All the self-medicating will inevitably kill me at a younger age. I am putting my body through the wringer.

The reason why you write is that there are words to be written and arranged. Once the words evolved through history, all future generations were required and honored and fortunate enough to utilize them. You can’t unlearn their existence. Once you know the difference between there, their and they’re, you feel an irresistible need to use them in their respective places, and not mix them up. There is a special kind of human clarity that is caused and experienced by the use of words and phrases. Once that is achieved, not making use of it is forever a form of devolution. Somewhere inside (and outside) of yourself, a price is paid for losing or squandering that clarity and expression.

The same holds true for music and music-making. Now that we have Bach and Mozart and Schumann, silencing opportunities for performing them has the effect of choking the human spirit. If you are a performer, you will forever be elevated by the act of performing great music, however that is defined. If you are a concertgoer, ending your exposure to live music-making removes an important outlet that enables emotional wherewithal.

I self-medicate for reasons related to this journal entry. I am not taking advantage of my humanness in some way. I am backtracking to my animalistic side. Maybe that is one definition of religion – elevation. Anything that elevates you taps into a spirituality. I do wonder if there are certain common experiences we can point to that would be able to be characterized as elevating – once they have been introduced to a society. The humanists would accuse me of making a false parallel from lofty human experiences to deities. Isn’t God just a word, though? Can’t I use it if I feel it fits the feeling? It’s a lot more succinct than a power greater than myself. My shrink would make reference to the chemicals swirling around inside us, that cause all sorts of feelings, and that you can invent magical explanations for.

Another question is, is it my responsibility to deny or apologize for my spirituality just because there are a bunch of assholes throwing around their God or Gods to rationalize their assholeness? I just want to be lofty. Not stuck in the mud. Can I please?

Why does it have to be one extreme or the other? Adam’s religion does not require such extremes. I don’t feel guilty for INTERPRETING the Bible. Not believing in it verbatim, nor completely dismissing its worth. It’s allowed to be an historic fable that moves me and helps me to find MY God. If my version of God happens to fall in line with many millions of others’, I still want to call it God. A God that I can connect with on my own. Or sometimes when I’m with others, too.

I feel like my only hope for not being a sheep is a path towards my truth. Maybe that’s redundant. But if it is, it doesn’t seem to be very popular.