The battle of good and evil within.

[trick]

So we all experience it. The little cartoon characters standing on each sholder, battling for power over your actions. Ive always known there were two very diffrent powers at work inside me, but its only untill now that i see the true extremes of each side. My current delima is trying to get back to a point where i even have both sides.

My life was spent mostly in florida for the first however many years. Ive always had abit of devil and abit of hippy in me. A personality trait if you will.
After finding psychedelics, i began to lean more towards the positive and content side of my personality. I viewed it as a trait that defind who i was as a person.
But after getting sucked into the local hood drama and shenanagins, i lost touch with my psychedelic side. Forgot about it. Became just your average local marijuana smoking, spraypaint, and pocket knife yeilding hoodlum. I spent some time locked away. And got out with a new understanding of what i wanted to do with my life. I set some goals.

After moving away from florida, and over to the UK to live with the other(better) half of my family, I started striving towards those goals, and even creating new ones. When i achieved everything that i planned while locked away, i was absolutly shocked at how much you can really acheive if you put your mind to it. I decided to go even bigger.
At this point im at a relitivly nutral point in my life. Fairly content, nice, and polite, but still not someone you want to cross. All in all, i was too involved with acheiving my goals to be concerned with anything that was unrelated. I was egar to get back in touch with my psychedelic side, but not really ready to take back on the old way of thought. I think diffrently at this point. Its hard to change that.
I had a fairly enligheting mushroom trip, and it reminded me of the old me if you will. Showed me alot of new features about myself that had sprung up out of seemingly no where. I wanted to change again, but due to some personal reasons, i lost hope. One thing after another, and i still cant let go of my old life in florida( a shitty life in a high crime, low income area). So against my better judgement, i went back. Hoping to aceive my oringanl goals, but in a diffrent setting.

And thats where it goes down hill.
On the way to the airport, every little sign is telling me not to go. Right down to missing the flight and getting a new one.
From the second i stepped off the plane my life went down hill.
I was on the run from the cops within 2 - maybe 3 hours of getting "home". That was quick. Homeless already?
I had some money wich was to invest towards my goals and also live on at the time, but not having a set place to live, i found myself broke and bouncing around from trap houses, to friends houses, party houses, junkie houses, and everything inbetween. I got deeply involved in business with hard drugs( fast money) and gang members( discounts and protection) trying desperatly to gain back the money i lost. But with my new business, came a new lifestyle. I got addicted to the fast life. Strip clubs, nice stuff i really couldnt afford, drugs, sex, and all the drama that comes along with it all.
Needless to say, as almost everyone elses story around here goes, the plot turns violent. Guns get involved, yada yada yada. Before i know it, im rolling around with goons and guns on a daily basis. And you know what? I fucking liked it.
My business relationships with said gang turned south however, and i ended up back at the bottom, struggling for air. All in all i gained respect in my area, but lost some good friends, and more importantly - the child within me( or so i fear).

I had a past history of opiate addiction at a low point in my original florida life, and i went back to it looking to retreat. Giving up.
The result: I feel this deep darkness when i reflect on how much i enjoyed living a life of evil, and when i think back to living a life of good, following as many buddhist prescepts as i could, holding the door open for the little old lady behind me, sending love and kindness towards anyone and everyone i believed needed it, and other things that the good consider "good". I feel almost nothing. A sadness that its gone at the most.
I fear that ive lost myself. And realizing that is so hard. It makes me just want to continue living the life of an addicted pin kushin as i have been. It seems the only escape.
Ive weend off using methadone, and suboxin(sp?) twice now, and everytime i get close to gaining my life back, something catistrophic sets me back to square one and i give up. Ive came much too far to end up right back where i started, and in all honesty, i feel like this is all that ill be dealing with for the rest of my life.
Ive always had this sence of when i was going to die. I couldnt explain it. but i feel that i just know.
Lately.. that feeling has changed, and i feel like i dont have much time left atall. Months at the most.

If i were to die tomorrow, im not sure how ide feel ive lived my life now. And for anyone who knows me personally, im known as the person that regrets nothing and enjoys everything. So for me to be in that mindset. I feel a major change has taken place indeed.

My question to you guys, has anyone else gone through high and low points in their life, and experienced the same feelings? and what tips, if any, could you give me to help find the inner me again? Even while still stuck in this shithole that we call central florida.
I litterally feel that ive lost touch with myself. and youknow what? i really miss me.
-Trick

ps- I usually rely on spell check pretty heavily. This computer is lacking that. Appologies.

 

[darkwolfunseen]

Age would help to determine some patterns, but honestly, and to keep it simple, conditioning is much stronger then we will ever admit. Free will is not all that free if it's birth is followed by twenty years of poor guidance and environmental hazards.

I've been through some dark times (similar story, but out west), and I can tell you that there's something to be said about your environment playing a strong role in who you are. You left, were cleansed, and thought you were clear. Returning, however, does mean those same synapses fire, those same microscopic muscle memories pop back up, and all those feelings cycle back. All of a sudden, the strong walls of change you've put up are gone, and you're back to the familiar. So what now, what do you do if your psychedelic self sits to closely to the opium flames and you catch your old fire?

Well, I think of it like a rubber band. At a minimum, opposite and equal reaction. It took you five years to create a conditioned environment of failure, drug abuse, and self-perpetuating suicidal tendencies? You can white-wash it away if you move, but it would take at a minimum five years of self-assesment to fully recover. No short-cuts, no magic tricks, no subliminal chants. That's life. However, this does come with an upside:

The road map to recovery (at least what I've seen), falls into two important patterns. The first, if at all possible, and in any way, GET OUT. Go back to the UK, teach English in Japan, go to school somewhere else on the East Coast. Just GET OUT of your environment. The conditioned effects have dragged you down twice, which means this is obviously not a place of recovery. The second pattern, is forgiveness. You must find something to do, and a place to do it, where you can forgive yourself. The reason why fast-lives and easy money are so enticing (beyond the obvious basic ramifications), is because they offer a scape-goat. You don't care about your actions as long as you can avoid thinking about them. Then it takes more money to keep busy, then you need to do more things to make the money, etc. The cycle can't be broken, until you face yourself on a daily basis and forgive yourself of the past. Truly forgiving yourself however, is incredibly difficult to do without finding something you're passionate about. Troubles with gangs, mentor some at-risk teens. Drug abuse, volunteer at a psych ward. No will to live, volunteer at an oncological center. It may sound strange, but volunteering is often times a selfish activity, a neccessary cleansing of the soul that replaces the blood lust that we crave. Nietzsche actually wrote about this, saying that if one is not careful, they will be taken in by the "sickness".

This "sickness" haunts us as humans, a constant reminder through viewing the weak, or the unhealthy, or the evil, that we are also guilty, and may at any moment become all three. The truly developed human works beyond these fears, and accepts his/her purpose as a being (small excerpt below).

Sorry for the long and somewhat convoluted message, but I know where you're coming from. I wish the answer was easy. I wish it was even always possible. But for now, if nothing else, understand that you are not alone. In many ways, so many people are "stuck" in the same body as you, created out of an environment that can only condition your outcome. You can leave the ghetto, but the ghetto often times won't leave you. So do whatever you can to find value in yourself away from that environment, and hold on to it. Hold on, and push, until you work through your frustration of returning to hell, through the anger of repeating your mistakes, through the conditioned walls placed on your soul, and to the place where you forgive yourself for thinking you could just come back and restart. When and if you find this place, be grateful for the experience, be humbled through the process, and do your best to get back on course. I wish you luck.

Nietzsche says this "sickness" arises from nausea at and a pity for humanity. This nausea inspires nihilism, the will to nothingness, which characterizes ascetic ideals. The nihilism of the weakest and the sickest is a great danger to any who are still healthy, as it parades as virtue, claiming that health, power, and happiness are evils that will be punished. The strong should not be ashamed of their strength, and they must be quarantined from the sick if they are to maintain their strength. They should not pity, or try to cure, the "sick" majority.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Know what I'm going to say? Nothing but good luck...

and HOW THE FUCK ARE YA?

Nah I should probably say something.

Been there, done that. I never got in to the hard drugs, never got into the guns. Could have, would have been easy to go down that route (although we don't have it as much down here as you do there). I smoked all the time, I drank all the time, I wanted to do harder drugs, half for the inner me, but half just cause I was around it so much.

I was about your age, (I think, I forget now), when I realized something. I was high at a party, and I looked around, and I didn't see my friends anymore, I didn't see the fun anymore, I didn't see the "hell yeah lets do this again" - everyone and everything was a shell of what they used to be; my childhood buddys. The one's I'd had built forts with, ran around the woods, got in (minor) trouble with, we were kids. Then this happened. Drunken blurs and weeks of smoking blunts and listening to god awful thug rap. What was I doing? Why the fuck was I here?

I guess I learned quickly, but I think I might have lucked out. You moved away to your second family, you got to get away from it all, but you didn't have a hard commitment to stay away - so you came back. It sucked you back in, just like the drugs that it entails. As for me? I went to school - and after that first year, I wanted every once in a while to go back, get fucking high, steal some shit, maybe even grand theft auto. Shit is exhilarating. I wanted to hang off freeways painting signs, getting on the front page of the paper (well shit I still do - but I already discussed that).

Anyways, I couldn't go back. Even if I wanted to. I was forced to live out the rest of my degree, luckily made great friends here - was forced to do that too. Live with a good guy for a year and you can't help but be good buddies.

So here is my advice; take your own advice. You know what is right, you know how to do it - last time didn't quite work. Figure out what was missing, keep that, and leave the rest behind.

 

[trick]

Thanks for your reply. It seems you have a fair understanding of the situation. Im 19 btw. Ive been involved with the lifestyle for a long time now though. We grow up fast around here.
Some new opportunities have opened up since my last post, and i might actually be able to make it out of here in the next few weeks if all goes to plan.
Ill give a real reply tomorrow sometime. Im on a friends computer.

EDIT:
Hey IJC, im doing pretty damn good tonight. Long time no talk. Ill pm you my new email, we should have a catch up.
Thanks for the advice. Im starting to get a pretty good idea of what needs to be done. Going to put it in effect over the next few weeks and hopefully i end up somewhere better because of it. the wishes of luck are appreciated.. fuck knows ill need it lol.
But ya, like i said, ill give a real reply tomorrow. ttfn

 

[ararat]

hey,

I only read the first reply.


trick, I've never been in a situation like yours - the criminal, that is. everybody goes through high and low points in life, for me it was a tumour and my cousin dying of one.
at some point in my life, I wanted to go back to an old me too, and I found it's a hopeless pursuit, because the old self is just that: old. it is an abstract memory you are striving for, is it not? every attempt to be that will result in imitation, which obviously is not the real thing as it may have been or felt like some years ago. it is a memory, it's dead. I find trying to create a new self rather hopeless as well, for it would follow an idea(l), which is dead and static too (and life is anything but static, necessarily this will result in conflict), it is an unlovingness that drives one to pursue to better oneself. this whole self-improvement thing roots in the position that one is unpure and one has to make oneself pure in order to be good, which is devoid of love. this does not mean to stop actively creating ones life, on the contrary, only through creativity can something new come into being.
you do seem to have a voice in yourself that knows what's good for you and what not. it depends though, some voice in myself told me not to do X, but did it nonetheless and didn't really regret it, on the contrary, I love it. similar to your dying thought. I had that some time too, but well, I'm still alive

surely you will learn more from this life than others do, who at your age are merely escaping themselves into some kind of entertainment or work.

what will be paramount for you, I think, will be to leave florida or at least that place in florida where the greater part of the life you were talking about took place and find a place with a good community, but I think darkwolfunseen already wrote about that quite well. what I disagree about, though, is that it will take the same amount of time to "get back to baseline", transformation can only happen in the now, can it not?, and if you look for it in the future you will be stuck in the narrow place that you are trying to escape once again. the future self is an idiot, don't put any trust in it.



edit: if that post has a harsh tone to it please forgive me, it wasn't intended as such. I wish you all the best trick!

 

[trick]

Finallly found a way to starting to make some headway out here.
Just figured ide share, rereading my posts, the situation has changed quite abit since. For the better.

and all it took was a little bit of organization and time to myself.. :roll:

If things keep up the way they have been, i think ill start celebrating living life again ;D
I got a pretty cool tat on my ribs that says 'Live' recently. simple and meaningful. :wink:

It may be hard to make out the whole word because of the angle(orrr your just too old :lol

 

[IJesusChrist]

your just too old

HAHA

 

[Illegalsmile]

thats great u survived inner city youth man. i live in city too and i agree its hard to not be corrupted when u are surrounded by that kind of energy u almost have to use it to survive there.
i find myself hanging out alone alot or with the small groups of friends that practice ways of living id like to be part of. my old friends who still hang with bad people are fun but when i hang with them too long u just begin to think like them with the same priorities. it really is true, what my mom told me about choosing who you associate yourself with. they make a big impact on you and tell u alot about yourself

 

[Apeiron]

What I usually find myself doing is start out having an animal(usually impatient therefore blunt and perhaps rude) reaction set in my mind and a zen-like(peaceful appeasing) reaction sent from the soul. Then I consciously mediate the two to find something in-between to convey my thoughts as efficiently effectively and relatively respectfully as possible. One last evaluation to assess if silence is the best option then I put up or shut up.

 

[IamYou]

Trick,

I recently had to change my phone number and totally block out certain people from my old hood because I know what happens when I run with that crowd. Not blaming them for my problems, but it's the whole mentality of the old neighborhood. Had to learn a few lessons the hard way. Two totalled cars and a trip to prison and it FINALLY woke me up lol. Hang in there!