I Remain Steady Series
Author’s Note: This is a section from a self-help book I attempted to write two years ago. What I was doing was exploring myself and trying to find answers to questions I was learning how to form.
Before I opened the first philosophy book. Before Socrates taught me the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. I did have a sort of philosophy that I lived by. It was not a good philosophy and it was not necessarily a good life. My philosophy was me.
There was no honest frame. I didn’t possess a perspective of who I was in the sense that I am a small part of the larger whole. The entirety of existence was contained inside my skull and located directly behind my eyes. To write out my thoughts and ideology at that point would go something like this.
Rules apply to other people and do not pertain to me. I am an exception. At best they are general guidance. I am the specific case they don’t account for. Nature doesn’t care; your god doesn’t care; we are all individuals fighting for what’s ours. Optimizing for the fight. My needs first. My wants first. Make sure and this is important that you are angry that you judge everyone and put yourself above them where you belong. When things don’t go according to your plan make sure you find out who or what is at fault. Do not waste time looking inward in this search. No need to worry about accountability when the fault surely lies elsewhere.
The period of time in which I could have freely admitted that does not exist. Like being stuck inside a room you don’t know you’re in. You don’t know it’s a room. You don’t talk about the room not because you don’t want to. You have no idea how to see it. It never occurred to you that it could exist. I couldn’t narrate the context I was unaware of. I was in it. Not talking about it. Certainly not thinking about it.
I see someone who didn’t know he was protecting himself much less what from. I see someone at war with himself because he thought there was nothing there worth protecting while knowing he was capable of more. I see fear. I see a man drinking to feel safe.
Looking back on that version of me is painful. But I have the comfort of hindsight. I’m in the house overlooking my pond wife and kid asleep on the couch. I’ve been sober. Life isn’t overwhelmingly peaceful and I won’t frame it as perfect and easy. What I have now is a much better set of problems than I used to. That twinge of “I can’t believe I used to live like that” followed by the grateful relief of “I don’t have to live that way anymore.” That twinge is nothing compared to the actual pain that came with being that person. What the philosophy cost me.
Every bit of forward progress was uphill. There was no peace. No calm. No serenity. No intelligent planning or strategy. No systems. The alcohol wouldn’t let me think straight to begin with. My mind ran on willpower and ego. Always keeping score. Always managing an angle. Always managing a handful of lies that were confusing to keep track of. I was always tired.
The thing about an operating system like that is that there’s no single point of failure for a long time. The weight accumulates slowly. It has to because the ego won’t take the accountability. One grain of sand on a scale. One at a time.
Buying booze instead of paying the bill.
Saying the hurtful thing to someone trying to help.
Getting behind the wheel after drinking all day.
The Chair Place roof was shot. They hosted bluegrass every Thursday night for the community. It was leaking and wasn’t making it through another winter season. Some local businesses donated materials some local crews volunteered manpower. I stood up and said I’d see it through. I’d be there.
It was a weekend tear off furring strips plywood weather proof and roll. One side on Saturday one side on Sunday. I rolled in on Saturday and was up and down the ladder full of energy and glad to help. We knocked out half the roof in six or seven hours packed everything up. I went to a show that night and got absolutely trashed.
I didn’t go back.
My phone rang and I ignored it while I lay in bed hungover thinking it’s fine. It was volunteering. It wasn’t a big deal if I didn’t do something for free on my weekend. I told them I was going to a show. They can figure it out.
The next time I saw one of the contractors he said “You ghosted us man. We could have really used the help.” I opened my mouth and lies fell out. I’d be lying now if I told you I could recall the excuse. What I vividly remember is the look on his face eyes widening eyebrows going up head tipping back and the sound of him saying “uh-huh” as he turned and walked away from me.
I knew it was wrong. I knew I was wrong when I was standing in front of him. I knew I was wrong when he was walking away.
I thought I was a good person who sometimes did wrong things. I couldn’t fathom anything else.
I thought the weight was the wrongs piling up. It felt like that from time to time and I’d cut the thought out. Turn it off like a light switch. I didn’t examine them. I blamed other people for them. But the weight kept stacking a grain at a time until it was crushing. Pinned in. Eventually it was so heavy I couldn’t breathe and it felt like an explosion was coming.
It wasn’t a pile of wrongs; it was evidence of who I actually was. The weight was the truth.
I got so good at not seeing it. Looking around it. Over it. The lying to myself. The accountability dodging. Becoming so proficient at not seeing it that by the time I was in crisis I had no idea how things had gotten so bad.
That’s the bottom. So far down that there is nowhere else to go. There was no noble awakening for me. No bright light moment of clarity. I was beaten into submission and surrendered in exhaustion. No matter how much alcohol I used as a tool in the fleeing I got caught by the reality of who I was. The old philosophy wasn’t serving me anymore.
Plain truth. Rough edges.
Closing Question
What’s one “room” you lived inside for years without knowing it was a room?
Discover more from Plain Truth, Rough Edges
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