Trying to explain yourself honestly is difficult and sucks because you learn a lot about yourself that you were afraid to. But you start to figure out that it's not that dangerous and that you can do it and that it was so simplistically stupid all along. And then trying to explain everything happening in your identity to others in a way they can understand is difficult. Here are some of the main things you know about me:
I'm a recovering alcoholic. My journey really began there, and everything before led me to a moment of collapse. I lost my professional identity as a pastor, my social identity by losing my church and friends, my family identity by wrecking my family, my financial security, and any control over my life. After my last relapse, amid worthlessness and despair, I finally had enough and was sick of myself. I fell into a rather obsessive search for answers and to fix anything I could about myself. I now have over a year of sobriety. Sobriety is not something I take for granted nor do I think I am no longer susceptible to a relapse. I hold the pain and destruction close to myself. I know even the strongest person can fall to the smallest temptations and that we are much more susceptible to influences beyond our control than we care to admit to ourselves.
So, "recovery" was really only a first step for me. A lot had to change. A lot has. A lot still has to. But this journey only began with "How do I stop drinking" and has turned into trying to reach the upper threshold of what I could become. It has been a difficult inner journey, and I am trying to constantly call "BS" on myself - Lord knows I have spit plenty of it. Also, life during sobriety hasn't made it easier. There's been a number of unfortunate and unplanned happenings this last year that have both made things more difficult and also taught me much more about myself than I had bargained for.
Studying reality, ideas, and people have been something that has turned into a passion. "Nerd" and "Dork" are deserved titles of mine. I love to zoom in and zoom out, to look at things from different angles, and to learn just to learn. Psychoanalyzing and nerding out are pastimes now, my day dreaming. I also realized that my search for some foundation truth to build a human life around is a universal human hunger. Everyone is trying to figure out life, where they belong, and how to move through it. Identity, nature, purpose and meaning, connection, baggage, morality and character, and truth are all vitally important to how we individually live our lives and construct and regulate societies.
If you're into Myers-Briggs, I am an INFJ. If you're familiar with how INFJs are described, I fit it well. Intellect and empathy are possibly my most mentioned traits by others. If you want to know, I'm also an Aquarius, believe pineapple has no place on pizza, and preach that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. My spirit animal is either a llama or Kierkegaard, maybe Kierkegaard riding a llama.
Vulnerability has been something I've been growing in since well before I blew my life up with my issues. It's been difficult to figure how not to be afraid of vulnerability, how to be vulnerable, who to be vulnerable with, how much and when, and all the other things that's complicated about beng a person and having relationships with people.
I'll be working on a Patreon page and will be asking for those that believe in what I'm trying to do and what I have to share to help support me so I can focus more on engaging with the world or ideas and people. There a plethora of options to push ideas into the world and I'm considering a number of them but they will take time and resouces to build. I'm currently trying to deal with hard realities of my life while moving in this direction.
