Reality

However they remember it

Image by Piyapong Saydaung from Pixabay.

When I left prison, I dedicated my life to abstinence from drug and alcohol use. It’s important because the decision was a vector. It was about direction. Cardinals. North. I wanted to go somewhere in a straight line. I hoped that somewhere on the other end there would be a payoff. Direction and magnitude. Vector.

The problem with liars is that they’re an unworkable geometry. All problem solving begins with the truth, so if someone refuses to give you the starting point…

The other problem is that it becomes a solution, an addiction, a way of dealing with a problem. The problem is fear of rejection. If I tell the truth, I will experience rejection. But that’s precisely why telling the truth is so important — it accounts for that fear. It’s not easy. Cowards lie.

Lying speaks other truths: I have no faith in your love for me, I have no faith in your empathy. Lying talks about wounds, about childhoods. Exposure.

I still crave a drink sometimes. I think of coke’s euphoria. They call it addiction. Addiction to the drug, and addiction to the person you are on the drug. On the drug I’m dark. I love the darkness. It’s all-consuming like being cloaked in warm oil. Power. So it requires a strong antidote for the addiction: self-awareness.