From when I was a little tyke running
from the girls with the cooties in the schoolyard my reality was developing
itself. Well it was even before then, from when I was born in North Shore
hospital and when my cute Martian-sized forehead began taking in this whole new
world around him; my reality was beginning to take shape. I said that my
reality was developing itself, what I meant to say was my reality was developing
in virtue of the people and the things that surrounded me. I was incapable of
developing anything during that time of my life with the exception of some
feces in my diaper.
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| Recreation of the moment when my friend got Rock Bottomed |
As the cute young baby grew into a
handsome, trouble-making young lad, my perceptions of the world became more
concrete. Old people were boring, read a lot of newspapers, talked politics,
and forbade me from playing Mortal Kombat with my older brothers because it was
too gory. All I wanted to do was go out in the yard and recreate great wrestling matches. (These recreations were always epic. Flying elbows off of
the fence, two-legged dropkicks with perfect Hardcore Holly-like form, and DDTs
that even Mick Foley could admire. A friend put me in the ankle lock one time
and got a little too hype with it. He ended up spraining my ankle and I had to
get it wrapped for a few days. I could never tell my mother how it happened. I
got him back a couple weeks later when the Rock Bottom I hit him with sent him
home crying like a little bitch. OK, that last part wasn’t true. I wish it was.
Let’s act like it was.) All I wanted to do was watch Cat-Dog and harass my older
brothers into beating me up to the point where walking was difficult.
My reality had little to do with me
and more to do with the situation I was surrounded with. We’re supposed to be
masters of our own destiny, but that’s tough to manage when we are also slaves
of circumstance. I grew up in a Christian household and my fundamental beliefs
about life reflected that up until several years ago. If I grew up in a Jewish
household I’d be eating kosher food and hoarding my secret Jew Gold in my
necklace pouch. If a grew up in Muslim household I’d be wearing a turban,
praying five times a day, and sacrificing myself by suicide bombing the
American embassy so I could be among 72 virgins in heaven. (It’s a JOKE.
Relax.)
I can’t tell you the specific time
when I began to doubt all that my parents told me about God and religion. I
only remember sitting at the dinner table with my family one night when my
lovely sister had returned from college. She told us that she was going to
major in religion, and that’s when I started thinking about all the other
religions in the world. That led to me weighing the merits of different
religions and when I couldn’t demarcate what a true religion would be like I
said, “Screw it, you’re all illegitimate.”
Reality reconstruction is that point in
your life where the old way of thinking and behaving don’t make sense anymore.
It’s when nothing makes sense anymore. It’s when everything you see forces you
to ask, “How is a nigga gonna borrow a fry?” It’s when the values that have
defined your life are no longer valuable. It’s when the principles once held as
eternal have to be rethought due to their complete dismantling. It’s when
everything you previously believed to be true is given the double middle-finger
then viciously Stone-Cold Stunnered in the middle of the ring… and then beer bathed.
So that sums up what happened to me
when I came to the conclusion that God probably doesn’t exist. It wasn’t so
drastic but it altered the way I viewed my position in the world. Before then I
was a normal church boy, after I became a borderline atheist. You know how for
total validation of a promise people will ask you to swear to God? Yeah, that
isn’t a problem for me anymore. Even though I’ve never told a lie a day in my
life it’s nice to know I’ve got that in my back pocket for when I need it. (If
you’re thinking, “I’ll know how to get ‘em, I’ll tell ‘em to swear on his
mother’s grave!” Yeah, that probably won’t work either. For something that
meant so much back in the day it’s fairly insignificant to me now. I’m not even
sure what it means. What I’m saying is: don’t ever trust me.)
There are five phases to reality
reconstruction: 1) Dismantling- what you know no longer makes sense. 2)
Disillusionment- you’re lost in the sea of foolishness around you. 3)
Emptiness- you’re alone with your thoughts because no one can really relate to
how you’re feeling. 4) Reconstruction- from the ashes of the old reality comes
the building blocks of the new one. This is phase one of the unaccustomed self.
And finally the 5) New Reality- like a phoenix rising from its own remains, new
beliefs and value systems have manifested themselves in your new perception of
the world.
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| Maybe there are powers higher then myself, maybe not. |
Since that first semi-reality
reconstruction back in high school to this slightly more serious one I’m
experiencing at this very moment, the evolution of me has gone through a
shitload of frequencies. It’s like I’m in a constant shuffle between phases one
through five and there’s no way out. That’s the problem; I highly doubt there
is a way out of this web that I’ve spun around myself.
Now we’re at Jersey Campbell
version 3.0 (or is it 4.0? or 3.5? I lost count), and a mental crisis has once
again hopped the fence and nips at my heel. At this point I’m somewhere around
phases four and five. But these last couple of years has proven to me that at
any point in time I am susceptible to revert back to phase one where the long
climb back up the beanstalk becomes even more hopeless. It could be the case
that with each recurring devolution to phase one Jersey is coming ever so
closer to that ultimate truth he’s looking for, but I doubt it.
The days when other people built my
reality for me seem like so long ago. That was when Mommy and Daddy were
superheroes and whatever they said was instantly true. Maybe I’m acting like
the little bitch I dreamt I turned my friend into, but I can’t help but feel
like a baby cub who was not ready to take on the wilderness without mama bear.
They say you’re supposed to grow up and take on the responsibilities of an adult;
my parents did a wonderful job of preparing me for that part of life. But what
they didn’t prepare me for was being exposed to all the wondrous differences in
the world. The mental shelter they provided for me is long gone and now my
reality is in constant flux. Would it be easier if I would have stuck with my
parents’ religion of choice? I don’t know. I don’t business with hypotheticals.
Let the other Jersey Campbells in alternate universes deal with that.
Reality is a tricky thing to deal with.
Does it ever have anything to do with you? Or is it solely an amalgamation of
all the other people and ideas that you’ve ever been in contact with?
Ultimately this is the question I end up asking when I find myself back at
phase one. Then when I begin working my way back up to phase five my reality
inevitably crumbles under this shaky foundation. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t even begin to
describe this current state of flux that I’ve dug myself into. I try and put
bits and pieces together, but it could be the case that I don’t have enough pieces
to the jigsaw puzzle or I could have too many.
Some of us come to a point in our
lives when we demand to take control of our reality. I’ve been reaching and
grasping for something to hold on to for awhile now, I just can’t seem to find
whatever it is I’m looking for. I think you’re supposed to know what it is
you’re searching for before you go out looking, but life only last so long. My
gut feeling is that I won’t know what I’m looking for until I find it. Until
then I’ll be consciously and unconsciously constructing my perception of the
world through these randomly occurring reality relapses.
In conclusion (finally right), I’m
not crazy. I’m just waking up… again.
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