I'm a Time Lord.

I'm way too excited about this...

10 Covers II

As I've explained before, I love covers. So here are 10 covers I've come to love in the past year, in no particular order.

California Girls - A, B & the Sea (Katy Perry)



O.N.E. - Ace Reporter (Yeasayer)



I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Amy Millan (Death Cab for Cutie)



Antonia Jane - Bryan Fallon, of The Gaslight Anthem (Lightning Dust)



Beast of Burden - Bruce Springsteen & Alejandro Escovedo (The Rolling Stones)



No One's Gonna Love You - Cee-Lo Green (Band of Horses)



The River - Crooked Fingers (Bruce Springsteen)



Halo / Cannibal Resource - Harper Blynn (Beyonce + Dirty Projectors)



Pursuit of Happiness - Lissie (Kid Cudi)



Young Hearts Run Free - The Swell Season (Candi Staton)

march 16, 2011

in a world of bureaucrats and reporters

every second is documented to death

the poets are gone

the prophets forgotten

“information” is our economy

there is no more work

work is for machines and mexicans 

still we must stay busy

we must press paper into plastic

we cannot sit still

we are not to dream

dreaming leads to understanding

the world must remain opaque

lucidity would tear it down around us

a potemkin world

a plastic world

a million culdesacs 

nothing but fiberglass, plywood, and vynyl siding

still behind the hd touchscreen veneer 

remains dirt, fire, and water

beyond the newsfeed

lie souls, blood, fear, and love

beyond the florescent glow of thousands of streelights

is the darkness of the night sky

beyond your healthcare

death still waits

behind the signal 

is the voice softly whispering

Clarksville, Tennessee: The Sparta of the South

I believe that a city’s “nickname” should reflect more than the poorly conceived “branding” attempts of its public relations department. Cities should choose a nickname which reflects the spirit and the history of the place. Nashville’s nickname “Athens of the South” is a perfect example: the moniker reflects the city’s long history as a center of higher learning in the region. 

Clarksville’s current nickname is ridiculous: Tennessee’s Top Spot. 

The phrase is a “clever” play on Clarksville’s location near the Kentucky border (i.e. the “top” of the state). Unfortunately not only does this nickname fail to reflect anything of the culture, history, or traditions of our city its also just plain wrong: Bristol, Tennessee is located both farther North (actually straddling the state line with Virginia) and higher in altitude. 

Our last nickname “Gateway to the New South” was equally meaningless and uninspiring. How exactly is Clarksville a “gateway”? We don’t have an active train station or a public airport and, at the time, we didn’t even have a marina. The only reason we could be considered a gateway is because we are the first city in Tennessee you run into on I-24; of course that also ignores the fact that many people consider Kentucky a part of the South. 

When I was growing up Clarksville was “the Queen City” or “the Queen of the Cumberland.” That nickname at least had some vague historical basis in our city’s (long forgotten) position as a major port on the Cumberland River. However “Queen City” is relatively uninspiring and might make the occasional person think of makeup-plastered gay men singing Cher. 

Clarksville is in desperate need of a new nickname; a nickname that its citizens and business recruiters can use with pride, and a nickname that reflects our city’s history and traditions. 

Clarksville needs a nickname that actually means something.

This is my suggestion: The Sparta of the South. 

(Yeah, THAT Sparta.)

The reference to ancient Sparta is not only a nice little nod to our neighbors in Nashville, but also reflects our city’s long military history and the important reality that it serves as a home for thousands of veterans and active servicemen in the U.S. Army. 

Clarksville is adjacent to Fort Campbell, a base that is home to both the 101st Airborne Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Many of those soldiers’ families live and work in Clarksville and a great number of them end up retiring in Clarksville.

Clarksville has been home to soldiers and veterans since its founding and its citizens have served in every one of our nation’s wars. Contrary to a common misconception, Clarksville is not named after the great explorer William Clark, but his brother: General George Rogers Clark, a hero of the Revolutionary War. 

Clarksville is a military town, and I for one am extremely proud of that tradition. It’s a point of personal pride that my grandfather, while serving in the National Guard, was stationed at then “Camp” Campbell. Growing up in Clarksville many of my role models, teachers and coaches, were either soldiers or veterans. 

Just as Athens is a name synonymous with eduction, Sparta is a name synonymous with military tradition and valor.

Just as the Spartans bravely defended their countrymen’s freedom at Thermopylae, the 101st Airborne has defended our nation’s freedom on the fields of Normandy, in the hills of Korea, the jungles of Vietnam, and the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

(The 101st: Real-Life Nazi Hunters)

That’s why I believe it’s time to change our city’s title once again. Clarksville deserves a nickname that actually means something. And our fellow citizens, both veterans and active military personnel, are deserving of our recognition. 

Walker Percy and Old King Solomon

Walker Percy was in my opinion, not only one of the great Southern authors, but one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. 

He was also a man after my own heart:

"The peculiar predicament of the present-day self surely came to pass as a consequence of the disappointment of the high expectations of the self as it entered the age of science and technology. Dazzled by the overwhelming credentials of science, the beauty and elegance of the scientific method, the triumph of modern medicine over physical ailments, and the technological transformation of the very world itself, the self finds itself in the end disappointed by the failure of science and technique in those very sectors of life which had been its main source of ordinary satisfaction in past ages.

As John Cheever said, the main emotion of the adult Northeastern American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.

Work is disappointing. In spite of all the talk about making work more creative and self-fulfilling, most people hate their jobs, and with good reason. Most work in modern technological societies is intolerably dull and repetitive.

Marriage and family life are disappointing. Even among defenders of traditional family values, e.g., Christians and Jews, a certain dreariness must be inferred, if only from the average time of TV viewing. Dreary as TV is, it is evidently not as dreary as Mom talking to Dad or the kids talking to either.

School is disappointing. If science is exciting and art is exhilarating, the schools and universities have achieved the not inconsiderable feat of rendering both dull. As every scientist and poet knows, one discovers both vocations in spite of, not because of, school. It takes years to recover from the stupor of being taught Shakespeare in English Lit and Wheatstone's bridge in Physics.

Politics is disappointing. Most young people turn their backs on politics, not because of the lack of excitement of politics as it is practiced, but because of the shallowness, venality, and image-making as these are perceived through the media--one of the technology's greatest achievements.

The churches are disappointing, even for most believers. If Christ brings us new life, it is all the more remarkable that the church, the bearer of this good news, should be among the most dispirited institutions of the age. The alternatives to the institutional churches are even more grossly disappointing, from TV evangelists with their blown-dry hairdos to California cults led by prosperous gurus ignored in India but embraced in La Jolla.

Social life is disappointing. The very franticness of attempts to reestablish community and festival, by partying, by groups, by club, by touristy Mardi Gras, is the best evidence of the loss of true community and festival and of the loneliness of self, stranded as it is as an unspeakable consciousness in a world from which it perceives itself as somehow estranged, stranded even within its own body, with which it sees no clear connection.

But there remains the one unquestioned benefit of science: the longer and healthier life made possible by modern medicine, the shorter work-hours made possible by technology, hence what is perceived as the one certain reward of dreary life of home and the marketplace: recreation.

Recreation and good physical health appear to be the only ambivalent benefits of the technological revolution."
— Walker Percy (Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book)

I believe Percy is echoing the voice of King Solomon, who wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes over two millennia before Percy was even born:

Vanity of vanities... vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

The earth abides. The sun also rises. All rivers run to the sea. From ashes into ashes again, from dust into dust.
There is nothing new under the sun.
All men are born fey.

So let us embrace our mortality, and take pleasure in our work, in our food and drink, and in our companions.
What will be dust tomorrow, is alive today.

That fleeting moment that is the space between the ashes is all the more beautiful because it is so short. 

This Blog

I want to get this out there for anyone who reads this blog: I am not looking for readers/followers, at least not in the traditional sense.

To me this blog is a place for to write down the ideas and questions that for some reason I feel that by writing about I can better understand.  I have always felt a personal need to examine the deeper questions of life, politics, faith, and culture. Sometimes an idea just hits me so hard that I have to write it down. When I was younger I used notebooks, sometimes I still do.

However, no man is an island and, in my opinion, the process of personal growth requires not only introspection but active dialogue with people with more extensive or different life experiences. I believe that through those interactions, through others' eyes, we can come to better know ourselves. I see this as a small reflection, as through a mirror darkly, of the way in which only when we finally come to "know" God will we truly know who we are. He created us and he knows us in ways we can't even comprehend in this life.

Yet God "saw that it was not good for us to be alone." He made us as social animals and as individuals with distinct personality and strengths. To quote the Koran, "[God] created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another."

So I keep this blog open to the public and occasional message or post links to specific posts only so that I can provide the people whose opinions and beliefs I genuinely care about some insight into my thoughts on that post's subject. 


Of course, not every post here is deep. Sometimes I post lists or just music, for the same reason (althought without the deeper importance) of my more cerebral entries.

Remember the 90's?

Man, i miss the 90's.

A Decade Full of Questions and Some Answers

I am a bit of a pack-rat of sorts. I keep a chest filled with reams worth of papers: journals, postcards, playbills, bad poetry, scribblings, and love letters. 

I recently considered piling most of the chest’s contents into a burn barrel and symbolically torching them. I thought that at 25 it was time for me to start a fresh. 

Then I went through the chest’s contents and I decided I was wrong. I realized that pile of papers represented something to me. They chronicled a decade of my life- and a set of questions which I’ve wrestled with since it began. These questions came up again and again in things I’d written at 15, 19, 22, and just the past few months. 

How can I relate or understand women? That was the first question I recognized in those papers. 

I’d like to think I’ve learned a lot about the fairer sex during a decade of loves lost and won (but mostly lost). However reading back through the years, I realized how little I’ve been able to really grasp about how women think, feel, and love. They still baffle me. Women manage to be enticing, beautiful, a bit magical, inspiration to my soul, yet at times terrifying, hurtful, and often opaque. 

I’ll likely never really answer this question and I’m ok with that now. 

The second question I’ve been wrestling with for the last decade stems from the first: is it better to live a solitary life or suffer the slings and arrows of love in hope it’s undiscovered country holds a bit of paradise? Most people may find the first option absurd, but to an only child who has always enjoyed, and even deeply needed, a measure of solitude in my life, it’s easy to imagine life as a permanent bachelor. For the longest time my go-to call sign was “tin man” (from ausTIN MANess). In my most emo periods I have romanticized the idea of a missing a heart, because without a heart you can’t know heartbreak. 

I’ve finally found my answer to this question: I don’t want to be alone, it’s no way to live. God said himself, It is not good for man to be alone. Love is worth the pain endured finding and keeping it; maybe it wouldn’t even be the same without them. Life wouldn’t hold the same meaning without death. Maybe love wouldn’t mean as much without heartbreak.

The last question is one I believe most people of faith have felt at one point or another: How do I relate to God? 

I am a hopeless and often unrepentant sinner. How can I ever be worthy of God’s love? With all my faults and failings, how can I ever feel competent to teach or relate those things I have learned about God, life, and what it means to be a Christian to others? 

The answer to this question is obvious to anyone educated in the tenants of Christian faith: we are all sinners and it is only through God’s love and grace, the sacrifice of Christ, and our faith in them, that we can ever hope to relate God. 

That said, this is one struggle that I am almost certain I will always bear and I’m ok with that.  I will always be a sinner and often a doubter. 

I believe faith is a struggle.

King David, “a  man after God’s own heart,” knew sin as well as any man that has ever lived. The prophet Jonah tried to escape God’s call by sailing away. Moses didn’t believe himself capable to speak for and lead his people. 

In Gethsemane Christ himself asked his father to provide him another way. 

At his death he cried out, to what must have seemed like a universe empty of all traces of the divine,  “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Faith is a struggle. If it were not so, it would not accomplish in us that which it must: transformation, transcendence, and enlightenment through pain, suffering, and sacrifice.

Those questions, answered and unanswered, are why I’m keeping the contents of that old chest- they remind me of who I am, where I have come from, what I have learned, and what I have yet to learn. 

Yes.... More on Depressive Realism

I was doing a little blog scanning this morning and I came upon an interesting article on Alternet entitled "Are Antidepressants a Scam?" link.

The article makes some points which support my belief that the psycho-pharmaceutical industry peddles expensive medications which are often unhelpful to patients (read: people), and which in the case of antidepressants may be no more effective than sugar pills.

One quote caught my eye and relates directly to my last post on depressive realism:

From several classic studies, we know that moderately depressed people are, in a sense, more critically thinking than are nondepressed people. These studies show that depressed people are more accurate than are nondepressed people in both their assessment of control over events and in judging people’s attitudes toward them. Researchers Lauren Alloy and Lyn Abramson at the University of Pennsylvania in 1979, studying nondepressed and depressed subjects who played a rigged game in which they had no actual control, found that depressed subjects more accurately evaluated their lack of control when either losing or winning. And researcher Peter Lewinsohn at the University of Oregon in 1980, found that depressed subjects judge other people’s attitudes toward them more accurately than nondepressed subjects. 

Emotional reactions, and I believe that "depression" is often a prolonged emotional reaction and not a "disorder" in the true sense of the word (e.g. schizophrenia), are God's/evolution's way of alerting our conscious brains and those close to us that something is wrong in our lives. While sadness may be ourbrain's reaction to temporary stressors/problems, depression represents a reaction to the presence of long-term problems in our lives. 

It is my firm believe that for most people the "cure" for depression is remedying those things which are wrong in our lives to the extent we can to do so (e.g. becoming physically healthy, improving interpersonal relationships) and perhaps more importantly, developing a healthy philosophy of life and a  hopeful outlook towards one's own future.

The article speaks to this as well:

In The Thought and Character of William James, Ralph Barton Perry’s classic biography on his teacher, in the chapter “Depression and Recovery,” we learn that James at age 27 described himself as going through a period of a “disgust for life” in which Perry describes as an “ebbing of the will to live. . . . a personal crisis that could only be relieved by philosophical insight.” What was James’s transformative insight? 

James was a critical thinker and had no stomach for smiley-faced positive thinking, but he also concluded that his pessimism might just destroy him. With his critical thinking, he came quite pragmatically to “believe in belief.” He continued to maintain that one cannot choose to believe in whatever one wants (one cannot choose to believe that 2 + 2 = 5); however, he concluded that there is a range of human experience in which one can choose beliefs. He came to understand that, “Faith in a fact can help create the fact.” So, for example, abelief that one “has a significant contribution to make to the world” can keep one from committing suicide during a period of deep despair, and remaining alive makes it possible to in fact make a significant contribution.

Believe in belief.

Depressive Realism, the World Today, & Me

I've been around, you know. There was a time I could see. And I have seen boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn't nothin' like the sight of an amputated spirit; there is no prosthetic for that. - Frank Slade

I have a lot of friends who’ve “been around.” I’ve had the pleasure of running around with brilliant and exceptional men and women from all sorts of backgrounds through my time at Pepperdine and my brief involvement with the interfaith youth core and the foundation for the defense of democracies.

I’ve travelled a bit myself. I’ve lived in the suburbs; I’ve lived on a farm; I’ve lived in Malibu, Italy, and a concrete jungle. No, I’ve never been to Africa. I’ve never really been to a third-world country unless you count Tijuana or Frayser, TN. 

I honestly don’t think I needed to. I’ve been all over this Empire. I’ve been to its borders and it’s forgotten corners. I’ve sat in the backyards and cafes of its most elite districts and neighborhoods. I’ve stared up at the sky in its last few empty places. Perhaps most importantly I have spent the last three years of my life in the training school of its oft-maligned bureaucratic enforcers: lawyers. 

I have seen many beautiful things. A cloudy sky above while backstroking in the galilee. The sun setting over the Santa Monica Mountains. Families. Children. Forests. Deserts. Mountains and Oceans.

But what I have seen of the current state of mankind in the major, I have found repugnant and even nauseating. 

I’ve seen walls going up everywhere. Walls around the neighborhoods and houses of the rich. Walls around my homeland. Walls through the heart of the Holy Land.

I’ve seen good people struggling to get by burdened by tremendous debts.

I’ve seen our environment raped, burned, and spit upon by shadowy things called “corporations” or “embodiments” which you cannot touch, you cannot see, and most importantly you cannot call to justice in a jail cell or on a gallows.

I’ve seen us all running against the wind. Running. Running. Running.

There is a theory in psychology called “depressive realism.” This theory holds that people like myself, with a moderate or borderline depression, have a more accurate perception of reality because we are not blinded by positive illusions. 

In my case I’m not sure which came first: the chicken or the egg, the depression or the realism.

It doesn’t really matter. 

I have seen. 

I’m not sure if the state of our world is objectively worse than it was 5 years ago, or 10, or 100. I know there have been steps forwards and steps backwards. 

What I am sure of is that the winds of change are blowing and that my generation grew up in a doldrum or perhaps just in the eye of the storm.

I am also sure that while this is certainly not the worst of all possible worlds, it is also not the best.

I have hope for tomorrow.

But not the blind, bullshit hope that we were sold in the 90s. Not the blind, bullshit hope that we were sold in 2008. 

I have realistic hope.  I thank God for the opportunity to have tasted failure, to have felt impotent, and even worthless. If you’ve never been there I’m sorry. I’m sorry because someday you will. 

If your there right now, I congratulate you. If you have lost something or everything, I congratulate you. 

It’s not just a platitude: freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose. 

Depression is a burden, but its also a gift. 

If your interested in learning more about the joys of sadness, I’d encourage you to pick up the book “Against Happiness” by Eric G. Wilson. 

Here’s the blurb: 

We are addicted to happiness. More than any other generation, Americans today believe in the power of positive thinking.  But who says we’re supposed to be happy? Eric G. Wilson argues that melacholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that is is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation- and that is is the force underlying original insights. 

When you take off your rose-colored glasses, or have them ripped off you, you can see the world as it really is, both beautiful and broken.

I’d also like to point you to two other depressive realists: Thomas Krenshaw of Freedom Guerilla and Mike Ruppert.

The documentary “Collapse” concerns both Rupert’s personal history and his worldview.

Here’s the trailer:

Solitary Man

Don't know that I will, but until I can find me...

Recent Life Lessons

Lesson 1: Retreat is not defeat. Retreat is not capitulation. Life isn't always the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sometimes it's better to live to fight another day.

Lesson 2: You can't change people. People must want to change themselves.

Lesson 3: What one cannot do alone, perhaps two or more can do together.

Mighty Mike Mashups

some djs (e.g. DJ earworm) make mashups so good they might be better than the original.

Mighty Mike is one of those DJs.

"Simple Martyr" Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Depeche Mode



"Every Beautiful Girl You Take" The Police vs. Sean Kingston



"Your 1979 Song" Smashing Pumpkins vs. Elton John



"Neverending" Rick Astley vs. Mika

tom cruise speaks truth to power

I went back and listened to this interview just now. Through personal experience and research I have come to agree with Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise may be a little "out there," and I do not agree with scientology, but he was right about this. He was ridiculed by the media because he was right. He was ridiculed by the media because the same corporations and people who own the media own the pharmaceutical industry. Notice how calm and rational Tom seems during this entire interview. He keeps his composure even when Lauer tries to trap him with inconsistent questions; he even confronts Lauer on his attempt to trick him into saying something he wasn't. These are not the ravings of a mad man. These are the rational thoughts of a sane person who is deeply concerned about our society.

We are medicating emotions!
We are medicating psychological reactions which humans exhibit in order to express that there is something is wrong in their life or their world.

Drugs are not the answer.

Confronting our problems and changing our society is the answer.

That's the truth.

Disclaimer: I do believe there are extreme circumstances in which someone should be sedated if they are likely to cause harm to themself or another person. My main concern is with the widespread medication of anxiety, depression and "ADD."

casualties

possibly my favorite "sad song" of all time... and I love sad songs. this one just takes the cake. am I sad? no. sometimes you just want to listen to a chill sad song to put things in perspective.


J Tillman - Casualties - Luxury Wafers Sessions from Luxury Wafers on Vimeo.

500 miles

meaning & life

Last night a someone said to me: "I know you, you are searching for meaning in life, that is sweet."
I responded: "No, I have found meaning in life. There is a difference."

I am no longer a seeker.
I have sought and I have found.

So one of my best friends, Andy Canales, asked me "what is the meaning of life"?

This is my response:

Wow Andy, big question. That question can mean a couple of things: a) what is the point of life? why are we here? what is this all about? the answer to that is of course 42.

However, the important question for people, finite beings with limited power, resources, and intellect is b) what is the meaning of MY life? the answer to that it of course: whatever meaning you give it.

The meaning I strive to give my life is this: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22: 37-40. 

Of course you could say that this is the goal (i.e. meaning) that every man and woman is born for. However it would be incorrect to ascribe this meaning to those who do not choose it.

If you choose for your life to have no meaning, then it won't. If you choose for your life to be about personal pleasure or gain, then that will be it's meaning.

Trascendance isn't obligatory.

That is why the real question is "What is the meaning of my life?" and not "what is the meaning of life?"

gotta be honest

this IS me.

I believe the same things I always have in my heart, even if they are expressed differently.

How many roads must a man walk down? 42.

42 roads.

They all led right back here.

Escape will never mean anything but escape.

You can't serve two masters.

You will surely love one and hate the other.

Don't ever let anyone tell you life has no meaning. Those people have never lived.

never give up, never surrender

Alcohol Culture

This post is part of an ongoing series in which I discuss what I consider to be major problems with our national culture and touch on some possible solutions. 

In my first post Fight or Flight I mentioned that one way Americans run from problems is through substance abuse. While prescription and illegal drug abuse are major problems in our nation, I believe they pale in comparison to the problems created by our national Alcohol Culture. 

I want to make this very clear: I don’t think drinking is inherently destructive, wrong, sinful, or anything of that sort. Despite being raised in a conservative evangelical denomination, which for decades propagated the bizarre myth that every mention of wine in the bible refers to grape juice, I’ve done my share of drinking. I started drinking, and by drinking I mean “binge drinking,” in high school. I love booze: wine, whiskey, beer, or tequila, it’s all good to me. 

Another thing I want to make clear: I am not, nor have I ever been an alcoholic by any definition. 

Despite enjoying alcohol, I recently started to reconsider its place in my life and in our national culture. This has undoubtedly been sparked by a) being in law school and b) living three blocks from Beale Street.  

The positive effects of alcohol are obvious: it’s an excellent social lubricant when applied in reasonable quantities and if you don’t drink too much, it makes you feel good.

The negative effects are just as obvious: mistakes, accidents, weight gain, etc. 

So I’d like you to ask yourself some questions. 

Why do you drink? Most likely because it makes you feel less awkward in social situations and relieves some stress.

You enjoy drinking, right? 

When do you enjoy drinking? I’m not asking “when do you drink?” But rather, when do you enjoy the effects of alcohol? 

Obviously you enjoy drinking while you are drinking.

When do you not enjoying drinking? 

Are you still enjoying your drinking experience at the end of the night? 

How often do you feel sick at the end of the night?

How often does drinking interrupt your sleep?

How do you feel the next day? Are you hungover the next day? Are you more tired than you would have been if you hadn’t drank? Did you wake up regretting something you did while drunk or just tipsy? 

Do you feel like you have gained weight as a result of regular drinking? 

Do you feel like you spend too much money on alcohol? 

Back to my first question: why do you drink? After considering my other questions, do you still feel like alcohol makes you “feel good” in the long run? Does it really relieve your stress, or does it just add to it? 

I asked myself these questions. 

In my personal experience recently, it worked out something like this:

I enjoyed drinking while I was out. Often by the end of the night I wasn’t feeling so hot. Sometimes I slept later than I would have liked. I had even missed class because I slept through an alarm or just didn’t feel like getting up on time.

Over the last two years I made several major life mistakes as a result of drinking.  

Occasionally I would spend way too much money on a night out. 

I had gained weight and I was no longer happy with my level of physical fitness.

I don’t think my experiences with drinking are uncommon. 

I’ve never had a problem with drinking and driving. I’ve never gotten a DUI or been in an accident. 

I did however experience the drunk-driving related death of two childhood friends the month before I left home for college. 

I have on some occasions gotten really sick while drinking. However I’ve never needed to go to the hospital. (When I jumped off a moving car freshman year, I was sober).

One of the friends who I had drank with during high school was not so lucky. He died due to the lethal combination of alcohol and prescription drugs. 

For years I looked down on people who didn’t drink. I made fun of my friends who chose to wait until they were 21 to drink. I assumed that the only reasons someone wouldn’t drink were legalistic religious beliefs or because they were a recovering alcoholic. 

I was wrong. 

Now I’m six weeks into a year-long commitment not to drink.

This was my last drink for a year. Classy, I know.

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t hard. It is. You don’t realize how many social outlets for twenty-somethings involve drinking unless you don’t drink. 

I’m not asking you to stop drinking. In fact, I’m still buying my friends drinks and throwing parties as if I hadn’t stopped. 

I’m just asking you to open your mind. 

Think. 

Sometimes freedom means choosing to abstain from something because you can. It’s a choice. 

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Just because you enjoyed something at one point in your life doesn’t mean you always will. Just because something is right for someone else doesn’t mean it’s right for you.