Middle Years,
The Pupa;
1973-2004
From 1973 thru 1982, I satisfied my creative muscle with watercolors. I also burned my candle at a couple dozen ends! Burning a candle at both ends wasn't good enough for me. I did my doggone best to live by this world's rules, and by 1982, I was a cinder. Near the end of this period I did write some poetry. However, when things fell apart, feeling extremely betrayed, I burned all my poetry, all photos of my paintings, and smashed my two guitars and a refurbished gourd shaped mandolin; symbolic suicide I suppose. Were it not for my wife pulling papers out of the fire after I left, there wouldn't be much left representing this period. In a nutshell, I did the best I could to fit inside the bun. After ten or so years, it seemed that everything fell apart. Actually, there were gold nuggets spread throughout my life, but the straw definitely burned, and that was good.
The next ten or so years from 1982 thru 1993, I rebuilt my life. I was down to one hundred twenty-nine pounds, bleary eyed, and of course, depressed. I was suicidal most of the time. Most of my creative efforts during this period produced songs. The topics were spiritual. I was disentangling from my religious roots and scrounging for psychological truths. By 1993, I had declared and won independence from my past and had established a life philosophy along deterministic lines:
Everyone is doing the very best they can with what they have been given to work with.
Each is the sum total of their genetic predisposition and life experience.
My guiding stars were: Truth, Wisdom, Beauty and Love. Truth applied Wisely creates Beauty and the
result is Love.
The eleven years from 1993 thru 2004 were spent attempting to live according to my life philosophy. I had one problem, however, and like the proverbial rotten apple, the whole barrel was destroyed. It was easy applying my life philosophy to others. No problem! But I held my Self up to a higher standard. I could not accept and Love my Self. It was free-will residue left over from my fundamentalist years. I had to be knocked on my butt before I was able to come clean and Love my Self without conditions.
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