Light on the dark side of life - My love affair with misery.

Misery, misery, misery.. Can't live with it, can't live without it, or at least not until a tremendous rehabilitation from victimhood and self pity to personal responsibility and accountability has taken place. Are we simply miserable at times due to external circumstances? Or are we really manifesting suffering for ourselves out of habit, comfort, and lack of awareness.

I knew today was going to be a pivotal day in one way or another. The higher the potential for happiness, the greater the potential to fall into misery. Plenty of days in abstinence from self sabotage, and a taste of the strength and determination inherent in every single human being.

In moments, the path is clear, and then the fog sets in. In the fog, without a focal point set while in clarity, the crash into a reef is imminent. Not only are there reefs in the ocean of life, but many of them are inhabited by sirens. These sirens sing their tempting songs, and the thicker the fog, the more alluring the melody. As I entered the fog today, I knew I had to watch out. Climbing the walls, where is the clarity, the sirens song calling louder and louder. Out of desperation I make a decision to go downtown and do some volunteer work giving massages at a public shelter. For one moment I waver, that is all it takes. Then I cement my faculties of awareness and dull my sensitivity in a thick  hide of sugar, fat and flour rich foods drenched with a river of hot dairy. Basically affirming that I will rather die than live in vulnerability, sensitivity, and responsiveness, although I know that a life lacking these 3 aforementioned qualities is not life, but a slow death.
Intellectual understanding and argumentation against emotionally fused patterns of the mind are like a wooden stick in a duel vs a lightsaber.

Needless to say, the intention to give massages turned into a chase for the most mind fucking foods and a devils dance of anger. With a tightening jaw, with sensory gratification on my mind, at the flick of a switch, I turned my mind from a generator of love, harmony and inspiration, into a chimney of anger, guilt, and despair. 
I felt tension and pain settling in the hips, making the body tense and stiff, and shuddered at the thought of days of intense hard work in the form of yoga, meditation, and a light diet being slashed by impulse driven reactionary behavior, desperately attempting to pack down the emotions that try to come to the surface.

The increasing flow in the body acquired by ardent exercise and intense moment-to-moment awareness constricts rapidly as the breath is choked to a shallow panting and the stomach swells up like a balloon. I feel like doing nothing, with a frown between my eyebrows, my only current interest in other people stems from using them as targets to pour my self pity upon, and hopefully get a chance to justify my self-created victimhood. Needless to say, in this state of mind, I am wise enough to stay away from other people not to poison their minds with my polluted state. I am surrounded by a stubborn wall of negativity, caring for nothing and no one by my sorry self. Fearful and dispassionate about others, feeling threatened by their success and happiness, for it reminds me of my own un-utilized potential, and that hurts deep down. So rather than facing my pain, I secretly enjoy the misfortune of others, sucking on it like a leech, making me feel better about my self because it justifies my own misery, somehow helps me release some of the guilt and shame I feel about ruining my life.

How long am I to carry this shadow aspect of my personality? When will I want to change badly enough to persist in the pursuit of happiness to the point where these destructive patterns don't have a hold on me any longer? How much misery and suffering am I going to create for myself, how many relationships ruined before I really deem it worthwhile to leave my parasitically self indulgent tendencies behind and change?

It is ardous work each given moment to keep climbing on the ladder of spiritual/personal growth, and with the slightest wavering in determination and persistence, I am back down in the sticky cauldron of misery.
Today is my 27th birthday, and I didn't have a single conscious thought of throwing myself into misery's alluring embrace as I sat down for my morning meditation. Later on however, I was once again shown, that when the prospect of a happy life became palpable, I let the fear and uncertainty get the best of me, and quickly reverted back into my old pattern of control behavior and self destructiveness.
I simply wasn't ready to drop misery today either. I draw some perverted enjoyment in abusing myself, and when I am in that frame, I also enjoy being abused by others and abusing others. Either way, misery loves misery.
It is like an old love affair, where the pure love has faded, and togetherness is sought on the basis of emotional attachment which although obviously doesn't serve me anymore, still has a strong hold on me due to the past and whatever function it may have served previously. I am brought to the smell of freshly baked bread, which quickly comes to mind in times of inner turmoil and disquietude, almost as a programmed protest against the experience of any contradiction. A protest which if acted on produces a stubborn pointless rebellion against life, signaling; Life has gotta change, I refuse to change, producing resistance instead of an honest effort to adapt to life's terms. This madness resists any logic, no amount of intellectual understanding or argumentation has any effect on defusing this pattern of the mind, as anyone having dealt with addiction can attest to.

I write now as the cat spews after having swallowed it's own hair, to drop some mental weight. My heart feels inflamed, as a throat feels with bronchitis. This physical discomfort generates anger on the mental level. That anger floods the body with impulses of hunger/craving for junk foods, which tend to grow so strong as to overpower any other impulses and totally cloud the intuitive and rational faculties. When these cravings are fulfilled, once again they re-start the cycle by further poisoning the Heart. Writing this makes me want to escape my body, which in times of self loathing feels like a sinking ship.I'm stuck on this ship though, so there is no other choice than to keep working to tighten the leaks, face the damage I have inflicted, and keep inflicting, and do my best to tame this wild beast of a mind.

I share, because in being heard, misery is cut in half, and the potential for perpetuation is reduced. Shared happiness is double happiness. Shared misery is half misery. That's why miserable people love hanging out together, it's a mutual agreement of spewing bile at each other, it is easy to deny ones divine potential as one keeps hanging out with others who are also denying it.

It is in moments like this that I cringe at the person looking back at me in the mirror. I curse society, my teachers and parents, for fucking up the innocent child with the golden curly hair and smile on his face, who came to the world free from negativity, curiously loving, just to be taught how to hate and be angry. It is all black or white for me, and right now I embody the lesser spectrum of the human experience.

I have realized that a big part of bringing light into my darkness is to share it with others, in that way I can not deny it to myself any longer, and just as the rays of the sun dispel any trace of darkness, so does awareness dispel any trace of negativity within the mind. Don't believe a word I write though, because at this point, I couldn't tell the truth from a lie, this is only a little story of mine, tainted by whatever I have been going through today. If you thought you knew me, I am relieved to have exposed to you the miserably, angry, depressed, mean, greedy, self indulgent and destructive prick who hides beneath my skin, and I have invested so much energy into disguising behind a proper, shiny facade, pretending never existed, hiding behind a set of shiny bleached teeth and expensive brand clothes, a smile, fake smiles and so on, ever ready to sacrifice any bond of friendship or trust for the sake of a slimy yeasty cinnamon bun and a lukewarm caffe latte.
Politeness and so-called kindness springing through a mind tainted by suppressed negativity can never be genuine. Through expressed darkness, I hope to achieve a clear lens and a genuine expression. Hopefully it will work, I am ready to try anything.

Namaste.