Meditation for February 9th, 2016
Fat Tuesday
Today is Fat Tuesday where you go out one more night and act out in debauchery before giving something up for lent. A lot of spiritual practices spend a lot of time discussing fasting and temperance, but not a lot of time teaching about over indulgence. One must know sin to know salvation. One must know addiction to know abstinence. One must know Taco Time to know Michelin star restaurants.
Before going on a vision quest, celebrate lent or quit an addiction you must hole up in a motel with hourly rates and just fill your body with whatever terrible vice you are meaning to give up. Going on a cleansing fast? Hit up an all you can eat Buffett with a chocolate fondue fountain and eat till you projectile vomit chocolate coated buffalo wings and pizza. Finally giving up crack? Get that motel room, a carton of menthols, a couple hundred dollars worth of crack-cocaine, a fat hooker, a skinny hooker, a midget hooker and a tank of nitrous oxide and get really weird before heading into Betty Ford wearing a grass skirt and a lamp shade.
Don’t give up something you already do moderately. It’s not worth even trying to quit smoking if you just bum your friends’ yellow American Spirits while sipping on chocolate cosmos. If something isn’t turning your life into shit soup, then it’s something you can still do. No one will care if you can snort heroin recreationally if you aren’t selling their children into the Brazilian slave trade. (You can get up to $50,000 for a healthy blonde infant.)
Enjoy things until you find it actually ruins your life. Before quitting something one must binge to get it out of one’s system. If you can’t stop, then you didn’t do enough to get it out of your system. Try doing something till you literally are on the eve of death before quitting.
Prayer
South American Catholic God,
let me have this one night,
let me sit down and eat as many White Castle Sliders and Swisher Sweet cigars,
before quitting tomorrow.
God.
Oh fucking dear God. I can’t do this anymore. I have nothing anymore and I feel like a steaming piece of shit. I can’t ask for help anymore because I’ve burnt all my bridges with family, friends, acquaintances and coworkers. I can’t stop. I won’t stop. No matter how many people tell me they love me and would do anything to help me stop, I just keep doing it. I know I just look like an idiot relapsing over and over and over again, but fuck why quit. It hurts so much. So God, please let me stop playing Candy Crush.
Jesus Milquetoast “Cinnabunz” Christ,
let me go and finally enjoy white wine and Marlboro ultra-lights,
and not feel guilty.
Let me eat a quart of ice-cream and all the seasons of Cheers,
without feeling shame.
Let me play nineteen hours of Call of Duty and drinking wine coolers,
without feeling regret.
Amen.
Craft
Make a charts of things you want to quit or moderate. On days you don’t do those things put a nice shiny gold star next to the day you didn’t do the thing. If you do the thing, get in the shower and scrub your entire body with a large lava rock screaming, “I’m so dirty!”
Goal
To have as many addictions going as ones you have quit.
Tell other people what they shouldn’t do and that they need help. Be persistent.