3-7-21:  Amazingly enough, I felt more divine inspiration from my positive 7-week-long-so-far daily Zen Bible Study habit this morning than my negative sedentary Billions binge-watching while blowing out the elasticity of my stomach as I break my daily vow to quit abusing myself with gluttony habit.

            The well-known biblical story of the woman who bled a dozen years until she was cured by touching the cloak of Jesus without his blessing or knowledge finally made sense to me on a personal level for the first time since I learned about it in my Grandmother’s Sunday school program as a child.  I’d just read it in Matthew 9 the month previous, but it wasn’t until Mark 5 that I had my epiphany.  But I’m well past Mark 5, and I was re-recording it because it seems like I lost the original.  Because I happened to wake up early after another night of poor sleep, I had time to re-record Matthew 9 (another lost video), which just happened to be the same story.  Yes, another divine message to me, related directly to me, and all without a single number “27.”  I shared this at AA and on two recordings, so I’ll leave it at that.

            I walked into my gym in a great mood and full of energy, ready to run after a few bad treadmill runs in a row beat up the confidence I earned with some great runs months earlier at my previous gym.  I thought I had come so far, but then it appeared I lost all my physical skill and mental fortitude.  Instead, I’d been practicing my breathwork on elliptical machines, limiting my breathing to a specific pattern of rotations in order to build my lung capacity and endurance.  But fitness in one area does not always directly translate to another, and I was still concerned.  As always, I was alone and asked for them to start an action movie for me, but their Netflix account was down, so no “movie of the day” for me to “miraculously” connect to my life😊.  I entered my private cardio theatre room single-mindedly focused on running in “zone two,” staring at a blank screen, determined to maintain a Zen-like trance between my breathing, pulse rate, and designing my future Zen Contractor webpage.  And it was one of my most productive and enjoyable runs of the year.  I trained my body and mind with great discipline, and finalized the basic Zen-like elegant webpage that should look great, load quickly, and not cost all that much.  Add to all of that the fact that one of the workers found me to warn me that she suspected that someone might be tampering with my bike confirmed that my practice of treating everyone in my life with kindness and respect is often reciprocated.  Still cold, it was sunny and I chose to walk so it wasn’t my bike, and another wonderful first half of the day achieved.  And that’s something to be grateful for.  But that’s also almost always where the good times always (even better for the fact that I’m still depressed and will be for week, using the last six years of my life as a guide) seem to end.  My will power all used up; my addictions kick in (as least I don’t hate myself like I used to…only disappointed).

            Expectations are everything.  It’s so much easier to be impressed by concert of a good band, than that of your favorite band ever, which is why my top ten greatest concert experiences fail to include the many times I’ve seen my favorite band of all time, Metallica.  They always play songs I wish they hadn’t, and not play the ones I wish they would.  And sure, my expectations may not be realistic.  Sure, I know every single one of their songs, and it’s self-defeating to assume they will play what I know they won’t.  And now that I’m halfway through season 3 of Billions, it’s already becoming predictable and repetitive as a soap opera.  Yes, I still love the main characters.  But I was 99% sure the box these supposedly brilliant job candidates were supposed to assemble was impossible, and yet they became as frustrated as children (did this fool any viewers?).  I called it from the start.  And I was 99% sure the shuttle would blow up, and it did.  And now I feel almost no excitement when the two main characters continue to attack and outmaneuver each other at the last possible second.  You can only go to the well so many times before it runs dry.  But as disappointed as I am about the well-tread patterns of these characters, I’m becoming so much more disgusted with my own.  They are just as glaringly obvious to me, only I can’t escape them by changing the channel, or by getting up off of my tight ass and doing something about it rather than just writing about it.  There is nothing wrong with finding comfort in habits and patters if they work for you, but mine only work for the first half of the day.  Then I just fall apart.

            What will I actually accomplish today?  I’ll e-sign the contract to sell Annabelle, almost instantly giving up my “fight” to decrease the outlandishly and unfairly steep commission rate.  I always knew I was powerless to change it.  At least I tried.  At least I understand where my PTSD concerning my lack of trust in all realtors originates.  But I guess I did what I had to do, and then do what I knew I would anyway the following day.  Is that progress?

            I will try to force myself to research business plans, write a draft of mine, and sketch out my webpage ideas.  I should explore ways to find a great developer, because I know whatever money I try to save by actually coding it myself (not matter how simple they insist it can be) will end in procrastination and disaster.  But I’ll soon start to abhor overheating in my bedroom, insist that it’s in my own best interest to walk before the sun goes down, then eat even more when I return on top of an already full stomach, and not accomplish a fraction of what I could do.  I run my mind in circles of knowing what I should do and then finding ways to justify why I can do it tomorrow, over and over and over again. 

            Then I excuse myself by further spending time on this blog analyzing my thought patters, making a list, and calling that progress.  And it might go something like this:

1. I am accomplishing some positive things every day; physically, spiritually, ideas, and more
2. I am not drinking or drugging, only binge watching and gorging on enough food to kill a lessor man
3. I am depressed, yet still feel happier and more grateful than times when I wasn’t depressed, and that’s a monumental accomplishment right there
4. The longer I take to do some things, the more I can perfect them in my head before committing to them and possibly avoiding a mistake
5. It’s still winter, I still can’t drive, and I still don’t have the money from selling my house, so I’d have to wait to pull certain triggers anyway.
6. I still must wait until 3-11 to get fingerprinted to finalize my name change, which I must do before I sign all the legal documents needed for Zen Contractor
7. I could keep going, listing things forever, all while acknowledging even this represents further procrastination but, since we’ve reached my magic number, I must conclude; my point is clear

As I’ve said many times in AA, alcoholism and addiction in general and bipolar disorder all have some key components in common:

1. Oh shit, another list (this one snuck up on me)
2. Step 1, recognize the problem; step 2, admit it, step 3; finally decide to address it
3. I’m desperately trying to address it but, like a fat lazy person finally deciding to eat better and work out, it took many years of bad decisions to end up that way, and it takes a hell-of-a lot more than a few good decisions to rectify it.

And now it’s almost 6 PM, the sun is almost gone, and I guess I can walk and watch videos on how to find the best web site developers and lessons for writing the best business plans and maybe even order the best book on starting a contracting business and consider that progress.  I mean, I could think of worst ways to spend the next two hours.  And I could think of better ways. 

            And finally, it is Sunday after all.  And all gym commitments and diets and shit like that start on Mondays, not Sundays.  Will I conclude my lethargy and gluttony today and declare Monday to be the “first day of the rest of my life?”  I could.  I mean, if I could achieve the following:

1. (Oh funk, are you kidding me, another list?)  Hike down to Phantom Ranch and back out of the Grand Canyon long before learning to actually hike
2. Run my first marathon without ever having run more than ten miles at one time in my life
3. Fully organizing the group (as always) and climbing the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, Kilimanjaro
4. Forgive the woman who illegally sabotaged my dream teaching job
5. Forgive the Judas who stole from me around $700K of my total net wealth
6. Never even thought about hating the babysitter who sexually ruined ten full years of my post-pubescent life
7. And never once hated, soon completely forgave, and eventually was grateful for the love of my life, my Bramble Bunny, my soul-mate-for-life no matter what, for deciding not to marry me the week before our wedding [and yes, this was just another pep talk for myself, and I think it worked, but only time will tell]

If I could do all of that—and so much more—then I sure as hell can buckle down, man up—depression be freaking damned—and start making and achieving very specific necessary goals with a very specific time table that absolutely must be met.  Met with such urgency that the guilt I would feel by wasting my life sitting in front of that damn TV in that same chair I almost killed myself in six years ago with alcohol poisoning the night I learned the best friend I’d ever had (who suffered such similar mental disorders as myself) would out weight the fear or whatever is keeping me from doing what I know I must do to fulfill my purpose in life!

            God, grant me the strength I know I have to fulfill the purpose I know you gave me by using the skills and determination you have blessed me with!

17 Times ‘till…Redemption

3-12-21:  I’m noticing a theme of finding meaning in numbers of movies and shows that either happen to me, or that I find.  The title refers a nun explaining to Jason Statham’s character that her gymnastics coach raped her 17 times until she killed him before number 18.  She was just a kid and rather than send her to prison (for what I think we can all agree is doing the world a great favor) she was sent to the convent where should could “find redemption.”  Statham’s character was also seeking redemption after suffering great trauma in a war, which led him to escape the military and reality by becoming a homeless drug addict.   On the lighter side, Bart Simpson was shown to die at age 17 by a phone app (which he thought was cool), and a social justice warrior racked up 2700 unique views attempting to seek justice for a racially motivated murder in Bosh.  Other than the comedy—significant mainly because I finally managed to emerge from the worst of my clinical depression long enough to enjoy something other than dark depression “entertainment”—the rest continues to remind me to “get over myself”! 

            I wanted to write before this.  I had so much to write about.  But I was too depressed to write about my depression.  Even today I’m still making ridiculous mistakes, struggling just to clean my bedroom and pay bills and perform the simple actions of adulthood, still watching too much TV, still eating so fast so much that it’s so obvious I just keep trading one addiction for another that I still can’t find a way to jump off this hamster wheel of racing redundant thoughts that don’t serve me well. 

            How many times will I actively “victimize myself” before I kill that part of me that wants to kill me first?  I’ve wasted so much time, so many potentially prime years of my life, that my only option is to treat my body well enough that I can make up for that lost time in my later years by outperforming men much younger than myself.  And how long will it take me to run up 2700 unique views for my future church services or live health shows or whatever passion of mine finds some kind of actual success, instead of just inside my imaginative—still optimistic—head? 

            Tomorrow my great social activity is an AA St. Patrick’s Day event that includes dinner and speakers and whatever…pathetic!  I used to attend ten events a week, now all of my “event’s,” social interactions, and daily structure revolves around AA…and I don’t even have the slightest urge to drink!  Once my life gets back to normal, will I ever return?  I honestly don’t know.  I can’t wait to find out.

4 South-Facing Walls What Color Bear?

3-13-21: The classic riddle Dr. House used to “colorfully” lead his team to conclude that their dysphasia patient (unable to use correct words) was bipolar (among other things) (get it, “white” polar bear, bipolar), the theme of that show and the other one I watched during my breaking point of gluttony was that he was not honest about his condition to his fiancée.  And that mess of a hyper-paraphrased intro was my polar-opposite solution to the same problem: that I may be too honest and open about my problems.  I find myself over-sharing my struggles in multiple formats every day.  I recognize myself doing it, and I know it might seem outlandish to many people, such as my mother, the most private person I know. 

            Part ever-unanswered deafening cry for help, part narcissistic assumption I can help and/or inspire others, and all take-me-for-who-I-am or funk yourself!  I spent most of my life in complete blind denial/repression of the trauma of sexual abuse, clinical depression, autism, addictions, and finally bipolar disorder.  I feel like a closeted homosexual finally outing himself, except I feel that my life would be far simpler if that was all I had to deal with.  I’ve got so much competing mess struggling to right itself in my noggin that I’m still trying to figure myself out.  But I know this much; I am done trying to be anything I’m not.

            Today I reached a breaking point in my food addiction/abuse.  I went to far as to write in my bible that tomorrow starts my juice fast, then full water fast for at least three days.  I absolutely can not break a promise I make to myself in my own bible.  But my friend just offered me nachos.  My stomach still hurts from earlier today, but this is like my final bender, so I’m going for it.  One last disgustingly unhealthy meal before I take hard action on straightening out my life, putting the breaks on this freight train of depression (my Bramble Bunny just confirmed that she cannot join my VB league team that I just paid for—my one big “accomplishment of the day”—but at least she replied:-), and forcing myself to accomplish what must be completed in order to succeed in achieving my life’s purpose, starting with Zen Contracting and the MiddleWay Resort.

3-7-21:  Amazingly enough, I felt more divine inspiration from my positive 7-week-long-so-far daily Zen Bible Study habit this morning than my negative sedentary Billions binge-watching while blowing out the elasticity of my stomach as I break my daily vow to quite abusing myself with gluttony habit.

            The well-known biblical story of the woman who blead a dozen years until she was cured by touching the cloak of Jesus without his blessing or knowledge finally made sense to me on a personal level for the first time since I learned about it in my Grandmother’s Sunday school program as a child.  I’d just read it in Matthew 9 the month previous, but it wasn’t until Mark 5 that I had my epiphany.  But I’m well past Mark 5, and I was re-recording it because it seems like I lost the original.  Because I happened to wake up early after another night of poor sleep, I had time to re-record Matthew 9 (another lost video), which just happened to be the same story.  Yes, another divine message to me, related directly to me, and all without a single number “27.”  I shared this at AA and on two recordings, so I’ll leave it at that.

            I walked into my gym in a great mood and full of energy, ready to run after a few bad treadmill runs in a row beat up the confidence I earned with some great runs months earlier at my previous gym.  I thought I had come so far, but then it appeared I lost all my physical skill and mental fortitude.  Instead, I’d been practicing my breathwork on elliptical machines, limiting my breathing to a specific pattern of rotations in order to build my lung capacity and endurance.  But fitness in one area does not always directly translate to another, and I was still concerned.  As always, I was alone and asked for them to start an action movie for me, but their Netflix account was down, so no “movie of the day” for me to “miraculously” connect to my life😊.  I entered my private cardio theatre room single-mindedly focused on running in “zone two,” staring at a blank screen, determined to maintain a Zen-like trance between my breathing, pulse rate, and designing my future Zen Contractor webpage.  And it was one of my most productive and enjoyable runs of the year.  I trained my body and mind with great discipline, and finalized the basic Zen-like elegant webpage that should look great, load quickly, and not cost all that much.  Add to all of that the fact that one of the workers found me to warn me that she suspected that someone might be tampering with my bike confirmed that my practice of treating everyone in my life with kindness and respect is often reciprocated.  Still cold, it was sunny and I chose to walk so it wasn’t my bike, and another wonderful first half of the day achieved.  And that’s something to be grateful for.  But that’s also almost always where the good times always (even better for the fact that I’m still depressed and will be for week, using the last six years of my life as a guide) seem to end.  My will power all used up; my addictions kick in (as least I don’t hate myself like I used to…only disappointed).

            Expectations are everything.  It’s so much easier to be impressed by concert of a good band, than that of your favorite band ever, which is why my top ten greatest concert experiences fail to include the many times I’ve seen my favorite band of all time, Metallica.  They always play songs I wish they hadn’t, and not play the ones I wish they would.  And sure, my expectations may not be realistic.  Sure, I know every single one of their songs, and it’s self-defeating to assume they will play what I know they won’t.  And now that I’m halfway through season 3 of Billions, it’s already becoming predictable and repetitive as a soap opera.  Yes, I still love the main characters.  But I was 99% sure the box these supposedly brilliant job candidates were supposed to assemble was impossible, and yet they became as frustrated as children (did this fool any viewers?).  I called it from the start.  And I was 99% sure the shuttle would blow up, and it did.  And now I feel almost no excitement when the two main characters continue to attack and outmaneuver each other at the last possible second.  You can only go to the well so many times before it runs dry.  But as disappointed as I am about the well-tread patterns of these characters, I’m becoming so much more disgusted with my own.  They are just as glaringly obvious to me, only I can’t escape them by changing the channel, or by getting up off of my tight ass and doing something about it rather than just writing about it.  There is nothing wrong with finding comfort in habits and patters if they work for you, but mine only work for the first half of the day.  Then I just fall apart.

            What will I actually accomplish today?  I’ll e-sign the contract to sell Annabelle, almost instantly giving up my “fight” to decrease the outlandishly and unfairly steep commission rate.  I always knew I was powerless to change it.  At least I tried.  At least I understand where my PTSD concerning my lack of trust in all realtors originates.  But I guess I did what I had to do, and then do what I knew I would anyway the following day.  Is that progress?

            I will try to force myself to research business plans, write a draft of mine, and sketch out my webpage ideas.  I should explore ways to find a great developer, because I know whatever money I try to save by actually coding it myself (not matter how simple they insist it can be) will end in procrastination and disaster.  But I’ll soon start to abhor overheating in my bedroom, insist that it’s in my own best interest to walk before the sun goes down, then eat even more when I return on top of an already full stomach, and not accomplish a fraction of what I could do.  I run my mind in circles of knowing what I should do and then finding ways to justify why I can do it tomorrow, over and over and over again. 

            Then I excuse myself by further spending time on this blog analyzing my thought patters, making a list, and calling that progress.  And it might go something like this:

1. I am accomplishing some positive things every day; physically, spiritually, ideas, and more
2. I am not drinking or drugging, only binge watching and gorging on enough food to kill a lessor man
3. I am depressed, yet still feel happier and more grateful than times when I wasn’t depressed, and that’s a monumental accomplishment right there
4. The longer I take to do some things, the more I can perfect them in my head before committing to them and possibly avoiding a mistake
5. It’s still winter, I still can’t drive, and I still don’t have the money from selling my house, so I’d have to wait to pull certain triggers anyway.
6. I still must wait until 3-11 to get fingerprinted to finalize my name change, which I must do before I sign all the legal documents needed for Zen Contractor
7. I could keep going, listing things forever, all while acknowledging even this represents further procrastination but, since we’ve reached my magic number, I must conclude; my point is clear

As I’ve said many times in AA, alcoholism and addiction in general and bipolar disorder all have some key components in common:

1. Oh shit, another list (this one snuck up on me)
2. Step 1, recognize the problem; step 2, admit it, step 3; finally decide to address it
3. I’m desperately trying to address it but, like a fat lazy person finally deciding to eat better and work out, it took many years of bad decisions to end up that way, and it takes a hell-of-a lot more than a few good decisions to rectify it.

And now it’s almost 6 PM, the sun is almost gone, and I guess I can walk and watch videos on how to find the best web site developers and lessons for writing the best business plans and maybe even order the best book on starting a contracting business and consider that progress.  I mean, I could think of worst ways to spend the next two hours.  And I could think of better ways. 

            And finally, it is Sunday after all.  And all gym commitments and diets and shit like that start on Mondays, not Sundays.  Will I conclude my lethargy and gluttony today and declare Monday to be the “first day of the rest of my life?”  I could.  I mean, if I could achieve the following:

1. (Oh funk, are you kidding me, another list?)  Hike down to Phantom Ranch and back out of the Grand Canyon long before learning to actually hike
2. Run my first marathon without ever having run more than ten miles at one time in my life
3. Fully organizing the group (as always) and climbing the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, Kilimanjaro
4. Forgive the woman who illegally sabotaged my dream teaching job
5. Forgive the Judas who stole from me around $700K of my total net wealth
6. Never even thought about hating the babysitter who sexually ruined ten full years of my post-pubescent life
7. And never once hated, soon completely forgave, and eventually was grateful for the love of my life, my Bramble Bunny, my soul-mate-for-life no matter what, for deciding not to marry me the week before our wedding [and yes, this was just another pep talk for myself, and I think it worked, but only time will tell]

If I could do all of that—and so much more—then I sure as hell can buckle down, man up—depression be freaking damned—and start making and achieving very specific necessary goals with a very specific time table that absolutely must be met.  Met with such urgency that the guilt I would feel by wasting my life sitting in front of that damn TV in that same chair I almost killed myself in six years ago with alcohol poisoning the night I learned the best friend I’d ever had (who suffered such similar mental disorders as myself) would out weight the fear or whatever is keeping me from doing what I know I must do to fulfill my purpose in life!

            God, grant me the strength I know I have to fulfill the purpose I know you gave me by using the skills and determination you have blessed me with!

3-6-21:  Sometime during my teenage years I came to realize that my overdeveloped sense of fairness and justice and unnatural wrath against those without that “curse of conscious” would do me more harm than good, especially when it came to entertainment.  The love-of-my-life, my Bramble Bunny, would always tease me when she’d see me get upset at characters behaving so unnaturally, so illogically, so far against their own best interest that it actually caused me more discomfort than joy to watch certain shows.  Whenever I complained how yet another character walked right through an obvious crime scene to pick up the murder weapon with gloveless hands, as if he’d never seen that already play out on every crime show ever, it made me squirm because I knew that I, the viewer, would now be subjected to that same character having to clear his name.  What was worse?  Lazy writing, that we’re forced to root for and identify with a character so unbelievably stupid, or that people could be that stupid in real life?  But she’d always remind me, whatever they did, they did it because it was “in the script.”

            I’m trying to figure out if my latest favorite show, Billions, let me down with poor writing, or that I allowed myself to invest in characters over the course of three seasons that just behaved so out of the character that was developed for them that it reminded me of those characters in my own life in whom I invested my own time, energy, loyalty and, sometimes, my entire net worth, only to be blindsided and betrayed by them as well.  Am I taking a TV show too personally?  Of course I am, but that’s not the point. (Contrast that to another current favorite show, WandaVision, that also deals with denial and self-delusion and emotion and has such perfectly clever writing I can find no fault with at all!  And that animated “commercial”?  Oh, my freaking gosh!)

            I love Christopher Nolan, and I cherish all of his movies.  But the ease with which the Joker convinced Twoface to forgive his own psychotically evil malicious actions against him personally, and to work with him against the Batman was ridiculous, and was enough to tarnish the movie for me entirely.  Bad writing.  And I could almost believe that the guy set up to lose his potential fortune by the DA with that health food company with the illegal sabotage by the guy I could not help but admire up until that point for both his brilliance and love for Metallica (such a surprisingly nice touch) would accept a 30 million dollar bailout from that guy (I may have lost you, but I’m trying to make a point without spoiling too much) because he felt a bit desperate at that point, but I could not forgive his other two terrible decisions.  First, he learned directly from his fiancée that she wanted to marry him for his money.  Secondly, he decided to work against his friend because the saboteur offered him a fraction of the money he would have won back in civil court anyway, but was too impatient to wait for.  But what really pissed me off was that he went back to that beautiful bombshell gold-digger and reproposed with an obscene engagement ring supplied by said saboteur.  And when they hugged, he hardly even smiled, because he realized he had simply “won” her “love” and “commitment” to marriage with wealth and a worthless rock worth something only because most people agree that it should be worth something, and we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that a big shinny rock symbolizes something other than horribly misguided priorities. 

            To sum it up, the “smarter” all these people are, the better they are at their jobs as the expense of fairness and justice, the better they are compensated.  But once they have everything, wealth becomes meaningless, winning is all that matters, and wealth and winning become so much more important than happiness and justice that they are willing to sacrifice all that actually matters—family, clean conscious, dignity and self-respect (winning a beautiful gold-digger or court case or another billion dollars at any cost)—in order to achieve a temporary ego boost.  When one has everything, the ego is all that is left.  And the ego can never be satisfied.  Like a spoiled child or the drug addict they likely will become, the more you give it, the more it wants.

            Am I disappointed in the show because its characters are letting me down in order to continue the plot, or might they still represent an amalgamation of their real-life counterparts, who will inevitably continue to let themselves down and everyone around them because as “brilliant” as they might appear in most aspects, their priorities are as funked up as an illiterate junkie on the streets?  What is true intelligence?  I would argue that the ability to be self-aware, good, loyal, and prioritize one’s values and achievements to ensure long-term happiness, satisfaction, and authentic self-love makes one infinitely more intelligent than a math genius who can make billions off the stock market and still loses his family and dies miserable and alone.

-Zen-

In lessons reinforced and direct messages from God through the random “movie of the day” at my gym, I present to you a generic action movie that begins with the “perfectly planed heist” that goes wrong when an innocent bystander dies and the henchmen attempt to kill the leader when he refuses to relinquish his share of the loot in order to “invest” it in their next big crime that should net them ten times as much.  In the dual lessons played out 27 million times before and will be 27 million more times in the future in both media and real life every day; “you can’t trust criminals,” and “easy money is never sustainable.”   It’s a generic plotline and not worth mentioning but for what happens later.  Unrelated to the movie, an idea pops into my head that could represent for me a huge potential risk and huge potential reward.  If I would have had the idea while manic, it would have been much easier to disregard.  But I’m depressed, and I shouldn’t be having such ideas.  I should reassure you that I’d be investing the bulk of the money I’d legally earn from the sale of my Annabelle house into another real estate deal with a realtor I think I can trust.  But until today, I had other plans for that money.  Just a few minutes after that idea on my second breath-controlled elliptical workout of the day involving real estate during a random movie, a real estate deal is mentioned in the movie for $17 million.  I consider “17” to be a second-tier type of message from God, not quite enough to give me the confidence I needed for my audacious idea.  Can you see where I’m going with this?  Can you see why it’s so important that my old private personal journal has after a 7-year slumber reawakened at a public blog?  And if the numbers weren’t enough, I went so far as to title my entire blog entry with it.  The very next house she attempted to sell Jason Statham was for…wait for it…27 million dollars.  Coincidence.  Yeah, sure.  It’s all just coincidence.  Except I’ve wanted to buy this property for years, but was unable to do so.  Now I am able to do so, but lacked the courage.  And I’ve wanted to absolutely give my heart and soul to God for my entire life, and just couldn’t overcome my intellectual skepticism until…until 5-27.  And I saw the first episode of Billions years ago as a promotion on another DVD series, and it stared two of my favorite actors and looked interesting as hell.  But I wanted.  I’m an incredibly patient man.  I haven’t been in love in 7 years, haven’t had successful sex since 2016 and she died last year, but not until I felt inspired to make peace with her after I learned from others that she had fallen on some hard times. 

            But just recently did Billions finally appear on Amazon Prime.  And just recently was I able to finally sell Annabelle.  And by complete random chance I even worked out at Retro Fitness, after I tried reenrolling there after feeling so badly burned by a racist at LA Fitness and once they called the police on me I knew I could never go back (long story).  And the only reason I went back to Retro was because Just Try Fitness closed down.  And the only reason I went back to Retro Fitness was because I sucked up my pride after feeling so spurned by a temporary employee that treated me like shit.  And all of these random acts lined up perfectly, precisely reflecting the number 27 million, and specifically a 27-million-dollar real estate deal, which happened just minutes after having the idea and specifically asked for a sign.  And remember, posted weeks ago, I specifically mentioned that I look for signed from God in the form of numbers, and that 27 was my number.

            I know this is long-winded poor writing, and I know I’d have to tighten it up before sharing it with anyone else in any sort of inspirational way or as further confirmation of my own faith.  But I couldn’t care less about writing quality at this point.  What I am doing in real time is creating a written record of my values, faith, and priorities in life.  Everyone lies, even to themselves.  But for anyone who cares to watch my hundreds of hours of videos or what will be thousands of pages of text about my core believes—among other things—that at the very least, I believe in myself and what I’m doing and that I’m self-aware to a fault.  This is how I work out my thoughts.  And I’ve made a decision.  And no matter how it eventually works out, I’ll be good with it.  Because my motives are pure, I’m acting on the best information (and signs) available to me, and I don’t believe in regrets. 

            Now I’m off for my evening walk and to converse with my dad and mother and real estate agent.  My mom’s not going to be happy that I can’t pay her some big lump sum from the sale of my house, but I can’t help but invest in the long game.  And as long as that game is honest and pure then that’s the only game worth playing.  I’m the man who held the marshmallow for 30 years…I can hold on a bit longer!  

3-5-21:  I’m not entirely above junky food every once in a while—never fast food, never pop, never buying chips—no, those are completely off the metaphorical and literal tables.  The chore of those decisions has been as gracefully and gratefully eliminated from my life as much as alcohol, and I will always be grateful for my unique ability to both do so.  Likewise, I’m not above the occasional trash TV or stupid B-movie, if for no other reason than to cement the stark relativity between high-quality entertainment (and food) that comprises the bulk of my life, and the stupid shit.  I choose entertainment on the basis of my ability to escape the stress of my life and, like great literature, to be reminded of human nature is all its most vile and noble forms.  And if God finds ways to communicate directly to me through it, all the better.

            Between the random movies at gym, lately including Creed II, Casino Royal, and Shutter Island, and the shows and movies I’ve been fortunate enough to fall into, such as Billions, Bliss, and Tell Me Your Secrets, I find both personal and divine inspiration, as well as a way to connect them to each other in ways most could not.

            Take for example Shutter Island, Bliss, and Tell Me Your Secrets.  Their plot lines all revolve around main characters either living outside of reality, constructing an alternative personalized reality, and/or subconsciously blocking out memories the brain must consider too painful to deal with in real time; themes I am excruciatingly familiar with.  My confidence during mania boarders on pure delusion, and acknowledging that fact while depressed further sucker-punches me when I’m already so far down.  I’ve already mentioned twenty-plus years of complete suppression of my sexual abuse which, had I been forced to confront before I was ready, could have ruined my life far worse than self-infected (without my conscious consent) abstinence.  But it wasn’t until the absolutely shocking conclusion of the first season of Secrets that the actions of the understandably shattered and morally questionable protagonist instantly called into question the degree to which the viewer—if put in her same situation—could imagine destroying the reputation and life of the actual victim (who had just recently saved her life) in order to save the reputation of her own family and herself by extension.   Rarely are we presented with a more dramatic and, in my opinion, easier decision to make.  But as difficult as it might be to admit your own faults and acknowledge the absolute certain guilt of someone so close to you in order to save an innocent stranger (made easier still since I don’t have children myself), I can’t imagine possessing so little courage to do the right thing, and to so absolutely condom another completely innocent person.  As I always say, “I know it’s just a well-written TV show,” but similar decisions are made my millions of real-life people, and how many of those decisions will damn those false witnesses straight to hell?  If not a literal “religious interpretation” of hell, at least a living hell on earth, if one still has any conscious left at all.

            But most impressive of all is Billions.  Two main characters, neither an obvious villain or hero, both believe they are right and noble in their actions, both with multiple opportunities to be immoral yet still take the higher ground.  But by employing a stubborn “scorched earth” mentality against each other, even if one of them ultimately prevails, they will both end up losing.  No matter how much I may generally loath billionaire money manipulators who make billions without making anything or doing any real good, he loves Metallica, won’t cheat on his wife, and is a great father.  (And he’s not a racist or bigot so, he’s basically still one of the best business people to be found.)  And no matter how much I want to root for the DA who had dedicated every fiber of his being to taking this guy down by any means necessary, I hate how he is destroying his own marriage and, just recently his entire inheritance of 27 million dollars (not 25, not 30, but specifically, of all possible numbers, 27 million dollars) to do so. 

            The show is riveting; with incredibly interesting characters doing brilliant things that us commoners can only assume their real-life counterparts are actually doing a version of every day, as they increase their already obscene wealth at the expense of everyone else.  (No, I understand how the economic pie itself gets larger, but there is a difference between running a company that makes something, verses making money off those companies and not making any real positive difference in the world, especially since they are cheating, which does directly take money away from the rest of us.)  But this evening, as I was eating myself into physical pain and ill-health to feed the last addiction I have access to, the billionaire went too far, and I took it personally.  He not only directly sabotaged a company for a personal vendetta, it was a health food company. 

            Most people probably either decided to love or hate him before then, but few made up their minds because of that single action.  Because if it were a fast-food company, I would have thought they would have gotten what they deserved, since they are hurting people.  But this was the type of company that I would have invested in or, to take it a step further, actually founded, in a more idealized version of my life.  And I know it’s just a show, but I was reminded of how this kind of heartless wicked shit really does go on between billionaires, who care so little about the world or the middle- and lower-class ants who they crush underfoot as thoughtlessly as we might crush actual ants, it pissed me off more than it should have.  And it got me thinking about a few things that, if I don’t immediately list them in list form, I may never take that “sanity-restoring” evening walk.

1. I can be more grateful now with (by middle class American standards) nothing, then I was with everything, because anyone can be happy with everything.
2. Everything is relative, everything can be lost and, eventually, everything you hold most dear will be lost.  (You can’t take it with you, just your soul.  And how many people actively invest in that?)
3. If you can be happy with little, you have more power than those who feel they need everything.
4. As wonderful as it feels to have nice things, everything gets old and boring; everything!
5. If I can think this optimistically while I am depressed, I can imagine how freaking amazing I’ll feel once the depression has finally lifted.  And I know it will lift!
6. On a more personal and immediate note: if I abuse myself with food like I did today, I don’t get dinner.  And I must commit myself to that decision absolutely!  Today will be my test.  Because one can eliminate booze and fast food, but food itself can be a bit trickier.
7. As long as I continue my daily Zen Bible Study, prayer and meditation, and as many other positive habits I can squeeze in to my otherwise unproductive days struggling through depression, I will never again sink as low as I was in 2018.  Never again!

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