Blood Does Not Define a Family

To Whom it May Concern,

     For as long as I can remember, I've never really been a family guy. At least not in the standard sense. I don't really care for the phrase "blood is thicker than water," when I know for a fact that blood doesn't make a family. Just because someone shares genetics, doesn't mean they share that bond. I learned that a long time ago. Blood doesn't make a family, it's the actions and effort and sacrifice each and every day that builds those bonds with those around us.

     To me, family is simply those people that I care deeply about. It doesn't matter where they came from, who they were born to. What matters is that I belong with them. I've always had my mother, who's broken herself doing everything she can to be there for me. I couldn't in a year recount every time she's had my back, whether I deserved it or not. My brother, who I've had for 24 years, even though he's a pain at times, he's been there through more than a lot of people know. My grandma, who's been a second parent to me my entire life, when by no rights did she ever have to give up as much as she did. That's my blood family, and flawed as we are, we're there for each other. And I can claim that with every other person I call family. It's not perfection, or even presence, it's actually giving a crap and caring for each other, that's it. I have family miles away that I can turn to at any time, I have family in other countries that have never abandoned me when I came calling. Family is the act of purely loving someone, that's it.

     By no means am I even close to perfect. I'm not punctual, I keep people at a distance, I'm pretty abrasive at times. I work better by myself, so I've always been alone. I've spent my life drifting from group to group, never staying around anyone for long. I've never found a place where I actually belonged. I honestly don't know how many other people feel that way, but I just don't belong like other people do. But even still I've found people I couldn't live without. I've found people I would die for. I've found people that have sacrificed for me, even with my protests. They accept me for who I am, knowing that even though I'll never settle down and stop moving, I'd go through hell for each and every one of them. And that's the best example I can give. If someone like me is capable of having family, anyone is. It might not look like how people may imagine, but maybe that's okay, maybe that's the point. Who cares what shape it takes, or what it's comprised of, if they care?
 
     Find those people who matter, the ones who stay, the ones who are real. Find the people that will treat you like family, whether they're blood or not. Find who's going to stick around, and stay with them. The ones who love us, they're irreplaceable. Remember, a family isn't made by blood or genetics. A family is made by caring for each other, by sacrificing for each other, by walking our separate roads as one. We choose our family, day by day, in every action we choose. Choose wisely.

How to Actually Help People

"You can give a person knowledge, but you can't make them think. Some people want to remain fools, only because the truth requires change."

- Anonymous

     It's a given fact that not everyone can be helped, at least not at one given time. As the quote says, you can give someone everything they need, and it still won't help. At heart, that comes down to why someone is in a position to need help, and how exactly they ended up there. It's very important to choose who you invest in wisely. Here are two tests to help maximize your contributions to your fellow people.

      The first test before helping someone is simply their honesty and integrity about why they are where they are. Some may say "how can you tell", or "it's not our place to judge", but hear me out. If they refuse to tell you, or refuse to own their behavior, they're not worth helping until you do. I've no shame in saying that I always require an explanation before I help someone. I want to know what caused the problem, and what their contribution was. It's not necessarily that I want to be in someone's business, it's that I despise being asked for help, and then being told the reason why is none of my business. If I'm being asked for help, it becomes my business. I'm much more likely to help someone who is in that position due to a bad roll of the dice, but much less likely to if it's simply the consequences of their actions. A good analogy are two people asking for money. Both overspent their budgets on luxuries, and now need to get a tire for their car. This first person, now they admit they failed to manage their spending, and agree to have you look at their budget and spending, and set up a plan to pay back the money. The second gives every reason in the book as to why they don't have the money, say it's not your business where their money goes, and actively avoids trying to pay it back. This first person is taking responsibility, being accountable for their actions, and making efforts to return the help. The second is refusing any responsibility for the problem and refuses to be held accountable. One of these people is actually worth helping, the other needs to learn from their situation the hard way, bailing them out will only deplete you and enable them.

The second test is determining whether or not this person is seeking to prevent future problems, or simply wanting to be bailed out. This isn't very difficult to tell. If someone wants to be better, they're going to do three things: ask for advice, be transparent, and work with you until they have it. They want to know better, be accountable, and work to change. On the other hand, someone seeking to be bailed out is simply going to ask, often demand, that you fix their problem, point blank. Now to help people in the long term, the idea is to help them get themselves out of the problem. Think of the old phrase: "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for life." This is the step where most people looking for help bail out, and where most people looking to help back down from their standard and just bail them out. If someone isn't willing to learn to fix the problem themselves, don't bother. They're not in a place mentally and maturity-wise where you're going to add value to their life.

     Now, I want to say, by no means am I saying that such people are beyond help. I'm simply saying that they need to learn some lessons the hard way before they're ready to be helped. Sometimes that's the only way to actually help people. So, apply these tests, if someone doesn't fit those criteria, then immediately back out. Please remember that if people get upset, or even angry, that it's a reflection of who they are. If they act in such a way, then they have lessons they need to learn. You're not a bad person for refusing to, as my mom would say, "cosign their bullshit." Bottom line, if you really want to help people, look for those people desperately trying to make it on their own. Look for those people who are willing to be humble, who care less about pride than progress, those who are willing to put in the time and effort.  Remember, helping people isn't making their life more comfortable, or easier, or nicer. Truly helping another person is simply adding value to their life and who they are, helping them to become a better version of themselves. Stick to your guns, be selective, but never stop helping others in whatever ways you can.

 

The Price of Life

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

- Queen Elizabeth II

     Life isn't always great, it's something everyone learns in time. Bad things happen, we hurt, we suffer trauma, it's the price of life. You can move on, walk forward, but the ghosts of our past always come back to haunt us, and pain like that never truly goes away, and that's okay. That doesn't mean life isn't worth it. It doesn't mean that good doesn't come from it. In fact, from our darkest moments come our greatest selves.

     No one ever tells us growing up about the gray garb of reality, the shadows between the dark and the light. We're brought up with stories of total good and total evil, without ever being told that sometimes what seems the paragon of good can be evil, and the horrifying can be what's best. Life is nothing so simple, and not so easily categorized. I can't lie, I've spent most of my life living in shades of gray, knowing from a young age just how dark the world can be. You can take that darkness, and make light, as in tragic comedy, my favorite form of theater. It's the act of bringing comedy from pain, of making people laugh as much as cry. And just the same you can take that light and make darkness. Try to keep positivity, but don't allow yourself to become ignorant of reality. Life is worth living, even if it's not all bright, even if it's mostly dark, because everything changes. Life is change. There will always be bad things, and that's okay, because there will also always be good things. It's all about taking the good with the bad, and keeping moving.

     Everything has a price. From the greatest of decisions to the worst, there is always a price to pay. And it's usually not a fair one. The truth is, nothing in life is free. Whether we trade health for a job, one friend for another, one life for another, we can gain nothing without giving up something else. As you go through life, you'll make decisions, and sometimes, those decisions will come with prices you've only yet to realize. They'll come with images you see every time you close your eyes, with ghosts that visit you in the night. Throughout my life, I have made choices that I had to make. These choices have cost me more than anyone will ever know, and yet I wouldn't be who I am had I not paid these tolls. They haunt me, they break me, and they are me. The prices we pay in life become a part of who we are, as they shape who we become. Every night I go to bed with ghosts, I dream in a graveyard of the deals I've made. They're tattooed on the skin of my soul, ensuring I'll never forget. But that is the price for who I am. Even knowing the price now, I would still walk the same path, because it's the only one that leads me here. There is no path forward without loss, without pain, without sacrifice.

     You're never going to have all the answers, and that's okay. You're might not be happy with how things turn out, and that's okay, too. Life is incredibly variable, unpredictable, and you can't control everything. You're going to do things you regret, and you're going to do things that kill you that you don't regret. You're not perfect, and it's okay, no one is. You're going to hurt, there is no way forward unscathed. Try to remember though, that some of the greatest gifts come with a price tag that you cannot fathom. I've always believed that the greatest of us are those who've borne the greatest burdens. They see the pain in others and do everything to take it away. They use what breaks them to fix others, and there is no greater good than that. 

     Take the good with the bad, acknowledge the totality of reality. Doing any less is a disservice to yourself. Remember that life comes with a price, and that there's no way of going forward without paying it, so make sure you make good use of it. Remember that not everything will be great all the time, but that doesn't diminish the vale of your life. The prices I've paid to get through those darker times were worth it. If I hadn't gone through the bad, I never would have met the great people I have, I never would have had the impact I've had, or enjoyed all the good that's come. If no one else has told you today, going forward is worth it. Life is worth it, even if sometimes it doesn't feel like it. You are worth it, and don't ever forget it.

Insight: The Key to Reality

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"  

- H.P. Lovecraft

Hello all! As some of you may know, of late I've finally been playing Bloodborne. Now there are many fascinating things to dismantle in this game, but here I'd like to focus on the game mechanic of insight. You gain insight upon meeting bosses, defeating them, visiting important places, or taking it from others who've gone mad. Basically, the more you know beyond banal reality, the more insight you have. Now what's more intriguing is that there's a game functionality called "frenzy" that procs under certain circumstances. The higher your insight level, the more damage less buildup this affliction takes. Now, frenzy appears to be similar to being driven mad, and can result in death. Some of you may already see what point I'm making, but for those who don't, these concepts directly apply to our daily lives.


The most interesting part yet comes when you apply this to our reality. Now do something for me. Compare your current worldview with a child's. Your worldview will typically be much darker, more complicated, and massive than that child ever dreamed life would be. Telling them this would make no sense to them, and while you could walk them through these steps you've taken to gain such information, it would be traumatizing, as it was for you at the time. This applies with any case where one person has access to knowledge that another has yet to gain. Along the same line of thought, in his book "A Voyage to Arcturus", David Lindsay explored the concept that pain allowed us to see reality for what it was, and that the pain, the trauma, really came from tearing down the illusion of our old reality and stepping through to our new one. He viewed the trauma we receive as a bittersweet blessing, for while it was painful and left lasting scars, it did enlighten us. Whether we like what has been revealed doesn't matter. So insight is simply information gained, usually in a painful way, that drastically changes our reality, whether we like it or not. This is perfectly represented both in the game and in our own reality.


With that being said, just because someone has had an illusion torn down, doesn't mean they accept it. This is where that frenzy concept comes in. When such an occasion arises, you have some options. You can change your gear and runes to offer protection, or you can use bloodvials and sedatives to recover and prevent build-up. These are directly representative of real coping measures, ie mental coping strategies and medications. In real life, when put in this situation, sometimes we will choose to lie to ourselves in order to stay in this prior reality, not wanting to give up the comfort it provides. We can spend our lives trying to forget what we've learned, trying to stay behind, but we can never truly go back, and deep down we all know this. Even more tragically are those who choose not to continue. We can choose to either fight against it, or embrace it, but either way we know about it.


This got darker than I had originally thought, but it's no less true. What I want people to take away from this is that we live in a reality hidden behind countless layers of illusions. While the pain of disillusionment is frightening and can be horrifying, there is only one path forward. Visit the nightmares of others, and try to help them through, but always be careful not to adopt this nightmare for your own. Disillusionment and it's pain are the price of clarity, it's a price I gladly pay, but try to remember that not everyone wants it, and respect that choice for what it is. You all are amazing, those of you who I know read this. I hope that these stoke the fires of your minds as much as they do mine, and that you all never stop searching for what's true and real. Remember, no matter how hard it gets, always keep moving forward, I believe in you.

An Open Letter #1

To Whomever It May Concern,

     It can be hard growing up, even more so when you have bad or absent parents. There's quite a lot I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, but obviously that's currently impossible (hurry up science). Hopefully some of what I have to say will help you all.

    Bad things happen in broken homes, that's a given. It's important to remember that it's not your fault. I know that sounds pretty obvious, but emotions don't run on logic, and oftentimes the trauma of the past disregards obvious thought.  Your parents are fully responsible for how they act, and who they are, not you. Just like you are now fully responsible for how you act and who you are. It is our responsibility to be introspective and work on ourselves. No, you're not going to fix everything overnight, nor are you ever going to be perfect, no one is. But once you come to terms with why you are the way you are, and learn how to operate yourself, you'll truly gain control over how you want to be and the impact you want to  have. Think of it like two different vehicles, an automatic versus manual car. Each has it's own set of things necessary to learn to drive, and unique maintenance procedures that the other doesn't have. Except everyone is a manual car with a number of different versions. Learn who you are, why you do what you do, and how to best maintain yourself. I'm still not sure who I am, but I do what I do to give what knowledge I have to those I care about and to bring laughter to people who need it most. I need constant learning, a clean environment, and challenge to keep going at my best. The only other thing I haven't mentioned is that you have to learn what wrecks your car. Unlike a vehicle, you can identify said problems and learn how to better deal with them when they inevitably pop up. You can learn and adapt to who you are now, and become greater than ever. Don't let past trauma ruin who you are and who you can become.

     Building on that last note, the past is passed. No matter how hard you try, how many tears you cry, or how much you numb pain, it won't change what's done. One of the greatest feats of any life is making peace with the past and moving forward. Making peace, however, doesn't mean forgetting, or ignoring. Ignoring or forgetting the past leads to buried problems. You can't deal with a situation that you aren't aware of. The other reason I bring this up, is because I've come across many people that, although they have gotten through the physical events, they never dealt with them emotionally and mentally. Things have to be dealt with, so you can move on, otherwise it will keep coming up again and again, worse each time. It's better to gather the strength to face something now, than to be haunted by ghosts for the rest of your life. A last bit, even though it goes against many pieces of life advice, hold people responsible for their past behavior. Don't get obsessed, don't dwell on it, but also don't forget. My past shaped who I am, and I fully expect to be held responsible for everything I did and do. If you've made poor choices, acknowledge them and move forward. If you've been someone you no longer want to be, choose differently going forward, but don't pretend like those impacts you had never happened. Own your past, every single bit of it. Take responsibility for yourself, and expect it of others. We all make mistakes and bad choices, it's okay. Learn from them and move on. 

     Remember that you're not alone. It can seem at times that no one else around you understands what it's like, which can be true. But I can promise you that there are more people out there than you could ever have thought possible who do. And there are even those who don't understand but are willing to listen and learn. You're not alone. You might feel lonely, sad, hurt, diffident, but I know there are people out there who understand. Avoid people who just put you down, and those who enable bad behavior or let you stagnate. Find those people who, even if they don't fully understand, push you to be better, who try to understand, who care, and don't push them away. Last of all, carry this forward to anyone you meet who has been in these shoes. No one deserves to be left to fight it alone.

     The last thought that comes to mind is to always be grateful for what you do have. Whether it's one good parent, maybe two, maybe some good friends or a fulfilling hobby, appreciate the good you do have. Whatever you don't appreciate, will find itself out of your life soon enough. While it's important to not be ignorant of reality, a life spent on what's missing rather than focusing on what there is and what can be made is a dark road you don't want to go down. Trust me.

    If you don't feel understood, I promise you I will understand. If you feel alone, I'm here. If you need guidance, it's probably already being uttered. If you need a laugh, I'm already on the way. If there's something I can teach, I will. Don't ever forget how awesome you are, or how amazing you can become. Always keep moving forward, I believe in you all.