What brought me to these very forums (the irony of this will no doubt present itself later) was a thorough understanding of and a decent access to the Philadelphian drug culture and the thrills it inextricably entails.
Mirages are false but, in those recurring moments of humanity when extenuating circumstances force one onto the fulcrum balancing sanity and madness, one is particularly apt to welcome illusions with open arms. If the images are soothing, that is.
This is precisely what Bluelight was to me, then, from the beginning: a venue to explore and solidify my role in that which I mistook to be a culture of mirages. My subsequent struggle with drug abuse and addiction left me with steadfast illusions - many of which I still cherish, despite the taint that addiction forever imposes upon them. But mirages, illusions, chateaus of happiness built on wet sand, were never enough to sustain me. My hungers for excitement and for novelty were never satiated. I was... and am... both intelligent and insufferably bored.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A number of rather drastic changes to life's comforting paradigm have arisen within the past year of my life. Not in the least, I have eased myself into the most exquisite and enduring romantic relationship of my life. We live together, breathe together, love together. In every way we allow ourselves to be bonded to one another. This fascinatingly new level of commitment, long as it may have taken to manifest itself, has forever changed my life. Former illusions have been stripped down and decidedly replaced with realism. I have never been one to welcome change less it come slowly, and meeting the demands of a dually enthralling and domestic relationship has me reevaluating my future. What my life means, especially to me, has undergone a rapid metamorphosis that only Kafka himself could contrive.
Which means that I have subjected myself forcibly to accepting these changes.
And so that which brings me back to Bluelight today has little to do with the willful acceptance of mirages, whose intrusions on my current life I repel as umbrellas do raindrops from black clouds. I finally feel a burning desire to be exempt from all of life's falsities. Drugs do not keep me coming back here; the community does. And I have begun to accept that I am in urgent need of its help. Aside from my lover, and those friends whose presence in my life has reliably diminished over the past decade, I feel interminably alone. With my thoughts, my second-guessings. Loneliness is the beetle that bores through the Tree of Life's trunk, ultimately killing it.
Thus, I am forced to ask myself several questions: Do I feel my resolve is 'dying'? Can I, with my newfound obligations, afford to let it 'die'? After spending many months contemplating such questions, my only conclusion is that to avoid a spiritual death I must violently grasp the reigns of my life and determine, without hesitation, just who it is that I am without the endeavor becoming a tragic solipsism.
My persistence has been met with lukewarm satisfaction - if any to speak of. At times I feel like the mythological figure Tantalus. I reach for my food and it moves farther from me. I reach for a drink of water and the water itself recedes into dry, brittle earth.
I worry that the struggle is tearing me apart. And I am absolutely terrified that I am alone in my plight.
~ vaya
Mirages are false but, in those recurring moments of humanity when extenuating circumstances force one onto the fulcrum balancing sanity and madness, one is particularly apt to welcome illusions with open arms. If the images are soothing, that is.
This is precisely what Bluelight was to me, then, from the beginning: a venue to explore and solidify my role in that which I mistook to be a culture of mirages. My subsequent struggle with drug abuse and addiction left me with steadfast illusions - many of which I still cherish, despite the taint that addiction forever imposes upon them. But mirages, illusions, chateaus of happiness built on wet sand, were never enough to sustain me. My hungers for excitement and for novelty were never satiated. I was... and am... both intelligent and insufferably bored.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A number of rather drastic changes to life's comforting paradigm have arisen within the past year of my life. Not in the least, I have eased myself into the most exquisite and enduring romantic relationship of my life. We live together, breathe together, love together. In every way we allow ourselves to be bonded to one another. This fascinatingly new level of commitment, long as it may have taken to manifest itself, has forever changed my life. Former illusions have been stripped down and decidedly replaced with realism. I have never been one to welcome change less it come slowly, and meeting the demands of a dually enthralling and domestic relationship has me reevaluating my future. What my life means, especially to me, has undergone a rapid metamorphosis that only Kafka himself could contrive.
Which means that I have subjected myself forcibly to accepting these changes.
And so that which brings me back to Bluelight today has little to do with the willful acceptance of mirages, whose intrusions on my current life I repel as umbrellas do raindrops from black clouds. I finally feel a burning desire to be exempt from all of life's falsities. Drugs do not keep me coming back here; the community does. And I have begun to accept that I am in urgent need of its help. Aside from my lover, and those friends whose presence in my life has reliably diminished over the past decade, I feel interminably alone. With my thoughts, my second-guessings. Loneliness is the beetle that bores through the Tree of Life's trunk, ultimately killing it.
Thus, I am forced to ask myself several questions: Do I feel my resolve is 'dying'? Can I, with my newfound obligations, afford to let it 'die'? After spending many months contemplating such questions, my only conclusion is that to avoid a spiritual death I must violently grasp the reigns of my life and determine, without hesitation, just who it is that I am without the endeavor becoming a tragic solipsism.
My persistence has been met with lukewarm satisfaction - if any to speak of. At times I feel like the mythological figure Tantalus. I reach for my food and it moves farther from me. I reach for a drink of water and the water itself recedes into dry, brittle earth.
I worry that the struggle is tearing me apart. And I am absolutely terrified that I am alone in my plight.
~ vaya
