JUST A RANDOM VIEW FROM THE POSITIVE SIDE OF LIFE

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.
Scottish Proverb


Hiya folks! I hope you are all doing fantastic today! Not much happened today. Just another day come and gone, but for some silly reason I feel great:
happy spirit, happy soul, and happy thoughts.

It still surprises me when I feel this way. I spent a lot of my life either to drunk or to angry or simply in denial of the possibility of good things happening (even though in many cases, some good things were happening, and I was just to blind to see them). I have been re-learning how to appreciate the things I do have. I don't mean the material items (it seems the longer I walk this big blue planet, the less those things matter...hmm I may be growing up...now that's a scary thought) but the things that have real worth.

Not that long ago and for a long time before that, I used to fill the emptiness in my existence with many forms of distractions. I used to buy DVDs, books, the Internet and comics to mentally escape the reality I lived in. I use to drink like the proverbial fish and I used music to justify it all. In the lyrics of just about any song I had an excuse for any self destructive behavior I wished to indulge in. But lately...well that seems to have changed.

I now get books that just sound interesting to read. I still watch movies but now I digest them as a media outlet:
was the story any good, were the actors believable, did the dialogue fit the character, was the music appropriate, what could have been done better, well you get the idea.

Music, now that is a different story. I now take my appreciation of music to a different level. It's become an avenue for history and influence. I listen to music as an emotional safety valve and sometimes as a way of expressing what I want to say, when I myself can't find the words. I now watch the performers, and no longer try to mirror them or imitate their behavior (after a 16 year "love" of Jack Daniels -thanks to Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx- just the sight of the bottle causes a gag reflex that is usually saved for televangelists...and Oprah).

I don't need to emulate my adolescent idols to prove my worth to myself or anyone. I just need to be at peace with my demons, accept that they are a part of me, and make sure that it's Jose that steers the ship through the choppy sea of continuance and not the malignant spirit that it used to be. It's not always easy, but any fight for your soul is worth fighting for.

I know it sounds so melodramatic...but I guess in many ways I am. And that folks...is just who I am. In the end I am still me, just a better me.