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    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Default A sad thing...

    Today, a young man died more or less at his own hand but also at the hands of us all. He died from the effects of drug abuse. He leaves two children that he ignored because he was more interested in drugs than in being a father and a man. He choose life living in a fog because our society encouraged and allowed it.

    Everybody knows I would decriminalize recreational drugs despite the cost to our society. What I am raging about today is the society he grew up in that made it more palpable to hide behind drugs than to be a human being full of hope and promise. Yes, his drug abuse was his own doing. But why did he find that life better than what his society offered him?

    Farewell, Mikey. I'll miss you. I hope your soul finds peace.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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    Phero Guru Rbt's Avatar
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    I too have had longtime friends get lost in the fog of drugs.

    One of my earliest childhood friends who was probably near the top of our high school class now does little more than push brooms.

    Another friend from college is much the same.

    And the neighboor highschooler who used to mow my lawn walked by my house this week while I was mowing that same lawn, and he was lost in the murkey world of meth (by his own admission).

    One of my sister's daughter's teenage friends died from huffing some aerosol product.

    But I've lost friends, aquaintences, and classmates to murder, war, suicide, disease, and accidents too.

    It's not an easy world we live in.

    Although referencing death, this relects living as well:
    "Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
    And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,..."

    - from "Holy Sonnet #10" AKA "Death be not proud" by John Donne c. 1610
    The opposite of love isn't hate.
    It's apathy
    .

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    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Thanks Rbt.

    I remember this one as the baby I watched and as the little kid I built swings for him to play on. I remember taking him camping and helping him learn to swim. He is still the little kid I helped with his homework and tried to share my love of knowledge with.

    Perhaps it is different when they are blood. I have lost friends to many things as well, some stupid and others tragic. But losing a young man who could have been so much to drugs bothered me quite a lot. His funeral is Wednesday.

    I've always followed:
    Live what life brings and die what death comes.

    The fact that a person living in a drug induced haze really isn't living what life brings is what gets me. They are hiding from it.

    Please just consider this my way of honoring his memory or something of that sort.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Sorry to hear about your good friend. Sounds like it was hard for you, a range of emotions. Addiction is a terrible thing. If you're born with a certain tendency for it, and it gets triggered, look out. A certain amount of luck is involved to not fall into it sometimes, as George Carlin said. It's in part a disease, to be sure. It's very sad. Once you get addicted, which can happen to anybody, you need to have a couple things going for you to get out. It's a tightrope walk. Those who do beat an addiction have accomplished something, even if it doesn't seem like it to some. RIP. I do think that the superficiality of society often makes people hard pressed to find a deeper satisfaction of some kind. Some people aren't bothered by modern life, others really are. Sometimes for people prone to depression, they look around them and get discouraged at the materialism, etc. etc. They feel lonely, different. Man, it's hard to keep your **** together in this day and age. More of us are a thread and a hair away from some kind of craziness or fall than we might care to admit. Most probably do suffer in silence, afraid to seek help.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

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    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Thanks, Doc.

    Actually, he was my nephew. I personally blame his upbringing and the society he lived in but all that is history now. He did choose his path but I honestly think he believed it was the only path open to him. That's the part that angers me, we lose so many good people that way.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    And that is the terrible part. Great person. So much to offer. Unique, beautiful individual. I don't think our society always gets the best out of people. Some things, for some people, it does, depending on how we define "best". But some people have a mind boggling amount of things they offer, and yet our society does not support their kind, and they end up in a terrible place. You know they didn't set out for it to be that way, and that somewhere inside a huge part of them wants to correct the course. Guess it's always been that way. Some can transcend it. But how many greats in various areas have we lost early, or who died penniless? You just wish there was a better way, to get something good and beautiful out of everyone, and have them survive and get some enjoyment out of life. Then the culture you build is worth sustaining and fighting for. I almost think our planet hasn't made up its mind as to whether it wants to continue, whether it's all worth it. That's how it feels. Your nephew was perhaps a microcosmic picture of that. If life was that great, our species would find a way to sustain it, they wouldn't piss it away; and we wouldn't have all this crisis about humanity and civilization. This is going to sound terrible, but I'm not a big fan of American culture (not that America is the only place with crap in their culture). If my family and friends weren't here, and if it wasn't for culture shock, money and language barriers -- a lot of ifs -- I'd probably find somewhere else to live. A lot of beautiful things here, wonderful traditions. But mainstram American culture just seems unnecessarily and exceedingly superficial. Maybe it's an age thing -- the age of a culture being kind of like maturity? Or maybe it's just that I'm old, and when you get old you see through all the BS inherent in a culture designed for 16-25 year olds. So much of our culture comes from Madison Ave and the media, both of which on a real human level are filled to the brim with crap. Those who succeed easiest buy in the most. For real. If you are disgusted with it all, your only option, seemingly, is to fail with integrity. Or transcend it if you can. I don't know that everyone is capable of transcending it. It takes various talents and good fortune. The American dream. I think if it's to make money, and you're dedicated and work hard, you can do it. But if you think the whole thing is a load of crap, and desperately need something deeper to believe in, I don't know...
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

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