“The unexamined life is not worth living”
Socrates
“The unexamined life” refers to a life lived by rote under the rules of others without the subject ever examining whether or not he truly wants to live with those routines or rules. According to Socrates, this type of life was not worth living. Rather than living an unexamined life, Socrates chose death, and these words are attributed to the philosopher during one of his last speeches before his suicide
I started using marijuana my sophomore year of high school, and that use brought me into association with the Oak Grove group of students, who I had not met before, as I went to a different grade school (Concord) than they did. It was with a small subset of this group that I “learned how to drink alcohol”. Goose’s Garage in Oak Grove became my training center for social drinking, beer keggars , and out of control drunkenness, and I was a fast learner. After my first “drunk” I knew that I was an alcoholic, and that I would eventually die from it.
It was after my first “drunk” that I knew that I would be dead by age 30, at the very latest. I had resigned myself, at an early age, to the life of an alcoholic/addict, and i knew that I just had to “maintain control” as best i could, even though i no longer had control over my choices in life. Yes, my death wish was enshrined early, and worshiped daily.
In high school in my junior year, i was required to keep a daily journal for a writing class. The problem was that I had no “insight”, at least as far as being able to put into words what the interior nature of my mind and life looked like. I had to submit something, and in my desperation to get a decent grade i went to a bookstore, to find a book to help me to ‘look at myself’.
Hugh Prather had written a book called ‘Notes To Myself’, and I stumbled upon it, and bought it. I was so empty of complete statements about myself and my life that I copied statements from Hugh’s book, and tried to ‘personalize’ them so that it would not be obvious that I had copied his work.
I got my passing grade, felt very relieved, and continued on my awkward, highly dysfunctional path through high school. I was near the top of my class near graduation time, yet I was so out of touch with the majority of my classmates, as well as with myself, that to finally graduate seemed like it might change, if not end, much of my social anxiety and sense of disconnect. Of course this could not be further from the truth.
Looking back, this would have been great stuff to write about in high school, but i was living a lie, and the telling of the truth to others, let alone to myself, might force me into changes that I could not embrace or consider as possibilities. The absence of personal honesty and insight doomed me to a deteriorating life experience, and limited my choices so much that many days, and years, I felt trapped in a prison, with interior windows sometimes only opening to Hell.
I will bypass a few years, and revisit insight again. In April of 1984, I placed myself in the Care Unit of Lovejoy Hospital for a month, with the intentions of maintaining my job with the U.S. Postal Service, as well as, maybe, staying sober for a little while. I had a female Christian counselor named Claire, who was my guide while residing in this facility. A requirement was to keep a daily journal, and to document our “internal weather” while undergoing orientation back into a life of “sobriety”.
I remained quite uncomfortable recording my “interior universe”. Little had changed since high school with becoming “honest with my self”, and finding any hidden gems to discover, and write about. I found that i could write a lot, however, if what i wrote had the intention of “pleasing others” ,especially if they were female in orientation. Also if I could sometimes make somebody else a little “wrong” for what they were, or more regularly for me, accept FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MISTAKES OF OTHERS, I could find something to write about. Yet, something else was also brewing inside, to be revealed at a later time.
Every day my desire for PEACE was acknowledged, all the while attending the daily groups, and counselling sessions. I attempted to practice the 12 steps of AA, for alcoholic recovery, which demands insight, and rigorous honesty. My chances were still “less than average”, due to fundamental flaws in the basic makeup of my “personal consciousness, and awareness”. A lifetime of oppression, insanity, and repression of spirit, does not just magically disappear because others, or myself, think that it might be a good idea.
The final descent into darkness has been documented elsewhere, and I feel no need to rewrite my life story here. Suffice it to say, to follow new paths of consciousness means to “become aware” as a human being, and listen to my heart, and the heart of others, as we travel these uncertain paths of life that lay before us. And, I must continue to accept personal responsibility for all of my thoughts and actions, while supporting others to do the same. We must walk together, or die alone.
“The unexamined life will be painfully lived”
Jack Boland, several years before his death from cancer.
Insight and mindfulness, meditation, walking away from self-destructive dependencies, maintaining dialogue with others, speaking our truth, fighting against oppression of others, and repression within our own hearts and souls, following new paths of consciousness, working out our own salvation, while helping others on their own paths (only as requested) as well, are ways to develop collective awareness, and healing, and bringing peace of mind to our own interior universe. We cannot love others, or our own lives, completely, until we make peace within our own hearts and souls.
Please, save yourself
