Addictions

When I was away, two days in a row I got up, put the kettle on, stumbled outside and wrote a page or two of whatever came out. "Morning pages" someone called them in one of the creativity books I have. Dorothea Brande was a big exponent of tapping into your unconscious first thing when you're coming out of the waters of sleep.

I did morning pages a lot when I was sick. Back then, writing very much at all was just almost impossible. I yearned every day to be able to write something other than morning pages, and hardly ever got there. But at least writing those was a way of venting and getting my considerable angst and anger and anguish out onto the page instead of onto everyone else, or myself.

But I could see even then the reason why writing first thing is such a powerful thing to do. Now I am well, it is even more of a powerful thing to do. But I don't very often do it. When I was away, I resolved anew that I would begin again to do this first thing, every morning getting up and writing just a page of gobbledegook (it's amazing what gems come up in the middle of a big pile of steaming gobbledegook).

But so far, my first thing in the morning routine looks exactly the way it did before I went away - get up, put kettle on, stumble to computer, sit for an hour (on a good day). I was trying to justify this to myself by saying that, well, maybe I could write a blog post first thing and that would be the same thing. Nah. It's not. Because, as beautiful as you all are, Blogland, you are still "them", and when I write knowing that "them" are reading it, I'm not as open as the deep dark stuff I write when the only eyes reading it are my own.

So it's not the same thing. And so this morning I am feeling a bit peeved at this stupid internet addiction I have and my inability thus far to keep it under control. Why can I not revel in the delights of online but put it off for an hour or two, instead of jumping to it as soon as my eyes snap open? Grrrr.

Still, one must deal with one's addictions one at a time. And at the moment, I am dealing with the bad habit I have developed over the past couple of years of having a couple of puffs of a joint several times a week (in a good week). Now, I know that some people have an abhorrence for marijuana, automatically screaming "Schizophrenia! Schizophrenia!" I tend to scream, "Moderation! Moderation" in reply. I don't personally see much difference between a couple of tokes and a glass of red. From my personal experience, the evils of alcohol have affected me personally way more than if my father had instead been the stoned guy sitting in the corner chilling out instead of spewing out vitriol. But I digress.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, that's right - I was confessing my propensity for a few tokes. It has never really been an escapism thing for me, more a heightening. A couple of puffs casts a lovely light to an otherwise average day (which is its very problem). It takes me away from the writing that I really want to do and sends me off into other areas which are fun at the time, but ultimately distractions. This is the best time of year for me to write, and this season I really want to actually produce something that is bigger than a blog post (as fun as this is).

And I still have this leftover cough from the horrors of tracheitis and dragging on a fag doesn't help. But mainly, the problem that I have with it, even though it's not a great problem in the grand scheme of things, is that ultimately it's an idol. It's being unwilling to be in the day as it is, with God, and instead taking it upon myself to cast the glow. So in that way it is escapism, and it is idolatry, and I just don't really want to do it anymore.

I felt God saying to me several years ago that a time was going to come when he would ask me to lay this down. He was busy working on other areas at the time, but it was like a sensing of him saying, "I'm aware of this, but it's not time yet. But just know that at some point, it will be time. So prepare yourself for that".

I'm not sure if it is that time. I can't say I will never smoke anything again. But I definitely know that I don't want to keep any in the house. It's just too tempting. So I guess that's a start, huh.

I didn't know that I was going into confessional mode this morning. There you go :) I must say, it's much easier revealing my inner ugliness on here than it is face-to-face with people ... but still, I am finding even that easier to do these days. I think Paul's talking about delighting in your own weaknesses might be coming into play here. I have never once in my whole Christian experience ever felt like God was saying to me that if I didn't change right now he was gonna dump me. He is just not like that. I know he's got it all under control. I just get frustrated with how long he takes to do it, sometimes :)

I wanna be perfect right now :)