I am thinking what really is quality of life and how to obtain that level. These ideas come to nothing really - so I learn, but I think I am just scared finding myself in this "simple" way of life - in order words- again, I feel like I am not messuring up. (Hello Mr. Trigger)

I saw an interview with the director I. Bergman and one with A. Tarkovsky. I am seeing great artists like that and seeing vau, there exists such a fine way of perception, action, reaction. Vau, what kind of people. Then I saw the movie Meetings with remarkable men (Peter Brook made a film on the book by Gurdieff). Anyway, I am dazzeld. Unstead of feeling great, I am feeling:

Ups, where am I?

But I guess this is good. I just have to collect myself, just be. Perhaps than I will find me and the place I belong to.

every human being has special powers somewhere whithin him
nobody is special in EVERYTHING, but everybody is special on SOMETHINGS
you must have some good points, some strong gait lines whithin you.

I think there is a large issue in my character. Yes a character fault. It spells trust.

Why do I trust other people, giving them over my power and why don't I trust Hashem, that I can speak directly to Him!?

I must stop doing that.

Just the other day, Iwas thinking about Moshe and his taking the advice of Jethro. Where indeed does Moshe get the humility to know the darn difference between which idea to accept and which not. How does Moshe even trust himself.

I mean, Moshe killed a man. Is that good and more importanly, how did he decide? I don't think it was intellectual and I can't believe that it was emotional (like out of anger)


I believe it has something to do with the state of mind, with where Moshe is! How the hell should I find that Moshe in myself, how the hell should I be honest.


Also I saw a film, an old Japanese film - The Ballad of Narayama. Well that is a ballad. A woman turning 70 goes, as tradition in old Japan requiers, to the mountain Narayama, where old people go to die. Since she can't walk that far, her son carries her. But to tell the truth, she could easily live longer, but that is not the tradition. I don't think it is much emphasis on that (it's just the cultural difference, that I find that strange), but more the very idea.

Death, departure.

A good theme to fall, isn't it?

I cried through the movie. Thinking about my father, my mother. They passed away and they didn't go to a mountain, but we did have to say good bye.

This movie has that same feeling. The feeling that the old woman was lucky, because as she and her son came to the top, it began to snow. So her passing was truly kind.

there is a dedicated tefileh daily on mind decision, aatoh chonein leodom daass
i personally ask hashem daily by shmaa koleinu a extra request, "please hashem give me sence to understand every situation and to judge properly"
basicaly if you take yourself out of the picture (though its not easy at all), you ignore the action that your body wants to do for its own sake, and you think whats hashem's will to do now, then you revoke that inner moshe
we are all here for a mission and when our goal is acheived we go back to where we came from.

Where can one start... Something is eating everyone, again and again.

Yesterday, we had a party, a going-away-dean-kind-of-party. So we drank wine and we ate and talked and so on and so on. Well, I am kind of an introvertive person and I don't know how to make conversation, so I was kind of silent the whole time (not best, but ok). I was there from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Then I caught a bus home and on the way I met an old friend and we went for a bier, so I came home at something past 1 a.m.

My feelings on this is. That party was full of laughter and insults and well, you know, lashon hara. Maybe that is not so bad (they are not relgious and not Jewish), but why couldn't I get up and leave early and come home to my wife?

The answer is simple:
1. I am afraid to make the wrong impression on my boss and my coworkers (so they don't go: look at this guy, he thinks he is better than us)
2. I want to fit in
3. I am not disgusted being there

So after that I even went to have a bier with an old friend. I did it beacuse
1. I haven't seen him in a long time
2. I felt that I don't have anything really important to do (my wife was asleep and I wasn't that sleepy)

What bothers me is, that none of this was spiritual. I don't feel spiritual, i feel like the silent idiot in the corner waiting to serve someone's wim. Why don't I seek the company of people who are truly spiritual?

So now I am sitting here, not being happy with my life and with my character.

So what would I like to be different?

Well, actually I want it like being sober. To get up, apologize if necessary, and leave. Leave for what?

Torah, wife, cleaning, working, translating, making money? I don't read much Torah (i am not observant), and I don't know how to find my way to Torah...

Does this make any sense!?

I sure know one thing. I don't want to die with this feeling, I want my life to mean something and not be about sitting and nodding.

i could..., i should...., it would have been much more......., is all non reallistic revokes
hashem puts us at where we are supposed to be, and we have to try to make the best of every situation
you have done great by participating and not talking any nonsence with them
you have done well by bearing with your freind
of course everything can be improvred, we have to constantely learn lessons for the future
but why look back and see the small few mistakes, when you can look back and see the 85% good deads?

Well Shmeichel, you are right and you are wrong. Today I don't even remember those mistakes, but then I would fall down deep if I hadn't let those thoughts out.

To make the best. Yes, you are right, but than again I am only human. I think Jordan said it best

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan

Shabbes and Yon Kippur is coming and it's raining.

I must admit, that today I sliped many times. I typed the schmutz into google only to turn it off immediatly again, I caought a glimpse and then did the whole thing again 10 min later. I tried to work out a bit or find something inspirational ot anything, but I just couldn't focus and get some real work done here at work.

I didn't fall however.

I must admit that I am selfish and I have no work ethics what so ever.

I do want to give to the world and when I get someone to come into my office and needs antyhing, then of course I do everything and I am very fast then. But I am not like that when I work alone - then I am the opposite, full of self-pity, fear and lazyness.

At the end of this self blaming ceremony I usually find myself to be less then garbage and that is a good old start to falling and schmutz. The circle.

So there I go.

There will be a lot to talk about, when I talk to Hashem. I sure hope he takes my defects of character. Only He can.

Full moon, so have to be careful today. It does effect the oceans and it does effect many people. I am one of them, seen it again and again.

So I am reading Pliskin and he gave me a good formula for taking action

TAKE ACTION NOW, and don't just say how hard it is.
TAKE ACTION NOW and don't say you'll do it later
TAKE ACTION NOW  and don't just talk about it...

So this is my staying sober for today!!!!


All the best to you my brothers in arms.

I had some slips lately and I am having trouble getting it together.

My problems:

I feel like I am not good enough
I feel lazy and don't wanna work, don't feel like working and
I feel like everything is so &%$# hard and
I feel like I am not getting anywhere, that everything I do is #$"$!"#!!!

I guess these are the feelings that most people have.... But some of them don't have any homes, any money, anybody.
I do have my addiction, that brought me to this place. And that is good.
I do have a home, even though it still belongs to the bank. And that is good.
I don't have any money, but I am not hungry and sometimes it is good to fast. And that is good.
I don't have much of a brain or intellectual capacity, but I do know that baby steps count too and they brought to a state where I can write about my troubles. And that is good.

All in all, I know I am helpless and I know I want to take the path of life. And that is good.

I had lunch with a guy, who came from another country, but then made it in our country and he teaches on our faculty. That is big, cos nobody (being a "stranger") made it - to stay on our university.

He is somehow all I wanted to be. A professor at the university and has a wife and a kid (and one more on the way). He looks pretty good, has hair, a nice little mustache and is relativly athletic. 

So I was like a little school girl around him, talking and talking. I think I played every card that I have. Why? Well, I don't know. It is not that I am homos* and I don't want his job... But then again, maybe I do and I never got around to pull my socks together.

You know...

To be able to say: I did all I could, but then I just wasn't excepted.

I can't say that. I could have done so much more.

Or maybe, I couldn't, maybe I am not university material, maybe I just another bum.

And worse of it all, I think he doesn't like me. Cos, yeah, I kept talking and talking.... Bla bla bla. What, I felt nervous.

And now, I feel like I want to act out. Like I always solved my little problems...

To admit that I am helpless is obvious. But more what is the defect of my character?

Is the feeling of not doing enough just a feeling, a wrong feeling or is it the right feeling!??? If I have this feeling, that it is probably to some extent true....

So admit, I am not doing enough and more so I feel like i can't do more than I am doing. I feel like there is some sort of obstacle in front of me and I can't overcome it.


%/&$

I was thinking this morning about this: If I had a phD, what would i do with it? Well I said to myself, I would go home and do something else, like do lunch. That would be fun in my mind...

I fighting with this idea, that I have to achieve some title, get a job at the university, write some great articles and then write a book and after a book, write another book? Where do these feelings come from? I mean being all that and doing all that doesn't sound like fun... It doesn't sound like me.

Not only because I feel like I am not up for it, but more so, because I feel that I don't want to spend my life wathcing films and reading books all the time.... And then again, it is how I spend my life...

It is just, that I want to be free from these things that dictate my time... I want to be free to pick up a book and pick up a film, that I like.... And not something that is hip at the moment.


Why should I read Plato, when I really want to read Aristoteles????

And why am I behaving like a child? Wanting to do everything and in the end does nothing, because he doesn't stick to it....

Do I have some growing up to do or what.... #%$#"!%

I don't know how to tackle these kind of problems. And from where I stand all these thoughts lead towards death, I don't see any path leading to life... Perhaps there is one... One might be the right one:

A friend of my is an amateur film maker or archivist or something like that... For instance he restores old films and also makes films, knows a lot about film and so on, but the main thing is that he is responsible for many contributions to our national film...and he is an amateur - not the state film arhcives. Actually they ask him for help....

Maybe he is the only one in this crazy head of mine, that could be considered the path of life. And there is no glory, no money in what he does.... and that is good. He is not payed for what he does and that is good... He is free. And that is good.

Baruch Hashem, thank you GYE.

This friend of mine is not my answer to life, he is not my saviour (if there is such a thing), but I do know now, that wanting to have a phD is just something on the outside and if i will need it, it will come....

TRUCKING IN REVERSE

Another day in distress, I feel like I am not moving at all.

I am reading Chekovs short stories now (the Duel to be precise). There is the character in the book called Ivan Andrejevic (also called Vanja), who gets up late in the morning, has breakfast, then its slippers time (i don't know what that means, but that probably means newspaper, book,...), then a bath, then lunch at 12, slippers, lunch at two, slippers, bath and 5 p.m. the visit at the local inn, i guess some dinner than and then vine, cards and gossip till the late afternoon and early morning.

So the moral of the story is?


.... wait

The character describing Ivan Andrejevic suggests it would be best to kill Ivan, since one can not reform him - thus Ivan Andrejevic would not be bad for our civilization and he would not multiply. Our planet would be safe from the offspring of Ivan Andrejevic!

How will this story develope? I don't know.

But i am much like Ivan Andrejevic - it is only that I don't have the option to be entirely like Ivan. I could be, it's just that I can't.

Is it the same with addicition?

In any case, nothing compares to the laughter of a child... Baruch Hashem.

Baruch Hashem, i looking again at my old posts and I must shudder.

I am now day 45 sober and I am thinking about that "building up". I wrote then, that FALL builds up and then one day bang, you FALL, fall deep.

Reading this, I feel that I am not taking things seriously enough and I am not dealing with my thoughts, I am not thinking things through, feeling them through. However reading the post of my day of fall, I did get a sober head.

Truly I do want to come here with an answer, with my answer. An truthful answer to addiction, answer to me.

yehoshua wrote on 20 Oct 2011 13:58:


YOU'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THOSE UNDERLYING FEELINGS SO THEY DON'T BUILD UP AND DRIVE YOU TO ACT OUT!

You don't have to fall.

--Elyah

Eye.nonymous wrote on 26 Oct 2011 06:33:


That actually brought a smile to my face!!!  ;D SOMETHING is good.

Well, here is my plan, when i feel like:

"I did a mistake, this is too hard and I am an idiot, I always make mistakes"- I use the JORDAN STATE, that goes like this: I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

"I don't have a clue how to do this* job, I am too stupid" - I use the CHRIS GARDNER STATE, that goes like this: I admit I don't know the answer, but I bet you, I can find the answer.

"I simply can't anymore, I can't go on." - I use BABY STEPS STATE, that goes like this: "I can't do it, but I can do a small part of it" (I name what part I can do)

this is a more risky state, I haven't done much with it:

"I don't feel like doing a phD, reading the newspaper, watching film (as part of my education), do improvments, give in some extra work in my office" - MAMA TOLD ME STATE, that goes like this: "There ain't no back up, you gotta do this yourself, the cavalry ain't comin, you gotta do this yourself."

I have this written on the back side of my 12 steps and I carry it in my pocket


And one more thing, thanks Elya for droping in. 


*whatever comes along, like painting the wall or going someplace without proper directions or cooking...