As a young man and also still as an adult, I seek to fight the loneliness of isolation with any means possible. This was exaggerated when I was younger and moved to New York City. It is the most accepting place in the world because you can assume anonymity and you are judged only by your ability to perform. This also made it the loneliest place in the world for me. In a city of millions, I found myself drinking and shooting up and fucking against the loneliness. Fucking to bond with another human being somehow. To be connected to something. Tripping hallucinogens to connect with the spirituality that I intuit existed but couldn’t find. Drinking and opiation to numb the loss and isolation I constantly felt. I would try anything to make it go away.
Where does it come from? How did I come to feel this way? What is driving my behavior? I was raised by fundamentalists. When I came of age, I was not able to conform to their ideals. My perception of reality and their prescription of reality could not merge. I was unable to accept the doctrine and was cut off from the warm and loving acceptance that I felt growing up. Cast out of the garden; eaten of the Tree of Knowledge.
This is how I turned to fuck, trip, drink, disappear. And my turning to these activities for comfort or fulfillment only increased the gap of isolation and alienation from my upbringing. I was judged now not only as a heretic but also as a heathen and sinner. I was cast further out to damnation in eternal fire for my wayward life of transgressions unrepentant. But there was no malice in anything that I have done. Ever.
American society is based in large part on Protestant values as the country was founded by those first Americans, the Protestants at Plymouth Rock (itself a myth). The tradition of judgement and persecution is evident in the history of our country: the Salem Witch Trials, 1950′s McCarthyism, the Civil Rights Movement, California’s Proposition 8. The pressure to conform still today holds a heavy hand to vilify those who do not or can not conform. Social mores need to change. The future of the world will be based on change. Right now, the social world is changing more rapidly than any other time in history. We need something new. The old ways create isolation and despair; unacceptance and rejection of its citizens; not based on merit or value, but based on archaic mythology and ignorance. Christianity and the American culture it’s established are morally reprehensible. They offer no salvation for those who can see.
