Let’s face it. Sugar is delicious. Sex rules. Alcohol takes the edge off. Weed and cocaine make us happy. Cigarettes ease stress. Shopping fulfills us. New clothes and things make us feel good. It’s horrible, but true. Horrible things can happen because of these things. They are vices. I acknowledge this. I have taken part in them for all the above reasons and they have made me suffer too. I’ve had buyer’s remorse, been hungover, felt horrible after eating too much candy. I’ve had sex with people I didn’t love. I’ve had bad acid trips. I’ve snorted cocaine in bar bathrooms. Nothing bad actually happened to me on cocaine but I knew it was “a bad thing.”
Here’s the thing though. Who we really are, who I am deep down inside, is a person who doesn’t need these things. I’m a spiritual being. God resides in me as me. All that good stuff. We all know this is true. But, if you really believe, as I do, that we are spiritual beings having human experiences, then we are spiritual beings stuck inside human bodies and our bodies are well, human. We’re imperfect. Our brains are imperfect. So, my theory, or my way of justifying and accepting these vices is that the spiritual being inside us needs to take the edge off being a human. Now bare with me for a second here. It sounds extreme to condone vices from a spiritual perspective, but from my experience—as a person who takes part in vices and accesses my spiritual being—it’s acceptable. Accepting this in myself means I never abuse the vices. I never become addicted. When you let yourself have something whenever you want it you don’t pine for it everyday. If I could never take part in sex, drugs, sugar, etc. again I would be bummed, but I would survive. Part of me would suffer perhaps, but my spiritual side would say, okay, now I can’t take the edge off with those things. Oh well. What can I do to take the edge off? …Listen to music, take a walk, meditate, watch a movie, etc.
Scientifically speaking, if you give a rat cocaine whenever it wants, it becomes addicted and eventually starves to death because it wants cocaine more than food. But people can reason better than rats. People get addicted when their spiritual selves are in so in need of protecting that the spirit is hidden. They have an immense need to ‘take the edge off.’ People get addicted to taking the edge off because there are or were so many sharp edges in their life causing them pain that they can’t even access the real thing that will bring them peace; their spirit, love, God, or whatever you want to call it, that is beyond language but undoubtedly felt inside those of us who access it.
For example, if a child grows up surrounded by a lack of love, this will build up the edge that needs to be taken off by drugs. Extrapolate that into society. Society doesn’t show much love for the ghettos in its cities, so the people take drugs, get into gangs, etc., then society condemns them more (withholds love) and they have more kids who lack love, who lack affection. It’s a vicious cycle. Vices are a problem for people who don’t feel love in their lives. So every time you withhold love from a carload of guys blaring violent, drug-glorifying Hip Hop, or feel contempt for gangs, drug dealers, addicts, and the vice partakers of the world, you create more edge that needs to be taken off with more vice.
This is the whole love the sinner idea. But I’ll take it further. Love the sin! Why not. God made grain ferment when it sits in sugar water and God rules so don’t blame alcohol. Alcohol rules. I love alcohol. So much so that I see the divinity in it and I would never abuse it. I would never deprive others of using it, exploring its uses, developing its tastes. A glass of beer or wine or scotch is a beautiful thing when consumed with love, slowly, consciously, openly. So embrace it for what it can be in a positive way. Embrace that your job is hard everyday and Scotch helps take the edge off. If you don’t embrace the suffering at your job, in your life, then your spirit will be like, ‘Well screw you then. Give me some more Scotch. And a valium while you’re at it.” Abuse your spiritual side and you’ll start abusing drugs, sugar, sex, whatever. Embrace your spirit’s need to be cushioned from its human experience and it will slowly stop needing to take the edge off.
What about the kids!?, you say. Well, I was a kid once. I didn’t steal, then drink alcohol because alcohol was bad or addictive. I’ll tell you that much. I drank because I was unhappy, I was bored, I was taking on the unacknowledged pain of my divorced parents. I was numbing the stress and angst of a love-withheld childhood. My teachers withheld love, my friends, the cops, the bus drivers, the parents of friends, everybody withheld love. Love was withheld from them when they were kids too. It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody knew how to teach anybody else to express love because nobody sought to love themselves.
Love yourself, love your pain. Give yourself a break. Pour yourself a drink because you acknowledge that you are a perfect spiritual being in an imperfect human shell. Then sit down with your kids and express this to them and the love you show yourself will show them love and this will take the edge off. After connecting with them you probably won’t need a drink. And neither will they. They won’t abuse drugs. My parents did this enough, thank god, because I never got seriously hurt or hurt anyone else while I was on drugs.
You may also say, ‘oh when your kids are older you’ll think differently.’ Well if I waited until I was older to think about this stuff I’d lose the truth of it. I’m young enough to get kids and get adults. I do get them and they all need more love. They need to stop depriving themselves of pleasure unconsciously. The parents especially because it’s the kids who watch your every move. We only do what you guys showed us. Hide your pain and go on a shopping spree and your kids will abuse credit cards. Admit your pain to them, express your pain, and your kids will learn that buying themselves a fancy pair of shoes once in a while is okay. As a society, if we admit our pain, our failures, our racism, our sexism, our bigotry—if we embrace it—then it will decrease.
African Americans have been generally ignored for centuries in America, they expressed their pain in the form of Hip Hop (in my generation), and people who hate rap or choose to ignore it keep ignoring African Americans. They call rap a sin and rappers sinners and withhold love from both. I embrace that which is “ugly” which is “bad” in me and in culture and therefore I can see its beauty. I can heal it. I can show Hip Hop love. I can show alcohol and drugs and shopping and pornography love.
Still you might say, ‘How can you embrace violence and misogyny?’ Well, because I’m not separate from these things. I’m a man so I can’t be 0% misogynist. I’m white so I can’t be 0% racist. It’s a human trait. Racism happens. It’s natural to separate ourselves from people who are different from us. I embrace this. I have taught Puerto Rican teenage parenting girls for 6 years and have discovered all the ways I was racist or passed judgment or withheld love. But instead of being in denial of my faults I sought to change them. And I do. I show my students love. I admit when I’m wrong or in a bad mood. I sought to understand them. They taught me to understand myself.
If you judge others, it’s because you judge a part of yourself as bad and because you fear it you deny this part of you your love. In psychology it’s called projection. When you project you assume others are at fault for something that annoys you but not yourself. If you project onto your children you end up transferring your issues, your unacknowledged pain, onto them. This is called transference. It’s a documented phenomenon. Embrace it people. Every time you judge a person or an action or a war of a president or a pregnant teen mom smoking on the corner you’re projecting. You haven’t realized the way that you are like this person somewhere inside of you. Basically, you’re a hypocrite.
Being a hypocrite is one of my basic fears, something I hate to see in myself. In writing this very essay I’m judging those who don’t look at themselves. I’m projecting. See. I’m a hypocrite. I’m human. It’s true. I accept it. I’m flawed. I judge people because they are hypocritical, racist, critical. Well, I have to love this part of myself and therefore I have to love these people I judge. I forgive them because they are spiritual beings stuck in human bodies, just like me.
