Young, Wild & Free

Doing drugs is NOT cool. If you want to see rainbows then wait for rains on a sunny day. When I see young teenage boys barely in their teens huddling with peddlers in corners of absurd streets or meeting at random tappris it breaks my heart. Why do you want to lose your innocence so soon? Why do you want to grow up and fall into a dark abyss of drug abuse that stunts your potential? This glow of the universe will seem dimmer and dimmer as you grow old and see how ugly it can be. Why do you want to make it dim so soon?

I don’t know. I was never that kid. I loved experimenting and the rush of that spontaneous moment where you discover new things. Deep down, I’m still that kid who waits for moments of spontaneity. I know what is good for me and what isn't. I feel like two-face sometimes. There are times when that wild child breaks out of the cage of restraint to make her real life seem dreamy and then there are times when that grandmother in me is handing out unsolicited advice to people.

I stopped doing that. People don’t like to be told what they ought to do. But more or less, in moments of grief these kids come to me and confess to me as if I’m a pastor who can free them of their sins. I feel it inside with an inexplicable pressure in my chest… their regret and I see them growing too, in that moment. It’s beautiful. We should make mistakes. We should do what we want to do. Often, we don’t know what we want to do. We are weighed down by the abominable insecurity of the unknown and we jump into an abyss which calls us with an assurance of liberty from these calls of distress that keep ringing in our head.

Puff… puff… puff…

Those fumes of heady lights are an expression of rebellion against everything that has ever bothered you. Your family, your lovers, your boss, your colleagues, the establishment, the cops, your rapists, your enemies... that pill is a way to hide from the singeing pain of the past, the present and the future. The ecstasy of those euphoric moments is your antidote to the rotting angst that is eating at your insides. It is a moment of numbness and of a flood of emotions running parallel to each other as they both ride away this wave together.

I don’t know. Maybe, I’m wrong. I’m not a junkie. I’m not an alcoholic or a smoker even. Never was. The temptation is enticing and it feels beautiful sometimes to have moments of respite. But no, I want to live with it. I want to live with my troubles and not run away from them.

That numbness can be addictive. If I live in a perennial state of lightness and ecstasy I won’t have to confront the questions that have been looming over my head like a guillotine. Life will breeze past and I won’t have to worry. I can keep doing this and one day those questions will go away. You may forget the questions but they’ll never go away. I wish they knew that. I wish they wouldn't drown themselves in that well of unfeelingness.

I've seen many wondrous souls trapped in such a well who don’t know a way out anymore. Their affair with drugs started with social experimentation as a harmless recreation but it turned into a torrid abusive relationship that held them with chains at their ankles. They yelped sometimes for fresh air but they remained shrouded in their own darkness. Not everyone knows where to draw the line.

When you are skin and bone without anyone, you hold on to that pill… that drink… that smoke thinking that this will get you through. It doesn't. It keeps you away from you.

If you want to let go of your inhibitions, you don’t need a drink. You need you. I handed over a glass of Sprite to this girl one night. It was her first drink, apparently. She barely had 5 ml vodka but she thought she was drunk. She had the best night of her life.

We are all corrupted and broken in one way or another. I don’t know if drugs will cure you. Don’t let it become a need. They maybe an unavoidable part of life but don’t let it become your life. You want to become thin? Then join the gym and eat right. At least, you won’t feel like shit when you wake up the next day or every time you fall sick.

There’s a time for everything and if we are not ready for it, we’ll get thrown away to the side-lines by the sheer force and ferocity of its vagueness. We are young.

Young, wild and free…

Freedom comes with a heavy cost. It’ll make you pay up in ways you didn’t get a chance to bargain for. There’s no turning back. You have to start afresh and it’s a fight that will be worth fighting for. You have a mind of your own or do you? So, your friends are doing it but do you want to? Never hold anyone else responsible for your shortcomings because you always have a choice. Always.

You know, what’s my poison?

Life... I can’t get enough of it.