My addiction to instant gratification: The Hit

It occurs to me that I've never taken a drink or a drug into my body that actually did what I thought it would. There was always the need for more, the denial of that reality, and subsequent relapses into addictive behavior patterns which could have landed me on the rocks.

I'm addicted to the hit. It doesn't matter what it is. I have a particular appreciation for alcohol but since my last post on it I've concluded that I'm an alcoholic. Once I start I can't stop, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that doesn't get that.

It doesn't matter what the temptation is. If it is not moving me forward in life, I feel like a worthless piece of shit when I give into it, only the feeling isn't overwhelming. It's nagging, a reminder.

Got you again, asshole.

Every drag I take off a cigarette, every time I buy a Coke or a donut or a friggin notebook (new notebooks make me feel good again for about twelve seconds), I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Just this one last time, just like the last time, right?

One series of addictive behaviors picks up where the other one left off. It feels like a fucking merry-go-round, like genuine happiness is running circles around my ass and all I'm doing is chasing my tail.

I need to bring more durable satisfaction into my life. Making dinner instead of eating mindlessly because cooking allows me to interact with the ingredients I'm using. Reading a book because books are reliable, free, and you only need to read the same story twice if you want to. Encouraging creative play with Olivia. Helping others. Daily reviews of my spiritual condition. These are all things that I can do and keep doing.

The oppitomy of sustainable energy.

Ah, that's it. This is what the next chapter is about...sustainable energy, maintaining spiritual velocity at the bare minimum of energetic projection.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Confusion

I'm not perfect.

If I was, I wouldn't be in the situation I am now. I said some nasty things to someone over something petty, and now I don't have the luxury of speaking to her when I really need support around me.

She was a good friend, and despite my infantile need to "hog it all"--everything. I think I would hog the air if I could--and this bizarre notion that at that particular time, my needs were more important than hers, I was wrong.

It bothers me that I can't make ammends--she has severed every possible angle of communication that I could think of--but I think it's because I feel as though I'm being ignored.

And this is what confuses me...you ready?...here it comes...

I'm appreciative of the support that she offered me while we were still communicating, but the reality is I can't tolerate the type of relationship where I feel as though I'm being looked down upon, even if it's all in my imagination.

So why in the hell am I frustrated that I'm being ignored?

To keep myself safe, I want to hole up, turn this into a seething resentment and envision standing around hearing her desperate pleas for me to take her back--because of course I'm that important, right?--but I'm not going to, for two reasons:

1. She doesn't deserve it. After all the support that she gave me she didn't even deserve what happened this morning.
2. I need a clear head and heart to keep this blog going.

A final apology for my behavior and a thank you for her support.

Until then, I'll keep writing.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I can feel the spirits kicking up already...

...Not all of you will agree with what I mean by spirits. I should get that out of the way now, and no, I do not hear voices.

Despite Halloween being commercialized as a night of horrors and costumes and sugar rushes, it is actually a religious holiday.

Kicking off the Pagan New Year, it is the night when the veil between the living and the dead is thought to be the thinnest. It is on this night that individuals who have lost anyone dear to them over the last year are invited to cast spells and to commune through the elements with their dearly departed to let them know that it is okay to move on.

Last year, the jack-o-lantern that I set upon our stoop read SPIRIT. I let the departed know that if they needed to use it in any way, they could, and I let them know in my own way that I understood the significance of the holiday.

I remember last Halloween being particularly quiet spiritually. It was almost devout. This year, the spiritual energy in the days leading up to Halloween is almost overwhelming. It's very crowded this year, and the departed are restless. Friends across whom I've run this information and who believe in it have all agreed with me.

Alot will be going down after dark on the 31st.   

I went to Mahoney's today and scooped up a 30 pound pumpkin to carve on Halloween night. It's huge. It has an indentation (not a dent) smack dab in the middle of the pumpkin, right where the nose would be.

I knew I had to have it, so I wheeled it, and my daughter on the cart up to the checkout (I got a good price on it).

I wish I had some idea where the carving kit was. I'm sure they hike up the prices around Halloween. Maybe I'll buy one on November 1st--when all the Halloween paraphernelia goes on sale so they can liquidate it for Thanksgiving and Christmas--and stash it in my closet until next year so I know where it is.

Hopefully Olivia will be old enough to appreciate Halloween by then. She's going as a super hero this year and there's more and more talk of her costume as the big night approaches.

I'm already feeling that feeling, the same one I get when I look quietly upon the pauper grave markers in the State Hospital Cemetery, the one I used to get as a kid going door to door for candy I didn't need, the feeling I get every year on Halloween night.

Only this year I'm feeling that feeling four days early. What in the hell is going on out there?

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

A new chapter...

I'm using this blog as a means to journal from now on, in addition, of course, to addressing my readers directly when I feel that there there is a lesson that may go unobserved if I don't. 

The need to journal, to write, to feel my fingers dance across the keys, has become paramount to the need for a following. 

As I grow more candid in my posts, surely more people will come, but the mistake I made in the first chapter of this blog was that I felt myself sinking (into the blog bog), putting so much focus on the numbers, how many people told me they would look at this blog and never did, and being perfect, that I lost sight of the reason I had started it in the first place.

It's been one hell of a journey so far. This blog has helped me grow in so many ways. Now I just want to chill. Have you ever felt that way? It's stressful learning so much so quickly, it's like a post pubescent growth spurt. I think, however, that it comes at the right time, because behaviorally (psychology) I don't think it could have come at any other.

In the Tarot deck, there is a card that represents the Fool. Dan Millman's mentor said that we are all fools together, that none of us know where or when we are (where is the Universe?). I feel that as I learn more about myself and about the world around me, I continue to lose sight of my birth right, which is to experience the world with six senses, and to enjoy it.

Sex and nuclear weapons are defiling enough. Why do we (my readers and I) need to grow spiritually as well when so many around us seem to lack the compassion or will to access the spiritual current to begin with?

I wrote in a handwritten journal entry six or seven months ago that I had backed off the spiritual stuff and begun to experience the warmth that I felt as a kid using a combination of essential oils, and a few piano lessons that Santa dropped down the chimney for me to make use of in my free time.

I called it re-entry.

I felt that I had gone as far as I could tolerate spiritually and needed to focus more on the world around me than the one in my head. I enjoyed it while it lasted. Eventually, however, I lost my grip on it. 

I want it back.

So maybe that's what this next chapter will be about, experiencing re-entry for the second time, only this time I can take with me the knowledge that I continue to obtain through writing, through reflection, and through experience. 

This blog is entitled The Introvert Exposed: A Practical Approach to Spiritual Living. No amount of spiritual resonance will be worth its weight in gold if I cannot apply it practically. It will serve as a distraction rather than the next rung on the ladder, and all that will do is drive me insane (as if).

In closing I want to thank Dorian for the courage to approach this blog in a different way than I had before--it means a lot to me that someone can read a candid post and fall in love with it--and Melissa for her continued support in my sobriety.

When Michelango was asked how he carved the Statue of David so beautifully, he responded "I did not carve David, I simply took away that which was not David."

This blog has begun to shake itself free from the stone cast by which it was protected from change. Whatever it turns out to be, I feel I've been blessed to have come this far, and to have all of you with me. 

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I feel normal again...thank God!!

I had taken my medication late so I took it as I usually do, in addition to something I had stopped taking a few weeks ago. The result, I feel normal again for the first time in a few weeks!

I haven't been eating non stop, I haven't had any nicotine all day (zero cravings) and I decided to spend $20 on gas today instead of spending it on Red Bull. The latter means that the mplementation of reducing the spending limit on my debit card has made me prioritize my needs against my wants, with some wiggle room, not a whole lot but some.

It feels so amazing to feel like I'm back to Corey again, such a breath of fresh air, especially now that my priorities regarding happiness have changed. I told someone the other day that I no longer experience happiness.

What a heartbreaking conclusion to have come to!

Fortunately, I've realized that all I need to do is pay attention, and I will be reminded of what I need to feel good and to wrest genuine happiness out of any given moment. Embracing that fully may take some time and it will definitely take awareness, but I feel that the time I've spent training makes the task a lot more manageable, even though I haven't done quite as much as I would have liked to since I took it upon myself to lay out an impossibly difficult training module and follow it to a T.

Whatever happens from here on out, I've now completed one of the most uncomfortable dissociative detours I've ever had to take, and what I believe may be the first chapter in The Introvert Exposed, for while it may not be the first chapter to draw to a close in my life, it's the first one to close around me with enough people watching for me to declare in heartwarming jest that alas, I am famous!

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I haven't been pushing myself hard enough...

I discovered last night that I was capable of lifting more weight than I thought, but only because I started doing upper body reps with a forty 40 pound bag of sugar in the second aisle and got people going. The D-Aspartic acid I'm taking is obviously working because if I'm not doing something physical, I'm losing my mind, anymore, and the guys have always made jokes about who could lift more.

Anyway, I went to go lift a 40 pound bag of flour and one of my colleagues suggested I take the other 40 pound bag of flour in addition to it so I wouldn't have to come back. So I deadlifted 80 pounds of flour and carried it 20 feet (likely my max because I just barely made it) and stocked it.

I'm proud of myself...really proud of myself, actually. I just remembered something my boss told me: (paraphrasing) "You never know what you're capable of untul you push yourself to do something more than you think you can do reasonably."

Then I figured if I could carry 80 pounds for 20 feet then maybe I could carry something at about half that weight for say...60? So I stacked two boxes of oil atop each other and carried the 57 pounds of cholesterol for 60 feet dound the aisle to the oil section. I repeated this process for a few more heavy stacks over the next aisle or so, and decided not to go to the gym on the way home, because part of getting stronger is learing to respect your body, and last night, my body was tired, but emotionally I was completely fulfilled.

It boggles the mind that I've been working in a freaking warehouse for eight months and didn't consider using it as an arena for my physical aspirations, but that's okay, because I'm doing it now.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I love the cold. It makes things warm again...

We used to have a cabin up in Vermont. In the winter, on the weekends, we would make the two hour drive, the end of the journey marked by snow covered dirt roads. When we arrrived, my brothers, my father and I would all pee into the snow drifts alongside the cabin by the brook (it felt good to stretch after a two-hour drive and who doesn't like peeing in the snow?), and my mom would light the pilot on the hot water heater in the basement.

Next, we would light two fires, one in the woodstove in the far corner of the house by the huge window looking out into the yard, and one in the fireplace. 

I used to love sitting on the hearth once the fire had a chance to warm the masonry. There's nothing better in the world than cold hands and feet and a warm ass. Eventually, the well-insulated cabin would heat up--sometimes a little too much; we would need to crack the windows--and I would move from the hearth to the couch with a flushed face and red nose, and the weekend would begin.

The cold makes me think of Vermont, but it also brings all of my other senses to life (except for smell because my sense of smell has been depreciated since birth) because it was in the cold that I experienced some of the most sensory-rich occurrences in my life: My dad pushing me down the hill on an old sled when I was a kid, with snow floating softly to earth. Shoveling the driveway as a senior in high school, so sure I wouldn't slip, then having my feet fly out of from under me and hitting my tailbone so hard I couldn't breathe (that made me appreciate the hidden value of black ice). Driving my 1997 Buick Skylark like a snowmobile in college. Feeling claustrophobic a few years ago as the National Guard was called in to remove snow from Boston sidewalks (the last snow farm didn't melt until July).

All of these are things which have stayed with me over the years and will continue to do so for years to come. 

I love the cold, because it makes things warm again.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Does being alone denote emotional solitude?

Not necessarily.

Some people have a real problem with being alone. I am one of them.

Often what drives my training is the hope that someday I will be comfortable in my own skin. The reason I don't enjoy being alone is because when I'm alone I tend to go to the darkest places in my head instead of the brightest.

I spent about five minutes in solitary reflection the other night, sucking on a nicotine lozzenge and thinking about what I could have done better, but also giving myself credit for the good things I had done that day.

And you know what?

It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. In fact it was extremely relaxing. For me, it would seem, the idea of being alone is much more taxing than the reality it would suggest. I have the same irrational fear of being stung by yellow jackets, and injections.

One of the things that helps me be alone when I need to be is friendship. I do not have many friends, but the friends that I do have seem to count on me as much as I count on them. I know that at a moments notice, I can escape my bubble of solitude and invite their insight, their plights and their love into my consciousness, even if that means only thinking about them.

The other thing that helps me with being alone is knowing that in moments of quiet waiting, or even just being, I can receive insight into the deepest parts of myself, which I inject into every post I write.

So I think I just found the answer to a question I've been asking myself for a few days now...if I can't get out of the box, I need to invite part of it into me, and the best way to do that is to sit quietly in a dark room and wait for insight that I don't have access to while everyone else is taking up space in my head.

I can do this!

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

A day between posts and the mob is getting anxious...

I didn't expect it :)

I am, however, grateful that one of my readers asked me if I was okay when after 24 hours he became nervous because I hadn't posted. In one of my previous posts, fairly recently actually, I believe I had mentioned allowing a couple days to pass between posts if I felt that to post would gnaw at the integrity of maintaining the blog to begin with.

Truthfully I feel as though I'm running out of steam.

This will pass, as it always does. I can't say when, and what is perhaps even more frustrating is I can't say why. I relate this most recent funk to coming down off of Adderall after abusing it for days at a time.

I think my old mentor would tell me to just sit with it, but that would be sitting with the anxiety of not doing anything. I have tried to tackle this problem in a number of different ways, and I have concluded that im trying to beat my way out of a concrete cube.

All of my training up until this point has taught me that I need to wait and watch, even if it is with bemused skepticism.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

What are my political views?

...I had a conversation with someone the other day who had a shit fit that I've elected not to vote in the upcoming elections.

One of our most valued rights as a society is to vote for a president who isn't elected based on the popular vote, and on the state level, I prefer to leave it up to the Powers that Be to decide what passes and what doesn't, regardless of what I think.

I consider myself small...egomaniacal and likely deservant of more than I give myself credit for, but small nonetheless. Surely, people are curious as to whom I would vote for if I chose to cast a vote, but I won't go as far as to risk splitting this blog down the middle to lay my claim to a say in the matter,

This blog is extremely important to me, and it's extremely important to some of my followers. Others could take it or leave it, I'm sure, but I believe that those who do read it are touched on whatever level they need to be that day.

At the very least, I hope to write a single post in my lifetime that resonates with somebody somewhere.

I recently posted a quote by Dan Millman to Facebook: "The next message you need is right where you are," and maybe I posted it because that was my message for the day.

I don't know who is reading this blog and who isn't. I just see numbers.

Whoever you are, and whoever may be curious as to my political views, the outcomes of the state and presidential elections this year will not change the way I see the world, and the ways in which I present that perception to you.

Only time can do that.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Per request: What it means to really see someone...

Have you ever really stopped and watched someone?

I was taught from a very young age that if you love someone, you love them unconditionally. I took that to heart, watching crushes from afar, loving everything they did, every move they made, every word they said or didn't say, their anger, their frustration and everything in between.

It seemed to be the only thing that kept me going on some days, the only thing that got me out of bed and the only thing that ever got me to sleep. It was something over which to obsess.

The desire to connect with another human being was probably stronger between the ages of twelve and thirteen than it was before then or has been ever since.

But the concept of really seeing and appreciating someone has never left me. It hides. It sleeps, and occasioanlly it stirs and creeps up on me, and when I am so blessed, I get to see someone for who they really are, because I take a few seconds to watch them when they have no idea that I'm doing it.

The yield is a candid display of their most innate personality, a list of struggles that I can't read, but I can feel, because they carry their victories over them with supreme confidence. Even the most despairing of us can claim victory over struggle, simply for virtue of being alive.

Take the time to appreciate one person today, be it a stranger or friend. Watch them when they're not looking. Learn their ways, their walks, their expressions. It doesn't take long. Just a minute or a few minutes.

Just be careful...you might fall in love.



See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

"Corey, don't hit the...(crash!)"

Okay maybe that's not exactly happened, but when my dad had me working his knew monstrosity of a tractor last week he told me twice not drive it into the porch by the livingroom. I came close once. It's somewhat of a pain to operate and takes extreme focus.

Today I got tired of waiting around for everyone else to show me how to do things before I tried them myself, so I pulled the tractor out of the garage and learned how to use the bucket myself. It's extremely satisfying to have done so, and I got a lot done with it!

Most of all I think I felt accomplished for trying, failing and ultimately succeeding in the task of teaching myself how to do something. I love the process. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's my autism. I know many Asperger children take apart radios and things of that sort to see how they work. For me I think it's the reconciliation, the bridge in the gap, like the fitting of the last puzzle piece into place, finally yielding a complete picture.

When someone else shows me how to do something, it takes the mystery out of it.  

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I know what it's like to be watched, now...

...it's nice knowing that the business cards are working and that people continue to follow me after my failures last week, but what I wasn't expecting when I started this blog was complete transparency and a looking glass into my life.

I don't have any room to fuck up anymore, which is somewhat frustrating, annoying, off-putting, ungrounding...hmm. Anything else?

Then again, I did get this blog going to better myself. Whether I was expecting to be held accountable by so many people on a regular basis or not, I need to press on. Chuck Norris might be able to unscramble an egg, but I can't. I'm left molding the scraps into some resemblance of normalcy.

This post has taken on many shapes and sizes. Ive deleted lines, tried to build on concepts that proved eventually to be dead ends, and sighed loudly, sitting back into this chair in my mom's office trying to make sense of it all (I like this chair better than the one we used to have, though...that one used to sink). What I've come up with is a post about change and adaptability.

I want my emotional privacy, and though I hate to admit it, I think I always have. Deep down I knew that if I could save all of my energy for my own allocation, I would be okay, and a million times more productive than I would be if I needed to spend that energy on someone else.

Now, more than ever, I need to indulge in that privacy, but I also need to accept that the end result will play to my readers' advantage, and that I will need to molt under flourescent lights and observation.

There is no avoiding this reality. I need to adapt to the prospect of living in two worlds at once, mine...and my world as you see it.

I need to be selfish. I need to cut people off if they mean me harm or frustration. I need to train every day. I need to write posts as they come, not as I think they should come. I need to let the powers that be sweep me into that warm embrace and learn to love the rain and the cold and the sweat and the pain and satisfaction of hard work.

I need to be someone I've always had a diffcult time being: myself, because I promised I would keep this blog alive come hell or high water, and if I become someone I'm not to keep people interested in who they can become, I will have stripped myself and The Introvert Exposed of the integrity it needs to maintain inertia, and purpose.

I will have sunk into the blog bog.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Per request: what it means to connect...

...he has been labelled as psychotic by many psychologists. I believe in labels as an institution, but when someone openly expresses that they are annoyed at the prospect of being shoved neatly into a box and then cast aside for virtue of being in that box, and the labels continue, I find my temper rising.

What began as a means to blow off steam (this blog), has evolved into my own box, into which 18 other people now deposited their own surplus to try to make sense of it all. The expression of spiritual anxiety, love, frustration, hope, illusion, limbo, patience and evolution have afforded me another eight extremities with which to explore the world.

Each of these extremities has a port, like an open wi-fi connection, to which others can connect to reconcile their emotions with their place in society.

To the man with the label: Everybody in the Western world (the educated, like you and I) with enough sense to have done so, has experienced on some level what you described to me last night.

Everybody has secrets. We bury them like acorns and go back to them when no one is looking. They sustain us. We claim these secrets to be our own, shared only with a select few. In reality, most of us shiver in our own shadows with the same secrets that you have.

It's okay to be who you are, because everyone else knows what it's like.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Training has gone well so far today...

I was at the sobriety meeting this morning for 40 minutes. In that time I avoided the temptation to smoke, and though the food was late, I also managed to avoid eating, so I'll take the win.

Also, I broke up my piano practicing time into intervals but I did get about 20 minutes in, so I'll take the extra point for another win.

What remains is 20 minutes of solitary reflection.

I didn't have anything slated for training for work tonight until about a minute ago, but I'm also going to avoid speaking unless spoken to or unless I have a work related concern. Of course, I'm excluding standard and early shift greetings from tonight's session because walking in early and not saying anything to anybody would just be weird, and if my training makes other people uncomfortable, it's not practical.

I was somewhat disappointed in my having only gone 40 minutes without eating or smoking today and then bailing. I took a win but a small one. One of my problems has always been sitting still, so the next time I have the chance to go to a sobriety meeting, my challenge will be to stay the entire time, all 90 minutes, and if I don't, I won't be able to count it as a win.

As of right now I don't know when that will be, probably sometime in the next week, however. I will report tomorrow on tonight's progress.

Daddy duty! :)

Be well, all!  

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

2 nights, 2 wins, and a more focused module

I give myself a 95/100 for my training last night, resulting in my second win in the last two days! It feels amazing to have finally generated some spiritual momentum and to have been afforded a deeper sense of clarity and perspective on my life.

I discovered that one of the reasons the training module I set up wasn't working was because it was way too broad. The focus of this blog is to show how expending less energy on a more focused causal link results in higher productivity. I started out with a training module that implied that I was ready to carry virtues with me throughout the entire day.

This was a mistake.

Rather, if I start out with applying more focused training to my life right now, and in much shorter intervals, I will eventually be able to do it consistently without a second thought.

It's important to note that I believe in infinite advancement of the human spirit. This means that every ounce of effort that I put into my training now is a more refined touch-tone to bigger and better things, more difficult challenges, still higher productivity, more balance, and deeper perspective.

I had myself slated for patience with others and 10 minutes of solitary reflection today. I intend to reflect for 20 minutes in the basement when I arrive home from work tonight, this time without a notebook (it's easy to avoid freaking out about being alone when you're distracted, right?).

Patience with others is too broad a value for me yet, so I've decided to replace that with a sobriety meeting where I will not eat or use tobacco (part of the problem for ex smokers in these types of meetings is the plume of smoke at the door on their way in to scramble madly for the bologna and cheese and brownies and chips they always have).

In the event that I can't get away from the house today, I'll replace the meeting with 20 minutes on the keyboard. I swear, music opens up parts of the brain you never even knew were there.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Preparing for tonight's training

I've friended a number of people I knew in high school to try to generate some exposure for this blog, but on an esoteric level I also did it to bring myself back to the days when I thought every goddamn thing in the world was possible. I spent many classes fanatasizing about how stupid I would make people look when I published the next great American novel.

Anything is possible with a bottle of Adderall in your pocket, right?

I'll show them, I would think.

Good thing more than a decade of experience has entered my life between then and now, because I might still be an angry, egotistical drug addicted social outcast. Now I'm just an egotistical outcast and I'm okay with it, because I'm doing what I always said I would do.

I'm writing.

Tonight's training will take place at work, where I will try not to speak unless it regards work-oriented tasks, a standard greeting, or unless I'm spoken to.

Much of my training involves internalizing conflicts. This is because I struggle with being alone in my head. Reducing the amount of time I spend initiating or entertaining conversation with others will allow me to shift my focus from idle chat to emotional processing.

It will also help me with focus.

Right now I'm on Strattera for focus and an SSRI (selective seratonin reuptake inhibitor) for depression. Eventually I would like to get off of both, and optimizating emotional processing time is a big step in the right direction.

Wish me luck!

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Update on training, day 5, starting from task #1 again...

Today's task was to replace negative thought patterns with positive ones. I was not aware of the task for much of the day. I felt rather distracted overall. With respect to unneeded expenditures I did buy an energy drink, as I have every day this week.

The one thing I was able to do, however, was something that I didn't have myself slated to do, which was to commence solitary reflection. Today is the first in five days I have completed a successful training session.

Truthfully I was beaten into a position where I absolutely had to do it so that I wouldn't drive myself crazy, because I hate being alone and I was going to be alone one way or the other. I had made a stupid mistake and when a friend of mine took offense to it I took offense right back. He told me he would talk to me tomorrow and refused, however politely, to continue being maniuplated, and who could blame him?

So I headed down into the basement to think about how the day had gone, how it could have gone better and how tomorrow night would go if I decided to do the same thing. Then I realized that tomorrow night is a work night for me, and that if I had had success with my training today, even if it was in a different area than I anticipated, maybe I would have luck with it tomorrow.

After all, I feel strong spiritually, stronger than I have all week, and all it took was about 15 minutes alone with the Universe.

So I've decided to rate this week a 5/5 for effort and to begin my training regimen over tomorrow, starting with the first task I set out to complete for myself, which was not to talk to anyone until I was spoken to, save Olivia.

I'm going refine that a little and spend the day preparing to complete a work shift speaking only when spoken to or as it related to business. No need to start off chasing the Unicorn. A fine racing turtle seems like a good competitor for now.

 Day 5: My first win!!!! :)

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

My readers need to see me vulnerable...also a request for my followers...

My readers need to see me vulnerable. I say that because I broke my phone fast last night (I should say I never really started it to be completely honest), and was afforded some of the most valuable insight regarding this blog that I have yet received.

I told someone that I was feeling guilty about my training not going so well. He told me that the training regimen I had set up for myself was very intense and that it took guts to even approach something like that. 

I asked him if he thought that some of my readers would stop following my blog seeing me struggle so often, and he told me that the readers who would stay would appreciate seeing me struggle and overcome challenges, and that if I let the blog evolve organically, the readers I would lose (if I lose any) may eventually come back to an entirely new blog.

The reality is my readers need to see me vulnerable. They need to understand that I am human, that I have emotions, including guilt--very intense, gnawing guilt--, but also that to have that guilt in this situation is to embrace ego, and part of yesterday's training was to let it go. So I was right. My training is carrying over from one day to the next.

Today's training is to replace negative thought patterns with positive thought patterns. I look forward to the challenge because that has always been a tough one for me.

Regarding my post on the alcohol craving yesterday, I did not submit to it. I am still very sober, very much alive, content, happy even, and the longer I go without taking alcohol into my body, the people who need to be in my life are getting closer, and those who do not need to be in my life are getting farther away.

I also have a request.

Someone brought up a good point this morning, and that is that no one comments on the blog installments I post to Facebook.

In the interest of generating readership I would request that all of my readers share this blog with others on whatever social networking platform you see fit when I post something that resonates with you guys, and to comment, I beg you kindly, using the 'comment' button below the post on Facebook.

The business cards are working--I've rounded up a few more regular followers--but what this blog really needs to get going is page activity, word of mouth, and feedback. I've known many of you for a good deal of time now. For all intents and purposes, you guys are my feelers. I need to know how my readers are responding. Request posts. The 'per request' posts thus far have generated the most page views. I expect they will continue to do so.

On my end, I will continue to update everyone on my training regimen and the success that I'm now beginning to enjoy with respect to discipline of the mind. As someone told me last night, this blog is real, and as much as the underlying motivation has been for me to teach, I've received the most hits on posts regarding confusion, feelings of guilt and failure, and obsession.

Be well, everyone. Let's keep this going.

Seek, and you shall find!

Fighting the craving from hell...

I want a drink so bad I can taste it. My anxiety is so high I feel like I've been holding my breath for a minute and a half. I feel my lungs burning against the frustration of needing something I can't have, because if I have it, I will have disappointed all of my readers, all of my friends and myself.

I'm writing it because I don't want to feel like this anymore. I need to step back and take an objective view of things and realize that ultimately, everything is okay and will continue to be okay as long as I continue to do the right thing.

One of my readers told me that my last post related to sobriety was her favorite because it sounded less scripted than my other posts. This is about as freaking candid as I think I can get at this point. I want to get loaded, smoke a pack of cigarettes and end the night with an apple pie and about 5 Red Bull.

But I won't.

Because my dedication to my daughter, to my readers, to myself, and to God, is more powerful than any weapon that could ever compromise it.

So fuck you, anxiety.

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Training day 4, showing gratitude, resisting ego

As has been the trend, I am once again being tested directly on what I suggested for training. When I was at the store earlier this morning I started telling the cashier how amazing I was. I didnt realize this until I got home. Also, my dad said I would hate his shoulder surgery because of all the extra work I would need to do around the house, and I have been on a mission to prove him wrong, challenging him to give me things that I would not enjoy doing and going out of my way to do extra things. This is ego. The absence of ego, which I am beginning to experience as the day goes on, is inherently humility, and only when we are humble can we show gratitude.

Since I have been aiming for high marks and missing I feel as though I need to bring something else into my training regimen for this week, so I'm including an additional 24-hour phone fast (save a commitment I made to someone) for this week only. I think I am slated for another 24-hour phone fast tomorrow so it will be two days before I speak with most of you again. I will, however, return to post an update on my spiritual stress, and the physical and mental stress I will have accumulated by subjecting myself to social isolation.

In certain sobriety groups I have attended, social isolation is thought to be a bad thing, but this is a deliberate and controlled attempt to engage my spiritual muscles, not to avoid reality.

I don't know why but I'm suddenly compelled to include a caveat at the end of this post. When I get gut feelings, I listen to them.

Stay open minded.

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Thank you new readers, an update on my training...

It looks like someone found my blog yesterday and read every single one of my posts. I appreciate the readership and I'm glad that the posts kept your interest.

With respect to my training, the same thing happened last night as the day before. I kept forgetting that I was in training.

Nonetheless, I found that I wasn't extraordinarily critical of people. I was quick to anger and even quicker to understanding, which was good.

I split (with a machine) and stacked a freaking shitload of logs in the yard yesterday (6 hours), and then went to work so my work performance last night was a bit hindered.

I have noticed a trend over the last couple days, and I call it a trend because I know enough about the Universe now to know that there are no mistakes. I am being tested specifically according to the training regimen that I outlined a few days ago.

The day before last I was not to speak unless spoken to, yet I was more chatty than I usually am at work, which is the exact opposite of what I was aiming for. Yesterday, I started my day with getting pissed off at my dad for requesting my help with the yard, and was very quick to anger and intolerance with others throughout the day, which is the exact opposite of what I was aiming for.

Today I am to focus on being patient with myself and acknowleding my self-worth. I was also slated to avoid unnecessary expenditures. I still can't seem to get that licked. I was upset with myself, and still am, but I need to realize that I am not perfect, and that despite such a slight, I can still touch people's hearts, and I can still avoid drinking alcohol for 24 hours at a time.

Look for a post later on tonight entitled REALLY SEEING PEOPLE.

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Training could have gone better, confusion to clarity...

Not speaking unless I was spoken to was difficult. I kept forgetting that I was in training and when I did remember it would take a lot of mental energy for me to get back on track, only to forget again a few minutes later. The effort, however, seemed to help my work performance. I moved more quickly, I processed more quickly, and I expended less energy to do it.

When I wrote out my training regimen last night I neglected to realize it's potential. Not only will this regimen make it easier for me to engage in the type of behaviors that promote clarity and emotional well being, but it will also result in a decreased need to spend mental energy communing with my higher self. I'll be able to engage in these behaviors with ease so I that can focus on their practical application.

The whole idea behind this spiritual and mental training is to be able to expend less and less energy on increasingly more focused causal links, resulting in higher productivity, and better overall health and well being. I feel like I'm on the right track.

My dad picked up a wood splitter this morning and I'll be spending the better part of my free time today splitting and stacking wood from trees and tree limbs that he cut down this summer. I love doing this type of shit. I really do. It's relaxing on so many levels, very repetitive, meditative...it speaks to my autism when not many things do.

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Daily training regimen (next 10 days)

I thought I would take the opportunity to formulate and publish my spiritual training regimen for the next ten days, with a few values per day, starting tonight.

1. Not speaking unless spoken to (excluding interaction with Olivia), no unnecessary expenditures.
2. Patience with others, 10 minutes solitary reflection, no unnecessary expenditures.
3. Patience with myself, self love, acknowledging my worth, no unnecessary expenditures.
4. Showing gratitude, resisting ego, 15 minutes solitary reflection, no unnecessary expenditures.
5. Replacing negative thought patterns with positive thought patterns, no unnecessary expenditures.
6. 24-hour phone fast, 20 minutes solitary reflection, no unnecessary expenditures.
7. Falling asleep without a sleeping pill, no unnecessary expenditures.
8. Vegetarian diet, 25 minutes solitary reflection, no unnecessary expenditures.
9. Vegan diet, rereading all blog posts, 15 minutes meditation with mantra, no unnecessary expenditures.
10. 24-hour phone fast, 30 minutes meditation, no unnecessary expenditures.

I will post semi-daily updates regarding my success in addition to anything else I feel is pertinent. If anyone else wants to follow along, feel free. Also feel free to tailor the regimen to your schedule and availability.

I have wanted for some time now to maintain adherence to these values, but never thought to make a list. I feel that running this list numerous times will give me enough practice in these areas to begin incorporating many of them into my life on a daily basis. I also feel that giving some manner of organization to this blog will give you guys an understanding of which posts are likely to follow and when. A regimen gives you the opportunity to zone in and out on certain things so hopefully it doesn't get overwhelming.

Let's do this!

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Three acts of kindness in less than an hour...

Being present for all of them was amazing.

Act 1

I was in a cafe next to the grocery store with my daughter today, and I watched a woman walk out with a full iced coffee and drop it onto the mat. The reaction from the crowd in the crowded little cubicle of a cafe was similar to that which you might hear after a golfer completely flubs his stroke. I offered twice to buy her another before they gave her another one for free.

Act 2

I was in the checkout line at the grocery store with a number of items, including a small case of four energy drinks, which I managed to drop on the ground in the transition from the carriage onto the rolling register. The cashier offered me a new case.

Act 3

As I was driving out of the parking lot after having thanked God for the Red Bull I was drinking at the moment, I saw a woman head toward her car, her hand over a quiet yawn. I offered her a Red Bull and gave her my first business card. I told her it was free and about accomplishing more by doing less.

Her energies were soft and cautious, but she was curious as to why this strange man had offered such a thing. She noted Olivia in the back seat and asked me where my wife was. I proceeded to tell her that I was a single father. I don't know what that had to do with anything but it seemed really important to her so I entertained it.

Anyway, I just wanted to comment because I thought it was really cool how the third act of kindness might have resulted in another reader (special number three), and I feel like the series of them have set the tone for how I want to live my life from here on out.

I want to see people's eyes come alive with gratitude.  

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I got my business cards today!

They came out great! I was bummed out when I clicked on the tracking number to find that their arrival date had been moved to Wednesday night, so I called the post office. The first time I called, they couldn't find it because it hadn't been processed. The next time I called started a mad rush to the post office with a very confused little girl in the back seat. I was giddy!

Right now I have two in my wallet and I never want more than that with me. I want to be excited when a business card goes out. I don't want to run up to someone on the street and hand it off to them and watch them walk away doubting they'll ever type the address into their computer. Each rejection would serve only to punch another hole in my hope tank. Rather, I want to make sure that every business card that goes out brings in another reader, and hopefully another one by word of mouth!

Should I have waited for the postman to deliver them tomorrow? Probably, but I'll leave that for you to decide. I'm leaning toward a yes. I'm going to put this post on my patience page to remind myself that the decision was up for debate and that had I stepped back for a moment and distracted myself with some light exercise or something, I could have resisted.

Writing this post, though, even hours later, I am in glee!

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I found a hack in the system to beat rising gas prices...

I got out of work late last night so I had the opportunity to drive home on dark, desolate roads, with nothing special to focus on. So I started thinking about my blog. I thought back on my training and decided that a little practice resisting temptation wouldn't hurt. So I decided to play a little game with the rise and falls of the road before me.

I had learned from my mom many years ago that coasting could save me some gas money, and hadn't I just spent almost four hours at work stressing about how I didn't have enough money coming in?

So I started coasting, and here is where my fierce determination to keep this motivational streak alive and my addictive personality fall into perfect alignment with each other.

The entire drive home revolved around discovering the physics of my car, the idles between automatic transmission shifts, the sound of the engine revving, the shape of the road, the locality of curves and stop signs, etc...

And I learned a few things.

First off, cars are built to be able to maintain speed. If they were not, they would have no use to us.

As I began my coasting journey I experimented with different gallops, different inclines, long and short coasts, and I realized that on a flat, straight road, it would take my car 45 seconds to lose ten miles per hour. So I would cruise on flat surfaces and accelerate when I got to the bottom of the next hill.

Then I started thinking about how I could improve my coasts. I decided to pedal downhill to build up some speed and let my car do the rest so that I wasn't spending gas to maintain speed on an incline. Then I would pedal downhill again when I got to the next crest.

Small practicalities like coasting up to the next stop sign if there was no one behind me rather than hammering down just to put the brakes on half a second later, and using the weight of my car to slow down before turns also assisted me in expending less energy to achieve greater distance, just as it did as I threw rocks into the algae laden pond that morning.





See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

She brought up a good point last night...

I was engaged in an argument with a friend of mine last night. Formerly an online fling, now a frozen stone...because of me. I wrote recently that I have a hard time admitting when I'm wrong. This only applies in certain situations, which I will now disclose here: I am capable of controlled drinking, but I have an addictive personality, I have had trouble with drinking in the past and I probably shouldn't be fucking doing it at all!

I directed her to my post "Old Habits Are Sparring Partners." She read it and informed me that the writing in my blog reflected the person that I want to be, but that if I don't manage certain aspects of my life as they relate to addiction, I'm only that person part of the time, and if I'm only that person part of the time, it means I'm not that person yet.

So, I have decided to be that person for awhile. Actually, I'll say that I have decided not to be the person I am when I'm not being the person I should be. I think that preventative maintenance is a step toward preserving ground but I don't regard it as forward momentum. There's no such thing as stagnant water.

The reality is I need to build on the ground I've gained, not just maintain it.

I'll start by acknowledging the fact that even after the argument we had last night, Laura reminded me of what I'm capable of and what she wanted for me. Her anger toward me was well deserved while my anger toward her was unprovoked.

I had a similar confrontation with another great friend recently and I want to make it clear to all those reading this that my decision to abstain from alcohol is a personal one. I have lost great amounts of respect from most of my friends for drinking within reason, and controlled drinking just isn't worth that. People feel much closer to me when I love with a sober heart than with a partially clouded one.

That being said, I intend to install fail-safes in numerous areas of my life. Instantly moving my paychecks over into my other account so that I don't have access to the money needed to purchase alcohol, regular communication with sober people, and attending sobriety groups. When I wake up in the morning I can either work on my recovery or I can work on my next relapse.

Fuck anything in between. I want my readers to know that I am engaged in a spiritual, mental and physical battle against addiction, that I have been since I was eighteen, and that I have managed to stay sober for extended periods of time despite that.

Time for another long ass stretch, starting today.

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Finally settled in...(Part 2 in the Testing Series)

...I did a bit of pruning in some key areas of my blog-promoting-high-octane life last night. One of them was my association with Tumblr, which I have completely severed. What a horribly confusing platform!

Also, I've decided to stop actively promoting this blog (expending more energy than needed rather than just posting it on Facebook for people to feast upon at their convenience) and to just let readers come to me if the Universe wills it to be so. I know I mentioned that I was going to do this before but it took me a few days to settle into the prospect of letting go, which is, quite honestly, usually very difficult for me. In this case, I'm trusting something that isn't all powerful high and mighty Me to make things happen. A scary, however, freeing prospect that I intend to cling to. How freaking ironic.

For all intents and purposes, this blog is mine. It is an outlet for my spiritual stress but it's also a great way to record fond memories. Why have I been denying myself the opportunity to inject personal embellishments into this fine media instead of just teaching lessons? As Millman expressed that it's natural to zone into and out of spirituality, I need to do the same for my readers. Not everyone is going to latch onto everything I write. They may enjoy it but they may not be ready to hear it. Wouldn't it make more sense to just write like I am now, to let it flow and see if anyone else operates on the same spiritual tides as I?

It has been suggested to me a couple times now that I take all of my blog posts and put them into a book, say, after a year, and to sell it. I think I'll wait until I have enough of an audience to make publication worth my time and effort, but I'll definitely keep it in mind. Nonetheless, if I don't incorporate personal substance into these posts, nobody will be interested in buying the book, anyway. There has to be some plot, doesn't there? Am I laying the groundwork, as we speak, for an appropriate template. It occurs to me that I certainly have a fine introduction going...32-year old man embarks on emotional journey with the public and struggles to get the blog on it's feet! It has kind of a nice ring to it.

I asked a girl that I met online to promote this blog for me. She said she would and I was all excited. I sent her the link and a minute later she told me "it was great." No emotional emphasis, no exclamation points, no questions about it. So I looked at my dashboard.

She didn't even open the link!

This type of horse shit is what has now prompted me to promote this blog hand to hand, through personal relationships and third party representation and to make honest, lay contributions to it instead of grasping at straws. This blog is all about expending less energy on a more focused causal link, so let's slow things down a bit and see where it all goes.

See you on Facebook! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Per request: recognizing and realizing self worth

When you look upon the vast expansion of social expectations in western culture, it can be difficult to find yourself. I had that problem growing up. I couldn't sing like this or that singer, wasn't as creative as this or that artist, and I certainly wasn't as charismatic as many of my male peers. How did they do it? How did they so quickly earn the emotional attention of of the girl who sat out of gym class, hugging her knees to her chest, the girl that I was always so sure would find her way to me if only God wanted it to happen?

There must have been something wrong with me.

Many young girls find themselves isolating from peers and starving themselves, binging and purging, cutting, disfiguring themselves on the outside to match the chaos on the inside because they will never be that impossibly beautiful air brushed model. Should they have studied harder for longer to get the A that the smarter girl got? If only she could have held off on picking away at her plate for a bit longer, could she have earned enough of his attention to be singled out as his in front of his friends?

With her everything invested in what she could never attain, was she not vulnerable to whatever made her feel powerful? 

Drugs, say.

Recognizing self worth depends entirely upon social constructs, but only in the sense that the social framework of one's life is what gives them perspective regarding who they are, who they are not, and which qualities they find in others that they would like to see in themselves. Getting the girl isn't a quality, or even a value. It is the condition of certain qualities. Being impossibly skinny isn't a quality, or a value. It is the result of chipping desperately away at who you are because it's easier to believe that the guys who get the girls want the girls who hate themselves.

Qualities that define self-worth: Honesty, loyalty, passion, hard work

Conditions which dictate self-worth: Confidence, passion, effort

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a writer, but being a writer does not define my self-worth. My passion for helping others using writing, and my continued efforts to do so, are what make me a worthy contributing member of society.

The measure of an individual can be found in a passionate, honest and unselfish attempt to somehow bring light into someone else's life. Getting the girl will not help anyone else. Becoming impossibly skinny will not help anyone else. Writing about my struggles with addiction, and with how I used to starve myself because I wanted to be invisible, will help someone else because that someone else will read it, realize that they are not alone, and may carry the message to still others.

For the person who requested this: You are one of the most selfless, loyal, honest, passionate and hard working individuals I have ever known. You already have self worth. Sprinkle a bit of confidence on your efforts to remain pure and good and you will see what I see, and what others will see as you continue to touch the hearts of those around you.  

   

He dropped the quarter in the chaos, and found himself...

When I first read Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, I worked third shift, washing, drying and folding bed linens and towels for a local hotel. I read the bulk of the book in the overnight hours between folding sessions, talking to my mentor Dave about the slew of stimulant fueled horse shit rolling around between my ears four nights a week. I listened to classical music and Coast to Coast AM radio with George Noory, and watched all seven installments of the Joseph Campbell documentary about why people believe what they do.
So it was no surprise to me when I glued the quarter to the back of my pentacle and began to write about it, thick with excitement at the discovery. It was an ordinary quarter, no different in size and shape from the billions in circulation at the time. It was what the quarter represented to me that made all the difference in the world.
See, at the time I had been looking for simplicity, much in the same fashion that I am now, only back then I knew how much I didn't know, and I knew that I was getting closer, more dissociative, and more frightened with every conclusion I drew. Dave would eventually tell me to go easy on myself, and Millman would eventually assure me that zoning into and out of spirituality was okay, but at the time I didn't know that. I needed something solid, something I wouldn't have to question, something, even, one dimensional...like a quarter.
If you take a quarter and flip it, which side will land face up? If you flip it at random, it has a 50% chance of landing heads up, and a 50% chance of landing tails up. It also has a 100% chance of landing front side up.
Regardless of what could be, what might be, what probably should be, the only thing that matters in the present moment is whatever you perceive the present moment to offer. Reality is constituent of perception, and since nobody can see into anybody else's head, there are at present approximately 8 billion versions of it. The perspective that you bring to our shared reality is the only one that matters, and that is loosely within our control in many aspects.
What separates my perception of reality from many of my peers is that my peers have a tendency to carry with them things which might have been.
"Whoa! Good thing that tree fell the other way! It could have taken out my bedroom window!"
Yeah, but it didn't. 
If somebody cuts us off in traffic and we almost crash our car in the attempt to avoid catastrophe, we were never meant to experience said catastrophe.
**This is not to say that I believe in predetermination. Rather, I believe in agency, but once something happens, it is sealed in the past and cannot un-be. It is our interaction and belief in the present moment that dictates our future!**


G+: coreystarliper01@gmail.com, FB: starliper.corey@gmail.com, Tumblr: @theintrovertexposed

posted from Bloggeroid

Old habits are sparring partners...

...against whom not all of us are meant to emerge permanently victorious.

Compulsions take us when we least expect them to. As a recovering addict, I have learned this the hard way.

While I certainly consider myself more fortunate than many of those with whom I regularly associate, the last 12 years of my life have been shaded with weak justifications as to why getting high on dextromethorphan should be an acceptable substitute for confronting reality.

Bouts of binge drinking, often marked by self-inflicted cuts (I've only needed stitches once, thank God) have also stopped in for the occasional celebratory offering to the Porcelain Goddess.

Luckily, these bouts are few, far between, and typically very short lived.

Lately, the battle seems to be heating up. Greater expectations than those under which I'm accustomed to writhing are now upon me, especially with my little girl coming of the age where things start to make less sense, and with this blog, which I've vowed to keep up come hell or high water.

The reality is I need to write about my struggles with compulsion because transcendence is only human.

I am not a God. I breathe air, just you guys. I cry, curse, laugh, pray and fuck up just like you guys.

I do not have a higher perspective on life. Rather, I have a unique perspective on it (thank you for helping me put that to words, Jeff), and the gift of the written language as a tool through which to carry a message that the Universe needs to get across.

My ability to carry this message will depend heavily upon my continued sobriety, my ability to view any given situation from as many angles as possible in spite of a spiritual thirst for simplicity, and the unending search for Nirvana.

Most of all, my ability to stay human.

posted from Bloggeroid

This blog was brought into creation to test me...

I wanted to be honest with my readers. I have become dangerously obsessed with this blog.

High blood pressure, obsessively checking page views, getting myself set up on numerous social media platforms. This is the first time in my life that people are keying in to the fact that I have a message and the right to bear it.

The anxiety surrounding it seems to defeat the purpose of what I'm trying to get my readers to understand; that the karmic undertow is real.

I am trying to attract readers rather than letting them come to me, chasing the dog, as it were.

When I was at the New England Aquarium in Boston the other day with Olivia, I was teaching her how to interact with marine life, taking pictures, watching her smile. Trying to make the impression memorable.

I got my best pictures of her on the T, which she still hasn't stopped talking about.

Things happen as we let them happen because the Universe has all the answers, including those about how we should best live, how to best conserve energy and how to be happy.

And with that I'll leave this blog at home with all my cares about it.

I'm about to go pay $2 to take my daughter on the bus :)

posted from Bloggeroid

The Autism Super Bug: Part 2 (dissociation TRIGGER warning)

The Universe has eyes, a pulse, even thoughts. It is infinitely patient. Creation works in rhythm with Consumption. Life borrows from death. It expands by the Sun and retracts by the Moon. It rises in wakefulness and retires in sleep.

It is completely and utterly fluid in every sense of the word. We can't poke or pinch it. We can't defy it, and yet we can't deny it.

Sometimes when I feel trapped in eternity, I start to wonder if Life is a game where in order to win you need to escape a box with infinite dimensions.

Proof that this universe is not the only one: There is no point of singularity.

Each cell in the body could be examined under increasingly more powerful microscopes to reveal the hundred trillion particles of which that one cell is composed. One of those hundred trillion particles has a hundred trillion of its own particles to keep track of, and the list grows ad infinitum to incalculable proportions.

The same can be said of eternity. You can always go bigger, and is size not relative? Would we not appear utterly gigantic to a nanocell? If this universe is in fact a microscopic particle in something else, we will never know.

This Universe contradicts it's own principles.

How do you escape a box with infinite dimensions?

You have two choices: either become the box (it's possible that we'll find the cheat codes in death along with a 'GAME OVER' written in the sky.) Or you can "un-realize" that the box exists in the first place. We are here. We are now. Beyond that, none of us, save the Enlightened Ones, know a goddamn thing. Fully emerse yourself and all of your senses in the world around you and let yourself be taken by the awe that goes along with it...and the box will go away.

posted from Bloggeroid

She is bringing more than just the past into this transition...

...she is also bringing her body.

This post is a tribute to her courage.

She came out a couple years ago as being transgender. While not undergoing replacement hormone therapy quite yet, she believes firmly enough in what her brain has denied her anatomy. She is a man trapped in a woman's body.

We were talking last night about this blog, how she reads it often and how personal challenges with which I've warred lately have undercut my efforts in more ways than one. She is a very understanding individual and I feel very comfortable discussing some of the darker sides of my personality with her. We all have ghosts. Some hang out in the future, laughing at us as though we were center stage in a crowded arena full of bad dreams. Some wait in the past until we wrest our ankles against the last link in the ball and chain.

And some hang out between genders, constantly dueling for superiority.

As she departed last night, I encouraged her to "look deeper."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're transgender but you know that already. It's time to start thinking about what you want to stand for. Maybe the courage you have regarding this change can help others in some way."

The suggestion took her thoughts in an entirely new direction. The change that she is about to go through includes a massive emotional and spiritual overhaul.

The only uniquely definitive indication of gender is our biology. Had we no gender, the emotional and spiritual aspects of our existence would still remain. This amazing brave young woman is not taking on a battle that she's never been present for. She is reconciling her physical body with the emotional and spiritual connection she has with the world and those around her.

She is a man.

If anyone would like to reach out to her for support, please send me a message on Facebook or an email at coreystarliper01@gmail.com for her information. Members of the LGBT community deserve a voice, they deserve an identity and at the very least, they deserve the opportunity to be the gender that their hearts and souls have designated for them without fear of persecution by people who have no idea what they've been through.  

posted from Bloggeroid

Temptation is our greatest asset...

...it is the cornerstone to spiritual development...the temptation to embrace something which makes you feel normal when things start to come apart, the temptation to accent certain occasions with food or alcohol or drugs, the temptation to ignore something you've already discovered to be true because it doesn't quite feel safe.

All of these temptations are real, powerful, and have a very important place in our lives.

I first began my warrior training six years after I had read Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. This was not for a blatant desire to ignore what I knew to be true. Millman has suggested in other works that we zone in and out of spirituality like the zoom on a camera lens, backing off when we need to apply it practically, losing interest when we need to forget about it and reapplying ourselves when we realize that we still have not achieved the perfect balance.

It took me six years, a marriage, a divorce, and parenthood for me to realize that I still wasn't happy.

One thing I did feel about six years ago was that avoiding temptation would strengthen my spiritual muscles. I vaguely remember trying social isolation and a couple other things that didn't work.

Revisiting the temptation idea when I was ready to begin my training, I decided to eliminate one variable in my life at a time, in short intervals. I started with going longer and longer amounts of time without looking at my phone. I would go into the task with the mental stamina required for me to avoid the temptation long-term. Then, with say, a couple hours left in the ordeal, I would think about giving in, making up excuses in my head for why I should turn my phone back on. It was at this point that the meat of my training would commence.

Such periods of discipline of the mind also included avoiding looking at certain clocks in the room, doing the speed limit when I was late for work or had a line of cars behind me on the highway, and the like.

In the short term, these training sessions acted like the contrast they give you before you go in for an MRI. The energy I normally would have invested in these things was redistributed, highlighting my strengths and my weaknesses. Over time, I was able to focus under intense pressure when those around me began to lose control.

I zoom in and out on my training. I'm not perfect. There are times when I consciously give in to temptation. There are times when I'm not even aware that I have it, or that I am giving into it. I do not always give my training sessions 100% like I probably should, and I still have a hard time admitting when I'm wrong.

The next time you have a temptation of which you are aware, consider the effect that the temptation has on you physically. If you give in, look for the emotional flat-line that occurs in the split second after you've decided to embrace what is comfortable. If you do not give in, listen for the crowd of spiritual spectators cheering!