The Abdication of Morality

The Abdication of Morality:

I served this nation as a United States Marine from the years 2000 until 2005. I served as a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 from January until June. I have been in harm’s way, though in a limited capacity. Though my experiences as a war veteran are relatively quite minor in intensity, scope, and duration to that of my brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces, my experiences have led me onto a path of discovery of myself, the world, and myself as a living, sentient being as a part of this expanding Universe. I constantly seek to improve my personal knowledge of better morality; perhaps a Universal morality that transcends humanity. As a result, I loathe war and the practice of killing, though I understand the unfortunate necessity of it. It is a part of my moral code to have such a dislike of war. It is also a part of my moral code that it is highly immoral to justify killing and destruction as deference to a supernatural being; since none has been proven to exist, a humanly constructed and imagined one at that. Such a practice is not only to not be condoned, but it must be stopped. I say this unequivocally and without apology.

Here is some information I have found regarding the issue of religiosity in the United States Armed Forces, one of the many problems being a highly problematic environment of unethical religious proselytizing; but more importantly, immoral behavior by the very people we blindly call heroes. On atheists.org, “Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheist, cited a recent incident where the Al Jazeera television network aired a segment showing troops in Afghanistan discussing the distribution of bibles printed in the native languages, and exhortations for a military chaplain telling soldiers that they should ‘hunt men for Jesus’.” Hunt men for Jesus??!!?? Are you FUCKING kidding me??!!?? How is this allowed? How did we ever end up with a military culture where this more likely to be the norm and not a rare exception? I do not ask these rhetorical questions out of ignorance. I know exactly what it feels like to be driven by enough fear and excitement to want to hunt down any man that ever even thought about killing Americans; i.e. me. After numerous SCUD missile attacks and one close call with a seersucker missile, I know that had my occupation in the Marines been that of a machine gunner, I would have mentally prepared myself through many methods — some seemingly bizarre — to be able to ruthlessly hunt down enemy combatants with high volume fire. Had that been my lot in life, I would certainly have had to face the consequences of my circumstances and actions. In going through this many people are scarred very deeply as a result. It’s a devastating thing for anyone, even the strongest.

When “thou shall not kill” turns into “hunt men for Jesus” so easily, it becomes clear that Richard Dawkins may be ENTIRELY right in saying that religion is the root of all evil. When religiosity assumes the bully pulpit of self-proclaimed, unproven, poorly reasoned moral superiority to justify the most brutish and vicious of actions, it is such an abomination and practice of human depravity that any society or culture that condones it is clearly committing a complete abdication of morality.

This abdication of morality must be stopped somehow. This practice stains the honorable service of so many men and women of great. It is not what I signed up for. I didn’t sign the “motherfucking contract” to be a part of this. When I preach that our young men and women of more fortunate socio-economic backgrounds (i.e. liberals) should consider military service, this is not what I had in mind; it, in fact, makes me question such a stance.

I'm noticing more and more about myself these days. The things I'm noticing about myself are not flattering in the least; but it's a damn good thing I am noticing them.

Without these mini-realizations and these new tidbits of self-awareness, I would have gone on obliviously unable to change them. As a human, and a somewhat enlightened one at that, it is important for me to consistently dig down and uncover the aspects of my existence and soul that continually get pushed down and covered by my ego. It is astonishing how quickly and subtly my ego covers up the parts of me that I don't want to know about. The denial that I undertake occurs so quickly and automatically that I wonder how much I have been blinded by my ego's guardianship.

I was at the 404 doing my normal Friday night hanging out in the Denver comedy scene to socialize and work on my act. Throughout the night, this woman, who's a sober regular at this bar (imagine that, a chick who doesn't drink and hangs out at the 404), was there and looked fantastic. I've flirted and chatted with her off and on for quite a while. Tonight, I went in there just beaming with confidence; though lately, there has been a silver lining of emotional pain, even when I'm confident and cheerful. So after some sporadic flirting and some upbeat conversation with her, I go do my set. Another lame summer open mic comedy show. I'm a strong performer, even at rough open mics, but I still have sets where I am dissatisfied with the results or just flat don't do well. I was kickin' ass for the first two and half minutes and then lost the crowd; the small, rowdy, drunken, already listened to 16 comics crowd. Oh yeah and a drunk, annoying comedian who isn't funny and blurts out weird things for attention.So yeah, after getting thrown off my rhythm with a heckle, the set went down hill. Lots of heckling, though I did go into the crowd when I got thrown off-course. But with this drunk bunch of assholes, you give 'em anything and you lose your authority.

So yeah, I'm still feeling ok, but my self-confidence has taken a hit. After some more socializing, I decided to leave. I wanted to get her phone number before I left, so I grabbed a matchbook, wrote her name on it and gave it to her with my pen. She was about to write her number and double backed to do the whole, "no, I'm not giving you my number. But you're so sweet for asking. I can't give this number to you because I've been hanging out with Tim all night." Crunch!! In front of a bunch of people, too. I then said something like, "you wouldn't have given your number to me even if you hadn't hung out with Tim all night." At this point, I had made the whole interaction confrontational. Of course, I persisted. I kept on about why she should be honest instead of giving me some bullshit excuse. She said, "you don't have to be angry." At this point, I've really turned into an angry asshole, though I'm smiling and trying to play it off to save face. I looked her deep in the eyes and said, "I'm not angry." She wasn't buying. She told me I was being self-conscious. I looked at her again and repeated that I wasn't angry. I turned around and walked away, totally deflated. As I walked away, I realized that I was angry. I was in a state of self-loathing. I was a little hurt and engaging in defense mechanisms to deny that deflation of ego. All of this while being self absorbed, stillmore.

As I left and went to my car, I started thinking a little bit differently. I started thinking about owning my shit. Owning my actions; good and bad. My set didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I have to own that. I was angry at one of the audience members who was a real asshole to me after the show ended, as he immersed himself and ingratiated himself in our scene and acted like an arrogant dickhead to build up his ego. I was so angry at him, I considered knocking him out with one punch. Actually considered it. All of this was before I asked the girl for her number. I was angry, I have to own it. I lied to that girl about not being angry; I have to own that too. I am always responsible for my actions whether I am in a good mood or not. I can no longer blame other people, places, or situations for my actions, behavior, and attitude. I have to own it all. I might as well. Those are the few things in this world that I do own. It's all my property in the context of John Locke.

My anger creeps in like a ninja. I'm in denial of it so much. But now I'm starting to catch on. Now, I can change and keep fighting the good fight. All of this stupid anger because of a bruised ego. Fuck that, I should better than that. So the work continues. I will be a better person. A person who is respected and not feared.

I think I owe this girl an apology.

PC

Still recovering, still healing

I'm feeling better in general. I've been doing a lot of step-work and some intense therapy. I think I've gone through those stages when someone loses a relationship. You know, the denial, anger, bargaining, grieving, and acceptance. This whole process isn't sequential. You bounce around from different stages. I think during the last throes of the relationship when she was pushing me away and pushing me away and ignoring me, I was going through the denial and anger steps of this process pretty hardcore. The anger, though I didn't see it oftentimes as I may have been in denial of it, was certainly communicated to her unconsciously. My anger really freaked her out. And I was in a lot of denial, I didn't look at her actions and match them up with how she was communicating to me. Certain words and certain tonalities really summed everything up. The romance was done. I didn't want it to be done. I immersed myself in denial and when she didn't reciprocate, I was in denial and anger and desperation modes. On the surface there was a lot of desperation; underneath it all and unconscious to me there was a lot of anger. She sensed this and it freaked her out. I must have come off like a monster to her. That's the last thing I ever wanted to be to her. This was a woman who would knock on my window at 6:30 in the morning so we could spend time with eachother before she had to go work and I had to go to class. I miss that love and affection so much. I've never had that before until we started our romance. It was very special to me.

I think the romance was done, not so much because of me or her, but the circumstances in her life. She is a very busy and very stressed out woman. She has a plethora and multitude of responsibilities. She has had a very difficult last six months. Health issues, people literally dying on her, mental health issues with her and her daughter. I ended up just becoming a burden to her. I didn't want to stress her out and become an obstacle in her life, but as I was acting on fear of losing her and anger at the circumstances not being what I wanted them to be, I chose to act highly irrationally. I was out of control. I just couldn't leave her alone for her to deal with her crazy, complex life.

I still feel shitty about the stress and harm and difficulty that I've caused her. I would do anything within reason to rectify this and to make amends. To have driven her to cutting me out of her life, a man she has said so often that she adores, means that I was certainly out of line.

This whole experience has been a wake-up call for me. It's been this gut-wrenching eye opener. I cannot let myself get out of control because I am beholden to my desires and fears. I will never act this way again, and I will be more cognizant of the warning signs from within. There's nothing wrong with emotions, I must learn how to feel them and not act inappropriately or try to control them and dictate what they'll be. It is this very compulsion towards controlling how I always feel that I chose to use, abuse, and get addicted to drugs and alcohol. There aren't many things in this life over which I have direct control. The only things I control are my actions, words, behaviors, and perspective/attitudes.

As painful as everything has been for me; and believe me, gut-wrenching pain; it probably has been a great thing for me to experience. This particular bottom has motivated me to make my life better, to become a better man, to want to find out who I really am and work on being better. This way I don't have live beholden to my fears and desires. I don't have to let anger fill up inside of me to the point where I bring destruction on myself and others. I'm not saying that I'll never get angry again, that's just stupid to think that. I am saying that given this experience, I will conduct myself in a far better manner so as to not endure the pain of these consequences. In the future, painful events will only serve to make me human and to make me stronger.

Though I am still working on myself, I do pray that I will get a chance to make amends to her. G-d willing, I hope to get a second chance at friendship with her. I guarantee, if I am so fortunate to get another chance, I will not fuck it up. Period.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thank You For Reading,

PC

A time for personal growth

I have ruined one of the best relationships of my life. This woman, who is only one of the greatest women I've have ever met, has told me to leave her alone and to not contact her. Oooh, it hurts. But, it is my fault. I acted and behaved based on my own personal insanities. My insecurities, fears, anger, and massive obsessions manifested themselves into compulsive and out-of-control behavior. I freaked her out. She was not unreasonable. I wish I could go back and fix the problem or prevent the damage from occurring; but, that is physically impossible. Cause and effect. I acted wrongly and had no self-control; the effect is that a woman that I love is out of my life. I know she still loves me. But, it is most likely that I will never see or hear from her again. That hurts. I was wrong. She communicated to me and I never listened. Or I did listen and didn't have acceptance and continued to behave inappropriately. She was as tolerant of me as she could possibly have been. I just couldn't stop harassing her and trying to force the relationship into what I was so desperately wanting it to be. The thing is, even if she did everything I wanted and everything I asked, I still would not have been happy. I transferred my addiction to her. I treated her like a drug and tried to use her to fill a mighty big hole inside of me. I am so sorry at what I've done. Being that making amends to her is not something for which I am, yet, ready, nor is it feasible considering the new boundaries that she has reasonably constructed.

This pain that I've been feeling has been very intense. My heart was broken and is in the process of healing. The beautiful thing is that I can change. I must change. This horrible result, the result I feared most, was a great eye-opener. I have acted with insanity to so many people. People see the good in me and my insanity pushes them away. Underneath these facets of my disease and obsessive-compulsiveness is a wonderful human being. I love myself. I know that I am a really good person. Because I love myself, I must change.

My amends to her are to change into the person I want to be, or even better. To look at my anger and fears for what they are and do what is necessary to not let them turn me into some kind of monster. I will always and unconditionally love her; however, I must now do it from a distance. I pray that she heals readily from the damage I've inflicted. I pray that she continues to be blessed throughout her life; especially through periods of difficulty and duress. These are also prayers that I have for myself. I pray that I heal readily from the damage that I've caused myself. I pray that I continually and graciously continue to be blessed throughout my life; especially through periods of difficulty and duress. She is so wonderful that even as she exits my life completely, there is hope; hope for me to become a better person. She held me accountable, she didn't buy into my bullshit, she protected herself from me so I couldn't hurt her. She did so with Love, Respect, and Reason. Even as our beautiful relationship disintegrated and dissolved, she has left a positive impact and made me a better person.

Now, it's time for me to work on myself and experience the personal growth that I so desperately need and want.

Thank You for Reading,

PC