This is no piece of art. This collection of words is not being written to entertain, impress, or provide any benefit to you other than to describe a place where I currently reside, and reach out to those who happen to be living here with me. The more time I spend here the more it becomes clear that this place has no age; its as if it exists outside of time, as if the world revolves everywhere else, but here clocks are broken. You may live the same moment, minute, hour, day, week, year, over and over again. Sometimes time skips ahead to show you something, then lurches back to a period you'd thought you'd long ago already tied up nicely and shoved under your metaphorical bed. Sometimes time doesn't exist altogether and you're left alone in some weird lifeless void waiting for the sun to rise again. There are thousands, if not millions of people here living with you at this moment right now but for some reason or another as much as you'd like to it's as difficult for you to find another as it is for anybody else to find you. This place, is rock bottom.
After having spent the entire beginning of my adult life here I have to say its not as bad as one might think. Of course, you do have to get used to the constant feeling that there's not a good reason to live your life, the persistent feeling of grief and sorrow, the hollow emptiness that it means to be alone and the pitiful image of yourself that most people have come to form in their minds. Don't get me wrong, those things definitely suck. On top of that you really do miss the place where you lived your old life. The place where you got up on time everyday, when you ate well and actually cared about your body. When your friendships were easy and relating to your family was even easier. When your main worries were of the usual "what do I do with my day" variety. You didn't cling to your bed as if your life depended on it. Or consume narcotics like water. Mundane responsibilities didn't prompt emotional breakdowns and you certainly didn't worry about the very nature of your existence on a regular basis. I am here to tell you though, that Rock Bottom isn't a place where you go just to suffer. The times we live in are more than hard: they are damn near impossible. So impossible that the actual society is beginning implode from within itself. I don't think I need you to do more than look on the news to see what I'm talking about, and those who reside with me at Rock Bottom know exactly what I mean. We as people all share in this reality, a reality that for the first time (that we KNOW of) in human history is being shared at a global level. For a good deal of us, we are able to consume this reality, the good and the bad, and to some degree sustain our very being off of it. We are conscious life moving within a body, and a lot of us are able to handle the life we are currently living in a way that is at least quasi-sustainable. But what is there for those who can't? Not don't want to or just won't, but cant. Rock Bottom is the home for those people. It is the place we go when our very being begins to reject our reality from our bodily existence. If you've come to Rock Bottom, know that it's not because of anything except the fact that you were trying to live a life not meant for you. In my case I came here to cope with the reality of racism, the father that the world killed before I ever got to meet him, the abuse I underwent as a child, and the fact that I was given school as the thing that would deliver me from my pain when in fact all it did was attempt to take my broken soul and turn it into another product for the society to feed off of. This is NOT my life though. And when I started to realize that I began a journey that quite honestly I'm not sure I'd have signed up for with the understanding of where it would take me in the search for my true self. At first I stopped being able to get myself up to go to school. It was like one day school became this monster that just kept asking me to feed myself to it. I began to see class for what it was doing to me: mashing my beautiful unique mind into a westernized computing system instead of allowing me to be the full majestic human being that resides inside me begging to be teased out. After this I couldn't go anymore. I put my self worth into other things. My fraternity, extracurricular positions, the party scene, drugs, girls, anything to give me the satisfaction from life that was quickly slipping through my fingers. You spend so much time in this part of Rock Bottom until you begin to lose the energy to even pretend as if life is something you are extracting joy from. I began to sit in my room, alone for days, smoking and listening to music and hoping that one day the reality of the world would just change so I could come out and be who I wanted to be. It just seemed to me that if I came out to the world and told everybody what I TRULY wanted to do I would be vilified for it. My family would be angry and my friends would judge me and be hurt that I didn't want to do what they wanted to do anymore with my life. Sure enough my parents thought I was crazy for wanting to drop out and my friends began to wear seriously concerned faces, like they could see that I was beginning to turn towards a different direction. I was recommended to a therapist and they said I had depression. After a few trips I stopped going, NOT because I think therapy is dumb or anything, but I wasn't in a place where I was even comfortable enough to come to terms with what I was actually living through. Even though I knew I had to get out of it, I knew I had to do it my way. If you're living in Rock Bottom, this is probably the case for you. So, still I was stubborn. I began to say fuck it and take risks. I tripped LSD and saw the other side of time. Went to Colorado and saw the Mountains. Went to a Chance the Rapper concert. Went to Chicago on a whim to see my friend perform. I saw Solange perform. Soon enough you realize what's worth living for and what's not. After enough time in Rock Bottom you begin to realize what IS worth living for, and what makes you miserable. This is a blessing, not a curse, and curiously enough is the key to making it out. I realized what I always knew from the beginning. I love God, I love music, I love black people, I love freedom and nature and exploring, and of course I love my family and friends. Those are the things worth living for. Everything else is either a means to get closer to the things you love, or simply just noise. Even the things we've been conditioned to think are important. After that simple realization, even though getting back to a place where I can operate in a normal and healthy way is a long journey, it's much easier for me to take care of my body and responsibilities when I know that its gonna allow me more time to do the things I love. Rock Bottom, or depression as the clinic would call it, is simply a place you go when your spirit decides its had enough and begins to force yourself to search for a life that's going to be more sustainable, peaceful, and joyous than the trajectory you've currently put yourself on. It feels real shitty, trust me I know, but that's just the feeling of ripping away abuse and psychological poison away from your being. Its the feeling of healing. If I can leave you with one metaphor that works perfectly for me to this day it comes from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Towards the end of the first book/movie Harry and the gang find themselves stuck in what is called Devil's Snare. It's actually a lot like Rock Bottom; its dark, slimy, terrifying, and chokes the hell out of you as you scream seemingly into your own death. But actually when you just relax and let go of the need to control you slip right on through into the next stage of your exploration. For Harry, Ron, and Hermoine what was on the other side would change their lives FOREVER. I hope your journey yields the same results. As for me, I'm on the way out. But before I left I thought I'd leave behind this note of encouragement and understanding. I don't know where I'm going, but it literally has to be up. I love you. -Matt
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October 2018
Matt BruceViva DSM!! |