Need

Selfish. What does it even mean. Take a look in the mirror, look down at your hands, and ask what will I do to get what I need and who will it inspire in the vastness of humanity? I look at the word and I have never seen me for I simply just live my own life. It isn’t spilling over to how you feel, screw you, this is my time and my place. But wait, hold up, is that even the case? Does what I do not affect you, do I exist in a bubble where my reality is self-contained? Does my desires truly not affect any of humanity, where does inspiration originate from in this quagmire of life anyway? Can I sit in the dark of night, hopeless, with a bottle of alcohol in my hand, and fulfill my need to escape reality, and it really only affect me.

I drank at home, it was cheaper, and I recognized early on that it just filled a void that I felt I could not control. It is easy to testify about it now…no emotion, disassociate from even me and the rest of society. But stare in the eyes of the object of the destruction caused by your need and give them an apology and realize that the hardest person that you can forgive is you not your greatest enemy. Here comes the emotion, the regret, and the  mixture of feelings. For I never saw myself as selfish, but look at what I created with my innate need to escape my own reality. My distorted view of how I could live in fantasy only allowed me to face sooner that there is no such thing as relativity. For who was that about, if it really wasn’t just about me? The hardest part is that it wasn’t a stranger that I faced last night, but someone I loved, and I realized that somehow in trying to contain what I felt to only affect me, I helped to aid the destruction of a whole other being through enabling. For you see, my desire did not change the absolute nature of life or humanity.

For you see, flesh is mono-directional, it doesn’t care how other people feel, all it desires is for its needs to be fulfilled. The problem is when it takes over and we are left staring at our lives, our minds still care about the aftermath and the figurative blood that was spilled. You can say that is you and your point of view. Let me do what I want…I don’t even know you. This is all true, and I used to feel the same way as you do. But last night after all these years, I looked in the eyes of someone I loved and he told me that I ruined his life. For I fed him things that he can’t let go of and after all of this time, I still feel the pain and sting of the failure of me simply chasing my need.

The crazy thing about this tail is that my chasing what I felt I needed to kill the pain never quenched it, so in every way I failed. It was like a dog chasing its tail…it was only good for a little while and then reality would again set in. So running around and around is all I did. And meanwhile, the people around me were inspired by my pain to quench theirs with a bottle of whatever kind of fermented grain. So the disease spread on and on from one person’s innate fleshly need. So let the flesh take over anyway, absent from the mind, unconnected with truth or understanding. Put a plate of apple pie, my favorite food, in front of you and make sure it is an endless supply and then just continue to dine. Refuse to get up from that place and when fat comes upon you and the mind enters a depressed state realize that flesh in the end is designed to degrade. It is temporal, it won’t last forever, and time after all is slowly slipping away… But fill its every desire and ignore the wisdom of a greater power and watch as the process speeds up into a time warp type stance. Faster and faster until death sits in your hands. This is what happened when I failed to realize that not only does my need affect me but indeed all of those around me. Change seemed impossible, so I just sat there in a world of disbelief until result became the catalyst that allowed me to see.

I left that place and chose another path, but even then I still am left to face my own mistakes and my past. I am left to try to find love when I understand I inspired hate, strive to live clean amidst all of the dirt and pain, but most of all look at those I thought I loved that may just now be a drunken memory and be able to look in the mirror and say I forgive me. I can change the future but never the past and when the flesh takes over to fulfill a need the chain reaction never so quickly leaves. The truth is I loved him, but all I can offer him now is an apology and a changed me. Nothing left to give…But look at what life could have offered if even back then I would have only chosen to simply find life and live.