the truth in the lie

“There comes a time when every kid peeks behind the curtain and sees she’s not the only one putting on a show. Fathers, mothers, cops and robbers… every member of the PTA, all playing dress-up… all in their masks: The constant Halloween. That first peek behind the curtain… the lifting of the mask, it’s a disorienting moment. The solid ground beneath you slips away to quicksand. Along with all you thought you knew. But you realize, as days and nights go by, that there’s a kind of truth in the lie… that the mask is often more revealing than the face that lies beneath… that because the person that you pretended to be (the mother, the father, the sister, the cop) became, somehow, the person that you are.” -In Plain Sight

It’s not that straight-forward… it’s not as discontinuous as a mask can provide. But it applies. I remember being obsessed with the notion that no one could ever really know any one else. …that no one could ever see all sides of another person and that the lens used to view would always have a neutral density subjective filter placed upon it. In fact, I wrote my first screenplay based on moments witnessed… pieces of the puzzle of who a person may or may not be. Put it together… figure it out. Or not.

I’m sure this isn’t a unique experience by any means, but at that time (and for years following), I felt the invincibility of my person. But more importantly, no obligation to “be something”. It is personal freedom to the highest caliber. Left with no burden to even exist at all. I can’t be sure why I felt so safe sticking needles with stimulants in my veins. But that’s not true, either. I guess that I believed nothing certain about myself except for my invincibility. My ability to, for lack of a better term, stand outside of all experience and observe. Rendering all of my actions, merely actions. Needles and coke and meth and ecstacy and dilaudid… anything, by this definition became things that couldn’t touch me because it was impossible.

And somehow, everyone else was so subjective that everything that they did affected them. They were fully-formed human beings with very strong views on character and people. …fully-formed human beings, unchangeable but affect-able.

And in this manner, as well, I was not a drug addict. I was a person that performed an action. Buying and doing drugs is the same as going to Rite Aid for eyeliner and walking across 23rd Street to work. Even, level… the same.

This is why I hold this time in such high regard. I created a way in which I could do anything. And I did. The error in this manner of thinking is that one is not invincible. And though it makes it completely possible to do everything and chalk it up to an “action”; though there may be no burden to exist or be something, every action will and does affect the person that you are. As under-developed it is or as much as one has created a mechanism wherein they can deny the existence of it at all. Everything affects one… you… something, because, like the rest of the human race, you are a person.

I didn’t think of myself a drug addict for a very long time. And then, I secretly (or not) reveled in the idea that I might be one. And then, I held onto the definition for dear life as one of the most important components of who I, as a person, am. Basically, I accepted a certain version of day-to-day reality. Age, evolution and the fact that to “be something” is now an obligation. And though it took that “decade under the influence” and longer, even… it feels more like a swift, half pirouette. Where my head has snapped, more quickly than the eye could detect, to a position exactly opposite of where it was half a second ago.

And though I’ve always been able to hide it well… I felt that I was internally, somehow (and inconsistent with everything I’ve said here) inherently, a drug user. Furthermore, I was a person… subject to all the personal consequences of action and experience.

And there you go.

Now what?

This is the grey zone. Because I was always a functional this or that and because I didn’t technically make a statement to the effect of “I’m not doing drugs anymore”… because I’m not in recovery… because I still drink; I felt things hadn’t changed enough. Fuck, who even knew that I was a heavy drug user to begin with to know that I stopped using drugs at all?

Furthermore, I didn’t make this decision.

In a way, you could say that my actions made the decision and I carried-out my actions. But, it’s not that simple. Even a month or so prior to this time, if my dealer had up-and-disappeared (as was the case), I would have gone scouring Los Angeles for meth. And I would have found some. I had, I believe 5 separate meth dealers as detailed in The Bus Ramblings… in Los Angeles in roughly 2 years. Only Frank in NY (and he wasn’t just meth… and that spanned atleast double the aforementioned time). But this time, in LA, I was just over it, somehow. But also, I can probably also attribute maybe 75% of the “just over it” to the quality of crap-ass meth that I was getting.

None of this matters, of course. And though I finally felt a pathetic-ness of being a drug addict, there was a HUGE-ass part of me that reveled in drug culture, drug experience, drug everything. I was just now aware of just how much I couldn’t talk about it. And without the drugs to make me forget about this whole thing, felt exceedingly stifled. And not only this… but because I had krazy-glued this notion of myself as a drug person into my fiber… I felt like a fraud; a liar. …and a bit digressively, empty.*

*to be addressed in a future post.

But this is where the quote comes in, one might see themselves as a definitive thing and thereby fraudulent by acting in seemingly unnatural ways… I suppose this would be the mask they speak of, but:

“…you realize, as days and nights go by, that there’s a kind of truth in the lie… that the mask is often more revealing than the face that lies beneath… that because the person that you pretended to be… became, somehow, the person that you are.”

It feels unbelievable… incorrect, even. But time… small increments of moments and then; the whole thing… I mean, if you stick around long enough… it sounds retarded, I know, but it starts to feel possible. …And sometimes, when one takes stock… if one’s privy to that sort of thing, one realizes that, in one’s own continuous manner, it’s been happening the whole time, maybe? Slowly; molasses-ass slowly, but happening none-the-less. I don’t fuckin’ know. I just know that I’m different now than when I started this whole thing (when I thought that I’d never really be able to do the adult thing; do the responsible-thing… I’m a great actor. I could pretend tremedously, but would also only ever be excited by what I really am: a drug addict)… I just know that it is possible to change while still remaining the same… if that makes any sense to anyone. And I do believe all of this rests on time… the passage of time.

“names have been changed to protect the innocent…” aka drop the fuckin’ filter

08 Sept 2009

Aforementioned title would be appropriate, if I were, in fact, innocent. But this doesn’t mean anything. I mean, I am innocent. Though innocence or guilt presupposes charges and I haven’t been charged with anything, so it really doesn’t apply. In any event, this whole thing… this blaahhh-g… this clackclackclack of the keyboard would be much more interesting if your author here…

dropped
the
fuckin’
filter.

Filtered already (through my own subjectivity) I pass it through yet again… sieve allowing only so much sand with every pass… the xerox copy less detailed, less accurate; more and more a version of the original. or something. Just like this. Metaphors and metaphors and bullshit and theory and…

What I’m saying is that we’re basically left with partially interesting theoretically feasible half-thoughts.

The reasons?

I would lie if I say that I am not practicing discretion when I bring “my friend T’s” and “Car Guy”‘s to the table. Despite discretion being discretion, I want people to read this. In fact, I’d love a following of any sort… underground… above ground… whatever. And the odd acquaintance… friend… collegue that stumbles upon and stays for a second, reads and then does a double-take… I love it! And I would own it. If they find it, then see it…

…as being me. Fuckin’ awesome!

But, why not just, drop the filter all together? (“drop the leash! we are young!”)

Sorry, I digress.

See, it’s become apparent to me that as a reader of autobiographical accounts, reading this blog, might be extremely annoying.

I want specific detail. I want to go to the specific bridge downtown where Anthony Kiedis and Flea and the gang “gave their life away”… never to own the Angeleno moniker, I still appreciate, on second go around, to know exactly where the cop stopped Jerry Stahl on Sunset by Western when the needle rolled out from under the baby seat (with the baby in the seat)… and of course, I was Chelsea, the crack shack, 23rd street, during my period of obsessive inhalation of information on Edie alongside my obsessive inhalation of whatever powder or smoke or… you can dig what I’m saying, right?

So, what to do?

 

Nothin’

I got nothin’.

My current main conundrum remains an ever increasing uncertainty.

A failure to thrive… is the term they use. But that’s not completely accurate.

I believe that I’m far enough away from the smash/bang/pingpingping of daily meth usage that I’ve been rendered a different person. But, you know, that’s what I may have always thought. …in intermittent periods of limbo.

Just, this time… it’s different somehow.

I mean, it’s exactly the same. Maybe it will always be exactly the same…. I think the passage of time has continuously molded the period “AM”… After Meth.

So, it’s time and experience… not the drug. Whiplashing for a prolonged period off the drug will always be the same thing. Always. It’s just with each successive go-at-it, the whiplashing and the limbo have evolved into a different experience. Objectively always the same.

I mean, objectivity doesn’t exist. But my reaction is the only thing that has changed.

And so, this time, though I feel like maybe, ‘this is it’ in the best possible manner. ‘This is it’, in a ‘the end’ of drugs manner. I feel thoroughly dissatified. An ennui. Some sort of mid-float. Some sort of indifference. To everything. Hidden affect.

I don’t think that it’s lost. Just hidden.

And, of course, this is expected. …with the surrender of a CNS stimulant… dissatisfaction, loss of affect, blahblahblah… but this is the steamrolled version. The invidious version.

I believe I’ve reached some sort of optimal point wherein denial can no longer accept itself as it’s own means of survival. Meaning… I’ve done this shit too many times.

The drug binge that lasts years.. then the mild fall-out. Then the ultra-directed meth binge that lasts two plus years, and the yummy syringes and crimson cloud… followed by the painful psychological fall-out. And then the cut. The decision to not think about it, not do it, like ‘spaces’ on a mac. One stops using space #2. Completely. Done. What was that?

Mac ‘spaces’ are discontinuous. And therefore, rendered completely different animals. Disconnected. An intellectual awareness of exactly what went down. Vivid pictures. An absolute ability to recall the fine details of all past. Laterally.

You know everything. You can describe these past events in the most specific of detail. You can even describe how you felt. That you knew that you felt a certain way emotionally.

But somewhere, somehow… it all became merely intellectual knowledge. Even the emotional.

As in, you know you felt these stringent, specific feelings. You can describe them to a T. But somehow, you, right now, in this moment, are sooo detached from these images and emotions that you can describe and understand so well.

And, so… you know things in your life… in your head. but for the life of you, you cannot feel them.

See, I told you… I got nothin’.