Wasted

It seems I started drinking more after the Zoloft kicked in. And this reverses the effects. I was wasted all weekend, because I stayed at a house where the booze is plenty and there is a man that knows how to make great drinks. I drank for the sheer pleasure of sensations that a combination of flavors and good alcohol can generate. I then became drunk as a consequence. Being drunk was a side-effect from over-enjoying a good drink. That is how alcoholic drinks are meant to be consumed. Ideally.

I suppose in my stupor I wasn't hurt by the subtle hints of discomfort my family members sometimes show around me, like I usually am. I've come to terms with estrangement during this year. I'm becoming more and more eccentric as the months go on and strange situations pass. The word is out that I'm not entirely psychologically sound, and people are at an understandable loss when it comes to dealing with someone who might be becoming gradually more and more warped. "What is the boy thinking?", they must wonder. They aren't quite sure how to anticipate in social interaction. Worst of all, word is out that I am an atheist. In a fully Christian family, this becomes difficult. My grandparents seem to be the most dramatically affected. There was a visible change in their social interaction. At first sight, it broke my heart.

They are old-fashioned. They can't see how a person can sensibly believe that there is no god. I am okay with that. Christianity is all they know. And the problem with Christianity is that disagreement on fundamentals leads to the damning of the offender. It's not like we can do our own respective thing and continue on a normal familial relationship.

But I did say that the signs were subtle. They still try their best to act like they have always acted, and we can pretend that there is nothing there, nothing to be afraid of. People do remarkable things for the ones they love.

A Sad State Of Affairs?

The beach was gorgeous. The colors were soft and faded brilliantly, changing to a different set of luscious hues with each stage of decay. A lovely decay. Not paradoxical. The half-moon that remained after the last light glowed and dominated the star-spackled sky.

I suppose it is easy to revert to overly-flowery words and fairy-like poetic flair when describing a sublime state of nature. Nothing really describes the feeling of experiencing it, except the grandest, most ridiculous words at the edge of the spectrum of meaning, and I suppose this style is overloaded in such a way to make it cliche, but there's no other way. Such is probably the case with many profound moments. Feeling grows by such magnitude that it outlives the words.

It was a good beach day. But it didn't start well.

We had a cooler full of beer, and a handle of gin hidden in my clothes. We drank. We kept to ourselves. We were the least dangerous group on the entire west coast. But they descended upon us, because we looked suspicious. And thus we had to pour out the entire cooler of beers, and the handle, and the drinks we had. It made us a little sore, needless to say.

But sore about what? We were made to pour out all of our liquor that we had bought. Humiliating maybe. Even violating. Why were we picked on? Couldn't we have put the liquor back in the car and gone back to our spot?

Well we could go right back and take the liquor back, which people have undoubtedly done to warrant this precaution. Certainly we are good folk though? But they can't judge situations case by case. They have a set of rigid rules based upon an aggregate of fights, drownings, injuries, whatever else unfortunate that happens with drunkards. We simply have a body of conservative individuals with power who like life the way it is and who do not wish that it be deconstructed in any way by nuts. So goes the history of the universe. So are we to be chained to fools? Must we not enjoy ourselves because of the mistakes of imbeciles?

I felt indignant. We were simply innocents to be ground up in the cogs of a great machine set in motion long ago.

This concept extends infinitely. Where did it all start for it to lead to a policewoman standing over our blanket, demanding that we pour out our precious liquor? Blame it on her? She's stuck in the system. Blame the system? It is stuck within another system. Blame what? Where does it start? What is it to be angry?

I thought these things as I was driving home, feeling sorry watching the cars fight their way by. Why do these people treat each other with such disdain?

Too many questions that lead to an endless regress.

I reached home, bothered by these questions and a vague, recurring sense of disillusionment with humanity as a whole, and realized how sunburnt my face was, and how hot and achy it felt. Then I put aloe vera gel on it, and suddenly it felt great. At that moment, I realized why it is good to live. Most of it is summed up in the following:

There was a series of great minds that decided that sunburns and rashes suck balls, and this series of minds conceived and eventually produced a purchasable product that completely reverses the bad effects of these misfortunes.

The entire environment arranged itself into a living work of art that night, and experiencing those occurences is enough.