Blog entry for:

the world around me really is NOT the problem, it is how i perceive it.
okay i have admitted in the past and will do so once more today, as sort of a caveat for what may follow, i am a cynic. if one were to pin me down i would say i am a cynical optimist, no matter how oxymoronic that may sound. just because i notice the dark side, does not mean i walk around with a tiny thunderstorm over my head, at all times. in fact, seeing the worst and hoping for the best is really not a bad way to live. the difference in how i see and interact with the world today, versus how it was when i was out and about in active addiction, is that the cynic within made me miserable, hence i made everyone around me, at least as miserable as i made myself. when one can see no good in anything, one is trapped in a dreary world and HOPE is practically undetectable. my cynicism still serve me well, or i would have moved beyond. the payoff certainly has changed across the course of time, which certainly has changed the way i see the world.
i have already spoke of what seeing the dark in everything did for me when i was using. having a reputation as some sort of “grim reaper” was okay with me and was part of the defenses i built up between myself and the world around me. i lived the notion that everyone was out to get me, so i needed a fortress of solitude and a strong offense to prevent that from happening. cynicism was just one of the tools i used to defend myself, and it certainly worked.
in my struggles to get and stay clean for those twenty-four months or so, that span from my first meeting to the time i finally accepted the FIRST STEP on some level and became a member, i learned to temper my cynicism and use it as “dry” wit. making jokes of the dark side that accurately reflected what i was feeling allowed me to be social and still be true to a part of myself that i was not ready to part with, yet. it probably kept me from acknowledging the HOPE i saw and accepting with FAITH, that i too, could get clean, stay clean and find a new way to live.
coming to a pl;ace where i could be Mary Poppins, became my unspoken goal at the beginning of that second set of steps, this time, in the manner of the fellowship that has become my home. the harder i tried to be “positive” the less positive i felt and the less certain of what i was doing here i became. over and over again, suppressing who i was, was not working for me, and when STEPS 6 and 7 rolled around, i never looked at being cynical as a defect of character or a shortcoming, i just figured it was a lingering artifact of active addiction and would just vanish into the air someday.in the meantime, it served to build me up as an authority figure in my own mind, when the worst happened and i had already planned for that inevitability. i may have been quieter about how i fret and at times, even so like Mary Poppins, one would not recognize me, but the cynic never dies, he just got suppressed by strident self-will. in short cynicism reinforced my self-image as something more and kept me from becoming the man i always wanted to be.
i can see that today, because in this set of steps, as i worked towards seeing my place in thew world and my identity in the fellowship as a peer and not a service junkie, i see that same world view as something that is being tempered by the POWER that fuels my recovery and the recovery process. instead of suppressing my cynical side i embrace it, and it allows me to see the absurd side of myself and my place in the world. i GET to see a bit of the dark, i GET to express it about myself and i GET to let it go and and become a bit more whole, instead of fractured. even when i can see nothing good in the world and myself, i have the HOPE that perhaps, for once, i am missing some fact or set of facts that is forcing me into a place of foregone conclusions and judgements. i FEEL my way to a brighter outlook, knowing that i have already seen the worst and there is certainly more to be revealed. by embracing my cynicism i become more open-minded, and more willing to seek a spiritual path. i am no longer locked into a manner of thinking that separates and elevates my above my peers. i can be a part of the fellowship around me. i may see all its flaws, contradictions and ironies, but i have learned to accept that as in all things there is black and there is white and both comprise the whole. it other words, things just are, and my job is to accept them, and become a force for change, rather than Shiva the destroyer.
i could go on, but i am certain i have driven home my point: i am not one of those who seeks to see only the best in the world around me. by seeing the worst, i am equipped to look for the best, so i get a more complete and accurate picture of the world. after all, yin cannot exist without yang and both create the whole.

∞ DT ∞