Update 22 - Sobriety is Difficult

I’m stutter stepping, quitting smoking. It’s difficult, but I’m staying with it. It makes me feel more irritable, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to not feel.

I like to believe that humans are capable of greater things than they usually accomplish. For the most part, they’re self-interested, stupid animals who don’t want to, or maybe can’t bring themselves to think. When I open my mouth to talk to someone, I’m supposed to express no opinion that might be jarring, just keep the conversation flowing. I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about your television show, I want to talk about something that matters.

I live in a city where the mayor is a five turn incumbent, and no one gives a shit. He only ever seems to move when his position is threatened, otherwise he’s collecting a paycheck. So much of area is owned by the city, and is slowly falling into disrepair. Charity and kindness are the exception rather than the rule in the “City of Good Neighbors”. But hey, Go Bils, right?

And when I vocalize any of this, express it right out loud, people feel the need to assuage me, like I’m misguided in thinking people being indifferent shouldn’t be the norm. I get so tired of listening to pity parties thrown by people sitting in their own mess. That’s supposed to be the focus- commiseration while being complicit in the same thing.

There aren’t heroes to look up to, and it’s never the end of the world. I just hate it. I hate how people treat each other, so I escape into distractions. And I hate that too, so I try to change. I hate being surrounded by whiny, self-entitled, western dipshits who don’t have any imagination when it comes to pain and suffering. And what are my alternatives? Move somewhere where dissonance from the norm gets you excommunicated? Join some cult-minded religious retreat? That would be so much worse.

I know it’s the withdrawal talking, and maybe it’ll shut the fuck up soon, but I can’t wait to leave all of this behind. I have to be the kind of man I want to be, in spite of the world being a completely different place. That is incredibly hard, but I’d rather cut my way out of being digested than lean into the pain-killing enzymes.