I Can’t Go Back

This weekend is the tenth anniversary of my awakening. Ten years ago, on September 7th, 2013, I met a person who placed me on my path of personal development. I learned how to think and eliminate many terrible behaviours that kept me tucked safely in a box labelled “NORMAL.”

I was unhealthy, overindulging in alcohol, pot, fast food, and sex. I was lost. I had no direction and was oblivious to understanding that humans need purpose to feel fulfilled. The noise, the negative mental activity, between my ears was deafening. I used the alcohol, pot, food, and promiscuous sex to quiet the noise for some brief relief. I became a vidiot. I was surfing 300 channels of shit on the TV, pornography, or YouTube to occupy my mind with something to replace the noise. I wasn’t just unhealthy; I was sick.

On a bright, warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in July of 2013, I was sitting, partly clothed, in the darkened living room of my condo, trying to figure out how to exit the pain I was in without causing my body any pain. It was impossible to do and only made me feel worse. The only thing that stopped me from executing the idea was a saying given to me by one of my old air cadet friends. “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” In my heart, I hoped this was true and that the sadness and exhaustion I felt was only temporary. I was praying that some circumstance or my environment would bring me some relief.

I came to Tobermory, Ontario, at the invitation of a friend giving a low-light photography workshop. I paid to attend the event. It was a rainy and cloudy weekend, but the images I captured were terrific. As I look back at it now, it was the event that was important. It was connecting with people that made the difference.

I used to think that material wealth and buying all kinds of shit was a solution to happiness. All of the shit I bought throughout my life could not come close to the value I received for the price of one weekend, making friends, experiencing new places and beautiful sensations. Money cannot buy happiness with material things. Money can provide great experiences that change lives.

I started to study myself with the guidance of a mentor. I couldn’t possibly do it myself. What he taught me changed me from the inside out. I started to see the wonder of the world. I began to see how I was abusing my body and mind. I started practicing the exercises he gave me, and it got easier, just as my mentor promised.

Now, I look to be of service to others. Switching from being a selfish, self-centred person to being selfless. I have this wealth of life experiences, and now I can articulate how those experiences can work as lessons for others. I want to set the world free. Free from oppression. Free from depression. Free from the box of NORMAL. Free to be who we are, naturally human, loving and compassionate beings.

I have learned that from the day I was born, I have been inoculated by ideas to spare me the pain of eternal damnation and rules that suppressed my freedom. What I have corrected, through personal development, is the pain of conformance, which my former religious leaders, teachers, and even my parents and grandparents insisted I live by. There were other influences, too. The bullies, the Bro-code, well-meaning friends, sometimes jealous friends and commiserating co-workers drove me to the sad, suicidal state I was in.

Conformance is an oppressive state. Conformity is an all-encompassing state of being equivalent to complacency and mundanity. That’s exactly the state I was in ten years ago. Now I can say I am free. No longer constricted and strangled by old archaic notions of purity, modesty, and prudence, living in conformance to the rules, boundaries, and limitations set by the authority figures in my childhood, I am now free to express my creativity and help people find out who they are and what purpose they want to give themselves.

All I ever wanted to be is a simple human being, free and healthy. Now I am. The funny thing is, I can’t go back to the way I was even if I tried. I am so happy and grateful that my life has unfolded as it has. I can’t be naked this weekend, but the images I want to capture, the people I will meet, and the experience of being here, aware of my surroundings and conscious of all the sensations I’m living, will balance that.

Become a human being. It’s way more fulfilling.