Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

CONCLUSION – Freedom is Now
Conclusion: the End of a New Beginning;
… and the Beginning of a New Ending
“Most people do not wish to be free from their addictions. They would rather moan and
chafe about how impossible it is to give up their various enslavements – to their
emotions, to their possessions, to their behaviors. Of course, it is not that they can’t give
these things up – they don’t truly want to give them up.” ~ inspired by Peace Pilgrim
“It’s probably weird to think about an addiction like it’s a sentient being, but that’s how
it feels. Like it’s something living inside you; something you can’t get rid of because you
are afraid that killing it means killing you. Of course, oddly enough, all the while you are
thinking like this, it really is killing you.” ~ inspired by Ellen Hopkins
I’m still not exactly sure what came over me last summer – still not at all certain why
writing about addiction became so necessary. I like to think it was a compulsion of
Compassion …
I like to think that I had simply had enough of repeatedly witnessing folks extend sweettongued
pity to all those outcasts so smoothly labeled “alcoholic” & “druggie” …
I like to think that I felt called to champion the objects of all those dry & brittle
sympathies, plastered as they were (and still are) in tones cold & condescending; nothing
more than vapor-thin veils over judgments “holier than thou” …
I like to think that I simply knew from firsthand experience that is wasn’t Right that my
own brother and so many of my other dear Friends were (and still are) being treated so
callously during their times of greatest need.
And I also remember clearly the day I realized – with hearth-warming empathy – that the
very people who were offering such frozen condolences were (and still are) addicts
themselves; indeed, that we are all, by the very nature of our humanity, born into lifelong
& life-threatening struggles with fear, need, desire and dependence – that we are all
imprisoned to one degree or another; that we all merit the gentleness of Compassion.
And I remembered that we were not always so shackled; that we can all be free again.
“Once you obtain its key,
your prison cell becomes a Home.”
~ inspired by George Sterling
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict,
it is the fearful need to escape from a reality that often seems harsh & unfair.
Indeed, there are more television addicts, more football addicts, and certainly more
negativity addicts in the west than all the substance abusers in the world combined.”
~ inspired by Shirley Chisholm
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