Dear Stranger,
This is for you, and maybe you’ll never see it either. Hell, maybe you’re not even real yet, maybe you’re in some strange metamorphosis somewhere, changing as you need to to suit yourself. God knows I couldn’t fault you for that, that’s what I’ve done most of my life – true story.
Most of my life has been spent tearing myself down and building myself back up again, in some way or another. To describe it as Saṃsāra, wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate. Sure, the ‘death’ hasn’t been whole or complete, at least not all at once, but it’s happened many time over and who I was is not who I am now. Trust me when I tell you, whoever you are, that this is a good thing.
Who I’ve been, at various stages of my existence, has not always been this well-defined caricature you’re used to seeing now. I’ve drank too many cocktails, blown my mind apart more times I can count with more LSD than even seems conceivable, and walked away from just as much life as I’ve walked into. I’m number 1, but, like that old saying goes, that number often comes with a bullet. If anyone ever tells you, even me, that I dodged it, call that bastard a liar.
I’ve been angry. I’ve been frightened. I’ve been miserable. I’ve seen my heart get broken, hell, I broke the damn thing. I did. I hated it; couldn’t stand it, so I smashed it to shit, set it on fire, and couldn’t even be bothered to piss on it to put it out. That’s the truth of the matter. That’s how I ended up the way I did – years of systematic neglect and self-imposed dismantling. I came rough, I didn’t play fair, and, when I played with myself, someone always got burned in the end.
It wasn’t ever by accident or even taken lightly. It was always a choice. It was always something I did with full meaning and intent because I’d filled my head full of so much bullshit thinking that I couldn’t see straight anymore. I was drunk on a rage and chalked full of a desire to be loathing and jaded. If you’ve ever stared down the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle cursing yourself for the thing you want to feel, then maybe, just maybe, you have even the vaguest idea of what I’m talking about here.
It’s not an easy way to live and nothing survives it for long. It’s the absolute and pure form of inner conflict, when you find yourself tired of who you are, how you think, what you feel; when everything about you fills your eyes with blood and your throat with fire. It’s when you look in the mirror and want to set off a gun in the general direction of your reflection. Hitting anything, of course, is relevant as the end goal is not self-destruction, but just giving yourself a feasible end to the endless stream of crap you’re too damn worn to deal with anymore.
It’s a lot like driving a car on bald tires through a snowstorm. You have no control, no hope of going in any direction but which way you’re going. There’s no turning around, no stopping, no nothing. There’s just you, the road, some loud music, and a head full of noise that there’s no hope to sorting out. At this point you have two options, I’ve chosen the former, but I’ll fill you in on the details of both anyway.
Option one just seems stupid; you white knuckle the damn steering wheel and put your foot to the fucking floor. You wake that sleeping beast somewhere inside you, and it doesn’t matter how you do it. It doesn’t matter what form it takes; drinking, drugs, sex, wild adventures, doing something incredibly stupid and life threatening – whatever. You’ve got to do something to bring about the dragon, you’ve got to wake it up, grab that fucker by the horns, shake the shit out of him, and hang the fuck on until you get to wherever you’re going. Like I said, it’s incredibly stupid, but the finality of it is a lot less severe than the alternative.
Option two makes just as little sense, but it’s a lot more predictable; just take your hands off the wheel. Give up, let go, stop caring, hell, shut the whole engine down and just let momentum carry you where-ever-the-fuck it wants to take you. It’ll likely kill you, but, shit, what won’t these days. Hell, I don’t even know what year it is when you’re reading this but, where I come from, everything gives you cancer anyway. So, you can just light up your cigarette and cash out your chips right now if you want. Nobody’s going to judge you – least of all me…and don’t think I haven’t considered this one from time to time too.
Like I said, anyone who ever told you I was indestructible? That’s a bunch of bullshit. I’m not. Never have been, never will be. I’m human, just like you, and I’ve lived my life on the other side of a mask made of tinted glass. I’ve spent my life behind sunglasses, surviving on a diet of smoke and mirrors in a world where fans and flash photography have been strictly prohibited. There’s only ever been one way in, and you have go the same way you get out – at least that’s what I want you to think.
Truth is, there’s always been another way. You could have always just kept going. You could have walked right through the damn fog and punched a hole in the glass. I was always standing on the other side, just no one ever really bothered – and that was the trick. Like the Devil, my best trick has been convincing the world that I didn’t exist. Sure, just like the traditional Devil from the Christian fable, not everyone believed me, but trying to fool everyone just means you’re a fucking idiot.
Someone will always see through whatever deceptions you’ve got to protect yourself, so get used to it. Forget that notion that everyone will always take what they see at face value. Forget the idea that you can fool the world. Even if the truth stays buried until long after whoever you are is gone, someone, somewhere, has got you figured out better than you ever thought possible. Take that thought to bed with you tonight and every night hereafter. It sucks, but I promise you, accepting that is in your absolute best interest.
All the other sage bits of wisdom I wrote down, which I don’t know at this point if anyone ever read, that was all true too. I understand a lot of life, but there are some things I just don’t think we’re supposed to know. Don’t try and figure it out, it’ll just drive you crazy and leave you empty, drunk, and drooling on yourself in the gutter somewhere – trust me, I know what I’m talking about here probably more than I do about anything else.
Do your best, but accept that sometimes that just isn’t enough. Don’t be afraid to break yourself if you find who you are just isn’t working for you anymore but, and remember this, walls go up a hell of a lot easier than they come down. Walking away from who you were is never easy. Changing who you are is never something you get to do without scars and leaving a wake of devastation behind you – so do not take that shit lightly.
I rode the wave. It was beautiful. It was fun. If I ever told you that it didn’t hurt me a lot along the way?
I lied – get used to it, everybody lies.
Yours truthfully, with regret, loathing, and love
-A Bastard.
