On being a bastard.

  For as easy of a person as I am to get along with, I'm a terribly difficult person to really get to know and live with; I don't know how my family puts up with me some days. Maybe it's not as bad as I make it out to be but I am a bonafide contrarian, and it frustrates even myself. The problem is with awareness.  Because I spend such a huge amount of the time in my own head, I know all my own little quirks inside out, and catch myself on it when I pull something in real life: It may go unnoticed by everyone else but you can't fool yourself.

  So, for as peaceful as I am it stands to reason that I am a seething ball of chaos not far below the surface. I really don't intend for this to paint a melodramatic picture of my life because it is far from terrible, however, the burden I carry lies within me.

  Everyone suffers in their own ways. Life, is suffering. Period. What it means, it means to us alone and it's what we made it to, to appease our deeper desires that wish to pull something from the experience of it.

  I like these dark days of mine but it's all too comfortable and easy to get lost in; I've tasted that darkness once already and don't wish to go back. I won't go back. But, it's still pertinent to poke your head in there once in a while, see if anything changed or to realign with yourself.

  I feel helpless other than to write out these demons so they don't overstay their welcome, as they have before. Maybe for some, psychotherapy works but I don't believe in that either. I don't think it's right to be paid money to do what we should be doing for each other in the first place, out of goodwill towards men (and women), to have someone determine what the mental health of an individual costs per hour.

  The world has lost touch, and this is the part where the blame gets passed, the fingers get pointed. I can't blame any one thing in particular because it's a collective failing. I hate that couch surfing is our national pastime, and that a television has now replaced the campfire as a social circle to congregate around. I hate seeing people with their faces in their phones constantly, like we can't be stand to be bored for two seconds and just stand there and observe. I hate that chain restaurants are the new home dinner, and the reason it is that way.
  Most of all, I hate that I do all this myself; I'm trapped, a prisoner in my own mind and only I have the key. If there is one thing I know, however, it's that it's not going to be found in any one of 9,000 channels.

Health Addict

  Hi. I'm Shane, and I'm a health addict.

  Wouldn't that be funny to hear someone say in a support group? I don't but then I am one, so... And it really wouldn't surprise me to find out they have such a thing for people like me.

  For the record, I'm in recovery; have been over the past few years. I've grown stronger in every way and my psychological attitude regarding what health means to me has been refined and is much more in harmony with the rest of me.
  For a long time, or a few years at least, I got a little lost once I started heading down the "healthy" road. I had no tour guides, no real guidance period. As with all things, I jumped right in head first. And it hurt. A lot. My obsessive-compulsive tendencies came out full bore and I contribute my sudden acquisition of eczema to my increased stress levels during this time, something I still struggle with from time to time. The eczema, and the stress.

  My question is: what do you eat? It seems everyone has an opinion but not one single person is completely correct. Still, they just can't seem to get on board with each other and I know I'm not the only person it confuses the shit out of. It took me a lot of hard experimentation to find what I knew, or at least understood all along: to eat simply is best.
  Regardless of what "diet" you subscribe to, whether you're vegan, vegetarian, lacto-ovo, paleo, raw.. whatever, I think we can all agree that the best food is the most natural food, and not in the marketing definition of "All-Natural"; it's been proven that such terms mean absolutely nothing, and do not guarantee the purity of the product.
  For some things, we're at the whim of a (hopefully) reputable and trustworthy company who possesses the same values as we do, which is healthy, natural food the way nature intended. Genetically Modified Organisms are real. Preservatives are real. Pink Slime is real. And none of it is good. For us, or the planet.

  I eat meat, always have, always will. My family hunts, and my father harvests, dresses, butchers and processes the deer himself from start to finish; the very definition of clean meat. Yes, it's red but I'll take my chances just by knowing where it comes from and whose hands it passes through. However, no plan is fool-proof and the fact that said deer eat corn from fields whose crops likely come from Monsanto seed that has been Genetically Modified is a hard lesson in futility, but not surrender.
 
  You can't control everything, and despite all our best efforts, our world is polluted. There's better options out there but the one and only way to ensure you're getting the best possible product is to buy the best possible product and make everything else yourself. Yeah, I know. It's the 21st century. People are busy with school and a full-time job and kids and a mortgage so who has time to cook? i really can't answer that, though I wish I could. I know what works for me but you have to find what works for you.

  As for me, I'll continue to search the depths and report back here with my findings.