so, let's say that you've been an avid pothead since 9th grade, having smoked yourself retarded for 8 years ... in that time, you made many friends ... the thing is, they ALL smoke pot ...
they appear to be true friends and pack you bowls and invite you over to hang out and so on, everybody laughs together and enjoys each other's company, so you consider yourself to have a pretty solid friend-base ... everything seems pretty great, and you become comfortable and complacent with the lack of change in the pot-smoking environment ...
... but as you grow older and hit your eighth year of smoking, you realize how you no longer feel like you did when you were younger ... pot no longer makes you giddy and playful, creative and focused, interested and aware ... it makes you self-conscious and lethargic ... you become paranoid of stupid little things that don't bother you when you aren't stoned, and you find that you really DO feel better being sober ... you eat too much crap belligerently at night from being too stoned and regret it EVERY morning after ... basically, it starts actually tearing your life apart ... so slowly that it seems innocuous, but enough to really cause problems where there shouldn't be normally ...
basically, you grow up and realize that it's BORING to sit and do nothing all day when there's a whole world of fun and excitement out your door. you aren't really swearing off weed, but you've found that it's become so boring and hindering to your happiness that you really want to take a long break to get your life back on track. because life itself IS fun, after all. when you're an adult, though, you actually have to MAKE it fun, which requires work or effort ... whereas when you were younger, everything was new and novel and excitement came right to your front door all the time.
so you decide that you are REALLY going to stop smoking pot, for at least a while. subtle excitement ensues. you think about how much new energy you'll have to do new things, how much more spontaneous your way of living will be, how much clearer of a mind you'll have and consequently that much more focus and ability to retain memory ... how you'll save that much more money every week and be able to actually use it on other things, or *gasp* save it for the future ... you sign up for classes at college and you realize how you'll ACTUALLY be able to utilize them this time toward your advantage with all the benefits of being sober in your head.
so on Sunday night, you take your last bongloads with a friend, and declare the next day Day 1 of the quit.
the next day begins the first day of changing the negative cycle of bongloads in the morning and bongloads in the evening and bongloads at supper time. that day yields quite a bit of excitement, as all the things you had thought about becoming so much better really DO. even in less than 24 hours. so you do a lot more than usual and start finding new excitement in possibilities you never considered while stoned. it just seems to get better and better.
the next day, you've already done 24 full hours and more hours start rolling by. you have even more energy and focus and ability than the last day, and know you have this progressive "better-ness" to look forward to for a while. you feel extremely confident, un-paranoid, able, and willing. a lot of things you hadn't felt in a long time. it's a truly comforting and loving feeling to realize that life can be turned around and changed for the better, even when it gets so low. Having also quit cigarettes a few weeks ago, you truly feel that you will be able to achieve ANYTHING in the world if you put your mind to it.
... but at the same time, you start noticing many things which weren't so apparent in the complacent marijuana haze ... things which make you feel suddenly a little less sure of yourself, and which really give you this "lost" sort of feeling, as if you are completely free to the world all of a sudden because of the newfound freedom in your mind, free to do anything you please at any moment and be fully aware and THERE ... but also completely lost, as freedom means making your own decisions, avoiding cycles and avoiding needing others to tell you what to do and how to do it ... so suddenly the infinite possibility of everything takes you out of the usual comfort-zone that pot has kept you prisoner in for so many years, and you have a lot more decisions to make for yourself and a lot more questions and uncertainty than positivity and confidence ... you feel like you can see your future really getting brighter, but you're just very nervous about it. it's ALL brand-new, as if you were born all over again. things which weren't even that interesting while stoned on weed suddenly really become exciting. but also scary, because again, of the infinite possibility of everything and the lack of the comfortable stoned-and-do-nothing-at-all cycle you've been in for literally years ...
but it's not only kind of scary to some extent to get out into the big world and do new things, but it's kind of like getting out of elementary school and graduating to middle school, or middle to high school ... you are at a completely new school. suddenly you have all-new, harder subjects to learn, you're given more responsibility for your new maturity/age-level, and you find you suddenly have no friends around, because it's ALL new.
basically, this is where I am right now. I really wouldn't trade it for the opposite, which is to fall back to smoking and just being "okay" with the lameness of how my life has been for so long ... but at the same time, it's really tough because I really feel on my own, and alone. I don't feel like I REALLY fit in with my friends so well anymore, because while many of them are decently respectable people, sometimes funny and sometimes fun ... they just smoke too much, and remind me of what I'm trying to get AWAY from right now. and because they sense the vibe that I'm not really about it anymore and I really want to finally act my age and grow up in ways I never have, experience NEW things, they don't call me. but could I expect them to? or would I even really want them to? why would I want to sit in an opium den and hang out with opium addicts if I'm a newly recovering opium addict? that's how I feel about hanging out with them much further. it will only make me feel like smoking pot like I used to again, and I'll find that even if I DON'T smoke with them, I have little to nothing to talk about or relate with them. literally, there's no connection anymore and I find myself sitting around and making random, irrelevant comments just to kill the silence in the pot-room. my new-found understandings and honest feelings have alienated me once again from some aspects of the world, as happened before when I took my first psychedelic trip in 9th grade. I feel more understood, more hopeful and happy to some degree, but again, more alone, as forging your own path is just that -- forging YOUR OWN path. nobody else will do it for you.
I really feel there are a lot of cool, fun and helpful people here, and generally at least a few interesting things to read up on ... and I've had years of good and bad and crazy memories here to reflect upon, but it's yet another addiction/cycle that no longer seems to serve it's purpose. truth be told, I no longer feel like I'm beneficial around here anymore. I feel I have insightful things to say here and there, and that it could really benefit somebody maybe ... mainly regarding addictions and specific drugs like opiates ...
but I feel like I'm really just saying the same shit over and over. I don't feel so interesting and witty anymore as I did when I was younger (that IS partly because of the pot) but it's also because I'm really NOT happy being bored and sitting around and watching the big world turn and things happen without me being a part of it. I used to be more fun and less serious because I was taken care of in a way I no longer am ... I was in high school, everything I needed to do was set out for me by teachers or my parents, I had very minimal responsibilities, I had a girlfriend I loved and truly would have died for, all I had to do or wanted to do was draw all day ... I was naive and ignorant in a way only a teenager can.
Being that young and carefree allows humor and fun to flow ALL the time, no worries ... basically I felt like I was fun and beneficial to people because I was seriously SO content with my life. I could help others because I really was able to help myself, and I could have fun with others because I didn't have to worry about anything else really.
I related this a little earlier, but I now feel like I was reborn once again. First time was at 0, second time was at 14 with tripping the first time, third time was when I got Crohn's disease at 16, and now again at 22 I feel it's happened again. the winds are changing, and despite all the excitement and possibility that awaits I feel really lonely and uncared for. without a serious girlfriend who I care for like I cared for LeViTY way back when, I truly feel barren. I feel like I have infinite love and knowledge to share and nobody to share it with. I feel that with my new understandings and the actual will-power to see them all through, I will become the man that I have been looking to be for so long. But a man who walks alone, for whatever reason.
While I had nothing to ask of anybody nor any REAL point to this thread, this is something of not so much a "fare thee well" as just a live, free-thought journal entry, a journal entry that others who I know or may know me may read, and if not, just something I can write so I can see my thoughts on the screen, written bare for me to come to terms with. Today is one of those lonely days I so descriptively touched on, and the second day I've heard from not one friend. Not one. And I KNOW they're all calling each other. It's tough, but I know I'll make it. I feel that I really won't be much fun or of much help to anybody at all until I figure out who I am all over again and see it through to the end. It's a very discomforting thought, but I truly think it's the truth. I guess it really is my destiny to walk alone. I just wish I knew why.
they appear to be true friends and pack you bowls and invite you over to hang out and so on, everybody laughs together and enjoys each other's company, so you consider yourself to have a pretty solid friend-base ... everything seems pretty great, and you become comfortable and complacent with the lack of change in the pot-smoking environment ...
... but as you grow older and hit your eighth year of smoking, you realize how you no longer feel like you did when you were younger ... pot no longer makes you giddy and playful, creative and focused, interested and aware ... it makes you self-conscious and lethargic ... you become paranoid of stupid little things that don't bother you when you aren't stoned, and you find that you really DO feel better being sober ... you eat too much crap belligerently at night from being too stoned and regret it EVERY morning after ... basically, it starts actually tearing your life apart ... so slowly that it seems innocuous, but enough to really cause problems where there shouldn't be normally ...
basically, you grow up and realize that it's BORING to sit and do nothing all day when there's a whole world of fun and excitement out your door. you aren't really swearing off weed, but you've found that it's become so boring and hindering to your happiness that you really want to take a long break to get your life back on track. because life itself IS fun, after all. when you're an adult, though, you actually have to MAKE it fun, which requires work or effort ... whereas when you were younger, everything was new and novel and excitement came right to your front door all the time.
so you decide that you are REALLY going to stop smoking pot, for at least a while. subtle excitement ensues. you think about how much new energy you'll have to do new things, how much more spontaneous your way of living will be, how much clearer of a mind you'll have and consequently that much more focus and ability to retain memory ... how you'll save that much more money every week and be able to actually use it on other things, or *gasp* save it for the future ... you sign up for classes at college and you realize how you'll ACTUALLY be able to utilize them this time toward your advantage with all the benefits of being sober in your head.
so on Sunday night, you take your last bongloads with a friend, and declare the next day Day 1 of the quit.
the next day begins the first day of changing the negative cycle of bongloads in the morning and bongloads in the evening and bongloads at supper time. that day yields quite a bit of excitement, as all the things you had thought about becoming so much better really DO. even in less than 24 hours. so you do a lot more than usual and start finding new excitement in possibilities you never considered while stoned. it just seems to get better and better.
the next day, you've already done 24 full hours and more hours start rolling by. you have even more energy and focus and ability than the last day, and know you have this progressive "better-ness" to look forward to for a while. you feel extremely confident, un-paranoid, able, and willing. a lot of things you hadn't felt in a long time. it's a truly comforting and loving feeling to realize that life can be turned around and changed for the better, even when it gets so low. Having also quit cigarettes a few weeks ago, you truly feel that you will be able to achieve ANYTHING in the world if you put your mind to it.
... but at the same time, you start noticing many things which weren't so apparent in the complacent marijuana haze ... things which make you feel suddenly a little less sure of yourself, and which really give you this "lost" sort of feeling, as if you are completely free to the world all of a sudden because of the newfound freedom in your mind, free to do anything you please at any moment and be fully aware and THERE ... but also completely lost, as freedom means making your own decisions, avoiding cycles and avoiding needing others to tell you what to do and how to do it ... so suddenly the infinite possibility of everything takes you out of the usual comfort-zone that pot has kept you prisoner in for so many years, and you have a lot more decisions to make for yourself and a lot more questions and uncertainty than positivity and confidence ... you feel like you can see your future really getting brighter, but you're just very nervous about it. it's ALL brand-new, as if you were born all over again. things which weren't even that interesting while stoned on weed suddenly really become exciting. but also scary, because again, of the infinite possibility of everything and the lack of the comfortable stoned-and-do-nothing-at-all cycle you've been in for literally years ...
but it's not only kind of scary to some extent to get out into the big world and do new things, but it's kind of like getting out of elementary school and graduating to middle school, or middle to high school ... you are at a completely new school. suddenly you have all-new, harder subjects to learn, you're given more responsibility for your new maturity/age-level, and you find you suddenly have no friends around, because it's ALL new.
basically, this is where I am right now. I really wouldn't trade it for the opposite, which is to fall back to smoking and just being "okay" with the lameness of how my life has been for so long ... but at the same time, it's really tough because I really feel on my own, and alone. I don't feel like I REALLY fit in with my friends so well anymore, because while many of them are decently respectable people, sometimes funny and sometimes fun ... they just smoke too much, and remind me of what I'm trying to get AWAY from right now. and because they sense the vibe that I'm not really about it anymore and I really want to finally act my age and grow up in ways I never have, experience NEW things, they don't call me. but could I expect them to? or would I even really want them to? why would I want to sit in an opium den and hang out with opium addicts if I'm a newly recovering opium addict? that's how I feel about hanging out with them much further. it will only make me feel like smoking pot like I used to again, and I'll find that even if I DON'T smoke with them, I have little to nothing to talk about or relate with them. literally, there's no connection anymore and I find myself sitting around and making random, irrelevant comments just to kill the silence in the pot-room. my new-found understandings and honest feelings have alienated me once again from some aspects of the world, as happened before when I took my first psychedelic trip in 9th grade. I feel more understood, more hopeful and happy to some degree, but again, more alone, as forging your own path is just that -- forging YOUR OWN path. nobody else will do it for you.
I really feel there are a lot of cool, fun and helpful people here, and generally at least a few interesting things to read up on ... and I've had years of good and bad and crazy memories here to reflect upon, but it's yet another addiction/cycle that no longer seems to serve it's purpose. truth be told, I no longer feel like I'm beneficial around here anymore. I feel I have insightful things to say here and there, and that it could really benefit somebody maybe ... mainly regarding addictions and specific drugs like opiates ...
but I feel like I'm really just saying the same shit over and over. I don't feel so interesting and witty anymore as I did when I was younger (that IS partly because of the pot) but it's also because I'm really NOT happy being bored and sitting around and watching the big world turn and things happen without me being a part of it. I used to be more fun and less serious because I was taken care of in a way I no longer am ... I was in high school, everything I needed to do was set out for me by teachers or my parents, I had very minimal responsibilities, I had a girlfriend I loved and truly would have died for, all I had to do or wanted to do was draw all day ... I was naive and ignorant in a way only a teenager can.
Being that young and carefree allows humor and fun to flow ALL the time, no worries ... basically I felt like I was fun and beneficial to people because I was seriously SO content with my life. I could help others because I really was able to help myself, and I could have fun with others because I didn't have to worry about anything else really.
I related this a little earlier, but I now feel like I was reborn once again. First time was at 0, second time was at 14 with tripping the first time, third time was when I got Crohn's disease at 16, and now again at 22 I feel it's happened again. the winds are changing, and despite all the excitement and possibility that awaits I feel really lonely and uncared for. without a serious girlfriend who I care for like I cared for LeViTY way back when, I truly feel barren. I feel like I have infinite love and knowledge to share and nobody to share it with. I feel that with my new understandings and the actual will-power to see them all through, I will become the man that I have been looking to be for so long. But a man who walks alone, for whatever reason.
While I had nothing to ask of anybody nor any REAL point to this thread, this is something of not so much a "fare thee well" as just a live, free-thought journal entry, a journal entry that others who I know or may know me may read, and if not, just something I can write so I can see my thoughts on the screen, written bare for me to come to terms with. Today is one of those lonely days I so descriptively touched on, and the second day I've heard from not one friend. Not one. And I KNOW they're all calling each other. It's tough, but I know I'll make it. I feel that I really won't be much fun or of much help to anybody at all until I figure out who I am all over again and see it through to the end. It's a very discomforting thought, but I truly think it's the truth. I guess it really is my destiny to walk alone. I just wish I knew why.
) the best way to stick it to the man (which makes us feel so good inside) is to actually not smoke pot.
