i’m glad it’s not true: i want different priorities

some further reflections

i’m glad that none of it was true. the whole time, of course, something felt off about my thinking, and yet i’m left with the reality: delusions took over and there was hardly anything i could do to stop it, i suppose, at a certain point. i wish some of my closer friends had staged an intervention, but i can’t blame them for not knowing what to do. ultimately i went down a complex road of confirmation bias that generated so much of this blog and my behavior.

it feels odd, admitting i’m the crazy one, but i’m glad i was in the end. i don’t want to be a mad humanist who proves the ethereal reality; i just want to be a good dad to my son. i don’t want to be distracted by grand missions; i want to live a peaceful and mundane life where i can create things and enjoy relationships. were i to ever win an award for my writing, of course i’d be thrilled: who wouldn’t be? but fame is not what really matters to me. what really matters to me is seeing my son run to me and shout “daddy!”

i felt this whole time as if i had some sort of “obligation” to share these “experiences,” but this was all a part of the delusion, and in moments of anger i was often not being honest. i am not obligated to spill all my guts out on Substack, and in the future i expect i’ll be much less vulnerable about my feelings, if this continues at all, which it probably won’t.

i need a break from sharing, from exposing myself, maybe forever, maybe not, but i see now how deluded i was to pursue all this so intently: placing the “need” to share about myself above the realities of my own life and the people in that life is not how i intend to prioritize anything moving forward. my son is my priority, and being a good dad to him is my priority.

i’m glad there is no mission to “prove the ethereal reality” which keeps me from staying focused on what really matters in my life. i don’t care about meeting any famed musicians: i care about rebuilding my real life. and the lack of a cosmic mission means this time when i leave treatment, i’ll be truly able to focus on rebuilding my life and being there for my son. delusion robbed me of that chance the first time and the second time, but this time i’m aware of it all: this time i’m going to get my life back on track.