What is your Epiphany?

The word itself is defined as: "a realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something or someone. An inspired understanding arising from connecting with profound insight, awareness, or enlightened truth."

I may agree with that - in fact I do. You can never be too old or too young to reach and Epiphany. The younger the better, I believe. Consider this: if you suddenly realize that you have been living a lie, but you are 50 years old, well, too friggin bad - better late than never, or something. But imagine that you are 27, or 35. You still have some time to change your situation and be happy. For example, I know now that I have wasted bags of time on rediculous dreams, schemes and themes. My life is almost exactly how I want it inspite of myself. I love my kids and my wife, my house and my job. I am even happy with not smoking, drinking on occasion and putting recreational drug use behind me - though I think about that one more often than I should.

Pleasure, good or bad?

I know people who quit doing something and later regretted it. Even if their lives turned out far better than if they had continued that path. My friend Mike was addicted to parties. He loved them, he loved getting wrecked at them and laughing until he couldn't see. He would consume: pot, pills, alcohol and women. In small and manageable quantities, he felt that this behavior was perfectly fine and acceptable. He met a woman who brought him out of this lifestyle, I think before he was ready. He regrets it to this day - though happy for the most part. WHY? Because humans are complex and were created with too perfect of a sense of pleasure.

What are the major problems with the country, specifially what are they linked to? Pleasure! Sex and Drugs, probably the two biggest targets on a religious fundamentalist's hitlist. Though if you interview them and they actually tell you the truth they either were or ,more than likely still are, big pleasure addicts. But they will also tell you that God brings them a greater high than the heroin or the blow jobs ever did. Perhaps true, mostlikely BULL! That is what they tell others and try to tell themselves. They have to experience a true epiphany in order to escape that pleasure. One pleasure must be replaced with another - it is a human thing. Some people are preprogrammed for the wrong kinds of pleasure, and their environments enable that. I will give you an example.

When my friend Tim joined the chruch, he was getting off some kind of narcotic. I still don't know what it was, but it was something that very slowly consumed him. He started off just experimenting at parties. He then realized it made him forget his troubles and continued outside of the parties until one day it was his whole life. What is your day to day life centered around? Your job, kids, hobby or family? His was getting and taking this drug. His job, family and friends were just characters in this play in which he was starring, he was the lead role and his drug was the co-star. Tim loved to hang out with his family and enjoy his kids - as long as the drug kept the pleasure going. I think you get the idea - so we go back to him joining the church. Guilt is an incredible reality. Drugs are surreal, but guilt is ever so real. Catch-22 comes to mind. "I take drugs to get rid of the guilt I feel from taking drugs". Where does one go from there? The church. But the guilt he originally felt was from his family - knowing that this would hurt them. Now add the church and more people to judge you. Nice huh? He needed a personal Epiphany - not one generated by the masses, society at large.

Tim's Epiphany, essentially, was that he was not happy with where he lived, nor his job. This realization enabled him to begin the changes necessary to save himself. Don't get me wrong, if God does it for you, fine - but I like real things to change my mind, not a belief in a highly debated supernatural force who threatens damnation. What keeps Tim in line now? Happiness. He is actually happy - and so his wife is happy and his kids are happy and his boss is happy and his creditors are happy. Happiness is a very powerful form of pleasure. How many authentically happy people do you really know? Not many I bet, but of those few, how many of them have some kind of pleasure addiction like Tim's? I would guess that answer is a big goose-egg.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have the perfect upbringing so that they can cope with all of life's tumult perfectly. A lot of people need a crutch until that Epihpany happens. Unfortunately, not all will achive this. Kind of like the female orgasm. You cannot be truly happy unless you have had a nice spine quivering O-Face. But that is another story for another blogger.

So now that I have wasted your time - I wish you an epiphany. Mine was a slow process, but a charge of happiness when realized. Everything is better when you realize it.

Now I am going to learn how to write.

-SM