Drew in Zombieland

Anger is roiling inside my head and it’s all a fault to steer sociopath’s eyes all over me; judgmental eyes - these robot eyes in particular are bent on straightening me up because my natural tendency is to slack and let it bend and bleed to a silly putty-chunk of flesh - myriad structural pink.

Yay, helpful robotic piston driven brace of all that’s holy isn’t about to let me lead my life. Oil driven and pummeled with looks of little-man, dummy and pork chop. These eyes are all over me when I go somewhere outside and I appreciate that, keeping me in line.

One’s trying to tell me what to do and the other just keeps me from myself. I resist as I ought to, a slave to the contrary.

I’m sore. These eyes are all over me and my helpful robotic piston self.

I need to explain myself and what is going on with me and in doing so I beg of you to just hear my words and understand it isn’t anything you did. It’s all my doing and all my stuff.

It has been really special for me to get to know you again (for the first time) and with that I am seeing how cool you are and good and sweet. It has also made me realize how much of our past issues was sprung from my childhood issues. So much of the pain I cause our friendship and our love was due to my applying of things my mom did to me to the people in my life - I am realizing with your wonderful help, how I inject her into my current life.

I see now how I attributed things she did to things you did, unfairly. Recently those things sprung up with a friend who is like a family member, a sister, so as we got closer my drama would start and get on her as well. So I finally could see what part was really me.

1. One of those issues leftover from my mom is feeling used. When I was young, I was my mom’s surrogate husband, hanging out, being best friends, always together but then she would fling me aside for weeks at a time when she made up with my dad or got a new friend and basically it felt like I was being used - really the truth was was that i had no business being her friend and really should have been out playing. But putting me in this position she was putting a child into the shoes of an adult - but I couldn’t deal with it.

Fast forward to adulthood and our relationship, and I misguidedly assume that everyone is trying to use me instead of just realizing that people do ask for favors (especially me). So thus, as I have gotten better, I am very careful not to let my childhood imagination go wild. When people ask me to get them some stuff, I always have to reassure myself that this isn’t my mom using me, this isn’t my mom using me and that I LOVE to go get for people I care about. So there is no problem.

And you are my friend so, I know you aren’t using me. But the struggle continues and I will have Victory over this ‘unilateral contract’ - remember that?

I know now, in my heart that it isn’t you, it’s me!! And that makes it go away.

2. Secondly comes the double whammy. My other worse thing I still carry around from childhood is my awful fears of being left behind. Mom used to always do that to me. leave me behind - see I was, in my mind, an adult and how dare she go out at night to a bar without me (I know it sounds so ridiculous, cuz I was fucking 8!)

But this is what I am finally facing. My poor friend sometimes dares to NOT go to lunch with me cause a friend will ask her to go and she gets a grumpy me for her troubles

She has helped me learn that these are not things that are really happening, just an 8 year olds perspective.

YESTERDAY: But then all in one feel swoop I get a call from you asking for me to get some stuff so you take on a birthday camping trip I’m not going to. Needless to say, I hit the wall hard. this is what I do to all my friends - I even do it to Doug and he has learned to question me and make me think.

So I got upset and felt like I was being left behind. Silly huh?

So I say this to just reassure you that if I do get grumpy it isn’t you, it’s old habits that die hard - BUT DIE THEY WILL

I will be victorious over this ancient drama and I will strengthen my resolve to value and cultivate a wonderful friendship with you - a person that I am really coming to realize is a wonderful special friend.

So to summarize: I have these old things that I let surface and sometimes they hurt my buddies and I don’t want them to be hurt. I soooo appreciate all you have helped me with and love you very much.

Please understand you did nothing wrong and that I am sooo fucking happy that I can see this stuff happening and that with your beautiful friendship i can overcome!!!!

This is the closet that recedes forever.

And the shoes, oh the shoes that she couldn’t have worn more than once, still smelling ripe with leather and better yet cork and wood and straps with buckles – boxes and bags and cartons of stilts – not a flat among them, not a flip-flop or sandal. This is a real woman’s shoe collection, the heart of a class-affliction and home for close to a king’s ransom or the man’s life of devotion.

You can lay your head gently on them, the arch of the sole a pillow of leather, the fumes so lovely, rising from shoes and the scotch-guard shag, the kind that leaves rug burns to end all stains and don’t lean back too long, don’t stay so naked and don’t you ever let me catch you…

But the real prize lays ahead, the mother-of-all porn boxes full of the seventies, in all their grandeur. Everyone is hairy and everyone is fat and the positions these people take and the piles of flesh and holes and juicy, high-key lighting that makes everyone seem flat and old and cold and flimsy is more than can be handled.

So, base camp is established at the foot of the shoe tree, this Narnia-like orifice is too vast and full of wonder for this naked traveler.

(thank you to http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeonflower/3438894460/sizes/l)

Crossover: http://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/8ct0u/reddit_writes_1_15minute_ekphrastic_freewrite_no/c08xe0b

I’m stuck and that’s why you’ve seen nothing. I admit this to bring the closet writer-struggling BS out in to the open. My relationship to my inner self is still in the raw stages and I still have a hard time producing and writing and thinking.

Frozen. Cheers-

A friend of mine was having a bad day:

That’s all I see lately. Is people hating each other. It feels like these are certain people who go looking for prey. I’m writing this because I saw someone just be a plain asshole and insult someone else for no real reason. I fucking hate humans. It’s so god damn hard to humble yourself when most of the world is lurking around for people to belittle.

The key for you would be to find away to believe the truth of the following axiom:

Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

http://www.miguelruiz.com/fouragreements.html

That quote and the other three ‘agreements’ can show a person, if followed closely, how to avoid the pain and morass of what seems like a cruel world. The truth is that nothing that others do can hurt you if you don’t let it.

The story is the same be it Buddhism or Toltec or any of the new thought religions - the only thing we really control is our own reaction. Everything else that is outside of us is not our business nor does it have to be taken to heart.

People are cruel because inside them is a hurt and sad little child and they are miserable and angry. This helped me to let go of the crap they tossed at me…but it’s hard and everyday I have to remind myself that I like me and that is all that matters.

Flooded McDonald’s from Superflex on Vimeo.

Don’t ask, just enjoy.

To me and my daily practice Buddhism is a philosophy in that it allows me to connect myself to the Universe and the uncaring yet attentive force that creates our world.

Chanting “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” is a practical exercise where I am able to concentrate and connect in the moment with the creative force of the Universe (which I am a part of).

Buddha like Christ is a state of humanity that we can connect with - it is our better side, our honest side and our side that loves. Chanting connects me to this and allows me to be specifically creating my world and future.

It reminds me a lot of New Thought religions (Unity, Religious Science, Agape) in that there really is no central God that holds dominion over us - we are God and the Universe and must work to strengthen that connection.

Gen X is the first major generation that were heavily effected by the Nuclear family - millions upon millions of children that were left to their own devices after school, weekends - when the single parent or both parents work, no one is there in that vital age to teach these children the more subtle and essential lessons on how to be a fully functioning adult.

So as a recovering Gen X that has had to increase his emotional age, his sense of identity as an adult, from about 13 to about 30. My parents both worked and with some help from alcoholism, neither parent was there. Repeat this millions of times over and you get a very lost generation that missed out on essential parental lessons like how to make friends, how to take care of yourself, how to feel content or how be self-motivated. Whether we blame baby boomers or not, Gen X is the first ever generation that literally had to bring themselves up as children…en mass.

Now what does this have to do with protesting and railing against the corruption? Well, Gen X (as well as Gen Y, Z and Millenials - who are all in this same non-parental boat) don’t have the skills to confidently go out there and take over the world or at least be able to stand up for what they believe - the Gen X I know and see every day, the Gen X I work with in recovery cannot and does not know how to protest, how to get worked up and have no idea how to ‘act’ on these feelings and how to organize and self-motivate.

Wanting this generation and the ones that followed to do some original thinking and acting is sad because they can barely get out of their own way, let alone care about and act upon things in our society. I am confident that down the line they will be better people (in the end) but for now, they are at their advanced ages, just starting to wake up to their own power.

But when they put it all together, they will be a force to reckon with. I just hope it’s sooner rather than later.

“What is depression and how does it relate to me?” Someone asked me that the other day and this is what came dribbling from my slap-happy brain:

- Depression is normal and signifies our bodies and mind don’t like something that is going on, ‘time for change’.

- Some people never learned how to deal with depression and how to act on their own behalf when depression strikes and the things that need attending to don’t get attended to.

- The person can’t fix the depressive issues so the inner-self (our little kid) feels unprotected and feels that there is no way for them to fix the issue.

- with the inner-self feeling that the outer self cannot help them, the depression becomes deeper and becomes *Dread*

- Once the inner-self feels dread and feels like there is no one to help them, suicide becomes and excellent alternative.

- Until the outer self learns to take care of the depressive issues, the inner self won’t trust the outer self and the sickening dread will continue.

- If the outer self learns to be the parent, take care of the issues that the inner self (the child) needs help with, then the dread goes back to its normal level as just depression or sadness and finally goes away when the issue is resolved.

- so the key for so many many of us (especially Gen X and Y) many of which did NOT receive the skills in childhood that show us how to be our own GOOD PARENT.

- A lot of people these days (me me!) have gone back and learned how to be their inner-self’s own GOOD PARENT.

So here’s an interesting pamphlet from a great text book from some amazing therapist and doctors at UCLA - and especially helpful is the GOOD PARENT MESSAGES - a list of 15 mantras that can help get at the specific issues that lead us down this road of normal sadness becoming depression and then becoming dread and the end.

I put it out there and then let go - this PDF is worn and hard to read but wonderful for helping those that feel there is no help:

http://zombiepsychic.com/WordPress/?page_id=206

click on the PDF of Good Parent Messages.

Interpol is just cool. Period.

From 2008 Album: “Our Love to Admire” comes the song “No I in Threesome”: