Starting at the Beginning

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

I am back here again, ready to try and stick to it a bit longer this time. I truly do believe that I have finally completed all the field research I will ever need. Not to mention how dangerous "fieldwork" can be. I am not getting any younger. I am now ready to put all of that hard-won experience to work. I don't expect to be terribly productive at first as I get up to speed and build up some momentum, relearn my web skills and whatnot. Hopefully it will become a regular occurrence for me to get something up every week. That is my goal over the next month or so. I have only started my redesign on this site, and have only kept a couple of my old posts. I will likely be going in a little different direction this time around.

It is my hope that I can make this blog a significant part of my recovery. I enjoy writing. And I find it productive and therapeutic for my recovery. I am confident that I can find the time necessary for this project. I have an idea of what I would like to do with this, but it will take some time and effort. I look forward to the process of watching it evolve. Murphy likes to screw with my plans, but when I follow "God's" plans I don't tend to have this problem. The trick is being able to tell the difference. God is definitely a very important concept and word, but for now I will use the 12-step definition - "a higher power of my own understanding which is loving, caring and more powerful than myself". Later down the road I may getting into flushing it out more fully. I only have today so who knows what will happen tomorrow.

"By studying the principles of symbolism we can learn not to be unconsciously influenced by language, and in this way can escape a host of erroneous notions." - Bertrand Russell

What I intend to do on this blog is build myself (and anybody else who should happen to stumble across it) a little dictionary of words that are useful to my recovery. It is this "recovery dictionary" which I hope make the heart and soul of the blog.

To me words are like magic. They are full of power and have a very strong influence on our beliefs. I firmly believe that one of the most powerful secrets in life is this - "If I believe it, it's true." So choose your beliefs carefully. Which brings the following to my mind:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Sometimes (most times?) it can be very difficult to watch my thoughts. It seems to me that in this whole chain of events (cause and effect?) the easiest (least difficult?) place to interrupt the shit-talk or self-destruction is in my words. Often I speak without thinking, but with enough determination and effort I can change my vocabulary.

"If someone in your life talked to you the way you talk to yourself, you would have left them long ago." - Carla Gordon

Others may not always understand what I mean, but the intentions behind my words can work backwards into my thoughts. I don't always have to start at the start. Or, the start isn't always where I think it is - cause and effect are often a little more difficult to separate and determine than I would prefer. Reality is..... complicated. But mostly I define it as I go. Hence my attempt to define my words for myself. If this works for anybody else, cool!

My next (first) essay will be about belief, and I'll see where that takes me.

"Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things." - Aldous Huxley