to experience this, to know the difference. Like falling in love, words do not convey. Trade your ego experiences for spiritual experiences. Until you do, you’ve no idea what you are missing.
I close with this final note of isolation. That I am isolated by my care of things that no one else seems to care about. They really are living in a different world. So even with contact, there’s nothing for me to talk about with them. Even though I try.
I’m not unique, but I am alone, because until now I haven’t been ready to share this part of myself with anyone. In the past, when I’ve shared vulnerable stuff about myself, I discovered that many other people shared the same vulnerable stuff. Perhaps that is the case here, too.
I’ve survived most of my life by disassociating with it. I’m reconnecting, re-associating with life, looking for an ability to love, and subsequently be loved. Loner life is horrible to me. I do not want to live it any more. So until I do eventually die, I work to be together at last, with the one I love. And if finally I am able to make some friends along the way, that’ll be great too.
It has taken eight and a half years, because of what has been there, waiting for me. The honest sentiment of not wanting to live. The regret of still being here. Very dangerous, very old, very powerful. But no longer a secret. Am I alone?
David Weeks, Tampa, Florida.
PS: there is one thing I forgot to mention, so I put it here. I do have love in my life, five of them actually. My rescued cats. (I like dogs too, but do not have a fenced yard.) One of the love things I’ve done, and probably has a lot to do with my survival, are my pet rescues. In my case, cats. I’ve rescued at least thirty feral cats over the years. That sounds like a lot, but it is over the last twenty years. I currently keep five of them, three girls and two boys. All but one of them started life here as kittens. My last rescue, accomplished about a month ago, was the daddy cat of my boy cat Big Foot. That took about two years of patience, and he is now fixed and likes to be petted. My cats are: Big Girl, Little Girl, Tippy, Big Foot, and now Ghost Daddy.
Animals are genuine. They teach me by example, how to live. Honestly, gratefully, lovingly. ——David