note to self
GIVE UP ON SPOTIFY
Your OCD will cause you to make sad faces at your last.fm all day. Not good. Not good.
A little debate with myself.
So I’ve been struggling with this whole “true til death X poison free X yadablabla” concept. Living a mostly sheltered life since claiming edge, [so long ago that I can’t even remember if it’s been 9 or 10 years, anyway] has almost made me forget what the hell that was about.
For me, it’s about control of your own body and doing what I think is best and having fun, finding happiness without abuse. Living my life for me and trying to make the most with the best possible resources.
Has it been a struggle-free ten years? No. Not at all. If you want to be very strict, one might say I’ve broken my own vows a couple of times. Is that bad? Definitely. Does that make me a failure? No. I believe in life lessons and re-assuring that if I want to live my life a certain way then I should do that. Maybe adjusting things along the way.
People who say “true til death” are either very admirable or full of themselves. It depends on how strict you want to speak of course.
Saying “true til death” is probably going to be a lot harder on you along the way. I know several people who have fallen off the edge. How straight is your edge? Can you keep it up? If you can: props to you.
Many of us like to include more things as we go along. We are vegetarians, vegans, we decide to do x and y and do it forever. But forever is a long time! Things might get complicated. “True til death” is easy to say. However I don’t think you should say people sell out, are weak, traitors, whathaveyou for stumbling a bit along the way. If the path you’re on is a good one, if you have been ‘enlightened’ that this is the right path for you, then why would you want to throw shit at people who want to walk on your path? I don’t get it. Finding like-minded people is *so hard*. And then bashing them? damn. What pleasure would you find in that?
If you’re talking just drugs, alcohol and smoking… then yes, I’ve been “poison free” for all these years. But what about alcohol in food? What about medicine?
I consider many things to be poison; I include caffeine because of the bad effects it has on me personally. Have I had caffeine intake after claiming this? Most probably, through teas, through chocolate… Does that break my edge?
What about the time I had to take an antibiotic and it used gelatine. What about when the tattoo artist used vaseline? it goes on…
I’ve pretty much lived under the assumption of including things like “no casual sex” and “being vegetarian” and “not taking caffeine” - but I’ve broken vows on all of those accounts. Yes, that conflicts me. Was I living a lie then? Should I just give up? But that’s not “strictly edge” so that’s okay? Why would that be?
I used to say “you can’t just halfway-edge, either you believe in it or you don’t, you don’t have to claim if you don’t want to, it’s a lifestyle blah blah blah” and there is truth to that. You can’t be edge during the week and drink on the weekend. Then you’re just not edge at all, simple. I also don’t believe in a sort of ‘edge-light’ or whatever. But I have to admit I have enjoyed “alcohol free beer” [Let’s be honest, it’s not really alcohol free. Yet does it have any effect on your physical or mental state? No. I won’t be taking it any more though] or maybe a sauce that had wine in it. Is it really worth nitpicking, do I have to say I wasn’t edge for x period of time because of this? These conflicts make me more unhappy, and isn’t that a sign that I know deep down that this lifestyle is what I want?
Since moving to England, more and more people have been suggesting to me to just give up. I haven’t encountered straight edge people here yet. Not even a handful of people who don’t drink, or don’t drink much, but the majority is very much into their drinking lifestyle. Yet watching these people go about their lives is a reassurance to me that it’s simply not for me. I don’t want to give up. Doing these things my way makes me incredibly more happy than giving up would make me.
To the people who have fallen off the edge, I get it. People change. It happens. I hope you never said “true til death” because in my opinion that’s just a silly thing to say. I sincerely hope you lived an enriched life while you claimed edge and don’t look back with regret. I hope you don’t get yelled at by hardliners.
To the poison free concept I say, you’re nice in theory but hard to carry out. We choose our poisons, they might slip up on us. Poison free for as much as we can, to the best of our abilities.
To the people who stumble: you are only human. We make mistakes. I think it’s okay to reclaim if you really truly believe in it. Believe in yourself. [However. Don’t live a lie. There are only so many mistakes you can make before realising that you’re living in a different context and you need to adjust your views of what are mistakes and what aren’t - if living a certain lifestyle is living a lie, you can always just give up.] To people who struggle with a label: you can also live a healthy, as poison-free as possible life without claiming anything. In any case if you do slip up then you don’t have to feel as conflicted as I do right now!
At the end of the day it’s about doing what you think is right for you.
I’m (re)claiming straight edge because although times and contexts have completely changed, my principles haven’t. I believe in straight edge, though if you want to judge me, go right ahead. I just know that I’m human and I make mistakes and at the end of the day my happiness is more important to me than strict rules or a “one chance only” mentality. One of my resolutions is trying harder to not judge people, because having an open mind is so much more beneficial to your own mental health.
I’ve been on the border of giving up not because of social pressure, but because of personal reasons. However the realisation that I can overcome my issues without resorting to substance abuse is the best feeling in the world. And if you think I’ve broken edge, cool, but I’m not going to give up just because of a few hiccups! That’d be insanely flawed logic.
I guess what the end of my rambling to myself is that I’m going to resort back to “x’ing up” because I haven’t done that in yeaaaars and I feel the need to. And I won’t feel guilty while doing it. There.
of course Toby wrote “The God Complex”
and the way that Mitchell had to find a specific door in “Lia” reminding me of the Door Roulette in the DW episode suddenly makes total sense.
File under “News of the day”.
Cancer Bats finish new album
Cancer Bats have finished recording their fourth full-lenght album titled Dead Set On Living.
my hat already broke :(
and in other news, I’m obviously going to see the Lucky One but hot damn do I hate American military movies. Ugh. It’s just not my thing. [At all.] So I’ll just solely be there for the Zef and hope the plot doesn’t suck too much :/
Also, my pizza was delicious and so were the cupcakes. I have some decent peeps here in LDS. Obvs evs!
news of the day
There are no genders in Hungarian.
Suddenly all these questions arise. FOCUS, this assignment is just about morphology/syntax. Don’t drift off into the realm of gender. Just writing this down so I might look into it… later.
news of the day
Bambi and Ben are married!!! The real life peoples I mean. Apparently. The stuff I learn from ONTD.
