Legalizing Marijuana

Political and personal opinions aside, pot is a drug. So is cocaine. So is caffeine.

Pissed anyone off yet?

Good, now hear this. Why does everyone want to be stoned in this day and age? I know why I would want to be (and I don't smoke pot, but I do have a tendency to want to "check out" quite a bit lately).
Have you picked up a news article lately? Telling a lie has become the norm. Even for the Commander in Chief of the U.S. The "land of the free, the home of the brave."

I take advantage of both freedom and the responsibility to be brave. I have a story to tell. Pieces of this story leak out, which usually prompts the person I'm talking to to tell me I need to get into public speaking. The way I write is the way I speak. Hope you're getting the message clearly.

I don't intend to create unrest. Okay, well maybe a little bit. Snowden, et al, have prompted me to use my social media platform to speak out against the institutional stranglehold taking place on our freedom. Why are there explosions of certain mental illnesses that spring up every few years? ADHD, PTSD, Bipolar Disorder, etc.? It's a lot easier for the powers that be to think that there's something inherently wrong with the populous than to address the real issue at hand -- political unrest.

Sure, these disorders exist. I have personal experience with clinical Depression and beyond. However, what I've realized over the course of my life and over the course of my formal education is that the more I stifle my opinion and my feelings, the more depressed I get. I don't travel because there is an underlying stigma that mental illness creates weakness and fragility and that one suffering with mental illness should remain as close to providers that care for them as possible. I ascribed to this belief for many years. Yet, I want to travel, desperately. How does one cope?

Go for it. I am planning my next trip, albeit tentatively, right now. I don't plan to stay in the area I was raised for much longer. I grew up in a little town on the Central Coast of California. The population was 30,000 when I was a kid. Today it's over 120,000. That's way too many stifled, angry, fearful people in one small space for me.

I have friends who are gay, friends who cuss, and have a large network of culturally diverse individuals (racially, ethnically, sexually, politically, and socially). The more people that enter this area of the world, the more homogenous it becomes. That's counterintuitive in my world. I would think culturally diverse people would be welcomed into a primarily white working class community. Not so. I've often thought this would change but I've been waiting for 40 years, and the traveling must begin.

I love my friends, my family. But I cannot contend with a community that bars diversity. One that denies stigma, defends social injustices. This is morally, constitutionally, and ethically wrong. I cannot concede to this philosophical stronghold. I am white. I don't plan to act white. Join me on my continuing journey. The threads of freedom and diversity will be woven into my new journey. I hope you'll attend.

So I became a therapist....

I thought I could change the world somehow, by helping one person at a time. All due respect, that takes far too long. Especially if I'm not making my agenda known: treat others as you would like to be treated, respect another's privacy, don't be an asshole. Unfortunately, I cannot do the work anymore. My body won't let me. I've had to go on medical leave twice since graduation, working in jobs that were fulfilling for me, but taxed my internal resources.

This blog is not going to remain the same way it's been since 2007. I've got a new agenda: treat you, the reader, to welcome me on my journey to freedom. It gets better - just wait.

When I was a kid, I was abused, like many children are. I was determined, even as a youngster, to not let this influence how I treated others. But I took it too far. Instead of becoming a nice person in general, I became a patsy. It only took about 15 years for me to snap. I became angry. Really angry.

You see, not only did I feel I was a "victim" of my family, but I also felt I was a victim of society as well. I have clinical depression. An eating disorder, in remission since 2008. And I'm a survivor of addiction and incest. Ew. I know that was hard to read, because it was difficult for me to stomach as I typed the words.

I'm not a victim. Let me set the record straight. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's paying attention. To how others treat each other, to how you don't smile at the checker at the grocery store. To how I forget to smile when I'm walking down the street - and I have a pretty good resting bitch face. So, you can imagine the glares I get.

I have never purported that this blog was going to be P.C., I just tried to fit the mold I felt I was born into, and an affluent family develops quite a mold. I wrote blog post after blog post, trying to feel something akin to passion for what I was doing. I love learning and helping people, don't get me wrong. But it only takes 15 or so people (like the 15 or so years), telling me I need to be a public speaker to get me wondering: what do I have to say? Well, as it turns out. I have a lot to say.

With the current state of our Union, or disunion, as historical impunities and repeated institutional offenses have born, I've decided I have something important to say. I'd like to do that without losing my passion. As I so often do.

This is where the clinical depression is relevant. Some days it's hard to take a shower, let alone type simple words on a page (50-cent words have been my hobby since the age of 4, much like square roots have been since I was 7). I was granted the gift of two highly intelligent parents, one with a mental health disorder I was never informed of nor educated on. This is unfortunate since I could have had a head start on all the issues I face before I ever step foot on the floor in the morning.

I can't make any promising remarks about how far this newfound (and long incubated) passion will take me in expression of it on this blog. But my public platform is real. I am important. So are you. I have a history of working with computers from the age of 12 (this was in the mid 80's). I have a degree in business management. I also have a medical and psychological background, in which I was formally trained both educationally and vocationally. This is an interesting combo.

The advent of hacking, and hacktivism, is a platform upon which I see myself building my newfound passion: activism in the most humanistic way possible. How does this relate to everything I've said thus far? Plenty. If you can connect the dots, kudos. It's taken me years. From feeling I had and have a purpose from a very young age, to educating myself on computers, technology, technological communication, activism, our current political state, the medical and psychological catalysts that push people to act as they do, to the very casual observations I've made over the last 40 years...these all compose the person I am today. Even the abuse, the tendency toward addictive behavior, all of it. If you cannot take the good with the bad, you might as well stay home. I plan to use it all to push forth the idea that we are all special, unique, and useful in our own way. Flaws and all. And if we don't start using our talents for the greater good, the greater good will fail. Educate yourselves. This is the now.