Even at 37 years of age, I am an impulsive child. Albeit not nearly as much as I have been in former years, there still exists within me the opportunistic and undisciplined thief who would rather, at times, forfeit the responsibility that comes with awareness born out of experience and carelessly indulge whatever restless hunger I have inside of me.
I’m mostly talking about my dietary habits, but am fully aware of the application of such a confession in other areas of my life - relationships, for instance.
Hunger is a dangerous thing if one doesn’t understand it, appreciate it for what it is, and discipline it. The hunger I fell victim to was loneliness. Even as I say this I am reminded of the story in the Bible where Adam was in the garden and, interpretively speaking, was lonely - even though God was right there with him! I derive from this that loneliness is a state of mind, much like boredom. Whenever my brother would tell my Dad he was bored, my Dad would reply, “That’s because you’re boring.”
Well, I was boring - seeking stimulation outside of myself to make up for the fact that I was unwilling and spiritually incapable of tapping in to the gifts I had already been given and finding something exciting to do with them. I wanted something outside of me to do it for me - to do for me what I was unwilling to do for myself: be happy. In seeking happiness outside of myself, I looked for the electric, the exciting, and the risque. I called myself pushing the envelope to find the effervescence of life. I meddled with and in things I shouldn’t have. I transgressed sacred boundaries. I blasphemed against myself. I betrayed my truth. I danced, laughed, and had sex with devils - and not so much that THEY were devils, but that my affection for the lie they represented for my insatiable hunger, made them devils. Truth be told, the only real devil I found myself in bed with was the one I saw when I looked into the mirror.
Turning my back on the truth I had been taught but didn’t have the courage or will to own, I ran away from myself and into the arms of the world, embarking on a journey I hyped up as an adventure. I had taken my inheritance which I had not earned and eagerly took off to live high on the hog, have a good time, and spend every last dime. I was the prodigal son.
The life I discovered was full of neon lights, carnival music, kaleidoscopic colors and storms of laughter - an orgasm of circus energy and curiosities I could not refuse. I became a connoiseur of foolishness, drunkenness and gluttony. At first I couldn’t get enough of it. The highs were amazing! I was living la vida loca and loving it!
The thing about highs, though, is that you eventually have to come down from them. When I came down, I came down hard. Having spent all I had, I went into debt to maintain an illusion - a feeling worth nothing more than a two minute nut. I kept thinking about Marvin Gaye when he was at his lowest and then that song, “God Bless the Child.” Its funny that in such moments the opportunity to reflect upon where one is, where one has been and where one is going always seems to be leaning against the doorway you want to run out of.
I had a chance to realize that what I thought was some grand adventure was nothing more than fool’s gold. I was so busy trying to grab the brass ring that I forfeited my enjoyment of the ride. I thought I was going to discover something brand new and life-changing - something that was going to rewrite the rules and grant me access to all the world’s riches. In a way I did; just not in the way I had expected.
My foolishness brought me to the brink of utter destruction. Like the prodigal son, I woke up one morning laying in the proverbial pig sty - pig shit for my pillow, and had an epiphany.
Ecclesiastes tells me that there is nothing new under the sun. The immature have this perennial attribute of wanting to re-invent the wheel - essentially believing that they have to discover things for themselves. To a point, this is true, for knowledge without wisdom bears no fruit. But just like Christopher Columbus, we set out with faulty assumptions (believing the world to be flat, the grass to be greener on the other side, or that we cannot be successful where we are, for instance) to find a short cut that will bring us fame and fortune quicker than anybody before us. Inevitably we land in a place altogether different than our intended destination and because this place lies outside of our familiarity, we get excited about what we have chanced upon, something new to us, full of potential and possibilities. We want to call this new place Paradise.
In scripture, Jesus says that Paradise, or heaven, is within us. In the melodic lyrics of Luther Vandross, “a house is not a home.” Teddy Pendergrass sung, “you can’t hide from yourself. Everywhere you go - there you are.” The bottom line? Each of us is responsible for and determines our heaven and hell. Once we master ourselves we won’t have to go ‘discovering’ other lands, conquering other people, or busying ourselves with the affairs of others. I know I have enough to contend with inside of me alone. In one sense, it is the coward who invests himself in everything else but himself - who sets out to tame the world because he cannot tame himself.
His-story may attribute our landfall as some new discovery. But what his-story fails to acknowledge is that this place we have allegedly discovered in fact existed since before the reporter of his-story was even a gleam in his parent’s eye. Star Trek taught me that, as would be explorers, we must keep in mind that we bring all of our baggage with us (ignorance, fear, and ego) and end up corrupting that which, prior to our arrival, was essentially incorruptible.
We run away from who we are and call it embarking on a journey. Not only that, but we hit the road with a faulty road map, end up in a place altogether different from our intended destination, purpose to conquer and exploit it for our own benefit and ultimately end up destroying it. Isn’t this the story of man? We are a plague governed by ignorance and ego, whose children - fear and loathing, wreak havoc upon anything we survey.
