Gonna Tell It Like I Drank My Bourbon...
(3/5/11 12:51P)

This needs to be prefaced with a little disclaimer which many of you may find unpalatable. (Hell, if you do, you'll probably find the whole damned vignette unpalatable, but read on anyway you jack-hole, we'll pull on into the station at mamby-pamby land right on time. Promise.;D) Much of this prose is composed in a creative syntax, purposefully deviant grammatically, with a vitriol laced vernacular appropriate to one who may have suffered many life's vicissitudes in the extreme. And it's pretty much how I would've communicated without hesitation 'in the day'(when I was no longer medicating the psychological trauma I've faced pretty much since day one, yeah, that medication would be alcohol).
(P.S.-I don't really want or need any 'feedback' about being grateful and not being in self pity, GOD bless you but 95% of you motherfuckers don't have any idea what pain is, or suffering, or misery...I don't need platitudes another has never bench-marked. I do appreciate the LOVE, I really do.)
So I went to the liquor store tonight. Thinkin' hard about "the bourbon". Some of you have been there, the rest of you will get there eventually. You can be assured of that. It's a hard stare into a light smothering inky darkness, knowing damn well what bogey-man awaits. It's where you go when the map (GPS, whatever) you thought you where following to 'California' leads you straight into Barstow, and you're broke and about out of gas. If you've never had the dubious pleasure of visiting Barstow, here's a little tip: ALL of those towns mentioned in that song about getting your kicks on route 66, are burnt-up, shot-out, left for dead god-forsaken shitholes. 'cept Gallup.
I went in, grabbed a tall can of coke, bought a pack of Reds (camel, not Marlborough) chit chatted a bit with the owner, and left merrily. I'm often merry, or "gay" (you got a problem with that, really? you got a problem with gay people? or just people in general? I'm not, but if I was, you got a problem with me being gay, faggot? TRY ME) if you will. I can be fuckin' DYING inside, and you really wouldn't have a clue, if I didn't want you to know. You think you can tell? Really? IT WAS MY PROFESSION to put on a mother-fucking sure-it's-goddamned-decaf-YOU-BITCH-WON'T-YOU-DIE-happy-face, at one time (and I was EXTREMELY hostile, back then...).
I digress (which, as many of you know, and the rest have come to find out, I possess a propensity for...;D). So, I post up across the small parking lot across the way, got a goooood solid veiw of that Liquor store. Bay-Ho Liquor. It's a pleasant March night in San Diego.
I crack that coke and tear into those Reds, man.
And I look at my phone.
No returned calls. No returned texts.
Plenty of tweets from @rickycwillams.
Shit like,
"rickycwilliams:is stress getting to you?"
And,
"rickycwilliams:All your problems seem to be equal and stress seems to be everywhere"
Really.
"rickycwilliams:What are the effects of stress on medical and psychological conditions?"
Gee, I dunno, Rick, maybe...CANCER?
"...Stress can begin in the womb and recur throughout life."
Yeah, don't think that one didn't hit home. Think the woman that put me up for adoption wasn't just a little bit stressed? I'm thinkin', "yeah". When I volunteered for this time around, I don't particularly recall ordering "Abandonment Issues with a side of recurring STRESS and fear of Impending Annihilation." But fuck, I don't particularly recall volunteering, either...so anyway, here we are.
"...Attempts with drugs and alcohol to mask stress often prevent the person from facing the problem."
No shit, Rick? I've spent the past sixteen years in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm getting pretty convinced the problem isn't so much me, that maybe it REALLY IS the rest of the world (or, perhaps, just perhaps, in my mercy, only the extremly selfish and self-centered, which, by reason, can be found aplenty in Alcoholics Anonymous, your nearest brokerage, or corporate HQ).
"...One or two 20-30 minute meditation sessions a day can have lasting beneficial effects on health."
Yeah, gonna "Be Here Now" and meditate on the pros and cons of purchasing a bottle of bourbon.
Young guy strolls by," 'sup dude..."
"Howzit." I reply.
Back to mah ol' pal, Ricky.
"...Elimination of drug use and no more than moderate alcohol use are important for the successful management of stress..."
I really wanted to respond to that one,
"r(twitter reply text indicator) rickycwilliams @moderate-LMFAOISDYA (that would be 'Laughing My Fucking Ass Off In San Diego You Asshole'),
but I didn't want to let on that the fuckheads of the world might be winning. He seems like such a nice, earnest fella.
"...Turn stressful times into opportunities for real growth and change..."
Fuck you Rick, ain't no god damned merit badge for being understanding, compassionate, and kind, doesn't go on your resume, and won't pay the bills.

So you get where I'm at. I'm thinkin' to cash in, cause what I got going on is heavy. I had just survived having my ass fried off from radiation treatments (quite literally all the skin on my ass, TOTAL denudification), being poisoned with heavy metals to near death twice, a couple a more chemo treatments along with that, and "an autologous stem cell bone marrow transplant" wherein my my marrow (even now, recalling it makes me stutter, even when I type) was scourged with more heavy metals and I was left with no immune system for a week. I had just been so undeservedly blessed to have LIVED in a constant state of LOVE, after being pulled through the latent, long term side effects of the transplant. I know what it feels like to feel and eminate LOVE. One has the feeling of cool sunshine flowing through like a breeze. And I made the mistake of sharing that. I'm not stingy. I shared about what it was that caused the amazing transformation that was both MEASURABLE AND PHYSICAL. Miraculous. And people saw it. I would be asked what it was that caused such a pronounced improvement in my physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual condition. And I told you. Only one understood. Only one did not scoff, ridicule, or doubt.
What I heard in response from everyone else was every straw-grasping explanation from "that's how I felt when I first quit smoking", to "I think you are having a manic episode (my atheist doctor who prayed the bone marrow transplant would work. It did.)". None save one of you sons of bitches could accept the miraculous. And with THAT, the hoary head of judgment reared. Then I was angry. I was frustrated. They asked, I answered. They could not believe. Perhaps they didn't want to believe, fine."BUT" my judgment decreed,"some did not WANT to believe. Some chose (and some will ALWAYS choose, to spread their poison thinly veiled by talk of humility and accepting 'the real world'-their sick version of the glorious world we live in) to scoff." It's true, I was attempting to spread the fire of LOVE and truth and hope, and some of you spiritual delinquents just had to piss on it. Fuckers.
I became angry at myself for judging my fellow precious children of GOD. I had become, once again, critical of GOD's handiwork. Judge not lest ye be judged. The harshest judge is oneself. One cannot perch upon a cloud and a high horse at the same time, doesn't work like that. I didn't think I have the metal to get back to pure unadulterated bliss again, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna live in a world with me in it as just another selfish fuckhead hellbent on getting his.
It isn't suicide, what I contemplated. It's not some pathetic "oh it hurts, it hurts, I just can't take it anymore." Or, some sad whiny sobriquet which ends with: I just can't live without HER (been there)". Those poor souls (GOD bless them, truly) 90% of the time have no sense of purpose. I do. I have many an outstanding purpose to pursue. Suicide is a selfish crime of ignorance, and I know what the fuck is going on.
I have read Viktor Frankel's "Man's Search for Meaning" while in a convalescent home (google it, read it). It is not my intention to devalue his experiences in any way (I may have had the body of a concentration camp survivor...but...).
I do however disagree with his statement that regardless of circumstances, once an individual has a sense of purpose, that individual, well, let me quote him directly:

"Consequently, whenever I succeeded in persuading the patients to volunteer in youth organizations, adult education, public libraries and the like-in other words, as soon as they could fill their abundant free time with some sort of unpaid but meaningful activity-their depression disappeared although their economic situation had not changed and their hunger was the same. Man cannot live by welfare alone."-(p.141-142, Man's Search for Meaning. This passage refers to those suffering from depression due to unemployment neurosis, but also is applied to other conditions which manifest suicidal tendencies in the extreme.)

Viktor Frankel is absolutely wrong. Humans require more than a sense of purpose. This I know from personal experience. Allow me to reiterated what I have stated before: You can rest assured, that I am thoroughly qualified to sing the blues (quite literally and metaphorically).

Man needs more than some vague, self-imposed 'purpose'. Man needs more. I need more.

NOW more than ever humans need more and I damn sure need more than the loin searing desire to spawn, tend to a brood, leave behind a legacy (fuck posterity, nobody is going to remember FDR, HST [either of them], Ike [definitely forgot his warnings about the military/industrial complex], McCarthyism, JFK, MLK, Vietnam [and the fact our Government knowingly soaked it's own soldiers in a known carcinogen, agent orange], living with the threat of iminent nuclear apocalypse, the former Soviet Union, both Bushes, 911 [gasp! say it ain't so! We've collectively relegated worse to the dustbins of our national memory...? Trail of tears, fucker! Doesn't count?], AD NAUSEUM.). I need more than the Green Bay Packers winning the Super Bowl, San Diego becoming less of a fiefdom and more of a city, the west coast staying WEST, Americans returning to what made us 'Americans' in the first place, world peace, the end of global tyranny and oppression, colonization of space...
I need more.
You need more.
We ALL need more.

A purpose outlives it's usefulness, and hence, becomes discarded. Another skill used to achieve...? What? I require some direction from authority. THE authority. I know one exists, for on my BEST day my prolific and extremely fecund imagination and my sumptuous creativity cannot even come close to the reality I have lived. The plot turns and twists and cliff-hangers and season enders would keep a prime-time slot on a major network for decades.
I need why.
Desperately.

Young guy that strolled by comes out of the liquor store. He takes a couple of steps , adjusting his course towards the sidewalk. Then something happens in his head. I saw it. A perceptible shift in direction, a straightening of posture and dammit I can't see auras (most of the time, wha, you never have?), but there came about a FULLNESS in his being. I would say that he had suddenly been 'inspired'. And dammit all if he didn't, and I thought to myself "he isn't...". Sure enough did. I recognized that gait. I am all too familiar with that sense of resolve, that imperative of inspiration, that...purpose. Bee-lined with the gait of a man with purpose. Straight across the parking lot towards...me.
"Hey, whatcha doin'?", he asks, sitting to me left, easily and fearlessly within close proximity. Definitely within the range of an elbow strike to the chin (my mind is conditioned to present those options to me, when I am in a lesser spiritual state. Isn't yours?;D)
"Jus' chillun, makin' some calls, smokin' a cigarette..."
"You live around here?" Bright and earnest and fresh face, not yet impinged by the tragedies, horrors, anxiety, frustration, of life. And oddly, not yet quite fully disillusioned. Certainly old enough to be. Hell, I was 'disillusioned' and cynical with just a bit of nihilism by the time I was 13. It's like a bar-mitvah for those raised by domesticated Germans.
"Yeah, two complexes up." I glance to my left up the hill, and gesture with my han, due North, "You?"
"Yeah,..."
"Whatta you got goin' on tonight?"
"Aw, goin' home to the wife."
"That's a good thing."
"I'm not so sure."
"Well I am. What's in the bottle?"
He was holding the bottle in it's brown paper sack within his coat.
"Oh, uh, Champagne. You want some?"
The vague recollection of Cold Duck and my fondness for it around the holidays returned to me, chickens home to roost or a messenger pigeon from my sub-conscious, it's for the birds anyway. I noticed the pink foil wrapped at the top of the bottle and shuddered inside at the thought of drinking THAT.

"No thanks, you really don't want me drinkin', wouldn't like me when I'm drinkin'. But, I do KNOW it's a good thing that you have a wife." And I continued on in the same neutral tone of one guy talkin' to another matter of fact manner with which I had just expressed my opinion regarding his marital state.
"I have been told (and I have, direct transmission from one of my teachers' Guru) that there are primarily two paths in life, that guide our decisions and consequent actions." I pause for dramatic effect as I deploy my lower arm outward and extend two fingers, keeping his attention.
"There is the path of selfishness," my left elbow rests upon my knee my palm is face down, and two fingers were extended, "and, there is the path of Love."
I pause briefly and turn my attention from my hand to him and he is right there with me.
"the path of selfishness- porsches, houses, money, women, piles of cocaine, total self indulgence...we know what that's all about," I begin to gesture in a fashion as if to indicate the whole ball of wax.
Well, HE probably didn't, but I've had enough of a taste,"...you know those guys..." and I trail off to...
"They're not happy, are they..."
"No, at first maybe, but then..."
"There is a price to pay..." Good kid. He's right there with me.
"And suffering and a miserable emptiness in the cold darkness your life has become," I pause a moment, and continue.
"and then there is the path of Love," I return my hand to it's extended position with two forked fingers.
"You can marry," I glance at him and nod, "have children, raise and love your family, giving them your life and your heart."
"Or," I pause to look him in the eye again, and then back to the middle finger I am wriggling slowly side to side, "you elect to take care of a much larger family, you adopt a much broader scope and understanding of Love and responsibility to society, and love and serve them."
Out of the corner of my eye I see that he gets it. His head is nodding slightly, subconsciously, and there is a look of absorption and contemplation in his expression.
We are both silent for a moment. Just enough of a moment. A flawless amount of silence.

I direct my attention again to his face, and then he says (I fuckin' 'shit you not!),
"Thank you for that." And he said it with all the earnestness and sincerity of his decent heart.
"That's what I'm here for." I returned, quite matter-of-factly as I gazed forward into the parking lot at nothing in particular.
"No, really, thank you. I really needed to hear just that tonight."
"No, thank you."
"What do you mean?"
"I needed to tell you that."
He appeared a bit confused by this, and a little alarmed, like he had just seen what might have been a ghost.
He KNEW that is what he needed to hear. I had not wasted my breath (I often do. On you, you ungrateful, ignorant fuckers).
He then purposefully arose (not stood up, he AROSE) and thoughtfully said,"I'm going home to my wife now."
"Have a beautiful evening." I said, turning to my right as he walked behind me.
"You too. Thank you."
He looking at me, and I at him, I had the vague sense that we each were wondering who the angel was.
And then I turned back to the Liquor store, arms outstretched before me with my elbows resting on my knees,and...
I was struck right between the eyes. I saw the flawless perfection of it all. That kid needed to hear THAT THAT, THAT specific THAT which 'I' said, at THAT precise moment. And all of the anger, frustration and nihilism which propelled me to that spot not only became worthwhile, but absolutely GOLDEN. The thought that that kid may now return home, and instead of acting a fool and contributing to the destruction of his marriage and a little bit of himself as a result, he may at the very least make a fair attempt at being the kind and compassionate and loving and good husband that he is. FUCKIN' POETRY.
It all made sense.
My suffering and pain at that point meant nothing and everything simultaneously. It had been smelted in the crucible of WHY.
I was reassured once again that GOD was there and I had done LOVE's will. I suffer, I hurt, I laugh, I smile, I cry, I feel joyous, and I LOVE for a purpose. For LOVE's purpose.

Flawless.
Every time.

Epilogue

Why for me is important. Why is the reason I failed college algebra. The teachers could not explain to me how it worked and why we were to do what it is that we were doing, that would be explained further on, if we succeeded in getting that far. Basically, I had to 'take it on faith'. Why may be the reason I fail as a spiritual being. Why to me is everything. (The platitude 'Why not?' served it's purpose, for a time...)
I know how to get those marching orders. I know why we are to meditate. If I do not take the time to be in observance of consciousness, I do not have access to that aspect of the mind's resources, namely 'WHY' (intuition explains everything, just ask Einstien...). I know how vague and mystical that all may sound, and it even may resound with hocus-pocus. I cannot divulge much more at this juncture, for the story is over, and I've other things to do.
That's WHY.

All this does bring to mind an axiom used in one of my favorite movies,

"Understanding is not a pre-requisite of cooperation."