Live fast die young

By the time I was in my late teens, I despised the idea of “serious relationships” or the so-called “normal life.” I was a classic case of film industry conditioning, growing up on stories that screamed of live fast die young mentality, raging hormones, and purposely immoral behaviors. It was late nineties, but in Eastern Europe we still hung on to the Hollywood 80-s films where the most popular characters were rebellious teenagers, social outcasts, charismatic serial killers and prostitutes, while the MTV stuffed our heads with outright degrading or extremely dark entertainment products that glorified self-destruction, depression, promiscuity, and rage.

I never dreamt of a two-story house with a white fence, and two kids, and a dog, and Saturday night barbeques with neighbors; it reminded me of the much-dreaded Pleasantville while my mind longed for crappy roadside motels, strangers dressed in leather, extreme but fleeting emotions, and bitter, self-mutilatibg loneliness of a girl who was doomed to be lost in the never-ending scenarios of unfixable inner madness forever. I hated it, but it seemed the only way. Everything else felt... flavorless.

There were other things, of course. There were Duma’s Musketeers with their unbreakable friendship and my favorite childhood slogan “all for one, one for all”; there was Narnia with its pure, natural magic and wise Almighty Aslan; there were countless stories of great men and women who endured, and loved, and sacrificed, and of a few “bad guys” changing their ways and saving the day. Yes, everything else was there... but the sticky, saturated darkness inevitably crept in. It was mysterious and edgy, it made the body tingle. It was a drug that got under one’s skin and never actually washed out.

I was a very reserved kid. I did many things in my mind but hadn’t put most them into practice. My fantasy world was just enough (unlike for many others who went out and did get into trouble).

But does it mean I was unaffected? My mind was a dumpster and my body was stained with something I can compare only to that indescribable dirt they mention in various religious and spiritual teachings. And I was unlucky enough to make that extra step, to meet the wrong people, to go just a little farther... I probably wouldn’t be sitting here writing this article right now.

We get affected by everything that touches our minds. It is especially true when we are still children, teens, young adults. That’s why the show business industry (as well as any other industry out there) aims at kids with everything it has got. I think I won’t be lying if I claim that almost every young adult in the western world has been raised by the entertainment industry rather than by his or her family, proper role models, truly good books, or amazing, raw, fulfilling life experiences. A very significant part of who we think we are is modified or even created by our TV screens, and I won’t underestimate the power of those highly professional individuals, entities, and corporations that target the viewers. They know what leads to emotional and physical gratification, they understand exactly how addictions form, and they have the ability to influence and lead huge crowds, particular social groups, and entire societies in any desired direction... Just by putting stuff on the TV screen.

How do I get out?

Most of us don’t get to ask this question because it simply doesn’t occur to us that something might be critically wrong. Media and entertainment influencing works so well that millions of its subjects never get to questioning it — or even giving credit to its existence.

It seems impossible, but even in our era of the so-called Awakening and growing awareness (which is highly tricky and questionable as well) most of us never get to deeply explore our own social persona, the Self, and the mind (the body has to be on the list as well, but it gets even crazier when we get to physical and bio-chemical phenomena and processes affected by all this).

Figuring out what in You is really YOURS, what is created, developed, learned and practiced by you in contrast to being instilled by the hundreds of other entities, egregores, organizations, schools of thought, etc., is a daunting task.

For an average human being it may take years to complete, and most of us don’t have enough mental and physical stamina to go that far.

Who am I, truly? Who am I without all these interests, hobbies, books, films, music videos and tracks, things I “love”, things I hate, things I use to define myself? If I am not all these things (or their opposites), then how do I find myself and how do I get rid of what has been used to form and define the fake “me” persona all these years?

These questions seem philosophical, but they are very real and very physical.

I have been taught and experienced in practice that they can be best asked and answered in conjugation with various physical and mental training techniques, preferably in nature.