I walked to work this morning. It felt good to get some fresh air for a prolonged period of time. It felt good to have time to think, because I think best when I am walking. It would have been nice to have some music but I left my headphones for my mobile at work last night. Walking this morning and thinking helped me to realise some things. It takes an event like death, sometimes, to enable one to put things into perspective and focus. To focus on life.
For me, recently, in the last few days, it has been my nonchalance for life itself. I forgot the Dependency Principle and risked plunging headlong into a period of self-loathing and self-destruction. I could feel it, I’m not being melodramatic, I could feel myself on a precipice, on the brink of throwing in the towel and disappearing into my own hell of alcohol, nicotine and solitude.
The Dependency Principle is a simple theory. No matter how much we wish to get lost in our own little world, our bubble, be that what it may, as everyone of course is different. No matter how much we wish to get lost in that place there is always something niggling at the back of your mind which reminds you of the base human needs. Must eat, must sleep. Or the base societal needs. Must go to work, must earn a salary, must pay the rent. If you choose to ignore that niggle and remain in this world or bubble you have created for yourself where the considerations of food, sleep, health, money etc. become secondary, then that world will eventually come crashing down around you and you will be left with nothing; nothing in the real world and nothing in that bubble. Just an empty void where you once had happiness. I have been in a situation in the past where I almost lost everything due to forgetting or abandoning the Dependency Principle. I had no money, my friends were being ignored and eventually moving on and forgetting about me, my family were doing their best to engage me but I wanted so very little to engage them and I avoided them. I stopped eating. I lost weight. I had no desire for work and shunned contact with my colleagues. Everything was going in exactly the wrong direction and each passing day I let my grip on life slip a little further than the previous day until one day I was hit by the realisation of what I was doing and I pulled myself back from that brink.
I could have just as easily slipped the other way if I did not have the support of the people in my life at that time.
I could feel myself heading that way again, over the last few weeks, the last several days. I could feel myself letting certain facets of my life slide. The house is a mess, I need to clean up. The washing in the washing machine has been there for three days and the pots in the sink have been there for four. I have avoided picking up my phone when called at home and avoided talking to people too much at work. Yes, all the signs of me trying to go back to my old ways were there but my walk this morning and chance to think has made me realise where I was heading and change course.
