Was someone that grew up with no concept of discipline other than making sure people’s expectations were exceeded. And so that got me pretty far down along the line. But one day I woke up completely empty and it’s been about a couple years of recovery since that day. It took a slow halting and then a hiatus to clean out maggots I festered. And even today I still stumble over maggots, although of another variant; no longer of sadness, but of rightness, of how to live.
Although I’m not a Christian by any means I find its story and framework inescapable. It holds some strong wisdom that’s obvious but yet we still transgress everyday. Just looking at the ten commandments is more than plenty for a bountiful life, and yet we fall short everyday. Try for yourself to contemplate each commandment and find its flaw: you’ll have trouble, when you think over a lifetime. Not to say they’re infallible, but they’re excellent starting points. All vice begins with a short view of consequences.
Although I grew up with this book of some divided virtue, I never kept close to its advice. The haze makes you .want to see for yourself. and next thing you know you’re hollow. When you’re a hole of a person you haven’t the time to think about virtue. Although I was desperately wishing for some insight on how to live, I was in no such condition to form conclusions. Because when you’re hollow and festered all the echos around you scramble you further and the addictions coo you back into submission.
After I’ve been at it, purging these parasites and their nonsense thoughts that inject into my day-to-day, some addictions still coo me. They’re still spawning. Why are they? As of this day, I finally dug deep enough into the nest to discover what I once left behind: virtue, how to live, right way to live. And I vaguely been scratching at it, but I didn’t realize just how little virtue I’ve got. I know virtue is a spook but of utmost importance when you’re a cretin.
if only I cleared up the mother maggots which debased all virtuous stances, then these darker monsters wouldnt’ve shown up. But I stand here with my kerosene and a wick trailing down into the darker parts of me. And it’s not the first time I’ve this demolition in place. As I swallow and wait to light myself up again, repeatedly, as I’ve been for the last two years, akin to a miner who leaves station for booze, I forget my duty and the gasoline dries and the wick hosts more eggs. The maggots bubble up, the cave closes and addiction makes it’s way again. Roughly two months I’ve been dealing with this, I think.
Will I leave station again and let the addictions come back? Well, before writing this post I was dallying around, haphazardly browsing around, searching for nothing but wishing for everything in the next click, one of many cycles. I closed all my tabs, I consider what I’ve eaten recently, and the deterioration of my body. So my legs are up and I’m here to transmit that simple virtues espoused in the Bible, or any other religious book; sure, some of them are bad, some of them are good, but you must start the dialogue and continue it which I failed to do, leading me here, typing to you, still clawing myself out.
When you’re talking about how to live it’s hard to bundle it into one post. But I am just starting the dialogue, as I roughly have been. The principles purged out all of the depressive maggots, but it hasn’t gutted the root. Virtues and principles are probably a little interchangeable, a mild different flavor, I guess arbitrary in construction. Well, principle is your utmost importance, and I guess virtue, which is the spook of moral excellence, nudges its way into that. I guess this post title ought to be .principles around excellence. but virtue will be its label.
The trouble with virtue is that it is so straightforward. I can paste the ten sentences here, fit it on half a scroll width, and that’s most of what you need to know. What’s so hard to understand about respecting your family? Not killing? Stealing? Lying? It gets hard when you feel empty. We all know what looks like excellence and that includes just simple things like confidence, discipline, principles (so I at least have that going for me) and mastery, independence.
So I sit here and I know what comes next. I actually have to practice some virtue now. I actually need to set some goals. I need to carry myself. I’ve exercised the choice in not doing any of this, smugly on my throne, but you know, the depressive maggots came back and I was in pain due to my ignorance. My hubris. I purged them mostly again and I sit here with you.
Virtue is hard when most people around you are without any of it. In fact, that you’ll be made fun of for .taking life so seriously. while they’re munching on pills. While they’re destroying their lives. While they’re stuffing themselves into the coffin. I guess there’s some merit to that whole .eagle’s nest. stuff when you’re a person of caliber.
We have forgotten God, and that’s fine, but we threw out everything else too. Watching the slow dissolution is a sight to behold. If you’re in a bubble like me it may not ring so heavily, but take a gander around and find that most people are… I’m not even sure.
This isn’t meant to be morose. Although I’m lacking confidence, discipline, determination, fighting a feeling of worthlessness and futility, this can change. It already has. How lucky are we to rediscover the timeless wisdom set before us, instead of suffering its consequences. Yes, some consequences I’ve already suffered, but I’ve lately come to enjoy pain and anguish: it is a catalyst for you to see through the fugue. In fact, I notice when I stop believing in myself, the invasive negative thoughts come back immediately after. And when you remember it is a catalyst, it doesn’t seem to hurt as much, it encourages you to find its answer.
Sometimes it astounds me how humanity has lived for thousands of years and yet never once learns its lesson. I mean, I think some parts of humanity learned the lesson long ago and now rule over us. There’s no one to blame other than myself. How relieving that is: just correct it!