Everything That Kills Me

Another great lyric.

OneRepublic - "Counting Stars".

"I feel something so right by doing the wrong thing, and I feel something so wrong by doing the right thing, I couldn't lie, couldn't lie, couldn't lie, everything that kills me makes me feel alive."

This is my dilemma, maybe yours as well.

I like the dark stuff, the evil or suggestion of evil. I hate rules. I despise normality; conformity.

Everything that kills me makes me feel alive.

I have dabbled in drugs; got a PhD in whiskey.

The brown fluid beats up my organs but it makes me feel alive.

I am in remission regarding self-abuse and honestly I hope I stay there. I can't squeeze the best out of the time I have left if my brain is pickled in 80 proof joy.

Part of the enjoyment from consuming whiskey, especially excessively, is knowing there is a certain segment of the population who frown upon the act. The phony types who beat their children and have sex with their dogs, then do an about face to preach to me about the evils of demon alcohol.

I need to be a rebel no matter how small the degree.

I often wonder where this desire originated. What makes us who we are? What makes some people happy to be on the ski slopes pink faced and white toothed, while others are content ass-down on a barstool? I have often said I am more comfortable on a barstool than I am in my own living room.

Could be rock 'n roll. At some point I realized that Frank Zappa didn't look like my father. That Jim Morrison was not going to church with my aunt.

I liked that.

I got into Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski. Two writers not for the feint of heart.

Keith Richards became a role model.

Maybe I wanted to be like them even though I knew I could never be like them.

Still, the lifestyle I chose was comfortable to me. It fit. To this day I love walking into a funky bar, grabbing a whiskey and digging on a hard working blues band.

At some point most of us have to make a decision. Keep on dancing in the dark or make one final stand.

In an odd way it is probably a good thing that I have not been professionally successful up to this point. Had I tasted success early on I would have continued on down whiskey river, high blood pressure be damned.

The high blood pressure thing spooked me. Not just because of the promise of an early demise; it is the promise of an early demise coupled with unfulfilled potential.

It's that unfulfilled potential thing that amps it way up for me.

Still I need to find a way to court the dark. Carefully. Intelligently.

I need to find a balance between commitment and debauchery.

I have made it this far.

I have faith I can figure the rest of it out.