A new life.

Yes I thought I'd edit him in there! Seemed relevant
That chinese master seems like a true legend, he is living the life! (or was... r.i.p)
and what an eloquently written post, thanks for that. Sentiment of the day is to enjoy the ride, so i'm going to do just that and stare into space for a bit Living a liquid existence inside and out is the dream, time to get dreaming

Oh....i have so much more to say. You got me inspired I think you're bristling with wisdom....
I better let you get some sleep though!

I believe that you are also! I just feel spent for the day.. When you first said 'I'll reply later' earlier in the day/night (wherever you are from) it was 8:30AM for me, and my working day had just started. I opted to work overtime until 8:00Pm tonight and still have 2.5 hours left, so I'm STILL sitting at a triple-monitor computer doing IT work. Takes the life out of me sometimes!
More chats will be had, hopefully others can get involved in this. There are absolutely some wise, intellectual and diverse people on FC that is SO refreshing to see after drifting through the internet/social groups searching for just this variety for my whole life. Fucking dope forum! Where are you from anyway? Just noticed that you are female? Even better. Less dicks on the dancefloor, more positive female energy in here!

Hah - so you sit in front of triple monitors too! I'm in IT also and my desk has a dual monitor, with one side my remote log-in (my desk is actually on the other side of the room). I've got like 40 displays going on in front of me - sometimes I feel like Captain Kirk in Star Trek. 'Have to make sure all the systems stay up and running properly.
I agree that there are some great people here. I'm a newbie so I haven't even started to know what/who's here. But my first impressions are very good. And I'm just blown away by meeting you!

I live in Wisconsin. I've been thinking of moving out west. I could do it but I'd have to go through some hassles, one of them selling my house (and right now my daughter is pretty attached to it).

Oh, the name of the Chinese master is Hsu Yun (means floating cloud). I have his biography and it's an incredible story. At the age of 105 he was severely beaten by communist soldiers who were raiding Ch'an (Zen) monasteries. He remained in the lotus position as they beat him to the point of unconsciousness. Because of his calm steadfast position (in his biography he relates that he attained to a supernatural consciousness where he came in contact with esteemed zen teachers of the past), the soldiers eventually became frightened, realizing they were dealing with a great master. Hsu Yun recovered from the injuries and went on another 15 years, to teach students, maintain the monasteries he had founded and to lecture to diverse audiences in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The life of an IT worker. haha.
I am a service desk analyst for a University, so it's 'Hi, you are speaking to Anthony, how can I help you?' all day. Good money, good people, but going from being a work-at-home tech repair guy to an office job is full on. It's a great and ever changing environment though so I'm thankful to be in a field that will always have work and always be growing! And thats fine I'm a newbie too. My post count far exceeds my actual knowledge on the people/structure of this forum, but I spend so much time at the computer so it happened naturally. I have a bit of an addictive nature so I love to latch onto a good source of energy and feed off it like a parasite!
Also you mentioned in your first comment in this thread that you didn't try psycs until your 20's? I was into them at only 16 so we would have totally different experiences! How bizarre to even comprehend, haha. It was part of my growing up process, whereas you had matured already before delving into it. As an artistic type also mine were always specifically either very VERY visual and creative, or very psychoanalytical and/or simplstically spirutual. How are yours in relation to your personality type?

Oh that is even funnier....my title here is "Service Desk Analyst". I am NOT making that up! brb (have to sent some printing jobs out).

Almost done. It's nearly 5:00 am. 3rd shift is really not bad. I get to enjoy my summer days - every minute, every hour.

About the psychedelics (and mind altering substances in general) yes, I didn't do anything until I was in my twenties. I was basically into books and would shun any kind of partying. I'm glad I waited until later. I had friends who started in their teens and they went through some tough times not being able to cope well with a lot of stuff. And for some it hurt their academics. Even if I didn't do drugs then, I was a pretty spacey person. Dreamer type. My mind was always in the clouds. Later, I started going to parties and that's where I was introduced to pot. My boyfriend and his friends and I (usually I was the only woman) used to pass the bong or pipe or joint or whatever around. I did it because I felt I'd look stupid saying no. But at that time, it just didn't do much for me. I don't think I really inhaled (!)

Wow. That has got to be a bizarre coincidence and a half. My job is essentially taking calls and being the first point of contact when people call the University. A range of tech issues go through our team and we just do our best to troubleshoot, fun stuff really. And we are one of the same in that respect. I was a space cadet also and really went along with the crowd. Eventually I led a small crowd and was hailed as some some sort of drug professional and that was when it went too far. I ditched that garbage ego-feeding scene and all of its darkness and people who only associated with each-other to self-justify their bad habits.
and lol @ not enhaling. First few times; you get high anyway too high

HI Deja Vu! I woke up this afternoon a little disoriented (sometimes I'll go to sleep later if I'm enthralled with something in the morning - today it was a workout and then biking). But it wasn't a bad disorientation. I remembered that I had really enjoyed writing you and was happy to have a new friend online. And then check this out: I got a call -while still groggy - from the YMCA telling me i'm being showered with kudos from parents for my swim lesson teaching and please could I take on some more classes? That was nice wake up boost! I just started doing this and felt a little concerned that i might not be a good teacher. THEN I tried my Arizer Solo for the first time! First real vape at home.....and this device works so well. I'm impressed.
In a few minutes I'm running off with my daughter downtown to an arts and music fest, but i wanted to post about the Arizer on FC and then I saw your message from this morning.
I do pretty much what you do it sounds like. Though your job is probably more challenging than mine. I'm considered a network tech of sorts but most of my job is customer service. I monitor systems and it's pretty easy. When chaos breaks out though, it gets pretty tough because often I'm the only person there all night (except for the security guard) and I have to be really knowlegeable and quick. I used to do this job and another full time job for 6 years. That one was a blend of IT and financials. I quit it just last summer because of the longer commute and because I felt the nighttime hours would permit me to do more with my daughter both during the school year and the summer. This is my first real summer where i can do whatever i wish all day. Even though I liked my job, It's just awesome to have time back.
The only small irony is that I have ended up taking on another job anyway. Now I'm doing the swimming lessons. I was dubious I could make a difference (have a masters in education - but not swimming!) but apparently I am well liked there. And the kids are learning something!
I hear what you say about ending up in that role as drug professional at work. What you know can pull you around into some unexpected roles and places. Everyone just assumed that i was a 'druggie' at my daytime workplace. Well, I should say they considered me a hippie, which is right more or less. But I wasn't even smoking much pot at the time. My boyfriend always offered it to me, but it was hit or miss as to whether or not I'd do it. I can't tell you why exactly; I just didn't feel it gave me the strong energetic high that I could get with speed or coke (my boyfriend also shared those with me, but usage was only sporadic). All's changed now, which is a little ironic. Now I AM back to my hippie roots and I'm vaping high quality CO product. It's just what I needed to boost my writing and art. I was really blocked and am starting to open up again in a big way. It's just perfect that I found this site - and that I got to meet you. Your highly lucid, well-written and encouraging posts are helping to spur me on in my own quest-for-artistry.

No no haha, sorry two unrelated things. I was a drug professional in my old old social group. Work persona and appearance is totally legit I only started working there recently. Thats an interesting possition for you to be in though, because I am conscious even of letting people see me on a vaporizer forum due to being so new in the workplace and not knowing what is and isnt okay in that environment. They seem layed back but I wouldnt go announcing that I vape weed just yet. They see me with relaxing crystals and gems in my bottle of pre-filtered water that I bring to work, and I think they get the gist of the type of person I am when they ask 'So what do you prefer to be called? Anthony, Tony, Anty, Antonio?' and I reply by saying that they can call me whatever suits them, I don't limit myself by associating who I am to single name
When things like that slip my mouth, I realise that some types of crazy you just can't keep under wraps. Who you are shines through regardless of how conserved you are

I hear you on the work thing. I kind of skate in and out of issues/images and how I present myself depending on who I'm dealing with. It's very intuitive on my part, no fixed rules. Sometimes I think I should be more cautious. Sometimes I think I wasn't daring enough. Naturally, I love it when I meet people who get me right away and who I can positively open up to. I'm still careful, of course. I've been stabbed in the back too many times (mostly by other women). One notable time I thought I had this really great best friend. I confided in her about everything. To my dismay later I found out that she was the one who had outed me to my mother on selling a small bag of pot to my brother. She also made up a bunch of crap about how I got pregnant, had an abortion, was addicted to drugs... and I had been wondering why my mom was greeting me at the door at 4:00 am with a slap in my face. It was terrible. Later I figured out that she had been jealous of me and wanted to see me down. A person learns from episodes like that to be really circumspect around most people. It's just a protective mechanism.
I like that you said that people can see you with relaxing crystals and gems and that who you are shines through regardless. How perfectly fine and natural! I feel sometimes like I'm just learning to walk in that world. I've got so many things that I just don't show anybody. Then of course at some opportune time, people will find out that Sheila is doing this or this and they seem surprised, shocked even , whatever. I guess I allow them to build up an image of this sweet, staid, soccer-mom type person. Which is irresponsible of me (!) I just think it's funny that people rely so much on stock images. Don't they get, at some level at least, that we are all innately capable of everything?

Very true. A person is ever changing with their own unique fluidity of living and growing, and some are so quick to judge and form mental opinions and expectations of people. If the worlds population didn't look at other people so closely, we wouldn't be so blind ! Oh well, peace & love. To Whomever is reading this; take 3 deep breaths with your eyes closed.
Feel the love.

Deja Vu said:

Eventually I led a small crowd and was hailed as some some sort of drug professional and that was when it went too far. I ditched that garbage ego-feeding scene and all of its darkness and people who only associated with each-other to self-justify their bad habits.

Click to expand...

Don't want to interrupt this convo, but I really think the ego-feeding, self-justifying comment is so true. I was always very uncomfortable with certain people and situations you would find yourself with being a "pothead". I've tried a handful of drugs and have a true love of cannabis, but nothing else appeals to me. Similarly to samantabha, at 20 years old I have just started to occasionally use psychedelic drugs. DMT with a best friend I have known since pre-school, and acid on a camping trip with several good friends. Psychedelics are fun, but I've known some people that got into tripping EVERY DAY and I couldn't even imagine.. Lol

Glad you know what I mean Once I noticed it, I couldn't stop thinking about it and just had to get away from them. Very sad that circles of friends still do that. My old crew is most likely doing it now; putting eachother down, praising eachother for massive bong rips or petty crimes, discussing drug dealing as if it's actually important or is going to further their lives.. haha Poor souls

Speaking of circles of friends....wow, when I think about the partying I used to do. It was just nuts. Every single night, up all night, passing the bong, staring at the mindless images on TV while we listened to Zappa. Jim Schlehlein (I can give his last name because he's dead) was always urging me to inbibe some of his cocaine. He piled it on a King Crimson album cover to advertise for us all and he thought of himself as so successful, so slick. AT 22 he was his own businessman. At 23 he was found shot through the head in his parent's backyard. His good friend Kenny (and the one who hosted most of our parties) was this little skinny guy with round glasses and he just exploded when he heard about Jim committing suicide "how could ANYONE do anything like that?". Later, he got caught in a drug deal gone bad and lost most of his face to gunshot. But I guess it attests to how hardcore these people were that even in the hospital, Kenny could still make a party happen; I heard that all his friends went there to visit and helped him smoke pot through his neck.
This sounds grotesque in writing, but it all really happened. It's rather amazing to think that I could have skated through all that, managing to stay the little white dove. There were some people doing, or having been convicted of, some serious crimes. Mike was convicted of armed robbery. Another guy, whose name I can't remember, got involved in a brawl and killed someone. I just took it for granted that this is how things were. I accepted everything. Now I look back and think "holy shit'.

Wow. The way you described it was very.. descriptive Down to the album cover he put the coke on, nice!
Reminded me a LOT of an old friend of mine. His name was Tom Moriarty (I can say his name because he is dead to me )

I was about to write the story, but I can actually save myself the time and effort by summing it up pretty quickly. You miss the atmospheric story and dramas, but the punch line is there! (i'll most likely get sucked into delivering the long version, lol)

Apparent 'best friend' for about 5 years. Started off hating each other, he thought i was an introvert spastic (probably am) and I thought he was an arrogant and far too confident, but we were in the same social smoking degenerate group. He was the suave, cool intelligent bullshit-artist who span stories and insults and verbal debates like pristine cobwebs in his metaphorical house built of inadequacy.

Anyway, we became close friends, began committing crimes together, thought we were both the 2 funniest people in the world, the two wittiest, coolest, funniest drug dealing drug using drug associated drug obsessed litterate thinking next-level future minded kindred souls that ever walked the earth. or so I thought. He was actually a clinical psycopath. Lied manipulated and used everyone and I was on the front line, aiding and abetting, being manipulated myself into being the right hand man to a meth distribution instigated by him and his other 'friends'

Blah blah blah long story short (after a lot of emotional neglect and abuse and manipulation and broken promises) (sounds like a true Bromance) the catalyst was eventually that he came to my house crying (should have been a warning sign go off in my head, because psychopaths can't cry like we do) saying that he was $400 in debt to his meth dealer (charming...) and said that nude photos of him were on his ipad which was being held random until he payed his meth dealer.

Guess what I heard a few weeks later? He tried the same trick on everyone else he knew, and had a massive meth smokeup with his 'new' group. Some losers out the front of a crackhouse in their mid-20s, nothing but half a deck of smokes and some loose pennies, loose change, loose tempers and loose chatter, loose lips sink ships and i went hatter! (mad) cracked the shits, flipped skitz and get this, the fucking prick thought that i was the weakest of all his links, but i got him back, had his house rolled from the front to the back, veranda kicked in and a violent crash, windows shattered and lost, dvds and drugs missing for what? for peace of mind? what a decent time to sit and reflect and just unwind. I kicked back while people i knew and trusted could roll through, taking whatever they wanted from whoever they could. Lit up a smoke, watched patterns in smoke flicker backwards and forth, called the pollice, had pounds of weed uncovered and caught, pills in orange bottles, xannies and needles in quivers, drug phones and multiple triggers.

fucker is in jail now and I got out.

BOOM!

samantabha said:

I just took it for granted that this is how things were. I accepted everything. Now I look back and think "holy shit'.

Click to expand...

^

Wow you all, these are some insane stories you have. I definitely know some people that will be going down this road. I just could never stand hanging out with people where the drugs were the main focus, like everybody's just bored as shit if they can't get high or drunk or fucked up in some way. My freshman year roommate was seemingly a pretty cool guy, but obsessed with drug use whhile also being incredibly full of himself, thinking he was too brilliant for gen ed classes or something. Needless to say, failed all classes first semester, passed maybe 6 credits the 2nd. It was real obnoxious, he'd ask why I studied right out of the gate and I had scholarship to maintain. My mom was still broke to pay for that first year, while he had family completely covering the tab.. And they continue to from what I know.

Anyway, I was already a pothead at this point and we chiefed together on the reg, I also started drinking to get drunk, because I'm in college. I tried to start a cigarette habit that year. It was his idea so we could meet people. The wrong kind of people, mostly. Don't get me wrong, some of these people I have no real problems with, but they are living the low life. Actively seeking to get fucked up, not worrying about another person, and not advancing their selves in any real way. What really made me begin my exit from that scene was living with a drug addict. Benzos, booze, synthetic weed, real weed, speed, coke, and eventually heroin. I never did the heroin but have tried the others. But yeah, one morning I was still asleep, it was only 8-9 AM. He walks in the door and asks me to wake up, saying he has a hit of heroin and he's going to try it. If anything should go wrong, he lays the responsibility on me. He then proceeds to snort it without my response, this happened too fast for a groggy person to comprehend. He was determined to do that shit. This was a one time event, but that honestly pathetic scene was the straw that broke the camel's back so to say, and I knew I wanted no part in this theater.

Good on you for getting out while you could. People like that try to make of you what they are themselves; parasites. Parasites on the good, giving, trusting and compassionate nature of human beings that are lucky enough to be in touch with their heart and soul.
Sad thing is, many people like us are still in that position, becoming themselves what their false mentor/friend was. May the divine power of science be with them (or God.. whatever you want to call it )