I’m a man cresting into my 30’s characterized by an insatiable curiosity, an inspired pursuit of growth in all aspects, coupled with a self deprecating view of my own achievements and discipline.
The Fortuitous luck of continually being in the wrong place at the right time has ever graced my existence.
My life has been such that i have never known anything boring nor peaceful.
A sacrifice indeed, yet far more so a gift. One that in my maturation i have come to regard as priceless.
There has always been a thread of adventure in my heart. The archetype of the troubled lost nomad stuck to the core of my young mind. In and out of conscious attention, Weaving it’s way through my life in whatever way it could be interpreted for years to come.
My childhood was a rich tapestry woven with many of the common threads. Laughter, loving family, good friends, sports. i was the benefactor of middle class hard working and quirky parents.
As years passed and the tapestry lengthened new darker more sinister threads. Malevolence, violence, abuse, were woven in. A perfect A.C.E score. slowly like an at first pristine river beginning to run black with oil i grew into what i can only describe as maleficent teenage years.
Informed to a great degree by adventures in lawlessness and narcotics. The adventure thread.
I spent those young years forgoing the socializing affects of academics for the experiences to be had existing outside the acceptable.
Feeling my own intolerable “uniqueness” shockingly isolating, yet continuing to desire endeavours that i found few others interested in and even fewer brave enough or rather stupid enough to pursue.
Fitting in amongst my peers, having many fair-weather friends and the ability to maintain small talk, were concepts i did not understand.
I wished to belong but stand apart. I wanted my cake and to eat it too.
Often i felt as if my life was a fancy party, all the guests dressed to the nines, i have shown up uninvited wearing old boots, dirty jeans and a faded black tee. I couldn’t leave.
The entire chaotic often agonizing experience of my interests was indeed worth the sacrifice of being accepted. Although this realization did not come to pass until far later.
I spent many days finding ways to spike my adrenaline that didn’t involve school or for that matter anything “nice” and most nights wandering my city alone or in bad company, growing in familiarity with what light lies into shadows.
Ignorant of my own malevolence and hedonism, that like a great slobbering stupid dog was unable to be collared by understanding alone. My teen years came to a close and into my own blind, self-indulgent hell i descended.
For the next 5 years adventure took a sinister path. What at first was a distraction from monotony spasmed into a want for uncertainty then turned on a dime into the need for my own destruction.
Countless socially and self imposed “lines in the sand” were strode over often with little thought to the immediate and future consequences for my own well-being and certainly no thought for the well-being others. In times i revelled at my own chosen misfortunes unable to see my contributions to the slice of hell i then inhabited.
I became a grotesque and contorted shadow of my potential.
Anti-social, goalless, a negative narcissism of sorts. I loathed my own being.
Throughout this time there lived within in me a paradox. The mirage like vision of the ideal me, imposing its pathway to success through denial and the reality of years spent pursuing momentary bliss.
I clung desperately to my own perceived worthlessness “the best at being the worst” regardless of the evidence to the contrary this was my experience of myself.
i was not actively suicidal but i was certainly reckless with my life.
occasionally in the pauses between kisses from madness, i would catch glimpses over the shoulder of my own nihilistic embrace and see just how close the ideal that haunted me was. Some small part of me still longed to take ownership and test itself against the unknown. I wanted Agency yet lacked the accountability.
Of the many facets that comprise individuals and indeed me the nomadic calling in all its expressions is among my fondest.
My unwitting exploration of hell came to an abrupt end in may of 2016. For the first time in my short life i watched in stark contrast a split in my mind, the dialectical became obvious. My conscience who’s voice had been dimmed to a dull blabbering, screamed with force and was brought to bear. nihilism vanished. my trajectory in an instant re-imagined.
I set off eagerly on a new adventure exploring the potential of my own mind and it’s capacity for growth. fascinated i pursued many paths of psychoanalysis and development. I became an open and willing participant to the wonders of an autonomous existence, of the examined life, no longer impaled by some self defeating crux.
i broke out, discovering the joys of the world not happening to me but with me.
An opportunity reinvigorated my lust for anywhere but here, a 2 week trip away, on return i reflected that perhaps i was not ready for longer or lonelier travels, my new mindset and lifestyle were not thoroughly routinized, that and the added distraction of a woman had months passing by. The mark of adventure abroad i often aimed at lost its allure, supplanted by the comfortably chaotic life of improvement I had built.
All the curious useless quirks that contort us into a desperate silence.
The reality of another place slipped away like dreams to the howl of an alarm. The screams of my conscious echoed.
Over years that enticing spark that would find me daydreaming of far off places faded.
“maybe one day, there’s lots of time”
The list of ever receding goals to check off before the time was right - many of which were not my own, grew ceaselessly.
hamartia
I spent the majority of my time over the next 5 years working ceaselessly on myself, my partnerships and my career. Seeing just, exactly how far i could push myself, how much i could achieve on almost nothing in the form of nourishment for spirit, mind or body. Taking it easy became a foreign concept and then an idea to be ridiculed. I was going flat out.
Months passed in moments, days frozen in time for there unique challenges began to blur together. Time and again i overcame, revelling, flourishing. Constantly i battled deeply entrenched life long conceptions of reality, of society and myself. Conceptions that were distorted and in many cases delusional.
Growing far past what was necessary, “good enough” was not an option.
The mirage of my ideal began to have defined edges, realizing my potential became attainable, one often crushing choice after another.
What momentary pleasures could i deny myself? i discovered for generous stretch’s of time the enjoyment of have not, of a spartan like existence. i came to understand the extra ordinary levels of discipline i could muster.
The self centred, hedonistic dog was collared but roaring.
occasionally i would let loose and revel in the experience of endless sex, food or creature comforts.
Yet to my dismay and often that of my partners or friends i was unable to do so without some form of guilt, often existential. i found the enjoyment as temporal as the climax. My inability to “just enjoy” without reading between the lines caused many troubles interpersonally, even more so when in delusion i felt i had not yet earned the celebration, which was most of the time.
As the frazzled screaming pace of my career and personal life fizzled to a dull roar, the intervals between confrontations in all areas of my life grew. 5 years it took to get to this point.
I reflected, pleased with the results yet broken by the effort. Having accomplished and in many ways mastered what i set out to do.
I bore the cost with many moments of contentment but that the ceaseless criticism of my conscious would leave me rest was not to be.
The allure of change ensnarled me once again, the promise of more growth.
Yet i found to my disappointment i had become so accustomed to the maelstrom that i was unwilling or unable to leave.
I had been over indulgent, needing to heal from healing.
I spent some months in this tension.
Speaking with a good friend who’s suggestions to me i’ve come to regard as “in my best interest” (the time this took considering he saved my life years ago is a marker of either my slow to trust mentality or my refusal to accept help). The subject of travel came up.
He echoed the words that I have heard so many times before in conversations with others who had gone abroad and those, specifically who had not. “best thing i have ever done” “regret it all the time for not doing it when i was younger” “i wish i could go but the wife and kids..” and I like a damn fool walking repeatedly into the frame of the door leading to paradise replied with my list of excuses.
He told me to take out my credit card.
A small crack in my often unshakeable internal disposition, my heart began to pound.
The words “I found a ticket to Thailand it’s $600 buy it now, while we are on the phone, don’t be a bitch” came through the line.
Fear.
After everything i have lived through among the most frightening was buying this change.
It is so human that regardless of the fact of it being a life dream, we pause at the precipice racked with fear,
unable to summit, we often need that friend, who with our best interests at heart, gives us a firm loving shove over the top and off the cliff into the unknown.
The last 6 months have taken on a strange dream like quality, i have experienced dozens of hallucinogenic pauses in my experience where the vividness of reality reaches a peak that is almost to much to bear. i’ve never known such consistent gratitude.
what a life
what a long strange trip.
- Mackie TVM