Blog entry for:

to feel dirty, about how i live my life today. sure, i am far from perfect: i still judge others based on their behavior, step deep into the shit of self-will and think about how to manipulate the world to get the outcomes i desire. these may be human traits, or leftovers from active addiction, but in the grand scheme of things, i live a life that is mostly free from the onerous and heinous ways that defined my life in active addiction. as the winds of active recovery, sweep away the destruction that was the result of living a lie for decades on end, i am beginning to come to grips about what “living clean,” means for me today.
it is a fact that i enjoy working from the local brick and mortar cigar shop, on those days when i work from home. one of the benefits of being in that environment i get to hear all sorts of opinions and viewpoints that i may not necessarily share or even find very attractive. one of my less attractive qualities has been to dehumanize those who have extreme opinions that are way out of touch with reality as i see it. just this last week, i heard a fellow Brother of the Leaf, saying that there was so much evil afoot in the world today and the example he used was that drag queens were reading to children. my first reaction to overhearing that was pure unmitigated anger that could have quickly turned into rage. instead i mined my own business and wondered how drag queens or the act of reading to children could possibly be “evil.” to me, it was a great to humanize those who choose to live in a lifestyle, far from the norms and was to be commended, rather than condemned. as one can tell, i have been pondering this notion for s few days, and it took me back to another thing i heard at the shop: that all the very rich were the spawn of Satan and out to condemn the world to eternal damnation, through their superior and arrogant ways.
where both of those examples take me today, is that i too, can easily objectify human beings and make them my enemies, with not much of a mental twist. in those moments, when i heard what i heard, i was quick to judge and pigeon hole and stereotype the person who uttered what i consider nonsense. sinking to a level of behavior that is far from being “clean.” i had to acknowledge my reaction and the emotions that came from that reaction and allow myself the freedom to respond by realizing that i was far from rational and i was not a participant in that conversation. my job was to sit quietly and keep on the task i was being paid to do, which i accepted and moved on. what that allowed me to do, was to take responsibility for my feelings and behaviors and allow others the freedom to feel theirs'. i am okay with that, today and as i get towards the end of what came to mind several hours ago, i am left with the realization that this recovery shit really does work, at least it does for me, just for today.

∞ DT ∞