State of Mind

Today was a roller coaster that triggered a motion sickness only my bed can cure. It was a melding of anticipating hills and attention-grabbing twists, Heart-stopping drops and disarraying winds. It’s all happening all at once everywhere you turn there’s something Some noise, some light, something to make sense of.

It plays like the most complicated jazz song, Its a constant battle for energy, each moment in conflict with the last. The tune stays for exactly a second before the melody gets highjacked. It’s all exciting, emotional even. It’s all good, it’s alive.

It’s just a ride. From afar its simple, Pretty even. It’s designed to be appealing, enticing, do you dare? It’s adrenaline, it’s a way to mute reality for some time.

But what happens when your world becomes a roller coaster, How much is too much? What happens when your mind gives up on trying to make sense of it all? How long before you lose direction? How long before you give up?

In the midst of everything political happening in the U.S., I've been thinking a lot about traffic jams. I hate traffic jams. Whenever I'm sitting in one it feels like the worst kind of waiting. I have somewhere to be, I'm late, the anxiety is creeping. I've been sitting in the same spot for what feels like months and all of my insides are churning while my car is only inching forward. On top of that I look around and see that all humanity has disappeared around me. It's ruthless out there, everyone is dodging and weaseling in front of each other, trying to get one car up in hopes of escaping the traffic one car sooner. It's like the moment their personal goal of getting where they need to be is blocked they become immersed in their own and blind to everything else. I feel like the only sane person and at the same time I'm confined to a vehicle stuck in the middle of it.

Until I inch my way to the collision that's started the traffic in the first place and suddenly all of those feelings around me melt away. Suddenly nobody is angry, no one is cutting anyone off. Maneuvers encompass a more gentle tone, drivers appear more considerate of each other. Suddenly the compassion returns and all it took was witnessing the damage of the car that's caused it all. Somewhere between the crushed pieces of metal and crying bystanders, humanity returns. Somehow everyone seeing this emotionally charged scene widens their view and understanding of the big picture seeps in.

What matter do differences possess, When they make up something beautiful? Although you may just as well ask, What creates something beautiful without distinction?

Flowers enlivening fields and cells creating flowers, Molecules mating for elements, birthed from atoms. This space is infinite in expansion, Yet with galaxies deriving into eyes.

But stars hold so much beauty, And our eyes are of the same content. So unique yet here we are, relating. It’s baffling and breathtaking and in us all.

We’re both the creations of the universe, While the universe creates itself through us. Both sides as equally true as the other, It’s in the innocence of harmony.

I think that being lonely is your soul yearning for yourself. It's only when we're alone that we can be really, truly ourselves without the touch of outside inspirations. Alone is a state of bonding with yourself, lonely is when there is a disconnect that longs to be mended. Alone is a comfortable connection. Lonely is a shriveling fear of yourself. 

Do you create reality or does reality create you?

I think that both of those are realities. Some people create their reality, and others live through the energies around them that reality creates. I don’t think that there’s a right or wrong, but I can see the two levels, and living through reality seems to be on a higher awareness than creating your reality.

Creating your reality: The way I see this as is people live through their minds, having their minds create the reality, stay in control of how things are interpreted, seen, processed, and reacting in the appropriate way. I think that the people that create their own reality can either be really happy or really sad, depending on the reality they create for themselves. Although they don’t realize that they create their reality, because they don’t see themselves doing it. This kind of reality is dependent on the perspectives of people, perspectives of others are understood on the level of knowledge that their reality is different, but cannot fully see that there is a separate, greater than them reality. Since these people create their reality, they aren’t living in the present moment. They’re always a moment behind, because they live through the way they perceive the present moment. The present moment travels through their mind before it reaches them. Because the mind creates their reality, it also means that it creates the idea of emotions, that we’ve explained through neurotransmitters and hormones. Perceptions can be tainted and negative, and since we don’t fully understand a realer reality, that negativity becomes the truth we live in. We get mad at other people because we don’t understand their views entirely through their eyes, it’s always tainted by our values and beliefs. We put a label on what’s right and what’s wrong, we classify everything around us, we group together things and rid them of their own meaning to match a collective one. We create societies through which we can connect to one another, because there’s no other way that we can see things the same way. Our mind’s interpretation is the only way we know to connect to one another, so we create societies and labels and ways in which we can connect and create a world we see in the same way. We create languages, we define everything around us to have a meaning and a substance. We make rules and patterns that we follow as logic and values and reason. Creating things the same way is the only way we can connect to each other. In this consciousness, without creation there is no existence.

Living through reality: I think that people that live through this greater reality don’t live through their minds, and are aware that they are separate than the reality that the mind creates. The human perspective is only a glimpse of the ultimate reality that’s out there outside of the mind. These people live through the energies surrounding them, that they acknowledge and accept. I think that people that create their realities see these energies as ghosts, because they are afraid of their power over them, so their mind interprets them as scary and to be avoided. Some people see ghosts, some don’t see anything at all, some see the energies that they aren’t afraid of because they trust that these are the creators of their lives. These people connect with people easier because they are able to understand their human perspectives, outside of the bias of our own mind. These people connect easiest to those that live through reality as well. These people dive deep into the present moment where all perceptions of reality go away and all they’re able to see what really is. Judgments don’t exist because our perceptions aren’t important enough to live through. We connect to one another on a level outside of our own minds, we see each other through ourselves and not through the mind. We appreciate everything around us, even if we don’t understand it. All actions by humans start out as innocent and we can acknowledge that. Murderers don’t start out being murderers. Their perception of the world leads them to the understanding that taking the life of another is okay. The morals and values that their individual mind sets for them, however tainted by a disease or disorder, no matter how unconscious, is correct to them and so they act through it. Their selfish needs are visible, and I can acknowledge that their actions are not up to them but up to their mind. Since they are living through their mind, their mind is the realest thing to them. Living in reality rids you of your humanly needs, and you can see their lack of importance, and can see how others might not see it that way. Living in reality rids you of the need for a mind because we can connect to one-another without it. In this reality humans are so much more creative, because their view is open to all views, they live through the reality that they know others would connect to most. Creativity is the expression of the self, with an unconventional to most, view of life. The humans that live through reality are more intelligent because they make so many more connections to ideas and perceptions.

Consciousness is a spectrum, and I think that the difference between these two realities is the waking moment of unconsciousness and consciousness.

This has been something I can never focus on long enough to make sense of, but recently because my thoughts are becoming so much more organized, I’m able to understand what I think about the subject matter, and connect with how I feel about it. 

I’m not lesbian or bisexual. I formed an emotional attachment to Jasmine and I didn’t understand why it was happening, so assumed it was sexual. I never really knew how I felt though, not because I had a problem being a certain way, but because it didn’t feel right, which made me feel like I’m just in denial but also confused because that didn’t feel right either. 

I don’t feel attracted to girls though, I hadn’t felt attraction to anyone since middle school before this summer. Because my thoughts organized themselves, I was able to perceive my emotions and understand that I feel a certain way towards men. 

I think my development froze because of ADD with puberty. So many emotions were going and some never got perceived, which means they never got understood and linger, seeking closure. Puberty stayed with me, the unbalanced emotions and nonsensical thoughts. 

No one really knows that it’s not just not being able to focus on the things going on around you, you’re also unable to focus on your perception, or your thoughts.

Most of the world goes by unheard and unseen, because your attention is so centered on your thoughts, underlying and conscious, all of them speaking at once, that it’s not paying attention to the present moment, and then when you do try to focus on the present moment, your thoughts keep interrupting and distracting you, that you’re not all really there. It becomes this juggle of trying to focus on the moment but also of your thoughts and most go by unnoticed. Social awkwardness, confusion, low-self esteem all ensue.

I can’t speak on behalf of all people with ADD/ADHD obviously, this is just my experience.

It sucks.

This is why I really like electronic music. There’s so many things happening all at once, so many meaningless beats connecting and becoming one in different waves, that I make myself focus on each different one, and that leaves no room for perception on my external environment or thoughts of any kind.

I think this is why I like smoking when I’m on Adderall, The Adderall organizes my thoughts and allows for them to be on a single track so I can focus on the external world, but the weed allows me to experience the external world in a more visionary light, and that all gets perceived with more understanding due to the Adderall, and my perception of the world widens.

Symbolic.

I bought this plant at a nursery in search of a flower to represent my recovery. I wanted it to be something I can work to keep growing but easy to keep alive. I asked the worker to find me the easiest flower to take care of, and she gave me this one. It had a pretty lilac flower that took up most of the space, with some green leaves at the bottom.

It wilted within two weeks of being in my care. I watered it every day but the flower completely dried out. The leaves started going brown.

You can imagine my discouragement at my recovery flower dying.

Nevertheless I kept watering it. Every day. I watched it for a while but there didn't seem to be any changes. The flower was still very much dead. It didn't magically regain its lilac enchantment.

It was getting really sad to look at. Every day the sight of this dead rotting flower tore at my heart until I gave up and angrily tore the flower off. I was about to throw it away when I realized all the leaves at the bottom were still green. One leaf had started wilting but it stopped midway. I couldn't just throw away a green plant, it didn't seem right. So I kept it. It was small and little and no longer had a flower but it was hopeful.

I feel restless. I've been in this town for way too long. I can't move on from my past, the guilt keeps catching up, it keeps tormenting me no matter how much I change. Everyone here knows me. I want to pick up and move to somewhere where no one knows my name and I can actually start clean. I can be the person I am. No past, indefinite future. 

 I want to create a me without the influence of the me I was. I'm done with this town and I love the people here but they know too much. I want to be somewhere new. I feel so restless. I'm tired of the insecurity I feel behind not knowing what people know and what people say about me. I want to move forward but I don't know what past the people around me hang on to. No one here is honest. No one will call me out on my shit. I'm tired of those around me knowing more about my reality than I do. I want to be in complete control but I feel like I still know nothing about who I am to them. Who am I really in their eyes? Do they believe me as who I present myself or do they see me as a version of me I'm not even aware of? Do they see past the sham of a person that I am? Do they see the real, raw me that I'm getting to understand exists more than the front I put up? I feel like everyone around me lies to me the way I lied to them. 

I feel so much guilt about who I was and I want to erase it because I don't want to revisit it enough to apologize to everyone I know. I have to apologize to Jasmine more than anyone. She didn't know me at all but was under the illusion that she did. I have to apologize to my roommates, past and current, my parents, everyone that thought they knew me but was misinformed. I was mentally out of this world. 

 Yet I don't have to apologize enough to disturb the peace that we have built now. 

I recently went to Nocturnal Wonderland with my coworker and a friend from high school and her friends, and met some people at the event itself as well. I rolled. Each time I roll I have a new life-altering realization about the world or about myself, that gives me a different view of my world. This time it was about drugs and people that use drugs in general.

To start off, the entire time I had a feeling in my stomach that this isn’t who I am, I don’t get the satisfaction I crave from going to raves and rolling, it doesn’t give me food for thought and it doesn’t help with my spiritual or personal growth. I felt all of my thoughts and feelings get numb when I tried to dig for them, and while I tried to have this spiritual connection to myself, I felt a feeling of peaceful nothingness consume me instead. Then I realized that rolling is just a form of meditation. When you meditate, you clear your mind of thoughts and solely focus on your inner being, the simplicity in being human. Rolling cleared my head of any thoughts and made me incapable of thinking, because my entire focus was shifted to the things I see, hear, feel, smell, etc. My entire focus was shifted to the simplicity behind being alive. On the other end of the wave when I would start thinking again my mind felt really clear and everything in my head was high definition, because the meditation that had taken place when I was focused on nothing cleared out my head and made room to take in all that was happening now.

Molly is a form of meditation. What a realization. It makes sense that people with deep emotional problems get hooked on molly and ecstasy, because it feels so GOOD to have a clear mind in the midst of the emotional storm they’re going through. It gives them a clear focus for a couple of hours, a couple of hours of peaceful meditation.